At a commemorative rally on March 24, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO aircraft, Chairman of the Presidium of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Serbian politician Milorad Dodik said that the Republika Srpska does not intend to join the North Atlantic Alliance. The rally, which was attended by Serbian President Alexander Vucic, was held in the city of Niš, which was heavily damaged by the Alliance bombings in spring 1999.

“When they say that Bosnia and Herzegovina will take the path of joining NATO, I say that the Republika Srpska cannot be in NATO and will not be there,” Tass quotes Dodika.

The publication of the Republika Srpska "Glas Srpske" notes the politician's emotional speech.

“When I face demands today that BiH go to NATO, I clearly say that I cannot accept it and will not accept it. I will not accept it because Serbia does not accept it. I will never allow the border to be set on the Drina (the river that separates BiH and Serbia - RT ), ”the Voice of Srpske quotes the chairman of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

  • Milorad Dodik
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Dodik spoke sharply about BiH. In his opinion, this state is “the result of ideology and politics,” which led to the bombing of Serbia.

“The years are coming, decades of the state association of Serbs. I hope that this will become clear to others as well, since there is simply no other way. Why can others have their own state, and the Serbs can not have their own united state? ”- TASS cites the words of Dodik.

The brainchild of Dayton

BiH is a unique state entity, nominally - one, but in practice divided into two parts: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Srpska.

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an association of territories inhabited by Croats and Muslim Bosniacs. Its capital is the city of Sarajevo, which is considered the capital and the whole of BiH. Republika Srpska unites territories dominated by ethnic Serbs. Their capital is the city of Banja Luka.

In two parts of BiH are different authorities. Even the monetary unit, the mark, looks different in the Federation and the Republika Srpska.

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The highest executive body of the country is the presidium. It consists of three people elected from each of the communities, one from Serbs, Croats and Muslim Bosniaks. Each of them, with an interval of eight months, becomes chairman of the presidium. Now it's Milorad Dodik's turn.

Such a management system was established in accordance with the 1995 Dayton Accords. They put an end to the three-year civil war in Bosnia. The same agreements created a special authority with broad powers: the High Representative’s machinery for the implementation of the Dayton Agreements. It is formed from representatives of 43 countries and 13 international organizations following the fulfillment of the conditions of the world.

The powers of the high representative are very broad: for example, he has the right to remove any official of BiH and prohibit the nomination of any person to an elective office. Such a system is called an international protectorate.

Dodik was elected from the Serbs to the presidium at the end of 2018. Prior to that, he was the President of the Republika Srpska for eight years. Despite the fact that he has been in the new post for only three months, Dodik has already managed to make quite a few harsh statements. So, in February, he spoke extremely harshly against the system of international protectorate over BiH.

As reported by Radio and Television of the Republika Srpska, Dodik said that the activities of the high representative, Austrian Valentin Inzko, who has been in office since 2009, led to “complete paralysis of federal agencies in BiH”. Serbian politician called for the abolition of international protectorate.

It should be noted that international officials repeatedly used their authority to remove any official of BiH. For example, in 2003, the then supreme representative of the British Paddy Ashdown forced the resignation of a member of the presidency from the Serbs Marko Sharovic, who in the US was accused of violating the arms embargo in Iraq. Thus, Dodika can be removed. However, Inzko has not made any statements on this matter.

Prospects for joining NATO

George Engelhardt, a researcher at the Department of Contemporary History of Central and South-Eastern Europe, believes that Dodik’s statement is not coordinated with the Serbian authorities: it is a reaction to pressure from representatives of Western countries (the same Incko) that the Presidium has been facing all the time. In an interview with RT, the expert drew attention to the fact that recently NATO has intensified its efforts to include BiH in the alliance. For this, for example, in 2019, the head of the State Department, Mike Pompeo, spoke out.

“The only obstacle to the entry of BiH into NATO is the position of the Serbian part of the country,” Engelhardt says. - Bosniaks and Croats for. Therefore, the Serbian part has the main pressure from the representatives of the alliance. ”

The same opinion is shared by the member of the Senate of the Republika Srpska, Elena Guskova.

“In the referendum on joining NATO, the Republika Srpska will unequivocally oppose it,” she said in an interview with RT.

Elena Guskova draws attention to the fact that Dodik had previously spoken about the need for reunification with Serbia, but only as a historical perspective.

“Reunification declarations have begun to appear more frequently due to the tendencies of the West to completely change the political structure of BiH. The West wants to make a single state without political and territorial entities that exist in the form of the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska. Dodik begins to talk about the prospect of reunification with Serbia, when attempts are made to eliminate these entities and make a united BiH, ”Guskova believes.

Indeed, representatives of the Republika Srpska repeatedly accused Inzko of intending to change the current power structure in the country towards its centralization.

“BiH is decentralized and asymmetric, and this is the key to peace and stability of our state. But the high representative is constantly trying to change this system, ”the current president of the Republic of Serbian Zelka Tsviyanovich stated in an interview with the newspaper Izvestia in October 2018.

Elena Guskova argues that the creation of a unitary or tightly centralized Bosnia has been the strategic goal of the West since the conclusion of the Dayton agreements.

“It was written in the BiH constitution, which was written in the USA,” she recalls.

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These plans were prevented only by the opposition of the Bosnian Serbs, who, according to Guskov, turned out to be “the strongest part of the state” of BiH.

According to Engelhardt, the idea of ​​reunification of the Republika Srpska and Serbia among the Bosnian Serbs is quite popular. Therefore, it cannot be excluded that the pressure of the West will lead to precisely this result.

“If the rights of the Bosnian Serbs are violated, they can try to unite with Serbia,” said Engelhardt, stressing that the reunification is unlikely to go without conflict.

Fate of BiH

The unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina is fragile, experts say. This state, according to Engelhardt, existed for more than 20 years exclusively due to external pressure.

“BiH without external management and recharge would not have lasted so much. If the West loses interest in maintaining this state, it will fall apart very quickly, ”the expert states.

The reason, according to Engelhardt, is that the peoples inhabiting this country regard it — at least in the form in which it exists — as an “inevitable evil.”

Elena Guskova draws attention to the fact that not only BiH, but also all the states of the former Yugoslavia are somehow independent and are under the influence of certain countries and international structures: NATO, the EU, the USA. Therefore, the threat of crushing looms over each of them. The only exceptions are Croatia and Slovenia, which are members of the EU, Guskova says. The situation is particularly turbulent in Macedonia, with its Albanian minority, she believes, and, of course, in Serbia in connection with the separatism of Kosovo. But all these possible political neoplasms, I'm sure Guskova, will not be viable.

"In the region, serious ethnopolitical conflicts have not yet been resolved, which have been driven under the carpet and continue to fester," says Engelhardt.

If the Bosnian Serbs are forced to secede from BiH, the expert believes, the likelihood of other territorial changes in the Balkan Peninsula will increase.