Helez calls on NATO, EU and Schmidt to react to the unconstitutional actions of the RSNA: Greater Serbian policy intensified

(Patria) - The National Assembly of the Republika Srpska today adopted amendments to the Law on the Use of the Flag, Coat of Arms and Anthem, which allows the display of symbols of foreign states, and the Law on Amendments to the Law on the Implementation of Decisions of the Commission for the Protection of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which removed the phrase "national monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina" by deleting Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Law on the Use of the Flag, Coat of Arms and Anthem enables the coat of arms of the Nemanjić dynasty and the anthem "Bože pravde" to be used as official symbols of the RS.

Reacting to this action by the National Assembly of the RS, the Minister of Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zukan Helez, reminded that these are symbols that the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina annulled in 2006.

"The adoption of both these laws is an anti-Dayton and unconstitutional act and represents a continuation of the attack on the sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a similar way, Hitler prepared the annexation of Austria to Germany at the end of the 1930s. The coat of arms of the Nemanjić dynasty and the anthem 'Bože pravde' are symbols under which the most serious war crimes were committed, including a joint criminal enterprise and genocide against Bosniaks.

Of course, the representatives of the authorities of the smaller Bosnian-Herzegovinian entity, the RS, are acting in complete cohesion with the regime of Aleksandar Vučić, and the official policy of Serbia from the 1990s and Slobodan Milošević until today is the same. Serbia is trying in every way to expand to the western side of the Drina River. First, they attempted this through open aggression in the 1990s against the sovereign and internationally recognised state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and now through unconstitutional actions.

The pause in the implementation of Greater Serbian policy was only when 'strong' High Representatives were appointed in BiH who used the Bonn Powers and when the international community stood behind them. However, there is much work for the High Representative in BiH, Christian Schmidt, who must annul this anti-Dayton and anti-civilisational law.

Emboldened by Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the President of the smaller Bosnian-Herzegovinian entity, the RS, Milorad Dodik, and the authorities of the RS have intensified the implementation of Greater Serbian policy, recently formalised at the All-Serbian Assembly. I call on NATO and EU member states, our partners, to pay more attention to the secessionist policy of the RS and the Greater Serbian policy of the regime of Aleksandar Vučić.

To the citizens of the smaller Bosnian-Herzegovinian entity, the RS, I say: renounce the politicians who are pursuing a secessionist policy. In 30 years of attempts to change borders in the Western Balkans, the citizens of the smaller Bosnian-Herzegovinian entity, the RS, have only become hostages of such a failed policy and the poorest citizens in Europe.

By adopting these laws in the National Assembly of the RS, the authorities will not concretely help any citizen in the territory of this entity. This is yet another in a series of failed and unnecessary moves by the authorities of the RS entity, which can only damage overall relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is big enough for all of us. Let us make it a state, a member of the EU and NATO, in which all its citizens can live comfortably from their work," Helez stated.