Is a lobbyist for lost wars against BiH sitting in the Presidential Palace?

By: Muharem Cero

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Only those who have been observing Milanović's 'abstinence' from political appetites and his turn towards lobbying and consulting activities more closely have not been surprised by what happened these days. 

Milanović carried his lobbying reflex with him to the chambers of the Presidential Palace, which is confirmed by the 'unexpected' meeting with Milorad Dodik in Zagreb.

Lobbying, by its definition, is working or acting for the benefit of another. This is precisely how the event itself should be interpreted. Freed from the ideology of social democracy, firmly leaning towards acting for a third party, he acted this time as well. 

By recognizing Dodik as a representative of one ethnos – Serbs – and not as one third of the highest state institution of a neighboring country, Milanović clearly legitimized himself. Under the guise of advocating for the principle of constitutionality, and under the pretext of fighting for the equal rights of Croats in BiH, Milanović, following the path of internal constitutional and legal recomposition of BiH according to the model of consociational federalism, by giving Dodik ethnic exclusivity of one nation in the state arrangement of the RS entity, he is actually calling for the disintegration of the other state entity, the Federation of BiH, along lines mirroring and identical to the one he handed to Dodik himself.

Milanović's political blindness is in line with a misinterpretation of the nature of the war in BiH. Namely, the current president of Croatia is, unfortunately, still trapped in a misinterpretation of the war itself, perceiving it as a civil conflict in BiH, and is unwilling to acknowledge the facts from The Hague and the proven joint criminal enterprises of neighboring countries with the aim of taking and appropriating its territories. It is naive to assume that Milanović's understanding of the nature of the war in BiH extends precisely to the truths from The Hague, but he remains within the mental alibi of current policies in Serbia and Croatia.

With that populist approach, he is not only seeking benefit for his political gain but is ending up precisely at the point that legitimizes further aspirations towards the same war goals, now disguised in the academic lightness of consociational federalism.

Casually and without basis, without a shred of remorse for the crimes in the war against Bosnia, Milanović reduces the attempt at civic renewal of its society to a street-level, petty definition of parasitism by the bearers of that idea. It is nothing more than a continuation of the neighbors' scavenging over a weary Bosnia.

Malicious tongues would say there is something here that foreshadows trouble. For words, and they say, the first one is, Milanović boldly, bluffingly, and without basis, on the 25th anniversary of Dayton, enters into conflict not only with the rulings from The Hague but also with the creators of Dayton, and a large part of the international community that is sympathetic to Bosnia.

Milanović's political adventurism, no matter how packaged in the guise of goodwill towards neighbors, is nothing more than offering a bite of the poisonous apple of ideologies and political goals from the end of the last century's last decade.

No matter how much he tries to give the impression of a modern democrat from the end of the second decade of the 21st century with his eloquence, appearance, and audacity, he must accept that in strategy, goals, and methods, he is merely a political reptile, unwilling and unable to move away from the 90s of the last century.

There is no hope that he will recognize this himself, nor is it to be believed that he will be spared the 'shaking off the dust of time' in European politics, as we would say in our country.

We will see only whether he will leave that political scene in a bourgeois Passat or, like Pišonja and Šuga, in a Yugo 45.