He has been a friend of Putin and Orbán and has been having a battle for long years with the state authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the middle, of course, it denies the genocide of Srebrica
Bosnia and Herzegovina is living troubled times. Although still far from the horrors of war, tensions between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniac are reaching a point never seen in the last decade.
This recrudation of tensions has a main guardian: Milorad Dodik, President of the Serbian Republic, one of two entities in which Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided after the 1995 Dayton agreements, which ended the war in the country.
Almost no one could predict the way Dodik took into account the beginning of his political career. During the war, he was a representative in the Parliament of the Serbian Republic and part of the opposition to Radovan Karadzic, the first president of this entity, later convicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In the late 1990s, while Prime Minister of the Serbian Republic, Dodik was seen as the ideal ideal for the West and had his support. He established a friendship with Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s secretary of state during his second term as president of the US. During a visit to Banja Luka, capital of that territory ,.
But everything has changed over time and its European pro-union position became a Euroceticism similar to those of Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán, who is a friend and partner.
The controversial tirades are already a brand image of yours. In 2008, during the second term as a prime minister, he said that Muslim judges should not participate in trials in the Serbian Republic. Two years later, while President of the Serbian Republic, he said that the servian Bosnians “they will not accept or ever accept” that the Srebrica Massacre, during which more than 8,000 Bosnians were killed by Serbian forces, was classified as a genocide.
It is no wonder, therefore, that Dodik is a great supporter of Karadzic and also Ratko Mladic, leader of the Serbian troops during the Bosnian War, equally condemned by the ICC. In February 2024, Dodik proclaimed these two men as heroes and said they were unfairly condemned by the ICC. “What they did is a pure historical scam. They lied about everything.”
The battles with the high representative
On the other hand, Dodik has been rivalry with successive high representatives to Bosnia and Herzegovina. This figure was created by Dayton’s agreements and acts as a kind of authority higher than the country’s tripartite presidency. When there is any differentiated by resolving, the high representative intervenes and its decision is binding. The high representative may also rule out civil servants and political representatives that mine the unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and may cancel laws that go against the country’s constitution.
The current high representative, Christian Schmidt, is accused by Dodik of being an asset of the West. From the beginning that it does not recognize her legitimacy, but the situation has worsened significantly in the last two years.
At the end of June 2023, the Serbian Parliament voted to suspend the validity of the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in its territory, as well as the end of the publication of the high representative decrees in the Diário da República.
Unsurprisingly, Christian Schmidt annulled the two laws, stating that they “directly violate the constitutional order of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Dayton’s peace agreement.”
As a result of this controversy, the Attorney General’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina filed a lawsuit against Milorad Dodik, accused of not complying with the orders of the high representative. The sentence came on February 26 this year: a year in prison and the prohibition to hold the position of President of the Serbian Republic for six years. The decision is subject to appeal.
Since then, Dodik has climbed his crusade against the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and published a law that expels judicial officials and the state police of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the territory of the Serbian Republic, also appealing to the bosis-working Serbs to resign and join the regional authorities.
The measures were annulled by the country’s Constitutional Court, but the seeds of chaos are sown. Adnan Cerimagic, senior analyst for Western Balcans of the European Stability Initiative (ESI), explained to CNN Portugal what Dodik’s goals are released by launching this confusion.
For Cerimagic, the measures taken last week have, first than anything, a personal purpose, to “avoid the completion of the judicial process against themselves.” However, there is something bigger in its view: “ensure greater autonomy [para a República Sérvia]erode the status of state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and, in the long run, create conditions for the eventual separation of the Serbian Republic ”from the state in which it is inserted.
