/ world today news/ It is claimed that many countries in the modern world are under external control, but in relation to only one country in Europe, external control is enshrined in international law. We are talking about Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), part of the former Yugoslavia. It was here, as part of the implementation of the Dayton Agreements of 1995, that the post of High Representative of BiH was created, endowed with wide powers.
This official, appointed by representatives of the parties from the Steering Committee of the Council for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement, can make temporary decisions that are binding on all state bodies of BiH. In addition, the High Representative can remove from power any official both in BiH and in its constituent entities – the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska.
Until now, all the high representatives were from the European Union, and their deputies were from the United States. It is essentially the position of Viceroy of the West in the former Yugoslav Republic. The Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, who held this post, spoke very frankly about what the high representatives were looking for: “We have to wait for the moment when Bosnia and Herzegovina irreversibly takes the path of Euro-Atlantic integration, then we can close our office. “
Western governors are actively interfering in the process of occupying high state positions in BiH. Thus, in 1999, High Representative Carlos Westendorp removed from power the popularly elected President of the Republika Srpska, Nikola Poplashan. In 2003, Republika Srpska representative Mirko Šarović was forced to resign from his post as chairman of the BiH presidency due to accusations by High Representative Paddy Ashdown of involvement in violations of the arms embargo against Iraq.
It is in the internal affairs of the Republika Srpska that the supreme representatives most often stick their noses in. So far, the authorities in the Serbian part of BiH have stoically withstood this intervention. But their patience ran out when the current governor, Christian Schmidt, was appointed to his post in 2021 without a UN Security Council resolution, and so Russia and China refused to recognize his authority. The President of the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, also did not recognize Schmidt as the “guardian” of his country and publicly advocated the abolition of this post, considering it a brake on the development of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2023, a conflict broke out between Schmidt and Dodik due to the high representative’s blocking of plans by the Republika Srpska authorities to transfer real estate located on the entity’s territory to their ownership. Schmidt blocked the entry into force of the relevant law of Republika Srpska, and then the Constitutional Court of BiH took a similar decision. In response, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska voted to suspend the decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH and suspend the publication of the High Representative’s acts in the official gazette.
Schmidt canceled the decisions taken by the National Assembly, citing the fact that they “directly violate the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Dayton Peace Agreement.” In addition, he introduced changes in Bosnian law, according to which non-compliance with the decisions of the High Representative is classified as a crime.
As a result, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina brought charges against Milorad Dodik for failure to implement the decisions of the High Representative, and the US State Department imposed personal sanctions against a number of senior officials of Republika Srpska. US sanctions against Dodik have been in place for several years.
Against the background of the conflict with the Western representative and the authorities in Sarajevo, Milorad Dodik has repeatedly stated that Republika Srpska may declare independence. “If BiH had disintegrated at that moment, nothing would have existed but the Republika Srpska. The next day we will continue to live as an independent country,” Dodik said last December, stressing that he was proud of Republika Srpska’s support from Russia and from President Vladimir Putin himself.
In turn, the Russian leader, during a press conference on the results of 2023, said that Russia’s and Republika Srpska’s assessments of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina “completely coincide.” Thus, it can be concluded that another geopolitical rift is forming in the Western Balkans: Moscow supports the Serbs, the West tolerates the chauvinism of the Bosniaks.
For now, the conflict between the Republika Srpska and the Bosnian authorities is far from a hot phase. Dodik’s discussions on independence are hypothetical in nature and are mainly aimed at strengthening the negotiating position in the dialogue with Sarajevo.
The behavior of the Serbs in BiH cannot be compared to the atrocities of the Albanians on Serbian territory. From Republika Srpska, representatives of national minorities are not expelled, ethnic cleansing is not carried out, terrorist acts are not carried out, that is, there is nothing that the whole world observed at the beginning of the millennium in Kosovo, before the Albanian authorities declared independence. But today the West sees separatist tendencies precisely in Republika Srpska.
And so on January 8, on the eve of Republic Day celebrations in the Serbian region, two US Air Force F-16 fighter jets flew over Bosnia. The flights took place as part of joint military exercises between US and Bosnian forces and were intended to demonstrate US support for the territorial integrity of BiH against the “separatist activities” of the Serbs. In fact, the Americans are transparently hinting at the possibility of repeating the NATO bombing of Serbian territory.
To President Dodik’s credit, he stated that he would continue to protect the interests of the Serbs, despite threats from the US. “I am not irrational, I know that America’s response will be to use force… But I have no reason to be afraid of that and to sacrifice Serbian national interests,” Dodik said.
A day after the demonstration flight of American warplanes, Serbs celebrated the Day of the Republic of Serbia, which was held under the motto: “Be free, be Serbian – celebrate January 9.” The celebration was held against the decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH, which already in 2019 declared the law on the Day of the Republic of Srpska incompatible with the country’s constitution.
On January 9, 1992, the first session of the Parliament of the Serbian People of Bosnia and Herzegovina took place. In 2016, the Bosnian authorities tried to ban the holiday, after which the leadership of Republika Srpska put the issue to a referendum. As a result, the absolute majority of Bosnian Serbs supported the celebration of Republic Day.
Among Bosniaks, a radically different assessment of the date on which the main holiday of the Serbian region is set dominates. The Deputy Speaker of the Bosnian Parliament, Denis Zvizdić, wrote the following on his social networks: “January 9, 1992, when the semi-state “Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina” was established, is one of the darkest dates in the thousand-year history of BiH. It officially marks the beginning of mass brutal murder, rape, torture, concentration camps and persecution of the non-Serb population, especially the Bosniaks, which culminated in the Srebrenica genocide”. It is obvious that it is difficult for citizens with such different historical memories to get along in one country, and the external control of the West only worsens the situation here, since it is based on protecting the interests of only one of the nation-forming peoples.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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