OŠAP-GAĆANOVIĆ TO BOŽOVIĆ: NO SERB SHOULD USE TERM "NATIONAL MONUMENT OF BiH" AS NO SUCH CATEGORY EXISTS

ISTOČNO SARAJEVO, SEPTEMBER 3 /SRNA/ – Republika Srpska member of the Commission preserving national monuments Anđelina Ošap-Gaćanović told Marinko Božović of the SDS that there is no such category as a "national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina" and that the term appears neither in Annex 8 to the Dayton Peace Agreement nor in the laws defining heritage protection at entity level.

"It was precisely through amendments to the laws that we prevented the creation of such a term and any possibility of our most valuable assets becoming the property of BiH," Ošap-Gaćanović stressed in SRNA statement following Božović’s press conference, at which he discussed the Commission preserving national monuments and attempted to attribute responsibility for certain decisions defining its work to Serb BiH Presidency member Željka Cvijanović.

She stressed that no Serb in BiH should use the term "national monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina" because it does not exist anywhere in the legal framework, just as there is no "Bosnian nation" or "unitary Bosnian cultural heritage."