Milan Blagojevic, former advisor to the Chairwoman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Zeljka Cvijanovic(SNSD) and professor of constitutional law, commented on the latest developments in the Armed Forces of BiH (AFBiH).
Namely, the Minister of Defense of BiH, Zukan Helez (SDP), recently ordered that the President of Republika Srpska (RS)Milorad Dodik (SNSD), RS Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic(SNSD), and the President of the National Assembly of RS (NARS) Nenad Stevandic (United Srpska) be banned from entering the premises and facilities of the Third Infantry Regiment of RS.
Generals of AFBiH of Serb ethnicity reacted to Helez’s order, and Blagojevic, in a column titled “Generals, it’s not quite as you think”, addressed the following statement of theirs:
“In accordance with the Law on Defense of BiH, all organizational, administrative, and command authorities of the minister fall under the supreme command and control of the Presidency of BiH, and not under the individual actions of the minister.”
For Blagojevic, this is an indicator that the generals either do not know the Law well enough or that they do not want to state what is written in Article 13 of the Law, which Helez, he reminded, referenced.
He pointed out that the aforementioned article of the Law stipulates that the Ministry of Defense independently, without its competencies being under the supreme command and control of the Presidency, enacts acts to regulate the organization and management of regiments, their commands, and personnel. It was also noted that such a law was voted for, as he stated, by Serb representatives and delegates in the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH (PABiH).
“They assigned solely the Minister of Defense of BiH the authority to himself alone, without prior control, approval, and command of the Presidency of BiH, as well as without the consent of his deputies, to enact all acts, which includes issuing orders since orders are by-laws,” he adds.
He also pointed out that nowhere in the Law on Defense is it prescribed that the minister’s stated competencies are subject to prior control, approval, or consent of the Presidency of BiH, nor to the consent of the deputy ministers of defense. He reminded the dissatisfied generals of another fact.
“When a legal provision is formulated this way, by its content it grants the minister the right to, due to its implementation, deny access to the premises of a regiment to those for whom a warrant has been issued and against whom criminal proceedings are being conducted for the criminal offense of attacking the constitutional order of the state (Dodik, Viskovic, and Stevandic), because each regiment has an obligation, under the Law on Defense, to defend that order,” Blagojevic emphasized.
Given what is prescribed by law, he stated that it is, at the very least, inappropriate for individuals, regardless of who they are, against whom criminal proceedings are being conducted for attacking the constitutional order of BiH, to enter and stay in the premises and facilities of AFBiH. He also quoted Nobel laureate Ivo Andric.
“It is worth pointing this out, not only because of everything previously said, but also because of something that confirms the correctness of the thought of Ivo Andric, who said in his ‘Signs by the Roadside’ that the greatest and most important truths in life are not found all at once, but that we come to the truth incidentally,” he stated.
For him, Andric‘s quote is a confirmation that cases such as Helez’s order, as he stated, bring out the truth about the Serbs.
“About our (lack of) character and inconsistency, the truth that hurts just as only the truth can hurt, and that is that our individuals, and through them we as a people, vote for something in the state parliament because it suits them personally at that moment, but when all that comes due at some point, those same individuals then want it not to apply to them and only to them, which is now what Dodik, Stevandic, and Viskovic want,” he adds.
He believes that these “same individuals, together with many other Serbs,“ are ready to fiercely defend something that is now indefensible, to declare others’ and their own past mistakes as treason, and to lynch Serbs who point out the truth about “them, and thereby about us.“
