![]() envoy, adding that he was on a “dangerous and slippery road.”Īccording to diplomats, Dodik has indicated in private, that his primary interest is keeping state prosecutors out of his domain, so as to eliminate the risk that credible reports of rampant corruption ever get seriously investigated - including the scandal over industrial oxygen for COVID patients. “He probably doesn’t really know himself where this all leads,” said Schmidt, the U.N. The big question is whether Dodik’s threats are real or are mostly political theatre to rally his nationalist base before elections in October. For years, Putin warned the formerly communist lands of Eastern Europe that Western promises of peace and prosperity are hollow. Yet the Kremlin clearly delights in seeing Bosnia in disarray, given that the United States and Europe once championed it as a showcase of successful nation-building. ![]() Later it put the Serb leader in his place, saying that Putin’s “main event” that day had been a “coal conference,” not Dodik. But the Kremlin, which usually announces meetings well in advance, waited days before confirming it had happened. Last month, Dodik returned from a visit to Moscow claiming that he had received pledges of support during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. ![]() And how much Russia really supports Dodik is unclear. Serbia, however, has shown no interest in repeating its role in the 1990s, when it had sent weapons and paramilitary gangs to support ethnic kin in Bosnia. In October, Dodik warned that Serbs in Bosnia would “defend ourselves with our forces if necessary” and said that “our friends” - namely Russia and nearby Serbia - could be counted upon to repel any effort by the NATO alliance to rein him in. Mirko Sarovic, leader of a Serb political party opposed to Dodik, denounced the ban as a “huge mistake.” In an interview, he said that it had emboldened belligerent nationalists, bolstered Dodik’s previously waning public support and encouraged him to embark on a “reckless adventure” that “has no chance of succeeding and has huge potential to provoke conflict.”ĭodik is a onetime American protégé whom the Clinton administration praised in 1998 as a “breath of fresh air.” Now, President Joe Biden’s special envoy to the region, Gabriel Escobar, calls him a menace who “stabs the heart, strikes the heart of Dayton.” The ban applies to all ethnic groups, but many Bosnian Serbs see it as targeted at them. envoy that outlawed the denial of genocide. They now claim that Bosnian Serbs are being unfairly picked on, after a decision in July by Schmidt’s predecessor as U.N. Many Bosniaks view Dodik’s disruptive actions as proof that Bosnian Serbs should never have been allowed by the Dayton deal to hang on to their own domain, an entity midwifed by men like Karadzic and Bosnian Serb former commander Ratko Mladic, who have since been convicted of genocide at The Hague for the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995 and other atrocities.īut Dodik and many of his fellow Serbs still deny war crimes committed by ethnic kin and instead see themselves as victims, as they did during the war. The federation, in turn, is divided into 10 “cantons,” each with its own government. Under the Dayton settlement, Bosnia is divided into two largely self-governing parts: Dodik’s Serb territory, known as Republika Srpska, and a federation controlled by Bosniaks and ethnic Croats. But Hungary’s authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban, recently visited the Serb region’s capital, Banja Luka, to offer support to Dodik, and has vowed to veto any move by the EU to impose sanctions. Germany and Britain are discussing sanctions. In Europe, the response to Dodik’s provocations has been mixed. A quarter of them, she said, were killed in the fighting that began shortly after. One student recalled that his parents had lived through the horror of Bosnia’s 1992-95 conflict and asked, “Can you promise us that this won’t happen again?” Another told Schmidt, “I can’t wait to leave this country where the word ‘war’ is being used more and more.”Ī teacher displayed a photograph from 1991 that showed a dozen of her male students at the time, all looking relaxed and happy. In mid-December, when Schmidt met with students at a vocational school in Tuzla, a town where Bosnia’s different ethnic groups have tended to live in rare harmony, he was repeatedly asked what he was doing to prevent a return to war.
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