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Ladies and Gentlemen, Please, permit me, without much ado and formalities, to be straightforward and to talk to the point. It is significant that the constituent meeting of the 2nd RS Assembly is taking place here in Bijeljina, the town where in the run up to the elections the most disturbing cases of harassment and intimidation of opposition members were recorded. Let this meeting become a signal to the world, which is watching you that the parliament of the Serb Republic is eager and willing to make this past forgotten. The common people in the Republica Srpska, which has become one autonomous Entity of the new sovereign state of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the Dayton Peace Accord, deserve it that their immediate needs and problems after a terrifying war are being tackled and solved by their elected deputies. Enough time has been wasted! Face your responsibilities towards your electorate. We, the Office of the High Representative and the representatives of the International Community, are here to assist you in this endeavor. Dayton is not an instrument to suppress the Serb people, but the only possible and viable approach towards a dignified and civilized living together of all people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We, the International Community, are decided to stay on until this aim has been achieved! This message, reiterated recently by US President Clinton and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, was hopefully clearly understood by everybody. When the German Democratic Republic was about to crumble and East German communists, 1989, stubbornly decided to celebrate still their 40th year of existence, the then Soviet President Gorbatschov remarked: Life punishes all those who will be to late! One year later, the German Democratic Republic had disappeared from the world map. I would like to appeal to those here in Parliament, who still obstruct the Dayton Peace Process: Don't come too late! This train is now running and gaining speed. Look at the economic recovery in the Federation. If you miss it, your people will feel the consequences as a result of economic misery, distress and international isolation. Political majorities are gained in democratic elections and sorted out in Parliament, not behind closed doors in club cabinets. I thus welcome the step taken by the Speaker of the previous Assembly to observe the procedural time limit in convening this inaugural session. The people in the Republika Srpska have a right to see an efficient government be established in the shortest possible time and in a transparent manner. The list of priorities, which this Government is expected to tackle immediately, is long. It reaches from a comprehensive solution of the refugee problem, including the return of Serb refugees from Croatia to their home country, for which we will hold the Government of Croatia responsible, to judicial reform and the secure establishment of the rule of law and does not end with a call for a sound policy of economic revitalization, which can only be achieved with the donor community and not against it. We expect the new Government in particular to be compliant in opening rail, telecommunications and bus-links between the entities. We are approaching the second millennium. Integration is the key word of economic success. Does the Republica Srpska wants to become a North Korea of Europe, where a corrupt few enjoy their live to the detriment of the whole society and lock their territory to the outside world? Look around the world: regardless of political ideology, it is always and only separation and isolation, which makes people loose. We are decided to counter and overrule attempts to separate and divide! Let me finish with a quote from the Bonn Document of the Peace Implementation Conference which cannot be left out and overrides in its importance anything else: "The Council is convinced that until all persons indicted for war crimes are brought before the ICTY, there will be no normalization, no reconciliation, and the rule of law in Bosnia and Herzegovina will remain seriously impaired. In this regard, the Council recalls the Sintra Declaration, where the continued influence of Radovan Karadzic over the political life of Republika Srpska was deemed unacceptable. The Council therefore reminds all competent authorities that war crimes suspects must be brought before the ICTY and that co-operation with ICTY is a key part of the process of peace implementation. The Council remains committed to applying economic levers and other measures to ensure full co-operation with ICTY. The Council demands that the competent authorities take immediate steps to execute arrest warrants for all indicted persons under their jurisdiction and to surrender them to the ICTY." The benchmarks are set. Mr. Speaker, I permit myself to hand over a priority list (priority list 1, priority list 2) of items which should range high on the agenda of future meetings of this august house. It is your schedule to Europe. Don't come too late!
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