And such a scheme will continue to bear fruit in his upcoming presidential re-election bid. Keeping in check central institutions and reiterating the promise of independence from Sarajevo is more pivotal to Dodik’s political survival than Bosnian Serbs’. In other words, for Dodik, keeping such threats alive has been far more politically convenient than waging a real war. The threats to Bosnian stability by Milorad Dodik are nothing new in his political career: they follow the path of his climbing over Bosnia’s multileveled system and, as such, have only grown in intensity.Īs a matter of fact, a key factor of Dodik’s political success has been the instrumentalization of the prospect of a new ethnic war, a bogeyman he has cultivated for years through a nationalist rhetorical apparatus made up of blaming “the Muslims”, the menace against Bosnian Serbs and an overall encirclement syndrome that was able to consolidate the RS electoral body around himself, seen as the only possible leader who can guarantee the survival of his national group. Enquiring into the answer is perhaps a mere political calculation. It is worth investigating whether, given the Bosnian people’s suffering experienced thirty years ago, a new war might trigger similar impulses and drive one (constitutive) people against each other again. However, no secessionist threat should be underestimated. In spring 1992, many shared a similar perception as today: that a war was - and is - impossible. IS WAR A REAL OPTION? - Bosnians recently commemorated the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo, the longest in modern history, and of the war that claimed almost 100,000 lives. On 12 April, the OHR invoked the so-called Bonn Powers to counteract secessionist policies by striking down a RS law on property, which is a competence of the central state. Because of his threats to Bosnian stability, Dodik has been sanctioned by the US and the UK, but not the EU. The fear of secession is also shared by the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, who well before the ongoing war had warned Bosnia was one of Europe’s two hotspots – the other being Ukraine. Since last summer, Dodik has jeopardized the integrity of central institutions by transferring exclusive state powers in favor of Republika Srpska (RS) - the Serb-majority entity that makes up part of Bosnia - including the withdrawal from the Bosnian army, security services, the tax system, and the judiciary ultimately paving the way to the institutional paralysis of an already weak post-war Bosnian state. Schmidt’s report refers to the Serb member of the Bosnian tripartite presidency, Milorad Dodik’s secessionist moves. Officially presented as a “precautionary measure”, the doubling of the international force in BiH is to be intended as a deterrent against further instability amid what has been defined by the High Representative for BiH (OHR), Christian Schmidt, as “the great existential threat of the post-war period”. Though the arrangement was settled before the start of the war, it was fueled by “the deterioration of the security situation internationally” which “has the potential to spread instability to Bosnia-Herzegovina”, as per the EUFOR communiqué. The same day Russia began the invasion of Ukraine, another news went largely unnoticed: the decision to double the EUFOR mission’s personnel to Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), whose forces are now up to 1,100.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |