In March, when the Government of Republika Srpska (RS)announced that it was terminating cooperation with the embassies of the U.S. and Great Britain in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the U.S. was implementing projects worth 11 million dollars in the RS. The U.S. has invested more than two billion dollars in BiH since 1995, of which 638 million dollars, about one third, is in RS, the U.S. Embassy in BiH announced.
The text mentions some of the projects in the RS, the realization of which was helped by the U.S., such as the infrastructure in which that country invested 113 million dollars.
The U.S. also helped the RS public administration sector, creating local government contact centers, through technical assistance, training and grants to small and medium-sized enterprises, providing external services in the IT sector, wood and metal processing. The Embassy’s announcement states that the U.S. helped the tourism of the RS during the adoption of the Tourism Development Strategy.
The U.S. also supported the opening of centers for the most vulnerable categories of the population in Banja Luka, Foca and Trebinje, and after the floods in 2014, almost five million dollars were invested in the construction of 75 houses in Doboj, Samac, Bratunac and Bijeljina. In addition, the U.S. provided assistance to farmers and provided grants for starting businesses for marginalized women from 20 municipalities. The Government of RS has terminated cooperation with the U.S. and Great Britain embassies in BiH, stating that it was “forced” to do so because those embassies “work against the RS and interfere in the internal affairs” of BiH.
On Tuesday, RS President Milorad Dodik once again attacked the U.S. Embassy in BiH, saying that it “works against the interests of the Serbian people”. He said this after handing over the keys to the apartments for fifty refugees and displaced persons, for the construction of which, along with other donor countries, the U.S. Government invested 24 million euros.
Dodik did not mention those donors, and then the European Union (EU) Delegation in BiH announced that it was about the Regional Housing Program (RHP), which aims to provide homes for thousands of displaced persons.
“Of the 294 million euros allocated to RHP, the EuropeanCommission provided 81 percent. The EU member states and other international donors provided the rest,” stated the EU Delegation in BiH.
Dodik: The U.S. Embassy in BiH could also add up the damage that the U.S. caused to the RS
The President of RS, Milorad Dodik, said yesterday that the U.S.Embassy in BiH could add up the damage that the U.S. has caused to RS from 1995 to today, assessing that it certainly exceeds the amount stated as aid and investment in infrastructure many times over.
“We would be more grateful to them if they had not donated even a dollar, and if they had behaved politically correctly in BiH,” Dodik wrote on Twitter in reference to a Radio Free Europe report in which it was stated that from 1995 until today, the U.S. has invested 638 million dollars to the RS through various projects. The President of RS stated that “tens of thousands of lives were given just for the property of RS, which they are now trying to steal”.
