The leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina's key ministries in charge of security traded harsh words and threats on Monday escalating tensions caused by quarrels between Serb and Bosniak politicians over a dispute regarding the status of state property as well as announcements that the Serb entity could opt to secede from BiH over the issue. Pročitaj više

In a harsh response to inflammatory statements made on Sunday by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the President of the BiH Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik, Federation (FBiH) entity Minister of the Interior Aljosa Campara warned that BiH security forces were ready to respond, with the support of the international community, to any violation of the state's constitutional and legal order, and in a message to Dodik, he said that all security capacity would be used if he opted to violate the peace.

Speaking at a commemoration for the victims of the WWII Ustasha concentration camp of Jasenovac at Donja Gradina on Sunday, Vucic and Dodik said that Serbs had had enough and that Republika Srpska and Serbia would eventually unite into a single state as it was their right.

“The BiH Armed Forces, the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), the BiH Directorate for the Coordination of Police Agencies, the FBiH Police Directorate, cantonal police directorates, EUFOR and NATO have sufficient capacity to thwart any attempt to attack Bosnia and Herzegovina's territorial integrity and sovereignty,” said Campara, a member of the People and Justice (NiP) party, a member of the ruling coalition at the state level.

In a message to Vucic, he said that Vucic had to know that Bosniaks would not be unprepared the way they had been in 1992.

Incumbent BiH Security Minister Nenad Nesic, leader of the DNS party, a partner to Dodik's party and also a member of BiH's ruling coalition, responded to Campara on Monday by saying that an attempt to mobilise state police agencies would be prevented because it would not be allowed by their Serb employees, who make up one-third of the staff.

“Campara does not have a say in the matter and that is how it is going to stay,” said Nesic.

BiH's security system is highly decentralised and there are as many as 16 different police agencies in the country. The Serb entity's monoethnic Ministry of the Interior is entirely controlled by Dodik, on whose orders a part of the entity police force was previously turned into heavily armed paramilitary units.

All the other ministries that are in the BiH Federation, its ten cantons, Brcko District and SIPA, the BiH Directorate for the Coordination of Police Agencies, the Border Police and the Security-Intelligence Agency (OSA) are organised in line with ethnic quotas, depending on the composition of the population in individual parts of the country.

The BiH Armed Forces, too, are organised in line with ethnic parity. They consist of three infantry regiments that follow the tradition of the former Croatian Defence Council (HVO), the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Bosnian Serb army.

BiH Defence Minister Zukan Helez is convinced there is sufficient capacity for intervention in case of a security threat.

He said last week that if Dodik made a move contrary to the Dayton agreement, the constitutional and legal order would be restored very quickly.