For half a year, the European Union (EU) has been ignoring or pretending not to see how serious the president of the SNSD and the man sitting in the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Milorad Dodik, is in his secessionist intentions through an attempt to overthrow state institutions.
Since July 23rd, when former High Representative Valentin Inzko passed amendments to the BiH Criminal Code, which provides for the punishment of denial of genocide and other war crimes, as well as a ban on glorifying war criminals, Milorad Dodik, followed by the Republika Srpska (RS) government, has intensified its policy of secessionism through the annulment of state laws and the creation of parainstitutions.
At first, the announcement of the blockade of the state was assessed as Dodik’s temporary whim, so relaxation was announced in the fall, after the holidays. And none of that happened. Dodik only intensified anti-state activities and concretized everything through the National Assembly of the RS, which at the end of 2021 passed conclusions on withdrawal from key state institutions and the formation of parallel entities within six months.
All that was not enough for those who have a mandate in BiH to react. Instead, we listened to the story of how worried they are, how they condemn such a policy and call for an agreement in BiH institutions. Only yesterday, after nationalist savagery and brutal threats and insults in Gacko, Foca, and Prijedor, the EUharshly condemned the negative and inflammatory rhetoric that provokes divisions, which the leaders of RS used during the January 9th celebrations.
For the first time, they targeted those who threaten the stability and prosperity of our country.
“If the situation worsens, the EU has a wide range of tools at its disposal, including the existing EU sanctions framework and a review of overall EU assistance,” it was concluded in the response.
However, the question arises as to why playing with the state has been tolerated for so long. What does a citizen, a returnee of non-Serb nationality, from Prijedor or Foca, to whom someone sings under the window how the “bloody Drina” will flow or songs of thanks to war criminal Ratko Mladic, gets from the messages of concern by a bureaucrat.
What would a worried diplomat say if he met a frightened and upset returnee in Janja who is listening to shots around hishouse? Would you try to calm him down by saying that he is worried and that he is tirelessly calling for dialogue and returning to BiH institutions? Is the international community waiting for an eventual incident that is being provoked? Why is it necessary today, in 2022, to scream so much to emphasize that celebrating war criminals is an uncivilized, inhumane act that makes citizens afraid.
It is one thing to be worried in Sarajevo, to be a worried diplomat on a mandate in Sarajevo, and it’s different to be a frightened returnee somewhere in the RS and fear a threat or provocation when you go to the store. Fear that for a holiday some nationalist will shoot in the air again, and in the streets shout words of praise to the criminals and all that as you look towards the fields where mass graves were found.
E.Dz.
Source: Klix.ba
