There is a way to solve the emerging political crisis in Bosnia through state institutions, but Bosnia's Serb-majority will nevertheless become independent sometime in the future and can then find a way to enter a union with Serbia, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said on Sunday.
Dodik’s statement comes at the end of a turbulent week.
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Bosnian Serb leadership announced that representatives of the RS semi-autonomous entity would not participate in the decision-making processes until a law removing foreign judges from Bosnia’s Constitutional Court is passed.
The decision, which would block state institutions, is to be discussed by the RS National Assembly on Monday.
The move came after the Constitutional Court declared an RS property law unconstitutional.
Dodik, who is the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency and the leader of the strongest Bosnian Serb party, has been accusing the foreign judges of the Constitutional Court of siding with Bosniaks too often and working against Bosnian Serb interests.
He has also been advocating for the RS to secede and join neighbouring Serbia for years.
“There is no place for Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they don’t want a Republika Srpska,” Dodik said.
“Republika Srpska is a wonderful and big national idea of the Serb people and is the only place of our survival here,” he said.
But he stressed that the RS will not defend itself using force, guns and tanks, but with the will of its people and its institutions which should be built up through unity in the Parliament of the RS and through activities in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“I am no war leader, I will not lead the people into war and there will be no war, but I will surely be capable and ready to fight for political rights, as I want our children to not have to fight our battle, but to enter the stability of a loved and accepted Republika Srpska, integrated with Serbia, primarily,” Dodik said.
“I will stay and do this work exclusively so that Serbs are never again expelled from their homes and so we stay on our own territory,” he said.
Although he said that an institutional solution to the crisis is possible if the Constitutional Court regulated by a new law, Dodik stressed that Republika Srpska will be independent in a matter of decades and that it could find a way to unite with Serbia after some time.
Serb and Croat representatives will propose a law on the Constitutional Court together in the Parliament, he announced.
