The President of the RS, Milorad Dodik, is not giving up on the unconstitutional laws that prohibit the operation of state institutions. He has called on all Serbs to leave the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to obey the laws. The directors and deputy directors of state agencies from the Republika Srpska accepted the invitation to the meeting, and then welcomed Dodik’s move. There are also those who choose professionalism over Dodik’s personal interests. The Head of the Cabinet of the Presidency of the HJPC of BiH, Marjana Popović, publicly refused and recommended that Dodik, if he is dissatisfied with the verdict, resolve the matter before the competent judicial institutions, Federalna writes.
Never less state and never greater divisions. First, we divided ourselves by entities, cantons, regions, nationality, ethnicity, political and social ideologies. And that seems not to be enough. We also got new divisions. Into patriots and traitors. Into patriots and guardians of one people and those other traitors of their own kind, mercenaries and all the other epithets that Milorad Dodik particularly likes to use these days. He is guided by the saying “the state is me”, or in his case the entity, he wants to attribute his verdict to an entire nation. Many rejected calls, the last one sent to all Serbs working in state institutions to leave their jobs. The ultimatum is clear: either they will listen to Dodik or they will be publicly lynched.
“They got those jobs not because they are Einsteins, not because they are experts, but because they are Serbs. If they stay there, we will record them as permanent traitors to our people and we will announce it on public noticeboards wherever we can, in the media and everywhere. And we will not tolerate betrayal, this is a moment in which betrayal cannot be politics, just as lies cannot be politics”, Dodik said.
Blackmail, threats and attacks, also, cannot be politics. If he is serious in his intentions – not one, but two meetings with the directors and deputy directors of state agencies from the RS were enough. One in Banja Luka, the other today in East Sarajevo. We called Žarko Laketa, the director of the Service for Foreigners’ Affairs, who attended the first one. He briefly told us that he did not want to get involved in political issues, but said: everything is as the president said. SIPA director Darko Ćulum had the same answer. The holders of public office allowed the SNSD to speak on their behalf:
“A very clear assessment is that all directors who come from the ranks of the Serb people from the RS and their deputies have absolutely no dilemma: full implementation of the decisions of all competent RS institutions, commitment to RS policies until the end,” said Staša Košarac, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH (SNSD).
Dodik promised higher salaries for those who obey, but neither he nor anyone from the government explained how such a thing was planned to be financed, from what, or rather whose, money? Nor where these people would work. As long as the delegates and representatives obey Dodik’s instructions, there are still about 6,000 members of the Serb people working in the administration of state institutions.
“In the RS, they have no control over the people who work in the administration in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is why they are moving towards a kind of pressure. Since there is no obedience, now we are going to create a climate in which people will feel uncomfortable working in these institutions, going to work,” says psychologist Srđan Puhalo.
Whose interests are more important – the people in power and their personal interests or the personal interests of people who do their jobs in state institutions and who live off of it. Dodik is playing on the classic collective pressure of the environment, where individuals will be ostracized from society if they do not comply. Pressure does not work on everyone. The head of the cabinet of the HJPC presidency, Mirjana Popović, had a specific message:
“I got a job in accordance with the legally prescribed procedure in an institution established in accordance with the Law (without any štela). Perhaps my nationality was also important to a certain extent, but without these other categories that I am listing, it would not have helped me get a job. I am not Einstein, but I did graduate and master’s degrees with an average of more than 9 and had 10 years of work experience before I started working in an institution at the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
In the meantime, another invitation has arrived for representatives of the Serbian people, with a different content than Dodik’s. The Coalition of Three Parties (Trojka) parties are calling on employees of state institutions, whose residence is in the RS, to completely and without any fear reject the calls of disoriented politicians to leave their jobs, because Dodik has no jurisdiction for such calls.
