US Bosnian Council To Give Clinton ‘Lifetime Award’
By Danijel Kovacevic
The Washington-based Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina is to award former US President Bill Clinton for his services in ending the war in the country on May 5.
Former US President Bill Clinton is line for an award on May 5 from the Washington-based Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina, when a gala dinner will honour him and other longstanding supporters of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Clinton will receive the ACBH’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” for his “dedicated leadership in ending the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
The award last year went to former US vice president Joe Biden.
“President Clinton was instrumental in securing the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and through his sustained leadership, ensured regional stability and prosperity,” Ajla Delkic, ACBH’s president, stated in a press release.
Clinton is expected to deliver a speech on Saturday that will address, through Bosnia’s example, some of the important issues of US foreign policy, so his words are expected with great care, ACBH said.
The gala is expected to draw over 170 guests, and include high-level officials from the United States and Bosnia, diplomats, business elites and members of the media.
Awards will be given also to Haris Silajdzic, a former member of the Bosnian Presidency, and to former US generals Gordon Sullivan and Wesley Clark, the former chief NATO commander for Europe.
Awards will also go to Sanela Diane Jenkins, an entrepreneur, philanthropist and representative of the Hastor non-profit foundation, which helps children and youngsters from Bosnia, to the US film maker and writer Bill Carter, an honorary citizen of Sarajevo, and to US Army captain Ermin Mujezinovic.
The ACBH is a non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting the interests of Bosnian Americans and advocating for a united, multi-ethnic and democratic Bosnia.
It stands behind the founding of the Congressional Caucus on Bosnia whose website at this moment names 22 members – three senators and 22 congressmen.
Adnan Hadrovic, chairman of the ACBH, emphasized that the gala dinner is being held at a time when many Bosnians expect a stronger US engagement due to what they see as Russia’s increasingly assertive policy towards Bosnia.
Clinton was US President from 1993 to 2001. He was the driving force behind NATO’s decision in August and September 1995 to launch concerted air strikes on Bosnian Serb positions that resulted in the November 1995 Dayton peace accords that terminated the three-year war in Bosnia.
