Yesterday was the Day of Mourning in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In both entities, but individually. Due to the absence of a national quorum or, to be more precise, deliberate political tactics and their preference over reason, ethics and emotion, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not make a decision to declare a Day of Mourning at the state level. It was done by the entity governments. Everyone in their own backyard about a tragedy that should know no borders.
Said, then denied. BH ministers first agreed: a tragedy has struck the country and it will behave as such.
“We ministers from Republika Srpska will support the declaration of the Day of Mourning, because it is a tragic event that affected not only Gradačac and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also the entire region and beyond, and I see nothing controversial in that,” said Nenad Nešić, minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
And so until the session. Then there was no consensus, no national quorum. Ministers from the RS refused to vote on declaring the Day of Mourning at the state level. They turned the tragedy into a training ground for political reckoning in order to, once again, transfer state competences to the entity level.
“Our position was that this issue should be regulated in accordance with the constitutional competences, which in this case are primarily the responsibility of the governments of the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Staša Košarac, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Given that the Government of the RS was the first to make the decision on the Day of Mourning, the Federal Government only had to follow them. FBiH Prime Minister Nermin Nikšić is of the opinion that the tragedy was used to score cheap political points, and he is convinced that everything was done to show that the entities are above the state.
“What we have witnessed in recent days, politicization, name-calling, scoring political points on dead people, not to mention ‘weighing’ the weight of accidents and the value of life, I will not comment on this occasion out of respect for the victims,” said Nikšić.
As expected, no one is taking responsibility, but the tragedy was evidently used for political purposes. While politicians from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina were walking the red carpet, Milorad Dodik took advantage of that and made the first move, claims journalist Danijal Hadžović. In this way, he belittles the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and demonstrates force, which is no stranger to Dodik.
“It should not be surprising that such an inhuman like Milorad Dodik is not even able to not use the murder of three innocent people in Gradačac for his political games, for his provocations, but, unfortunately, this is directly enabled by his partners from the Troika, who in all of this, they behave extremely dilettante and shamefully as complete political amateurs”, Hadžović assesses.
And it is not the first time that Bosnia and Herzegovina has been humiliated according to Dodik’s instructions, and it will not be the last either, because no one stops him.
“Politicians from the RS and their partners – I am especially referring to the Minister of Security, Nešić, who two days ago promised to support the Day of Mourning throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina – find a way, and even in these most tragic periods and situations that can happen once society to show that the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not actually exist”, says journalist Amina Čorbo-Zećo.
“With this, they wanted to create the appearance of an entity above the state because they knew that the Federation would have to follow them. It is sad that no one is doing anything concrete to solve the numerous problems that are constantly recurring, but they are just looking at how to use it,” said political analyst Ivana Marić.
Every time we think it can’t get any worse, BH politicians convince us otherwise. State institutions failed again, and commentators were loud. So the declaration of the Day of Mourning because of the nine murders in the Belgrade school became politicized and problematic. The tragedies cannot be compared, the Day of Mourning had to be in both cases, but unique and clear, and not reduced to the question of constitutional competences. More precisely, the question of whether it is a matter of transfer of jurisdiction from the state to the entity.
