Adil Zulfikarpašić

Adil Zulfikarpašić
1st Vice President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
In office
20 December 1990 – 14 March 1996
President Alija Izetbegović
Personal details
Born (1921-12-23)23 December 1921
Foča, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Died 21 July 2008(2008-07-21) (aged 86)
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Nationality Bosniak
Political party Muslim Bosniak Organization (MBO)
Religion Sunni Islam

Adil Zulfikarpašić (23 December 1921 – 21 July 2008) was a prominent Bosniak intellectual and politician who was the Vice President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War of the 1990s, under Bosnia's first President Alija Izetbegović. After the war he retired from politics and opened the Bosniak Institute, a museum in Sarajevo focused on the Bosniak culture.

Early life

Adil Zulfikarpašić was born in Foča, a town along the Drina river in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina).[1]

World War II and exile

In 1938 he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and became a Party organizer. In 1941, he joined Yugoslav Partisans and he was member of partisans' brigade "Zvijezda" of Vareš. In 1942, during World War II, he was caught by the Ustaše (the Croatian pro-Nazi forces) in Sarajevo and was tortured by them and sentenced to death. With the help of Yugoslav Partisans he escaped and in 1945 with the war ending in victory over the Axis powers, the Communists came into power and Zulfikarpašić was appointed Deputy Minister of Trade.[1] He soon became disillusioned with the Josip Broz Tito's government and fled into exile in Zurich, Switzerland.[1]

Fall of Yugoslavia

On 26 December 1991, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serb rebel-held territory in Croatia (Serb Krajina) agreed that they would form a new "third Yugoslavia".[2] Efforts were also made in 1991 to include Bosnia and Herzegovina within the federation, with negotiations between Milošević, Bosnia's Serbian Democratic Party, and the Bosniak proponent of union - Bosnia's Vice-President Adil Zulfikarpašić taking place on this matter.[3] Zulfikarpašić believed that Bosnia could benefit from attempting to forge a union with Serbia, Montenegro, and Krajina; and promoted a compromise between the Serbs and Bosniaks, in which Serb Krajina and Bosniak Sanjak from Serbia would be annexed into a Greater Bosnia that within a union with Serbia and Montenegro, would secure both the unity of Serbs and Bosniaks.[3] Zulfikarpašić's proposition opposed any cantonization of Bosnia.[3] The Bosnian Serbs did not include Zulfikarpašić's proposition alongside their propositions.[3] However Milosevic continued negotiations with Zulfikarpašić to include Bosnia within a new Yugoslavia.[3] Efforts to include the whole of Bosnia within a new Yugoslavia effectively terminated by late 1991 as Izetbegović planned to hold a referendum on independence while the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats formed autonomous territories.[4]

Zulfikarpašić returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the lead up to the Bosnian War, as Bosnia and Herzegovina held an independence referendum for independence, Zulfikarpašić stood alongside the future Bosnian president, Alija Izetbegović.[5] He was a member of Izetbegovic's Party of Democratic Action, but soon formed another party because of differing political views, the Muslim Bosniak Organization with Muhamed Filipović.[6]

Post-war

In 2001 he established the Bosniak Institute in Sarajevo.[7] In 2002 he was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[8]

Books

References

  1. 1 2 3 M A Sherif (2007). "Review of The Bosniak". salaam. Retrieved 2007-10-02.
  2. ↑ Sabrina P. Ramet. Serbia Since 1989: Politics and Society Under Milošević and After. University of Washington Press, 2005. pp. 55–56.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Steven L. Burg, Paul S. Shoup. The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention. Armonk, New York, USA: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. ISBN 9781563243097 p. 72.
  4. ↑ Steven L. Burg, Paul S. Shoup. The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention. Armonk, New York, USA: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. ISBN 9781563243097 pp. 72–73.
  5. ↑ Zoran Jelicic (1994-12-12). "History's Witness: Adil Zulfikarpasic". Vreme News Digest Agency. Vreme (168). Retrieved 2007-10-02.
  6. ↑ "Mr. Milosevic's examination-in-chief in relation to Bosnia". ICTY. 7 February 2006. Archived from the original on 10 August 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-02.
  7. ↑ Blouin, F.X.; Rosenberg, W.G. (2007). Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory: Essays from the Sawyer Seminar. University of Michigan Press. p. 399. ISBN 9780472032709. Retrieved 2014-10-12.
  8. ↑ http://www.anubih.ba/index.php?option=content&lang=eng&Theme=honorary&Level=2&ItemID=6
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