960415

Bosnian president attacks new opposition party

SARAJEVO: Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic lashed out at an opposition party formed by his former prime minister, saying it was spreading "lies" to try to wrest power from his government.

In his first major address since his convalescence in hospital for heart problems, Izetbegovic heavily criticised the "Party for BH" founded by ex-prime minister Haris Silajdzic in Sarajevo on Saturday.

His attack showed that he was taking the opposition effort seriously ahead of elections tentatively scheduled for September under terms of the Dayton peace agreement which ended Bosnia's civil war.

Although he never mentioned Silajdzic's party by name, Izetbegovic clearly had it in mind when he accused the opposition of only emphasising problems related to the end of the war.

Speaking at a rally in a football stadium in the central town of Zenica, he said opposition leaders should credit his ruling Moslem nationalist Party of Democratic Action (SDA) party for preventing Bosnia's extinction.

"They do not say that peace has come. People are not being killed anymore. The dying has stopped. Half of Bosnia has been defended," the state BH news agency quoted him as saying.

"A strong army was created almost from nothing...The Bosniak (Moslem) nation was saved from extinction...They remain silent on these very important facts,"

A poll of urban areas under government control identified Silajdzic, 50, as Bosnia's most popular politician but he faces a formidable task in taking on the high-organised and well-funded SDA, which controls access to state media.

Izetbegovic said the opposition was creating "bad will" based on an assumption that foreign troops enforcing the peace "opened up some chances for them."

"They are cheating themselves because in the end at election time the people will decide -- not foreigners," he said.

Silajdzic, as foreign minister when the war broke out four years ago, established himself on the international stage as an eloquent defender of Bosnia's multi-ethnic tradition.

He is expected to campaign against what he sees as the SDA's increasingly narrow Moslem nationalist vision.

Izetbegovic, who has strong support in rural areas, seemed to be playing on a perception by some that the cosmopolitan Silajdzic was out of touch with ordinary people.

He said his Moslem nationalist party, from which Silajdzic resigned in January, deserved praise for leading Bosnia's break from Serbia-dominated Yugoslavia.

"If there had been no SDA, Bosnia today would be a province of a Greater Serbia or it would be destroyed," he said.

He accused the opposition of trying to distract voters from what he called the SDA's achievements. "Lies and half-truths serve as a means in fighting for power," he said.-Reuter