Bosnian Serb leader vague in response to ultimatum by intl administrator

N1

The Serb representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina's three-member presidency, Milorad Dodik, on Saturday did not directly answer questions if he would cease glorifying war criminals from Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, following an ultimatum of High Representative Valentin Inzko.

The international community’s High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Valentin Inzko, has recently said that he will ask Dodik be barred entry to the EU if he continues to glorify war criminals, pointing to a case when a student dormitory was named after Radovan Karadzic, convicted war criminal.

Inzko announced this move while presenting his report on the situation in the country before the UN Security Council on Thursday because he could no longer tolerate the practice of glorifying war criminals with impunity. 

Dodik was quoted by the local media as saying that it was interesting that while he was holding a grudge against Karadzic, Inzko was at ease, for instance with the cases of mentioning Alija Izetbegovic, the wartime Bosniak leader and the country’s president, or Jure Francetic and Mile Budak, officials of the Ustasha regime in the Second World War.

Dodik referred to streets named after those people in the Bosnian Croat-Bosniak entity called the Federation (FBiH).

Inzko has recalled that Dodik had personally unveiled the plaque with Karadzic’s name on the dorm at Pale outside Sarajevo, noting that Dodik had turned a deaf ear to his request to remove the plaque. Inzko said that if the plaque was not removed by May 2021, he would ask that Dodik is not allowed to enter the EU.

Since 2017, Dodik is on the list of people barred from entering the USA. The Barack Obama Administration established that Dodik represented a threat to the implementation of the Dayton peace accords.