DW: Dodik exaggerates after SDA Declaration to hide the crisis of his regime

(Patria) - New separatist statements by Milorad Dodik due to the SDA Declaration are reminiscent of a pact of nationalists from the region in which everyone attacks the Dayton structure of BiH to hide their own crisis, according to political analysts from Serbia, Deutsche Welle reported in an article titled ‘Silent pact of nationalists – Dayton is attacked from all sides’.

Dodik came to Belgrade on Saturday with representatives of opposition parties from Republika Srpska, and the immediate reason was the recently adopted SDA declaration, which emphasizes that the long-term goal of that party is for BiH to be a "republic". SDA envisions three levels of government – state, regional, and local – thus without entities.

After the meeting of the delegation from RS with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, Dodik, in statements to the public – although he is a member of the Presidency of BiH, DW reminds – again hinted at the possibility of the secession of the Serb entity in response to the SDA declaration.

Dodik once again linked the issue of Kosovo's status with the territorial integrity of BiH, through the idea of annexing four northern municipalities of Kosovo to Serbia, as well as Republika Srpska, and he also spoke about arming...

Dušan Spasojević, an associate professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, says that it is evident that there is no political will to resolve problems within Bosnia and Herzegovina, because the current leaders in both BiH and the region benefit from prolonging the current situation.

"This is a model of behavior of elites in the region: they do not solve problems, but complicate them. It is a kind of pact between nationalists in the region that has been going on in a similar way for a long time. This is evidenced by the fact that almost no issue from the nineties of the last century has been seriously resolved," Spasojević assessed for DW.

Did Dodik exaggerate in expressing "concern" regarding the SDA Declaration? Dušan Janjić from the Forum for Ethnic Relations thinks so, assessing that Dodik is trying to hide the crisis his regime is in.

Dušan Spasojević sees Vučić's call for calm as a constant in the seemingly schizophrenic policy of the Serbian Progressive Party.

"It is clear that his position in RS itself is not secure. Even as a member of the Presidency of BiH, he visibly has no results, nor does he want to have them at the level of the common state. This is a previously seen mechanism of so-called mobilization to get him out of the crisis," Janjić told DW.

Historian Milivoj Bešlin believes that political subjects from RS should resolve issues such as the SDA Declaration within BiH, and not come to Belgrade for answers.

"On the other hand, Serbia should not, after the war experience and the experience of genocide, interfere in the internal affairs of BiH in such a crude way. And everything that was discussed at that meeting in Belgrade are exclusively internal affairs of BiH," Bešlin told DW.

Bešlin agrees with the assessments that Dodik is actually trying to hide problems, since, as he assesses, his entity has "gone bankrupt, and the criminal and authoritarian regime" in Banja Luka is collapsing.
On the other hand, after the meeting in Belgrade on Saturday, the leaders of the opposition from RS made more moderate statements than Dodik and called for de-escalation of tensions. Aleksandar Vučić behaved similarly, stating that "peace is needed like bread" because anything else would mean economic collapse for everyone.
When asked how he sees Vučić's role at the meeting, Dušan Janjić says that it is noticeable that this time he received both Dodik and the opposition from RS together, whereas he used to receive them separately.

"This is a sign that Vučić does not want to get deeply involved in these matters. Advocating for linking the issues of Kosovo and RS is part of Dodik's policy and is not new. The revival of this story was not taken seriously even at this meeting itself. It is not realistic and it is not a solution to turn one problem into four," says Janjić.

"Objectively, this would open up problems of redrawing borders, and it could even go as far as redrawing the borders of Serbia. Hence the counter (from SDA President) Bakir Izetbegović with Sandžak. And all this is increasingly fraying the nerves of the public. It is time to tell Dodik to stop it. That is how I understood Vučić's call for restraint," Janjić states.