Displaying items by tag: Milorad Dodik

Bosnia's political class has failed to short-circuit its dysfunctional governance. Serb strongman Milorad Dodik is raising ghosts of the past. UK ambassador Matt Field’s recent blog condemned deep-seated corruption, ‘consequence-free’ politics and the way powerful individuals could steal public money, block reform, praise war criminals, manipulate elections, and deny justice. Relations between Bosnia and Serbia turned critical last July when the outgoing high representative, an Austrian with roots in former Yugoslavia, banned the denial of genocide. A foreigner passing laws outraged the Bosnian Serb leader. He ramped up separatist rhetoric and stopped cooperating with the national institutions of which he is part. Christian Schmidt, the high representative, said Bosnia is gripped by the ‘greatest existential crisis of the post-war period’, and Dodik’s threat to turn his armed police into a revived Bosnian Serb army risked a return to war.

Bosnia has three presidents. Each one represents a particular ethnic group, and the fragile multiethnic government faces its greatest crisis since the Balkan wars. Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik is threatening to tear Bosnia apart by withdrawing the Serb territory he leads from Bosnia. He has stopped meeting the other regional presidents and vowed to withdraw from the armed forces and tax agency in favor of his own agencies. Political rivals and foreign diplomats say recent scandals suggest his rhetoric is to deflect corruption allegations. But in a region where the war shadow is everywhere, Bosnians fear their country’s peace is threatened. ‘It will not be peaceful,’ warned Sefik Dzaferovic, one of the three presidents. An opposition party leader said, ‘He hates stability because he then has to explain why we are living like we do. He plays on people's emotions regardless of the consequences.’ The UN called it ‘the greatest threat’ to Bosnia’s survival since 1990.