Milorad, while your mind is captured by hatred, citizens of RS are treated in free Sarajevo

Somewhere around the same time that hysteria was raging in RS over an incident on Sarajevo's main promenade, Ferhadija Street, where two shops were doused with red paint and marked with '4S', although the perpetrators are still unknown, a vehicle from the Srbija Hospital arrived at the University Clinical Center Sarajevo.

Although these two events are not and should not be connected, we must put them in the same sentence because of what was heard from Banja Luka about Sarajevo and its citizens during the day.

Thus, Milorad Dodik called during the day to "all our companies - close your shops. There is business outside of Sarajevo too.".

However, at the same time, he did not tell the citizens of RS not to seek treatment in that very Sarajevo and that they can receive medical services in East Sarajevo. And it is clear to the patients that they cannot, and they have felt this with the most severe diagnoses when they were referred to Foča for treatment. Low wages, lack of equipment and working conditions have led many doctors and medical staff to leave the RS healthcare sector and move to work in Sarajevo, not only in private but also in public healthcare institutions and hospitals. 

Milorad Dodik issued similar calls to Serbs employed in state institutions during February and March 2025, while the attack on the constitutional order was ongoing. Only a few loyalists heeded his call, but what was clearly an attempt to overthrow state institutions, especially judicial ones (Court and Prosecutor's Office of BiH and HJPC), and to incite national hatred, was not enough for the Prosecutor's Office of BiH and prosecutor Vedrana Mijović, so an order was issued not to conduct an investigation against Dodik and others. That is why Dodik freely utters insults today against Bosniaks, Muslims, the Islamic Community of BiH, because he felt he would not face any sanctions. And other officials, both from SNSD and its satellite parties, and even some opposition parties, are following his example.

For years, there has been speculation about the number of employees in Sarajevo, both in BiH institutions and private companies, who live in the RS entity. Although he is aware that a large number of people depend on jobs in Sarajevo, Dodik does not stop spreading hatred, so he regularly counts Bosniaks who are moving to Lukavica and East Sarajevo, where incidents have already been recorded that are reawakening the traumas of the 90s and the bloody aggression.

Nothing less traumatic for the citizens of Sarajevo was the inscription of '4S' on the shop window of one of the stores, in close proximity to the "Sarajevo Rose", the site where on May 27, 1992, a Serbian aggressor fired grenades, killing 26 and wounding 108 citizens of Sarajevo who were standing in line for bread that morning. 

When armed Serbian soldiers entered the Dobrinja settlement in 1992, they marked their "success" with the same symbol that greeted Sarajevans on the morning of May 15.

The tolerance that Sarajevo and its citizens have shown towards their neighbors is still evidenced today by the places of worship that were guarded and preserved during the siege, but also today when Sarajevo is open to all who visit it, even those who are less well-intentioned or those who come with hatred. We still remember the video of an elderly man who, from one of Sarajevo's ćevabdžinicas, raised three fingers upon seeing that he was being filmed by a television camera.

We will not list all the companies from RS that operate in Sarajevo or have their representative offices, nor is the goal to label anyone, but for example, it is interesting that two Banja Luka companies have been advertising space on and in public transport vehicles for years, an LED display within GRAS, without advertising restrictions. So, in Sarajevo, we ride in a trolleybus with advertisements for Croatian beer, Herzegovinian wine, various betting shops, casinos, over which the KS Ministry of Transport has no influence, even though it is a signatory to the contract.

And for the umpteenth time, Sarajevo should no longer show its openness to anyone, but quite the opposite. Those who spread hatred and want to provoke conflicts should be adequately sanctioned and held accountable.