Thursday, December 23, 2021
Own justice, army and taxes
Bosnian Serbs are pushing for secession
The Bosnian Serbs are serious about their split-off plans: As early as January, the republic wants to go its own way in terms of justice, the army and the tax system. Serb leader Dodik in Banja Luka works with the backing of Russia against the central state. The US is alarmed.
The leadership of the Bosnian Serbs is pushing the secession from Bosnia and Herzegovina more and more openly. The Bosnian Serb boss Milorad Dodik has now fueled international fears about the future of the Balkan state by announcing that he will accelerate the withdrawal of the Serbian republic from the country’s three central institutions. According to this, the withdrawal of the Republika Srpska from the army and the judicial and tax system in Bosnia should soon be completed. Dodik announced new laws on the judicial system of the Serbian republic for January. “Nobody is going to stop us,” he added. The judiciary of the central authorities in Sarajevo would no longer have the right to act on the territory of the Bosnian Serbs.
Dodik has repeatedly threatened to detach his part of the country from the Bosnian central state. At the beginning of December he announced the initiation of the secession from the central government. The parliament of the Republika Srpska in Banja Luka then decided on December 10th to withdraw from the common army, the judicial and tax systems. The MPs gave the regional government six months to implement the exit.
The Bosnian public prosecutor opened an investigation into “violation of the constitutional order” in response to the vote in the Parliament of the Republika Srpska. Dodik condemned the investigation as “politically motivated”. The aim of the Bosnian central institutions is to “destabilize” the Republika Srpska.
Backing from Russia
Dodik was once a protégé of the western states. In the meantime he has turned into a nationalist who is supported by Russia. The 62-year-old argues that the current development of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not doing justice to the agreements from the Dayton Peace Agreement. The 1995 agreement concluded in Dayton, USA, ended the three-year war between Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, in which around 100,000 people were killed. The agreement regulated the creation of two largely autonomous parts of the country in Bosnia and Herzegovina: the Bosniak-Croat federation and the Serbian republic.
The two entities each make up around half of the total national territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the head of the state there is a triple presidency made up of a Croat, a Muslim and a Serbian representative. Over the years, the initially weak central Bosnian state had built state institutions under pressure from Western partners. Dodik, on the other hand, takes the view that the central government has illegally withdrawn powers from the Republika Srpska in 140 areas – and now wants to reverse this. Dodik is supported in his plans by Russia.
The oversight of the Dayton Accords is overseen by the High Representative of the international community. The office has been exercised by the former CSU Federal Minister of Agriculture Christian Schmidt since August. In a UN report published in early November, Schmidt had warned of a problematic development in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik’s plan “amounts to a split without announcing it,” wrote Schmidt. The White House was also alarmed after Dodik announced in September that he wanted to build his own army. Several US diplomats recently traveled to Bosnia to reaffirm Washington’s backing for the country and its institutions to be unified as a state.