The introductory speaker of the session of ‘Krug 99’ (Circle 99) on the topic “Realistic position of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in international relations” was Zlatko Hadzidedic, political scientist, and professor of international relations.
Hadzidedic pointed out that the events in BiH cannot be understood without a dimension that would include international relations and forces operating in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
He says the key to understanding relations with BiH is the Lisbon Conference of February 1992, when Lord Carrington and Portuguese diplomat Cutileiro first proposed dividing BiH into ethnic territories.
”Negotiations were held in Lisbon, and no one asked where those maps came from. I would conclude that this is an intelligence operation that came from outside,” Hadzidedic states.
The Lisbon conference began a mutual counting of who lives where and whether they live in the right territory, where who will rule, and since then tensions have begun.
”Tensions begin only after it was visualized that there were ethnic majorities in the territories and that they could be rounded off, and made absolute,” he further explains.
Hadzidedic believes that in Lisbon, they discussed how to make this ethnic division official and how ethnic leaders should share it with each other.
”The European Community has done something unthinkable from the point of view of political and legal theory. The basic principle is that sovereignty is indivisible and non-transferable. In Lisbon, the sovereignty of the state of BiH was divided, and then transferred to three ethnic leaders, they were given ethnic territories and they were allowed to be sovereign,” is the position of political scientist Hadzidedic.
He believes that the war was only the realization of the maps from Lisbon, those who did not belong to the territories from the maps in Lisbon were expelled or killed.
He warns that within European structures there was probably a draft from the 1980s or early 1990s to complete the great-power projects of Greater Serbia, Greater Albania, Greater Croatia, and Greater Bulgaria and that BiH and North Macedonia were destined to disappear.
Namely, he adds that the European Union (EU) is in a position to further weaken the sovereignty of the state of BiH, and strengthen the quasi-sovereignty of ethnic leaders and ethnic communities.
Also, he believes that the idea of rewarding Serbia has been a constant since the beginning of the 19th century. At that time, there was an idea that Serbia should be the Lord of the Balkans. That idea has not changed for 200 years, no matter what Europe pretends to be, those ideas are still present.
”The image is often created that Russia is behind Serbia, we must beware of Russia and fly into the arms of Europe. Russia has never been present in the Balkans, that is for the first time it is now present in a certain way through the agreement between Merkel and Putin and influence in Serbia,” said the introductory speaker of the Krug 99 session, Zlatko Hadzidedic.
His position is that the danger comes from the side from where they have been delivering us the idea for 200 years that a Greater Serbia should be our master. Yugoslavia was created with the idea of it being an enlarged Serbia. The Communists reduced this idea to a reasonable level and created republics.
”The idea of ethnically clean territories is a constant that must be taken into account. One should not unreservedly strive for an EU that has not brought anything good. Some means were coming but above all harmful ideas,” says Hadzidedic on the role of the EU in BiH.
He also warns that Milorad Dodik and Dragan Covic have the support of the EU for their ideas because if it were not so, they would have been removed a long time ago, but that their survival means that they satisfy someone’s interests.
Hadzidedic concluded that the only resistance is to take the position that BiH is a sovereign state, to return sovereignty to the hands of citizens, and not to run into the embrace of Europe, which took away that sovereignty back in Lisbon, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
