Actually these two dogs are playing with each other
But a person who does not work with
animals would think they are fighting..
Dalida Kozlic: Dogs have become public enemy number one and the lightning rod for a
society which suffers from all kinds of problems.
If this society thinks
about how to kill as many dogs as possible rather than how to make a
living, here the problem starts. We are a psychopathic society that
suffers from mass aggression and a society that has misdirected its
aggression.
"All his life my father has been rescuing abandoned
dogs. Already in Ex-Yugoslavia he was fighting against hunters and the
killings of dogs in the streets. In August 2004 we barely survived a
shooting in front of our family house that a member of the Breza hunting
society had started and during which a dog was killed right in front of
my eyes. This was the point in time when in addition to being a rescuer
I became an activist and lobbyist for the
Animal Protection and Welfare
Act of Bosnia and Hercegovina. After I graduated from law school I
continued my fight through legal protection of animals."
Dalida
Kozlic is an activist for legal protection of animals. For years she has
been drawing public attention to the consequences of the
non-implementation of the Animal Protection and Welfare Act. For her
rescue efforts and hints at financial corruption and the non-transparent
public spending with respect to abandoned animals, Dalida and her
family continue to suffer pressures from the local government. This
interview was done after her father Eldar Kozlic was physically attacked
in the premises of the municipality of Breza earlier this month. We
also have spoken about the decision of the Sarajevo Canton to remove all
abandoned and stray dogs from the streets for community safety reasons,
the relationship between the citizens and the officials who fail to
solve the problem, the politicization of this issue and other topics…
Tacno: Last week your father was physically attacked in the premises of
the municipality of Breza. Can you tell us what preceded this attack
and why you and your family have been under constant pressure from the
local administration in this municipality?
Dalida Kozlic: In 2013
my father Eldar Kozlic and myself learned that one part of the
abandoned dogs, that were in the city centre of Breza, had been caught
and brought from the territory of Breza to the hunting grounds of the
municipality of Ilijas. Some of the municipality officials were involved
in this. The problems started, after my father and myself had reported
this to the authorities in charge: First we came under attack by our
neighbor
Edin Velic, who was campaigning and collecting signatures
against us, because we were keeping dogs on our property. Later it
turned out, that most of the signatures were falsified. Many other
pressures started against my family. During the trial
Edin Velic
admitted that he was influenced and pressured by municipality officials
to give us a hard time because of our battle for animal welfare. Then,
the cantonal veterinary inspection checked our premises and confirmed
that our dogs were well nourished, vaccinated, medically checked and
that the boxes in which they were accommodated fulfilled all the
requirements of the Regulation concerning protection of dogs, who are
kept as pets in Bosnia and Hercegovina.
Later on we learned, that the
officer for economic affairs and deputy mayor of the Breza municipality,
Salih Hasanspahic, had put pressure literally every day on the
veterinary inspection to issue an unfavorable report. Nevertheless, the
cantonal veterinary inspection followed the findings of the local
sanitary inspection: they too confirmed that all sanitary requirements
were fulfilled, dogs were kept properly and that there was a sewage
system. It became quiet for a while, but it seemed to be like the calm
before the storm: As soon as I continued to report a series of animal
abuses in Breza and killings of dogs in the county of
"Rudnik Mrkog Ulja
Breza", the pressure was back on.
Then, a new decision regarding
the treatment of abandoned dogs and pets was taken on the community
level, and, without any legal basis, a new community inspector
Elsada
Sehovic took office. She too issued a report confirming that the dogs
were kept in accordance to the law, however she decided that my dad had
to remove the dogs from the property.
I want to emphasize that it
was
Muris Nuhanovic, donor to the party "Association for a better future
Bosnia and Hercegovina", who had reported us to the local inspection.
This party did everything they could to change the Animal Protection and
Welfare Act of Bosnia and Hercegovina, although they failed, and they
are promoting killing as a solution. Also it is important to know that
Muris Nurhanovic is our neighbor who I have reported to the police
because of the brutal stoning of a dog, for which there is also photo
evidence. The dog is safe, and against
Muris Nuhanovic an investigation
is being carried out. He had reported us to the local inspection after
he was summoned as a suspect concerning this criminal offence. His
complaint against the decision has been rejected in an accelerated
procedure, while I have initiated a legal action against the local
administration which is still not closed.
Once the community
officials realized that they would lose the legal battle and that they
could not influence my work,
Halil Tuzlic, the mayor, asked for
cooperation during a meeting with my father and me, and suggested that
the municipality of Breza offer a piece of land where a dog shelter
could be built and thus the Animal Welfare and Protection Act
implemented. He asked us to help with our contacts and especially wanted
me to help with the legal work and the supervision of the shelter.
Salih Hasanspahic was responsible for the coordination. The time limit
to find a property was one month. However, after two months even there
was no concrete proposal, since he insisted that me and my family had to
solve the entire problem of the abandoned dogs in the municipality of
Breza, that the community bore no responsibility at all and that we
moved our dogs to this shelter. It also turned out that he deliberately
obstructed the whole process in order to put through his own interests.
My father made an appointment with him on the 2nd September 2016 in his
office in the Breza town hall. When my father entered
Salih
Hasanspahic's office,
Salih left the office and came back in with
Edin
Velic. My father reacted saying that he had nothing to talk about with
them. Right after that,
Salih calls in
Muris Nuhanovic and the local
inspector and locks the office.
My father tells them that he is being
kept hostage, that there is nothing to discuss and demands to be set
free immediately.
Salih is not willing to unlock the door and tells my
father that he is going to "stay until dawn if it's necessary to solve
"their" problem". Now
Muris Nuhanovic attacks my father several times
who cannot leave the office, while
Salih refuses to unlock the door. All
this lasts for about 15 minutes, when
Salih finally opens the door
after
Nuhanovic had tried to punch my father.
My father immediately
goes to the police office, which is 50 meters away from the town hall
building. The police officers find them still on site, and the criminal
investigation department immediately takes over the case since there are
several criminal offenses involved. The public prosecution department
is in charge of the case. I would like to emphasize that the illegal
restraint commited by
Salih Hasanspahic is especially important, and it
is also very significant that it happened right on the first day of the
election campaign, which is noteworthy, since I have noticed a certain
resistance from
Salih Hasanspahic to follow orders from the mayor, as
well as a resistance against the mayor personally. The public
prosecution department of the Canton of Doboj-Zenica has to take the
case very seriously and take all measures foreseen by law to punish the
perpetrators.
This was an attempted lynching of a family that takes care
of 120 dogs, which we have taken from the streets, which again would
have been the duty of municipality authorities, and a family who is
fighting for the implementation of the act.
Tacno: The latest
decision of the government of the Canton of Sarajevo to remove all the
dogs from the streets of Sarajevo has upset the animal welfare
organizations. Why?
Dalida Kozlic: The decision taken by the
government of the Canton of Sarajevo on the session of the 30th June
2016, which orders catching of abandoned dogs on a massive scale on the
territory of the Sarajevo Canton, is not only a gross violation of the
Animal Protection and Welfare Act of Bosnia and Hercegovina but also a
serious form of organized business crime. This decision was preceded by
the preparation of the project "Monitoring of zoonotic infectious and
parasitic diseases in the population of abandoned dogs in the Canton of
Sarajevo". Project executors were the cantonal public company KJP
"Veterinarska stanica d.o.o. Sarajevo", the Veterinary faculty in
Sarajevo and the Cantonal administration for inspection – the
Inspectorate for the veterinary inspection. The value of the project was
KM 133'000 (USD 76'000). The mentioned large-scale catching of dogs had
been entrusted to the cantonal public waste management company KJKP
"Rad d.o.o. Sarajevo" and KJP "Veterinarska stanica d.o.o. Sarajevo".
Responsible for the execution of the above mentioned decision was the
ministry of public utilities and infrastructure of the Sarajevo Canton,
while the decision and the project were financed from the budget of the
Canton of Sarajevo.
The Animal Protection and Welfare Act of Bosnia and
Hercegovina bans any type of experimenting and unauthorized testing on
abandoned animals, while the veterinary laws and regulations of Bosnia
and Hercegovina state that only the Veterinary Office of Bosnia and
Hercegovina is allowed to undertake projects to determine and control
diseases of any origin in the population. The scandalous, inhumane and
illegal way of treating captured dogs is best observed in the example of
the illegal shelter in Zunovnica. It is confirmed also through photos
taken in the mentioned building, that dogs are obviously held without
food and water, that they are starved and skinny and that they are
literally lying in their own feces which have not been removed for a
long period of time. They are exposed to contagion, they are running the
risk of injuring one another, and because of these inhumane conditions
they die in agony. Also, we have found out, that the dogs are taken for
neutering/spaying and then are brought back not just to a dirty place,
but to a place covered with feces. Zunovica is literally a concentration
camp and the most horrific example of the breaking of many laws by the
cantonal government itself, which spends tax money on this horrific
torture of abandoned dogs.
Tacno: Can you as a lawyer explain to
us, why to date the Animal Protection and Welfare Act still has not been
fully implemented, although it has been adopted in 2009?
Dalida
Kozlic: The Animal Protection and Welfare Act has not been implemented
at all. Not because it is not possible or because it is too costly, but
because in this way criminal activities become possible, just like those
on the territory of the Sarajevo Canton. At first, after the act had
been adopted, public authorities were not interested. Then they quickly
realized that it was financially rewarding to offer illegal shelters and
illegal sanitary services. There are many illegal shelters that have
been set up by people who are close to politicians and people in power.
These people set up illegal "shelters for abandoned animals" that are
basically concentration camps, and then bill for fictitious veterinary
services and food that never reaches the animals. They invoice for
euthanasia drugs, while the abandoned animals are agonized and killed in
the most brutal ways in these so called "shelters". Also, according to
the same principle, they set up illegal sanitary services and take money
from the budgets of various municipalities. This way big money is
stolen from the budgets at all levels of public administration, because,
if you have legal shelters that accommodate the dogs conforming to the
law, there is no possibility to steal money. If, on the contrary, you
build a fence around a piece of land, where you put hundreds of dogs,
for which you receive money while the dogs die of starvation, and at the
same time you bill for many other "services", then you get rich. This
is the main reason why the act has not been implemented – because of
organized business crime at the highest level.
Tacno: For years you
have been pointing at the fact that enormous sums of public money have
been taken from the budget to mitigate the effects of this problem. Is
this the actual reason why there is no systemic solution?
Dalida
Kozlic: First, the administration stated, that one dog in a shelter
costs KM 157 (USD 90) per month, which is not true. But this
unsubstantiated story has helped that the budget provides for
unjustifiably high sums for illegal shelters and sanitary services. This
way the public administration worsens the problem, since as long as
there are dogs on the streets, there will be stealing money from the
budget. The attempt to partially implement the act will only increase
the agony of the abandoned dogs on the streets as well as that of the
citizens, and budget money will be wasted for the umpteenth time to
solve the problem in a nonsystematic way. Apart from the many abuses and
obstructions during the execution of the act, today's failure is also
the result of public authorities focusing on the effects of the problem,
i.e. killing the dogs, which by the way is a criminal act and a
violation of the Animal Protection and Welfare Act of Bosnia and
Hercegovina. At the same time the authorities in charge do not care
about solving the root cause of the problem, which is the abandonment of
the dogs and the uncontrolled reproduction.
Tacno: Who is
responsible that through the indifference of the public authorities, the
problem of the strays has grown from a local problem to a health and
safety problem for the citizens of the Sarajevo Canton and others?
Dalida Kozlic: First and foremost, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and
Economic Relation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, under which the Veterinary
Office operates, which is responsible for the oversight and
implementation of the mentioned act. The Veterinary Office of Bosnia and
Hercegovina has been a passive bystander for years and with that is
also an accomplice, because it does not perform the duties provided by
law. Then the veterinary inspections which are not only not acting in
those cases in which they are legally obliged in order to stop the
horrors, but which even openly support the criminals. Then the public
administration departments that did not fulfill their part of the
obligations imposed by law, and that have artificially created a bigger
problem, even though the obligations to systematically resolve the
problem are clearly stated. Then the public prosecution office and the
police who are not taking legal action against business crime and money
laundering, and finally the citizens themselves, who have failed to
demand that the federal act be implemented.
The problem of the abandoned
dogs has not endangered the health and safety of the citizens. Of
course it is a problem that needs to be solved lawfully, and the sooner
the law is executed the better. But the whole story about the threat to
the citizens is just a pretext for this society, which suffers from mass
aggression towards those who are weaker, to do whatever they want to
those who cannot protect themselves.
This is not a question of the
human-animal relationship anymore; it's about the future relationship of
our children with their fellow humans.
Tacno: Has the resolution
of the problem of abandoned animals become a politicized issue? In your
opinion, why does it become a hot topic every time during an election
campaign?
Dalida Kozlic: This is a political question, indeed,
however, the periodic reissue of the story of how to resolve this
problem, is not only a classical election campaign story. It is a story
that has been created 3 years ago in order to draw attention away from
much bigger problems. It is in the best interest of the authorities if
there is an atmosphere of fear, and they have chosen the dogs to be
public enemy number one. Post-war societies in general feel the need to
vent their feelings of stress and frustration. Normal societies in
post-war times focus on reconstruction and renewal. Unfortunately, our
society is neither normal nor does it focus on renewal, instead the
majority of our citizens are focused on non-existent issues. If people
do not earn enough to meet their needs, they become dissatisfied. This
can lead to changes.
The authorities in Bosnia and Hercegovina always
had the "perfect" way to fuel tensions through nationalism. Over time
however, this was not enough anymore and they needed a new enemy. The
dogs have taken this place. While our citizens tremble at the sight of
an abandoned dog, they are not even aware how dangerous our society is,
how high the crime and corruption rates are. While they warn their kids
to stay away from the "dangerous" abandoned dogs, they fail to warn them
of pedophiles, of which there are more than one would think in our
society. Our citizens are so much focused on the story of the dogs; they
have no idea what is going on around them.
Tacno: Has the public
perception towards the people responsible for the problem changed, since
very often animal welfare organizations are mentioned when it comes to
responsibility for the street dogs?
Dalida Kozlic: The public
perception has changed completely. First of all, the non-governmental
sector has no institutional power whatsoever. These are true NGOs,
people who are pointing out what needs to be improved, changed, but also
what is illegal. Citizens need to be aware, that without activists,
animal lovers, associations and citizens who just feed the strays, there
would be up to 50% more dogs on the streets in certain areas. Can some
citizens grasp that the law has clearly stated the responsibilities,
obligations and competences to resolve this problem are the government's
jurisdiction, while the animal lovers and associations actually do the
government's job?
We are the victims of emotional blackmail, since our
only choice is to either take a dog or to leave him to the authorities
for better or worse. If I say that I have 120 dogs under my care, what
do the citizens think happens if I set them all free? On paper,
everybody supports a united state of Bosnia and Hercegovina, but as soon
as a part of the civil community promotes execution of a STATE law,
then that civil community is made responsible for the problem they are,
in fact, trying to solve. When in a meeting Dino Konakovic (prime
minister of the Sarajevo Canton – translator's note) says that he
"couldn't care less about a state law", he basically says, that he is
above the state, that he can do anything he likes. This is called a coup
d'état. When associations and activists demand the law to be executed,
then we are called crooks and liars, that we wish that there are dogs on
the streets etc.… The citizens have to learn to demand that the laws be
executed.
We demand that. And if I say "we", I mean every decent animal
lover who does not want their money to be spent on bloodshed and
finance crime.
Tacno: How can we solve the problem today? Can the
issue of abandoned animals today, seven years after the enactment of
the law, be solved just by executing this law?
Dalida Kozlic:
When the number of the dogs on the streets increases, it is always and
only the direct consequence of the behavior of irresponsible dog owners.
Also, it is the consequence of the authorities' failure to take
preventive measures foreseen by the law: by not penalizing owners who
abandon their dogs, by not enforcing full identification of ownership,
by not following through with spaying and neutering projects and
vaccinations. The authorities have failed to systematically mark the
abandoned dogs, and failed to carry out education and information
campaigns which should have raised public awareness about the causes of
the problem. The mentioned law has determined a very clear and decided
system how to solve the problem of abandoned dogs.
The first legal
obligation is to provide shelters with the goal of accommodating the
animals until adoption. The modus operandi are described in the
Regulation about forming shelters and the conditions that need to be
fulfilled by the shelters for abandoned animals in Bosnia and
Hercegovina.
The second legal obligation in the system is the
registration of pets. Until the construction of the shelters is
finished, the municipalities can help with food for the abandoned
animals, and of course they are obliged to spay and neuter the abandoned
animals as prescribed by law. Should the shelters, which are supposed
to be "centers for adoption and medical aid for abandoned animals", be
built and maintained in accordance with the public regulations, and as
long the shelters are managed professionally, the costs will not be
huge. With a good information campaign and by raising public awareness,
the number of adoptions will increase.
Tacno: To what extent are
the dogs in our society stigmatized because of the neglect by the local
administration and the responsible institutions, as well as because of
the unprofessional journalistic reporting?
Dalida Kozlic: People
are afraid of dogs; dogs are the subject of discussion and debate.
Meanwhile we are one of the poorest and the most miserable country in
the whole of Europe, so the deprived people take their frustration out
on those who cannot protect themselves. Dogs are a channel for the anger
people should feel towards those who are responsible for the way we
live today. Dogs have become public enemy number one and the lightning
rod for a society which suffers from all kinds of problems. If this
society thinks about how to kill as many dogs as possible rather than
how to make a living, here the problem starts. We are a psychopathic
society that suffers from mass aggression and a society that has
misdirected its aggression.
