Two American F-16 fighter jets will fly over today Bosnia Herzegovina to warn that the United States will not tolerate attempts by the Balkan state to secede, that country's embassy in Sarajevo said on Monday. “The United States has emphasized that the Constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina does not provide for the right to secession and will act if anyone attempts to change this fundamental element (of the Dayton Peace Agreement),” the embassy warned in a statement posted on its website. Network.
This warning and the fighter jet flyover, which will take place in the afternoon, coincide with the start of a two-day celebration secessionist Republika Srpska (RS) of its illegal “national holiday” on January 9th and after repeated threats of independence from its authorities. The embassy also emphasized that the fighter aircraft exercises are part of bilateral training with the Bosnian army and represent a part of military cooperation between the two countries, which contributes to peace and security in the country Western Balkans.
“It also demonstrates the United States’ commitment to ensuring the territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the face of secessionist and anti-Dayton activities,” he stressed. Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik described the US ambassador last week: Michael Murphy “Faggot and psychopath” as he stressed his country’s support for Bosnia’s territorial integrity.
According to the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the Bosnian War (1992-1995), the Republika Srpska is one of the two entities that, together with the Federation, form Bosnia-Herzegovina. The mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Bosnia warned again days ago that the celebration of this “national holiday” was discriminatory and unconstitutional and therefore constituted a criminal offense.
Bosnian Serbs have been celebrating this holiday for years despite condemnations, but this year there is particular tension due to new secessionist threats from the RS president, Milorad Dodik. The International High Representative for Bosnia, Christian Schmidt, called on the Bosnian prosecutor's office to react if the party were to be officially celebrated.
In such a case, Dodik threatened to declare the Bosnian Central Prosecutor's Office incompetent on the territory of the RS, according to Sarajevo, would constitute a “de jure” secession. The Constitutional Court first banned this holiday in 2015, believing that the date of January 9 was discriminatory and had been adopted against the will of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats of the RS.
For this population, the January 9, 1992 commemoration marked the beginning of a terrible ethnic cleansing in the territories that the Bosnian Serbs wanted to claim for their own state, separate from the rest of Bosnia and united with Serbia, as confirmed by the organization International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The Bosnian Serb political and military leaders who founded the RS at the beginning of the war have been convicted of genocide and war crimes by international justice, although they are admired in this territory and their crimes are denied or relativized.
