Konaković's statements should not be responded to in the media: The response must come through Parliament and the BiH Prosecutor's Office!

By: Rasim Belko @rasimbelko

If you use Google to check where the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Elmedin Konaković, has been and what he has been doing in the last month, it will be clear to you why this country is continuously on the table instead of at the table.

After he experienced a fiasco with the completely unnecessary convening of the Bosniak assembly, things for Konaković rapidly started to go downhill. Until then, it can be said that Konaković managed to promote himself as the head of diplomacy and travel the world. How successful he was is shown by the situation in the country and its international rating.

And then, in line with his stance at the time of the formation of the Council of Ministers, when he said he could be a minister in at least three portfolios, he reoriented himself to internal affairs. Or better said, investigative internal affairs.

De facto, overnight, Konaković went from being a Bosniak leader in the making appearing in “world centers of power where decisions are made” to an investigator and commentator on judicial and police matters.

There is no longer talk in the media about how he returned Bosnia and Herzegovina to where it belongs and how Washington, Brussels, London… now know the situation in Bosnia.

Instead of defending the interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is his duty and obligation, Konaković, from the institution he heads, attacked prosecutors, police officers, judges, and journalists for arresting individuals suspected of criminal offenses, apriori claiming that everything was fabricated.

Only he knows why Konaković felt the need to do this, but what he is doing suggests there is a reason for it. One reason could be that he or his party and cadres are somehow involved, and likewise, the pressure Konaković is exerting these days could be a political game to draw his political opponents into the cartel story.

We saw such an example in the last two days, when he called out SDA leader Bakir Izetbegović due to mentions by some individuals in the Sky application, and after Izetbegović's response, Konaković reacted again.

Given that Konaković is now part of the regime, it is clear that he has stronger media power, and anyone he calls out from the position he has put himself in should ignore his maneuvering.

Because, the fact that the BiH head of diplomacy and the president of a party that is parliamentary vertically is, in an extremely difficult and turbulent time, spending a month dealing with the cartel and issues surrounding the Tito and Dino cartel.

Therefore, any media reaction to Konaković's accusations through regime media is like giving oxygen to a drowning person who has clearly jumped into water that is too deep and cannot find a way to swim to safety.

Instead of reactions and responses, Konaković's statements made in the capacity of a minister, in the role of a defender of individuals arrested in the “Black Tie” operation, must be responded to exclusively politically, by calling him to account. Press conferences where he refuses questions related to diplomacy because the story about the operation, the cartel, and the arrested individuals is more important to him fall under the domain of the grossest violation of rules and humiliation of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. If we add to this that, as one-third of the Trojka, Konaković has largely handed over these state institutions to Dodik and Čović, the responsibility is even greater.

Instead of media polemics, there is a real need to debate in Parliament whether Konaković, who instead of state interests defends the interests of structures under investigation by the BiH Prosecutor's Office, should be in the Council of Ministers.

In addition to the Parliamentary Assembly, the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also on the move, which did not find it necessary to react when the head of diplomacy of this country brutally attacked a prosecutor in the aforementioned “Black Tie 2” operation.

If it has not already reacted to the attack on the integrity of the prosecutor and the Prosecutor's Office itself, then it must investigate everything that Konaković says and does not say, the reasons why he is a key person outside the investigation that is publicly being conducted.

Otherwise, with an already crippled and sluggish judiciary, we risk becoming a country where prosecutors will not even do the little work they have for fear of lynching, and when that happens, it is clear that we will one by one leave to live elsewhere.

Because, when key state institutions are ruled by those who have been tried, those who are being tried, and a third who would stop trials, one does not need to be a lawyer to conclude that we are a criminalized state.