After holding of the last planned activity – public debate in Trebinje, FTC asked for the project extension for a month since we realised that we still had enough financial means to hold another public discussion.
FTC believes that holding of the public discussions is the only good method for starting of this process and creation of the ambient for implementation of such an important process for any state, including Bosnia and Herzegovina as well (which we concluded based on the results of the project), and that the public discussions are the only way to get citizens of BiH familiar with this process (which was concluded by the participants of every and each public discussion). Finally, such public discussions are the only way to involve as many as possible citizens, members of the political parties, experts, youth, NGOs into this very important process for BiH.
Regarding selection of the town where this additional activity will be held, it is important to say that FTC made its decision based on the attitudes and conclusions from the public discussion in Trebinje. Trebinje is a town that is today, after the war in BiH, completely mono-ethnical town and where the return of displaced persons and refugees is at the insignificant level. Therefore, the conclusions from the public discussion in Trebinje were completely different from the conclusions from other towns where FTC held its public discussions.
Therefore, FTC wanted to affirm its attitudes regarding such an important topic as constitutional changes is, but also to hear the attitudes and the opinions of the citizens of the town that during the war suffered the conflict of two constitutive nations (Bosniaks and Croats), the town where after the war, one of the constitutive nations (Bosniaks) is a minority. Having in mind all of this, the public discussion was held in Stolac (Western Herzegovina). Stolac is now ruled by the Croatian political oligarchy, although the percentage of the people who returned to Stolac is bit higher than in other places in BiH. However, Stolac today is a completely divided city. Ethnic intolerance is present; the lives of the inhabitants are almost completely separate. This situation reminds of the situation in Mostar. However, in such a small town, ethnic tensions are more obvious. Due to all these reasons, FTC wanted to learn what do citizens think about constitutional changes in BiH and what do they expect from them.

The public discussion was held in the restaurant “Behar”, on Saturday, March 20, 2010, at 10 am.
Representatives of all political parties that participate in the Municipal Council Stolac, representatives of all political parties that participate in the cantonal Assembly, representatives of education sector, youth, representatives of the associations of the citizens (mainly returnees) were invited to the public discussion.
Around 20 participants took part in the public discussion, mostly representatives of the Bosniaks. However, several representatives of Croatian and Serbian population, mainly from social democratic partie,s also took part in the public discussion. The speakers at the public discussion in Stolac were Vehid Sehic, the FTC president and Prof. Slavo Kukic from Mostar.
The discussion that followed the introductory speeches was very good and live and lasted for over three hours. All participants took part in the discussion and presented their opinion about the constitutional changes, which are based on completely unequal position of Bosniaks who live here, and who lived here centuries before.
Mr Sehic spoke about the aims of the project, the necessity of the removal of any discrimination in BiH and constitutional defining of the state as secular and social state. Prof. Kukic spoke about the basic changes that the changes of the Constitution should bring: respecting of individual civic rights with full respecting of collective rights of the nations and creation of more efficient and cheaper state. At the beginning of the participants’ discussions, they said that they do not see these things as significant and relevant for the changes of the Constitution.

However, as the discussion progressed, participants talked about their everyday problems: impossibility of usage of the health care, physical division of the children in schools (which is full segregation), absolute impossibility of Bosniaks to get a job in public institutions, interference of politics in every segment of a social life of Stolac, which led to a high level of segregation in life in general. The example for this is the fact that the restaurant “Behar”, where the public discussion was held, is a restaurant where only Bosniaks go, while Croats go to a different restaurant. Although we knew this fact when we prepared this event, FTC decided to hold the public discussion in “the Bosniak restaurant” since we wanted to hear the attitudes and opinions of Bosniaks as constitutive nation that is in minority and is not in power in this town. The complete discussion and the problems that citizens of Stolac face in everyday life highlighted the fact that all segments of the constitutional changes that FTC advocates for and emphasises that they must be implemented in order to normalise the life in BiH, were confirmed by the opinions and attitudes that we got from the participants.
Namely, such a high level of division and existence of segregation of Bosniaks in this city shows that neither individual nor collective human rights are being respected and that the discrimination of minority is reflected in all its spheres of their social life; that the representatives of the religious communities directly interfere into the political life of the community; that religious leaders instrumentalise citizens of their religion into political purposes, which obviously requires constitutional definition of BiH as a secular state; that due to the poverty of canton and division of health care institutions and existence of the parallel health care institutions, the citizens of this city are in unequal position in relation to other cantons, which is also one of the reasons for constitutional defining of BiH as a social state; that due to existence of the parallel institutions (health care and pensions) citizens are not only discriminated, but such situation additionally raise costs of cantonal and local authorities, so the authorities in this part of Federation of BiH is neither efficient nor functional.
Regarding the position and the influence of the international community in the constitutional process, the participants of this event presented the attitude that they find international community responsible for such situation in BiH and that they expect them to contribute (by their influence and pressure) to the finalisation of the process of the constitutional reforms and creation of a more democratic and more perspective state.
Another important thing regarding this public discussion is that the participants of this event criticised the carriers of the authority in Stolac and religious communities and their representatives from their ethnic group since they were aware of their power and the influence they have on their everyday lives.
If one compares the public discussion in Stolac with previously held public discussions, it can be concluded that the attitudes are different and that there is a partial difference in opinions between the participants in RS and participants in F BiH; that the ethnic division is much more present in F BiH, which is logical since Croats and Bosniaks are absolutely smaller nations in RS. Therefore, the interest for economic changes and the need for economic development of the country were the dominant opinions that could be heard in the public discussions held in RS. While the public discussions held in F BiH were overburden with the inter-ethnic relations and the need for solution of this problem from which all other problems arise.
Therefore, through the series of the public discussion FTC reached the conclusion that the interest of the citizens, participants of the public discussions, for constitutional changes is much higher in F BiH since the citizens in this entity expect solution of the current situation and introduction of mechanisms for equality of constitutive nations in this entity. The interest for constitutional changes among the citizens in RS regarding the same issue – solving of the status of the constitutive nations – is more present only in the places where Bosniaks and Croats have returned.
In such evident inequality of constitutive nations at the whole territory of BiH, the issue and the interest of the participants for the discussion about the position of the national minorities was mostly neglected and in most of the cases initiated by the speakers themselves.
Therefore, the task of the NGOs that are struggling for democratisation of the Bosnian society is to continue to struggle not only for constitutional defining of the verdict of the European Court for Human Rights in the case Sejdic and Finci vs. state of BiH, but also for essential constitutional changes that would remove any kind of discrimination of the Bosnian citizens regardless of their ethnic background.
Finally, the joint conclusion for all public discussions is that the citizens expressed the need for such discussions and that they are grateful for enabling them to present their opinions through these public discussions and to see the process of constitutional changes in a different light.

Regarding media attention for the public discussion in Stolac, only the crews from Radio-Television Mostar and RTM portal were present at the public discussion (although 16 media representatives were invited). FTC anticipated that Croatian media might not respond to the invitation, but FTC was surprised that the reporters of FTV and BHT1 were not interested for this event.
However, it can be said that the public discussion in Stolac was extremely good, if not the best one in the whole cycle of the public discussions. It showed that the work in small towns, which are usually at the margin of all events, overburden with the economic and ethnic problems, should be one of priorities in our future work, not only in the projects related to the constitutional changes, but in all other projects that we realise.

As the training material, participants were given booklet “The Upgrade of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina Would Enable Faster European Integration” – the work of the expert team; the bulletins from all previously realised events, and notebooks and pens.