Milorad Dodik of today is not true Milorad Dodik, said Serbian politician and writer Vuk Draskovic, former senior official, speaking about the nationalist Bosnian Serb leader in N1’s programme.
“I believe that Dodik of today is not a true Dodik, that he is still Dodik who opposes war and horrors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who advocates the end of the war, accelerated accession to NATO and European Union,” said Draskovic in an interview with N1’s Amir Zukic.
The current behaviour of the hardline Serb leader is a “scenario written somewhere in intelligence centres of some countries,” said Draskovic, adding that Dodik himself does not believe in what he says but knows that such policy guarantees him votes.
Dodik has now for years been advocating secession of Bosnia’s Serb region, Republika Srpska, and its merging with Serbia despite the opposition of the international community and other major ethnic groups in Bosnia.
“Republika Srpska which Dodik rightly represents as a creation of the Dayton Peace Agreement (a treaty which ended the war and contains the State Constitution), its existence is guaranteed with the Dayton agreement, which cannot be changed. Peace agreements can be amended only with new agreements,” he said.
Asked if Dodik is “seeking for trouble” as some say, Draskovic replied that such ideas should not be given too much importance.
“He seeks for it if we give him importance. I don’t give any, he’s only parading and nothing more,” according to Draskovic.
Speaking about the relations among the countries in this region, he noted that the relations of Bosnia with Serbia and Croatia are the worst.
“You’ve mentioned bad relations of Croatia and Serbia, that’s true. But it is also true that the worst relations are those between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. That is so because the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks cherish the dark hole of misfortune from the wars when Yugoslavia was broken apart. They just can’t move further from that horror, they can’t overcome the war wounds but keep deepening them and consequences are catastrophic. Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia are becoming deserted. The youth is escaping from us as such, they are escaping the peace which is not peace but the continuation of war,” he stressed.
Draskovic served as the first Foreign Minister of Serbia and although his country maintains the stance of military neutrality, hence not striving to the NATO membership, he believes that joining the alliance guarantees peace.
“NATO is a choice of a path and European union is a journey. NATO means Europe’s safety, defence, protection. NATO means the safety of this region so that something that some wish for – having a Balkan Syria here where Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia would end up as haunted Venezuelas of the Balkans – doesn’t happen,” he said.
The documents on military neutrality that Serbia and Republika Srpska adopted in their parliaments, according to Draskovic, mean nothing.
“Military neutrality is also achieved through an international contract. Serbia doesn’t have such deal, we have some kind of a declaration. That has no value. One should win its military neutrality in talks with Russian military alliance, NATO alliance and meet the conditions for military neutrality,” he said.
