Christian Schmidt calls for an “immediate halt of all activities that undermine the Dayton Peace Agreement.”
An international representative in Bosnia accused political leaders of autonomous Serbia of trying to destabilize the country after statistics passed the law to ban the Bosnian national police and justice.
A lawmaker from the country’s autonomous Serbian Republic, Republika Srpska, approved the law on Thursday after a state court sentenced a year in prison for banning its separatist Milorado Dodik from politics for six years and rejecting the decision of its best representative, Christian Schmidt.
Separatist gambits could cause a postwar Bosnian ethnically divided constitutional crisis.
Schmidt was tasked with overseeing the Dayton Agreement, which ended the intercommunist war between Bosnian Quimslamists, which killed more than 100,000 people between Bosnian Serbs, Croatians and Bosnian Quimslamists in 1992-95, and accused political leaders of autonomous regions of undermining the state.
Dayton divided Bosnia into two autonomous regions: the Muslim Kroto Federation and the Serbian-controlled Republic Surpska.
The weak central government connects these regions under high representatives who have important authority, including their ability to fire political leaders.
Schmidt called for the “Dayton Peace Agreement and the immediate halt of all activities that undermine the constitutional and legal order of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” according to handouts from his office.
“These actions by the Republika Srpska’s ruling coalition seek to destabilize the institutions that exercise the constitutional responsibility of the state,” the statement added.
Dodik was charged in 2023 after signing a law suspending the Bosnian Constitutional Court and Schmidt’s decision, which violated the peace agreement.
Dodik, who has long sought the area to separate and form a union with neighbouring Serbia, rejected a court decision and urged lawmakers from the Autonomous Serbia to vote for a provincial police and judicial ban.
“We believe this will create momentum to do this without using force,” Dodik said, adding that the region is aiming to roll back reforms and create state judiciary, police and military to counter the separatist tendencies.
After Thursday’s vote, Bosnian Serbian Parliament Speaker Nenad Stebandik said 49 of the 52 representatives in the parliament supported the legislation.
But Bosnian Muslim Prime Minister Kroto, Nermin Niksik, denounced Dodik’s push on Friday to ban the state’s institutions.
“I am not prepared to participate in consultations or discuss ongoing political cooperation with the Republican institutions until all of these actions against the Constitution, the Dayton Peace Agreement and the state are suspended and invalidated,” Niksic said on social media.
Dennis Bekirovich, a member of the Muslim presidency in Bosnia, also denounced Dodik and officials in the Republic of Surpska, saying their move was a “attack on the country’s constitutional order.”
Source link
