DODIK: I WAS TRIED BY SYSTEM WHOSE JUDICIARY HAS BECOME POLITICAL TOOL

BANJA LUKA, OCTOBER 31 /SRNA/ – President Milorad Dodik emphasized that he was tried by a system whose judiciary had become a tool of politics, that ideology stood behind the judgments, but that his place was where Republika Srpska was being defended - regardless of the cost.

In a column for Belgrade-based daily Politika, Dodik stated that the court process against him was a political play, a brutal abuse of the judiciary with the goal of discrediting, intimidating, and, if possible, eliminating the president of Republika Srpska. He stressed that the woman who was a judge in his case actually was an executioner. The full President Dodik's text for Politika follows: When I stepped into the Court of BiH building, erected on the site where there once stood a camp for Sarajevo Serbs, I knew it was not a trial, but revenge. I knew it was not my trial - it was a trial of Republika Srpska. I was chosen, because they could not fit a million Serbs into the courtroom. The woman who tried me was not a judge — she was an executioner. The basis of retribution was not the law paragraphs, but hatred. And who tried me? I was tried by a system whose judiciary has become a tool of politics. Before me sat prosecutors and judges all of them Bosniaks which, in a country with three constituent peoples, cannot be a coincidence. Behind their judgments stood not the law, but ideology. Judge Sena Uzunović, who headed the process, was not chosen by chance. Her professional path shows the continuity of a mentality that never left the war behind. In 1993, she was appointed as a judge of the District Military Court Mostar, Konjic Department. At that time, in that same town, lived the Golubović family - father and mother, both teachers, and their two sons, Petar and Pavle. A family who believed they had nothing to fear because they had taught generations of children, both Serb and Bosniak. They stayed in their home, believing that humanity had not vanished. But one day, they came for them. They were executed - the entire family. Pavle was only seven years old. Fate would have it that one boy from the Golubović family survived the first execution, wounded, but alive. When he tried to seek help, the police brought him back to those who had shot him first, saying: "You didn't finish the job." At that time, Sena Uzunović was a judge. She knew about that crime. She knew about many others. She never did anything. She never raised her voice for justice for the murdered, for the child executed twice. At the same time, I was saving Bosniak and Croat families from Gradiška, which is a well-known fact. And that same woman today is trying me - the President of Republika Srpska, while by law, justice, and morality, it should be I who is trying her. Republika Srpska was created to avoid such things from happening again to the Serb people and their children. It's not hard to understand the symbolism. She was not meant to try by justice and law, but to sentence Republika Srpska. But I do not write this out of hatred. I am not against Bosniaks or Muslims. I know well that in every nation there are two sides. In Konjic, in that same town, there is a man who placed a plaque at the place where Petar and Pavle were killed - to show that they existed, that they lived, and that they were killed. That man is a Bosniak. He does not share the ideology of those who rule Sarajevo, but rather shares pain and respect for the innocent. There are two BiHs. One is embodied by people like Sena Uzunović, who never ended the war and who today judge in the name of ideology, not law. The other quiet, honest, that knows that without truth there can be no reconciliation, and that the Dayton can survive only if everyone is respected - Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. My struggle is not against the first, but for the second. For BiH where what was agreed upon is respected, not what was imposed. For Republika Srpska that knows its survival threatens no one, but guarantees balance without which BiH itself cannot survive. BiH, as created by the Dayton Peace Agreement, can survive only if the principle of equality among the three constituent peoples and two entities is respected. That is not a phrase, it is the only formula for its existence. Anything else leads to conflict, because the Dayton-based BiH is neither a centralised nor a unitary state - it is a complex community, born out of war, founded on compromise and agreement. Unfortunately, those very foundations have been dismantled for years. Every time Sarajevo, under the auspices of former U.S. administrations, with the help of USAID and similar organisations, began to promote a new idea of a “civic Bosnia,” it essentially meant an attempt to create a unitary state in which Bosniaks would rule, and Serbs and Croats would merely be stage props in a political theater. European bureaucracies, in their colonial zeal, followed that agenda almost blindly. They were financing projects, media, organisations, and individuals whose task was to dismantle the Dayton, portray Republika Srpska as an obstacle, and me as the symbol of that obstacle. Republika Srpska was founded on the sacrifice of its people and on the defense of the right to decide for ourselves. Our people did not die to threaten anyone, but so that their children could live freely and peacefully. Our institutions were born out of that sacrifice. And so, when I found myself in a position to defend before a court the Constitution and laws of the country of which I am president, I had no dilemma - my place is where Republika Srpska is defended, regardless of the cost. Because what they tried to put me on trial for was not a legal process. It was a political show, a brutal abuse of the judiciary with one goal to discredit, intimidate, and, if possible, eliminate the president of Republika Srpska. Such scenarios are not unknown to the world. We have seen them in the United States, where they tried to bring down Donald Trump through political indictments; in France, where they persecuted Marine Le Pen; in Romania, in Hungary - everywhere someone dares to step off the line drawn by the global administration of power. My case was only a local version of that pattern. I was not brought to the defendant’s bench by law, but by the intention to send Republika Srpska a message: you may have institutions, but we in Sarajevo, with the blessing of Western mentors, will decide what they mean. In the next column, I will explain to Politika readers the very essence of this process, how justice was turned into a weapon, and the court into an instrument of politics. And how, despite everything, Republika Srpska did not fall under the pressure of Schmidt, Sarajevo, or their mentors, because what was created with blood is defended by truth.