H.E. Mr. Vanja Filipovic:

I thank the Acting Chairman for that very important question. One myth we need to keep busting is that somehow our country has been the site of centuries-old ethnic hatred and so on. We lived in peace, co-existence and with intermixing for centuries. The war that broke out in 1992 was not the war between the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. That war was imported from outside with designs to destroy the newly independent, sovereign, internationally recognised nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some of those designs are still present and actors use political means within the country with outside support to continue pursuing them. As I said in my statement, there was a long period of time, for about ten years, when those designs were kept clamped down and the country was able not only to reconcile internally but to build strong institutions. As a member of the UN Security Council, Bosnia and Herzegovina was involved daily in making difficult global decisions. It functioned like clockwork, perfectly in sync and was able to rise to those challenges. Unfortunately since that time, the international context and the approach towards Bosnia and Herzegovina has changed, which has allowed these nationalist populist voices to resurface and build their entire political agenda on pursuing, overtly or covertly, their wartime goals. They found international sponsors, both regionally and internationally, to do that. That is what we have to contend with. Most of the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina want to live in peace and in harmony with one another. They want to focus on jobs, careers, economy, education etc., but they are unable to do so because we keep being hammered by these voices that say people cannot live together or that the country is a failed state etc.

This is what we are contending with. We need a little bit more assistance to refocus and to isolate those divisive voices and give a chance to ordinary people and their representatives to move the country forward.