NYT: Dodik's threats are a possible tool to avoid corruption investigations

Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently facing the biggest crisis since Balkan wars due to the threat of presidency member Milorad Dodik “for dividing the country”, but its real goal may be to avoid controlling corruption charges in Republika Srpska, the New York Times writes.

An article by author Andrew Higgins says that last year the BiH Agency for Medicines and Medical Equipment inspected the oxygen sold in hospitals for treating patients with COVIDD-19 in Republika Srpska and found that oxygen was meant for use only in industrial machines, not humans.

However, instead of trying to correct the situation, Milorad Dodik, a Serb militant nationalist, tried to break the multiethnic structure of the Bosnian state”, Higgins writes.

He later cites Dodik's movements, beginning with the announcement that RS will create its own drug agency, threats that RS will withdraw from the Armed Forces, the judiciary and other institutions, and that he has promised to accelerate what he calls a peaceful “component of the state.

The text says investigators in BiH concluded that “a company controlled by one of Dodik”'s close political allies supplied industrial oxygen to hospitals in RS.

Some foreign diplomats and rival politicians view Dodik's ( Dodik's) sensitistic threats primarily as a means to avoid corruption charges,” said Higgins.

He added that in the region, where the <x0 times of war are everywhere”, many Bosnians fear that peace in the country is threatened.

Higgins describes BiH as “a variety of different peoples and religions” opted for conflict.

According to him, recent Balkan wars -- “ -- killed about 140 thousand -- dragged into NATO's fighter aircraft and soldiers, and created a gap between Russia and the West, which remains to date”.

Now the United States and the European Union, which Bosnia aspires to join, are desperate to prevent a new crisis from escalating into conflict or to create a kind of political instability that Russia can exploit. Russia, which wants to prevent Bosnia's membership in the bloc or NATO, is already on Dodik's side”, the author of the text has said.

He further estimates that responses to Dodik's provocations are different in Europe, stressing that while Germany and Britain are discussing sanctions, Hungary's authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban, supports Dodik and announces he will veto any EU movement to impose sanctions.

Higgins declares that Dodik and a large number of Serbs in RS deny war crimes committed by members of the Serb people during the war in BiH, and that they believe Serbs are the target of the law banning the denial of genocide, adopted by former High Representative Valentin Inzko.

He also emphasises SDS President Mirko Savovic's statement that the adoption of that law <x0) encouraged the warring nationalists, strengthened the weakened public support for Dodik, and encouraged him to enter into a premature adventure, which has no chance of success and has great potential to provoke conflict<1>.

In October, Dodik warned that Serbs in Bosnia would be protected by their own strength, if necessary, and that Republika Srpska would have <x0 enemies”, the author stresses, adding that Dodik “meant Russia and Serbia”.

“However, Serbia has shown no interest in repeating its role from the 1990s, when it sent weapons and paramilitary gangs to support members of their ethnic group in Bosnia. And as long as Russia really supports Dodik, it's not clear,” said Higgins.

According to him, the Kremlin is undoubtedly pleased to see Bosnia in confusion, given that the United States and Europe once defended it as an example of the nation's successful construction.

“Putin has been warning the former communist countries of Eastern Europe for years that Western promises of peace and prosperity are empty”, the text says.

Higgins raises the question whether Dodik's threats are <x0real” or a political “theatre to gather his nationalist base before the October elections”.

“Dodick has said privately, diplomats say, that his primary interest is to keep prosecutors out of his domain, in order to eliminate the risk of reliable reports of extraordinary corruption ever being seriously investigated, including the industrial oxygen scandal for patients with COVID”, he declares.

At the end of the article, Higgins cites a statement by Branislav Borenovic, president of The opposition PDP, which says that “Dodik survives conflict” and “maintains stability, because then it should explain why we live the way we live”.