Speeches

Speech by Serb member and Chair of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Željka Cvijanović at the Global Baku Forum

3/13/2025

There is a large number of crisis areas and negative developments in the world, so it is logical to ask whether these challenges can be turned into opportunities.

I come from a country that, unfortunately, is going through the biggest political and constitutional crisis in its thirty-year history.

I must admit that I have a very bad feeling about the possible outcome of the thoughtless decision of an unelected foreigner, confirmed by instrumentalized judicial institutions.

Generally speaking, everyone is now waiting to see what international relations will look like after the arrival of the new administration, led by President Trump.

The American deep state, together with globalist and bureaucratic elites in Europe, is using Bosnia and Herzegovina as an experiment for radical nation-building with the aim of creating a centralized state, completely different from the one envisaged and established by the Dayton Agreement – ​​with a decentralized structure.

The fact is that this experiment, after three decades, has resulted in a failed state and has failed to impose a common national identity that would turn Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks into one nation.

Their main tool is the instrumentalized judicial institutions, where, in the case of the Constitutional Court of BiH, three foreign judges are actually helping to change the Dayton Peace Agreement and our constitution in order to illegally create a unitary state.

In practice, the Constitutional Court of BiH is used to change the Constitution, instead of protecting it. Another example of abuse of judicial institutions is the Court of BiH, which, incidentally, was not provided for in the Dayton Agreement at all, and before which a political trial ended ingloriously with a verdict that could plunge BiH into a vortex of violence and disintegration.

The legally and democratically elected President of Republika Srpska was convicted for fulfilling his constitutional obligation and signing laws passed by the National Assembly of Republika Srpska; the verdict in the first instance is – one year in prison and a ban on candidacy for the office of President or any other political office for a period of six years.

All this happened because an unelected foreigner, who falsely claims to be the High Representative – a German pretender to absolute power – in contradiction to international law, the Dayton Agreement, the Constitution of BiH and the Constitution of Republika Srpska, imposed amendments to the Criminal Code, according to which disrespect for his illegitimate and autocratic decisions is a criminal offense.

This trial is a classic example of violence by legal means – where the judicial system is used as a tool to eliminate political dissenters under the guise of administering justice. This is a deliberate attempt to weaken a democratically elected leader for protecting the sovereignty of his people and traditional values.

This abuse of the judiciary forces the legal and legitimate institutions and elected representatives of Republika Srpska to wage an existential struggle to preserve the Dayton Agreement and the constitutional autonomy and powers guaranteed to our Republika and our people.

In all likelihood, the response of this uncrowned ruler from Germany and the instrumentalized judiciary will be additional repression, threats of violence, retaliation, and further abuse of the judiciary for political purposes.

I believe that Bosnia and Herzegovina must move away from these politically motivated moves and turn to building a truly democratic system, in which elected leaders will have the power to make decisions, where the judiciary will not be a tool of political war, and the law will serve the people, not the interests of a few unelected officials who are not accountable to anyone, but still impose their will.

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