Bandić: Enough bowing our heads!

By Muamer Bandić, head of the SBiH Caucus in the KS Assembly

Enough is enough, we Bosniaks have tolerated and swallowed frogs with every targeted crisis instigated by Čović and Dodik, so that they could politically profit. Every time we gave in, they pushed us back and further away from the European Union.

It is time to say STOP! and take a clear and principled stance: No sitting at the table, nor any talks with those who deny genocide, people who celebrate criminals and crimes, people who do not respect and are destroying the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina!

There should be no concessions from our side for such policies. If we have any self-respect and respect the bravest sons and daughters of our homeland, who gave their lives for its and our future, this is our red line that must not be crossed, and whoever crosses it is a traitor to both the people and the state.

If we want to survive this chaotic peace biologically and politically, we must show the same unity that was crucial for us to survive the war and stand together around these basic principles of our policy, which define our relationship towards the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and our relationship towards other policies within Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Unity around this principled stance of pro-Bosnian forces is essential to defend the little state we have left, now when Croatian and Serbian agents, in a synchronized and joint effort, are attacking the Constitutional Court of BiH, the last institution of Bosnia and Herzegovina over which they do not have direct political control. It is clear even to the politically blind that the policies of Dodik and Čović aim to remove foreign judges from the Constitutional Court of BiH and, with Bosniak votes, secure the appointment of incompetent, politically suitable judges, in order to enable their mentors to create constitutional and legal chaos, which would lead us into complete political chaos, and ultimately into anarchy and the demise of the state.

In such political chaos, Croats would get changes to the election law – such that we would become the only country in the world with an ethnically based electoral system and de facto legalize the existing apartheid. The goal of Serbian policy is, in that chaos, to block the work of the High Representative, euthanize state institutions, and take over state property from the entities, thereby transferring the most important attribute of statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina, its property, to the entities. Without a politically independent judicial system, we do not have a state, but anarchy, and likewise, a state without property would be just an empty shell, or merely a mere tenant of the entity.

The Bosniak political elite would gain nothing from such constitutional, legal, and political chaos, they would lose the power of argument, because the entire concept would be completed precisely by their votes. In this way, for the sake of a few ministerial seats, they would put themselves in the position of a politically irrelevant and disenfranchised majority in their own country, which exists only on paper.

Without the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there will be no Bosniaks, and without Bosniaks, there will be no Bosnia and Herzegovina. Let's show that we have honor, principles, unity, and strength to even have a say in what kind of state this will be, and in our future within it. Together FOR One!