MUSEUM DEDICATED TO IZETBEGOVIC

The chairman of Bosnia’s tripartite state Presidency, Zeljko Komsic, opened a museum dedicated to the life and work of the late Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic in Sarajevo, marking the fourth anniversary of his death. The Alija Izetbegovic Museum was opened in the old city’s gates, built during the Ottoman rule in Bosnia, near the Kovaci Memorial Cemetery, where Izetbegovic is buried. The exhibition in the museum, according to the director of the Sarajevo city’s museums, Amra Madzarevic, would be showing both Izetbegovic’s private and political life. A history of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Muslim-dominated army and Izetbegovic’s military role would be exhibited in a special part of the museum, including the books written by Bosnia’s first president. Izetbegovic died in Sarajevo on October 19, 2003 after long illness. He was Bosnia-Herzegovina’s first president after the country became independent from the former Yugoslav federation in the early ‘90s. Izetbegovic led the country from 1990 to 2000, when he withdrew from the presidency due to his illness and age.