Vučić's Peacekeeping Through Military Parades and Arming to the Teeth

By: Delvin Kovač

---

Yesterday in Donja Gradina, the presidents of the RS and Serbia, Milorad Dodik and Aleksandar Vučić, once again loudly promoted the idea of Greater Serbian hegemony, and this at an event where politics definitely has no place, or at least should not have a place - at the commemoration of the victims of the Jasenovac camps. Dodik, admittedly, to a much greater extent, but the fact that the latter was perhaps a bit milder in his address does not absolve him of the responsibility to distance himself from the statements of the former.

Dodik continued in his usual manner, announcing an independent RS and its annexation to Serbia, denying the Srebrenica genocide, insulting everyone he could. Along the way, he very effectively played the role of Vučić's megaphone, saying what the latter obviously could not. This is supported by the fact that the first man of Serbia remained silent as a grave after Dodik's performance. And silence, they say, means approval.

For years, Šešelj's errand boy, in whose company he hopped around the hills near Sarajevo with a "little umbrella" on his shoulder that sowed death during the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been bombarding us with platitudes about how important peace is for the region and how much he respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But Vučić sees nothing problematic in Dodik insisting on the unification of the RS and Serbia. And why would he, after all, his ancestors didn't forge plans for a Greater Serbia for nothing!

Vučić did not even try to distance himself from Dodik's interpretation of the display of Serbia's military power, when the President of the RS stated that the Serbian Army would defend Serbs wherever they are. Even if they are in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And even if the Serbian army had to step onto the territory of another sovereign, independent, and internationally recognized country. The Supreme Commander of the Serbian Army sees nothing problematic in that either.

In recent years, Serbia has been arming itself to the teeth, and every few months it holds some military parade. One does not need to be a great expert to understand from Dodik's words that the Serbian Army will defend Serbs wherever they are, that this arming actually poses the only danger to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Admittedly, we should not forget Kosovo either. However, bearing in mind that Kosovo is a much bigger "thorn in the side" for Serbia than Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e., the RS, and that, presumably, taught by the experience from the late 1990s and the NATO intervention, they still haven't tried anything in Kosovo, the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina might be able to breathe a little easier. But still sleeping with one eye open.

- Our army is getting stronger, but we will have to further strengthen and fill our human capacities. It is up to us to preserve and protect peace, and you can only do that if you have a strong army - Vučić said at the "Granit 2023" event at the military airport in Batajnica near Belgrade. The real question for Vučić is - is peace preserved by tacitly approving the secession of a part of a neighboring country and its annexation to the state you lead? And on top of that, engaging your own army for that purpose? Defense is the best attack, footballers like to say in jargon. It is possible that Vučić intends to apply that phrase in the case of the alleged defense of the RS from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Vučić probably knows well that if the Serbian army were to set foot on the soil of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it would be considered an act of aggression. Or would he, in the style of his idol - Russian President Vladimir Putin, also call it a "special military operation"?

What seems to have flown under the media radar is Vučić's message yesterday to those gathered in Donja Gradina that their capital is Belgrade. Perhaps Vučić was confused and forgot that Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and consequently of the Republika Srpska. Or perhaps he has something on his mind that few others know - that the RS has already been annexed to Serbia? It will probably turn out to be just another one of his thoughtless statements.

And if he truly respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the Dayton Peace Agreement, he had the opportunity to show it yesterday: why didn't he tell those gathered in Donja Gradina that their capital is Sarajevo, and to turn towards Sarajevo, not towards Belgrade? Just as, for example, the former President of the Republic of Croatia, Stipe Mesić, used to tell Bosnian Croats - your homeland is Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the capital is Sarajevo!

Vučić is aware, or at least should be, that he has largely followed in Milošević's footsteps and that ultimately, if he does not change his own policy, he could end up the way Milošević did not, but should have, had death not befallen him. And that he is terribly afraid of the dustbin of history, Vučić himself admitted in yesterday's address to those gathered in Donja Gradina.

And Dodik has already waded deeply and irrevocably into the mud of his own, as well as the uncertainty of the RS entity he leads, which is sinking deeper economically day by day. Perhaps even more radically than in the 1990s, when war criminal Radovan Karadžić was sentenced to life imprisonment. Both should be aware that no one's dawn has ever shone forever, and theirs certainly will not either.