Dodik plays chess, ‘our guys’ play lotto: Political shells in Sarajevo value power over homeland!

By: Rasim Belko

No matter how sad it is, the factual situation is a defeat, the likes of which political Sarajevo has not experienced since the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The only good fortune for all Bosnian patriots is that those who are playing leaders today did not lead us in the armed struggle.

However, in a relatively short period, they managed to screw up everything that was defended through armed resistance and sound political wisdom over the past three decades.

No, this is not the first time that Milorad Dodik has switched from secessionist fervor to a pro-Western, or rather, American track. But, until now, he has never had the opportunity to strike such a deal without an adequate response and reaction from Sarajevo to balance what he has agreed upon with the interests of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However, in today's circumstances, the response from political Sarajevo is cowardly silence and unprecedented subservience to American diplomacy. The same diplomacy that has brought us from a status quo almost to the division of the country. Because, if what the High Representative Christian Schmidt announced in the last UN Security Council report happens and state property is freed from prohibitions, Republika Srpska will become a complete state within the state community of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And that is a step towards disintegration.

At a time when they dared to speak, or rather babble, the political representatives of the Trojka, these inarticulate political shells, assured us that Milorad Dodik was finished and politically buried. And then, shock: Dodik's advisors were removed from the SDN sanctions list, Dodik, with an excellent bluff, repealed laws that were not in effect, and then he and everyone important to him were removed from the same sanctions list.

None of these political shells from the Trojka had the courage to ask the Americans why they are doing this to us? How could they ask, when it is precisely the Americans who are the diplomatic fathers of this project, which has clearly played its role in the disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and now they are just waiting for the Americans to flush them down the drain and send them where the Trojka members imagined Dodik going.

We knew about this Trojka project from the beginning and wrote countless virtual papers about it. And they are no surprise to anyone who can see and is even slightly literate.

However, the question arises: where is the other political half of Sarajevo? Nowhere, and it enjoys it. Because that half, half of which is held by SDA itself, enjoys the disaster of the imposed project, rubs its hands, and grins, aware that next year is the time for their return to power.

And whoever wants power must nod to the Americans, and to the British to a serious extent, but also remain silent about the tearing apart of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the seams. Dodik leads with a high score of 5:0 and threatens to tear the country apart to a stage where no one can put it back together.

The Americans support him in the UN Security Council, de facto handing over jurisdiction over Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia and Croatia, and from Sarajevo, there is a dark silence that heralds even darker times.

Except for Semir Efendić, no president of Sarajevo parties reacted to the lifting of sanctions.

Therefore, besides us stagnating for years while a tragicomedy is staged for us from abroad, Sarajevo has decided to play the role of a dead witness to its own demise. As if silence is the height of diplomatic finesse today, and as if history is not learned from the consequences of silence. While geopolitical maps are being redrawn over us, we are settling old scores and proudly worrying whether we will retain the seat of some commission or at least a chair with a heated seat.

Injustice has become routine, betrayal is officially practiced, and those who should shout are WHISPERING. And they don't whisper out of fear; their silence is a professional choice. As if they have signed a contract with fate that if they cannot save the country, they will at least save their mandates. Isn't it paradoxical that people who promised statesmanship courage are now measuring their words on the scale of embassy receptions?

Dodik plays chess, we play lotto. He takes pieces, we draw plans on cafe napkins. He negotiates, we whine. He sows the seeds of paralysis, and from Sarajevo comes the sound of applause for silence. These are no longer political games; it is a play in which the main actors have long sold the script, and we are paying for the theater ticket.

And when they one day count the fragments, they won't find them in pubs or markets; they will find them in parliamentary minutes, in secret annexes, and in embassy records. Whatever remains of the country will be a collection of pieces of paper with stamps and fake signatures. And just when you think the peak of humiliation has been reached, they surprise us not with a new blow, but with their signature on a new arrangement.

The green half of political Sarajevo rejoices! Not because they care about the country, but because they love power. Power allows them to cross the boundaries of conscience and then calmly put their dirty clothes in the closet of their code of conduct. And while they explain that there is no alternative to 'realpolitik', they forget that reality has teeth and that every bite will leave a mark one day.

Trojka? It was just an illusion of courage, misused in a political selfie. Loud when distributing posters and quiet when the country is being divided. And we, the ordinary people, are again writing complaints that no one will read, because what is the point of a gathering when languages are divided according to interests and passports?

And while the Americans wave the screen of 'stability', they forget that stability cannot be built by destroying foundations. Their papers can temporarily rearrange the map, but they cannot change the blood that binds us to this land, even if they try to hand it over as collateral for future trades. They impose and lift sanctions, raise and lower hands; we, however, are left to pick up the pieces.

In conclusion, we should not wait or turn our heads towards embassies as if they were lighthouses. We must shout loudly. If we don't, our silence will become a court verdict. Those who celebrate their return to power today will be accused tomorrow of what they have legalized today.

But both the political puppets in Sarajevo and those in Washington who keep their heads bowed and their tongues tied in knots must know that our connection to this country is in its blood-soaked foundations and soil, and that connection cannot be erased by diplomatic storms, compromises, and decisions by legally corrupt sponsors whom they call lobbyists in America.

And because of that connection, unlike our leaders, we will not and must not remain silent and watch; neither did those before us. Perhaps that path will also be a path of disappearance, but at least we will not fall like turkeys with their heads down!