Bosnia is burning, while the Federal Government in Berlin and the EU are watching – again!

From Tuzla Zenica to Sarajevo, protesters are occupying government buildings out of sheer anger and despair. Several buildings were damaged or set on fire, because the corrupt elites are ignoring their economic plight and the health risks that have become life-threatening.

Observers had predicted the escalation. The government in Berlin and the EU were warned – but German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other Governments in Europe chose to tolerate the situation. Europe had also simply watched the genocide when the civilian population suffered from the war from 1992 to 1995, in which more than 100,000 people were murdered, thousands of women raped, millions of people displaced. Concentration camps had been set up and villages and cities had been destroyed.

There was not much help for Bosnia when the country fell victim to aggression and genocide. Bosnia was forced to accept an unjust peace and a compromise with the war criminals Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic. The country was divided and politically incapacitated. The constitution that was imposed would have made any other country – including Germany – ungovernable. Scandalous: Germany, which had been reunited in 1990, participated in splitting up the helpless country in 1995. Today, the current chairman of the "Munich Security Conference", Ischinger, boasts to have served as a senior diplomat in the negotiations.

After the war, the European political elite ignored the victims of the genocide in Bosnia for more than 20 years, left the destroyed country and its distraught and desperate people to fend for themselves, thus forcing them into destitution. The people who just about managed to escape the genocide were left to themselves, without adequate help. Raped women, war veterans, orphans and widows, pensioners and workers with destroyed production facilities: the cynicism of the winners and the European elites never gave Bosnia a chance.

After the total war ended, Germany sent back about a hundred thousand refugees back to a destroyed country and forced another hundred thousand to emigrate to America or Australia. The European diplomats and politicians never showed any real interest in the worst war since Hitler's reign. Now, it is high time to stop this cynicism.

The STP demands:

* German Chancellor Angela Merkel must try to use her political influence in the EU and Bosnia to organize immediate help for the poverty-stricken population. A lot could be achieved with only a fraction of the sum that the EU offered the Ukranian regime during the struggle with Russia.

* The federal government must demand that the EU will sanction the corrupt elite of Bosnia and Herzegovina with measures such as travel restrictions and account lockouts – the only way to try and force the political elites to react. There must be a clear list of conditions concerning what can be done for the impoverished population with its incomes below the poverty line and an unemployment rate of about 50%.

* The EU and the US must help Bosnia to break free from the former compromise that was negotiated with criminals and to put an end to the political blockade caused by the EU/US Treaty of Dayton. This would be the only way offer Bosnia a chance to leave the political and economic catastrophe behind. The accession-negotiations of the EU with Serbia must be used to put an end to Serbia's open support for attempts to divide up Bosnia even further and as a chance to advocate for a modern European constitution. Bosnia – which never acted as an aggressor but nevertheless fell victim to genocide – has a right to reunification.

* The EU and the US must force political elites that are suspected of corruption to reveal their account information. They must be sanctioned and, if possible, held accountable by international law.

* The EU must order its High Representative to finally give up his attitude of absolute passivity and rather do everything in his power to intervene. High Representative Valentin Inzko – who is totally overchallenged – must be replaced as soon as possible. He is to be blamed for not intervening and letting the problematic situation take its course for years.

* Europe needs to act quickly – before the power vacuum caused by the ignorance of the European elites of the course of several years gets filled by violent and fundamental forces.

First Signatories :

Tilman Zülch, Secretary General of the STP, winner of the Freedom Prize for Human Rights of the Sarajevo Anti-War Center (2006), the "Srebrenica Award against Genocide" by the Association of the Mothers of Srebrenica (2006) and the Silver Order of the (multi-ethnic) Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina (1996).

Stefan Schwarz, former Member of the German Bundestag, Honorary Citizen of Sarajevo (1993).