SURVIVING THE PEACE The Struggle for Postwar Recovery in Bosnia-Herzegovina

home  ♦  about the blog ♦ the book ♦ the author ♦ buy the book  ♦  contact

Bosnia Update, Tuesday, August 11, 2026
OHR, Bosnia-Israel-US connections, and RS lobbying; Environmental problems; Srebrenica

In my last blog entry I reported that High Representative Christian Schmidt had resigned. Since then, the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) has not succeeded in appointing a successor. Louis Crishock, Schmidt's principal Deputy High Representative, was named as acting HR. This may be satisfying to the American administration, since Crishock is an American who is liable to promote the aims of the Trump regime.

It has become clearer that Schmidt resigned under pressure from the US, since he was either unwilling to enforce Trump's agenda, or slow about doing it. This has much to do with promotion of the Southern Gas Interconnection project, which is simultaneously a way to relieve Bosnia-Herzegovina of its dependence on Russian gas supplies (via Serbia), and a way to establish BiH as a consumer of American gas.

While those for and against the gas pipeline project both ignore the fact that Bosnia, along with the rest of the world, should really be focusing on renewable fuel sources, it's also ignored that the percentage of gas as part of Bosnian fuel consumption is actually small. The total share of energy use by gas is just over 2%, while coal use is pushing 70%. Nevertheless, European policy—especially since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022—has promoted growing independence from all Russian fuel sources, and this translates into support for the project of supplying gas to Bosnia via a Croatian fuel terminal on the island of Krk.

Here is where the ever transaction-oriented American president takes notice, recognizing a business opportunity. The problem with the construction of the pipeline across Bosnia is that it necessarily crosses state-owned property. This does not need to be expropriated, since it already belongs to the state. But a property law decreed by High Representative Paddy Ashdown in 2005 requires that the disposition of state-owned properties (including forests, rivers, airports, agricultural land, and military installations) must be resolved at the state level, which requires the two entities and the various political interests involved to reconcile.

That has not happened and shows little promise of happening; rather, especially in the Serb-controlled entity (RS), political operators and cronies of Dodik simply take the right to buy state-owned land, illicitly, for their own profit. In the Federation, Ashdown's law has been abused less, but the attraction of resources (such as strategic minerals) on state land is strong, and leaders have at times resorted to sidestepping existing laws. HR Schmidt himself has complained that the property law has thwarted economic development, but he held back from decreeing a legal resolution to the problem.

With Schmidt out of the way, we will see if acting HR Crishock is able to open up the way to construction of the pipeline.

Relevant to all this, of course, is the RS lobbying project in Washington DC, going back more than 10 years. In that period the entity has paid over $20 million to lobbyists, succeeding ultimately in having long-term sanctions against Dodik, his family, and his business partners lifted. It took some years to accomplish this, but Dodik's instinct was right: he and the US president are, politically, on the same wavelength.

The RS engaged more than a dozen lobbyists and legal companies in the effort. Here, an informal network involving Canadians, Israelis, and American figures close to Trump acted together. One of the lobbyists is Ari Ben-Menashe, an Israeli-Canadian businessman born in Iran. In the 1980s he was linked to the Iran-Contra scandal, arrested in the US on charges of attempting to sell military aircrafts to Iran. He was acquitted after explaining that he had been acting on behalf of Israel. Ben-Menashe founded the Canadian company Dickens & Madson, which received $4 million from the RS to lobby in Washington.

Another lobbyist, L. Marc Zell, is an Israeli-American lawyer who leads the Israeli branch of the organization Republicans Overseas. In 1991 he formed Zell & Associates International Advocates. During Trump's 2016 electoral campaign, Zell declared that Jewish religious sources had predicted Trump's victory; in 2021 Zell followed Trump in denying that Biden had won the presidential election. The RS has paid Zell's firm at least $1 million for helping to have Dodik's sanctions removed, which took place in late 2025.

A recent visit to Israel by the Serb member of the state-level three-part Bosnian presidency, Željka Cvijanović, underscores the RS-Israel-US connection and the commonality among ultranationalists and autocrats. In late June Cvijanović met with the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Sa'ar. Among other things, the two discussed "the protection of the Christian minority in Bosnia-Herzegovina." Sa'ar commented that the pair had discussed the "significance of ever deeper relations between the two nations [sic]" and declared, "Serbs are true friends of Israel and the Jewish people."

After this conference, Bosnian Foreign Minister Elvedin Konaković addressed a note of protest to Israel, objecting to the fact that, while Cvijanović represented the state of Bosnia, only the flag of the Republika Srpska was displayed at the meeting.

Environmental problems

The proposed Southern Gas Interconnection pipeline is but one of many points of intervention by international interests bent on exploiting the Bosnian economy and its available resources. As I have outlined in detail in past series here (2025) and here (2026), mining companies from Australia, Switzerland, Great Britain, and Canada, to name just a few, are all too pleased to explore for lithium, nickel, cobalt, zinc, and other strategic minerals in mineral-rich Bosnia. And Bosnia's corrupt—or at the very least accommodating—domestic leaders are happy to sell off their country's riches, to the detriment of the pure air, land, and water.

Meanwhile, investors are in fact working to develop renewable sources of energy on Bosnia's waterways, and on the wind-swept high plains of Herzegovina. This makes sense intuitively but, unfortunately, there are two main problems with such development. First, all of this development is implemented by private companies, in harmony with the post-war tradition of profiteering. This leads to complete disregard for the environment and the well-being of local communities. Second, many of the wind farms and solar installations are encroaching on private land, violating the prohibition on use of state property, and creating more environmental problems than they solve. Such is the result of a "wild west" economy that approaches neo-liberalism on steroids.

In other writing, I have described at length (especially here) the damage that has taken place in the region around Vareš as a result of mining undertaken by the British company Adriatic Metals. This company, mining silver, lead, zinc, and gold at Rupice, in the erstwhile pristine forests of central Bosnia, came under the ownership of the Canadian company Dundee Precious Metals in late 2025. Among communities hurt by the pollution from the mines and their tailings dumps are Pržići and Daštansko. Locals cite dust from the trucks that pass through these towns on the way to dump mine tailings in the area.

Studies have lately shown that their air and land is harmed by lead dust, and tests found traces of  lead at alarmingly high levels in the blood of more than 300 residents. Environmental agencies have filed criminal charges against Dundee, as well as against cantonal and regional government ministers for failing to protect the population. One farmer commented that he feared that there was lead in his hay. A local leader from Daštansko stated, "I don't blame the company and the mine, directly. They are just doing what someone from the government has permitted. People with foreign capital came to this corrupt state to do whatever they wanted to do, and now no one prevents this. It is hard to fight against big capital."

The polluted water flowing from the area around the mine at Rupice combines with the supply  of drinking water for the town of Kakanj downstream. Heavy metals have shown up in that water, with concentrations of barium much higher than what is safe. Lead and zinc have been detected in the water as well. But the municipality of Kakanj has stated that the local administration is not responsible for monitoring the water supply.

In the Serb-populated hills of Ozren, between the main north-central Bosnian towns of Doboj, Maglaj, and Gračanica, a struggle against mining for nickel, cobalt, and other strategic minerals has been ongoing for several years in resistance to prospecting by Lykos Balkan Metals. After it was announced that this Australian, Bijeljina-based company was given permission to begin exploration on Ozren, in mid-May residents of the town of Sočkovac held a referendum asking whether the local citizens supported or opposed the prospecting. Activist Zoran Poljašević stated that the mining of cancerogenic metals, one hundred meters from private land, was unacceptable. In the poll, over 97% of voters came out against the mining.

Soon after the referendum, local citizens held a peaceful assembly in Sočkovac, in spite of a prohibition of such gatherings by the RS Ministry of the Interior. Speakers proclaimed, "Don't even try to start exploration, because you won't dig, and you won't drill. You can call us criminals and target us as much as you want, and ignore the referendum and the will of the people, but today the free people from all sides say 'NO' to mines on Ozren."

In spite of the protests, Lykos has pressed on with geological research, preparing some 40 locations around the Ozren center of Petrovo, and even more near Doboj. The environmental organization Ozrenski Studenac released a statement asking, "Can the government agencies and security services really work for the foreign occupiers, even though the citizens of Ozren in the Republika Srpska have clearly come out against geological exploration?...Not even our enemies in previous wars created as much damage as the mining threatens to do."

The above paragraphs concern a couple of the more well-known, long-term fights against international mining, but practically every locality in the country has its own problem. In western Bosnia, in May developers brought in earth-movers, without permit, to an area between Livno and Glamoč to prepare for a "wind park." This installation is planned in a region that is famous for its population of wild horses, and it threatens their habitat. Locals in opposition to the project say, "The government is keeping us in the fog about five planned wind parks."

In Mostar, the notorious garbage dump at Uborak has caught fire at least six times in the last three years. Uborak has been a place of pollution for years, sparking local activism in opposition to the uncontrolled dumping of hazardous substances. In late June fires in the dump spread to the warehouses and other buildings, also destroying recycling machines. The fire department, armed forces, and volunteers were called in to put out the blaze. Mostar was smogged over and beset by the smell of fire. People were cautioned to close their windows and stay inside. An outraged city councilman commented that people ought to be warned "not to breathe," as there was no place safe to do so. Garbage pickup was interrupted, and the public was requested not to dump their garbage out on the streets.

The heat waves besetting most of Europe arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with temperatures in some places surpassing 40 C (104 F.). Between June and the first half of July, there were 400 fires—bringing the total for the year to that date up to 900.

Srebrenica

The 31st anniversary of the fall of the Srebrenica enclave and the accompanying genocide, took place a month ago. On July 11, the remains of ten exhumed and identified victims were reburied at the Potočari Memorial Cemetery. Of those victims, the youngest was 20 years old in 1995, and the oldest was 56. Of the more than 8,000 people massacred on the fall of the enclave, 900 are still missing.

A part of the anniversary that has become customary is the "reassociation" of remains that are identified after the burial of the victim. This year, in the days after the funeral there were 48 graves that were re-opened in order to add bones to the graves. One relative of a victim said, "Sometimes we find only several bones, spread apart in many secondary graves. There are some convictions, but still many who are not punished. We want the judiciary to do their job."

As part of the observation of the anniversary, thousands of people walked or rode bicycles and motorcycles to Srebrenica for the funeral. At least 6,000 marched the 100 kilometers from Nezuk to Potočari, for the 22nd year in a row retracing the route of those who fled oncoming Serb forces in July of 1995. More than 2,000 bikers rode to Potočari, some coming from as far away as Libya and Turkey.

Organizers of the march warned participants not to carry the flag of the pre-war Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, nor the wartime flag of the Army of BiH. To Bosniaks and other Bosnians, these flags are symbols of patriotism to a multi-cultural state harking back to the prewar period. But to the separatists who dominate the Republika Srpska entity, they are interpreted as a provocation. In July, shortly before the commemoration, the RS Parliament adopted a law prohibiting people in that entity from displaying the wartime flag of the army, an offense now punishable by up to three years in prison. The new law is being appealed, but for the time of the anniversary, it remained a threat to participants.