REPUBLIKA SRPSKA – POPLASEN, BRCKO AND KOSOVO: Three Crises and Out? (ICG Balkans Report N° 62)
REPUBLIKA SRPSKA – POPLASEN, BRCKO AND KOSOVO: Three Crises and Out? (ICG Balkans Report N° 62)

Author(s): Author Not Specified
Subject(s): Security and defense, Inter-Ethnic Relations, Peace and Conflict Studies, Wars in Jugoslavia
Published by: ICG International Crisis Group
Keywords: Polasen crisis; Brcko decision; Serb Radical Party; Milorad Dodik; Republika Srpska;
Summary/Abstract: The early part of 1999 has been turbulent for Republika Srpska. Political life has been unsettled by three separate and hardly-related crises: the decision of the High Representative to remove from office the RS President Nikola Poplasen; the decision of International Arbitrator Roberts Owen to give the municipality of Brcko neither to RS nor to the Federation but to both as a condominium; and the NATO air-strikes on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Either of the first two issues alone would have been ordinary daily business in the bad-tempered world of Bosnian politics. The two together could probably have been handled. But RS reactions to NATO action in FRY, coming on top of the excitement already created by previous events, have raised tensions to very high levels. Numerous peaceful demonstrations have turned violent, and international organisations – usually the target of the demonstrations – have withdrawn most of their personnel. There are still elements in RS ready and willing to use violence to promote political objectives, and the current climate offers them fertile soil. The beleaguered authorities in Belgrade have every reason to foster a diversion in Bosnia to give the international community another problem besides Kosovo to worry about. The present moment could be the most dangerous for the Dayton Peace Agreement since it was signed in 1995.

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