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The separatist leader of Bosnian Serbs has vowed to continue weakening his war-scarred country to the point of disintegration, despite a pledge by the United States to prevent that.
"I'm not irrational, I know America's response will be the use of force ... but I have no reason to be afraid of that to sacrifice (Serbian) national interests," he said on Friday in an interview with the news agency Associated Press news, Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska.
He said that any attempt to use international intervention to further strengthen Bosnia's joint multi-ethnic institutions would be met with the decision of the Bosnian Serbs to abandon them completely and return the country to a state of disunity and dysfunction, as it was at the end of the brutal inter-ethnic war period of the 90s.
Because the Western democracies will not agree to this, he added, "in the next period, we will be forced by their reaction to declare full independence" of the Serb-controlled regions of Bosnia.
The war in Bosnia began in 1992 when Bosnian Serbs backed by Belgrade tried to create an "ethnically clean" region with the aim of joining neighboring Serbia, killing and expelling the country's Croats and Bosniaks, who are mainly muslims. More than 100,000 people were killed and more than 2 million, or over half the country's population, were driven from their homes before a peace agreement was reached in Dayton, Ohio, in late 1995.
The agreement split Bosnia into two entities, the Serb-run Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, which were granted broad autonomy but remained bound by some shared multi-ethnic institutions. The agreement also established the Office of the High Representative, an international body tasked with safeguarding the implementation of the peace agreement, which was given broad responsibilities to impose laws or dismiss officials who undermine the fragile post-war ethnic balance, including judges, civil servants and members of parliament.
Over the years, the Office of the High Representative has pressured Bosnia's ethnic leaders to build joint nationwide institutions, including the military, intelligence and security agencies, the high judiciary and the tax administration. However, further strengthening of existing institutions and the creation of new ones is necessary if Bosnia is to fulfill its stated goal of joining the European Union.
Milorad Dodiku appeared unfazed on Friday by the statement posted the day before on the X network, formerly known as Twitter, by James O'Brien, the US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, that Washington will act if one tries to change the "basic element" of the 1995 peace agreement for Bosnia and that no one has the "right to secede".
"Among the Serbs, one thing is clear and that is a growing awareness that the years and decades ahead of us are the years and decades of Serbian national unity," he said.
"Brussels is using the promise of EU membership as a tool to unitize Bosnia," said the pro-Russian politician, adding that "in principle, our policy is still that we want to join but we don't see it as our only alternative." .
The EU, he said, "proved that it is capable of working against its own interests" by siding with Washington against Moscow when Russia launched its aggression in Ukraine.
Serbian leader Dodik, who has called for the breakaway of the Serbian entity from the rest of Bosnia for more than a decade, has faced British and American sanctions for his policies but enjoys the support of Russia.
There is widespread fear that Russia is trying to destabilize Bosnia and the rest of the region to shift at least some of the world's attention away from its war in Ukraine.
"Whether or not the United States and Britain want it, we will transform the administrative border (between the two entities of Bosnia) into our national border," said Milorad Dodik. / VOA
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