The Goal of Article in The New York Times is to Slander what Chris Hedges calls Bosnian Government

Dnevni Avaz, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, August 18 1999

Reaction of Alija Izetbegovic, member of the Bosnian Presidency

President Izetbegovic issued yesterday the following statement:

Citizens of Bosnia-Hercegovina and especially my people should know the following: today The New York Times published an article by journalist Chris Hedges. The article was published under the headline "Leaders in Bosnia are Said to Steal up to $1 Billion". Among other, the article makes following claims:

Deliberate Lies

that $1 billion has been stolen or embezzled from public funds.
that anti corruption team in the Office of the High representative is investigating 220 cases of embezzlement and corruption and that it has assembled an internal 4,000 page report.
that Bosnia had 2,000,000 refugees at the end of the war and that there are still 2,000,000 refugees abroad.
that in Tuzla, a Muslim city as the author of the article refers to it, $200 million disappeared from the budget for this year and another $300 million during the last two years.
that schools in Tuzla were repainted four times last year. That the Government financed this action although the schools had already been fixed and painted using foreign assistance.
that the rumor has it that Bakir Izetbegovic, president Izetbegovic's son, controls The City Development Institute which in turn controls 80,000 apartments owned by the state and that many of these apartments, which before the war belonged to Serbs and Croats, were given to members of the ruling SDA, while other citizens can get these apartments for a $2000 bribe. Izetbegovic Bakir, according to the article, owns 15% of Air Bosnia, the state-owned air carrier and collects portion of the money extorted by criminals in Sarajevo from shop owners etc.

I claim that these are all lies and that they were deliberately concocted in order to slander Bosnian authorities and dissuade some friendly countries from getting militarily and financially involved with Bosnia-Hercegovina. Fortunately, some lies are obvious. The whole budget of the Tuzla canton for 1997, 1998 and the first half of 1999 is KM 612 million. According to the article, $500 million, or KM 900 million, has disappeared. Therefore, almost 50% more than originally in the budget. 80,000 state-owned apartments in Sarajevo mentioned in the article (this is also incorrect: there are 69,000 such apartments) are not under the control of the City Development Institute, nor have they ever been under the control of that institution. They are owned by hundreds of state-owned companies and state institutions as everyone knows. The Institute has nothing to do with that. It is an organization entrusted with the reconstruction and development of the city and has been primarily in charge of the reconstruction of destroyed and damaged buildings. These two facts illustrate how much the author of the article and his sources know about the issue he writes about. I want to say that this won't do any more. Secret reports which are secret only in order to allow that lies and fabrications be publicized without responsibility must stop. Therefore I demand from the OHR to clearly reply to the following questions:

are the claims in the article based on reports of the OHR officials?
are these claims accurate and truthful?
if they are, OHR should publish them in full.
if it turns out that these claims are inaccurate and untruthful, will the officials of OHR be held accountable?

Well Chosen Moment

The goals of this article is to slander what Chris Hedges calls Bosnian government. We were not murderers, we didn't carry out genocide. They cannot, to their misfortune, accuse us of that, but they can portray us as thieves with assistance of various secret reports. And they are doing that, using all means at their disposal. Even the moment for the publishing of the article was deliberately chosen. Former High Representative Mr. Westendorp has just left and cannot deny the claims made in the article. New High Representative Mr. Petritsch has just arrived and also cannot react. In the meantime, the lie can spread undisturbed and inflict as much damage to Bosnia in the world as the recent war. By warning the public about all of that. I expect from it to demand from the High Representative the full truth. Someone has made a huge mistake on the account of Bosnia. Who ever he may be, he must be held accountable.

Bakir Izetbegovic will Sue OHR

Dnevni Avaz, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, August 19 1999

Yesterday, Bakir Izetbegovic, director of the Sarajevo Canton Building Institute sent a letter to the media in which he states the following:

On August 17 1999, journalist Chris Hedges in the article about corruption in Bosnia-Hercegovina, published in The New York Times, wrote a number of lies about me. More precisely, Chris Hedges lied every time he mentioned my name. I will deal with all of his claims, one by one:

I am not Controller

The article claims that I am one of the most powerful and wealthy men in Bosnia. I live in a state-owned apartment, own ordinary furniture, wardrobe and an old car. I have no other property, nor savings. I am a civil engineer, my wife is a physician, we have one child. All my property (furniture, car, wardrobe) after 18 years of work is not worth more than DEM 20,000. The same applies to my power. The article also claims that I control the Sarajevo Canton Institute for Construction which is in charge of 80,000 state-owned apartments, and that I have distributed these apartments for free to members of SDA and to others for a $2,000 bribe. I am the director of the Sarajevo Canton Institute for Construction, not a controller. The Institute does not have the authority to make decisions about deserted apartments owned by the state. The institution that deals with such matters is the Cantonal Ministry for Accommodation which issues temporary permits for the use of the deserted state-owned apartments. According to the estimates of our services, about 1,000 such apartments are owned by the Institute and are used by tenants with appropriate permits issued by the Cantonal Ministry. The only action of the Institute regarding this matter have been repeated requests to the Cantonal Ministry to allow the distinguished defenders of Sarajevo to stay in the apartments. However, we never opposed the return of pre-war tenants of these apartments. We believe that several hundreds of these apartments will remain unclaimed indefinitely so that, on my initiative, the Cantonal Government made a decision to in principle establish a commission for the allocation of these apartments. The commission will be headed by a representative of the Cantonal Ministry for War Veteran Affairs.

I haven't Received Bribes

I have never received a bribe in any shape of form. People who know me, know well that I refuse expensive presents and special favors, let alone envelopes with money. I call on Chris Hedges, or those who told him this misinformation to produce a single credible source who will claim otherwise. Only a single credible source who will confirm at least one of the slanderous claims in the articles. A claim that I own 15% of the air carrier Air Bosnia follows. I do not own anything apart from what I listed at the beginning of this statement. As far as I know, Air Bosnia is 100% state-owned, without participation of private investors. The worst lie has to do with my connections with Sarajevo criminals and participation in the distribution of extorted money, the so-called racket. That claim makes no sense and I will not dignify it with a comment. Chris Hedges in his article refers to the Office of the High Representative and some secret 4,000-page report about corruption. It has been obvious for a while that some ill-intentioned source has been feeding domestic media with false information and has been encouraging them to attack the authorities. Unless OHR publicly distances itself from the claims in Hedge's article which refer to me, or otherwise provides evidence for such claims, I will be forced to sue them.

Hedges' Crusade

Journalist Chris Hedges has been writing about Bosnia for a while. He has never written anything nice about people who love Bosniak people. He is leading his small crusade, trying to discredit the Muslim leadership who has carried a huge moral capital for its nation from the previous war. Bosniaks did not commit massive crimes, did not destroy churches or establish concentration camps. In the surrounded Sarajevo there was almost no crime, illness, prostitution... Regardless, Christian will then fabricate or exaggerate thievery and corruption. The attack on me is, of course, only a part of the campaign against my father who is an embodiment of the Bosniak movement.

Translated on October 12 1999