IT IS HARD TO BE THE PRESIDENT OF A REPUBLIC THAT HAS FACED HYBRID WAR FOR 30 YEARS

BANJA LUKA, SEPTEMBER 6 /SRNA/ – Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik says that it is difficult to be the president of a republic that is constantly being challenged and has been the target of a hybrid war for 30 years.

In a podcast with American journalist Lara Logan, Dodik has emphasized that there is hardly a day, month, or year when Republika Srpska is not exposed to the pressure from certain Western countries and previous U.S. administrations, all aimed at helping the Muslims in BiH create a dominant Muslim state to detriment of Christians. Dodik explained that BiH was a majority Christian country until about 20 years ago and still technically is, but there are speculations suggesting a significant rise in the Muslim population. "Muslims in BiH want to see their faith-fellow from other countries, who are currently transiting toward Europe, settle here. Europe wants to send them back here through various programmes," said Dodik. The president of Srpska has pointed out that there are more than 1,800 mosques in BiH, at least half of which were built in the last 10–15 years, which he said is a clear indication of Islamization in BiH, making the fight for Christian presence difficult and complex. "It seems to me we are in the same situation as Christians in the Middle East—Syria and Egypt—where there are hardly any left today, because they couldn't withstand what we call political radical Islam," said Dodik. He reminded that during the time of ISIS, according to official data, 580 fighters from BiH were on the battlefield, over 100 of whom have returned, which shows the ongoing threat of Muslim radicalism. Dodik also informed the American journalist that terrorists who later attacked the U.S. on September 11 were trained in a camp near Sarajevo. "At that time, the Iranian Embassy in BiH had 480 staff members—the highest ever—including members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who used humanitarian organisations to radicalize local Muslims," Dodik stressed. According to him, there is hardly a terrorist attack in Europe that isn’t connected to Muslims. "I'm not saying all Muslims are terrorists, but in recent history, all terrorists have been Muslims from this region," said Dodik. Dodik added that during the 1990s war, 4,500 Islamic holy warriors came to BiH to fight on the side of the Muslims against Christian Serbs, committing unimaginable monstrous crimes. "The crimes the world saw later in ISIS we already saw here," Dodik said. Dodik emphasized that no one has been held accountable for the most horrific crimes against Serbs, while all Serbs who committed crimes have been prosecuted before domestic and international courts. Dodik claimed that thousands of Serbs were brutally killed in Srebrenica, while the number of Muslim victims is a stereotype being imposed without conclusive evidence. He stated that over 400 living individuals were listed as dead in Srebrenica. "A crime did happen, we do not deny that, but we cannot accept the narrative that Germany is trying to impose just to free itself from its own narrative of genocide and the Holocaust," Dodik stressed. Dodik said that the suffering of a Muslim child hurts him just as much as that of a Serb child, but that he cannot overlook the injustice that Naser Orić, the wartime commander of the so-called Army of BiH from Srebrenica, walks freely in Sarajevo, despite being responsible for horrific crimes against Serbs. "That injustice hurts us. It is not a way based on which we can live together with Muslims. The worst thing is the politicization of crimes. I advocate that the court should determine every kind of responsibility, and that no one who committed a crime should be free. But that is not happening. What is happening is that only Serbs are being imprisoned, while others remain free and gloat," Dodik concluded.