Elham Asaad Buaras
The US Treasury has sanctioned four high-ranking Bosnian Serb officials for sabotaging the 1995 peace agreement that ended the Bosnian war. Among those sanctioned last month, are Željka Cvijanović, 56, a Serb member of the tripartite collective Bosnian presidency, and Radovan Višković, 59, prime minister of Bosnia’s Serb entity.
The four are accused of participating in the formulation of a bill that, according to the US and other international officials, undermines Bosnian unity by disregarding the country’s constitutional court’s judgements.
The Bosnian Serb parliament has approved legislation prohibiting the recognition or implementation of any rulings made by Bosnia’s multi-ethnic Constitutional Court.
“This action threatens the stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the hard-won peace underpinned by the Dayton Peace Agreement,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian E Nelson.
“This behaviour further threatens the country´s future trajectory and successful integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions.”
The Bosnian War began in 1992, with the invasion of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Serbia. It came to an end with the US-backed Dayton Accords, which established two regions, the Serbs Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation.
The Bosnian Serb ruling parliamentary group of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), which stepped up activities undermining state institutions in recent months, including suspension of decisions by an international peace envoy, said that the latest US sanctions were “shameful” and “hypocritical” and would not “stop us from doing our job.”
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, sanctioned by the US in 2017, has openly sought to separate Bosnian Serb regions from the rest of Bosnia and its unification with Serbia.
Detailing the sanctions on the officials on July 31, the US Treasury said that “as a result of today´s action, all property and interests in property of the designated persons described above that are in the United States or the possession or control of US persons are blocked and must be reported.”
Serbia said it will ignore US the sanctions imposed on the top Bosnian Serb officials. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said that the sanctioned ethnic Serb officials from neighbouring Bosnia will still be welcome in Serbia.
“The Republic of Serbia will treat the sanctions as if they did not exist,” Vučić said, during a visit to the Serb region of Bosnia. “It is hard, but that’s the only possible decision.”
The US recently also sanctioned Serbia’s security chief, Aleksandar Vulin, accusing him of involvement in illegal arms shipments, narcotics trafficking, and abuse of public office.
