“We wear a spare uniform on special occasions, to look decent. I got new boots two years ago. Then I also got work pants, but second-hand. A colleague who retired wore them, and they were spare for him and they were like new. Next year I’m going to retire and maybe someone will inherit them.”
This is how a soldier of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AFBiH) speaks to Radio Free Europe, pointing out the problem with the lack of uniforms.
The AFBiH are in need of new uniforms after the United States (U.S.) stopped long-term donations.
In recent years, the U.S. government has secured the necessary quantities of uniforms through the “Financing of Friendly Foreign Armies” (FMF/FMS) program. The Americans also ensured the use of copyrights on the design (colors and shape of the “pattern”), so the soldiers in BiH wore the same or similar uniforms as some of the American soldiers. BiH bought the rest.
The problem arose after the U.S. Army phased out such designed uniforms.
Namely, the BiH authorities had two options. Change their design and ask the U.S. to secure the copyright for the new design and donate part of the uniforms depending on the goodwill of that country.
Another possibility is that BiH keeps the existing one or makes its own new design and buys clothes for the soldiers from the budget.
The BiH Ministry of Defense has requested that an additional 200 million euros be provided for the AFBiH in the budget for last year for modernization, in addition to around 150 million euros for salaries, food and fuel.
The proposal was rejected in the BiH Presidency by the then member Milorad Dodik, who for years has been against increasing the military budget.
Since 2017, when the Defense Review document and the document on the modernization of the AFBiH were adopted, until today only funds secured through the internal redistribution of money in the Ministry of Defense of BiH have been allocated from the budget of BiH for modernization. The rest are equipment donations, mostly from the U.S., United Kingdom (UK) and Turkey, but also from China, Radio Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
