SARAJEVO PROTESTORS
Regarding yesterday’s protests across Bosnia and Herzegovina and the media’s attempt to discredit this justified rebellion, this informal group of citizens and protest participants repeats our demands to the government.
IN THE NAME OF CITIZENS ON THE STREETS OF SARAJEVO
We declare:
We, the people who went out onto the streets of Sarajevo yesterday, also regret the injuries and damage to properties, but our regret also extends to the factories, public spaces, cultural and scientific institutions, and human lives, all of which were destroyed as a direct result of actions by all those in power for, now, over 20 years. We ask our fellow citizens and fellow sufferers not to allow these unpleasant scenes to cloud the fact that this kind of government and those in power have costs us immeasurably more.
We, thus, demand:
– Unconditional and immediate resignations of both the Sarajevo Canton and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina governments; and the formation of non-party governments.
– No measures, of any kind, to be undertaken that would limit peaceful citizen protests.
– Immediate release of demonstrators, no criminal case filings against them, and an end to the witch hunt of people.
When these demands are met, we can then ask for the start of conversations and actions at all levels of government in order to establish a more socially just order for all social strata; and for all those whose human dignity and material basic needs have been endangered or destroyed by the transitional theft, corruption, nepotism, privatization of public resources, an economic model that favors the rich, and financial arrangements that have destroyed any hope for a society based on social justice and welfare.
To establish such a social justice order, before we undertake any social measures are, we demand an immediate end to the larceny of this society cloaked in politics, and criminal prosecution of those responsible. Only when all of that is complete, can we begin to build something new for all of us.
BIHAC PROTESTORS
Protesters have sent their list of 13 demands to the Parliament of the Una-Sana Canton:
(1) Resignation and replacement of the Una-Sana Canton (USC) government and all directors of public institutions and public enterprises.
(2) Appointment of a new government for USC and new directors, without influence of politics in choice of prime ministers and ministers (professional governance – with public release of biographies and the reasons for their appointment).
(3) Matching salaries in the public sector to the industrial sector, so that the highest public sector salary cannot be higher than three average salaries in the industrial sector.
(4) Matching salaries in the public sector to the educational/professional level.
(5) Public release of documents for tenders in the last 10 years and in the future.
(6) Matching levels of budget appropriations for agricultural production in the budgets at all levels of government to the European Union standards.
(7) Matching educational standards, at all levels, to the European Union standards.
(8) Matching the number of employees in the public sector to the European Union standards.
(9) Finalizing construction of the veterans’ building, at the latest by the elections of 2014.
(10) Ending all additional privileges for government officials.
(11) Ending additional financing of representatives and employees in the administrative institutions, on the basis of various commissions.
(12) Ending the salaries and other privileges of all politicians following the end of their term.
(13) Immediate end to the use of force by the police toward the protesters and vice versa.
(translated from Bosnian by Marina Antic)
- source: Reuters
