"High representative should have left Bosnia years ago"

"High representative should have left Bosnia years ago"

"I said it a long time ago that the high representative should leave Bosnia-Herzegovina, more than seven years ago. Thus we had the decision to shut down the OHR in 2006, and then there was tension between Haris Silajdzic and Milorad Dodik during the elections that year, so the international community withdrew its decision," said Ivanic.

As long as there is a high representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that means the country is neither mature not capable of working on its own, "and while that's the case, we cannot expect any breakthrough on the European path," Ivanic is convinced.

"As long as foreigners are here, many are interested in conflicts, so they could then convince foreigners that they are right, and this is being done mostly by the Bosniak (Muslim) side, which is convinced that international institutions will side with them in any conflict, which has unfortunately been a regular occurrence," he said, adding that "this is the reason for such great resistance toward the existence of foreign institutions by both Serbs and Croats."

Asked why the current international representative, Valentin Inzko, focused his attacks so much on the Serb Republic (RS) - the Serb entity - Ivanic said Inzko "routinely finds the RS to be guilty of everything, whether or not that's the case."

If, Ivanic continued, Inzko's approach were to be "a little more balanced" - there would not be "so many black and white things, there would be more gray things, without the guilty and the innocent, and there are no innocents in Bosnia-Herzegovina - everyone's to blame a little for what was happening and for what is happening right now."

Inzko's approach is that of an opportunistic international bureaucrat, Ivanic continued - "one who thinks it'll be less of a headache to criticize everything that's happening in the RS."

Inzko compared the Serbs convicted by the Hague Tribunal to Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot "in order to ingratiate himself to the surroundings that he works in," Ivanic thinks.

"Nothing can explain that, all the more so since the (legal) process for Ratko Mladic and (Radovan) Karadzic is still ongoing," he noted.

Asked whether the departure of "foreigners" would in fact contribute to peace, "or lead to conflicts, because there would be no control," Ivanic said:

"I don't think that's the case, sooner or later we must have that, the fact that somebody has to be making decisions will drive local politicians toward agreement. We will have to learn to have agreement, because that's the only way this country can function."