Setting up police checkpoints at the boundary line between Bosnia’s two semi-autonomous regions is “unacceptable” and pursuing such political goals is “shameful” at a time when Bosnia is trying to prevent a major outbreak of COVID-19, the Interior Minister of the country’s Federation (FBiH) entity, Aljosa Campara, said on Thursday.
Campara was commenting on an idea which the Serb member of the tripartite Presidency and the leader of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) in the Serb-majority Republika Srpska (RS) entity, Milorad Dodik, mentioned the day before.
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Dodik argued that the RS has a right to defend itself from the coronavirus and must undertake any measures it can – including stationing its police officers at the state border and the boundary line separating it from FBiH.
But Dodik has for years been arguing that Republika Srpska should secede from Bosnia and possibly join neighbouring Serbia in the future, which was a wartime goal of Bosnian Serb leadership.
Campara, who is also a member of the main Bosniak party in the country, interpreted Dodik’s latest idea as another attempt to pursue that goal.
He called it a “dream” that Dodik has been “dreaming for a while already” and said it would breach the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war and contains Bosnia’s Constitution.
“I warn the authorities in the RS that they should not embark on such adventures because we will, as we did every time until now, have a response to such anti-Dayton Agreement activities,” he said.
Campara said that Dodik’s statement is “anti-civilisational”, “immoral” and “irresponsible” at a time when the entire country is working on preventing a large-scale outbreak of COVID-19 and argued that the Bosnian Serb leader should rather work on the health care system in Republika Srpska in light of the crisis.
“Attempts to abuse the coronavirus pandemic for the realisation for the SNSD’s political goals and interests is shameful,” he concluded.
