(ANSA-AFP) - BELGRADE, JAN 8 - On the eve of the Serbs'
national day in Bosnia, Mira Vuletic is not in a festive mood as
talk of secession lingers again, stirring fears the country is
set to return to the dark years of intercommunal conflict. The
holiday, which falls on Sunday, marks the creation of the
Republika Sprska (RS), Bosnia's Serb entity that was declared
three decades ago -- one of the events seen as putting the
country on the path to a war in the 1990s that killed over
100,000 people. "They're stirring up panic and that scares me,"
says Vuletic, a 70-year-old pensioner,one of the few willing to
give her name in eastern Sarajevo, an area that falls under RS
jurisdiction. "But I think they do this to hide their schemes
and theft," Vuletic added, pointing the blame at leaders from
all of Bosnia's ethnic groups for endemic corruption. Tensions
have been rising for months in Bosnia with the Serb's political
leader Milorad Dodik setting in motion plans last month to
withdraw from the country's central institutions including the
army, the judiciary and the tax system. The move earned fresh
sanctions from the US on Wednesday, with Washington chiding him
for attempting to undermine the landmark Dayton Peace Accords
that brought an end to fighting in Bosnia in 1995. Bosnia was
effectively split in two as a result, giving one half to the
country's ethnic Bosnian Serbs while the other was to be ruled
by a Muslim-Croat federation. Despite the sanctions,
celebrations for the national day moved forward this week as
municipal employees hung red, white and blue RS flags across
eastern Sarajevo. The holiday has long been considered a
"provocation" by the country's Muslim community who were
targeted by Bosnian Serb paramilitary groups just three months
after RS was unilaterally created in 1992. For the 30th
anniversary, RS authorities are planning three days of
celebrations, which will include a parade of their police forces
in the Serbs' capital Banja Luka. - 'Further conflict' - Dodik's
increasingly aggressive rhetoric along with his plans to start
withdrawing from the Bosnian government has cast a large shadow
over this year's holiday. "One should never rule out the
possibility of conflict in Bosnia," warns Srecko Latal, the
editor of Balkan Insight, a regional investigative journalism
network. "Dodik is going further and further into a story that
may end in an attempt at secession that could not pass without
further conflict," Latal added. The European Union has remained
relatively quiet about the crisis, even as Washington has taken
a tougher stance with the new round of sanctions. But Dodik has
refused to budge. "I have no assets in the United States. It is
a pure farce to forbid me to manage assets that I do not have,"
Dodik said this week, as he accused Washington of scheming to
"create a state for Muslims" in Bosnia. - 'Like animals' - The
appetite for a new conflict does not appear to be shared by many
in East Sarajevo. An unemployed man in his thirties said life
remains mired in hardship in the impoverished country. "My
father fought for the Republika Srpska and was even decorated
for helping to create it. He survives by working hard on
construction sites," says the man who asked to remain anonymous
"for fear of not finding work". The political crisis has added
to the already myriad difficulties in Bosnia where low salaries,
perennial corruption and dysfunctional government beset by a
dizzying bureaucracy has taken a toll on the most basic living
standards. "Today I received my monthly pension, which will
allow me to live for barely ten days," said Vuletic. "We
continue to live like animals." With few options available,
Bosnians have been moving abroad en masse, with roughly half a
million people leaving in the past decade alone, according to
the non-profit Union for a Sustainable Return. "If I see that a
new conflict is inevitable, I will immediately flee with my
wife," said the man in east Sarajevo. "I will not fight like my
father." (ANSA-AFP).
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