Marina Pendeš in the USA: Rule of Law in a Flexible Manner

By Muharem Cero

No more cumbersome legal construct, but no more accurate recognition of the rule of law in the Bosnian way has been articulated until now.

Dragan Čović skillfully removed an entire political-legal struggle for the implementation of the final verdict of the Court of BiH from the public sphere by giving a "convincing" guarantee for the activation of the MAP by December of the current year. Pressured by the recognized strategic partnership for the interests of Dodik's politics, he even repentedly stated that no one can stand in the way of Bosnia and Herzegovina's NATO path.

Čović's statement remained at the political level, from the position he holds in the Presidency of BiH. He did not go further and explain to the public the basis of his claim.

Minister of Defense of BiH, Marina Pendeš, stepped into the void of Čović's ambiguity. She stated that the activation of the MAP can be achieved by demanding a more flexible stance from the partners. Simply put, the intention is to achieve the activation of the MAP without fulfilling the Tallinn requirements and registering military property in the Republika Srpska entity to the state of BiH.

From September 11 to 13, Marina Pendeš will visit the United States of America, the State Department, the Pentagon, and NATO institutions, accompanied by a small but select group.

It is unknown whether Pendeš's statement about "begging" for flexibility is also the stance of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina: the Council of Ministers, and above all, the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Member of the Presidency of BiH, Mladen Ivanić, skillfully introduced alleged property-legal problems, not real constitutional-political ones, into the public sphere. Ivanić has never substantiated this claim, proven it, or provided valid legal arguments for it. If such problems exist, they are fabricated and strategically aimed at achieving goals identical to Dodik's.

Čović, Ivanić, and Dodik are operationally trying, through Marina Pendeš, to achieve the activation of the MAP in a way that thwarts the registration of military property from the territory of RS to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to bring back the Banja Luka agreement on the distribution of state property. This agreement negates all Constitutional court rulings to date that mandate the adoption of the Law on Management and Disposal of State Property, and they are concluding this fundamental issue for the existence of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina by achieving the war aims of aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina and the final ethno-territorial division of its state being.

All property-legal documentation of military property of the former SFRY on the territory of today's state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is located in Belgrade archives, and access to it is regulated by Annex D of the agreement on the succession of the SFRY.

Ivanić, Čović, and Dodik knew this, and especially Vučić, and it is not unknown to Marina Pendeš either, and therefore it is surprising (or is it?) that neither they nor anyone from the institutions of BiH have so far resolved these alleged technical problems by examining the existing archival documentation of the SSNO of the SFRY.

Was the visit of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to Sarajevo a great opportunity for this important Bosnian issue?!

The murky games surrounding the Bosnian MAP are turning into a soap opera with main actors Čović, Ivanić, and Dodik. Marina Pendeš is one of the passing bit players.

One can hope and believe that Marina's partners and hosts in the USA are already aware of the murky games of this trio and that they have long recognized the false alibi of flexibility by its content as anti-Americanism and intentions to thwart Bosnia's path to the EU and NATO.