Bosnian Academy of Sciences and Arts “Kulin Ban”: Republika Srpska is the biggest mistake of the international community
An open letter to US President Joseph Biden:
Dear Mr. President,
This year, on November 21st, is 26 years since the initialing of the Dayton Peace Agreement that stopped the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the suffering of all its citizens. We, Bosnians, are especially grateful to the US government for that agreement that restored peace in our country.
However, because of the unfortunate solutions, most notably the creation of the parastate Republic Srpska (i.e. Republika Srpska) which in Dayton took the form of one of two entities, become rewarded for its horrific crimes. During the war, its military forces and police throughout their controlled area, inspired by the ideology of ‘Greater Serbia’ led by Milosevic, committed genocide in and around Srebrenica.
Mr. President, Bosnia and Herzegovina today is in great danger of its disappearance, and the resumption of military conflicts is not ruled out. We believe that after all the crimes that were committed on behalf of the entity of Republic Srpska, it has no right to exist. Indeed, without the entity of Republic Srpska we will be witnessing today a cohesive and prosperous multi-ethnic, multicultural and multireligious Bosnia and Herzegovina, as it was for centuries – a country of all Bosnian people – Muslims, Christians and Jews, and other minority groups.
We can accept that at the time of the Dayton negotiations not much was known about developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but since 1995, through the court proceedings conducted by both Hague tribunals, the world could see what was done in the name of creating the entity of Republic Srpska. The almost complete political and military leadership of the Republic Srpska has been sentenced altogether for more than a thousand years of imprisonment, a number of them to life sentences for horrible crimes committed, many thousands of Bosnian non-Serb civilians killed, close to a million Bosnian non-Serbs expelled due to ethnic cleansing from the area under the control of the army and police of the entity of Republic Srpska, tens of thousands of raped Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), over 500 mass graves, almost all religious buildings of Bosnian Muslims and Catholics were destroyed, including 534 mosques and over 170 Catholic churches. There were also numerous torture camps against innocent civilians with such inhumane conditions resembling on time of Hitler’s Fascism. Importantly, on February 26, the International Court of Justice in the Hague 2007 condemned the genocide in and around the city of Srebrenica committed against innocent Bosniak civilians.
Mr. President, your words a few years ago that there was no civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the planned genocide, still resonates in the ears of the Bosnian people. We greatly appreciate your support for the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina and all its people regardless of their ethnicities, creeds, culture, or traditions. We believe that nowadays you, as the President of the US, the most powerful country on the planet, and among the most influential world leaders would be able to improve the serious mistake in the Dayton Peace Agreement, the mistake also acknowledged by the main creator of that agreement, Mr. Richard Holbrooke – it is the formation of the Republic Srpska as one of the two entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The protagonists of the Greater Serbia policy that led to the war never gave up on their goals precisely because their criminal policy was rewarded by winning the entity of Republic Srpska. Even now that same policy is continued by Mr. Milorad Dodik, a Serbian leader of the entity Republic Srpska and a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, threatening the integrity of a thousand-year-old Bosnian and Herzegovina.
Until the Dayton Peace Agreement, the entity of Republic Srpska was a parastate in whose name the greatest crimes on European soil since the end of World War II were committed. An attempt by the international community to make a painful compromise in Dayton, in which there will be the entity of Republic Srpska within the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina proved to be a complete failure, especially after Mr. Dodik’s destructive policy to unconstitutionally take away the competencies of the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Republic Srpska became a carcinogenic tissue on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina trying to destroy it. Mr. Dodik denies Bosnia and Herzegovina calling it a ‘phantom’ state made, as a mistake, by the international community. He currently advocates an ‘independent entity of Republic Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina in order that in subsequent times creates an independent Republic Srpska as a new state. Seeking an independent entity within the internationally recognized country such as what Mr. Dodik is doing on behalf of the entity of Republic Srpska in the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is an unknown category in any legal system of modern states.
Mr. President, we, Bosnians, would like to stress that we are fully committed to opposing such a destructive development against Bosnia and Herzegovina by Mr. Dodik and his entity’s government. We also ask you to stop such an entity secession from the state of Bosnian and Herzegovina believing you have the power to help Bosnia and Herzegovina and correct the historical injustice.
Mr. President, your profound speeches for the past three decades dedicated to Bosnia and Herzegovina also, resonate throughout the world. Please convene a new international conference in the US for Bosnia and Herzegovina, supporting us for a modern and functional state in which there will be no entity divisions but an integral society of all Bosnian Herzegovinian citizens. If you do it, history will remember you forever.
With great respect and very best wishes,
BANUK “Kulin ban”
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