Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a Muslim majority, is in crisis. The president of the Serb and Christian part of the country, Milorad Dodik, has been accused of separatism. We publish in full the interview with Dušan Pavlović, director of the Institute for Socio-Political Research of Republika Srpska, given to Éléments, a French bimonthly magazine.
Since the end of the deadly civil war that followed the breakup of communist Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina has lived under a constitution designed to guarantee a balance of power between different warring communities. Since then, the country has been divided into two entities, Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and headed by a high representative who is neither elected nor approved by the UN, and who strongly interferes in internal politics.
This representative is increasingly challenged by Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, which recently led to his indictment by a Sarajevo court and the issuance of an arrest warrant against him. Refusing to recognize the legitimacy of his indictment, the Serb leader in Bosnia and Herzegovina continues his efforts to strengthen the sovereignty of his Republic and has not been arrested to this day.
In an attempt to understand the political crisis in this country and to better grasp the viewpoint of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who are portrayed as separatists by the international press, we spoke with Dušan Pavlović, director of the Center for Socio-Political Research of Republika Srpska and a former expert of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Éléments: What are the prospects for Republika Srpska in the medium term—are we heading towards independence or at least a new constitution that would bury the model imposed by the Dayton Agreement?
Dušan Pavlović: The Dayton Peace Agreement is not actually an “imposed model,” but an international peace agreement signed in 1995, guaranteed by the great world powers and ratified by UN Security Council Resolution 1031, thus becoming a binding part of international law. Republika Srpska is one of the contracting parties to this agreement, which gives it a clear international legal status. The problem is not in the Dayton Agreement, but in its systematic dismantling, carried out by Bosnian pan-Islamist political circles with the support of Western globalist structures.
The main goal of this process is the abolition of the constitutional status of Serbs and Croats and the formation of a centralized Bosnia and Herzegovina under the rule of one people. This policy of centralization is not based on a “civic state” but on an Islamist concept of politics which aims to transform Bosnia and Herzegovina into an Islamic state in the heart of Europe, in accordance with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. While secular democracies dominate Europe, the centralization of Bosnia and Herzegovina would be equivalent to Islamic rule over two Christian peoples: Serbs and Croats.
The medium-term strategy of Republika Srpska is therefore to protect the order established by the Dayton Agreement and its Annex IV, which serves as the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but if the process of destroying the agreement continues, the question of the political and legal status of the state will arise. Dayton is the foundation of Bosnia and Herzegovina—if the agreements collapse, Bosnia and Herzegovina will also disappear, and the Serb people will decide on their future as a sovereign political actor, in accordance with international law.
Éléments: Now that President Dodik has signed decrees banning the activities of central judicial institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Republika Srpska, what will be the direct consequences of the arrest warrant issued against him by Sarajevo?
Dušan Pavlović: The starting point of this question is incorrect, because Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have “central” judicial institutions in the Dayton constitutional framework. The Court and the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina are not provided for by the Dayton Agreement, but were imposed by illegal decisions of the high representative, without the consent of the signatory parties. Their existence, as well as their mode of operation, represent a clear violation of international peace agreements, because they were established by administrative acts above the judicial systems of the constituent entities, and not constitutionally, that is, within the framework of Dayton Annex IV, which has international legal status.
The decision of President Dodik and the National Assembly of Republika Srpska is not an obstruction of justice, but a defense of the Dayton constitutional order in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The arrest warrant issued by Sarajevo is not a legal act, but a political instrument of pressure, which has no basis in the Constitution. Its goal is not the application of law, but the suppression of political representatives of Republika Srpska who oppose the violation of the Dayton Agreement. Such instrumentalization of justice is not new: in the past, those same institutions were used to prosecute Serb politicians and members of the army of Republika Srpska, while violations of the law committed by Bosniak pan-Islamist political structures were ignored.
The key question is not what the consequences of such a mandate will be, but what its existence reveals about the rule of law in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Republika Srpska has no obligation to recognize institutions that operate outside the framework of Dayton. If the instrumentalization of justice for political purposes continues, Bosnia and Herzegovina will lose what little constitutional legitimacy it has left. The political persecution of the leader of one of the two entities directly calls into question the fundamental principle of Dayton: the equality before the law of the constituent peoples.
Éléments: Can an agreement be reached with the Croat minority, which traditionally opposes both Serbs and Muslims, for the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Dušan Pavlović: Croats are a constituent people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, just like the Serbs, and they are facing the same problem: the political weight of the Muslim majority. The goal of the centralization of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not democratization, but the establishment of an Islamic state that applies sharia law, under the control of pan-Islamist structures of the Muslim Brotherhood, as clearly formulated in Alija Izetbegović’s “Islamic Declaration.”
The systematic elimination of the constitutional concept of constituent peoples, consociational democracy, and the destruction of the Dayton Agreement aim at the political subjugation of Serbs and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The imposition of Željko Komšić as the Croat member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, elected by Bosniak votes, shows that Muslim politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina uses institutions to marginalize Christian peoples and render them politically irrelevant.
Republika Srpska is not advocating any kind of division of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it will not accept centralization supported by globalist structures that would lead to the radical Islamization of the country. If pressure on Serbs and Croats continues, Bosnia and Herzegovina will face inevitable constitutional transformation, because no people will voluntarily give up its collective rights.
Éléments: How can a police crackdown by Sarajevo authorities be avoided?
Dušan Pavlović: The danger of unilateral rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina would not arise from a democratic process, but from the Islamist and totalitarian mentality of the Bosnian political elite, which uses security and judicial institutions to dominate Serb and Croat Christians. Security organizations such as OSA (Intelligence Agency) and SIPA (State Investigation and Protection Agency), as well as the Court and Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, are not institutions recognized by the Dayton Constitution, but mechanisms of political repression created in violation of it.
At the same time, Bosnian authorities, with the support of globalist structures, are promoting the concept of a “civic state,” while their real goal is to remove Christians from power and secure the absolute domination of the Muslim majority. This is typical for political Islam: instead of democratic division of power, institutions are used to completely eliminate the opposition.
Éléments: The Austrian press recently revealed the possibility of intervention by European Union forces (EUFOR), which are obliged to maintain strict neutrality toward Dodik. What should we do about this development?
Dušan Pavlović: The very fact that the possibility of military intervention against the lawfully elected leader of one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina is being considered shows the extent to which the democratic order and international law are collapsing. An EUFOR intervention, deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the basis of a UN Security Council resolution, can only be viewed as a peacekeeping measure, not as a means of political repression.
However, Bosnian-Muslim structures in Sarajevo, with the support of part of the Western globalist circles, are persistently trying to instrumentalize international military forces to achieve their political goals. This reflects the Islamist totalitarian mentality, which perceives governance as absolute control over the political, judicial, and security sectors. There is nothing democratic in this concept—it is the legacy of the Muslim Brotherhood, deeply rooted in the Bosnian political body.
To ensure EUFOR’s neutrality, it is necessary to insist on strict adherence to the mandate defined by the UN Security Council, which means that any unilateral action against Republika Srpska would constitute a violation of international law. In the event of an attempted armed intervention against Republika Srpska, this would raise the question not only of EUFOR’s legitimacy, but also of Bosnia and Herzegovina itself, as it would prove that it is not a democratic state, but an instrument in the service of a national and ideological group.
Éléments: What are the prospects for international recognition of Republika Srpska, or at least for reshaping Bosnia according to a confederal model?
Dušan Pavlović: International recognition of Republika Srpska is not a matter of political will, but the result of a legal and historical process. Republika Srpska is a contracting party to the Dayton Agreement, which gives it a clear status under international law within Bosnia and Herzegovina. If the erosion of Dayton continues, the question of the legal validity of Bosnia and Herzegovina itself will arise, because without the Constitution established by Dayton, Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state loses its legitimacy.
The attempt to centralize Bosnia and Herzegovina is not only a violation of Dayton, but also the implementation of totalitarian political Islam, which, through globalist structures, uses the narrative of a “civic state” to eliminate the rights of Serbs and Croats. This is a process observed in Islamized countries of the Middle East, where the Muslim majority takes complete control of institutions and imposes sharia law under the guise of “democratization.”
The most realistic scenario for the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina is confederalization—a return to the original Dayton principles, in which the entities would enjoy maximum autonomy within a joint framework. That would be a natural solution, because Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a nation-state, but a complex state union. If the violations of Dayton continue, Republika Srpska will be forced to redefine its political status, and in that process, the question of its international recognition will inevitably arise.
Éléments: What opportunities does Trump’s presidency offer, considering the major geopolitical shifts it has already initiated on the European stage?
Dušan Pavlović: The second term of President Donald Trump has already led to the limitation of influence by globalist structures that supported the centralization of Bosnia and Herzegovina and political Islam in the region. The Trump administration, through the dismantling of USAID, reduced support to Bosnian lobbies, which for decades used institutions such as the Office of the High Representative, the EU, and NATO to dismantle the Dayton Agreement and create a centralized Islamic state in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Today, Washington no longer officially supports mechanisms of judicial and security repression against Republika Srpska and therefore no longer pressures Serb political leaders. Trump’s approach to international relations, including in the Balkans, is based on political pragmatism—there is no longer interest in supporting one camp or the other, but in stability based on respect for the original Dayton principles.
Even though the USA may not become an ally of Republika Srpska, the weakening of support for Sarajevo and the reduced engagement of globalist structures opens the path to political and economic stability of the Serb entity, as well as the possibility to build a stronger international position based on Dayton and the principle of entity sovereignty.
Éléments: The EU countries, especially Germany, have historically been the guarantors of the Bosnia that has existed until now. What reaction can we expect from them?
Dušan Pavlović: Germany and most major European Union countries support the process of centralizing Bosnia and Herzegovina, which means they will continue to pressure Republika Srpska to weaken its status established by Dayton. This policy is not motivated by interest in stability, but is part of a broader globalist strategy in which Bosnia and Herzegovina is imagined as a regional model of multiculturalism, while in reality a state under Islamist domination is being formed.
Germany, as a key player in the EU, actively supports the Bosnian political agenda, just as it did during the Second World War, using mechanisms of sanctions, political pressure, and institutions such as the Office of the High Representative. German policy towards Bosnia and Herzegovina is not neutral—it is directly aimed at dismantling the Dayton order, as clearly seen through the support of its former minister Christian Schmidt, the illegitimate high representative who is trying to impose solutions contrary to Dayton while bypassing the UN Security Council.
The reaction of Germany and other Western European countries will be continued pressure through economic and political measures, but without the possibility of direct intervention. Republika Srpska must continue to insist on international law and the respect for Dayton, while Western globalist policy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina will lose strength in the long term, because it comes into conflict with the actual ethno-political relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the growing sovereigntist resistance within the EU, especially in Germany.
Éléments: In the 21st century, is the reunification of all Serbs into one state still a realistic project?
Dušan Pavlović: The reunification of the Serb people is not only a national ideal, but also a legal and geopolitical necessity, because Serbs are the only European people who were violently denied the right to national unification. In the Balkans, Albanians achieved their project by seceding from Kosovo with Western support, while Serbs are forced to accept artificial borders created by the will of great powers, not by historical reality. As a result of these decisions by the great powers, Serbs suffered a horrific genocide during the Second World War, and Germany bears direct responsibility.
Although unilateral unification is not currently a realistic option, the international order is changing, and the weakening of globalist Western hegemony opens the possibility of revisiting the unjust decisions of the past. Republika Srpska and Serbia must build a unified political, economic, and cultural space, while geopolitical shifts will determine when the Serb question will be resolved according to the same principles that were applied to other peoples in the region. The historical right of the Serb people to unification has not been permanently revoked—it has only been postponed by political circumstances, and that process will depend on the continued weakening of the globalist system and the consolidation of Serb national strength.
Éléments: What is the place of Republika Srpska in the European integration projects of the Republic of Serbia?
Dušan Pavlović: Republika Srpska is a strategic and national part of the Serb political body, and every policy of European integration by Serbia must take into account the interests and constitutional position of Republika Srpska within Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina. The process of joining Brussels’ Europe is not just a technical issue, but very often an instrument of globalist influence for political reshaping of Balkan states: for example, pressure on Serbia to limit its support to Republika Srpska and to bow to the Islamist concept of a centralized Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In that context, Republika Srpska must have a clearly defined status within Serbia’s negotiations with the EU, because any attempt to condition Serbia’s European integration on weakening the autonomy of Bosnian Serbs would represent a direct violation of the Dayton Agreement and a political capitulation to globalist power.
Given the growing resistance of sovereigntist forces in Europe against the alienated Brussels bureaucracy, Serbia and Republika Srpska must build their own model of political and economic development, relying on strategic partners outside the globalist Western structures. Integration is not an unconditional process—if the EU continues with its policy of ideological conditioning and blackmail, the long-term interest of the Serbs is not integration at any cost, but the preservation of sovereignty and the strengthening of national independence.
Source: RTRS
