Talk:Republika Srpska

Need for edit and overhaul

Frankly, this entire page is a disastrous mess. The bulk of the entry is neither correct, nor neutral, nor objective. It is is constantly peppered with rank irrelevancies and attacks upon one side or the other as well as irrelevant characterizations of some of the historical figures. Even this discussion page contains this sort of clearly absurd and non-neutral commentary (see 67.95.81.62's comments below). To make matters worse, the page has been freely edited by people who have, at best, a secondary understanding of the English language, as demonstrated by prodigious errors in spelling, grammar and diction - particularly when an insult or POV about the history of Bosnia is being expressed. It is worth working on the page by one or two people who are prepared to objectively repair this page. Please leave a mesage at my page if you would like to work with me to fix this (and some related pages). As it stands, this page is basically useless for anyone seeking information on the political entities in question.

--Nicodemus75 09:17, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please don't "organize" work on some semi-random talk pages and instead work on it here and discuss it here. --Joy [shallot] 13:23, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If I wish to "organize" a discussion about something on my own talk page, that is my preorgative. This is a perfect example of a page that people may wish to have seperate conversation considering the amount of non-neutral POV nonsense that has infiltrated the main article as well as the talk page. --Nicodemus75 07:53, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Description of creation

The Republic was formed by the Serbs of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 after being disenfranchised by the joint Muslim-Croat political and later military alliance in Bosnia.

This is hardly an objective description of what happened, as I am sure you know. Adam 04:07, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That's a little better.2toise 04:26, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I am sorry, but the disenfranchised comment is neither neutral nor correct - if a 67% majority including many Serbs voted for independence in a multi-ethnic state how is that disenfranchising Bosnian Serbs?

Internet domain

Regarding the top-level domain (TLD) -- the web page www.rs.sr seems to talk about getting the .SR TLD for the Entity (I don't read Cyrillic too well), but that's not done and .RS.SR is a second-level domain. Given that there's also .RS.BA, that both seem to be commercial entities, and that the institutions of are not using either, I doubt that either really qualify for an official listing... --Shallot 17:07, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

To expand a little bit about this, there seems to be a lack of consensus as to where the RS pages should be located. There's vladars.net and predsjednikrs.net for the government and the president, but the securities commission is at khov-rs.org, the constitutional court is at ustavnisud.org, the privatization direction is at rsprivatizacija.com, chamber of commerce at pkrs.inecco.net, the statistics institute is at rzs.rs.ba, and the customs administration is at rucrs.com. The city of Banja Luka is at banjaluka.rs.ba, the university is at urc.bl.ac.yu, and etfbl.net is the electrotechnics faculty. Overall, there's still way too much diversity to list any domain as official. --Shallot 20:46, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

It seems that SARNET, the academic network of RS, is the .rs.ba NIC, and that's usually a step in making a domain the official one. However, they're not actually consistent in using it, since google still finds them primarily at sarnet.bl.ac.yu, and there's no redirection from there to sarnet.rs.ba. --Joy [shallot]

I've also noticed that the Radio Television company of RS is at rtrs.tv or rtrs-bl.com. --Joy [shallot]

This page also has a few more, and also mostly .org and whatnot. --Joy [shallot] 22:41, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Stamps

I returned older text as User:TOttenville8 says that he was unable to purchase these stamps in San Francisco. I found no mention online of this. Rmhermen 13:46, Mar 21, 2004 (UTC)

Unable to purchase them, from whom, where, when, why? That's nonsense. You can buy the stamps on Ebay, unless of course TOttenville8 claims that Ebay is breaking the law as well?

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?query=srpska&ht=1&sosortproperty=1&from=R10&BasicSearch= Igor

Oh, I think that part is minor, he's merely trying to cover up the fact that there were scores of Bosnian Muslims living in Prijedor, Banja Luka and elsewhere in what is now RS and that they were mostly expulsed by the Bosnian Serbs during the war. That might undermine the whole point of this artificial political division, and we can't have that... :p --Shallot 16:47, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes but those Muslims never formed a majority in the region of Banjaluka as was written. Besides, the Sarajevo Serbs suffered much more ethnic cleansing (both numerically and percentage-wise) than the Bosnian Muslims Banja Luka. -- Igor

Just for the record, I found a related and very explicit quote at an ICTY indictment:

According to a census in 1991 the total population of the Bosanska Krajina region was 1,191,709 of whom 567,293 were Serbs, 439,935 were Bosnian Muslims and 103,111 Croats. There were, however, only a majority of Muslims and Croats, in Sanski Most, Prijedor, Kotor Varos and Bosanska Krupa municipalities.

So, it's true that the phrase "Serbs ... constituted a minority of the population in and around Banja Luka before the fighting" was incorrect (perhaps plurality in places, but not minority), but everything else and the overall meaning wasn't incorrect. --Joy [shallot]

.SR top domaine...

...doesn't it stand for Suriname, not Serbia? Just a cyberfreak out here...

Greetings, Muhamed

That's right. Serbia doesn't have a TLD - see the list at http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm . It still comes under .YU. -- ChrisO 12:09, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

67.95.81.62's comments

Republic of Serbs needs to be taken from all the maps and documents, since it is a fashist state, created by war criminals, and by force against a civil population of Bosnia (Croats and Bosnian Muslims), it was created as a part of dictatorship idea of creation of greater Serbia. If Serbs are not happy to live with other nationalities in Bosnia they should move to Serbia. Milosevic is a war criminal as well as his communist JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) did this with help of the nationalist Bosnian serbs. John

---

Dear John, Serbs and Croats have been living there since 6th century when their tribes came to Balcan. So called Muslims or Bosniaks are actually(mostly) those Serbs and Croats that were islamised during Othoman empire and been living with turkish masters for 500 years of occupation. Please go read history of Balcan(books before war recomended). Officially Muslims have been invented in 1968 and Bosniaks in 1993. Think why they called themself muslims with big M? I call this crisis of identity.

Btw Croats also had their state called Herceg-Bosna that is suposed to became part of Great Croatia, Croats also fighted with Muslims and Muslims also fighted Muslims especially in around Cazin and Bihac. And it's even more complicated, but it's too much to write...

Official language(s)?

According to the webpage of the Republika Srpska government, the Constitutional amendment LXXI provides that "the official languages are the Serbian language, Croatian language and Bosnian language, refered to by the Constitution as Bosniak language", replacing paragraph 1. of article 7. of the RS Constitution. Would someone please correct the article and the adjoining table? Thx, Muhamedmesic 16:09, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Done. -- ChrisO 17:25, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

ChrisO, I'm beginning to admire you. - Muhamedmesic 19:46, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Names of towns

It's not really relevant, but here it comes: according to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and this Republika Srpska source of news, the names of several renamed towns and municipalities in Republika Srpska, including Srbinje (previously Foca), Srpsko Sarajevo (previously Lukavica), Srpski Drvar (previously Drvar), Srpski Sanski Most (previously Sanski Most), Srpski Mostar (previously part of Mostar Municipality), Srpski Kljuc (previously Kljuc), Srpska Kostajnica (previously Bosanska Kostajnica), Srpski Brod (previously Bosanski Brod), and a couple others (to spare you of the list) are unconstitutional and must be accordingly changed in the appropriate RS law. Until that is done, the court has reversed their names to their 1992 ones.

We watch TV. I doubt that local population will use new/old names however. Nikola 14:29, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The names are changed again. Should we follow the new names (and how, literally or translated) or just leave the articles as they are? This whole naming issue might deserve an article... Nikola 09:01, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Official clarification page

Republika Srpska government has a page that shows the present status of municipality names. Follow this link to track the changes

Map should be fixed

Its good that there is now a map on this article. However the map is faulty in that shows the Brcko district as part of Republika Srpska. Whatsmore it isnt of the best quality. If someone has the time Id suggest editing one of the maps I made on the Bosnia and Herzegovina page on Bosnian wiki [1]. Asim Led 04:30, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The map is ok

The map is not false because it portrays the entity in its entirety - including the Republika Srpska territory within the Brcko District. Claim that the Brcko District is not part of either the Federation or Republika Srpska might de facto be true (that is how things are run on the ground), but de iure it is false. If the Brcko District was not part of either entity, this would imply that the District is in fact the third entity. This would be a major breach of the general framework of the Dayton peace agreement (and Bosnia-Herzegovina constitution), which states that the country is internally composed of only two entities. Also, the Brcko District as 'not part of either entity' would make the territorial formula agreed at Dayton (49% of Bosnia-Herzegovina as Republika Srpska, 51% as Federation) unworkable. OHR, Office of the High Representative, provided a clarification on the status of the Brcko District, stating that the District is in fact a condominium of both entities. This would mean that the territory of the District is shared by both entities, although the entities exercise no executive power there. In other words, the Brcko District territory is both Republika Srpska and the Federation. Technically, this would apply to the whole territory of the District - in that way, there is no third entity, and 49-51% formula is (somehow) preserved. That said, it should be pointed out that the Brcko District was proclaimed on the whole territory of the prewar Brcko municipality. According to the Dayton map, 42% of the prewar Brcko municipality (including the town of Brcko) ended up in the Republika Srpska (this is the District territory marked on the Republika Srpska map in the article), while 58% of the prewar Brcko municipality ended up in the Federation (this part of the District is not marked on the map). Although the Brcko District was proclaimed in 1999, IEBL (Inter Entity Boundary Line) within its territory was never officially abolished; IEBL plays no administrative function within the District, except to mark the line beyond which the Bosnian Serb Army (Vojska Republike Srpske) traveling through the District can not go. Thus, it remains unclear how the entities hold the condominium over the whole District if the IEBL still exists on the books, and the District was created out of uneven chunks of both entity's territory. Given the fact that the Republika Srpska never officially accepted the arbitration result (one of the reasons IEBL was never officially abolished), the only solution is to show the Republika Srpska territory within the Brcko District (42% of it) on the Republika Srpska entity map, but color it differently (as done on the article map). The same formula should be used vis-à-vis the Federation territory within the Brcko District (58% of it) on the Federation entity map. When you put all of this together, you have a map of Bosnia-Herzegovina showing only two entities but also acknowledging the existence of the Brcko District - the neutral position.

p.s.

The 'condominium' idea is demonstrated by the way in which people declare themselves within the District. Citizens of the District have a right to hold entity citizenship of either Republika Srpska or the Federation, and have the right to vote on their entity's elections, although they are banned from serving in either entity's army.

Major overhaul needed

I would completely agree that this page needs a major overhaul especially in light of the most recent events in BH and RS. There should be some system of relevance and priority of information. How do information about postage stamps find their place at the top of the historical facts of the article is beyond me. Other items need to be updated: RS's ministry of internal affairs (police) and ministry of defense (military) were abolished in mid Dec of 2004 and integrated with BH ministries, I also believe that the customs department was integrated with BH although I cannot confirm this. These items should be replaced and moveed if anywhere than in the "History" portion of the article. "On the Internet" part of the article is laughable and useless, and a case point of how POV's go awry. I can begin making some changes but want to have a concensus before any of the changes get reverted.--Dado 02:52, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The information about police and military ministries is partially up to date, and it's definitely not just "history", because it's a current political issue. I believe the customs department has long been part of the BH customs system, but each entity has preserved some jurisdiction over the customs in their territory... The stuff about Internet domains is most certainly not useless — if anything, as you say yourself, it shows how things are unsettled.

On a side note, what is this trend with suddenly discussing major changes here? If something needs to be done, just do it. If it doesn't, don't. Where's the problem? The anonymous vandals for one have had no problem with being bold in editing this page, I don't see what's stopping normal users :) --Joy [shallot] 07:52, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dado, thanks for some support in terms of the need to overhaul this article. It definitely needs to be a collaborative effort for a variety of reasons. With respect to internet domain names, please be serious - it is a footnote at best and the amount of space dedicated to it in this article is completely laughable - unsettled or not. The postage stamp issue is equally absurd when compared to virtually any other country or similar political zone with a page on wikipedia. In response to Joy's "side note", the reason why this 'trend' is cropping up, is because of the amount of work required on a page which has been so poorly written and subjected to POV and non-neutral contribution, is so incredibly massive, that even experienced contributors have grown tired of investing time and energy into pages which will be subjected to revert wars and vandalism, without a collaborative effort and some concensus. I actually think this would be obvious given some of the revert wars that have and continue to plague wikipedia. Collaboration and discussion prior to investing hours of time and effort on an article such as this one, are necessary to prevent wasted time and duplication of labor. --Nicodemus75 08:05, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Postage stamps and Internet domains wouldn't stand out so much if we had better organized history, politics, geography, ... sections. The page will either have "silly" sections or be "poor" in content, until someone writes the missing stuff. And the only way to write the missing stuff is to actually do it. Talk about it on the talk page may help if we have contentious issues to discuss, but right now we don't have that, either, because all this cool new text -- doesn't exist.

Also note that I've been active for months with reference to vandalism etc, so I really don't need to be lectured on how experienced contributors have grown tired of investing time and energy into this page. --Joy [shallot] 11:09, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Joy, thanks for taking time to make the changes. I wanted to have this discussion before this major change took place so that there is an evident trail of thought behind the revision. I will contribute to the article as needed from this point on.--Dado 18:49, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wait until things actually happen

The article is stating that RS Ministry of Internal Affairs (entity police) and the entity Ministry of Defence (RS military) were abolished in mid-December of 2004 and integrated with BiH ministries. This is not quite true - an agreement was reached in autumn 2004 to establish a joined military command on BiH state level for two entity armies, but the agreement said that this should happen in three years. OHR (Peddy Ashdown) in mid-December proclaimed that this would now happen by autumn 2005, but the RS authorities rejected this, stating that the agreement was already signed. The same goes for RS Ministry of Internal Affairs (and the Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs) - Peddy Ashdown simply proclaimed that it is to be abolished (he did not abolish it officially, though - note the difference) and integrated into a new BiH state-level police, organized into five regions that are not following entity lines. However, this caused a big political crisis in RS and BiH, because the Serb politicians flatly rejected this. Thus, the best thing to do is to leave things as they are, maybe provide an indication that they might change but wait with article changes until things actually (officially) happen (the jury is still out on the final arrangements, and Bosnian Serb Army and RS Ministry of Interior exist unchanged at the moment; according to the article they are already state integrated/abolished, which is not the reality of the situation).

'Regions' in Republika Srpska officially do no exist

What is the source for the article claim that Republika Srpska is composed of 'seven regions'? There is no evidence that these regions exist in any official capacity - Republika Srpska is internally composed only of municipalities. Please provide some evidence (there is no word about existance of 'administrative regions' on any official Republika Srpska pages, nor can this be found on OHR pages) or erase the claim from the main article.

Intolerant name? Intolerant insignia?

There is a new addition to the article that goes like this:

"To some, the name and insignia of Republika Srpska are inherently intolerant towards other Bosnians and evoke very negative connotations of war-time problems for them. While I can understand the clause about the negative connotation 'other Bosnians' (I presume Bosniacs and Croats) have towards symbols (and the very existence of) Republika Srpska, I am not sure I follow the first statement. How can name and insignia be intolerant (?), and in what way are they intolerant?

Would the author please qualify? Thank you.

First off, this is not a new addition, it's from this commit back in September last year. Secondly, the notion of Republika Srpska being offensive to non-Serbs is much older, and fairly obvious to others -- this constitutional nation of BH decided that parts of BH are to be named and marked "Serbian" (which is what the adjective srpska means), and they used e.g. the eagle and the crown above the coat of arms, a symbol of the royalty of Serbia (which is on the other side of the Drina).

This shows a lack of tolerance for the other two constitutional nations which do not adhere to this kind of politics. Granted, having checkerboard and lilies on the flag of the Federation is similar, but at least they didn't name their entity after themselves and they combined those two different symbols on the same flag which indicates that they aren't being so exclusive.

Couple this with what went on during the war, and it'll be even more obvious why there's animosity. --Joy [shallot]

• I am not an expert on heraldry and vexillology, but as far as I can see the insignia of Republika Srpska (such as the flag and the coat of arms) are just a variant of national symbols that Serbs use in general (Serbia now does the same, but Republika Srpska had these insignia way before Serbia reintroduced them last year). Are they intolerant by their very existence to those in Bosnia who are not Serbs? What would that imply in the long run?

• With regards to entity's name (Serb Republic), insignia and so forth: I always thought that Republika Srpska is supposed to be a form of territorial autonomy for the Bosnian Serbs at its core. I am not sure that there is any other purpose for its existence. If the entity cannot be called Serb Republic, if it cannot have Serb insignia and so forth, that would imply that it effectively cannot be a form a territorial autonomy for the Bosnian Serbs. Its very existence would then be pointless - wouldn't that destroy the terms of the negotiated peace at Dayton?

I think there is an overarching fact that needs to be said. Republika Srpska may have been envisioned as a form a territorial autonomy for the Bosnian Serbs but in 2002 (the year may be wrong) there was a constitutional amendment that recognized that Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats are constituent nations of Republika Srpska. It is what you are logically concluding that by this amendment the purpose of Republika Srpska is pointless and the terms negotiated at Dayton are defacto destroyed. This is an absurd of BH and RS politics in general. Regarding the issue of "intolerant name and insignia" is that under same name and insignia Republika Srpska conducted ethnic cleansing and genocide (which they addmited recently) over other Bosnians while name and insignia does not reflect the essence that Bosniaks and Croats are also contituent nations of RS. It is logical response by Bosnians that those simbols evoke very negative war problems for them. Hence the court case was filed in BH constitutional court recently that asks for the change of the name and insignia. Perhaps saying that insignia and name itself are intolerant could be rephrased but it is merely a grammatical semantics. Also, please sign your comments so that we know who we are responding to --Dado 19:14, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Dado, let me try to get this right: you are stating that Republika Srpska was envisioned as a form of territorial autonomy for the Bosnian Serbs, and that it indeed existed as such a number of years following Dayton (until 2002?), but that this is now somehow not true because non-Serbs were added to the constitution? I think that you are mixing up a form with essence here. There are many countries which are clearly national entities (such as France or Germany) that are not defined in their constitution as such (they have a civic constitution instead, going for citizens of the country instead of a specific ethnic group). Nevertheless it would be ridiculous to argue that Germany is not a German national state because of the wording of its constitution. On a sub-national level, there is a Balkan example of Kosovo, which is not defined at all as a form of ethnic Albanian national autonomy but everyone would agree that it would be pointless to argue that it wasn't. I said that Republika Srpska is at its core/essence a form of territorial autonomy for the Bosnian Serbs; the constitution might state otherwise, but that doesn’t change some realities on the ground. As an administrative division of Bosnia that has 90% (or whatever the number is) of the population as Serbs, it would be fruitless to argue otherwise - especially given its history and origins. If Republika Srpska is not a form of territorial autonomy for the Bosnian Serbs, what it is then?