If anyone in BiH deserves to have a monument built for him, it is the present High Representative, Wolfgang Petritsch. The man has done so much for this country that this kind of recognition he certainly deserved. This was best illustrated in his latest address before the EU General Affairs Council. His main thesis was that BiH has finally taken its first steps on the road which will take it towards full self-sustainability, and that, at last, BiH politicians and ordinary citizens have become aware that the fate of their state is in their hands.
In fact, we need to remind ourselves where we were in 1999, when Petritsch replaced the Spanish diplomat Carlos Westendorp as the High Representative in BiH. At that time, the BiH state did not have several fundamental laws and institutions, which could provide for a functioning state, such as the State Border Service, the BiH State Court….Even the Election Law, albeit adopted by the BiH Parliament, was passed under tremendous pressure from Petritsch.
At the time of his arrival, BIH did not have some basic State symbols, such as a coat of arms or a flag [web manager’s note: the BiH flag was introduced under High Representative Carlos Westendorp], and each Entity had its own passport. One should not even waste any words on describing the work of the State institutions, for it was more reminiscent of anarchy than of functioning State bodies.
Now, things are different and our State is finally starting to assume the form of a normally run country. Even more importantly, our politicians have finally began working on improving standards of living in this country. Granted, those who would prefer that “there is no Bosnia” are still strong, but the number of the former is increasing day by day.
Petritsch talked about all this in Brussels, but he failed to mention one very important fact. He failed to mention that he is the most responsible person for the achieved progress. True, sometimes he did make decisions which were detrimental to Serbs, Bosniaks or Croats, but he never decided anything to the detriment of the BiH State.