Milorad Dodik was sentenced for a year behind the bars for refusing to recognize the authority of Christian Schmidt in July 2023, when he was appointed High Representative (OHR).
It is the most powerful position in Bosnia, as it overrides any federal ruling, and is in charge of ensuring that the Dayton Peace Agreements, signed in December 1995, are respected by all parties.
The peace agreement ended the Bosnian War and split the country into two regions – the Bosnian-Serb majority Republika Srpska (RS) and the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH).
Under Dodik, Republika Srpska has threatened to secede as it increasingly came closer to Serbia. This has been a pattern since the independence of Bosnia & Herzegovina, with the two regions struggling to coexist.
Dodik did not stop his aggression at defying Schmidt’s orders. Although he started as a “moderate” political figure at the beginning of the 2000s, he increasingly questioned the legitimacy of the Srebrenica genocide and pushed for closer ties to Serbia.
The Bosnian presidency is rotated every eight months, between all three ethnicities – Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. While Bosniaks, whose families survived the genocide thirty years ago, still await justice and reparations for the massacres in the 1990s, the Bosnian Serbs have increasingly denied the genocide and rejected the need for reparations.
When Bosnian courts requested Dodik answer for his actions earlier this year, the Bosnian Serb leader instead decided to boycott the call-up.
He staged a rally in Banja Luka, RS’ administrative capital, worsening the divide between Serbs and the other two ethnicities, in the knowledge they would support his separatist rhetoric. When the Bosnian Special Forces sought to arrest Dodik, he went as far as signing a law that blocked them from doing so.
Dodik’s genocide denial has had severe consequence. He would regularly park his special forces vehicles close to the Srebrenica Memorial Center, in an attempt to intimidate the victims or survivors, eventually forcing the Memorial Center to close its door to the public half a year ago, as the lives of survivors were endangered and no longer felt safe.
When the Bosnian Special Forces were after him, Dodik first claimed that in the name of Republika Srpska, he would not leave the region. He shortly after betrayed his people, first visiting his friend Viktor Orbán in Hungary before flying to Moscow for Russia’s Victory Parade on May 9th.
While Dodik looked for protections in Hungary, Russia and Serbia, Lithuania declared a no-fly zone for Dodik’s plane.
Dodik is not the only one to claim secession within RS, one regional official, Miloš Lukić was initially viewed as complicit in ignoring the OHR’s orders, has been acquitted.
There are also complicit actors outside of RS: Russia also refuses to recognise the authority of OHR Christian Schmidt. Orbán has also sharply reacted to Dodik’s sentencing, insisting that he was “elected by the RS people as their President”. He has been Dodik’s main collaborator in recent months, though isolated on the European scene.
In a statement on X, Orban claimed: “Hungary does not recognise the court ruling against President Milorad Dodik.
“Attempts by EU-appointed overseers to remove him for opposing their globalist agenda are unacceptable.
“He is the rightful, elected leader of the Republika Srpska – we firmly oppose Brusselian meddling in sovereign matters. Nothing can stand above the will of the people”
One would assume that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić would be happy to support Dodik in the name of ‘Greater Serbia’. However, Dodik’s lack of effective diplomacy, with his foreign trips filled with controversial quotes, has led to take a more careful approach when it comes to his alliance with the RS leader.
In addition to that, Vučić cannot afford to deal with RS’ issues considering he is facing a difficult exercise at home, with students blockading Belgrade and a majority of Serbia’s biggest cities for half a year following the train station crash in Novi Sad in November 2024.
While the court’s decision could be appealed – it is unlikely that Dodik will chose to do so, making the likely result that he will spend a year in jail and be banned from office for six.
For Bosnia and Herzegovina, this is a major victory. Dodik has tormented the country’s legal systems for the last few years, with his region (RS) struggling economically.
His name has been linked to major corruption scandals, besides the persecution of his political enemies. Dodik controlled the media environment that often amplified his narrative.
The preservation of the Dayton Agreement is key to retain Bosnia and Herzegovina’s independence. To keep it, some key decisions need to be made in order to avoid the rise of ethnonationalism, important to avoid another remake of Srebrenica, thirty years after the genocide.
Featured image via RSplaneta / Shutterstock.
