Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik said that Srpska was formed as a state on January 9 and that it will continue to build its statehood character and strengthen its autonomy in a legitimate way. He said that there is a consensus of both the ruling and the opposition parties in Srpska on the celebration of January 9 – Republika Srpska Day and its Patron St.’s Day – which is good since it speaks of how much this is important for Srpska.
“This is not an issue for measuring power or force, but this is about an attempt to redefine history and present it in a different way,” Dodik said in an interview with Sputnik.
Dodik stressed that Republika Srpska is not a product of war or genocide, as Sarajevo wants to impute, and said that formally, Republika Srpska was formed on January 9, which is several months before the armed conflict started and that it was the expression of the will of the [Serbian] people in BiH at the moment of the dissolution of the former SFRY.
“Republika Srpska can be in BiH as defined by the Dayton Agreement. Srpska does not see its future in a centralized BiH and it will oppose it,” Dodik said.
Dodik said that the Serbian people have good experiences with Russia, which has never asked for any concessions for the support it undoubtedly provided to Republika Srpska, and this is something that must be respected.
“On the other hand, we have the West which even today is asking us to give up some of our national positions, including Republika Srpska, since, they say, this is a road we should take. Essentially, they are practicing on us, they do not respect the reality and do not hear that which we are telling them,” Dodik said.
Dodik said that Republika Srpska politics is still tied to European integration, but that Srpska is not ready to give up the cooperation with Russia.
Regarding a referendum on the BiH Court and Prosecutor’s Office, Dodik said that procedures are being conducted by certain dynamics, that a phase at the level of the judiciary has been completed and that this should be confirmed and published by the Official Gazette.
Dodik confirmed that there are pressures not to hold a referendum, put primarily by the High Representative, who is defending the violence he himself conducted, and noted that the time will come when all decisions that they made will have to be revised since they are unattainable, contrary to the international law and the BiH Constitution and contrary to the will of the people.
He said that they are trying to portray the referendum as an anti-Dayton activity, and added that the referendum is about things which do not exist in the Dayton Agreement.
“The BiH judiciary is not stipulated by the BiH Constitution. The High Representative to BiH has been speculating about the international law for a number of years, has been interpreting it wrongly and using his position and power to present this to foreign countries, which accept this easily without a real insight into the reality, in order to protect his position,” Dodik said.
Dodik said that nothing has been done in keeping with regulations. “New competencies can be introduced at the BiH level exclusively by the agreement of the parties; these parties are defined by the Dayton Agreement and they are Republika Srpska and the FBiH. Therefore, BiH is not a party, it is something that can, but not necessarily must exist. It is that which the two parties agree, nothing else,” Dodik said.
Source: SRNA
