Adil Zulfikarpasic
| 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 |
23 December 1921 Foča, Kingdom of Yugoslavia |
| Died | 21 July 2008 (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.
Adil Zulfikarpašić was born in Foča, a town along the Drina river in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina).
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.
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.
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