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Bosnia and Herzegovina - The 1998 Flag Change - Westendorp Comission

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The High Representative of the United Nations issued a press release on the matter this Monday:

OHR Press Statement

Sarajevo, 12 January 1998

The Bonn Peace Implementation Council has invited the High Representative to establish a process leading to a decision on a new flag and symbols if the parties cannot agree on their own by 31 December 1997. With the expiration of this deadline, the High Representative announced his intention to establish an independent commission to propose alternatives for the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as outlined in his statement of 31 December 1997.

The High Representative hereby declares the establishment of the aforementioned independent commission. The members of the commission are as follows; Mr. Mladen Kolobaric, Professor. Nedo Milicevic, Dean. Sado Musabegovic, Professor. Marco Orsolic, Mr. Ranko Risojevic, Mr. Vehid Sehic and Professor. Gajo Sekulic.

The High Representative welcomes the participation of representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina's academic and intellectual community in the implementation of the peace agreement.

The commission shares the sense of urgency of the Peace Implementation Council on adopting a flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At a first informal encounter of the Commission on 10 January, chaired by SDHR Hanns Schumacher, the commission has agreed to submit already by 30 January 1998 its proposition for the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the High Representative.

The High Representative, following appropriate consultations, will then give consideration to the question of which procedure would best ensure that the decision on the adoption of a flag is reached in a fair and democratic manner until 15 February at the latest.

The press release is available at <www.ohr.int/press/p980112a.htm>.
Jan Oskar Engene, 14 January 1998

I continue to inform on all the news regarding the Bosnia-Herzegovina flag. The latest piece of news was given in tonight's evening news of Croatian TV. As Murphy works well, I just left the room when this piece of news was on, so I got it only partially. However, I believe that this would be of your interest also.
It was said that the Westerndorp's commission have come out with three final solutions of the new flag designs, and that they will be given to the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina (if I understood it well) for adoption of one of those. If none would be adopted by the Parliament, it was said that Westerndorp would choose one of them and impose it as the new national flag.
The three proposals where shown quite well - but I was not in good place at the moment to see them well. :-( It seems that all of the three are quite new (that is, they have not been "in the game" before, at least not publicly). All of them seem to have neutral colours, probably deliberately. I'll restrain myself to say anything about them at this moment.
All proposals seem to have been made as 2:3 in proportions. All of them have been made as real flags of polyester (or some other light fabric), and were pinned against the wall (though the sleave for the flagstaff, the usual way of hoisting flags here, was clearly visible).
Zeljko Heimer, 27 January 1998

The news report I mentioned is from ONASA (Oslobodjenje News Agency Sarajevo), ONASA reported yesterday the following on the flag:

Three proposals given for Bosnian flag; OHR

SARAJEVO, January 26 (ONASA) - An independent commission under the patronage of the Office of the High Representative (OHR