SARAJEVO: Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik on Friday called on ethnic Serbs to quit the federal police force and courts and join the government of the deeply divided country’s Serb statelet.
The call follows a series of moves that risk pushing Bosnia into greater uncertainty a week after Dodik was convicted for defying an international envoy charged with overseeing the Balkan country’s peace accords.
“We have ensured them a job, while preserving their legal status, ranks, and positions. They will receive the same salary, or even a higher salary than they had,” said Dodik, who is the president of Bosnia’s Serb statelet Republika Srpska (RS).
Dodik later added there were no plans for violent escalation but insisted that the RS had “the ability to defend itself, and we will do that.”
Earlier this week, Dodik signed a raft of bills into law that banned the central police and judiciary from his statelet.
Dodik pushed the legislation through the RS parliament last week, after he was sentenced to a year in prison and banned from office for six years for refusing to comply with decisions made by Christian Schmidt — the international envoy charged with overseeing Bosnia’s peace accords.
The legislation has escalated tensions in Bosnia and is proving to be a key test for its fragile, post-war institutions.
Dodik later said he planned to ignore a summons from Bosnia’s chief prosecutor who is investigating Dodik for allegedly undermining the constitution.
Since the end of Bosnia’s inter-ethnic war in the 1990s, the country has consisted of two autonomous halves — the Serb-dominated RS and a Muslim-Croat statelet.
The two are linked by weak central institutions, while each has its own government and parliament.
The high representative holds vast powers in Bosnia — including the ability to effectively fire political leaders and strip them of power.
Dodik’s conviction last week was linked to his role pushing through two laws in 2023 previously annulled by the high representative Schmidt.
The legislation refused to recognize decisions made by the high representative and Bosnia’s constitutional court in the RS.
This followed months of tensions, as Dodik engaged in a bitter feud with Schmidt.
For years, Dodik has pursued a relentless separatist agenda that has put him on a collision course with Bosnia’s institutions.
The RS president has repeatedly threatened to pull the Serb statelet out of Bosnia’s central institutions — including its army, judiciary and tax system, which has led to sanctions from the United States.
Bosnian Serb leader Dodik asks Serbs to quit federal police, judiciary
https://arab.news/2pkzg
Bosnian Serb leader Dodik asks Serbs to quit federal police, judiciary
- The call follows a series of moves that risk pushing Bosnia into greater uncertainty
- “We have ensured them a job, while preserving their legal status, ranks, and positions,” said Dodik
Israel is risking global security, warns Somali Information Minister
- Tel Aviv’s actions boost terror groups, Daud Aweis Jama tells Arab News in exclusive interview
- He accuses Tel Aviv of wanting to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to region
RIYADH: Israel’s recognition of Somaliland and its presence in the region risks inflaming the situation there, allowing terrorist groups to undermine regional security and stability, according to Somali Information, Culture and Tourism Minister Daud Aweis Jama.
In a special interview with Arab News, Jama insisted that Israel’s unprecedented Dec. 26 move to recognize Somaliland as a sovereign state represents a major setback for Mogadishu’s fight against terrorist organizations like Al-Shabab and Daesh.
“The presence of Israel will be used by the terrorist groups to expand their operations in the region. (They will) have a pretext to spread their ideologies in the region,” he said.
“That is another factor that is also risking global security and regional stability, because we have been in the last stage of overcoming the challenges of the terrorist groups Al-Shabab and ISIS,” he added, using another term for Daesh.
Jama added: “We have been putting all our resources and all our time into making sure that we finalize the final stages of the fight against Al-Shabab. So, if something else interrupts us, that means that we are not going to focus fully on the operations against Al-Shabab. And that means we are giving more opportunities to Al-Shabab or other organizations.”
The consequences of this hit to Somalia’s ability to fight terror will not be restricted to the country’s borders, according to Jama, but will spread across the region and beyond.
“This might invite other, external terrorist groups to the region, because they will take advantage of this crisis and will make sure that they take over all the areas that have been defeated before,” the minister said.
“We believe this has come at a time that is going to affect our security as a Somali government, the security of the Horn of Africa, the security of the Gulf of Aden, the security of the Red Sea, the security of the Middle East and global stability. This is a very important location that holds the trade of the world.”
The minister underlined that Israel’s recognition and larger presence in the region are leading to more challenges, “putting more fuel on the ongoing challenges that exist in the region, especially in Somalia.” He added: “And at this time, it is not only limited to Somalia, but it’s going to be a challenge that is going to spread like a fire all over the region and all over the world.”
Jama told Arab News that Israel has other strategic motives for its recognition of Somaliland — including the forced resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza.
“According to reliable sources that our intelligence gathered, one of the conditions that Israel put forward (for recognizing Somaliland) was to have a place that they can settle the people from Gaza,” he said.
“We find that it is a violation also of the people of Palestine, because we believe that the people of Palestine have the right to self-determination. The two-state solution that has been the call of the international community has to be adhered to and implemented.”
Israel’s coalition government, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in its history, includes far-right politicians who advocate the annexation of both Gaza and the West Bank and encouraging Palestinians to leave their homeland.
Somalia’s UN Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman said Security Council members Algeria, Guyana, Sierra Leone and Somalia “unequivocally reject any steps aimed at advancing this objective, including any attempt by Israel to relocate the Palestinian population from Gaza to the northwestern region of Somalia.”
Israel last month became the first country to recognize Somaliland as an independent nation. In the three-plus decades since its self-declaration of independence in 1991, no state had recognized the northwestern territory as being separate from Somalia.
Mogadishu immediately rejected the Israeli move, alongside countries all over the world.
Saudi Arabia affirmed its rejection of any attempts to impose parallel entities that conflict with the unity of Somalia. It also affirmed its support for the legitimate institutions of the Somali state and its keenness to preserve the stability of Somalia and its people.
A group of foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries, alongside the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, also firmly rejected Israel’s announcement. In a joint statement, the ministers warned that the move carries “serious repercussions for peace and security in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region” and undermines international peace and security.
The 22-member Arab League rejected “any measures arising from this illegitimate recognition aimed at facilitating forced displacement of the Palestinian people or exploiting northern Somali ports to establish military bases,” the organization’s UN Ambassador Maged Abdelfattah Abdelaziz told the UN Security Council.
In the most recent development in Israel-Somaliland relations, less than two weeks after Tel Aviv’s recognition, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar visited the region on Tuesday to publicly formalize diplomatic relations.
“It was a blatant violation of Somalia’s sovereignty that Israel recognized a region within the Somali Federal Republic as an independent state,” Jama underlined. “That was a total violation of international laws. It was a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Somalia.
“From the beginning, our path was to follow diplomatic efforts. And we kind of started with a successful UN Security Council meeting that supported Somalia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. (This was) followed by other international actors like the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the African Union and regional bodies like the East African Community and IGAD.
“Also, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union has reiterated the importance of supporting Somali sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
