The government is dealing with national politics instead of socio-economic ones. After the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska amended the Law on the Implementation of Decisions of the Commission for the Protection of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina and deleted the phrase Bosnia and Herzegovina from this name, opportunities are opening up for further collapse of the state and strategic action of Dodik’s policy. This time, the controversial changes were supported by three SDP representatives in the RS National Assembly. Why?
At the last session of the RS National Assembly, the Law on Amendments to the Law on the Implementation of Decisions of the Commission for the Protection of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina was adopted. The new decision deletes the term “Bosnia and Herzegovina”, and automatically characterizes national monuments only as entity monuments and places them under the jurisdiction of the RS Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and Ecology:
“In the Law on the Implementation of Decisions of the Commission for the Protection of National Monuments Established in Accordance with Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Article 2, paragraph 1, after the word ‘monument’, the words ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina’ are deleted.”
The deputies adopted the amendments almost unanimously. Interestingly, the deputies from the SDP were also in favor of deleting the term Bosnia and Herzegovina: Andrea Gajić, Saša Grbić and Mirsad Duratović. They did not see anything controversial in this. On the contrary, they welcomed the decision under the justification that they were respecting the Dayton Agreement.
“That was a harmonization with Annex 8 of the Dayton Agreement. Someone who negotiated, harmonized and signed the Dayton Agreement in Annex 8 stated that the commission was called the Commission for the Protection of National Monuments, and throughout Annex 8, national monuments are not treated, that is, there is no mention of the ‘national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina’,” says Mirsad Duratović, a representative of the Movement for the State in the National Assembly of the RS (SDP).
The name Bosnia and Herzegovina divided the former coalition partners – the Movement for the State. Each has its own version of defending the integrity of the state. Some deal with the essence, others with the sacred letter of the constitution. Under the guise of respecting the Dayton Agreement, space is being opened for it to be rendered meaningless. Deleting the term Bosnia and Herzegovina from all legal and by-laws in the entity of Republika Srpska is actually fulfilling the goals set out in the resolution at the All-Serbian Parliament, warns independent representative in the National Assembly of the RS Ramiz Salkić:
“The aim is to prevent the decisions of the Commission for the Protection of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina from being directly applicable in this entity. The ministry and the competent inspectorates are left with the opportunity to assess, evaluate and, probably, change the decisions of the Commission for the Protection of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina in such a way that no national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina can exist in this entity.”
The entity, not the Commission for the Protection of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, decides on amendments to the law on measures to protect national monuments. Incidentally, as the SDP representatives stated in their explanation for the vote, the term “Bosnia and Herzegovina” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but this is because the Commission initially played the role of a non-governmental organization, not a state institution. Regardless, the Commission’s decisions are binding in both entities.
“The member from RS, throughout her work in the Commission, for the last three or four years, has worked towards interpreting Annex 8 of the Dayton Agreement, stating that the Commission is a name without Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that it only proclaims a national monument, and does not provide protection measures, and that all of this is the obligation of the entity,” points out Faruk Kapidžić, a member of the Commission for the Protection of National Monuments of BiH.
In attempting to derogate state institutions, the RS National Assembly is only showing its own crisis, and is not doing anything essential to help the residents of this entity, experts conclude. Nationalism will not feed the hungry and warm the cold.
“I understand that here, simply, our entire mind, including politics, is quite nationalized, as if it were a kind of infection of that nationalism. For God’s sake, all of this is located on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is a state that is fragile in many aspects from a political perspective, but a state that is proud and has it on its territory. These attempts are tragicomic,” says Pavle Mijović, a professor at the Catholic Theological Faculty of UNSA.
National monuments remain Bosnia and Herzegovina as long as they are on its soil, the laws will not remove them. They are witnesses of time and government, of those who built them and tried to tear them down.
