The escalation of inter-communal tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the military phase of which was frozen by the Dayton Accords, is once again raising questions about peace and the possibility of war breaking out in the region at any moment.
In particular, Milorad Dodik (pictured above), the de facto leader of the so-called Republika Srpska (RS), who represents it in the collective presidency of BiH, has announced plans to create a reserve police force for the RS.
It must be understood that this so-called police force is in fact a legal cover for the RS armed forces, which, according to the terms of the Dayton Peace Agreement, they are not allowed to have, and their numbers are supposed to be limited. The creation of this reserve component of the so-called «police» does not directly violate these restrictions, since those who serve in it will not be active members of the police force. However, they will be prepared for immediate deployment if necessary, which in the context of BiH can only mean a new war, for which appropriate weapons and equipment will be reserved.
However, by openly arming his para-state formation, Dodik is trying to shift the responsibility from the perpetrators to the victims. Recently, he stated that the leadership of the leading all-national organization of Muslim Bosniaks — the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) — has started to compile lists of Muslims who participated in the last war, with their military affiliations, such as military professions and fronts where they fought, etc. The leadership of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) has also started to compile lists of Muslims who participated in the last war, with their military affiliations, such as military professions and fronts where they fought, etc.
The party leadership, in the person of its leader Bakir Izetbegovic and the Bosniak representative in the collective presidency of BiH, Sefik Dzaferovic, called these statements «absolute nonsense» aimed at demonizing Muslims in the style of Milosevic’s propaganda and justifying Dodik’s aggressive actions and plans.
And Dodik does not even hide these plans — recently, in an interview with the Serbian media outlet «Espresso», he presented a map of the «new Serbian state», which includes, in addition to the internationally recognized Serbian territory, the territory of the Republika Srpska in BiH, a part of Montenegro and Kosovo.
In essence, Dodik is continuing the work of his predecessors in the construction of «Greater Serbia,» who were convicted of war crimes by the Hague Tribunal: Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic, and Ratko Mladic. The adherents of «Greater Serbia 2.0», having suffered defeats in the last war, have significantly moderated their appetites — they no longer claim all of Montenegro and Kosovo, «settling» only for parts inhabited by Serbs, and do not covet a piece of Croatia, which was cleansed of Serbian occupation as a result of Operation Storm in 1995.
On the contrary, it is the Croats that the Great Serbs are actively and somewhat successfully trying to attract to their new adventures in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this sense, the recent visit to Mostar for an economic exhibition organized by Dragan Covic, who advocates the separation of the Croat part of the Federation of BiH similar to the RS, is significant, not only for Dodik, but also for the President of neighboring Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, who ignored this meeting with Bosniak national leaders.
In this context, it is worth recalling the recent scandal about the failed provocation of the Croatian secret services, who carried out a mass recruitment campaign among Muslim Bosniaks with the aim of later presenting them as «Islamic terrorists» and Bosnia as their center in Europe.
All these events are clearly lining up to potentially become a front line.