President Alija Izetbegovic Role Politician Name Adil Zulfikarpasic | Religion Sunni Islam Nationality Bosniak | |
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PANEL RAZGOVOR “ADIL ZULFIKARPAŠIĆ I LIBERALNE POLITIČKE INICIJATIVE”
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.
Contents
- PANEL RAZGOVOR ADIL ZULFIKARPAI I LIBERALNE POLITIKE INICIJATIVE
- 7 TV dana TV USK Adil Zulfikarpai u Bihau
- Early life
- World War II and exile
- Fall of Yugoslavia
- Post war
- Books
- References
7 TV dana TV USK -Adil Zulfikarpašić u Bihaću
Early life
Adil Zulfikarpašić was born in Foča, a town along the Drina river in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina).
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. He soon became disillusioned with the Josip Broz Tito's government and fled into exile in Zurich, Switzerland.
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". 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. 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. Zulfikarpašić's proposition opposed any cantonization of Bosnia. The Bosnian Serbs did not include Zulfikarpašić's proposition alongside their propositions. However Milosevic continued negotiations with Zulfikarpašić to include Bosnia within a new Yugoslavia. 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.
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. 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.
Post-war
In 2001 he established the Bosniak Institute in Sarajevo. In 2002 he was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.