2,000 paramilitaries, policemen and officials of the Republic of Serbia (RS) marched in East Sarajevo on Monday for RS President Milorad Dodik and his guests. The parade was part of the celebration of the so-called RS Day. Several thousand Serbs lined the road waving the flags of the RS and neighboring Serbia.
The Bosnian constitutional court declared the annual march unconstitutional on January 9. This year it was held for the first time in East Sarajevo, a small area on the eastern outskirts of the Bosnian capital that belongs to the RS. On January 9, 1992, convicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic founded the Bosnian Serb Republic with the support of the rest of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). In the war that followed (1992-1995), the Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb soldiers committed genocide, massacres and expelled Bosnian and Croat populations.
For several years now, Dodik has been promoting the split from the RS of Bosnia, which consists of the Serbian Republic and the Bosnian Croat Federation (FBiH). For the majority Bosnian population in Sarajevo, the march was a provocation. During the war in Bosnia, the city was besieged from the surrounding mountains and from what is now eastern Sarajevo for more than three years. The parade took place less than 500 meters from the border between the two parts of the country. In his speech, Dodik stylized the RS as a “republic of peace and freedom”.
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic sat next to Dodik in the stands. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic sent his son Danilo to the celebration in eastern Sarajevo. It was the Serbian presidential descendant’s first official appearance. So far, Danilo Vucic has attracted attention mainly through photos in the media in which he can be seen in the company of figures from the underworld.
The day before, in Banja Luka, the capital of the RS, Dodik had presented the Order of the RS to Russian President Vladimir Putin in absentia. Dodik said he would personally hand it over later. Dodik is repeatedly received by Putin, which has not changed since the beginning of the Russian offensive war against Ukraine.
The US Embassy in Sarajevo condemned Dodik’s march and secessionist policies. “The Republic of Serbia will only destroy itself and those around it by chasing the will-o’-the-wisps of independence,” the embassy’s Twitter account said.
(SDA)