Elimination of Bosniak Officials from Positions: Individuals from RS “Judge” the BiH Defence System

Politicians from Republika Srpska, especially the president of the smaller BiH entity and SNSD leader Milorad Dodik, frequently question the allegedly suspicious wartime past of the director of the Intelligence-Security Agency of BiH, Osman Mehmedagić, as well as other officials from the Bosniak people.

Mehmedagić is reproached for having been a wartime and post-war companion of the first president of the Republic of BiH, Alija Izetbegović. And that is where the story of the “suspicious wartime past” begins and ends.

Since 2014, when the government was formed, Dodik's deputies in the State Parliament have started a political circus, leaving every session because their demand for the removal of Šefik Džaferović from the leadership due to his alleged role in war crimes against Serbs was not met.

Two years ago, Dževad Mahmutović, a member of the SDA Presidency and advisor to the BiH Presidency member Bakir Izetbegović, was proposed for the position of minister in the RS Government. A huge outcry was raised then to stop this appointment because Mahmutović is a recipient of the “Golden Lily”. The secretary of the Srebrenica Veterans' Organisation, Miloš Milovanović (a former SNSD councillor in the Srebrenica Municipal Assembly), said at the time that Mahmutović's election as minister belittled thousands of Serbian victims, their families, and even Republika Srpska.

So, the only sin of Dževad Mahmutović is the “Golden Lily”, without concrete evidence or solid arguments that he committed a war crime. However, when a man who has changed several parties and is now Dodik's player, Nenad Stevandić, a member of the war staff of the “Autonomous Region of Krajina of the Serbian Republic of BiH”, is appointed Vice-President of the National Assembly of RS, then that is not a problem.

According to the standards of Dodik and others who constantly keep Mehmedagić, Džaferović, Mahmutović... “in their sights”, a suspicious wartime past is not that Stevandić armed Serbian paramilitary formations with convicted war criminals Radoslav Brđanin and Momir Talić, about which witnesses also testified at the Hague Tribunal. A suspicious wartime past is not even the fact that there is a video recording clearly showing the current Vice-President of the NSRS armed and in uniform “liberating Kotor Varoš from Bosniaks and Croats”.

What to say about Miroslav Mićo Kraljević, the mayor of Vlasenica, who is “adorned” with a suspicious wartime and post-war biography. He was the commander of the so-called special police unit whose members raped, looted, killed, and imprisoned Bosniaks from Vlasenica.

His name was often mentioned at the Hague and in trials before the Court of BiH. For what he did in the summer of 1992, he did not answer. It seems that was precisely his ticket with Dodik, who also nominated him for this position. This loyal Dodik man also has a final conviction for kidnapping in 2010. He admitted in court that in the autumn of 2010, he participated in the kidnapping of Lazo Vidaković, a councillor of Naša stranka in the Osmaci Municipal Assembly, whom he held in captivity in Serbia.

It is further interesting that Dodik, who is bothered by Mehmedagić, Džaferović, or Mahmutović, has never raised the issue of the suspicious wartime past (we will not mention the post-war one now) of his great friend, the leader of HDZ BiH, Dragan Čović.

There are documents about Čović's involvement in crimes against Bosniaks and Serbs in Mostar. As the general director of the company Soko Mostar, in June 1993, he sent a request to Josip Praljak, then deputy warden of the Heliodrom camp, to “enable the release of ten prisoners for the needs of the Soko Mostar Aircraft Industry, with the aim of performing certain tasks”.

The fact that Čović was at the head of Soko at that time speaks volumes that in the then so-called HZ HB, he was not just a mere observer, but highly ranked in the hierarchy.

Individuals from RS who award recognitions to convicted war criminals, care for their existence, and are not bothered by their own cadres with suspicious wartime pasts, want to “judge” the defence system.

Because the Army of RBiH and all its members primarily defended the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the aggressor.

Now, by wanting to remove such cadres, are individuals trying to eliminate those who know the truth, and thereby achieve in peacetime conditions their wartime goal – the dismantling of BiH.