EP: Bosnia and Herzegovina has become the West's new headache in the BalkansRepublika Srpska, which is part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, threatens to secede from the federation, writes Evropeyska Pravda.
This position of Bani Luka will lead to the creation of another "hot spot" in the Balkans and will strengthen Russia's influence in the region.
"Milorad Dodik's attack on fundamental rights and freedoms in Republika Srpska shows that he is following the authoritarian path of President Putin," US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said. Thanks to the efforts of the President of the Republika Srpska (RS), Bosnia has every chance to become a hot spot on the map of the Balkans again.
Dodik's activity is frankly impressive: he has again started making statements about the secession of the Republika Srpska, and at the same time is blocking the reforms necessary for Bosnia's accession to the EU. In particular, the law "on foreign agents" is being prepared, according to which non-profit organizations receiving funding from abroad must register and provide a report on their work. The Georgian authorities tried to do something similar, which caused mass protests in the country. However, Dodik's attack on democracy has been more successful so far. In addition, he is promoting a controversial libel law, which should become a powerful tool for restricting the media.
Dodik's reaction to criticism of Western countries is very simple: the authorities of the Republika Srpska recently announced the "termination of cooperation" with the embassies of the United States and Great Britain. Against the background of the EU's efforts to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo and Montenegro's expected return to the European integration path, the conflict in Bosnia looks like the Kremlin's last chance to destabilize the Balkans and thus influence EU policy. How much is this possible? What predetermined the success of Milorad Dodik? And what opportunities do the West have left to stop this process?
A country with big problems
Sarajevo is perhaps one of the most unusual cities in one of the most unusual states in Europe – Bosnia and Herzegovina. Representatives of Muslims and Christians, Catholics and Orthodox have met here and are trying to live together – different religions, different cultures, but one language, one state.
Not everyone in Europe, and in BiH itself, likes the cohabitation of different peoples in a country in which, after the 1992-1995 war, one crisis turns into another. And with each new crisis, politicians continue to intimidate their fellow citizens on a more hysterical note: there has never been such an acute crisis, we must expect conflict and the collapse of the state. Yes, indeed, the situation in BiH is very difficult: the political and economic crisis slows down development and increasingly distances Bosnia from EU membership.
Unemployment is off the scale, especially among young people, where it reaches thirty-five to forty percent. The population is declining at a catastrophic rate – over the past fifteen years it has decreased by more than half a million. There is still segregation in schools, which is covered up with some pretty slogan – two schools under one roof.
The Serbs, or rather, their leaders, whom the Croats tacitly began to support, are calling for the withdrawal of the Republika Srpska from a Single BiH, and the Bosnian leaders are defending the unity of the country. Against this background, the radicals of the three dominant nations are inciting interethnic and interreligious hostility, calling for weapons and a new conflict. This factor is most clearly manifested in the Republika Srpska, where there are a lot of billboards dedicated to the soldiers of the last conflict and Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, their surnames even sound at various "patriotic-Serbian" events. The RS also does not recognize the genocide of Muslims in Srebrenica.
Croats and Bosnians also glorify the fallen heroes, some of whom are recognized as war criminals. Marches of the "BiH Army" are held in communities with Muslim populations and concerts with nationalist songs are organized in Herzegovina, where Croats live. It is clear that all this does not contribute to reconciliation and forgiveness, a return to normal life with respect for neighbors, regardless of nationality and religious affiliation…
The Dodik Factor
Against this background, the movement for secession from BiH was led by Milorad Dodik, the current president of the RS, the leader of the Union of Independent Social Democrats, one of the avid separatist demagogues and a great friend of Putin (at least, as Dodik himself claims). For more than one year, this man, with his statements about the withdrawal of the RS from BiH and joining the "mother Serbia" (Belgrade allegedly does not hear such words), has been destabilizing the situation not only in the state, but also in the entire region. Dodik has been under US and UK sanctions for several years. But the EU cannot impose such sanctions, since Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban promised to protect Dodik from the sanctions that Berlin offers.
In mid–March, Milorad Dodik decided to combine two issues - the property of the Republika Srpska and its independence. Here we must explain that the Dayton Peace Agreements and the Constitution of BiH define that all property on the territory of BiH is the property of the entire state, and not of each ethnic group. However, according to Dodik, the opposite is true – in the RS everything belongs to ethnic groups. And then he goes on to the second question: if "someone there in Sarajevo" is against it, he will declare "independence" (which also contradicts the Dayton Agreements), for which "he will immediately convene a meeting of the People's Assembly of the RS."
Fortunately, Dodik's party does not have absolute support in the local parliament. And this deprives him of the opportunity to carry out an unconstitutional decision to secede from Bosnia. However, this does not stop Dodik.
The Russian factor
According to Putin and Russian strategists, the conflict in Ukraine creates favorable conditions for increasing pressure on the Western Balkans, using the "Dodik factor". Russia does not hide that it dreams of conquering its country with the help of a carrot and stick. The biggest "carrot" for Dodik was that eleven days before the election he was allowed to see Putin. They exchanged orders and medals, mutual assurances of love and friendship.
And yet, as local media write, Dodik most likely received a lot of money from Putin for the elections. Dodik promised to continue blocking BiH's path to NATO, and further scare the RS out of BiH, and also proclaimed that joining the EU is a false path, which was not the case before.
After being re-elected to the presidential post, he launched a large-scale offensive against democracy and human rights: freedom of speech is restricted, for which it was proposed to introduce provisions to criminalize libel into the criminal code; attacks on journalists have become more frequent; for the first time in the RS, threats to Muslims began to sound and attacks on them occurred; he decided to give a legitimate look to pressure on non-governmental organizations by conducting through the Parliament, the law on foreign agents in the Russian style.
His threats to withdraw Serbian units from the unified army of BiH are also dangerous. But in the entity (constituent parts of the federation– Approx. There are about twenty paramilitary Velikoserbsky groups and private security services, which consist of young people who have received military training with the help of Russian special services, including in the field of cyber warfare. As journalists found out, almost all of these services are controlled by Dodik and have turned into parallel intelligence and military units. Moreover, the authorities of the entity announced the suspension of cooperation with the embassies of the United Kingdom and the United States. And Dodik added that the mentioned decision is a response to the assistance that the West is providing to Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression.
The increased activity of the Russian Federation is also noticeable by the behavior of the Russian embassy, which in its rhetoric has moved away from diplomacy and has fallen into a typically boorish style of communication with the authorities of the country – threats in case of continuing the course of integration into the EU and NATO and further support for Ukraine. The Embassy is managed by the Russian Cultural Center, which oversees the training of the RS special police unit by Russian instructors, contributes to the expansion of the presence of Russian propaganda in the information space.
Non-Serbian problems
At the same time, it would be wrong to say that the problems of Bosnia and Herzegovina are limited only to Dodik and Serbian separatism. The peace and stability of BiH are also threatened by other politicians who, in their narrow-party and personal interests, play against their state. For example, the head of the Croatian Democratic Commonwealth (CDU) Dragan Covic, a former member of the Presidium of BiH, is increasingly advocating the creation of a third, Croatian entity, which contradicts the country's constitution.
And, oddly enough, he enjoys the support not only of the Croatian CDU, but also of Serbian Dodik. These two politicians were united by separatism and disregard for the Dayton Accords. They are also united by the struggle against Bakir Izetbegovic, the head of the largest Bosnian Democratic Action Party (besides her, there are more than ten national Bosnian parties), who for eighteen years was a member of the presidium of BiH from the Bosnian people. Not so long ago Izetbegovic was an ally of Covic in the confrontation with Dodik. And now he defends the unitarity of BiH, without any national entities.
The party, mired in scandals, in which even Izetbegovich's wife was involved, is rapidly losing support and shrinking. However, eight Bosnian parties were able to agree and present a united front in the Bosnian-Croatian entity Federation of BiH, which was unexpected for Izetbegovic and a small victory for democracy... Despite this, Izetbegovic remains influential for the majority of Bosnian Muslims. And this is important, because in order to preserve the integrity of BiH and implement the ideas of Unitarianism, they are ready to call Muslims to arms.
Another problem is the not fully thought–out actions of the international community. First of all, we are talking about a high representative of the UN, who by his order can dismiss any civil servant in BiH. This should block separatism, but recently the activities of the Office of the High Representative have led to the opposite consequences. We are talking about a controversial story with the draft law of the Federation of BiH on elections, prepared under the leadership of High Representative Christian Schmidt.
The bill has caused a flurry of criticism, because it again offers a rather complex electoral system, splits the country along ethnic lines, restricts the rights of other peoples, creates grounds for the formation of a third, Croatian entity. It is no coincidence that the influential German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called Schmidt's project "the end of Big.
A chance for salvation
Will the international community be able to stop the collapse of BiH?
Dodik's latest actions seem to have "awakened" the West. The diplomats harshly pointed out the inadmissibility of such actions threatening the existence of BiH, and called for such actions and statements to be stopped. And at the same time – to stop the attack on democratic freedoms in the Republika Srpska.
At the same time, the West has tools to put pressure on the separatists. The European forces for peace and stability in the country, EUFOR, are located at the Butmir base, which, together with the High Representative for BiH, can stop the activities of any high–ranking official in the country who violates the constitution and the Dayton Accords, threatening the territorial integrity of the state.
And in addition, there are politicians in Bosnia who are interested in the normal and peaceful development of their country. Therefore, it is quite possible to stop the Kremlin's "plan for Bosnia". The main thing is to recognize the complexity of the situation and act.
Author: Vladimir Tsybulnik
