The generosity, solidarity, compassion, tolerance and hope that have always been part of BiH society will prevail over meanness and despair, the High Representative and EU Special Representative, Valentin Inzkio, said today at a ceremony on Mount Vlasic to mark the twelfth anniversary of the helicopter crash that killed UN and OHR staff members.
“Twelve people died on this mountainside so that the landscape of hope would not be overwhelmed,” the HR/EUSR said. “And it hasn’t been overwhelmed. And it isn’t going to be overwhelmed, because the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina have a God-given strength and wisdom that transcends the limitations of their political system and their political leadership.”
“The landscape of this country’s soul is infused with love not hate, it is informed by generosity not meanness, it is sustained by hope not beaten down by despair. And that fact has been borne out even in the last two dreadful decades – because the political and moral incompetents who unleashed and perpetrated violence tried to bring a majority of citizens down to their own level, and in this they conspicuously failed,” the HR/EUSR said.
“Good will prevail. Of this I am certain,” he concluded. “We go from this mountainside with renewed confidence that compassion and tolerance and love will triumph – and in the most unpromising circumstances, when it seems that stupidity and self-interest have gained the upper hand, we will survey the inner landscape and we will see that the power of good is, as it has always been and always will be, greater than the power of evil.”
The full text of the HR/EUSR’s speech can be accessed here.