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, September 8, 2025
Srebrenica 30th anniversary ~ Palestine solidarity in Sarajevo ~ Electoral reform ~ Dodik convicted and "removed from office"

Announcement: Publication of my six-part series of articles on environmental activism in Bosnia-Herzegovina has been completed, and you can access it here. This series gained the attention of the Italian research and monitoring organization Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, which interviewed me here. Take a look; your feedback and comments are welcome.

Before launching into an update on the "current crisis," here are a couple of news items.

Srebrenica anniversary: On July 11 of this year, the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Srebrenica enclave and the genocide, the remains of seven victims were reburied. The youngest two victims were 19 years old, and the oldest was a 67-year-old woman.

In a provocative action, someone posted photos of 600 Serb victims of the war on the route from Bratunac to Srebrenica during the days around the anniversary.

Nearly 7,000 remains are at rest at the Memorial Cemetery at Potočari, but more than a thousand victims are still missing. And in addition to the seven identified and interred this year, there are numerous identified but incomplete remains. It is up to the bereaved families to decide when those remains should be buried; often the survivors wait for more remains to be found. And it is common for there to be a "reassociation," that is, an exhumation to add newly discovered bones into the burial.

The remains of the victims reburied at Potočari have been discovered at more than 150 locations, including 77 mass graves. The youngest victim was a newborn child, and the oldest was 94.

Palestine solidarity in Sarajevo: With the Israeli regime's atrocities continuing in Gaza and escalating in the West Bank, solidarity activism increases around the world in response. As many as 300,000 Australians marched in protest in early August. Over 100,000 just marched in Brussels. In the US protests have taken place in dozens of cities practically every week since October 2023. People have gone on hunger strikes, blocked politicians' offices, made tax day protests, turned university campuses into hotbeds of protest activity (with significant repression in response), and much more.

Here in the Seattle area, just a few weeks ago activists, including some Microsoft employees, occupied part of the Microsoft campus in Redmond in protest against Microsoft's complicity in the Gaza genocide—the company sells surveillance software to the Israeli government. Eighteen protesters were arrested, and some of the employees were fired. One of the groups organizing the protests is "No Azure for Apartheid" (NOAA); Azure is the cloud computing platform that the Israeli army uses to target Palestinians.

Activists in Sarajevo, where people have been protesting the genocide as long as anywhere else, joined in the protest during a regional conference for Amazon Web Services (AWS) held in that city last week. Protestors entered the hall in front of 500 experts, engineers, and investors. One of them questioned AWS vice president Jeff Barr, asking, "Are you ashamed that your company profits from genocide?" Activists chanted, "Free Palestine" and "AWS profits off genocide." They demanded that AWS leave Bosnia, that Bosnia not collaborate with the company, and that no weapons be exported to Israel.

ELECTION REFORM
We should remember how brazenly Dodik stole the elections of 2022; see my report from October of that year. For that election, quite imaginative tactics were employed to secure Dodik's victory as president of the Republika Srpska. Now in late July, the Central Elections Commission (CEC) has introduced new procedures and equipment to modernize elections and, one hopes, to ensure relatively honest polling. These include biometric identification of voters and automatic vote counting, along with the training of more than 5,000 polling station officials. We'll see if Bosnia surpasses the US in electoral fairness next year.

DODIK'S CONVICTION AND THE ONGOING "CRISIS"

My understanding of events in Bosnia-Herzegovina says that what looks like news is generally not news, but political performance. Ostensibly fateful elections, decrees from the High Representative, new laws made by the various parliaments, and street-level provocations rarely change anything—all in the manner of isto sranje, drugo pakovanje (roughly, "same BS, different day"). These events could better be taken as indicators of a trend, or "messages" from one leader or another, pointing either at gradual change, or at an eventual enormous change. Or sometimes, signifying nothing.

In recent months the stream of apparently newsworthy events has accelerated, to the point that it seems like real news is taking place. The question is, "is anything actually changing?" To my mind, an increase in tension—with people securing their passports and making sure they have plenty of flour and cooking oil on hand—doesn't count, because these episodes that are so regularly called "crises" are, unfortunately, the norm. Nothing really changes; the temperature rises and then slips back down, and people go about their business, such as it is.

Remember that Milorad Dodik, president of the Republika Srpska (the Serb-controlled entity, RS), was indicted by the state-level Bosnian Court in August of 2023.  He was charged with failure to implement decisions of High Representative Christian Schmidt, who had decreed a law making such behavior a crime. All this came after Dodik signed laws nullifying the power of the High Representative in the RS, and also suspended the rulings of the state-level Constitutional Court.

Miloš Lukić, acting director of the entity's official gazette, was also indicted. Both faced prison sentences of up to five years if convicted. Starting in February of 2024, the trial bumped along in a casual fashion for the next year. Dodik and his party accomplices meanwhile maneuvered to lay groundwork for secession: strengthening ties with Hungary and Russia; creating a Republika Srpska "gendarme" and, more recently, a reserve police force; fomenting rowdy demonstrations on the inter-entity boundary where people chanted "there is a border"; and eventually, banning the operation of state-level institutions on the territory of the RS.

The trial finished in February of this year, with Dodik convicted of defying Schmidt's decisions, and Lukić acquitted. Dodik was sentenced to one year's imprisonment and banned from political activity for six years. The case went to its obligatory appeal. When Dodik failed to show up for a court hearing—acting out his non-recognition of the state-level court—a warrant was issued for his arrest, and for that of RS Prime Minister Radovan Višković and Parliamentary Speaker Nenad Stevandić. All three were thenceforth called "fugitives" in the Federation entity's press. (See previous blog entries for more details.)

The ongoing spectacle of Dodik and the others flouting their arrest warrants turned out just to be for show when, in July of this year, the state Prosecution annulled the warrants. This took place in the lead-up to the second-instance court's ruling on Dodik's appeal of his February conviction. The unexpected and unexplained removal of the warrant was the subject of much conjecture, which soon became moot. But it was pointed out—as numerous times before and after—that although Dodik and his colleagues had often declared that the state institutions prosecuting them were "illegal," "unconstitutional," "anti-Serb," and thereby not worthy of obeying, nevertheless Dodik recognized these institutions by showing up for a variety of hearings from July of this year on.

At the beginning of August, the appellate division of the Bosnian Court upheld the first-instance guilty verdict against Dodik, as well as the one-year prison sentence and six-year ban from political office. No appeal to this judgment is possible. Officials who have received more than a six-month sentence are required to resign; it remained up to the CEC to revoke Dodik's mandate within 15 days. Furthermore, the CEC is required to schedule early elections to replace the president of the entity.

Mr. Dodik predictably rejected the decision and announced that he would "continue performing his duties," that he was elected by the people and that no one could go against that mandate. He noted that the ruling does not prohibit him from continuing in his role as president of the SNSD, heretofore the most powerful Serb nationalist party. He stated that the finding was "a blow against the RS," and that he would seek support from Serbia and Russia--and the "new US administration." On the X platform, he called on Trump to intervene.

Dodik further spoke against early elections, saying that no parties in the RS should participate, and that he would deploy RS police to prevent polling stations from being set up. Hungarian Prime Minister Orban termed the Bosnian court action a "witch-hunt" and vowed support for Dodik; Serbian President Vučić said that he didn't accept the conviction, that it was an "attack on the Serbian people," "undemocratic, against civilizational principles, immoral, and against the constitutional order of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

The SNSD also rejected the verdict, saying that it targeted the survival of the Serb people of Bosnia and was a direct violation of fundamental principles guaranteed by Dayton. The response of RS opposition parties—PDP, SDS, and other smaller ones—was mixed, but on the whole enthusiastic about the presumptive political demise of Dodik. Behind the legalistic veneer it has been clear that the opposition is primarily enthusiastic about gaining power in Dodik's stead—if it can unite well enough to defeat the SNSD. That remains to be seen.

Both opposition figures and the Federation press are now calling Dodik the "former president," and sometimes "citizen Dodik." However, it is as if he has not gotten the news, because in the last weeks of August he removed Radovan Višković as prime minister of the RS and in his place appointed a home-town colleague, Savo Minić. Since only the president of the entity is empowered to appoint the prime minister, Minić is not legally entitled to that position.

Meanwhile, the CEC followed through and voted unanimously to revoke Dodik's mandate, confirming this decision by quickly rejecting his appeal. This set in motion a 90-day period in which the CEC must schedule and carry out new elections. In response, Dodik announced, "I am here, and I will remain here. I will implement the function that the people gave me; I have no intention to leave the RS. I will win. The High Representative has no legitimacy, nor does the CEC." He topped this off by stating that the "Muslims are the pathological enemies of the Serbs."

Toward the end of August the RS national assembly (NSRS) scheduled  a referendum to ask "whether we should agree to the destruction of the RS Constitution." The referendum is set for October 15, and it will ask, "Do you accept the decisions of the unelected foreigner Christian Schmidt and the rulings of the unconstitutional Court of BiH against President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik as well as the Central Election Commission's decision on depriving President of Republika Srpska of mandate?" Opposition parties did not participate in the vote, which inherently exceeds the parameters of the entity's jurisdiction. 

Dodik also promised a second referendum to secede—to "take the RS out of the death grip of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

Responding again to the CEC promise of early elections, he announced that "no school, house of culture, nor any other entity institution shall be used for elections. They are senseless and they won't happen." If Dodik follows through on this threat, he could be arrested for failure to comply to legal requirements. However, Dodik's earlier comments notwithstanding, he has more recently said that he would have no objection to someone from the SNSD "participating in the election and winning it."

Grasping for foreign support, Dodik's crony Željka Cvijanović—Serb member of the state-level presidency—suggested that President Trmp be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize due to his "significant impact on international relations...[having] contributed to the stabilization of numerous world crises." There is not a polite term for this fanciful assertion, but it makes sense that one authoritarian demagogue's policies and manners resonate with those of another, so that Cvijanović's and Dodik's coveting favors from Trmup seem intuitively appropriate. Dodik has called him a "colossal historic figure" and says that he is very happy about his return to power.

Somehow, however, the Turmp regime has not responded well to Dodik's claque, nor has the US government made any move toward removing the long-standing sanctions against Dodik, Cvijanović, and numerous other Serb separatists. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has acknowledged that Dodik is undermining the state institutions of Bosnia. In addition, the Croat and Bosniak members of the state-level presidency put the brakes on Cvijanović's venture.

At the end of August the CEC set a November 25 date for elections to fill Dodik's vacant seat. Soon after this, the Bosnian Ministry of Foreign Affairs annulled Dodik's diplomatic passport.  And the border police are investigating Dodik's illegal crossing of Bosnia's international borders during his fugitive days.

Meanwhile, Dodik, who does not recognize Bosnian state institutions, bought his freedom at the price of 100 KM per day of his sentence, thus 365,000 KM (about $220,000). Generally a Bosnian convict is allowed to buy off up to a year's sentence in this way, depending on the crime.

Newly appointed RS "Prime Minister" Minić has just named the new ministers of entity's government, bringing the entity into a situation where there is no president, an illegally appointed prime minister, and now an illegally named group of ministers. Opposition politicians left the parliamentary assembly when Minić started to name his ministers. These same politicians are looking forward to the November elections, saying they are an "opportunity for the RS."

The existence of an illegal government running the RS has brought into question the response of international figures, especially European banks that have close dealings with the Serb-controlled entity. Many of these banks, along with EU officials, have participated in sanctions levied against high officials in the entity. If they choose not to cooperate with the dodgy RS government, paralysis could result.

The state-level elections commission has addressed the matter of an official blockade of the elections in the RS, saying that they can open absentee polling stations in the Federation. To me, that does not sound like such a good idea; one must remember the elections in the four northern municipalities of Kosovo in the spring of 2023. The majority Serb population of those municipalities boycotted the elections, and they gained four Albanian mayors. This was the recipe for near-complete chaos in that part of the country. One would hope that the CEC is too smart to set up such a fiasco.

Some commentators are saying that "Dodik's back is against the wall," but a concrete manifestation of that assertion is hard to predict. Something could happen, but Bosnian news has a special talent for...not happening. We will see.