2,000 paramilitaries, police and civil servants from the Republic of Serbia marched on Monday. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic sent his son Danilo to the celebration in eastern Sarajevo.
The Bosnian Serb leadership showed strength with a paramilitary parade on the outskirts of Sarajevo. 2,000 paramilitaries, police and civil servants from the Republic of Serbia (RS) marched in eastern Sarajevo in front of RS President Milorad Dodik and his guests on Monday. The parade was part of the celebrations of the so-called RS Day. Several thousand Serbs lined up and waved the flags of RS and neighboring Serbia.
Bosnia’s constitutional court declared the annual January 9 march unconstitutional. This year it was held for the first time in East Sarajevo, a small area in the extreme east of the Bosnian capital that belongs to RS. On January 9, 1992, convicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic founded the Bosnian Serb Republic with support from the rest of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). In the war that followed (1992-1995), the Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb military committed genocides, massacres and expelled Bosnian and Croat populations.
For several years, Dodik promoted the separation of the Bosnian RS, which consists of the Serbian Republic and the Bosnian-Croatian Federation (FBiH). For most of the Bosnian population in Sarajevo, the march represented a provocation. During the Bosnian War, the city had been besieged by the surrounding mountains and present-day eastern Sarajevo for over three years. The parade took place less than 500 meters from the border between the two parts of the country. In his speech, Dodik stylized RS as a “republic of peace and freedom”.
vucic sent son
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic sat next to Dodik in the stands. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic sent his son Danilo to the celebration in eastern Sarajevo. It was the first official appearance of the Serbian presidential son. Until now, Danilo Vucic has attracted attention mainly through media photos that show him in the company of underworld figures.
The day before, in the RS capital of Banja Luka, Dodik had presented the Order of RS to Russian President Vladimir Putin in absentia. Dodik said he would deliver it himself later. Dodik is repeatedly met by Putin, which has not changed since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
The US embassy in Sarajevo condemned Dodik’s march and policy of secession. “The Republic of Serbia will only destroy itself and those around it by chasing the will-o’-the-wisps of independence,” the embassy’s Twitter account said.