SCHMIDT'S DEPARTURE - A HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY FOR BiH

WASHINGTON, AUGUST 6 /SRNA/ - Christian Schmidt`s departure gives BiH a historic opportunity to free itself from the tyranny of the Bonn powers and return authority to its institutions and elected representatives, according to an article authored by Joseph Schmitz and Brian Kennedy of the prestigious US university Harvard.

In their academic paper titled "BiH: Where Is the Interest of the American People?", the authors assessed that there is a realistic possibility that acting High Representative Louis Crishok, as an official in US President Donald Trump's administration, would gladly declare Schmidt's legacy null and void. The article emphasises that none of the three signatories to the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement ever agreed to the High Representative's Bonn powers introduced in 1997. According to the authors, the most principled solution to the tyrannical Bonn powers would be for the three signatories to the Dayton Peace Agreement to reaffirm the three fundamental principles of that document - the rule of law, the right to self-determination and subsidiarity. "If any actor attempts to undermine, circumvent or challenge previously adopted decisions, the Acting High Representative should take all necessary measures within his mandate, in accordance with Annex 10 of the Dayton Agreement, to ensure the consistent implementation of the civilian aspects of the peace agreement," the authors of the paper, published in the prestigious Harvard Journal of Law and International Politics, stated. Referring to Max Primorac`s paper titled "BiH: Ending the Failed State-Building Project," written for the Heritage Foundation on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Agreement, the authors highlighted the extent to which Schmidt's actions and the use of the Bonn powers have undermined democracy in BiH. "The country is dysfunctional, deeply divided and deprived of sovereignty. It is not governed by its three sovereign peoples, but by a group of international bureaucrats who have the authority to arbitrarily remove legitimately elected officials, annul adopted laws, strip voters of their rights and impose a fictitious `Bosnian` civic identity that favours Muslims over Christians," the authors quoted Primorac's paper as saying. On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, the authors drew a parallel between the oppression imposed by British King George III on the American colonists of that time and the undemocratic rule of the OHR in BiH. "With Schmidt`s resignation, the time has come for the tyrannical Bonn powers, based on which hundreds of acts of purported legislation were adopted, to be declared null and void, as if they had never existed," the paper states. Citing the book "The Constitutional Position of Croats in BiH" by former Constitutional Court president Mato Tadić, the authors state that High Representatives imposed a total of 341 laws that were not voted on by representatives of any of the constituent peoples.