Serb leader’s secession policy threatens Bosnia settlement, says peace envoy

The secessionist policy of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik is a key challenge to the political settlement that ended Bosnia’s 1992-1995 ethnic war, international peace envoy Christian Schmidt said in an interview on Wednesday.

Dodik, who is president of the autonomous Serb Republic, has long advocated the secession of the Serb-dominated region from Bosnia.

“He is not accepting Bosnia and Herzegovina, he gives a spin which is absolutely wrong,” said Schmidt, a former German government minister who acts as international High Representative, tasked with civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton peace accords.

“This is a danger,” said Schmidt, who as High Representative is also the ultimate interpreter of the peace accords with powers to impose laws and sack officials seen as obstructing peace.

The Dayton accords divided the country – where 100,000 people were killed during the three-and-a-half year war – into two autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, linked via a weak central government.

Dodik was charged in August by the state prosecutors with defying decisions by Schmidt, after he had signed two laws that Schmidt had revoked for violating the constitution and the terms of the peace deal.

via Reuters