You Serbians and Croatians argue about taking lands for each country, HELLO!?! that land is Bosnia, and its not going anywhere. Bosnia will not be broken up. Bosnia dosnt need Patriotic Nationalist to lead the two entitys, we need smart and responisble people, not people who act on their own "ethnic" backgrounds. Seriously, I am a Muslim, my best freind is Serb. And trust me, most Serbians in Bosnia would rather be called Bosnians than fight another War, the ones who dont how ever, they are the Nationalist, and we must get rid of them.
If Mesic thinks that as a gaurantor of the Dayton Agreement Croatia can invade and get rid of Republika Srpska, does that mean that in the event of the constitution being changed without Dodik's consent then Serbia can invade and annex Republika Srpska?
The only reason Mesic is barking is because he's leaving office, BUT there are still disputed lands in RS, thats why us croats will not allow an independant RS, and croatian territory to be annexed from us....
Croatia might not do anything but dont count out hercegovina...
Oh yeah dont forget the border between HR and Hercegovina, croatia might not attack directly but they will indirectly
the Bosnians wouldnt dare but croats, different story and you guys know it
Its up to dodik really Independance/WAR or stabilize BIH and keep dayton alive.
Dayton is the only thing keeping RS together, you guys know that right.....
(hercegBosna, 21 January 2010 00:00)
How can you Croats still want to fight the Serbs even when its not in your interests. If you got rid of Bosnia everything could be solved with negotiations between Serbia and Croatia. Something like the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement but with a few modifications to make it suitable for modern day demographics.
thats why us croats will not allow an independant RS, and croatian territory to be annexed from us....
Croatia might not do anything but dont count out hercegovina...
Yes that was a very funny comment indeed. 'You Croats' in Hercegovina as you call yourselves are praying that RS succeeds. Why?
Because the second that happens you will try to do exactly the same in Bosnia.
It was the same in the last war in Bosnia. You are not fooling anybody. You guys pretend to hate Serbs, but what is more important to you is to steal some land for yourself.
It is time that Italy (another NATO member state) realised that the London treaty no longer exists since it was made with a country that no longer exists (Jugoslavia). Italy must liberate the sacred roman lands of Istria & Dalmazia from occupation for which many Italian civilians died as a result of attack by Ustachi turned partisans at the last moments of WW2. Essoli.
(Essolo, 20 January 2010 17:39)
hahahaha
omg r u serious
The only reason Mesic is barking is because he's leaving office, BUT there are still disputed lands in RS, thats why us croats will not allow an independant RS, and croatian territory to be annexed from us....
Croatia might not do anything but dont count out hercegovina...
Oh yeah dont forget the border between HR and Hercegovina, croatia might not attack directly but they will indirectly
the Bosnians wouldnt dare but croats, different story and you guys know it
Its up to dodik really Independance/WAR or stabilize BIH and keep dayton alive.
Dayton is the only thing keeping RS together, you guys know that right.....
Some of you here need to cool down. A old man made a stupid comment thats all. Noone is looking for war. Perhaps Mesic said this to make it hard for the new president. Something from the old guard I suppose. If I were croatia let the United nations deal with RS independance. Croatia nationlists could have herzegovnia overnight. They have to understand that there is just not enough Croats in Bosnia to justify her entire annexation. Also to the poster that made the comment that dalmatia and istria belong to Italy. As a Serb you should be ashamed of yourself. It was the Italians that funded and trained the Ustasha. Do you want the Hungarians and Bulgarians to go ahead and claims some of our lands.
According to the ratio of recommended versus poor comments on your posting (which was great by the way) it seems that approximately 28% of the visitors here can be considered Holocaust deniers. That is extremely disturbing and I am sure most of them are of Croation and Albanians origin. These countries have not and cannot learn from the past and so the future looks quite grim.
"If that is your definition of help, then god help all Bosnians. BTW don't think the backstabbing hasn't gone unnoticed, as a Bosniak friend of mine said on the last war - at least with the Serbs you know what you are getting, with the Croats they come pretending to be friends and its only once they have shaken your hand do you notice the knife in your back.
With friends like that..."
(bganon, 19 January 2010 21:40)
I don't envy your Bosniak friend. Croatian knifes on the back, and Serbian roses(?) on the front. And now it is the leaders of the same two peoples talking tough again. Nothing was learned. God help the Bosnians indeed, God help all of them, muslims, serbs, croats.
if Croatia or Bosnia would start a war to expell Serbs in Bosnia Serbia would get the green light of the West to go ahead ,count on it.
The West has invested too much in Dayton to let the Croats roam their greater Croatia fantasies freely,because Mesic has Greater Croatian dreams,he wants Bosnia into Croatia to be incorporated,this whole referendum talk is only for show.
It is time that Italy (another NATO member state) realised that the London treaty no longer exists since it was made with a country that no longer exists (Jugoslavia). Italy must liberate the sacred roman lands of Istria & Dalmazia from occupation for which many Italian civilians died as a result of attack by Ustachi turned partisans at the last moments of WW2. Essoli.
except this time if there was war the west has relized its last mistakes in the region , this time i dare say nato would be bombing zagreb and pristina instead of belgrade ... i know this because i work in media ... public opinion has very much changed in serbias favour in the last 5 years or so . so croats i wouldnt be too cocky about how things may turn out for you if your leaving comments . lee , london , UK .
to annex Bosnia to Croatia,he knows that the RS must be removed and that it has the backing of the international community.
And Sandro,you Muslims were confident like that in 1990-1992,I clearly remember that time and how the Bosniak eders bragged all kinds of things.
And what happened to ypu then?
Make no mistake if the other sides start a war ths time,we Serbs will have the support of the US and Serbia this can time would deploy its whole army there...
No, If Serbia engages in any war-like activities in Bosnia then their EU membership is gone for another 20 years. I dont believe Serbia would risk it, Bosnia has the support of the US, not Serbia. Serbians are more Pro-Russian than Pro-American. And we brag? Its out homeland your taking, go back to your own proper countries, why would you take our lands?
Am I right in thinking Dodik was one of the more liberal and pro-western leaders in RS. For those of you who want to get rid of him who on earth do you think should replace him. No Serb in Bosnia would volunteer to be a western puppet.
And what is this rubbish about centralised Bosnia for all the people? Get it through your heads, nobody apart from the Muslims want this! Mesic has betrayed the Bosnian Croats just as Tudjman did at Dayton.
Im pretty sure, and many people around me would agree that Bosnia has more muslims than other religions. Its just the way it is, Our peoples are nationalist, they only care for Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia etc. Its just the way it is :(
(Sandro, 20 January 2010 07:56)
Just a couple of reliable sources for you here Sandro. Both show that Orthodox and Catholic togehter make up over 50% of Bosnia's population.
to annex Bosnia to Croatia,he knows that the RS must be removed and that it has the backing of the international community.
And Sandro,you Muslims were confident like that in 1990-1992,I clearly remember that time and how the Bosniak eders bragged all kinds of things.
And what happened to ypu then?
Make no mistake if the other sides start a war ths time,we Serbs will have the support of the US and Serbia this can time would deploy its whole army there...
Now as you source your information from Croatian library/history books you might tell us how the Croats managed to free themselves from the Austro Hungarian Empire – this should be worth a laugh or two.
Isn't it amazing how tough Horevats are standing in the shadows of the Austro/Hungarians for 600 years, the Nazis and their ilk in the 1940's and 1990's. Not sure if this Mesic has bothered to check who is standing behind him this time before he rattles his cage. Pretty lonely this time where I'm looking from.
I can understand that there are no folktales worth keeping at how quickly they ran from the Turks (world record time I believe) but surely I'm not the only one who can remember the magnificent warriors begging Serbs for safe passage and havens as the Moslems were chasing them from their glorious victories in central Bosna in the 90's.
As for that collective gaggle of debt sometimes referred to as Nato, unless the Chinese throw you a few dimes your days of warmongering are in the past. With cultural and religious demographics the way they are being engineered by pathetic liberal apologists running this circus sometimes known as the West I think you may well run out of continents to run to anyway.
If rs succeeds Bosnia/Croatia will defeat them then there will never be a rs again, it is a artificial state in a Muslim dominated country. It's the truth for all those people who support rs.
(Sandro, 19 January 2010 18:14)
What are you talking about Sandro? Bosnia is a Christian majority country.
(Sam, 19 January 2010 23:23)
Im pretty sure, and many people around me would agree that Bosnia has more muslims than other religions. Its just the way it is, Our peoples are nationalist, they only care for Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia etc. Its just the way it is :(
Thank you William Dorich for that excellent posting, and a strong dose of truth for the brainwashed masses which they badly need.
It is very evident from the bellicose posts from Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Albanians on here that Serbs can not live with such people.
Republika Srpska is already independent. As for Mesic's ridiculous threat: bring it on.
It is not the 90's any more, Russia is now very strong and has owns many valuable businesses in Republika Srpska. So just try it Stipe and let's see how well you do with a bankrupt Germany behind you.
Cheers!!
Milos, you've been reading only serbian history books. Read up on King Tomislav, Paul Subic, and other Croatian Kings and Bans who ruled Bosnia. Borovica was the seat of Croatian Kings of Bosnia in the middle ages. Serbian lineage I believe begins in the 13th century with marriage of Elizabeth princess of Serbia to Kotromanic family. Didn't last forever because ottomans invaded not too long after that. So before and after ottoman invasion Croatians or Hungary or Austria-Hungary of which Croatia belonged ruled Bosnia longer than Serbians and any rights you believe you have to it is through marriage to Croatian and Bosnian nobility. Croat tribes migrated to the area before the Serb tribes did and it's only natural that we have more history there. That is why I consider Bosnia historically part of Croatia, at different times an autonomous kingdom of Croatia and other times totally unified with Croatia under one kingdom. All of red and white Croatia was given to the Croatians for protecting it from other tribes that threatened western Europe and the Byzantinne Empire and that's how the Serbians settled where they did also. If you were there before us or if the Byzantinne Empire said have your pick, trust me you would have kept going to the Adriatic.
Does stipe Mesic really think Serbia would stand by and do nothing and even if Serbia did just stand by thousands of Serbians would cross the border to help rs.
In the case Croats would start an agression the NATO states wouldn`t help Croatia like in the 90s and would give Serbia a free hand in dealing with Croatia.
Remember what happened to Croatia when they lost their allies in 1918 and 1945,we occupied it within days and weeks...
(CG, 19 January 2010 21:51)
CG,
Sadam believed the same before the second "desert storm" of 2003.
How this man acutally walked upright on two feet, led a questionable part democratic/part still infatuated with fascism state into NATO (and close to joing EU), while still speaking through both his two mouths still baffles me.
Mesic's parting shot is a reminder of the dangers of not re-thinking the political, electoral and administrative structure of BiH. In short the need for constitutional change is here and now. Back to the basics. RS' origins mean that the international community will never endorse a move to either statehood or amalgamation with Serbia. The moral contradictions would be too much for even the navel gazers of EU to whitewash. Serbia understands what is at stake. RS' non compliance with anything Bosnian only delay the inevitable. Reconcile, restore Bosnia for all its citizens as a unified state not artificially demarked fiefdoms festering religious zealotry.
Mesic is probably thinking one step ahead of the Serbs. He may have gotten a sense that Serbia will loose its case against Kosovo at the ICJ and then turn around and use that "opportunity" to claim the same right for RS and forget about Kosovo.
He is simply trying to warn the Serbs not to do this.
If Serbia looses Kosovo case, I am 100% they will try to claim the same righ for RS. Mark my wards. Mesic is looking ahead and is seeing this ahead of everyone else.
It’s ironic that after all the things Dodik has said during his tenure as Bosnian Serb premier is Mesic that is considered the “warmonger”.
And despite the title of the article, Croatia would not act against the Bosnians of Orthodox families, but against the Republika Srpska’s regime and armed forecs — which is two different concepts.
This Mesic guy is absolutely nuts. I gues, his head got too big, after all, he was chosen twice by his people and west absolutely odored him. Having big mouth kept him going and he does not care about anything else. Just like Dodek said that Mesic started Yugo war and he is making sure that hatered that he spewed is left after him.
Mesic is right, it is in nobody's interest to break this country. International community knows that Bosnia is a just cause to fight for and they will. NATO is in Bosnia, and it won't allow a destruction of the country before their eyes. But more importantly, the patriotic Bosnian people of all ethnicity and religions won't allow this to happen either.
Tadic also keep saying that the national interest of Serbia is united BIH. Is this true? Yes. He doesn't like to destroy Serbia because of Republica Srpska.
Bosnia can NOT and will NOT be divided because of the following reasons:
1) Srebrenica, nobody can take it from Bosnia, never
2) Bihac region, no one wants to create another Gaza in the middle of Europe
3) Brcko corridor (no territorial continuity for RS)
4) new war would start and new wave of refugees would flood Europe, new genocide might be committed...
5) Sandjak
6) Croatia will NOT allow it
So, keeping the status-quo with small Constitutional changes to make the state functional is the best option for everyone but the nationalists, like Dodik, who just want to conceal their criminal and corruption activities.
"Mesić said, according to Rijeka daily Novi List, that if Republic of Srpska (RS) Prime Minister Milorad Dodik was to call a referendum for toppling the Dayton Agreement, he would send the Croatian military immediately, which would cripple the RS, “which would then have to disappear”, by closing the corridor by near the northern town of Brčko."
Croatia, as a guarantor under Dayton, has no right to make RS disappear. In fact, it is Croatia's duty to ensure the sanctity of RS's borders and its high autonomy within Bosnia.
Mr Mesic you are a croatian hero and you are leaving office like a real man not like serbian heads of states dying in hague prisons like war criminals. God bless you.
I do not take lightly what this croatian miscreant has to say! His threats do not come in a vacume. Just a few days agao there was an op ed piece in certain american newspapers written by certain individuals which called for punative action against the RS if they did not amend the constitution. one of the authors of that op ed was morton abramovitz, amongst others were friends of dick cheney and zbigniew brezinski.
to put the blame entirely on mesic is delusional----the people behind these threats are members of the EU and NATO.
I have only one thing to add--if any nation or coalition of nations think they will destroy the bosnian serbs---
It's true that nobody in the Balkans wants another conflict, except Dodik that is. I don't understand how he expects to break a peace agreement and not have the country return to violence. That would be like someone buying an expensive house, signing the loan agreement, and then ad hoc deciding not to honor that agreement but expect to keep the house. That of course would not happen, the house would get foreclosed and the person not paying their bills would get arrested. The Bosnian Serbs signed the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995 and they have to honor that commitment. If they themselves refuse to honor that commitment then the other signatories will force their compliance or will punish them for their noncompliance. All of Bosnia-Herzegovina belongs to all of its citizens and no part belongs exclusively to one group or another. Dodik needs to understand that he can only push the envelope so much before decisive action will be taken against him. Mesic is simply informing Dodik that patience for his childish antics is running thin and that the path he is currently on is one that will lead to strife and conflict. If the Bosnian Serbs break the Dayton Peace Agreement then they have no legal foundation to stand on whatsoever and more then that they will be proclaimed to be officially violating international law which will set into motion a set of events that will over time strip him of all his power and will reduce him to the status of a criminal. He's hiding behind the Bosnian Serb people just as Milosevic hid behind the Serbian people but as we've seen that strategy can only go on for so long before he is revealed for what he is and is taken to task for his misdeeds.
# Roberto - since you praised Mesic few times but I did not: please explain me this one. Na, who was right on? ;-)
IMO, once a communist, always a communist. And Mesic is one in it's worst sense.
IMO, we can congratulate Croatia to got rid of that old rubbish, never to soon. Really a disturbing and disturbed personality.
(Ataman, 19 January 2010 21:34)
yes, ataman, i have praised mesic in the past and i do question some of his recent statements and actions. you're in the balkans, not just jabbering on a website, you should take a bit more responsibility and care.
as for dodik and his "RS" i completely agree w mesic -- dodik is a milosevic wannabe -- very aggressive and provocative. i have begged! the intl community (s0-called) to dump him, which should have been done years ago. RS, so called, is built on pure genocide, pure and simple. if people don't know that, they don't know about bosnia.
as for which was worse, croats or serbs -- they were both pretty horrible (the majority in bosnia) and they were also both victimized. it is a complicated story, grossly over-simplified here. but it is true that both radical serbs and radical croat created monstrous concentation camps for bosniaks, hundreds of them. i am quite familiar with the ones set up around prijedor, such as omarska (there were many more) which included croat prisoners as well, and even a few anti-karadzic serbs. and we know about other camps, many set up around mostar, by radical croats.
all war crimes need to e adjudicated, who cares about ethnicity!
but as for the political situation now, while croatia supports the integrity of bosnia, serbia (esp.ly thru its proxy) daily undermines it.
still, i hate any threats of war, but demagogue dodik and co. must be dealt with.
"IMO bosnia should be run by the croats, throughout history we always took care of bosnia" (marko)
Ye sure did Marko, just like your NDH predecessors took care of 1 million + Serbs, Jews, Roma and Partizans by dispatching them in Jasenovac(many of them also Bosnians). Hey! wasn't Mostar a hoot? I mean, after booting out the JNA, cleansing and murdering the Serbs in the city you then turned on the Muslims and tried to blast them out of existence, but thankfully failed miserably.
Did you even stop and think for a second before you came up with that gem.
The last time Mesic said something along these lines all hell broke loose. This is a parting shot from a Serb who is playing the role of a bigger Catholic than the Pope!
To those on this site who think that if the Croat army got in to dismantle RS for the benefit of the Muslims. Think again and think very hard!
Remember Mostar. You all got rid of the Serbs now you like cheek by jowl with the Croats who hate your guts and would slit your throat as soon as look at you!
I thought the Kosovo UDI was supposed to bring peace and stability to the region but now that precedent has the drums of war beating by the current Croatian president? Looks like that argument can be thrown out the window.
Why is Mesic attacking Dodik? He might be totally anti-Serb but the Croats in Bosnia want the same as the Serbs, decentralisation. They lost more at Dayton than the Serbs did.
"At Tuesday’s informal meeting with journalists, Mesić said that Croatia is a Dayton Agreement guarantor, and that if he were the president at the time that such a referendum was announced, he would use the military against RS in the corridor near the Sava River ."
As far as I know, Dayton does not forbid the referendum itself. It only forbids any actual secession after the referendum.
I take this to be the ranting (or last hurrah, dependng on whose side you are on) of a political has-been (or political moral authority, again depending on whose side you take).
It is interesting that all this while Mesic did not look at the unhappiness expressed by ethnic Croats about being lumped together in the Federation with the Bosniaks.
If rs succeeds Bosnia/Croatia will defeat them then there will never be a rs again, it is a artificial state in a Muslim dominated country. It's the truth for all those people who support rs.
(Sandro, 19 January 2010 18:14)
What are you talking about Sandro? Bosnia is a Christian majority country.
Stipe Mesic is furious at Serbs for two reasons. The first is RS unwillingness to save the Croats in Bosnia by either taking them under its umbrella or supporting a separate Croat entity – the Croats are being ethnically cleansed by the Bosniaks and, as I have said repeatedly, will become a minority within two years. The second relates to Serbia direct such as trade, refugees, borders and other issues which are too lengthy to deal in this forum.
It has always been said those that can’t have the biggest mouths and make the greatest threats while those that can keep quite. Mesic has become just like the Albanians, threatening Serbs with his mighty army because it’s now a member of NATO. For the ignorant, NATO is led by the US and it decides what is done and not Croatia, Albania, Latvia or whoever – the dog wags the tail not the other way around. There seems to be this myth doing the rounds in these new NATO member countries that they can start wars and NATO will come to their rescue, well sorry to disappoint but that’s not true. Your only purpose is to send troops to die in Afghanistan.
However, if he is still adamant about cutting off the Brko corridor, Stipe should make sure he recalls the 300 Croatian soldiers from Afghanistan first – he does not want to be left short of troops. Another point going to war requires bi-partisan agreement in Croatia and this he does not have. Oh, he also needs to borrow aircraft, helicopters, arms etc.
For those that think Stipe is a mouth piece for NATO, rest assured this is incorrect. If NATO was to make threats it would be direct not via a second class NATO member. Also, NATO knows only too well this is not 1999 and military intervention would cause a greater war than just in the Balkans and my sources have told me that this is not on. The west is getting weary of Bosnia’s trials and tribulations, as one senior EU/NATO member has stated there is more drama in that country than in the TV series, the Bold and the Beautifully.
For those that think Milorad Dodik is a fool, he is not and every move has been deliberated carefully and in full consultation with his allies and any action would have been given the green light. Don’t forget that recently there were lengthy discussions between Dodik, Serbia, EU and US regarding Bosnia and I can assure you that if threats were on the drawing board they would have been made there and then – the US is not backward incoming forward about these matters.
Mesic is retiring and his time as President looks like a total failure to achieve goals of any substance and what you have is an old cranky old man realizing his in effectiveness making noises to go down in history as a defender of Croats. Unfortunately, he, like his fellow Croats in Australia at the tennis, has come out and made a fool of himself on the world stage.
Oh come on!!!
You have GOT to be kidding me? This has GOT to be a misquote, or a crazy tirade.
I don't think ANYBODY on the ground has the stomach to go through another war..
Let Mesic's children/nephews follow him into battle. Take things into perspective. The Croatian public clearly voted for a leader that has way more class then that.
To all the posters like Fairplay, who think they're armchair warriors, take a pill.
I think that all the Muslims, Croats and Serbs living in RS don't appreciate these coming from Mesic..
THEY'RE the ones that have to live together..
Mesic is a legend may God bless this great leader ! He has a vision of the Balkans in which all people live peacefully and prosper. It is not too late to resolve Bosnia's political crisis peacefully. I hope that people of sense can come together to resolve this crisis peacefully through coming up with a new constitution that will protect the rights and ensure the prosperity of all Bosnian-Herzegovinian citizens on Bosnia-Herzegovina's entire national territory.
If only he had cared as deeply about Yugoslavia's territorial integrity when he was the president of Yugoslavia as he cares about Bosnia's territorial integrity now. Mesic spent his life advocating Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia -- Tito even threw him in jail for it. It's more than a little hypocritical for him to oppose Bosnian-Serb self-determination after being such an outspoken advocate for everybody else's self-determination. The Bosnian-Serbs have the same right to break-away from Bosnia that the Croats had to separate from Yugoslavia, and the Kosovo-Albanians had to separate from Serbia. If the terms of Resolution 1244 can be violated, so can the terms of the Dayton Agreement. If it's good for the goose, it must be good for the gander.
Im really curious to know where these comments of Croatia being the rightful territorial owner of Bosnia is coming from. From what I know and the many history books i've read Croatia was never more than little Dalmatia in Zagreb region and that the coast was owned by Venice and that when the rest wasn't a part of the Kingdom of Serbs or at another point the Serbian Empire yes we were an empire, Bosnia region was split between a bunch of Lords. The Kingdom of Bosnia was ruled by King Tvrtko who was the direct lineage of the Serbian Nemanjic dyansty.
Enough of my history lesson, I personally don't think RS should split because of the certain political stance that everyone in the region has, and because of the current situation in the Balkans but it's not hard to see why for instance the RS would want to split. If for instance the Federation were to leave the RS alone and not try to force it to not exist in the first place and Croatia's also similarily been propogating the same things then I am pretty sure that the RS wouldn't be thinking about it. What happens when you step on a dogs tail, it tries to bite you no matter how small it is. The Dayton might be the thing holding RS to BiH then Resolution 1244 (if we were going to be fair for once) should be the thing holding Kosovo to Serbia. If Croatia were to invade RS what would stop Serbia from running through Croatia to defend it's people in another state?
As for that earlier comment about the Muslim army being 15 km away from Banja Luka before the end, people should really start taking into consideration the fact that the Serbian entity would have ran over the federation if the federation wasn't given support by literally the whole world, similarily if the JNA actually did enter Croatia, Croatia would have also ceased to exist in that war. So now that the small states are independent and weren't given 10 years of sanctions after the war they think they can talk tough, I'd urge them to hold their horses and rethink a few things.
Im just curious if Serbs (as they are portrayed in the world media) are genocidal, then how do these break away states all of a sudden have the courage to attack a genocidal people? Im just curious, because I believe and I know that Serbs are not known throughout history as being genocidal yet very hospitable but the same cannot be said about the Croatian people as was seen in Jasenovac, and recently in the war. And a similar statement can be made about the muslims in the region as they are just a by product of a failed genocide initiated by the Turks.
Some visitors have to ask themselves why RS want to hold a referendum. It is because the Croats and Muslims want to centralize power in Sarajevo and that goes against the Dayton agreement? A referendum is a democratic political instrument to consult the population on one or some issues. It is the good right of RS and its leaders and people to make sure that they keep what they fought for. It is completely insane to even suggest that Croatia has the legal right to invade BiH or RS if RS wants to hold a referendum before the outcome is even clear. Does Serbia have the same right? Even if the RS population votes for independence it does not mean that they will implement it (immediately). Why is Dayton more important than UNSC 1244? If Kosovo can declare a UDI so can RS, right? If not, what is the difference? I think it will be time to move more Russian troops to RS because I am sure that both Croatia and NATO will not be that stupid to start killing Russian soldiers.
In the case Croats would start an agression the NATO states wouldn`t help Croatia like in the 90s and would give Serbia a free hand in dealing with Croatia.
Remember what happened to Croatia when they lost their allies in 1918 and 1945,we occupied it within days and weeks...
Marko 'throughout history we always took care of bosnia'
What, by destroying that great historical bridge in Mostar?
What by encroaching Bosnian soverignty with putting regular Croatian troops there, without permission?
What by running camps and imprisoning Bosnian Muslums?
What by making secret deals with Milosevic to split Bosnia in half?
What, by trading weapons with Serbs during the war?
If that is your definition of help, then god help all Bosnians. BTW don't think the backstabbing hasn't gone unnoticed, as a Bosniak friend of mine said on the last war - at least with the Serbs you know what you are getting, with the Croats they come pretending to be friends and its only once they have shaken your hand do you notice the knife in your back.
Attacking RS would sound logical and rational if the latter breaks Deyton/international law. In that scenario Croatia as a guarantor is obliged to act, which would eventually mean end of RS.
He scares no one !!! RS will spank ur military. no one wants to go down that fruitless path ....but in case ... u'll be spanked HARD..just so we're clear
but like croations and albanians have done in the 90's I'm sure u'll cry to others for help!!
The Bosnian Serbs need to understand that continuing to follow Dodik's increasingly radical and desperate policies will end in disaster for them. It has been made clear to them that breaking the Dayton Peace Accords is unacceptable and that the consequences of that action would be very serious. The second that the Dayton Accords are violated by the Bosnian Serbs the "RS" entity will cease to exist and nobody will ever be able to revive it. Look at what happened to the self proclaimed "Republik of Srbska Krajina". Where is it now? Where are its political leaders? Where are its residents? The Bosnian Serbs are very naive if they think that they can avoid a serious confrontation if they continue to pursue Dodik's war-mongering policies. In 1995 only weeks before the Dayton Accords were signed the Bosnian Army was 15km away from Banja Luka and the cities inhabitants started packing their belongings and were getting ready to head out for Serbia. That scene will be repeated if Dodik continues with his radical policies. People should learn from history to avoid making the same mistakes that were made a decade ago.
Bad news for RS, croat army would crush them badly. It is true though that if RS were to go independant they would have to deal with disputed areas or else its war. It is pretty simple, if dodik pulls out od dayton, he's giving croatia permission to attack them (legally). Croatia cant go to war in bosnia because of the dayton agreement. Lets not forgot that the RS capital was once a very mixed croatian/serbian town as with many others in RS. Croats never forget what belongs to them.
IMO bosnia should be run by the croats, throughout history we always took care of bosnia
One never stops being amazed by the kind of nonsense that some people are able to write on this site. I recommend that B92 will start splitting the comments into a serious/constructive and a nonsense/hate section. Obviously I will choose the first one.
"It looks like that distinguished gent is about to get some prominent Nato position so he is speaking and acting what he is told.
(dean srbijanac, 19 January 2010 18:12)"
Sorry for disappointing you, dear Dean, but I read about a totally different job offer for Mesic, coming from your beloved Russian friends! They consider offering him a manager job in the SouthStream project, in case it should be expanded to Croatia. Check out Google for more information...
I remind the Serbs that their Croatian Prime Minister Markovic was the one who ordered Serbian troops to attack Croatia in 1991. He then resigned from his position as Prime Minister and fled to Croatia knowing full well he had unleashed a Civil War, so his hideous aggressive language comes as no surprise.
Nazi Croatian Ustashi forces slaughtered over one million Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 80,000 Gypsies 65 years ago and the world pretended not to notice. No one was brought to justice for these appalling war crimes. 740 Roman Catholic priests who personally participated in the Ustashi and killed thousands of Serbs with their own hands fled Croatia after the war through the Vatican "Ratline" for Argentina, including Ante Pavelic who became the Security Advisor to Juan Peron who issued 34,000 Visas to Croatian war criminals. Not a single one was ever brought to justice.
When the dismemberment wars began in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 the world media again pretended not to know this ugly history of 65 years ago. Now that Slovenia and Croatia are ethnically and religiously pure and have succeeded in cleansing nearly every single Serb from their territories I am not the least bit surprised that Mesic would send in the Ustashi again. I remind this miserable SOB of the words of one of their own Roman Catholics, Avro Manhattan, who wrote in his 1965 book, "Imperialism in the Twentieth Century"
..."The lessons we have learned from the emergence of the Independent State of Croatia, where the religious and political totalitarianism of Catholicism was not only made to work, but put to death more than one millions Serbian Orthodox Christians, should never be forgotten. For it happened in our times, when the Catholic Church ...then as now, posing as a victim of religious intolerance ...was clamoring for freedom, while at the same time suppressing that same freedom for which she was vociferating so loudly, in a tiny state where she had set up her kind of freedom, Catholic freedom: i.e., freedom for herself to eliminate whatever and whoever dared to resist her embrace."
In 1989 when Serbian Patriarch Pavle invited the Pope to come to Croatia on the anniversary of WWII to participate in a joint Mass and Liturgy at the Jasenovac Concentration Camp the Pope said: "It is too dangerous to come to the Balkans at this time." Then, three years later, at the height of the Bosnian Civil War, the Pope made an historical visit to Croatia where his first official duty was to lay a wreath on the tomb of ally convicted war criminal Roman Catholic Archbishop Stepinac. The church is now making moves to make this war criminal a saint.
I am not surprised that the world media and American politicians simply ignores this obvious aggressive language.
_______________
The writer is the author of the 1991 book, Serbian Genocide, 1941-45, co written by the late David Martin, author of The Web of Disinformation (1989) and the late Michael Lees, author of The Rape of Serbia, (1989). He is also the author of, Kosovo (1992), A Brief History of Serbian Music (1994) and Hilandar Octocentenary (1998).
I'd tell my Serbs dont get excited about this and I hope our government wont. We can guess who's pulling the strings and why. See it for what it is. They and I don't mean Croatia, wouldnt get so upset and hysterical threatening war if unification wasnt near. RS stands for Republic of Serbia as far as I know.
This would be funny if it was not so tragic.
Mesic, you helped to end Jugoslavija, you are a Croatian nationalist that supported Croatian statehood and the destruction of Jugoslavija. You were an enthusiastic member of HDZ, who was happy to sit alongside sick nationalists who dreamt of a Greater Croatia including Bosnia and parts of Serbia.
Now you act as if Jugoslavija still exists. Well Jugoslavija does not exist and Croatian troops cannot march onto Bosnian territory (funny you said the same about JNA troops in Croatia, who is a hypocrite now). Such a move would be an act of agression by any standard.
As I said before if you think you have a chance in Bosnian politics then by all means get Bosnian nationality and create a political party. Just remember one thing though - after all your previous statements I'd bet that Republika Srpska would table a referendum immediately.
I think the bora has blowned his brain away. However, it is clear that Mesic is getting these orders from someone else. Why would Croatia risk war? Do the Croats in Bosnia really want to stay in Bosnia or merge with Croatia. Perhaps the new president can install some common sense back to their government.
Simply sickening that after all that has happened, after all the senseless killing, we have another Croat advocating another war. As if Croat Mothers want to send their sons and daughters to kill and be killed, or does Mesic suspect German, French, UK, Dutch troops will lend him the blood of their sons too?
Who's the greater fool, the fool or the fools that follow?
If rs succeeds Bosnia/Croatia will defeat them then there will never be a rs again, it is a artificial state in a Muslim dominated country. It's the truth for all those people who support rs.
I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
(The Eagles, 19 January 2010 16:35)
Kosovo army? There is not even a Kosovo state!
And if Kosovo can become independent, why not RS? No double standards!
One day the Serbs will have both of you in their back pocket. It's easy to talk the talk when your just a little bird sitting on the shoulder of the US.
Croatia is part of the NATO now, and would have to act with that unity. The days when the illustrious Ustasha army can go head-hunting for Serbs is over. This old, worn out remnant of of the former communist Yugoslavia should go directly to a nursing home after he leaves office. Is brain is obviously affected by alzheimer's. He thinks it is 1942 again. And, did someone mention something about the K_Albanian army getting involved. That, is the joke of the day.
"Good knows what this guy has been drinking or smoking before making such an irresponsible and aggresive statement!"
I wonder, too. Or it's maybe the age that makes him loose his mind and driving him totally crazy now? Maybe we should see Mesic's actions from the last weeks, culminating in a statement like that, from this point of view?
I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
(The Eagles, 19 January 2010 16:35)
kosovo does not exist for you albanians because its a province of serbia so we should send the entire Serbian army in also but this time no world help because they all See it is Serbian land.
"I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
(The Eagles, 19 January 2010 16:35)"
The Kosovo army? I am sure that many unemployed Albanians will be volunteered by NATO to fight the Serbs again. Ceku and Thaci will probably be there too IF this scenario is being pushed through by the West. Just be careful for what you wish for. And by the way, there will be no Albanian POWs.
Mesic is right, but what I don't get is he was a dove for 10 years and now he starts talking tough when he has no more power. I would leave it to NATO to force compliance with Dayton. NATO can easily shut down that corridor any day they wanted, but if they don't muslim/Croat entity has the right. Croatia would have rights as a guaranteer of the agreement like Mesic said and because it agreed to withdraw from all it's territorial gains during Operation Storm in return for peace as part of the Dayton agreement. However, how involved Croatia should get depends on what kind of deal the Muslim half is offering. If Croatia goes in only to have to end up giving everything to the Muslims because the EU or UN says so, then Croatia is being used again and it's probably not worth it, but again that depends on which threat is worse for Croatia, the serb threat or the muslim threat. Best thing is for everyone to throw away their ethnic ties and divisions, and live in a free Bosnia with equal rights. If that can never be, Bosnia should be returned to Croatia once and for all.
This is what I referred to in my comment on the other posting. Of course it is Mesic who says it, but knowing The West and NATO this kind of comment is meant to prepare the public for what might be coming and I would urge RS to take these kinds of statements seriously. I am sure Mesic is still on the EU/NATOP payroll list as an unofficial spokesman. I am sure that he would have done what he said and it is up to the current Croation president to deny these comments in the strongest possible terms and tell Mesic to shut up and stay out of politics. Otherwise it may be regarded as an unofficial declaration of war towards RS. NATO and the West are not satisfied until all Serbs have been ethnically cleansed into Serbia. It is jsut sad that the current Serbian government does not want to see this.
I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
I hope we do not see another war in Balkan, but if that scenario is played by RS, then I beleive Croatian military will do exactly what Mesic is saying, and Serbia will not be able to do anything about it.
this guy is old if he thinks serbia would just stand and watch he has another thing coming and look at the wars in the 90s it was like 55,000 Serb rebels in krajina fighting against over 250,0000 croats and how many outsiders helped, and they could not do nothing and the same in bosnia just rebels and he thinks that serbia would just stand and watch. he better be careful what he wishes for because if serbia steps in croatia would be finished because remember the world helped them in ther 90s and serbia didn't even fight in the war imagine if all Serbs came in from all over man it would be bad for croatia.
Not without your American Air Force you wouldn't. He is the primary reason that Croat/Serb relations have deteriorated to post war lows. Tudjman respected Serbs more than this clown.
Good knows what this guy has been drinking or smoking before making such an irresponsible and aggresive statement!
Good for Croatia and the region that soon he will be part of the past!
I remind the Serbs that their Croatian Prime Minister Markovic was the one who ordered Serbian troops to attack Croatia in 1991. He then resigned from his position as Prime Minister and fled to Croatia knowing full well he had unleashed a Civil War, so his hideous aggressive language comes as no surprise.
Nazi Croatian Ustashi forces slaughtered over one million Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 80,000 Gypsies 65 years ago and the world pretended not to notice. No one was brought to justice for these appalling war crimes. 740 Roman Catholic priests who personally participated in the Ustashi and killed thousands of Serbs with their own hands fled Croatia after the war through the Vatican "Ratline" for Argentina, including Ante Pavelic who became the Security Advisor to Juan Peron who issued 34,000 Visas to Croatian war criminals. Not a single one was ever brought to justice.
When the dismemberment wars began in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 the world media again pretended not to know this ugly history of 65 years ago. Now that Slovenia and Croatia are ethnically and religiously pure and have succeeded in cleansing nearly every single Serb from their territories I am not the least bit surprised that Mesic would send in the Ustashi again. I remind this miserable SOB of the words of one of their own Roman Catholics, Avro Manhattan, who wrote in his 1965 book, "Imperialism in the Twentieth Century"
..."The lessons we have learned from the emergence of the Independent State of Croatia, where the religious and political totalitarianism of Catholicism was not only made to work, but put to death more than one millions Serbian Orthodox Christians, should never be forgotten. For it happened in our times, when the Catholic Church ...then as now, posing as a victim of religious intolerance ...was clamoring for freedom, while at the same time suppressing that same freedom for which she was vociferating so loudly, in a tiny state where she had set up her kind of freedom, Catholic freedom: i.e., freedom for herself to eliminate whatever and whoever dared to resist her embrace."
In 1989 when Serbian Patriarch Pavle invited the Pope to come to Croatia on the anniversary of WWII to participate in a joint Mass and Liturgy at the Jasenovac Concentration Camp the Pope said: "It is too dangerous to come to the Balkans at this time." Then, three years later, at the height of the Bosnian Civil War, the Pope made an historical visit to Croatia where his first official duty was to lay a wreath on the tomb of ally convicted war criminal Roman Catholic Archbishop Stepinac. The church is now making moves to make this war criminal a saint.
I am not surprised that the world media and American politicians simply ignores this obvious aggressive language.
_______________
The writer is the author of the 1991 book, Serbian Genocide, 1941-45, co written by the late David Martin, author of The Web of Disinformation (1989) and the late Michael Lees, author of The Rape of Serbia, (1989). He is also the author of, Kosovo (1992), A Brief History of Serbian Music (1994) and Hilandar Octocentenary (1998).
Good knows what this guy has been drinking or smoking before making such an irresponsible and aggresive statement!
Good for Croatia and the region that soon he will be part of the past!
Not without your American Air Force you wouldn't. He is the primary reason that Croat/Serb relations have deteriorated to post war lows. Tudjman respected Serbs more than this clown.
this guy is old if he thinks serbia would just stand and watch he has another thing coming and look at the wars in the 90s it was like 55,000 Serb rebels in krajina fighting against over 250,0000 croats and how many outsiders helped, and they could not do nothing and the same in bosnia just rebels and he thinks that serbia would just stand and watch. he better be careful what he wishes for because if serbia steps in croatia would be finished because remember the world helped them in ther 90s and serbia didn't even fight in the war imagine if all Serbs came in from all over man it would be bad for croatia.
This is what I referred to in my comment on the other posting. Of course it is Mesic who says it, but knowing The West and NATO this kind of comment is meant to prepare the public for what might be coming and I would urge RS to take these kinds of statements seriously. I am sure Mesic is still on the EU/NATOP payroll list as an unofficial spokesman. I am sure that he would have done what he said and it is up to the current Croation president to deny these comments in the strongest possible terms and tell Mesic to shut up and stay out of politics. Otherwise it may be regarded as an unofficial declaration of war towards RS. NATO and the West are not satisfied until all Serbs have been ethnically cleansed into Serbia. It is jsut sad that the current Serbian government does not want to see this.
Marko 'throughout history we always took care of bosnia'
What, by destroying that great historical bridge in Mostar?
What by encroaching Bosnian soverignty with putting regular Croatian troops there, without permission?
What by running camps and imprisoning Bosnian Muslums?
What by making secret deals with Milosevic to split Bosnia in half?
What, by trading weapons with Serbs during the war?
If that is your definition of help, then god help all Bosnians. BTW don't think the backstabbing hasn't gone unnoticed, as a Bosniak friend of mine said on the last war - at least with the Serbs you know what you are getting, with the Croats they come pretending to be friends and its only once they have shaken your hand do you notice the knife in your back.
Croatia is part of the NATO now, and would have to act with that unity. The days when the illustrious Ustasha army can go head-hunting for Serbs is over. This old, worn out remnant of of the former communist Yugoslavia should go directly to a nursing home after he leaves office. Is brain is obviously affected by alzheimer's. He thinks it is 1942 again. And, did someone mention something about the K_Albanian army getting involved. That, is the joke of the day.
One day the Serbs will have both of you in their back pocket. It's easy to talk the talk when your just a little bird sitting on the shoulder of the US.
I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
(The Eagles, 19 January 2010 16:35)
Kosovo army? There is not even a Kosovo state!
And if Kosovo can become independent, why not RS? No double standards!
He scares no one !!! RS will spank ur military. no one wants to go down that fruitless path ....but in case ... u'll be spanked HARD..just so we're clear
but like croations and albanians have done in the 90's I'm sure u'll cry to others for help!!
Stipe Mesic is furious at Serbs for two reasons. The first is RS unwillingness to save the Croats in Bosnia by either taking them under its umbrella or supporting a separate Croat entity – the Croats are being ethnically cleansed by the Bosniaks and, as I have said repeatedly, will become a minority within two years. The second relates to Serbia direct such as trade, refugees, borders and other issues which are too lengthy to deal in this forum.
It has always been said those that can’t have the biggest mouths and make the greatest threats while those that can keep quite. Mesic has become just like the Albanians, threatening Serbs with his mighty army because it’s now a member of NATO. For the ignorant, NATO is led by the US and it decides what is done and not Croatia, Albania, Latvia or whoever – the dog wags the tail not the other way around. There seems to be this myth doing the rounds in these new NATO member countries that they can start wars and NATO will come to their rescue, well sorry to disappoint but that’s not true. Your only purpose is to send troops to die in Afghanistan.
However, if he is still adamant about cutting off the Brko corridor, Stipe should make sure he recalls the 300 Croatian soldiers from Afghanistan first – he does not want to be left short of troops. Another point going to war requires bi-partisan agreement in Croatia and this he does not have. Oh, he also needs to borrow aircraft, helicopters, arms etc.
For those that think Stipe is a mouth piece for NATO, rest assured this is incorrect. If NATO was to make threats it would be direct not via a second class NATO member. Also, NATO knows only too well this is not 1999 and military intervention would cause a greater war than just in the Balkans and my sources have told me that this is not on. The west is getting weary of Bosnia’s trials and tribulations, as one senior EU/NATO member has stated there is more drama in that country than in the TV series, the Bold and the Beautifully.
For those that think Milorad Dodik is a fool, he is not and every move has been deliberated carefully and in full consultation with his allies and any action would have been given the green light. Don’t forget that recently there were lengthy discussions between Dodik, Serbia, EU and US regarding Bosnia and I can assure you that if threats were on the drawing board they would have been made there and then – the US is not backward incoming forward about these matters.
Mesic is retiring and his time as President looks like a total failure to achieve goals of any substance and what you have is an old cranky old man realizing his in effectiveness making noises to go down in history as a defender of Croats. Unfortunately, he, like his fellow Croats in Australia at the tennis, has come out and made a fool of himself on the world stage.
Simply sickening that after all that has happened, after all the senseless killing, we have another Croat advocating another war. As if Croat Mothers want to send their sons and daughters to kill and be killed, or does Mesic suspect German, French, UK, Dutch troops will lend him the blood of their sons too?
Who's the greater fool, the fool or the fools that follow?
Some visitors have to ask themselves why RS want to hold a referendum. It is because the Croats and Muslims want to centralize power in Sarajevo and that goes against the Dayton agreement? A referendum is a democratic political instrument to consult the population on one or some issues. It is the good right of RS and its leaders and people to make sure that they keep what they fought for. It is completely insane to even suggest that Croatia has the legal right to invade BiH or RS if RS wants to hold a referendum before the outcome is even clear. Does Serbia have the same right? Even if the RS population votes for independence it does not mean that they will implement it (immediately). Why is Dayton more important than UNSC 1244? If Kosovo can declare a UDI so can RS, right? If not, what is the difference? I think it will be time to move more Russian troops to RS because I am sure that both Croatia and NATO will not be that stupid to start killing Russian soldiers.
Im really curious to know where these comments of Croatia being the rightful territorial owner of Bosnia is coming from. From what I know and the many history books i've read Croatia was never more than little Dalmatia in Zagreb region and that the coast was owned by Venice and that when the rest wasn't a part of the Kingdom of Serbs or at another point the Serbian Empire yes we were an empire, Bosnia region was split between a bunch of Lords. The Kingdom of Bosnia was ruled by King Tvrtko who was the direct lineage of the Serbian Nemanjic dyansty.
Enough of my history lesson, I personally don't think RS should split because of the certain political stance that everyone in the region has, and because of the current situation in the Balkans but it's not hard to see why for instance the RS would want to split. If for instance the Federation were to leave the RS alone and not try to force it to not exist in the first place and Croatia's also similarily been propogating the same things then I am pretty sure that the RS wouldn't be thinking about it. What happens when you step on a dogs tail, it tries to bite you no matter how small it is. The Dayton might be the thing holding RS to BiH then Resolution 1244 (if we were going to be fair for once) should be the thing holding Kosovo to Serbia. If Croatia were to invade RS what would stop Serbia from running through Croatia to defend it's people in another state?
As for that earlier comment about the Muslim army being 15 km away from Banja Luka before the end, people should really start taking into consideration the fact that the Serbian entity would have ran over the federation if the federation wasn't given support by literally the whole world, similarily if the JNA actually did enter Croatia, Croatia would have also ceased to exist in that war. So now that the small states are independent and weren't given 10 years of sanctions after the war they think they can talk tough, I'd urge them to hold their horses and rethink a few things.
Im just curious if Serbs (as they are portrayed in the world media) are genocidal, then how do these break away states all of a sudden have the courage to attack a genocidal people? Im just curious, because I believe and I know that Serbs are not known throughout history as being genocidal yet very hospitable but the same cannot be said about the Croatian people as was seen in Jasenovac, and recently in the war. And a similar statement can be made about the muslims in the region as they are just a by product of a failed genocide initiated by the Turks.
"I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
(The Eagles, 19 January 2010 16:35)"
The Kosovo army? I am sure that many unemployed Albanians will be volunteered by NATO to fight the Serbs again. Ceku and Thaci will probably be there too IF this scenario is being pushed through by the West. Just be careful for what you wish for. And by the way, there will be no Albanian POWs.
I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
(The Eagles, 19 January 2010 16:35)
kosovo does not exist for you albanians because its a province of serbia so we should send the entire Serbian army in also but this time no world help because they all See it is Serbian land.
"Good knows what this guy has been drinking or smoking before making such an irresponsible and aggresive statement!"
I wonder, too. Or it's maybe the age that makes him loose his mind and driving him totally crazy now? Maybe we should see Mesic's actions from the last weeks, culminating in a statement like that, from this point of view?
Oh come on!!!
You have GOT to be kidding me? This has GOT to be a misquote, or a crazy tirade.
I don't think ANYBODY on the ground has the stomach to go through another war..
Let Mesic's children/nephews follow him into battle. Take things into perspective. The Croatian public clearly voted for a leader that has way more class then that.
To all the posters like Fairplay, who think they're armchair warriors, take a pill.
I think that all the Muslims, Croats and Serbs living in RS don't appreciate these coming from Mesic..
THEY'RE the ones that have to live together..
This would be funny if it was not so tragic.
Mesic, you helped to end Jugoslavija, you are a Croatian nationalist that supported Croatian statehood and the destruction of Jugoslavija. You were an enthusiastic member of HDZ, who was happy to sit alongside sick nationalists who dreamt of a Greater Croatia including Bosnia and parts of Serbia.
Now you act as if Jugoslavija still exists. Well Jugoslavija does not exist and Croatian troops cannot march onto Bosnian territory (funny you said the same about JNA troops in Croatia, who is a hypocrite now). Such a move would be an act of agression by any standard.
As I said before if you think you have a chance in Bosnian politics then by all means get Bosnian nationality and create a political party. Just remember one thing though - after all your previous statements I'd bet that Republika Srpska would table a referendum immediately.
If only he had cared as deeply about Yugoslavia's territorial integrity when he was the president of Yugoslavia as he cares about Bosnia's territorial integrity now. Mesic spent his life advocating Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia -- Tito even threw him in jail for it. It's more than a little hypocritical for him to oppose Bosnian-Serb self-determination after being such an outspoken advocate for everybody else's self-determination. The Bosnian-Serbs have the same right to break-away from Bosnia that the Croats had to separate from Yugoslavia, and the Kosovo-Albanians had to separate from Serbia. If the terms of Resolution 1244 can be violated, so can the terms of the Dayton Agreement. If it's good for the goose, it must be good for the gander.
One never stops being amazed by the kind of nonsense that some people are able to write on this site. I recommend that B92 will start splitting the comments into a serious/constructive and a nonsense/hate section. Obviously I will choose the first one.
I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
In the case Croats would start an agression the NATO states wouldn`t help Croatia like in the 90s and would give Serbia a free hand in dealing with Croatia.
Remember what happened to Croatia when they lost their allies in 1918 and 1945,we occupied it within days and weeks...
The last time Mesic said something along these lines all hell broke loose. This is a parting shot from a Serb who is playing the role of a bigger Catholic than the Pope!
To those on this site who think that if the Croat army got in to dismantle RS for the benefit of the Muslims. Think again and think very hard!
Remember Mostar. You all got rid of the Serbs now you like cheek by jowl with the Croats who hate your guts and would slit your throat as soon as look at you!
Thank you William Dorich for that excellent posting, and a strong dose of truth for the brainwashed masses which they badly need.
It is very evident from the bellicose posts from Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Albanians on here that Serbs can not live with such people.
Republika Srpska is already independent. As for Mesic's ridiculous threat: bring it on.
It is not the 90's any more, Russia is now very strong and has owns many valuable businesses in Republika Srpska. So just try it Stipe and let's see how well you do with a bankrupt Germany behind you.
Cheers!!
I think the bora has blowned his brain away. However, it is clear that Mesic is getting these orders from someone else. Why would Croatia risk war? Do the Croats in Bosnia really want to stay in Bosnia or merge with Croatia. Perhaps the new president can install some common sense back to their government.
I hope we do not see another war in Balkan, but if that scenario is played by RS, then I beleive Croatian military will do exactly what Mesic is saying, and Serbia will not be able to do anything about it.
The Bosnian Serbs need to understand that continuing to follow Dodik's increasingly radical and desperate policies will end in disaster for them. It has been made clear to them that breaking the Dayton Peace Accords is unacceptable and that the consequences of that action would be very serious. The second that the Dayton Accords are violated by the Bosnian Serbs the "RS" entity will cease to exist and nobody will ever be able to revive it. Look at what happened to the self proclaimed "Republik of Srbska Krajina". Where is it now? Where are its political leaders? Where are its residents? The Bosnian Serbs are very naive if they think that they can avoid a serious confrontation if they continue to pursue Dodik's war-mongering policies. In 1995 only weeks before the Dayton Accords were signed the Bosnian Army was 15km away from Banja Luka and the cities inhabitants started packing their belongings and were getting ready to head out for Serbia. That scene will be repeated if Dodik continues with his radical policies. People should learn from history to avoid making the same mistakes that were made a decade ago.
If rs succeeds Bosnia/Croatia will defeat them then there will never be a rs again, it is a artificial state in a Muslim dominated country. It's the truth for all those people who support rs.
(Sandro, 19 January 2010 18:14)
What are you talking about Sandro? Bosnia is a Christian majority country.
"At Tuesday’s informal meeting with journalists, Mesić said that Croatia is a Dayton Agreement guarantor, and that if he were the president at the time that such a referendum was announced, he would use the military against RS in the corridor near the Sava River ."
As far as I know, Dayton does not forbid the referendum itself. It only forbids any actual secession after the referendum.
I take this to be the ranting (or last hurrah, dependng on whose side you are on) of a political has-been (or political moral authority, again depending on whose side you take).
It is interesting that all this while Mesic did not look at the unhappiness expressed by ethnic Croats about being lumped together in the Federation with the Bosniaks.
Bad news for RS, croat army would crush them badly. It is true though that if RS were to go independant they would have to deal with disputed areas or else its war. It is pretty simple, if dodik pulls out od dayton, he's giving croatia permission to attack them (legally). Croatia cant go to war in bosnia because of the dayton agreement. Lets not forgot that the RS capital was once a very mixed croatian/serbian town as with many others in RS. Croats never forget what belongs to them.
IMO bosnia should be run by the croats, throughout history we always took care of bosnia
I thought the Kosovo UDI was supposed to bring peace and stability to the region but now that precedent has the drums of war beating by the current Croatian president? Looks like that argument can be thrown out the window.
Why is Mesic attacking Dodik? He might be totally anti-Serb but the Croats in Bosnia want the same as the Serbs, decentralisation. They lost more at Dayton than the Serbs did.
"Mesić said, according to Rijeka daily Novi List, that if Republic of Srpska (RS) Prime Minister Milorad Dodik was to call a referendum for toppling the Dayton Agreement, he would send the Croatian military immediately, which would cripple the RS, “which would then have to disappear”, by closing the corridor by near the northern town of Brčko."
Croatia, as a guarantor under Dayton, has no right to make RS disappear. In fact, it is Croatia's duty to ensure the sanctity of RS's borders and its high autonomy within Bosnia.
How this man acutally walked upright on two feet, led a questionable part democratic/part still infatuated with fascism state into NATO (and close to joing EU), while still speaking through both his two mouths still baffles me.
Mesic is right, but what I don't get is he was a dove for 10 years and now he starts talking tough when he has no more power. I would leave it to NATO to force compliance with Dayton. NATO can easily shut down that corridor any day they wanted, but if they don't muslim/Croat entity has the right. Croatia would have rights as a guaranteer of the agreement like Mesic said and because it agreed to withdraw from all it's territorial gains during Operation Storm in return for peace as part of the Dayton agreement. However, how involved Croatia should get depends on what kind of deal the Muslim half is offering. If Croatia goes in only to have to end up giving everything to the Muslims because the EU or UN says so, then Croatia is being used again and it's probably not worth it, but again that depends on which threat is worse for Croatia, the serb threat or the muslim threat. Best thing is for everyone to throw away their ethnic ties and divisions, and live in a free Bosnia with equal rights. If that can never be, Bosnia should be returned to Croatia once and for all.
"IMO bosnia should be run by the croats, throughout history we always took care of bosnia" (marko)
Ye sure did Marko, just like your NDH predecessors took care of 1 million + Serbs, Jews, Roma and Partizans by dispatching them in Jasenovac(many of them also Bosnians). Hey! wasn't Mostar a hoot? I mean, after booting out the JNA, cleansing and murdering the Serbs in the city you then turned on the Muslims and tried to blast them out of existence, but thankfully failed miserably.
Did you even stop and think for a second before you came up with that gem.
Attacking RS would sound logical and rational if the latter breaks Deyton/international law. In that scenario Croatia as a guarantor is obliged to act, which would eventually mean end of RS.
Now as you source your information from Croatian library/history books you might tell us how the Croats managed to free themselves from the Austro Hungarian Empire – this should be worth a laugh or two.
except this time if there was war the west has relized its last mistakes in the region , this time i dare say nato would be bombing zagreb and pristina instead of belgrade ... i know this because i work in media ... public opinion has very much changed in serbias favour in the last 5 years or so . so croats i wouldnt be too cocky about how things may turn out for you if your leaving comments . lee , london , UK .
Isn't it amazing how tough Horevats are standing in the shadows of the Austro/Hungarians for 600 years, the Nazis and their ilk in the 1940's and 1990's. Not sure if this Mesic has bothered to check who is standing behind him this time before he rattles his cage. Pretty lonely this time where I'm looking from.
I can understand that there are no folktales worth keeping at how quickly they ran from the Turks (world record time I believe) but surely I'm not the only one who can remember the magnificent warriors begging Serbs for safe passage and havens as the Moslems were chasing them from their glorious victories in central Bosna in the 90's.
As for that collective gaggle of debt sometimes referred to as Nato, unless the Chinese throw you a few dimes your days of warmongering are in the past. With cultural and religious demographics the way they are being engineered by pathetic liberal apologists running this circus sometimes known as the West I think you may well run out of continents to run to anyway.
Does stipe Mesic really think Serbia would stand by and do nothing and even if Serbia did just stand by thousands of Serbians would cross the border to help rs.
thats why us croats will not allow an independant RS, and croatian territory to be annexed from us....
Croatia might not do anything but dont count out hercegovina...
Yes that was a very funny comment indeed. 'You Croats' in Hercegovina as you call yourselves are praying that RS succeeds. Why?
Because the second that happens you will try to do exactly the same in Bosnia.
It was the same in the last war in Bosnia. You are not fooling anybody. You guys pretend to hate Serbs, but what is more important to you is to steal some land for yourself.
I'd tell my Serbs dont get excited about this and I hope our government wont. We can guess who's pulling the strings and why. See it for what it is. They and I don't mean Croatia, wouldnt get so upset and hysterical threatening war if unification wasnt near. RS stands for Republic of Serbia as far as I know.
Mesic is a legend may God bless this great leader ! He has a vision of the Balkans in which all people live peacefully and prosper. It is not too late to resolve Bosnia's political crisis peacefully. I hope that people of sense can come together to resolve this crisis peacefully through coming up with a new constitution that will protect the rights and ensure the prosperity of all Bosnian-Herzegovinian citizens on Bosnia-Herzegovina's entire national territory.
to annex Bosnia to Croatia,he knows that the RS must be removed and that it has the backing of the international community.
And Sandro,you Muslims were confident like that in 1990-1992,I clearly remember that time and how the Bosniak eders bragged all kinds of things.
And what happened to ypu then?
Make no mistake if the other sides start a war ths time,we Serbs will have the support of the US and Serbia this can time would deploy its whole army there...
Am I right in thinking Dodik was one of the more liberal and pro-western leaders in RS. For those of you who want to get rid of him who on earth do you think should replace him. No Serb in Bosnia would volunteer to be a western puppet.
And what is this rubbish about centralised Bosnia for all the people? Get it through your heads, nobody apart from the Muslims want this! Mesic has betrayed the Bosnian Croats just as Tudjman did at Dayton.
It is time that Italy (another NATO member state) realised that the London treaty no longer exists since it was made with a country that no longer exists (Jugoslavia). Italy must liberate the sacred roman lands of Istria & Dalmazia from occupation for which many Italian civilians died as a result of attack by Ustachi turned partisans at the last moments of WW2. Essoli.
if Croatia or Bosnia would start a war to expell Serbs in Bosnia Serbia would get the green light of the West to go ahead ,count on it.
The West has invested too much in Dayton to let the Croats roam their greater Croatia fantasies freely,because Mesic has Greater Croatian dreams,he wants Bosnia into Croatia to be incorporated,this whole referendum talk is only for show.
This Mesic guy is absolutely nuts. I gues, his head got too big, after all, he was chosen twice by his people and west absolutely odored him. Having big mouth kept him going and he does not care about anything else. Just like Dodek said that Mesic started Yugo war and he is making sure that hatered that he spewed is left after him.
Im pretty sure, and many people around me would agree that Bosnia has more muslims than other religions. Its just the way it is, Our peoples are nationalist, they only care for Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia etc. Its just the way it is :(
(Sandro, 20 January 2010 07:56)
Just a couple of reliable sources for you here Sandro. Both show that Orthodox and Catholic togehter make up over 50% of Bosnia's population.
If Mesic thinks that as a gaurantor of the Dayton Agreement Croatia can invade and get rid of Republika Srpska, does that mean that in the event of the constitution being changed without Dodik's consent then Serbia can invade and annex Republika Srpska?
"It looks like that distinguished gent is about to get some prominent Nato position so he is speaking and acting what he is told.
(dean srbijanac, 19 January 2010 18:12)"
Sorry for disappointing you, dear Dean, but I read about a totally different job offer for Mesic, coming from your beloved Russian friends! They consider offering him a manager job in the SouthStream project, in case it should be expanded to Croatia. Check out Google for more information...
I do not take lightly what this croatian miscreant has to say! His threats do not come in a vacume. Just a few days agao there was an op ed piece in certain american newspapers written by certain individuals which called for punative action against the RS if they did not amend the constitution. one of the authors of that op ed was morton abramovitz, amongst others were friends of dick cheney and zbigniew brezinski.
to put the blame entirely on mesic is delusional----the people behind these threats are members of the EU and NATO.
I have only one thing to add--if any nation or coalition of nations think they will destroy the bosnian serbs---
If rs succeeds Bosnia/Croatia will defeat them then there will never be a rs again, it is a artificial state in a Muslim dominated country. It's the truth for all those people who support rs.
Mr Mesic you are a croatian hero and you are leaving office like a real man not like serbian heads of states dying in hague prisons like war criminals. God bless you.
It's true that nobody in the Balkans wants another conflict, except Dodik that is. I don't understand how he expects to break a peace agreement and not have the country return to violence. That would be like someone buying an expensive house, signing the loan agreement, and then ad hoc deciding not to honor that agreement but expect to keep the house. That of course would not happen, the house would get foreclosed and the person not paying their bills would get arrested. The Bosnian Serbs signed the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995 and they have to honor that commitment. If they themselves refuse to honor that commitment then the other signatories will force their compliance or will punish them for their noncompliance. All of Bosnia-Herzegovina belongs to all of its citizens and no part belongs exclusively to one group or another. Dodik needs to understand that he can only push the envelope so much before decisive action will be taken against him. Mesic is simply informing Dodik that patience for his childish antics is running thin and that the path he is currently on is one that will lead to strife and conflict. If the Bosnian Serbs break the Dayton Peace Agreement then they have no legal foundation to stand on whatsoever and more then that they will be proclaimed to be officially violating international law which will set into motion a set of events that will over time strip him of all his power and will reduce him to the status of a criminal. He's hiding behind the Bosnian Serb people just as Milosevic hid behind the Serbian people but as we've seen that strategy can only go on for so long before he is revealed for what he is and is taken to task for his misdeeds.
Mesic is right, it is in nobody's interest to break this country. International community knows that Bosnia is a just cause to fight for and they will. NATO is in Bosnia, and it won't allow a destruction of the country before their eyes. But more importantly, the patriotic Bosnian people of all ethnicity and religions won't allow this to happen either.
Tadic also keep saying that the national interest of Serbia is united BIH. Is this true? Yes. He doesn't like to destroy Serbia because of Republica Srpska.
Bosnia can NOT and will NOT be divided because of the following reasons:
1) Srebrenica, nobody can take it from Bosnia, never
2) Bihac region, no one wants to create another Gaza in the middle of Europe
3) Brcko corridor (no territorial continuity for RS)
4) new war would start and new wave of refugees would flood Europe, new genocide might be committed...
5) Sandjak
6) Croatia will NOT allow it
So, keeping the status-quo with small Constitutional changes to make the state functional is the best option for everyone but the nationalists, like Dodik, who just want to conceal their criminal and corruption activities.
According to the ratio of recommended versus poor comments on your posting (which was great by the way) it seems that approximately 28% of the visitors here can be considered Holocaust deniers. That is extremely disturbing and I am sure most of them are of Croation and Albanians origin. These countries have not and cannot learn from the past and so the future looks quite grim.
Mesic is probably thinking one step ahead of the Serbs. He may have gotten a sense that Serbia will loose its case against Kosovo at the ICJ and then turn around and use that "opportunity" to claim the same right for RS and forget about Kosovo.
He is simply trying to warn the Serbs not to do this.
If Serbia looses Kosovo case, I am 100% they will try to claim the same righ for RS. Mark my wards. Mesic is looking ahead and is seeing this ahead of everyone else.
Some of you here need to cool down. A old man made a stupid comment thats all. Noone is looking for war. Perhaps Mesic said this to make it hard for the new president. Something from the old guard I suppose. If I were croatia let the United nations deal with RS independance. Croatia nationlists could have herzegovnia overnight. They have to understand that there is just not enough Croats in Bosnia to justify her entire annexation. Also to the poster that made the comment that dalmatia and istria belong to Italy. As a Serb you should be ashamed of yourself. It was the Italians that funded and trained the Ustasha. Do you want the Hungarians and Bulgarians to go ahead and claims some of our lands.
"If that is your definition of help, then god help all Bosnians. BTW don't think the backstabbing hasn't gone unnoticed, as a Bosniak friend of mine said on the last war - at least with the Serbs you know what you are getting, with the Croats they come pretending to be friends and its only once they have shaken your hand do you notice the knife in your back.
With friends like that..."
(bganon, 19 January 2010 21:40)
I don't envy your Bosniak friend. Croatian knifes on the back, and Serbian roses(?) on the front. And now it is the leaders of the same two peoples talking tough again. Nothing was learned. God help the Bosnians indeed, God help all of them, muslims, serbs, croats.
Milos, you've been reading only serbian history books. Read up on King Tomislav, Paul Subic, and other Croatian Kings and Bans who ruled Bosnia. Borovica was the seat of Croatian Kings of Bosnia in the middle ages. Serbian lineage I believe begins in the 13th century with marriage of Elizabeth princess of Serbia to Kotromanic family. Didn't last forever because ottomans invaded not too long after that. So before and after ottoman invasion Croatians or Hungary or Austria-Hungary of which Croatia belonged ruled Bosnia longer than Serbians and any rights you believe you have to it is through marriage to Croatian and Bosnian nobility. Croat tribes migrated to the area before the Serb tribes did and it's only natural that we have more history there. That is why I consider Bosnia historically part of Croatia, at different times an autonomous kingdom of Croatia and other times totally unified with Croatia under one kingdom. All of red and white Croatia was given to the Croatians for protecting it from other tribes that threatened western Europe and the Byzantinne Empire and that's how the Serbians settled where they did also. If you were there before us or if the Byzantinne Empire said have your pick, trust me you would have kept going to the Adriatic.
The only reason Mesic is barking is because he's leaving office, BUT there are still disputed lands in RS, thats why us croats will not allow an independant RS, and croatian territory to be annexed from us....
Croatia might not do anything but dont count out hercegovina...
Oh yeah dont forget the border between HR and Hercegovina, croatia might not attack directly but they will indirectly
the Bosnians wouldnt dare but croats, different story and you guys know it
Its up to dodik really Independance/WAR or stabilize BIH and keep dayton alive.
Dayton is the only thing keeping RS together, you guys know that right.....
(hercegBosna, 21 January 2010 00:00)
How can you Croats still want to fight the Serbs even when its not in your interests. If you got rid of Bosnia everything could be solved with negotiations between Serbia and Croatia. Something like the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement but with a few modifications to make it suitable for modern day demographics.
It’s ironic that after all the things Dodik has said during his tenure as Bosnian Serb premier is Mesic that is considered the “warmonger”.
And despite the title of the article, Croatia would not act against the Bosnians of Orthodox families, but against the Republika Srpska’s regime and armed forecs — which is two different concepts.
You Serbians and Croatians argue about taking lands for each country, HELLO!?! that land is Bosnia, and its not going anywhere. Bosnia will not be broken up. Bosnia dosnt need Patriotic Nationalist to lead the two entitys, we need smart and responisble people, not people who act on their own "ethnic" backgrounds. Seriously, I am a Muslim, my best freind is Serb. And trust me, most Serbians in Bosnia would rather be called Bosnians than fight another War, the ones who dont how ever, they are the Nationalist, and we must get rid of them.
# Roberto - since you praised Mesic few times but I did not: please explain me this one. Na, who was right on? ;-)
IMO, once a communist, always a communist. And Mesic is one in it's worst sense.
IMO, we can congratulate Croatia to got rid of that old rubbish, never to soon. Really a disturbing and disturbed personality.
(Ataman, 19 January 2010 21:34)
yes, ataman, i have praised mesic in the past and i do question some of his recent statements and actions. you're in the balkans, not just jabbering on a website, you should take a bit more responsibility and care.
as for dodik and his "RS" i completely agree w mesic -- dodik is a milosevic wannabe -- very aggressive and provocative. i have begged! the intl community (s0-called) to dump him, which should have been done years ago. RS, so called, is built on pure genocide, pure and simple. if people don't know that, they don't know about bosnia.
as for which was worse, croats or serbs -- they were both pretty horrible (the majority in bosnia) and they were also both victimized. it is a complicated story, grossly over-simplified here. but it is true that both radical serbs and radical croat created monstrous concentation camps for bosniaks, hundreds of them. i am quite familiar with the ones set up around prijedor, such as omarska (there were many more) which included croat prisoners as well, and even a few anti-karadzic serbs. and we know about other camps, many set up around mostar, by radical croats.
all war crimes need to e adjudicated, who cares about ethnicity!
but as for the political situation now, while croatia supports the integrity of bosnia, serbia (esp.ly thru its proxy) daily undermines it.
still, i hate any threats of war, but demagogue dodik and co. must be dealt with.
In the case Croats would start an agression the NATO states wouldn`t help Croatia like in the 90s and would give Serbia a free hand in dealing with Croatia.
Remember what happened to Croatia when they lost their allies in 1918 and 1945,we occupied it within days and weeks...
(CG, 19 January 2010 21:51)
CG,
Sadam believed the same before the second "desert storm" of 2003.
Mesic's parting shot is a reminder of the dangers of not re-thinking the political, electoral and administrative structure of BiH. In short the need for constitutional change is here and now. Back to the basics. RS' origins mean that the international community will never endorse a move to either statehood or amalgamation with Serbia. The moral contradictions would be too much for even the navel gazers of EU to whitewash. Serbia understands what is at stake. RS' non compliance with anything Bosnian only delay the inevitable. Reconcile, restore Bosnia for all its citizens as a unified state not artificially demarked fiefdoms festering religious zealotry.
to annex Bosnia to Croatia,he knows that the RS must be removed and that it has the backing of the international community.
And Sandro,you Muslims were confident like that in 1990-1992,I clearly remember that time and how the Bosniak eders bragged all kinds of things.
And what happened to ypu then?
Make no mistake if the other sides start a war ths time,we Serbs will have the support of the US and Serbia this can time would deploy its whole army there...
No, If Serbia engages in any war-like activities in Bosnia then their EU membership is gone for another 20 years. I dont believe Serbia would risk it, Bosnia has the support of the US, not Serbia. Serbians are more Pro-Russian than Pro-American. And we brag? Its out homeland your taking, go back to your own proper countries, why would you take our lands?
It is time that Italy (another NATO member state) realised that the London treaty no longer exists since it was made with a country that no longer exists (Jugoslavia). Italy must liberate the sacred roman lands of Istria & Dalmazia from occupation for which many Italian civilians died as a result of attack by Ustachi turned partisans at the last moments of WW2. Essoli.
(Essolo, 20 January 2010 17:39)
hahahaha
omg r u serious
The only reason Mesic is barking is because he's leaving office, BUT there are still disputed lands in RS, thats why us croats will not allow an independant RS, and croatian territory to be annexed from us....
Croatia might not do anything but dont count out hercegovina...
Oh yeah dont forget the border between HR and Hercegovina, croatia might not attack directly but they will indirectly
the Bosnians wouldnt dare but croats, different story and you guys know it
Its up to dodik really Independance/WAR or stabilize BIH and keep dayton alive.
Dayton is the only thing keeping RS together, you guys know that right.....
If rs succeeds Bosnia/Croatia will defeat them then there will never be a rs again, it is a artificial state in a Muslim dominated country. It's the truth for all those people who support rs.
(Sandro, 19 January 2010 18:14)
What are you talking about Sandro? Bosnia is a Christian majority country.
(Sam, 19 January 2010 23:23)
Im pretty sure, and many people around me would agree that Bosnia has more muslims than other religions. Its just the way it is, Our peoples are nationalist, they only care for Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia etc. Its just the way it is :(
I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
I hope we do not see another war in Balkan, but if that scenario is played by RS, then I beleive Croatian military will do exactly what Mesic is saying, and Serbia will not be able to do anything about it.
Mesic is right, but what I don't get is he was a dove for 10 years and now he starts talking tough when he has no more power. I would leave it to NATO to force compliance with Dayton. NATO can easily shut down that corridor any day they wanted, but if they don't muslim/Croat entity has the right. Croatia would have rights as a guaranteer of the agreement like Mesic said and because it agreed to withdraw from all it's territorial gains during Operation Storm in return for peace as part of the Dayton agreement. However, how involved Croatia should get depends on what kind of deal the Muslim half is offering. If Croatia goes in only to have to end up giving everything to the Muslims because the EU or UN says so, then Croatia is being used again and it's probably not worth it, but again that depends on which threat is worse for Croatia, the serb threat or the muslim threat. Best thing is for everyone to throw away their ethnic ties and divisions, and live in a free Bosnia with equal rights. If that can never be, Bosnia should be returned to Croatia once and for all.
If rs succeeds Bosnia/Croatia will defeat them then there will never be a rs again, it is a artificial state in a Muslim dominated country. It's the truth for all those people who support rs.
The Bosnian Serbs need to understand that continuing to follow Dodik's increasingly radical and desperate policies will end in disaster for them. It has been made clear to them that breaking the Dayton Peace Accords is unacceptable and that the consequences of that action would be very serious. The second that the Dayton Accords are violated by the Bosnian Serbs the "RS" entity will cease to exist and nobody will ever be able to revive it. Look at what happened to the self proclaimed "Republik of Srbska Krajina". Where is it now? Where are its political leaders? Where are its residents? The Bosnian Serbs are very naive if they think that they can avoid a serious confrontation if they continue to pursue Dodik's war-mongering policies. In 1995 only weeks before the Dayton Accords were signed the Bosnian Army was 15km away from Banja Luka and the cities inhabitants started packing their belongings and were getting ready to head out for Serbia. That scene will be repeated if Dodik continues with his radical policies. People should learn from history to avoid making the same mistakes that were made a decade ago.
Mesic is a legend may God bless this great leader ! He has a vision of the Balkans in which all people live peacefully and prosper. It is not too late to resolve Bosnia's political crisis peacefully. I hope that people of sense can come together to resolve this crisis peacefully through coming up with a new constitution that will protect the rights and ensure the prosperity of all Bosnian-Herzegovinian citizens on Bosnia-Herzegovina's entire national territory.
Bad news for RS, croat army would crush them badly. It is true though that if RS were to go independant they would have to deal with disputed areas or else its war. It is pretty simple, if dodik pulls out od dayton, he's giving croatia permission to attack them (legally). Croatia cant go to war in bosnia because of the dayton agreement. Lets not forgot that the RS capital was once a very mixed croatian/serbian town as with many others in RS. Croats never forget what belongs to them.
IMO bosnia should be run by the croats, throughout history we always took care of bosnia
Attacking RS would sound logical and rational if the latter breaks Deyton/international law. In that scenario Croatia as a guarantor is obliged to act, which would eventually mean end of RS.
Milos, you've been reading only serbian history books. Read up on King Tomislav, Paul Subic, and other Croatian Kings and Bans who ruled Bosnia. Borovica was the seat of Croatian Kings of Bosnia in the middle ages. Serbian lineage I believe begins in the 13th century with marriage of Elizabeth princess of Serbia to Kotromanic family. Didn't last forever because ottomans invaded not too long after that. So before and after ottoman invasion Croatians or Hungary or Austria-Hungary of which Croatia belonged ruled Bosnia longer than Serbians and any rights you believe you have to it is through marriage to Croatian and Bosnian nobility. Croat tribes migrated to the area before the Serb tribes did and it's only natural that we have more history there. That is why I consider Bosnia historically part of Croatia, at different times an autonomous kingdom of Croatia and other times totally unified with Croatia under one kingdom. All of red and white Croatia was given to the Croatians for protecting it from other tribes that threatened western Europe and the Byzantinne Empire and that's how the Serbians settled where they did also. If you were there before us or if the Byzantinne Empire said have your pick, trust me you would have kept going to the Adriatic.
Mr Mesic you are a croatian hero and you are leaving office like a real man not like serbian heads of states dying in hague prisons like war criminals. God bless you.
I remind the Serbs that their Croatian Prime Minister Markovic was the one who ordered Serbian troops to attack Croatia in 1991. He then resigned from his position as Prime Minister and fled to Croatia knowing full well he had unleashed a Civil War, so his hideous aggressive language comes as no surprise.
Nazi Croatian Ustashi forces slaughtered over one million Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 80,000 Gypsies 65 years ago and the world pretended not to notice. No one was brought to justice for these appalling war crimes. 740 Roman Catholic priests who personally participated in the Ustashi and killed thousands of Serbs with their own hands fled Croatia after the war through the Vatican "Ratline" for Argentina, including Ante Pavelic who became the Security Advisor to Juan Peron who issued 34,000 Visas to Croatian war criminals. Not a single one was ever brought to justice.
When the dismemberment wars began in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 the world media again pretended not to know this ugly history of 65 years ago. Now that Slovenia and Croatia are ethnically and religiously pure and have succeeded in cleansing nearly every single Serb from their territories I am not the least bit surprised that Mesic would send in the Ustashi again. I remind this miserable SOB of the words of one of their own Roman Catholics, Avro Manhattan, who wrote in his 1965 book, "Imperialism in the Twentieth Century"
..."The lessons we have learned from the emergence of the Independent State of Croatia, where the religious and political totalitarianism of Catholicism was not only made to work, but put to death more than one millions Serbian Orthodox Christians, should never be forgotten. For it happened in our times, when the Catholic Church ...then as now, posing as a victim of religious intolerance ...was clamoring for freedom, while at the same time suppressing that same freedom for which she was vociferating so loudly, in a tiny state where she had set up her kind of freedom, Catholic freedom: i.e., freedom for herself to eliminate whatever and whoever dared to resist her embrace."
In 1989 when Serbian Patriarch Pavle invited the Pope to come to Croatia on the anniversary of WWII to participate in a joint Mass and Liturgy at the Jasenovac Concentration Camp the Pope said: "It is too dangerous to come to the Balkans at this time." Then, three years later, at the height of the Bosnian Civil War, the Pope made an historical visit to Croatia where his first official duty was to lay a wreath on the tomb of ally convicted war criminal Roman Catholic Archbishop Stepinac. The church is now making moves to make this war criminal a saint.
I am not surprised that the world media and American politicians simply ignores this obvious aggressive language.
_______________
The writer is the author of the 1991 book, Serbian Genocide, 1941-45, co written by the late David Martin, author of The Web of Disinformation (1989) and the late Michael Lees, author of The Rape of Serbia, (1989). He is also the author of, Kosovo (1992), A Brief History of Serbian Music (1994) and Hilandar Octocentenary (1998).
One day the Serbs will have both of you in their back pocket. It's easy to talk the talk when your just a little bird sitting on the shoulder of the US.
I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
(The Eagles, 19 January 2010 16:35)
kosovo does not exist for you albanians because its a province of serbia so we should send the entire Serbian army in also but this time no world help because they all See it is Serbian land.
If rs succeeds Bosnia/Croatia will defeat them then there will never be a rs again, it is a artificial state in a Muslim dominated country. It's the truth for all those people who support rs.
(Sandro, 19 January 2010 18:14)
What are you talking about Sandro? Bosnia is a Christian majority country.
(Sam, 19 January 2010 23:23)
Im pretty sure, and many people around me would agree that Bosnia has more muslims than other religions. Its just the way it is, Our peoples are nationalist, they only care for Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia etc. Its just the way it is :(
Good knows what this guy has been drinking or smoking before making such an irresponsible and aggresive statement!
Good for Croatia and the region that soon he will be part of the past!
# Roberto - since you praised Mesic few times but I did not: please explain me this one. Na, who was right on? ;-)
IMO, once a communist, always a communist. And Mesic is one in it's worst sense.
IMO, we can congratulate Croatia to got rid of that old rubbish, never to soon. Really a disturbing and disturbed personality.
(Ataman, 19 January 2010 21:34)
yes, ataman, i have praised mesic in the past and i do question some of his recent statements and actions. you're in the balkans, not just jabbering on a website, you should take a bit more responsibility and care.
as for dodik and his "RS" i completely agree w mesic -- dodik is a milosevic wannabe -- very aggressive and provocative. i have begged! the intl community (s0-called) to dump him, which should have been done years ago. RS, so called, is built on pure genocide, pure and simple. if people don't know that, they don't know about bosnia.
as for which was worse, croats or serbs -- they were both pretty horrible (the majority in bosnia) and they were also both victimized. it is a complicated story, grossly over-simplified here. but it is true that both radical serbs and radical croat created monstrous concentation camps for bosniaks, hundreds of them. i am quite familiar with the ones set up around prijedor, such as omarska (there were many more) which included croat prisoners as well, and even a few anti-karadzic serbs. and we know about other camps, many set up around mostar, by radical croats.
all war crimes need to e adjudicated, who cares about ethnicity!
but as for the political situation now, while croatia supports the integrity of bosnia, serbia (esp.ly thru its proxy) daily undermines it.
still, i hate any threats of war, but demagogue dodik and co. must be dealt with.
It’s ironic that after all the things Dodik has said during his tenure as Bosnian Serb premier is Mesic that is considered the “warmonger”.
And despite the title of the article, Croatia would not act against the Bosnians of Orthodox families, but against the Republika Srpska’s regime and armed forecs — which is two different concepts.
this guy is old if he thinks serbia would just stand and watch he has another thing coming and look at the wars in the 90s it was like 55,000 Serb rebels in krajina fighting against over 250,0000 croats and how many outsiders helped, and they could not do nothing and the same in bosnia just rebels and he thinks that serbia would just stand and watch. he better be careful what he wishes for because if serbia steps in croatia would be finished because remember the world helped them in ther 90s and serbia didn't even fight in the war imagine if all Serbs came in from all over man it would be bad for croatia.
Mesic is right, it is in nobody's interest to break this country. International community knows that Bosnia is a just cause to fight for and they will. NATO is in Bosnia, and it won't allow a destruction of the country before their eyes. But more importantly, the patriotic Bosnian people of all ethnicity and religions won't allow this to happen either.
Tadic also keep saying that the national interest of Serbia is united BIH. Is this true? Yes. He doesn't like to destroy Serbia because of Republica Srpska.
Bosnia can NOT and will NOT be divided because of the following reasons:
1) Srebrenica, nobody can take it from Bosnia, never
2) Bihac region, no one wants to create another Gaza in the middle of Europe
3) Brcko corridor (no territorial continuity for RS)
4) new war would start and new wave of refugees would flood Europe, new genocide might be committed...
5) Sandjak
6) Croatia will NOT allow it
So, keeping the status-quo with small Constitutional changes to make the state functional is the best option for everyone but the nationalists, like Dodik, who just want to conceal their criminal and corruption activities.
In the case Croats would start an agression the NATO states wouldn`t help Croatia like in the 90s and would give Serbia a free hand in dealing with Croatia.
Remember what happened to Croatia when they lost their allies in 1918 and 1945,we occupied it within days and weeks...
I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
(The Eagles, 19 January 2010 16:35)
Kosovo army? There is not even a Kosovo state!
And if Kosovo can become independent, why not RS? No double standards!
"I agree with him,,, but Slovenia,macedonia,montenegro,& kosovan Army should get involved too.. just to let them know that such a thing as RS simply doesn,t exist, & never will...
(The Eagles, 19 January 2010 16:35)"
The Kosovo army? I am sure that many unemployed Albanians will be volunteered by NATO to fight the Serbs again. Ceku and Thaci will probably be there too IF this scenario is being pushed through by the West. Just be careful for what you wish for. And by the way, there will be no Albanian POWs.
Thank you William Dorich for that excellent posting, and a strong dose of truth for the brainwashed masses which they badly need.
It is very evident from the bellicose posts from Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Albanians on here that Serbs can not live with such people.
Republika Srpska is already independent. As for Mesic's ridiculous threat: bring it on.
It is not the 90's any more, Russia is now very strong and has owns many valuable businesses in Republika Srpska. So just try it Stipe and let's see how well you do with a bankrupt Germany behind you.
Cheers!!
Mesic is probably thinking one step ahead of the Serbs. He may have gotten a sense that Serbia will loose its case against Kosovo at the ICJ and then turn around and use that "opportunity" to claim the same right for RS and forget about Kosovo.
He is simply trying to warn the Serbs not to do this.
If Serbia looses Kosovo case, I am 100% they will try to claim the same righ for RS. Mark my wards. Mesic is looking ahead and is seeing this ahead of everyone else.
This is what I referred to in my comment on the other posting. Of course it is Mesic who says it, but knowing The West and NATO this kind of comment is meant to prepare the public for what might be coming and I would urge RS to take these kinds of statements seriously. I am sure Mesic is still on the EU/NATOP payroll list as an unofficial spokesman. I am sure that he would have done what he said and it is up to the current Croation president to deny these comments in the strongest possible terms and tell Mesic to shut up and stay out of politics. Otherwise it may be regarded as an unofficial declaration of war towards RS. NATO and the West are not satisfied until all Serbs have been ethnically cleansed into Serbia. It is jsut sad that the current Serbian government does not want to see this.
Im really curious to know where these comments of Croatia being the rightful territorial owner of Bosnia is coming from. From what I know and the many history books i've read Croatia was never more than little Dalmatia in Zagreb region and that the coast was owned by Venice and that when the rest wasn't a part of the Kingdom of Serbs or at another point the Serbian Empire yes we were an empire, Bosnia region was split between a bunch of Lords. The Kingdom of Bosnia was ruled by King Tvrtko who was the direct lineage of the Serbian Nemanjic dyansty.
Enough of my history lesson, I personally don't think RS should split because of the certain political stance that everyone in the region has, and because of the current situation in the Balkans but it's not hard to see why for instance the RS would want to split. If for instance the Federation were to leave the RS alone and not try to force it to not exist in the first place and Croatia's also similarily been propogating the same things then I am pretty sure that the RS wouldn't be thinking about it. What happens when you step on a dogs tail, it tries to bite you no matter how small it is. The Dayton might be the thing holding RS to BiH then Resolution 1244 (if we were going to be fair for once) should be the thing holding Kosovo to Serbia. If Croatia were to invade RS what would stop Serbia from running through Croatia to defend it's people in another state?
As for that earlier comment about the Muslim army being 15 km away from Banja Luka before the end, people should really start taking into consideration the fact that the Serbian entity would have ran over the federation if the federation wasn't given support by literally the whole world, similarily if the JNA actually did enter Croatia, Croatia would have also ceased to exist in that war. So now that the small states are independent and weren't given 10 years of sanctions after the war they think they can talk tough, I'd urge them to hold their horses and rethink a few things.
Im just curious if Serbs (as they are portrayed in the world media) are genocidal, then how do these break away states all of a sudden have the courage to attack a genocidal people? Im just curious, because I believe and I know that Serbs are not known throughout history as being genocidal yet very hospitable but the same cannot be said about the Croatian people as was seen in Jasenovac, and recently in the war. And a similar statement can be made about the muslims in the region as they are just a by product of a failed genocide initiated by the Turks.
Not without your American Air Force you wouldn't. He is the primary reason that Croat/Serb relations have deteriorated to post war lows. Tudjman respected Serbs more than this clown.
You Serbians and Croatians argue about taking lands for each country, HELLO!?! that land is Bosnia, and its not going anywhere. Bosnia will not be broken up. Bosnia dosnt need Patriotic Nationalist to lead the two entitys, we need smart and responisble people, not people who act on their own "ethnic" backgrounds. Seriously, I am a Muslim, my best freind is Serb. And trust me, most Serbians in Bosnia would rather be called Bosnians than fight another War, the ones who dont how ever, they are the Nationalist, and we must get rid of them.
This would be funny if it was not so tragic.
Mesic, you helped to end Jugoslavija, you are a Croatian nationalist that supported Croatian statehood and the destruction of Jugoslavija. You were an enthusiastic member of HDZ, who was happy to sit alongside sick nationalists who dreamt of a Greater Croatia including Bosnia and parts of Serbia.
Now you act as if Jugoslavija still exists. Well Jugoslavija does not exist and Croatian troops cannot march onto Bosnian territory (funny you said the same about JNA troops in Croatia, who is a hypocrite now). Such a move would be an act of agression by any standard.
As I said before if you think you have a chance in Bosnian politics then by all means get Bosnian nationality and create a political party. Just remember one thing though - after all your previous statements I'd bet that Republika Srpska would table a referendum immediately.
Mesic's parting shot is a reminder of the dangers of not re-thinking the political, electoral and administrative structure of BiH. In short the need for constitutional change is here and now. Back to the basics. RS' origins mean that the international community will never endorse a move to either statehood or amalgamation with Serbia. The moral contradictions would be too much for even the navel gazers of EU to whitewash. Serbia understands what is at stake. RS' non compliance with anything Bosnian only delay the inevitable. Reconcile, restore Bosnia for all its citizens as a unified state not artificially demarked fiefdoms festering religious zealotry.
In the case Croats would start an agression the NATO states wouldn`t help Croatia like in the 90s and would give Serbia a free hand in dealing with Croatia.
Remember what happened to Croatia when they lost their allies in 1918 and 1945,we occupied it within days and weeks...
(CG, 19 January 2010 21:51)
CG,
Sadam believed the same before the second "desert storm" of 2003.
Why is Mesic attacking Dodik? He might be totally anti-Serb but the Croats in Bosnia want the same as the Serbs, decentralisation. They lost more at Dayton than the Serbs did.
Croatia is part of the NATO now, and would have to act with that unity. The days when the illustrious Ustasha army can go head-hunting for Serbs is over. This old, worn out remnant of of the former communist Yugoslavia should go directly to a nursing home after he leaves office. Is brain is obviously affected by alzheimer's. He thinks it is 1942 again. And, did someone mention something about the K_Albanian army getting involved. That, is the joke of the day.
It is time that Italy (another NATO member state) realised that the London treaty no longer exists since it was made with a country that no longer exists (Jugoslavia). Italy must liberate the sacred roman lands of Istria & Dalmazia from occupation for which many Italian civilians died as a result of attack by Ustachi turned partisans at the last moments of WW2. Essoli.
(Essolo, 20 January 2010 17:39)
hahahaha
omg r u serious
The only reason Mesic is barking is because he's leaving office, BUT there are still disputed lands in RS, thats why us croats will not allow an independant RS, and croatian territory to be annexed from us....
Croatia might not do anything but dont count out hercegovina...
Oh yeah dont forget the border between HR and Hercegovina, croatia might not attack directly but they will indirectly
the Bosnians wouldnt dare but croats, different story and you guys know it
Its up to dodik really Independance/WAR or stabilize BIH and keep dayton alive.
Dayton is the only thing keeping RS together, you guys know that right.....
He scares no one !!! RS will spank ur military. no one wants to go down that fruitless path ....but in case ... u'll be spanked HARD..just so we're clear
but like croations and albanians have done in the 90's I'm sure u'll cry to others for help!!
Simply sickening that after all that has happened, after all the senseless killing, we have another Croat advocating another war. As if Croat Mothers want to send their sons and daughters to kill and be killed, or does Mesic suspect German, French, UK, Dutch troops will lend him the blood of their sons too?
Who's the greater fool, the fool or the fools that follow?
If only he had cared as deeply about Yugoslavia's territorial integrity when he was the president of Yugoslavia as he cares about Bosnia's territorial integrity now. Mesic spent his life advocating Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia -- Tito even threw him in jail for it. It's more than a little hypocritical for him to oppose Bosnian-Serb self-determination after being such an outspoken advocate for everybody else's self-determination. The Bosnian-Serbs have the same right to break-away from Bosnia that the Croats had to separate from Yugoslavia, and the Kosovo-Albanians had to separate from Serbia. If the terms of Resolution 1244 can be violated, so can the terms of the Dayton Agreement. If it's good for the goose, it must be good for the gander.
I thought the Kosovo UDI was supposed to bring peace and stability to the region but now that precedent has the drums of war beating by the current Croatian president? Looks like that argument can be thrown out the window.
One never stops being amazed by the kind of nonsense that some people are able to write on this site. I recommend that B92 will start splitting the comments into a serious/constructive and a nonsense/hate section. Obviously I will choose the first one.
The last time Mesic said something along these lines all hell broke loose. This is a parting shot from a Serb who is playing the role of a bigger Catholic than the Pope!
To those on this site who think that if the Croat army got in to dismantle RS for the benefit of the Muslims. Think again and think very hard!
Remember Mostar. You all got rid of the Serbs now you like cheek by jowl with the Croats who hate your guts and would slit your throat as soon as look at you!
I think the bora has blowned his brain away. However, it is clear that Mesic is getting these orders from someone else. Why would Croatia risk war? Do the Croats in Bosnia really want to stay in Bosnia or merge with Croatia. Perhaps the new president can install some common sense back to their government.
I'd tell my Serbs dont get excited about this and I hope our government wont. We can guess who's pulling the strings and why. See it for what it is. They and I don't mean Croatia, wouldnt get so upset and hysterical threatening war if unification wasnt near. RS stands for Republic of Serbia as far as I know.
Some visitors have to ask themselves why RS want to hold a referendum. It is because the Croats and Muslims want to centralize power in Sarajevo and that goes against the Dayton agreement? A referendum is a democratic political instrument to consult the population on one or some issues. It is the good right of RS and its leaders and people to make sure that they keep what they fought for. It is completely insane to even suggest that Croatia has the legal right to invade BiH or RS if RS wants to hold a referendum before the outcome is even clear. Does Serbia have the same right? Even if the RS population votes for independence it does not mean that they will implement it (immediately). Why is Dayton more important than UNSC 1244? If Kosovo can declare a UDI so can RS, right? If not, what is the difference? I think it will be time to move more Russian troops to RS because I am sure that both Croatia and NATO will not be that stupid to start killing Russian soldiers.
Marko 'throughout history we always took care of bosnia'
What, by destroying that great historical bridge in Mostar?
What by encroaching Bosnian soverignty with putting regular Croatian troops there, without permission?
What by running camps and imprisoning Bosnian Muslums?
What by making secret deals with Milosevic to split Bosnia in half?
What, by trading weapons with Serbs during the war?
If that is your definition of help, then god help all Bosnians. BTW don't think the backstabbing hasn't gone unnoticed, as a Bosniak friend of mine said on the last war - at least with the Serbs you know what you are getting, with the Croats they come pretending to be friends and its only once they have shaken your hand do you notice the knife in your back.
If rs succeeds Bosnia/Croatia will defeat them then there will never be a rs again, it is a artificial state in a Muslim dominated country. It's the truth for all those people who support rs.
(Sandro, 19 January 2010 18:14)
What are you talking about Sandro? Bosnia is a Christian majority country.
"At Tuesday’s informal meeting with journalists, Mesić said that Croatia is a Dayton Agreement guarantor, and that if he were the president at the time that such a referendum was announced, he would use the military against RS in the corridor near the Sava River ."
As far as I know, Dayton does not forbid the referendum itself. It only forbids any actual secession after the referendum.
I take this to be the ranting (or last hurrah, dependng on whose side you are on) of a political has-been (or political moral authority, again depending on whose side you take).
It is interesting that all this while Mesic did not look at the unhappiness expressed by ethnic Croats about being lumped together in the Federation with the Bosniaks.
Stipe Mesic is furious at Serbs for two reasons. The first is RS unwillingness to save the Croats in Bosnia by either taking them under its umbrella or supporting a separate Croat entity – the Croats are being ethnically cleansed by the Bosniaks and, as I have said repeatedly, will become a minority within two years. The second relates to Serbia direct such as trade, refugees, borders and other issues which are too lengthy to deal in this forum.
It has always been said those that can’t have the biggest mouths and make the greatest threats while those that can keep quite. Mesic has become just like the Albanians, threatening Serbs with his mighty army because it’s now a member of NATO. For the ignorant, NATO is led by the US and it decides what is done and not Croatia, Albania, Latvia or whoever – the dog wags the tail not the other way around. There seems to be this myth doing the rounds in these new NATO member countries that they can start wars and NATO will come to their rescue, well sorry to disappoint but that’s not true. Your only purpose is to send troops to die in Afghanistan.
However, if he is still adamant about cutting off the Brko corridor, Stipe should make sure he recalls the 300 Croatian soldiers from Afghanistan first – he does not want to be left short of troops. Another point going to war requires bi-partisan agreement in Croatia and this he does not have. Oh, he also needs to borrow aircraft, helicopters, arms etc.
For those that think Stipe is a mouth piece for NATO, rest assured this is incorrect. If NATO was to make threats it would be direct not via a second class NATO member. Also, NATO knows only too well this is not 1999 and military intervention would cause a greater war than just in the Balkans and my sources have told me that this is not on. The west is getting weary of Bosnia’s trials and tribulations, as one senior EU/NATO member has stated there is more drama in that country than in the TV series, the Bold and the Beautifully.
For those that think Milorad Dodik is a fool, he is not and every move has been deliberated carefully and in full consultation with his allies and any action would have been given the green light. Don’t forget that recently there were lengthy discussions between Dodik, Serbia, EU and US regarding Bosnia and I can assure you that if threats were on the drawing board they would have been made there and then – the US is not backward incoming forward about these matters.
Mesic is retiring and his time as President looks like a total failure to achieve goals of any substance and what you have is an old cranky old man realizing his in effectiveness making noises to go down in history as a defender of Croats. Unfortunately, he, like his fellow Croats in Australia at the tennis, has come out and made a fool of himself on the world stage.
It's true that nobody in the Balkans wants another conflict, except Dodik that is. I don't understand how he expects to break a peace agreement and not have the country return to violence. That would be like someone buying an expensive house, signing the loan agreement, and then ad hoc deciding not to honor that agreement but expect to keep the house. That of course would not happen, the house would get foreclosed and the person not paying their bills would get arrested. The Bosnian Serbs signed the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995 and they have to honor that commitment. If they themselves refuse to honor that commitment then the other signatories will force their compliance or will punish them for their noncompliance. All of Bosnia-Herzegovina belongs to all of its citizens and no part belongs exclusively to one group or another. Dodik needs to understand that he can only push the envelope so much before decisive action will be taken against him. Mesic is simply informing Dodik that patience for his childish antics is running thin and that the path he is currently on is one that will lead to strife and conflict. If the Bosnian Serbs break the Dayton Peace Agreement then they have no legal foundation to stand on whatsoever and more then that they will be proclaimed to be officially violating international law which will set into motion a set of events that will over time strip him of all his power and will reduce him to the status of a criminal. He's hiding behind the Bosnian Serb people just as Milosevic hid behind the Serbian people but as we've seen that strategy can only go on for so long before he is revealed for what he is and is taken to task for his misdeeds.
Does stipe Mesic really think Serbia would stand by and do nothing and even if Serbia did just stand by thousands of Serbians would cross the border to help rs.
"Good knows what this guy has been drinking or smoking before making such an irresponsible and aggresive statement!"
I wonder, too. Or it's maybe the age that makes him loose his mind and driving him totally crazy now? Maybe we should see Mesic's actions from the last weeks, culminating in a statement like that, from this point of view?
to annex Bosnia to Croatia,he knows that the RS must be removed and that it has the backing of the international community.
And Sandro,you Muslims were confident like that in 1990-1992,I clearly remember that time and how the Bosniak eders bragged all kinds of things.
And what happened to ypu then?
Make no mistake if the other sides start a war ths time,we Serbs will have the support of the US and Serbia this can time would deploy its whole army there...
No, If Serbia engages in any war-like activities in Bosnia then their EU membership is gone for another 20 years. I dont believe Serbia would risk it, Bosnia has the support of the US, not Serbia. Serbians are more Pro-Russian than Pro-American. And we brag? Its out homeland your taking, go back to your own proper countries, why would you take our lands?
if Croatia or Bosnia would start a war to expell Serbs in Bosnia Serbia would get the green light of the West to go ahead ,count on it.
The West has invested too much in Dayton to let the Croats roam their greater Croatia fantasies freely,because Mesic has Greater Croatian dreams,he wants Bosnia into Croatia to be incorporated,this whole referendum talk is only for show.
Oh come on!!!
You have GOT to be kidding me? This has GOT to be a misquote, or a crazy tirade.
I don't think ANYBODY on the ground has the stomach to go through another war..
Let Mesic's children/nephews follow him into battle. Take things into perspective. The Croatian public clearly voted for a leader that has way more class then that.
To all the posters like Fairplay, who think they're armchair warriors, take a pill.
I think that all the Muslims, Croats and Serbs living in RS don't appreciate these coming from Mesic..
THEY'RE the ones that have to live together..
"IMO bosnia should be run by the croats, throughout history we always took care of bosnia" (marko)
Ye sure did Marko, just like your NDH predecessors took care of 1 million + Serbs, Jews, Roma and Partizans by dispatching them in Jasenovac(many of them also Bosnians). Hey! wasn't Mostar a hoot? I mean, after booting out the JNA, cleansing and murdering the Serbs in the city you then turned on the Muslims and tried to blast them out of existence, but thankfully failed miserably.
Did you even stop and think for a second before you came up with that gem.
It is time that Italy (another NATO member state) realised that the London treaty no longer exists since it was made with a country that no longer exists (Jugoslavia). Italy must liberate the sacred roman lands of Istria & Dalmazia from occupation for which many Italian civilians died as a result of attack by Ustachi turned partisans at the last moments of WW2. Essoli.
"It looks like that distinguished gent is about to get some prominent Nato position so he is speaking and acting what he is told.
(dean srbijanac, 19 January 2010 18:12)"
Sorry for disappointing you, dear Dean, but I read about a totally different job offer for Mesic, coming from your beloved Russian friends! They consider offering him a manager job in the SouthStream project, in case it should be expanded to Croatia. Check out Google for more information...
This Mesic guy is absolutely nuts. I gues, his head got too big, after all, he was chosen twice by his people and west absolutely odored him. Having big mouth kept him going and he does not care about anything else. Just like Dodek said that Mesic started Yugo war and he is making sure that hatered that he spewed is left after him.
According to the ratio of recommended versus poor comments on your posting (which was great by the way) it seems that approximately 28% of the visitors here can be considered Holocaust deniers. That is extremely disturbing and I am sure most of them are of Croation and Albanians origin. These countries have not and cannot learn from the past and so the future looks quite grim.
How this man acutally walked upright on two feet, led a questionable part democratic/part still infatuated with fascism state into NATO (and close to joing EU), while still speaking through both his two mouths still baffles me.
except this time if there was war the west has relized its last mistakes in the region , this time i dare say nato would be bombing zagreb and pristina instead of belgrade ... i know this because i work in media ... public opinion has very much changed in serbias favour in the last 5 years or so . so croats i wouldnt be too cocky about how things may turn out for you if your leaving comments . lee , london , UK .
Isn't it amazing how tough Horevats are standing in the shadows of the Austro/Hungarians for 600 years, the Nazis and their ilk in the 1940's and 1990's. Not sure if this Mesic has bothered to check who is standing behind him this time before he rattles his cage. Pretty lonely this time where I'm looking from.
I can understand that there are no folktales worth keeping at how quickly they ran from the Turks (world record time I believe) but surely I'm not the only one who can remember the magnificent warriors begging Serbs for safe passage and havens as the Moslems were chasing them from their glorious victories in central Bosna in the 90's.
As for that collective gaggle of debt sometimes referred to as Nato, unless the Chinese throw you a few dimes your days of warmongering are in the past. With cultural and religious demographics the way they are being engineered by pathetic liberal apologists running this circus sometimes known as the West I think you may well run out of continents to run to anyway.
Am I right in thinking Dodik was one of the more liberal and pro-western leaders in RS. For those of you who want to get rid of him who on earth do you think should replace him. No Serb in Bosnia would volunteer to be a western puppet.
And what is this rubbish about centralised Bosnia for all the people? Get it through your heads, nobody apart from the Muslims want this! Mesic has betrayed the Bosnian Croats just as Tudjman did at Dayton.
"Mesić said, according to Rijeka daily Novi List, that if Republic of Srpska (RS) Prime Minister Milorad Dodik was to call a referendum for toppling the Dayton Agreement, he would send the Croatian military immediately, which would cripple the RS, “which would then have to disappear”, by closing the corridor by near the northern town of Brčko."
Croatia, as a guarantor under Dayton, has no right to make RS disappear. In fact, it is Croatia's duty to ensure the sanctity of RS's borders and its high autonomy within Bosnia.
Now as you source your information from Croatian library/history books you might tell us how the Croats managed to free themselves from the Austro Hungarian Empire – this should be worth a laugh or two.
to annex Bosnia to Croatia,he knows that the RS must be removed and that it has the backing of the international community.
And Sandro,you Muslims were confident like that in 1990-1992,I clearly remember that time and how the Bosniak eders bragged all kinds of things.
And what happened to ypu then?
Make no mistake if the other sides start a war ths time,we Serbs will have the support of the US and Serbia this can time would deploy its whole army there...
The only reason Mesic is barking is because he's leaving office, BUT there are still disputed lands in RS, thats why us croats will not allow an independant RS, and croatian territory to be annexed from us....
Croatia might not do anything but dont count out hercegovina...
Oh yeah dont forget the border between HR and Hercegovina, croatia might not attack directly but they will indirectly
the Bosnians wouldnt dare but croats, different story and you guys know it
Its up to dodik really Independance/WAR or stabilize BIH and keep dayton alive.
Dayton is the only thing keeping RS together, you guys know that right.....
(hercegBosna, 21 January 2010 00:00)
How can you Croats still want to fight the Serbs even when its not in your interests. If you got rid of Bosnia everything could be solved with negotiations between Serbia and Croatia. Something like the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement but with a few modifications to make it suitable for modern day demographics.
Some of you here need to cool down. A old man made a stupid comment thats all. Noone is looking for war. Perhaps Mesic said this to make it hard for the new president. Something from the old guard I suppose. If I were croatia let the United nations deal with RS independance. Croatia nationlists could have herzegovnia overnight. They have to understand that there is just not enough Croats in Bosnia to justify her entire annexation. Also to the poster that made the comment that dalmatia and istria belong to Italy. As a Serb you should be ashamed of yourself. It was the Italians that funded and trained the Ustasha. Do you want the Hungarians and Bulgarians to go ahead and claims some of our lands.
thats why us croats will not allow an independant RS, and croatian territory to be annexed from us....
Croatia might not do anything but dont count out hercegovina...
Yes that was a very funny comment indeed. 'You Croats' in Hercegovina as you call yourselves are praying that RS succeeds. Why?
Because the second that happens you will try to do exactly the same in Bosnia.
It was the same in the last war in Bosnia. You are not fooling anybody. You guys pretend to hate Serbs, but what is more important to you is to steal some land for yourself.
I do not take lightly what this croatian miscreant has to say! His threats do not come in a vacume. Just a few days agao there was an op ed piece in certain american newspapers written by certain individuals which called for punative action against the RS if they did not amend the constitution. one of the authors of that op ed was morton abramovitz, amongst others were friends of dick cheney and zbigniew brezinski.
to put the blame entirely on mesic is delusional----the people behind these threats are members of the EU and NATO.
I have only one thing to add--if any nation or coalition of nations think they will destroy the bosnian serbs---
"If that is your definition of help, then god help all Bosnians. BTW don't think the backstabbing hasn't gone unnoticed, as a Bosniak friend of mine said on the last war - at least with the Serbs you know what you are getting, with the Croats they come pretending to be friends and its only once they have shaken your hand do you notice the knife in your back.
With friends like that..."
(bganon, 19 January 2010 21:40)
I don't envy your Bosniak friend. Croatian knifes on the back, and Serbian roses(?) on the front. And now it is the leaders of the same two peoples talking tough again. Nothing was learned. God help the Bosnians indeed, God help all of them, muslims, serbs, croats.
If Mesic thinks that as a gaurantor of the Dayton Agreement Croatia can invade and get rid of Republika Srpska, does that mean that in the event of the constitution being changed without Dodik's consent then Serbia can invade and annex Republika Srpska?
Im pretty sure, and many people around me would agree that Bosnia has more muslims than other religions. Its just the way it is, Our peoples are nationalist, they only care for Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia etc. Its just the way it is :(
(Sandro, 20 January 2010 07:56)
Just a couple of reliable sources for you here Sandro. Both show that Orthodox and Catholic togehter make up over 50% of Bosnia's population.
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