SERBIA AND CROATIA IN THE UZP: Everything Ours Is Their Agreement in Which Bosnia and Herzegovina Disappears

By: Delvin Kovač

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When you have a normal neighbor, you will try to resolve even the smallest possible problem that arises through mutual agreement. It is somehow natural to maintain the best possible relations with someone who can always be the first to help you when you need it most. However, Bosnia and Herzegovina's neighbors are hatching different plans, both those from the west and those from the east. They are persistent and do not give up on their long-standing intentions to carve up and divide the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina among themselves.

The prime ministers of Croatia and Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina's closest neighbors, at least declaratively, assessed yesterday that open issues should continue to be resolved through agreement. And how could it be otherwise, is not agreement always and everywhere the most convincingly best and least painful solution? Here, however, the question arises as to why agreement is never on the table when it comes to open issues between Serbia and Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Both of these neighbors have always somehow treated Bosnia and Herzegovina like older brothers treat the youngest, who never has the right to speak. And even if he tried to say something, he would get a beating, after which he would have to fall silent without question.

"In dialogue, we should continue to resolve open issues and improve economic, transport and energy cooperation. We take care of the protection of the Croatian minority in Serbia, as well as the Serbian minority in Croatia," Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković wrote on Twitter after yesterday's meeting with his Serbian counterpart Ana Brnabić in Zagreb. It sounded idyllic, as if Croatia and Serbia have excellent bilateral relations, although everyone in the region knows very well that this is far from the truth.

And to immediately spoil the impression that the public might have gained after Plenković's meeting with his eastern neighbor - that neighbors should and must resolve all their disagreements in a peaceful tone - Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić made a great effort. In his own style, one of the two loudest ventriloquists of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić (it is clear that the other is Aleksandar Vulin) showed that he has a strong desire to tear Bosnia and Herzegovina apart as soon as possible. To first separate its 49 percent, and probably then enlarge the country whose head of diplomacy he is with those 24,857 km2. And all towards the ultimate goal - a Greater Serbia and a Greater Croatia - the same goal that the then presidents of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević, and Croatia, Franjo Tuđman, agreed upon in Tito's hunting ground of Karađorđevo in the early 1990s. To their chagrin, and to Bosnia and Herzegovina's joy, that plan of Milošević and Tuđman fell through, although we are well aware of the price we had to pay in less than four years of defense against aggression.

- Bosnia and Herzegovina should declare whether it recognizes or does not recognize the self-proclaimed Kosovo. Why would the Republika Srpska not have the right to become a separate state, if Kosovo, which is part of Serbia, has that right - this is the nonsensical question Dačić asked during his appearance on Pink television. Does Vučić not always say that he supports the Dayton Peace Agreement? And Dačić should presumably follow that in his own media statements, but he obviously has not studied that agreement well. It is clear from the outset, however, that Dačić is not tasked with reading, but only with speaking, and that is what Vučić thinks but does not dare to say publicly.

One does not need to be very politically literate to understand that the state leaderships of Serbia have their outposts in Bosnia and Herzegovina through Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović, who for decades have not let Bosnians and Herzegovinians sleep peacefully. The perennial secessionist from Laktaši, otherwise a hated man on the blacklists - American and British - is the main trigger for potential new conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and beyond. And such a scenario is inevitable if one decides to do the same thing that two war criminals, Ratko Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, attempted in the 1990s. Dodik yesterday gave wholehearted support to Vučić's megaphone, saying he does not know why Serbia would have an obligation to respect the territorial integrity of BiH if Bosnia and Herzegovina does not respect the territorial integrity of Serbia. But Dodik did not tell us when anyone alive from Bosnia and Herzegovina ever tried to even touch the territorial integrity of Serbia? When did anyone alive from Bosnia and Herzegovina utter a word about seceding Sandžak and annexing it to Bosnia and Herzegovina? Or about the need to change Serbia's election law in favor of the local Bosniaks or Croats?

Plenković, Brnabić, Vučić, Grlić Radman and other plenkovićs and vučićs know well that Croatia and Serbia are not any guarantors of the Dayton Peace Agreement, but witnesses. Let us not now return to the judgments of the courts in The Hague on the joint criminal enterprise (in the case of Croatia) and the failure to prevent genocide in Srebrenica (in the case of Serbia). They should also know that Dayton is not an eternal category and does not foresee any carving up of Bosnia and Herzegovina, nor the secession of any of its parts. And yes, in the event of such an epilogue, that agreement would no longer exist, and consequently neither would the smaller BiH entity, the RS. Rather, we would return to the previous legal situation defined by the Constitution of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And if they do not know what is written in it, they can easily find it on the internet.