Milorad Dodik extinguished the Dayton Peace Agreement with an order to the RS Ministry of Internal Affairs to expel the High Representative

By: Rasim Belko

The High Representative Christian Schmidt can no longer act on the implementation of the goals and tasks assigned to him to implement the Dayton Peace Agreement as of today.

Before we explain why, let's go back to the directions of the OHR's actions under Schmidt's leadership, which were exclusively focused on the Federation of BiH. Christian Schmidt, from the first day of his mandate until today, has been exclusively focused on the Croatian issue, i.e., resolving issues that he agreed upon with partners in Zagreb and Mostar.

First, Schmidt, through unreasonable actions, expanded the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation and introduced different rules, all to enable the Croatian Democratic Union and their partners to control the process of electing the federal government, by order of US Ambassador Michael Murphy.

And when that was not fruitful, Schmidt resorted to an extremely discriminatory option, nullifying the Bosniak representatives and enabling a Serb and a Croat woman to confirm the government, without a third signature. Schmidt thereby devalued the Constitution and election rules in the Federation, and fulfilled the task of Murphy and official Zagreb.

The Federation is today once again trapped in the apparent functioning of an imposed government, and factually blocked on every issue that Čović's partners from the Trojka cannot hastily fulfill under public pressure.

Sessions of the FBiH Parliament are rare, and even when they happen, little that is necessary and important for the citizens occurs.

And while he was crocheting an apartheid protectorate in the Federation with his powers, Schmidt completely neglected the separatist system in the entity of RS, which gradually became more arrogant in its actions.

As of today, by order of the master of that entity, Milorad Dodik, Schmidt, even with the picture of Radovan Karadžić, could not pass through 49 percent of BiH's territory. Because, as Dodik said, all police stations have received orders that when he steps onto RS territory, he will be expelled from it.

This de facto prevents the mission of the High Representative, to which Schmidt largely contributed by ignoring the behavior of the RS institutions. Whether this is the end of the Dayton Peace Agreement, we will witness the moment when and if Schmidt dares to go to the territory of RS and when, by Dodik's order, the MUP of that entity deprives him of his freedom and expels him.

At that moment, the Dayton Agreement ceases to be valid, because its maintenance has largely and most importantly depended precisely on the OHR office, which is increasingly rumored to be moved to Brussels.

The implementation of Dayton and its rules only in the Federation must not happen for a single moment, because that is an automatic consent to the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina as it was before the meeting in Ohio in 1995.

Therefore, pro-Bosnian politics must be ready to, when the RS MUP arrests (expels) High Representative Schmidt from its territory, declare the end of the Dayton Agreement as a noose hanging over the integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is clear that this will not pass without consequences, but perhaps the political-police attack from RS on the High Representative as the key person for the implementation of Dayton will be the best opportunity to remove the Dayton shackles and move into the phase of a European Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Because, if the separatist Dodik dares to attack the head of the OHR through militant actions of police structures under his control, it is clear that he is giving up on Dayton and openly moving towards the goals of Republika Srpska from the time before the signing of Dayton.

Therefore, pro-Bosnian politics must sleep with both eyes open and insist that Schmidt visit RS, so that we can all see here whether Dayton is still valid or not.

We should not forget the recent attack on Dayton by blocking administrative lines between the entities, so this is probably the best opportunity to clearly show the pro-Bosnian commitment to concrete steps in creating a European Bosnia and Herzegovina free from Dayton shackles.

Any call to ambassadors or someone else to stop Dodik is pouring from empty to empty, because Dodik has shown with his latest moves that they cannot stop him and that Dayton does not apply to him.

And this must be used, through diplomatic-political action, to remove the shackles of the imposed peace plan, but also to permanently resolve the issue of the integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The only obstacle to such action is the questionable courage of pro-Bosnian forces to react in a timely manner.

Dodik has evidently entered the decisive battle; it is up to pro-Bosnian politics whether they will succeed in tearing Bosnia and Herzegovina apart or whether, by tearing apart the Dayton shackles, they will liberate this country to function at full capacity!