A group of several hundred veterans of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) and the Croat Defence Council (HVO) gathered in front of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity Parliament requesting that members of the FBiH House of Representatives (HoR) discuss their demands.
Right before the FBiH HoR session was about to begin in Sarajevo, a group of several hundred veterans gathered in front of the FBiH Parliament demanding the publication of a single registry of war veterans, the abolishing of the financing of veterans’ associations, and the paying out of the veterans’ disability allowance.
Strong police presence was also present in and around the Parliament building, where barricades were set up to prevent veterans’ forceful entry into the building.
Ivan Krajinic, a wartime member of the HVO, told N1 that veterans “were forced to come to these protests by the difficult living conditions they are experiencing,” adding that they will all enter the Parliament building unless their six elected representatives are allowed to enter the Parliament building.
In a conversation with N1’s reporter Vladimir Maric, Krajinic said that “the veterans’ demands are clear” but they doubt that the HoR would adopt them.
At the same time, the spokeswoman for the Canton of Sarajevo Interior Ministry, Suvada Kuldija, said that the police did not receive any information about this public gathering.
“Accordingly, police officers will take all measures and actions in accordance with the law, in the sense that no violations of public order and peace occur. So far, everything is peaceful, and there have been no violations of public order and peace,” Kuldija said.
After a discussion by the FBiH HoR Board on whether to include the veterans’ demands into the session agenda, the Board voted in favour of including their demands.
This means that the discussion about war veterans in FBiH would begin with a presentation on the activities of the FBiH Veterans’ Affairs Ministry aimed at improving the status of the veterans living in this entity, as well as the veterans’ demands stated earlier today.
