In Banja Luka, billboards were placed in the inner city center indicating the administrative line between the two entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as a border, with the message “The border exists” and photos of the Gendarmerie of the Republika Srpska (RS).
The billboards were put up fifteen days after protests called “The border exists” were held in several cities in that entity, and after the Court of BiH confirmed the indictment against the president of the RS Milorad Dodik and Milos Lukic, acting director of the Official Gazette of the RS. They are criminally accused of not implementing the decisions of the High Representative in BiH.
It is not clear who put up the billboards. Radio Free Europe (RSE) tried to contact the organizers of the “The border exists” protest to find out if they are behind the billboards in Banja Luka, but they did not respond to the call.
Advisor to the President of the RS Milorad Dodik, Radovan Kovacevic, was also not available for a statement.
According to the Constitution of BiH, there is no border between the entities of the RS and the Federation of BiH (BiH), but rather an administrative line of demarcation.
What’s on the billboards?
One of the billboards shows a member of the RS Ministry of Internal Affairs gendarmerie and a gendarmerie company marching with weapons with the message “Because we don’t give up our jurisdiction.” Below is the text that “130 jurisdictions have been transferred to BiH“.
After displaying billboards and protests entitled “The border exists”, on September 18th the Office of the High Representative (OHR) announced on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that the Constitutional Court of BiH considered the constitutionality of the term “border” in the Constitution of the RS in January in 2000 and concluded that the term was unconstitutional.
The OHR states that the contested article of the RS Constitution was amended so that the term “border” was replaced by the term “inter-entity demarcation line”.
“There is no state border between the entities. There is freedom of movement throughout BiH. BiH and the entities will not hinder the full freedom of movement of persons, goods, services and capital throughout BiH. No entity will carry out controls on the demarcation line between the entities,” they said, Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
