He claims that at this point there are not any strong
signs of really “pushing” towards the abolishment of the Republic of
Srpska (RS) or the reduction of its competences, or that such signs are
not visible in America at least.
Saying that the reduction of the RS competences was a process
between the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement and Paddy Ashdown’s
term, Đorđević noted that Ashdown was “supposed to cut off the last
slice of salami, which was slowly cut every year by each new office of
the high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).”
”It had stopped for a while but the Bosniak, Muslim campaign and
propaganda isn’t ceasing and they are constantly working on that. I
don’t know if they’ll succeed or not, it’s pretty hard to say,” said
Đorđević.
He noted that the RS President Milorad Dodik was a very capable
politician in terms of defending the Serb interests within BiH and added
that it was “a thorn in the side of many people” the fact that he had
done a lot to strengthen the Republic of Srpska.
Nevertheless, said Đorđević, the Republic of Srpska stands a chance if the Serbs stand united.
’If the Serbs are united, the Republic of Srpska will live on – but
if they keep doing what they’ve been doing… We in America have an
expression that goes like this: We’ve met the enemy, and he is us,” said
Đorđević.
As for a possibility of the American administration changing its
attitude towards Serbia and the Serb for the better, Đorđević said that
in 1991 and 1992 America had a positive opinion about Serbia and wanted
to cooperate with it, but that the whole thing “went downhill” because
of the failure of the Serbian government and diplomacy.
”The time came in which Serbia and the Serbs could not or did not
want to find common ground to establish a common interest. In
geopolitics, there has to be some sort of a common interest in order to
achieve something, nobody will give you something just like that,” he
said.
”Then the United States started playing a different game to
establish its presence in the Balkans – and turned towards the Muslims,”
Đorđević explained.
”In Bosnia and Herzegovina the United States supports the Muslims,
and it also reflects on the Muslims around the world in general,” he
said.
Đorđević believes that America will not have any problems with
Serbia if it resolves the Kosovo issue “in any way possible” and asserts
that one can already feel that the atmosphere in the Serbia-US
relations is changing for the better.
”If Serbia is trying to resolve the Kosovo issue any way it can,
which seems to be the case now, time will tell if it is good or not, I
think that in that sense America will no longer have any problems with
Serbia and you can already feel that the atmosphere is changing,”
concluded Đorđević.
Miroslav Michael Đorđević is one of the founders and the chairman of
one of the most influential associations in the United States, the
Serbian Unity Congress, as well as a founder and president of the
Studenica Foundation.
(Srna/Frontal)
