Bandić: Our diplomacy has fallen to a minister who doesn't understand what's happening around him!

By: Muamer Bandić

In the seventies of the last century, when a high-level Yugoslav diplomatic delegation visited an Asian country, they presented a series of important issues and demands relevant to both sides at the time, along with recommendations and guidelines for addressing the issues raised.

Surprisingly, the hosts on the other side of the table smiled politely and nodded affirmatively throughout the meeting. Pleased with the ease and positive outcome of the meeting, the guests returned home more than satisfied. However, a painful realization followed. As the meeting was hastily arranged, the delegation had not consulted their local diplomatic representatives before arriving. They later learned that this nod, which in our interpretation meant agreement, actually signifies rejection of everything proposed in the hosts' culture.

Similarly, influencer Konaković, who has strayed into the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, assured the citizens of our country in an interview on May 10 (Sunday): “We have somehow adapted to the new functioning model of the Trump administration and, in my opinion, have stopped Dodik's worst plans.”

He then confidently concluded: “You may have seen it, he had those agreements on supporting secession, removing Schmidt, closing the OHR... We controlled all of that.”

And then, just a day after our esteemed influencer's epic and lyrical self-praise (Monday, May 11), the OHR issued a statement that Christian Schmidt is resigning as High Representative.

To our regret, and likely long-term damage, the lesson from this comparison tells us that our influencer Konaković is not only uninformed and unprepared for upcoming events that are essentially important for the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but is also deceiving the public with fairy tales that he is even doing his job!

A different conclusion simply cannot be drawn when one of Schmidt's 'children' has no idea that the person who brought him to power and who is the international administrator of Bosnia and Herzegovina is leaving!

If he was refuted in his claim on such a crucial issue within 24 hours, we can only guess how much this influencer, who is poorly acting as a minister, knows nothing else?

And it is quite clear that this is precisely the cause of our currently burning political problem, that Bosnian-Herzegovinian diplomacy is in complete disarray. Since the beginning of Konaković's tenure as minister, we have ceased to be an active subject of international events and have become a passive object.

Only a passive object is unaware that its international administrator is leaving. Even prisoners know when the prison warden is changing, and only in Bosnia and Herzegovina does the Minister of Foreign Affairs have no idea that his international administrator is leaving!

Therefore, it is absurd to even ask the influencer, who has strayed into the ministerial position, to explain to the public what is actually happening, because obviously, he himself has no idea. Perhaps he will grace us with a press conference and some new waving of papers, and he certainly won't have anything concrete to say about the future steps of our diplomatic and consular network to return to diplomatic channels, from which we have been completely excluded?

And what certainly won't happen is that he explains whether anyone will be held accountable for why we were left in the dark and presented with a fait accompli on such an important issue for us and our country?

And yet, this is precisely the essence of his job, and that of his close associates, to have such information long before it is published. And believe it or not, we pay them handsomely for it. Obviously, they do nothing but take pictures in various world destinations. Of course, at our expense.

It is superfluous to even ask if influencer Konaković understands at all that the diplomatic battle Milorad Dodik is waging is still ongoing and is not at all trivial? Because influencer Konaković confidently claimed that “if you leave me February and a bit of March, we will finish SNSD.” He even announced excavators bravely sweeping away SNSD and decisively clearing the European path for Bosnia and Herzegovina. And the 'unimportant' Milorad Dodik is checkmating him on his ministerial turf, while the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are entering the EU today, waiting for hours at the borders.

Thus, from the current practice of our influencer-minister, we can be 100% sure of one thing: whatever he tells us, the opposite will happen! Because, to our misfortune, BiH diplomacy has fallen to an influencer who is only acting as a minister. His acting is good, but someone gave him the wrong script to read, or perhaps he doesn't understand it!

In any case, if such characters are allowed to make decisions about anything in the future, nothing will remain of this country! Because they do not understand what is happening around them!