Milivojevic: The verdict against Dodik cannot be qualified other than as a coup

Career diplomat Zoran Milivojevic has assessed that the verdict by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) against the president of the Serb Republic (RS, Serb entity in BiH), Milorad Dodik, cannot be qualified other than as a kind of coup that happened in that country.

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"It has two properties that point to such a conclusion. First, it is unlawful, because it is not in accordance with the constitution. It is also not in accordance with the Dayton Agreement, on which the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina rests. Therefore, when something is unconstitutional, with the intention of questioning the current political system, it is a coup," Milivojevic told Tanjug.

He added that the verdict against Dodik represents political condemnation, which, he says, has nothing to do with the law.

"When you bear all that in mind, it certainly calls into question Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state. Regardless of the fact that it's not a sovereign state, it is a member of the United Nations... As soon as the functioning of the constitution on which it rests, the basis on which it rests, is called into question, then that is a direct attack on the state. And that cannot be qualified otherwise than as a coup," said Milivojevic.

According to him, those who planned the whole story surrounding Dodik's trial are convinced that it is a method of realizing some of their goals in the background, such as an attempt to centralize the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the detriment of what it is based on.

"And it is based on the Dayton Agreement, which is in force and whose guarantors are great powers and us here, Croatia and Serbia. And it rests on the constitution, which defined that country based on that Dayton Agreement... The intention was to somehow revise the Dayton Agreement, in favor of the centralization of the state," said Milivojevic.

He recalled that according to the agreement that ended the war in BiH, the two entities enjoy a certain type of subjectivity in the international-legal sense, because they have rights and obligations to enter into special relations with Croatia or Serbia, as well as that BiH rests on three constituent peoples, while the functioning of the state depends on their consent.

According to him, the problem is that "BiH is not a sovereign state."

"It has that council for implementation of peace. It has the Constitutional Court, in which decisions are made through foreigners, by outvoting. It has that high representative, who was not even envisaged in the Dayton Agreement, this was later imposed," said Milivojevic.

He added that the danger of escalation would lie in an attempt to implement the verdict against Dodik, and if there is no reaction from the foreign factor, "anything could happen."

Milivojevic concluded that after the verdict against Dodik, there will be no more compromises of any kind regarding the position and status of the Serb people, the RS, and the original Dayton Agreement.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)