Why was this ultimatum fashioned; why did it, eventually, not succeed; and why does present unity not mean, necessarily, stability for the future of BiH\u2026 complex questions with, nevertheless, a summative answer\u2014Milorad Dodik.<\/p>\n
Dodik: Disrupter, Dictator, Distractor<\/strong><\/p>\n Darko Vojinovic\/AP<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, is one of the three presidents of BiH. Sounds confusing, right? After the Bosnian War, the Dayton Peace Agreement, beyond ending armed conflict in the region, established one of the most complex governments in the world. For a brief overview of BiH\u2019s government check out this video<\/a>.<\/p>\n If that left you with more questions than answers, you\u2019re not alone. BiH\u2019s government is, fundamentally, divisive, byzantine, and fractured. It relies on cooperation and concurrently facilitates discord\u2026 discord that, recently, has been stoked by Dodik.<\/p>\n Once hailed as a \u201cbreath of fresh air in the Balkans,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0by the former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright,\u00a0\u00a0Dodik has, progressively<\/a>, become a proponent of self-determination, ethno-nationalism, and separatism. As Vukota Govedarica, a Serb political rival of Dodik, said<\/a>: \u201che went from being an autocrat to a dictator.\u201d Dictator or not, Dodik\u2019s frequent calls for a referendum on Republika Srpska\u2019s status have not gone unnoticed. Valentin Inzko, the high representative for the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement claimed<\/a>: \u201cWe will insist that the Dayton Treaty is respected\u2026Under the Dayton Agreement, entities have no right to secede.\u201d Undeterred, Dodik\u2019s attempts to fracture BiH have continued\u2026 the most recent of which was the February 17th ultimatum.<\/p>\n Dodik has, continually, claimed<\/a> Republika Srpska\u2019s secession is \u201cinevitable.\u201d In office, Dodik has repeatedly obstructed<\/a> BiH\u2019s parliament and Council of Ministers, each time seeking increased political power through ultimatums. In a series of blockades focused primarily on secession and political power, Dodik has, according to some analysts<\/a>, drawn public attention away from \u201cthe essential problems of society in Bosnia and Herzegovina, such as low living standards in much of the country, poverty, social crisis, and air pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n But now, as a pandemic harkens an unignorable crisis, Dodik has been unable to redirect attention to his own statehood goals.<\/p>\n A Bigger Issue<\/strong><\/p>\n Reuters<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n April 18th, the 60-day deadline after Dodik\u2019s most recent ultimatum, came and went. Under normal circumstances, April 18th probably would\u2019ve marked a climax in divisiveness. However, since declaring a national emergency on March 16th, BiH has been united by a common enemy\u2014COVID-19. Dodik, often a hawkish proponent of dissonance, even called<\/a> upon \u201call citizens and all politicians to unite around the same goal \u2013 saving people\u2019s lives\u201d. He even lifted the blockade on BiH\u2019s Council of Ministers in order to permit the government to effectively, and efficiently, handle the crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s impossible not to see Dodik\u2019s response as surprising\u2026 solidarity and cohesion don\u2019t particularly fit with separatist ideology\u2026 especially when Dodik was threatening to fracture BiH a few weeks ago. But, as Slavko Kukic, a Bosnian analyst, explained:<\/a> \u201cfor the first time after the [war] Bosnian nationalists have faced a true enemy that threatens the very biological existence, not just of one nation or one ethnic group, but everyone, including themselves and their families\u201d. But, is this unity sustainable? After COVID-19 subsides will BiH remain (semi) united?<\/p>\n Milorad Dodik, center, president of the Serb autonomous region in Bosnia and Herzegovina, celebrating after a referendum on whether to honor the day Radovan Karadzic (a war criminal) declared a Serb-only state in Bosnia.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Sustainable Unity?<\/strong><\/p>\n Crystal balls aside, it\u2019s impossible to know what our world will look like after COVID-19. Nevertheless, in BiH, it is hard to imagine current unity will manifest into long term stability. In the words<\/a> of Dodik, Republika Srpska \u201chas embarked on the course of leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina and this course is irreversible.\u201d While BiH\u2019s focus is currently COVID-19, a panoply of issues lingers underneath the surface\u2013the largest of which remains separatism.<\/p>\n Dodik\u2019s secession campaign is not one easily undone by any crisis, let alone COVID-19. His sentiment remains:<\/a> \u201cBosnia and Herzegovina is an arranged state, and we want out.\u201d Despite the current focus on COVID-19, Dodik\u2019s progression towards secession continues, and while he has sworn that he isn\u2019t a \u201cwar leader,\u201d COVID-19 may not be the greatest threat to BiH. In the week of the February 17th ultimatum, Dodik bought 2,500 rifles for his police force<\/a>, stating he was rightfully supplying Republika Srpska\u2019s police with protection\u2026 this may be true, but the timing is suspicious regardless. The post-COVID-19 world is, certainly, still a mystery; however, less mysterious will be BiH\u2019s continued struggle to unite\u2026 especially with Milorad Dodik leading Republika Srpska.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Author: Annie Rose Healion<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 On February 17th, Milorad Dodik\u2014the Serb representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina\u2019s (BiH) tripartite presidency\u2014declared, in English notably, \u201cGoodbye (BiH), welcome RS-exit.\u201d RS, referring to Republika Srpska\u2014BiH\u2019s Serb entity. Evoking his own version of \u2018brexit,\u2019 Dodik led Serb …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":1377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dfsrublogposts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1874,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/1874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/defactostates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Darko](\"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/398\/picture1-300x169.png\")
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