The most difficult years for the Republika Srpska (RS) entity are long behind us, and the RS now has an efficient and functional government. It may not have a seat at the UN, as an official sign of recognition, but it has all the elements of a state, said the president of this Serb-dominated entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Speaking to Radio-Television of Serbia (RTS), Milorad Dodik reiterated his earlier statement that the international community took away entity armies.

“Since the Dayton Peace Agreement (which ended the war in Bosnia 1992-1995), they took away our military, security services and many other things, but they didn’t take these things away forever. We lost these things because the high representatives forced their decisions upon us,” Dodik said.

Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) dominated by Bosniaks and Croats, and the RS, as well as the District of Brcko, not dominated by any of the three constituent peoples.

Dodik added that the high representatives, which oversee the civilian implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement, are not what they used to be.

“We took their power away from them, we veered them completely off course. My team and I gave them a blow from which they never recovered, as they said,” he noted.

RS President also stressed that high representatives are now defending the mess they made in Bosnia.

“They are mad at us because we can’t live in their horrible creation,” RS President concluded.

According to him, there is an ever increasing number of those suggesting that the people living in this country should be allowed to decide on their own fate.

“They (the international community) must start treating us as rational people so that we could decide on our own fate and so that they could prevent any conflict should there be any. They shouldn’t generate new conflicts,” Dodik concluded.