Bosnia peace envoy says Serb regional leaders seeking to destablise country

After the statelet passed legislation barring the national police and judiciary in Bosnia, the international high representative for the autonomous Serb region claimed that the political leaders of the nation were trying to destabilize the nation.

After a state court forbids its separatist leader Milorad Dodik from politics for six years and sentences him to a year in prison for refusing to follow the high representative’s instructions, Christian Schmidt, the lawmakers in Republika Srpska, the nation’s autonomous Serb republic, approved the legislation on Thursday.

In ethnically divided post-war Bosnia, the separatist plot could lead to a constitutional crisis.

More than 100 000 people were killed in the 1992-95 intercommunal conflict between Bosniak Serbs, Croats, and Bosniak Muslims in the Dayton Accords, according to Schmidt, who is in charge of overseeing the state’s affairs.

Bosnia was divided into a Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska as a result of the Dayton Accords.

These regions are linked by a weak central government, who has significant authority, including the ability to fire political leaders, under the high representative.

According to a handout from his office, Schmidt on Friday demanded the “immediate cessation of all activities that undermine the Dayton Peace Agreement and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitutional and legal order.”

The statement further stated that the ruling coalition’s actions in Republika Srpska are intended to destabilize the institutions that are in charge of the State’s constitutional duties.

Dodik was charged in 2023 after signing a law that would have halted Schmidt and Bosnia’s constitutional court’s decisions, violating the peace agreement.

Dodik, who has long demanded that the region secede and unite with neighboring Serbia, refrained from opposing the court’s ruling and urged local lawmakers to vote to outlaw the state police and judiciary.

To counteract secessionist tendencies, the region aims to roll back reforms and establish a state judiciary, police, and military, Dodik said.

Nenad Stevandic, the speaker of the Bosnia-Serb parliament on Thursday, reported that 49 of the assembly’s 52 deputies were in favor of the legislation.

Nermin Niksic, the prime minister of Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat region, criticized Dodik’s efforts on Friday to impose a ban on the nation’s institutions.

On social media, Niksic stated, “I’m not ready to participate in any discussions or discussions with the institutions of Republika Srpska’s government until all these actions against the constitution, the Dayton peace agreement, and the state are stopped and canceled.”