The Party for Democratic Action (SDA) is neither taking part in illegal mobilisation nor is it planning to, and it is not dealing with illegal arms production, the Party leader Bakir Izetbegovic said on Tuesday, reacting to earlier accusations by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik.
“We rely on Bosnia’s Armed Forces and international guarantors of the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in Bosnia, as well as the cooperation with the NATO,” Bosniak leader Bakir Izetbegovic told Faktor.ba news portal. “Dodik and the authorities of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS) entity are the ones flirting with the creation of paramilitary formations, arming the entity police with military firearms, planning the formation of a reserve police unit and other things.”
Izetbegovic argued that Dodik’s tactics are based on accusing others of the things he himself is planning or doing.
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“He’s intentionally creating crisis and obstructions and blaming others for his wrongdoing. Then he claims that Bosnia is in a crisis and has no future. The most dangerous crisis that can affect the country is the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats’ (SNSD) obstruction of the formation of the state government,” he noted.
Izetbegovic added that Dodik and his SNSD which has the majority in the RS are blocking Bosnia’s NATO integration process and asking for more seats in the State parliament than parties representing the more numerous people in the country, the Bosniaks.
The Bosnian Serb leader is known of attacking the State and calling it dysfunctional. He has for years been pushing for the RS to secede from Bosnia.
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Last year, the former Serb Presidency member Mladen Ivanic initiated a probe into all the arms factories in the Bosniak-Croat shared entity of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) after the RS authorities led by Milorad Dodik accused the SDA of supporting illegal arms production and sales.
The probe proved that all the factories are operating within the state and international laws and that the state institutions and the Presidency approve every arms sale.
“The fact is that our (FBiH) arms industry is stronger (than the RS’) and that it became a safety and stability factor for anyone who loves this country and wants peace and well being for its citizens. We will do everything in our power to continue these trends,” Izetbegovic concluded.
Speaking about Dodik’s earlier statement to the Serbian Espresso.rs portal in which he said that integration of the RS, Serbia and Serb-dominated parts of Montenegro is inevitable and that it would happen by the end of this century, both Izetbegovic and his party said the aim of such statements is to divert attention from pressing issues like the UN Court’s verdict against the former Bosnian Serb leader and the first RS President Radovan Karadzic, and the Constitutional Court’s decision saying that January 9 cannot be celebrated as the Day of RS, citing discrimination against non-Serbs.
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“Three decades ago was the last time maps were drawn – and that led to the war between peoples. The people who drew those maps ended up in jail, and I hope that Milorad Dodik understands and considers these undeniable facts,” Izetbegovic told Faktor.ba.
The SDA noted that Dodik’s actions are dangerous and cunning propaganda “like the one used by the regime of the former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic amid the aggression on Bosnia when others were accused arming themselves and threatening Serbs. These threats were later used as an excuse for aggression.”
