Is Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) on the brink of war? Christian Schmidt, the United Nations (UN) High Representative (HR), warned that the country was in imminent danger of disintegration. The return of the armed conflict is a “very realistic” perspective, he said. Schmidt has good reason to be upset, as the British The Spectator stated in its analysis.
Establishment of a separate state
His warnings came after last month’s announcement by Milorad Dodik, a Bosnian Serb leader and member of BiH‘s three-member presidency, that he plans to take steps that would lead to secession, even if it is not the word he uses for now. And with any plan for secession, the real threat of conflict and ethnic cleansing should be at the forefront of concern.
Dodik’s ambition appears to gradually undermine state-level institutions in BiH. In their current arrangement, the three main ethnic groups have equal power to veto all decisions.
Dodik’s group has used this arrangement to keep the government inactive for months. His plan, meanwhile, is to establish a separate state in Republika Srpska (RS) – a plan that would hand over power to the Serb majority (which makes up over 80 percent of the population) and could put the Bosniak and Croat minorities under threat. This could include taking action to stop the work of intelligence and police (currently under government control) within the new entity.
What is most worrying is that it could create a special army that would not include Bosnians.
Law on genocide denial ban
Can these events lead the country to war? It certainly seems convincing that BiH is moving towards the situation that preceded the conflict that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia. That war resulted in more than 100.000 deaths, and millions of people were displaced. It also resulted in the latest act of genocide on European soil, when 9.000 Bosnians were killed in the Srebrenica massacre.
E.Dz.
Source: Avaz
