Schmidt is an agent of Croatian interests in our country and should be treated as such!

By: Muamer Bandić, MP of the Party of BiH in the KS Assembly

Christian Schmidt has compromised the position of the OHR in Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent interpreter and supervisor of the implementation of the Peace Agreement by dealing with matters outside his mandate, solely to benefit the strategic interests of one of the parties to the conflict and a signatory state in our country, the Republic of Croatia.

Until a few years ago, everyone was talking about the time being ripe for our country to move out of the Dayton phase and enter the European phase of development, that it was time to move away from ethnically based policies, carry out necessary system reforms, and remove blockades in order to achieve our strategic political goal – full membership in the EU. One of the tools for dismantling this Cold War-era, ethnic order was precisely the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), initiated by appellants from Bosnia and Herzegovina Dervo Sejdić, Jakob Finci, Azra Zornić, Ilijaz Pilav, and many others.

Furthermore, in its 2019 Opinion, the European Commission identified 14 priorities that Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to implement to achieve "stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and protection of minorities, as set by the European Council in Copenhagen in 1993." Among these priorities is the implementation of ECtHR rulings, which also require amendments to the BiH Constitution.

With the arrival of Christian Schmidt as High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, this course has drastically changed, and since then, we have witnessed favoritism and the strengthening of ethnicity as the primary category in the political system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the fundamental human and political rights of our citizens and the rulings from Strasbourg are no longer being addressed, nor is anyone seriously talking about them anymore.

How did we get to this situation?

Let's recall how much the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina tormented us with announcements of amendments to the BiH Election Law before the last general elections, the content of which no one was privy to. The epilogue of that story was his imposed amendments, which only occurred after the elections were concluded, making Bosnia and Herzegovina the only country in the world where elections are called under one set of rules and their results are implemented under entirely different ones. This was done solely to establish and further strengthen the post-election position of one ethnic and chauvinistic party, HDZ, and to cement the position of ethnicity in the political system of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

For all of us involved in politics and all those who follow political developments in BiH and the region, the words of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia, Andrej Plenković, were particularly sobering at the time, when he said that Schmidt made all decisions in close consultation and coordination with his government. It was clear to all of us then that we do not have an ad hoc international and independent body in Bosnia and Herzegovina dealing with the implementation of the Peace Agreement, but rather Plenković's Obersturmbannführer, an ikebana tasked with implementing the strategic interests of the Republic of Croatia in our country, even when they are detrimental to the future of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

And that Plenković's Obersturmbannführer Schmidt would fulfill his task with that cold German dedication, precision, and disregard for the legal consequences of his decisions, much like a famous train conductor, was also shown during the one-day suspension of the FBiH Constitution, which was done solely to form a government in accordance with the interests of HDZ BiH and their political mentor Andrej Plenković. In all other countries of the world, such an undemocratic move, which nullified the electoral will of a constituent people making up half the population of our country, would be declared a coup d'état, which it de facto is, except in Bosnia and Herzegovina where a few quislings eager for positions at any cost have agreed to such anti-democratic and anti-civilizational standards.

This is why we are where we are today. The authorities lie to us, calling the shuffling of papers from one pile to another progress on the European path while inflation rages, citizens leave, and our country is in the greatest political crisis in modern political history, stuck neither in heaven nor on earth amidst the increasingly pervasive looming conflict between East and West. And all thanks to the continuous defense of the strategic interests of the Republic of Croatia by Plenković's Obersturmbannführer Schmidt, or rather, his constant favoritism of the ethnic at the expense of the civic, which prevents any evolution of our rigid and deeply corrupt political order from the Dayton to the Brussels phase.

In this context, Schmidt's latest maneuvering to insert himself where he doesn't belong, namely his personal self-invitation to Strasbourg, where he intends to testify as a third interested party – intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina's appeal before the ECtHR regarding the Kovačević v. BiH ruling, should also be considered, while at the same time the HDZ Minister of Justice in the Council of Ministers of BiH is scrutinizing the appellant Slaven Kovačević's lineage in every possible way, solely to dispute his political Bosniak identity and his fight for the basic political rights of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It should be clear to all of us that we are currently witnessing a shameful episode of states against citizens orchestrated by Plenković's Obersturmbannführer Christian Schmidt. We must also be aware that Bosnia and Herzegovina, even as an averagely organized country, will never join the European Union until it implements the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. Simply because we must resolve the legal and political problem that some citizens of this country do not enjoy even basic human and political rights solely because they do not identify as members of one of the three constituent peoples, and those rights are guaranteed to them by the European Convention on Human Rights, which is, after all, far above Plenković's Balkan understanding of realpolitik.

Whoever tells you otherwise is deceiving and lying to you! And all those who remain silent about these chauvinistic and anti-Bosnian outbursts by Schmidt are traitors to their own country. Why else would they allow a malicious foreigner to shape their future in which all those who refuse to be part of the Croatian or Serbian world are merely second-class citizens, who have no say in their own country?

Let them continue to share ćevapi with Plenković's Obersturmbannführer Schmidt in Čaršija, while he drags the country backward for the sake of others' interests. Their political actions so far have shown that they have "their people in strategic positions" and that as long as they are in power, neither the country nor the future of our citizens matters to them because they are "puppets of flesh and blood without a shred of an idea..."

And for all of us who, without ulterior motives, love and live the political idea of a sovereign country of equal citizens of our only European homeland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, for us Christian Schmidt is an agent of Croatian interests in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that is how we will treat him. Merely as an extension of HDZ chauvinism, aimed at strengthening and maintaining the position of ethno-oligarchs who prevent us from moving forward and who are taking away our European future!