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

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Bosnia update, Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Catching up on odds and ends; Sniper Safari; Vojin Pavlović convicted; Police scandals and a deadly fire in Tuzla; Long-running protests in Serbia; Some anniversaries; Snap RS presidential elections to be repeated in parts of 17 municipalities due to corruption

Not only does there continue to be news about the questionable November elections, but I have a bit of catching up to do on other topics. Among other things, the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton agreement has passed, as well as the annual unconstitutional celebration of the January 9th Day of the Republika Srpska.

Let's start with the weather. After a summer of fires that at times escaped all control, the winter—especially last week—has seen frigid temperatures, snow, and numerous other problems all at once. Throughout the country, especially in central Bosnia and in Herzegovina, thousands of people in towns and villages were without electrical power for several days. A state of natural disaster was declared in Goražde and nearby Foča. With rain, snow, sleet, frost, and rising waters, one commentator marveled that "the only thing we haven't been warned about yet was falling meteorites."
      
By the Drina River, near Zvornik, firefighters responded to waters overflowing the riverbanks and threatening to carry away several cars from a parking lot. Two cars were swept away, and the responders saved one with cables. A brave worker opened the door to the fourth car as frigid water was starting to surround it and, when handed the key to the car by its owner, managed to back it out to safety. "I was just doing my job," he said.

Last week saw the worst weather of the winter season. This week, with unseasonably warmer temperatures, snow packs are starting to melt, creating new dangers of landslide, avalanche, and flood.

Sniper Safari
On a much more sordid topic, coverage of the wartime scandal of "sniper tourism" has been prominent in the news. During the 1992-1995 war, it happened that some well-off citizens from Italy and other countries traveled to the outskirts of Sarajevo controlled by the besieging Serb separatists. There, they paid high sums to shoot down into the city, firing upon civilians. A premium was placed on shooting women and children.

This story has been known since the war, and it was mentioned during criminal proceedings at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague in 2003. A film called "Sniper Safari" was produced by Slovenians in 2022. The subject returned to prominence in the last few months when the Italian investigative journalist Ezio Gavazzeni filed a criminal complaint with the chief prosecutor in Milan, saying that Italians and other foreigners had paid members of the Bosnian Serb army to take them to positions where they could shoot at civilians.

The "sniper tourists" would meet in Trieste, then travel to Belgrade, from where they would be guided to Serb placements around Sarajevo. The phenomenon of "weekend fighters" is in itself not unusual to the story of the Bosnia war. There were people who came to the siege locations to observe and, on occasion, take shots at citizens in the valley below. They came particularly from countries with an Orthodox population such as Russia, Ukraine, and Greece.

At times, there were people with Serbian ancestry who participated out of some form of loyalty or patriotic fervor, coming from places as far away as France and Canada. These people could be called mercenaries. A "Chetnik" (extreme Serb nationalist leader) named Slavko Aleksić stated that they were "volunteers, not murderers." Aleksić controlled the military post at the Jewish cemetery, one of the positions of siege above Sarajevo.

During the war, more than 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo by bombing and sniping. Among the dead were over 1,600 children. It is not possible to know how many of these people were killed as a result of the "sniper tourism." But foreign journalists, who often had the opportunity to observe (at some risk) the siege of Sarajevo from Serb positions, periodically witnessed tourists wielding a variety of amateur weapons. One of the popular places for these "visitors" was the Serb-held Jewish cemetery above the occupied neighborhood of Grbavica in the center of Sarajevo, just south of the Miljacka River that bisects the city.

In November of 2025, the prominent Croatian investigative journalist and muckraker Domagoj Margetić filed a criminal complaint against President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić for participation in "sniper tourism." Vučič's visits to siege stations have never been a secret. His explanation is that, as a speaker of English, he could provide translation services to the Serb nationalist forces. There is grainy amateur video footage of Vučić at one siege position carrying a long metal object, which he later explained was an umbrella. More recently he has stated that this was a camera tripod. What exactly the object was, is difficult to tell from the footage. And Vučić's presence at the siege is not, in any case, surprising as he was a member of one of the wartime extreme nationalist parties.

After filing the complaint against Vučić, Margetić received death threats from fans of the separatist forces.

Vojin Pavlović Convicted
One of the nastier exponents of genocide triumphalism in Bosnia, Vojin Pavlović, has been convicted on two counts: "inciting national and religious hatred and intolerance" and "approving and attempting to justify the genocide at Srebrenica." This is the first solid conviction for genocide denial since former High Representative Valentin Inzko decreed this, together with glorification of war criminals, to be a crime back in mid-2021.

Former Republika Srpska President Dodik has been the most active genocide denier on the public scene for the last couple of decades. But in the area around Bratunac and Srebrenica, Pavlović has certainly distinguished himself for many years by doing exactly what he was convicted of.

Whenever the July 11 anniversary of the fall of the Srebrenica enclave and associated genocide approaches—and at other times throughout the year—Pavlović's "Istočna Alternativa" (Eastern Alternative) organization has mounted posters with the likeness of various convicted war criminals including Šešelj, Mladić, and Karadžić. Putin's photo is another popular one.

Pavlović's group has also staged rallies in Bratunac and provocative marches through Srebrenica around the time of the anniversary, among many other confrontational actions. In 2023, on the day of the anniversary, the group posted signs in Bratunac reading, "Day of Liberation of Srebrenica; Thank you, Army of Republika Srpska." The group also strung a banner across an intersection in Bratunac celebrating Ratko Mladić's birthday.

Criminal prosecution for his actions led to Pavlović's sentencing to two years and two months for the above-mentioned crimes. He appealed the conviction, and last November the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina confirmed the judgment, but increased his sentence to three and a half years.

Police Scandals and a Deadly Fire in Tuzla
Bosnia-Herzegovina, a country of more than 250 rivers, breathtaking mountain scenery, sun and snow, and even a few miles of Adriatic coastline, also suffers from violence, police corruption, scandalous government negligence, and femicide. Events in the last year have underlined these problems and prompted greater public protest on all counts.

Just briefly: you could start anywhere, but one outstanding scandal is the matter of the landslide that hit the Herzegovinan village of Donja Jablanica in early October of 2024. Prompted by heavy rain and flooding, earth and mud came crashing down on the settlement, killing 19 people, at final count. The mass of debris that crushed houses and killed people included material from an abandoned rock quarry above the village.

Accusations following the disaster include the fact that the quarry was long-neglected and measures were never undertaken to prevent a slide; also, construction that expanded the settlement was unpermitted and should never have been allowed in such compromised circumstances. Both of these problems are quite widespread throughout the country.

In the period since the disaster, investigation and court proceedings have been underway. However, as some survivors still live in trailers, the legal matters have been tossed back and forth from one court to another.

A year later, just last November, a fire broke out on the seventh floor of the retirement home in Tuzla, killing 11 people and injuring 30, including staff and firefighters. The death toll was later revised to 17. The fire started when a radio cord was pinched between a mattress and a metal bed frame, leading to overheating and then combustion. Smoke, panic, and chaos reigned as responders struggled to rescue people The director of the senior residence resigned after the fire, amidst accusations that negligence on the part of the agency monitoring safety at state-run institutions was responsible for the disaster.

Meanwhile, also in Tuzla a sex trafficking scandal emerged when eight people, including four police officials, were arrested. They were accused of having recruited two 15-year-olds for sex between spring 2024 and mid-2025. Sale of illicit drugs was also involved. Around the same time, two Sarajevo Canton police were arrested for "inappropriate contact" with a minor in their care. One policeman was accused of sexual abuse, while the other was charged with sexual harassment.

In Tuzla, protestors gathered in front of the police headquarters, connecting disgraceful behavior of the police with other outrages including the recent fire at the senior residence; a commentator referring to both the Sarajevo and Tuzla incidents said that "people are tired of the scandals, including the behavior of the police and high-placed politicians as well." They complained that agencies lack inspections for social protection, and on the level of the Federation, "there is no clearly defined concept of trafficking of children." There have been no concrete changes in the behavior of the authorities since the recent incidents.

Long-running Serbian protests
Overall, protests in Bosnia compare weakly with the unrest that has flourished for over a year in Serbia. In November of 2024, people were killed while waiting at a railway station under or shelter. The concrete "canopy" collapsed on the travelers, killing 16 and injuring many others. The station had been built in the 1960s, and its restoration was part of the creation of a new high-speed route between Belgrade and Budapest. The collapse of the badly re-built shelter was seen, yet again, as the result of corrupt deals between government agencies and contractors. In this case, Chinese companies were among the contractors that did the work.

Mourning led to protest, and protest over the tragedy grew quickly, fanned by resentment of Serbia's autocratic government and its corrupt ways. Demonstrations spread to dozens of towns and cities throughout Serbia—with some public expressions of support taking place in Bosnia as well, especially in Banja Luka. At first, the government denied any responsibility for the accident. A couple of officials resigned, while police arrested organizers of the protests, and attempted to suppress the demonstrations. In the face of sustained unrest lasting throughout 2025, the government softened its tone, and President Vučić apologized for his harsh earlier responses.

The widespread anti-corruption campaign has evolved into a movement that has transcended the traditional spectrum of Serbian politics ranging from progressive and pro-EU to right-wing and nationalist. The movement has avoided working with or supporting opposition politicians, seeing them as not presenting an adequate alternative to the existing establishment. There is a possibility that the anti-corruption activists will join electoral politics on their own terms, with their own independent list of candidates.

In September of 2025, the Serbian government finally filed charges against 13 high officials involved in the construction—but charges against six of those people were subsequently dropped "due to lack of evidence." Meanwhile, on November 1, 2025—the anniversary of the tragedy—tens of thousands of mourners commemorated the accident on the scene in Novi Sad, laying flowers and holding silence for 16 minutes. 

Protests continue, including road and bridge blockages, rallies, and more recently a petition campaign calling for early national elections.

Dayton anniversary
Another portentous anniversary passed in the fall, recalling the Dayton agreement that was initialed at an air force base in Ohio, after three weeks of negotiations, on November 21, 1995. It was officially signed in Paris on December 14th. Comment and analysis on the thirtieth anniversary of the war's end weighed down the news for a few weeks. On one side, Daniel Serwer, of the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, criticized the agreement and its legacy. He noted that the agreement "guaranteed that the warring parties continued in power," which led to an imbalance of authorities, with the "entities too strong, and the state too weak."

This is shorthand for the "straitjacket" that has kept Bosnian politics stewing and stagnating for the last 30 years. The question is what to do about it, and Serwer—along with a gaggle of other wise international officials—leaves that in the laps of the same domestic politicians that have been satisfied with the status quo all these three decades. The solution: international officials, as embodied by the Office of the High Representative, should work with grassroots activists and local organizers, instead of giving time, attention, and legitimacy to the domestic officials they think they "can do business with." The ordinary people of Bosnia-Herzegovina should be allowed to lead the way.

January 9
Last Friday was the date of another anniversary, as Serb nationalists in the Republika Srpska entity commemorated the date in early 1992 when separatists declared autonomy within Bosnia-Herzegovina, as a step in their plan to empty part of the country's territory of "non-Serbs" and annex it to neighboring Serbia. Ultimately, they largely succeeded in the former goal, and the latter is still up in the air, but it is still promoted.

Celebration of the anniversary became a prominent device in Dodik's separatist toolbox in the nearly two decades that he has been in power, with the pomp associated with the commemoration ever more closely resembling an old Soviet, militarist display. In 2015, the Bosnian Constitutional Court found the commemoration of the RS founding on January 9 to be unconstitutional, as the date coincides with a Serbian patron saint's day, and thus violates the constitutional rights of the non-Orthodox part of the entity's population.

The commemorations continue, and this year, over 2,000 police, veterans, and civilians took part in the manifestation in the freezing temperatures, as a few hundred bystanders looked on. It seems that—perhaps with Dodik's removal—cracks have appeared in the fervor supporting the event. Serbian President Vučić did not attend, although he sent a message of strong support. And a leading member of the opposition PDP roundly criticized the event's hosting of Rod Blagojevich, former governor of Illinois who met disgrace when he tried to sell the senatorial seat vacated by Barack Obama. Sentenced to 14 years in prison, he was later pardoned by the US President after serving 8 years of his punishment. More recently he has been engaged as lobbyist to the US administration on behalf of the Republika Srpska.

Dodik, Post-Conviction
When "citizen Dodik's" separatist SNSD party ostensibly won the special elections for entity president on November 23—after Dodik was removed from office (see previous blog entry), he announced, "Now you will have two Dodiks," referring to himself and his political carbon copy, Siniša Karan.

As reported earlier, the US administration removed sanctions against Dodik and his cronies, presumably in return for a toning down of the (perennial) "crisis" dominating Bosnian politics. Indeed, just before the sanctions were lifted, The Republika Srpska parliament removed all sorts of anti-state legislation tantamount to secession. However, there has not been any clear indication that financial crime, alliance with Russia, separatist expressions, or chauvinist messages from Dodik and his associates have abated. Indeed, Dodik's hate speech has only been amplified in recent months.

On top of this, since his August 6 removal Dodik has been seen to use money and privileges not accorded to ordinary citizens. He has been provided ostentatious security details and used government vehicles in his travel. With a re-run of the November elections coming up, Dodik's triumphalist rhetoric continues.

November elections to be repeated
Malversation that became evident during and after the special November elections for RS president became so outrageous that, after a month of deliberation, the CEC (Central Election Commission) decided that the election must be repeated at 136 polling stations in 17 municipalities of the entity.

Scandal upon scandal surfaced under the light of CEC investigations of the election results. Hundreds of people voted without any identification whatsoever, and another couple of thousand voted with invalid documents. The international watchdog organization Transparency International found that in some municipalities, there were more names on the voter rolls than there were residents. A member of the opposition stated that "the election is so contaminated that we can reasonably talk about organized crime." Transparency International concurred, saying that the corrupt practices they observed "went well beyond the complaint of a dissatisfied candidate."

The official count gave some 221,800 votes to Siniša Karan of Dodik's SNSD, and 212,200 to opposition SDS candidate Branko Blanuša. But given early notice of what is fancifully called "electoral engineering," the CEC began recounting votes in dozens of polling locations. They engaged handwriting experts to compare signatures in over a hundred places. The towns where polling results came under suspicion were Zvornik, Doboj, Ugljevik, Lopare, Laktaši (Dodik's home town) and Banja Luka, among others.

Among other suspicious factors, it was noted that an unusual number of centenarians' names were present on the voting lists in many places. While the civil registry offices are required to inform the CEC of deceased voters, that often does not happen—which opens the door to voting by dead souls. On the Zvornik voting list there are 138 names of people who were born before 1929. Someone voted in the name of confirmed dead folks in at least a dozen places. One of the opposition figures announced that November 23 should be celebrated as a "day of resurrection" for the Republika Srpska because, on average, seven dead people voted in each of 100 polling stations where the results were examined.

The investigations also found instances of the same person voting two or more times at one polling station. Handwriting examinations found numerous forged signatures, some so obvious that "even a layperson could recognize them."

Many thousands of votes were deemed suspicious. It also seemed important that, outside of the areas where Karan ostensibly won the election, on average Blanuša won by 70% of the vote. Inspectors found that in many cases, Blanuša's votes were moved onto Karan's pile, or simply discarded. And not only were spurious votes cast in the name of dead people, but also in the name of people who had long since moved out of the country.

Another obstacle to fair elections was the fact that opposition officials were only able to have one person on each local polling station committee, and they were not able to station sufficient observers at every polling place. And while the members of the polling station committees were required to be impartial, on the whole they favored the SNSD.

A month after the elections, the CEC annulled the results at 136 stations, in 17 municipalities, and announced that the polling shall be repeated in those places. Two Commission members voted against the decision, and the other five voted in favor. The municipalities where some stations had their results stricken were Prijedor, Laktaši, Banja Luka, Doboj, Stanari, Lopare, Ugljevik, Osmaci, Zvornik, Vlasenica, Bratunac, Nevesinje, Gacko, Rudo, Bileća, Milići, and Brčko district.

Predictably, SNSD officials complained; Nenad Stevandić, speaker of the RS Parliament, called the CEC a "para-intelligence mechanism of the Muslim intelligence" agency which has "connections with foreign security services." He further complained that "they're not letting us celebrate New Year's and Christmas in peace," and added, "We will win again by three times more."

Both the SNSD and the SDS appealed the CEC decision; SNSD because they asserted that the election results were valid, and SDS because they believed that more polling stations should have had their results annulled. The Bosnian Court rejected both appeals, and the repeat elections were set for February 8.

There is skepticism that the results will be significantly different at that date, since strong preventative measures are lacking. Among other problems, no new polling station observers will be appointed. While the CEC announced last year that the 2026 elections—the main ones, coming up this fall—will be supported by ballot scanners, video surveillance, electronic fingerprinting, and electronic identification, these measures are not yet in place. The question is whether there is any guarantee of prevention of similar practices to what happened last November. Pro-democracy activists in the Republika Srpska have commented that without rigorous control of the elections, there is no point in repeating them.

Another question is whether even a relatively clean election means anything in the Serb-controlled entity, when the problems described above, caused by the Dayton arrangement, will still be in place. If the opposition wins—most likely the SDS, party founded by Radovan Karadžić—will the secessionist tendencies, the rampant corruption, and the hate speech just disappear?