Johns Hopkins University professor from Washington Daniel Serwer assessed that Zagreb and Belgrade want group rights to prevail over individual rights, which would ensure the permanent retention of power for ethnic nationalists in BiH close to the interests of Croatia and Serbia.
He said this at the regular session of the Association of Independent Intellectuals Circle 99 on the topic “What are Serbia and Croatia trying to do in the Balkans?” which was held today in Sarajevo.
Serwer says the primary regional factor is Belgrade, which is trying to create what it now calls a “Serbian world.” He claims that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić wants to control the political fate of Serbs in neighboring countries, and that this includes not only Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also Montenegro, as well as Kosovo.
“In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vučić has someone in RS President Milorad Dodik who is partly a proxy and partly a rival. Belgrade supports Dodik’s efforts to separate the Serbs from the Sarajevo government. But they will not want Dodik to fulfill his ambition of declaring independence,” he said.
He emphasized that this would put Serbia in a difficult position.
“Unable to recognize the Republika Srpska for fear of European and American reaction, Vučić will not allow Dodik to overcome his ethno-nationalism and request the annexation of the Republika Srpska to Serbia,” he said.
In addition, he added, Vučić is getting closer and closer to Dodik as he increasingly moves in the orbit of Russia and China.
“Preventing successful democratic governance in BiH and obstructing its path to Europe is Vučić’s goal. Dodik serves that purpose well, until he crosses the last mile,” he said.
Speaking about Croatia, Serwer said that Zagreb’s goal is not secession but a third entity.
“Zagreb wants to control all political representation of Croats within Bosnia and Herzegovina. The irony is that the Bosnian Croats did not ask for a third entity in Dayton, because they concluded a better result: half of the Federation and one third of the state,” he added.
Serwer says that they failed to use the situation politically and are now trying to use the high representative to achieve their maximalist political goals.
“His election decisions favored the ambitions of Zagreb. He ignored the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights that oppose group rights, such as Sejdić-Finci and the example of Kovačević,” he explained.
Serwer also said that at the same time, the high representative became persona non grata with Milorad Dodik, opposing Dodik’s efforts to disable Sarajevo’s authority over Republika Srpska.
“The failure of the international community to effectively respond to that challenge risks undermining the role of the Office of the High Representative and ending any hope that it can play a constructive role in breaking the group rights that plague Bosnian politics,” Professor Serwer concluded in his presentation, Fena reports.
