PRESERVING AND STRENGTHENING INSTITUTIONS OF SRPSKA IN UNITY

BELGRADE, OCTOBER 23 /SRNA/ – Professor Milimir Mučibabić told SRNA that the establishment of the Assembly of the Serb People in BiH in 1991 marked the institutional realization of the national will of the Serb people in very difficult times, as well as the beginning of the creation of the institutions of Republika Srpska, which must now be preserved and strengthened in unity.

"The very fact that, in those decisive and turbulent times there was the strength to establish the Assembly of the Serb People, obliges us to move forward and to endure with the same awareness that things must be preserved as they were founded. We must preserve our identity, institutions, and national values," Mučibabić emphasized.

He said that the Serb intellectuals, during the days of the Assembly's establishment, shared the fate of its people, who wholeheartedly supported its creation, adding that it is now everyone's duty to treat both the institutions and those who created and defended Republika Srpska with full respect.

"The opportunity for us tomorrow to mark 34 years since the founding of the Assembly of Republika Srpska is a guarantee that, even after more than three decades, we continue to speak of the importance of institutionalizing the national will - with the desire for it to remain our lasting value and obligation, to adapt those historic dates to the time and circumstances we live in today, and to give them renewed strength and meaning," he said.

The National Assembly of Republika Srpska was founded on October 24, 1991, as the Assembly of the Serb People in BiH.

At its first session, it announced a referendum and adopted the "Declaration on the Stay of the Serb People in the Unitarian State of Yugoslavia".

The referendum, in which the Serbs declared their will to remain in Yugoslavia, was held on November 9 and 10, 1991.

By decision of the Assembly of the Serb People in BiH, on January 9, the Declaration on the Proclamation of the Republic of the Serb People of BiH was adopted, and was renamed Republika Srpska in August of that year and was internationally recognized in 1995 by the Dayton Peace Agreement.