In the crosshairs: Serbia and The Republic of Srpska

Russians” (as the Serbs are sneeringly known by the ever suspicious
West) in the Balkans. The Russian Federation was the guest of honor at
the prestigious Belgrade International Book Fair in October 2015 and
in an interview given to the mass circulation weekly “Pečat” distin-
guished Russian historian and cultural figure Natalia Narochnitskaya
confessed that “I often ponder the similarity in the fates of our two
peoples...”
There are at least two abiding mysteries in Serbia today. One is the
apathy of the destitute and futureless population, apparently incapable
of self-organizing to demand even a modest improvement in its condi-
tion. The other is the equally puzzling indifference of Russia to the vast
social reservoirs of good will and support for it in Serbia, stubbornly
preferring to conduct largely useless interactions with the governing
elites to a direct dialogue with the people.

II. Republic of Srpska
Key issues: NATO and EU push for centralization. In the final months
of 1995 the war in Bosnia was concluded by a peace treaty negotiated
with US assistance by the parties in Dayton, Ohio. Under the Dayton
Accords, as that became known, Bosnia and Herzegovina was organ-
ized as a loose confederation consisting of two largely autonomous en-
tities, the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republic of Srpska.
As one of the chief American negotiators in Dayton, Richard
Holbrooke, subsequently revealed, autonomy was merely a device to
stimulate the parties to stop the fighting, but the real ultimate goal was
to reconstitute Bosnia as a centralized state, with most powers concen-
trated in Sarajevo.
That arrangement suited the Muslim side fine, the Croats not much,
and the Serbs not at all. With the deterioration in relations between
the West and Russia, absorption of the Republic of Srpska within a
Western-supervised and Muslim dominated central government in
Sarajevo became a major item on the Western agenda. The reasons
were of a clearly practical, geopolitical nature. Should conflict break
out with Russia or tensions rise to a dangerous level, even without a
major war, just like Hitler in 1941 the West now does not want to have
a highly autonomous pro-Russian Serbian state deep in the rear of its
anti-Russian operations.
After 2006 centralization pressures were strongly resisted by the
new Republic of Srpska prime minister, now president, Milorad Dodik.
Dodik was considered a pro-Western politician during his first man-
date in the late nineties, but by the time of his reappointment in 2006
he came into office with an almost diametrically opposite agenda, in-
cluding close ties with Russia. That immediately put him on the black-
list of Western policymakers and relations with the West have been
unfriendly ever since.
Power transfer to Sarajevo. The slow but steady erosion of consti-
tutional competencies from the Republic of Srpska to the increasingly
bloated central government in Sarajevo came to a head in 2006, when
Dodik refused to abolish the Republic of Srpska police authority and
merge it with the central law enforcement institutions in Sarajevo. In
fact, close to 80 specific powers had by then been transferred from the
autonomous to the central government level, in contravention of Bos-
nia’s Constitution which was, actually, Annex 4 of the aforementioned
1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. Dodik decided to draw a line in the sand
and vowed to restore the lost constitutional powers. While Western
spokesmen insisted on the “spirit of Dayton,” suggesting that a central-
ized – or as they prefer to put it, functional Bosnia – was implicitly en-
visaged all along, to the great annoyance of their Western interlocutors
Dodik and the Republic of Srpska have been steadfastly insisting on a
strict interpretation of the “letter” of the Dayton Agreement.
A hugely complicating factor has been the claim of the Western-ap-
pointed High representative to be invested with the so-called “Bonn
Powers,” or authority to dismiss public officials he considers unsuitable
and to override the decisions of democratically elected local assem-
blies. The political stance of Bosnia’s High representatives has been in-
variably to advance Western political agendas in the country. That has
found some support in the Muslim community, but encounters only
vehement opposition in the Republic of Srpska.
The current High representative, Valentin Inzko, has threatened
but never used his questionable “Bonn Powers.” While publically call-
ing for the removal of President Dodik, he never quite summoned
the courage to test his effective ability to actually achieve that goal. It
seems clear that the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia is past
its apogee and that its prestige and authority have been steadily eroded
by Dodik’s and Republic of Srpska’s determined and successful oppos-
ition to virtually all its initiatives.
Relations with Russia. In what seems like a natural process, given
the known sentiments of Serbs everywhere, in its foreign relations the
Republic of Srpska has gravitated steadily toward Russia. The result
of that has been Russian investment and, more importantly, palpable
political support in international institutions where the Republic of
Srpska has had to fight its battles.
Srebrenica. One of the politically thorniest issues affecting the per-
ception of the Republic of Srpska world-wide has been the nasty Bosnian
wartime propaganda accusation of complicity in the genocidal killing of
about 8,000 Muslim prisoners in July 1995 near Srebrenica. Over time,
Srebrenica was raised to the level of a global moral issue, supposedly
illustrating lack of Western resolve to protect threatened populations. By
the end of the 90s it morphed into the rationale for the “Right to Protect”
doctrine (R2P) supposedly conferring upon Western powers the right to
intervene in the affairs of sovereign countries to right severe wrongs in
the conduct of their internal policies. The new Srebrenica-inspired doc-
trine debuted with Kosovo in 1999, followed by Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
With the refrain that a local dictator insubordinate to Western interests
must be disciplined “for killing his own people,” these “humanitarian”
interventions are estimated to have cost close two million lives world-
wide, far in excess of the alleged 8,000 in Srebrenica. And, ironically,
these victims are also Muslims for the most part.
Serbia, and by association the Republic of Srpska, were on the verge
of being censured for complicity in genocide in Srebrenica under a
British-proposed UN Security Council resolution in 2015. It was dis-
carded when vetoed by the Russian Federation, a clear dividend of
close relations that President Dodik has cultivated with that country.
Color revolution attempt. In an unmistakable sign that the West
was unwilling to tolerate Dodik’s independent policies and friend-
ship with Russia, a standard, playbook “color revolution” attempt was
mounted in the Republic of Srpska by Western agents around the time
of 2014 elections. However, the attempt failed rather miserably, and al-
though President Dodik was barely re-elected by about 8,000 votes, the
well-financed and logistically well-equipped campaign for his removal
did not achieve any of its major objectives. It served as a warning, how-
ever, that the Republic and its President were in the West’s crosshairs,
just as similar recent provocations in Serbia against Vučić who, ironic-
ally, has made some timid moves to cozy up to Russia suggest that he is
being set up for similar treatment.
The last parliamentary elections in the Republic of Srpska a few
months ago must have been an immense disappointment to Dodik’s
Western ill-wishers. His coalition was resoundingly victorious and,
judged by purely democratic criteria, his government’s stability would
seem assured.
But, of course, at the end of the day it is not democratic criteria but
the machinations of realpolitik that rule. Western political operatives
have drawn the correct conclusion that stirring up a Fifth Column
street movement to overthrow the government in Banja Luka, at least
in the short term, will not work. Instead, economic pressure and fi-
nancial strangulation are in the cards, coupled with the destabilizing
activation at the opportune moment of jihadist elements which are rife
in Bosnia, and finally the use of possibly the strongest card of all – the
corrupt elements within the government itself to undermine it, leading
to President Dodik’s political elimination.
Appearances notwithstanding, the geopolitical moment is ex-
tremely dangerous for both Serbia and the Republic of Srpska. The spe-
cifics vary, but the fundamentals are strikingly similar. The Western
alliance is keen to install compliant, subservient regimes throughout
Europe’s – in Churchill’s famous words – soft underbelly, the Balkans.
Geopolitics has never been a friend of the countries that inhabit that
space, and in particular it is not now. Nor will striving for independ-
ence and the preservation of cultural identity on their part be viewed
with favor by Western hegemons.
For both Serbia and the Republic of Srpska the worst times may not
be over and there is a rocky ride ahead.