Christian Schmidt amended the criminal law with the intention of taking property away from Republika Srpska, while Milorad Dodik made a personal sacrifice to prevent him from doing so, Radovan Kovačević, Serb delegate in the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, said.
“I believe that, above all, this mandate has been marked by attacks on Republika Srpska. Sarajevo felt that it had support to launch its most aggressive offensive against Republika Srpska. I think it is time to speak openly about this. Why did Schmidt impose amendments to the criminal law? His intention was to take property away from Republika Srpska. I do not know whether you remember, but he openly said that he had a law on state property ready in his drawer. His plan was to take away everything that is ours and belongs to us,” Kovačević said.
He argued that such an outcome would effectively mean the end of Republika Srpska’s ability to make independent decisions.
“Republika Srpska would not decide on anything. We currently have an investment cycle worth BAM 7.5 billion in Republika Srpska. Had it been up to Schmidt, we would have had to wait for Sarajevo’s decision on everything. Milorad Dodik recognized that. He took a year, a year and a half away from them when they were at their strongest and forced them to spend that time prosecuting him. He was prepared to make that sacrifice in order to protect the property of Republika Srpska,” Kovačević said.
Kovačević said that Dodik had made a personal sacrifice.
“This mandate was marked by the strongest attack on Republika Srpska, but Milorad Dodik directed the full force of that attack toward himself personally,” he added.
Commenting on the proceedings against Dodik, Kovačević claimed that Dodik had set a trap into which his opponents immediately fell.
“For 20 years, they tried to remove Milorad Dodik because they were aware that he was the main obstacle preventing them from achieving their goal of eliminating Republika Srpska. Year after year, election cycle after election cycle, they failed,” Kovačević said, claiming that the ultimate objective was to eliminate both Republika Srpska and Dodik from the political scene.
He added that Dodik understood that, in his view, the time available to his political opponents was running out.
“The property of Republika Srpska survived. Milorad Dodik is still here today, but where are Christian Schmidt and Michael Murphy? How powerful are those who tried to bring down Republika Srpska? It seems to me that Republika Srpska is stronger today than ever before. We also see that Milorad Dodik is stronger than ever, someone whom the people still love. Milorad Dodik is not in the position of president today not because that was not the will of the people, but because he defended Republika Srpska. Yet we can see that this does not concern Netanyahu, Putin or Hegseth,” Kovačević said.
He added that Republika Srpska would continue to develop and pointed to the planned investment cycle as evidence of its financial capacity.
“When we talk about the investment cycle, it is clear that Republika Srpska is strong enough, in addition to all its regular expenditures, to allocate another BAM 7.5 billion for investment and development. What does that mean? Better living conditions for every person in Republika Srpska. Another important factor is Savo Minić becoming prime minister of Republika Srpska. I hear some people saying that they would introduce a 13th pension in Republika Srpska. For someone receiving BAM 500 or BAM 700, that would represent an increase of 8.33 percent. Do you know how much pensions have increased since Savo Minić became prime minister? Fourteen percent. So, it may sound attractive, but when you consider that it is almost half the increase Minić secured within a year, the comparison is clear,” Kovačević said.
Kovačević also claimed that Republika Srpska provides significantly more support than the Federation of BiH across various beneficiary categories.
“If we could measure the importance of what the veterans of Republika Srpska gave us, they gave us our pride, they gave us Republika Srpska and our symbols. Even if we gave our veterans the entire budget, it would still be too little compared with what they gave for Republika Srpska,” Kovačević said.
Source: RTRS
