Nearly thirty years after the Bosnian War, the Serbian community once again celebrated its “independence” from Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Nearly thirty years after the end of the Bosnian war, which left more than 102,000 dead, the burns of history are still struggling to heal between the Croat, Serb and Bosnian communities.
On the Serbian side, the authorities of the Serbian Republic (Republika Srpska) marked this Tuesday the 31st anniversary of the founding of the entity despite a decision rendered in 2015 by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina according to which the celebrations of January 9 were unconstitutional.
On this public holiday, the approximately 1.2 million inhabitants of the Republika Srpska were therefore, like every year, invited to be unemployed.
On January 9, 1992, the Bosnian Serb Assembly issued a declaration proclaiming the independence of the Republika Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A secession movement born from the rubble of the former Yugoslavia and which will lead the country into a particularly deadly war.
On Tuesday afternoon, a ceremonial parade took place in Krajina Square in Banja Luka and Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik spoke saying that “All those who try to prohibit us from celebrating this day will fail.”
The nationalist, pro-Russian leader has openly called for secession and defied American and British sanctions imposed for his policies.
The United States, for its part, warned that the celebrations were a violation of the Bosnian constitution and the 1995 peace agreement and as such constituted a criminal offense.
In a statement, the US embassy in Sarajevo urged Bosnian judicial authorities to “investigate any violations of the law” linked to the January 9 celebration.
During the war, Bosnian Serbs expelled and killed Bosniaks, who are mostly Muslims, and Croats from the territories they controlled. The conflict ended in 1995 with a peace agreement brokered by the United States.
The Dayton Accords created Serbian and Bosnian-Croat entities in Bosnia, held together by weak common central institutions.
The Bosnian Serbs, however, sought to gain as much independence as possible.
