The call by former head of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mustafa Cerić, for Muslims to “settle Republika Srpska” is not an innocent message or a religious appeal, but an open political statement with a clear goal – to change the identity of Republika Srpska and undermine its constitutional and historical role, SNSD leader Milorad Dodik warned.
“Republika Srpska is not anyone’s colony, nor a space for someone else’s political projects. It is the result of the will of an endangered Serb people in the former BiH and an internationally recognized constitutional category. Any attempt to portray it as a ‘suitable’ area for ideological or national ambitions represents a direct attack on peace, stability, and interethnic relations,” Dodik said in a statement for SRNA.
He stressed that it is particularly dangerous when such messages come from religious officials who, instead of inciting politics, should contribute to calming tensions and respecting the existing Dayton framework.
“Demographic engineering has never brought good to this region, and the history of the Balkans has taught us that many times, in the most painful way. Republika Srpska respects freedom of movement, but it will not silently observe attempts at political and ideological reshaping under the guise of so-called ‘coexistence’, which for Muslims was impossible in the 1990s, when Serbs and Croats were expelled with the aim of creating a Muslim state governed by sharia law,” Dodik said.
He added that it is therefore legitimate to ask why such a call for ‘coexistence’ is now being made, and why exclusively on the territory of Republika Srpska.
“After killing and expelling Serbs, now they want to ‘settle Republika Srpska’. This message represents moral rock bottom and a political provocation. Cerić deliberately ignores the bloody truth: Serbs were killed, expelled, ethnically cleansed, their homes burned, churches destroyed, and graves desecrated.
Serbs in the Federation of BiH have been reduced to a statistical error, and now, without even a trace of remorse or responsibility, there is a call for Republika Srpska to be treated as an open target for new political and demographic conquest. That is not coexistence. That is unprecedented arrogance,” Dodik said.
He stressed that Cerić’s call is not religious but political and dangerous, and that Republika Srpska is not a testing ground for demographic experiments or a place where wartime goals can be achieved through peacetime methods.
“Republika Srpska did not emerge by accident or whim, nor is it empty territory to be filled according to ideological or national plans from Sarajevo. It was created as a response to persecution, killings, and attempts to erase the Serb people west of the Drina. It was created as a response to crimes and threats that Cerić now shamelessly ignores. The demand that Serbs forget their dead, their expelled families, and their burned homes in order to once again live as ‘neighbors’ says far more about those making such demands than about Republika Srpska,” Dodik emphasized.
He stated that Cerić’s appeal is part of a long-term project aimed at demographically weakening Republika Srpska, politically undermining it, and ultimately erasing it.
“Even more dangerous is the fact that all of this is being done under the guise of religion. Anyone who uses faith to trample over other people’s graves does not preach God, but hatred and domination. Instead of repentance, we are given provocation. Instead of peace, pressure. Instead of truth, arrogance,” Dodik said.
He underlined that the Serb people will not allow their victims, suffering, and history to be used for new demographic experiments or for rewriting reality.
“Republika Srpska will remain what it is – a constitutional and permanent entity recognized by the Dayton Agreement. Its victims will not be trampled on at anyone’s whim. This is not the first brutal insult to Serb mothers and their black scarves, but the continuation of the ‘Islamic Declaration’, authored by Alija Izetbegović, who sacrificed peace in pursuit of his dream of a unitary BiH,” Dodik concluded.
He stressed that Republika Srpska is not anyone’s war trophy, nor a space for completing what failed in the tragic 1990s.
Cerić recently called on Bosniaks to purchase as many apartments as possible in Republika Srpska, including in Banja Luka and Bijeljina, stating: “We are the ones who will protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of BiH by not giving up a single inch of land.”
Source: RTRS
