PROBLEM IS THOSE WHO THINK THEY ARE ABOVE AGREEMENT

BANJA LUKA, DECEMBER 14 /SRNA/ – The Dayton is not merely an agreement that brought peace; it also established a constitutional and legal order, a complex internal structure that has enabled BiH to remain peaceful for three decades, despite challenges not created by Republika Srpska but by internationals said SNSD leader Milorad Dodik.

In an op-ed for Politika, Dodik stated that peace in BiH was not preserved through resolutions and pressure, but through respect for the letter of the BiH Constitution, which established the constitutional order in order to stop the war.

According to him, any insistence on unitarist models in a country composed of three peoples and two entities is doomed to failure, because it ignores the very essence of its existence.

SRNA publishes Milorad Dodik’s op-ed in full:

The truth is simple: whenever BiH respected the Dayton Peace Agreement, it had peace. When it undermined it, it faced crisis. Thirty years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, it is time to look at this document again without passion, without ideological fog, and without political experiments that have been dismantling it for years.

The Dayton is not only an agreement that brought peace; it also established a constitutional and legal order, a complex internal organisation that enabled BiH to remain peaceful for three decades, despite all challenges created not by Republika Srpska, but largely by internationals with shifting political agendas.

For Republika Srpska, the Dayton Peace Agreement is an international treaty that confirmed the foundation of its political existence and guarantees its competences. This is not a simple interpretation, but a clearly written constitutional architecture: Republika Srpska has all competences except those explicitly assigned by the Constitution of BiH to the joint level.

Over the past 30 years, this constitutional standard has been systematically undermined through the seizure of competences. High representatives of the signatories of Annex 10 - who have been distorted into false foreign gauleiters as an anti-Dayton hybrid phenomenon - have, outside international law and without the consent of local institutions, carried out political interventions that were not in line with the letter of the Dayton.

Instead of preserving the agreement, a parallel system of governance was created that disrupted rather than strengthened the fragile balance. Therefore, it must be clearly stated today: the greatest problem of BiH is not the entities, but those who think they can be above the Constitution and international law, especially those who consent to that.

Despite all this, Republika Srpska has remained consistent with the real Dayton - the one signed in 1995, not later revised versions. On this consistency, however much some circles dispute it, depend both the stability of BiH and its survival. Not because one politician wants it so, but because it is the only framework that respects political reality and equality among peoples. And political reality is relentless: without the consent of the Serbs, there is no decision in BiH. This is not a threat; it is a Dayton-based fact.

Today, three decades later, it is clear that BiH functions only when the original Dayton is respected. When institutions are built on the agreement, not on imposed solutions. When entities are respected, not bypassed. When decisions are made by consensus, not by outvoting.

BiH is not collapsing because it is complex, but because some persistently try to make it impossible.

The stability of BiH has never been the product of centralization, as is often wrongly claimed, but of balance. Inequality in decision-making has not produced a more efficient state; it has deepened distrust.

Any insistence on unitarist models in a country composed of three peoples and two entities is doomed to failure, because it ignores the very essence of its existence. The Dayton works when everyone respects it and becomes problem only when someone tries to “fix” it.

Instead, lasting stability can only be achieved by restoring the principles and provisions of the original Dayton Accords: equality, consent, and clear respect for constitutional competences. This implies recognition of the reality that the entities, especially Republika Srpska, are key pillars of the system, not obstacles to progress.

Politically, this also implies dialogue, but dialogue in which decisions are not made because embassies expect them, but because they are our own necessity. A state that waits for instructions from the outside is not a state - it is an administrative zone.

Over the past 30 years, Republika Srpska has shown that it is a politically mature community capable of preserving peace and developing institutions. It is not a destabilizing factor, but a guarantor of stability - precisely because it insists on what was signed, not on what was later attempted to be imposed. Today, as debates about the future of BiH reopen, it is high time for this fact to be acknowledged both in Sarajevo and in international circles.

Republika Srpska is not the problem in BiH - it is the reason BiH has not had a new war for three decades.

The Dayton Peace Agreement ended the war and established a framework for political peace. Its strength lies in balance, not force; in agreement, not pressure; in respect for reality, not attempts to replace it with bureaucratic wishes of declining centres of power.

Peace in BiH is not preserved through resolutions and pressure, but through respect for the letter of the BiH Constitution, which established the constitutional order to stop the war.

That is why marking 30 years of the Dayton is not only a remembrance of the day the war ended, but also a reminder that peace lasts only as long as the agreement that established it is respected.

Republika Srpska remains committed to that agreement- because not only its position depends on it, but also the future of BiH as a system that can survive only if its foundations are respected, not erased.

The Dayton is the only reason BiH still exists, and for Republika Srpska it is much more than a legal framework - it confirmed our Republic as a place of peace and stability for the Serb people, into which we built the most valuable things we have during the Defensive–Patriotic War.

For some in BiH, however, that same agreement represents a “straitjacket,” which only shows that they are not guided by concern for BiH, but by hatred towards Republika Srpska and Serb people. Precisely because of such impulses, Republika Srpska must always remain vigilant, steadfast, and ready to defend itself and its place in the order created by the Dayton.

Narratives suggesting that BiH’s European path is simultaneously a path toward centralization are false and anti-Dayton, therefore also anti-European. This is best seen now that the EU is in a serious systemic crisis: fragile as a community, without leadership or ideology, with a threatened future and perspective, socially and economically devastated by migration, turning toward militarisation and new wars, with collapsed values and a sinking economy.

The EU no longer offers anything except instability, insecurity, and complete uncertainty. Allowing it to strip us of sovereignty for the sake of its distant goals can only be a refuge for the naive.

As a signatory and guarantor of the Dayton Peace Agreement, Serbia has consistently advocated for its faithful implementation throughout these 30 years.

Every move by Serbia has been aimed at stabilizing relations, rebuilding shaken trust among states, and fostering cooperation within the Western Balkans. Europe has also shown hypocrisy toward Serbia by excluding it from the Peace Implementation Council /although it is unclear why this informal body exists at all/.

The Russian Federation persists in upholding the Dayton Peace Agreement, which is why it itself has had problems with what until now has been called the collective West. The original letter of the Dayton Peace Agreement can be best recognized in the positions of the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation has never acted on behalf of one side at the expense of others in BiH.

Trump’s America is an America of peace and cooperation, of respect for the interests of others. President Trump’s positions that America will not build other people’s states /which we read as BiH/, will not build other people’s nations /which we read as not building “Bosnians” as a nation/, and will not intervene in the internal affairs of other countries /which we again read as BiH/, represent an affirmation of the true provisions of the Dayton Peace Agreement.

The latest provisions of the U.S. presidential national security strategy confirm all this, affirming the right of peoples /which we also read as the Serb people/ to decide on their interests on an equal footing with others /something we see as a light at the end of the dark tunnel of the Clinton, Obama, and especially Biden eras/.