Preparations for the annual ‘Day of Republika Srpska’ parade. Photo: BIRN.
The US Treasury’s Office for Foreign Assets Control on Friday removed sanctions previously imposed on four officials from Bosnia’s Serb-run Republika Srpska entity.
They are Danijel Dragicevic, chief-of-staff to the Republika Srpska president, Jelena Pajic Bastinac, secretary general of the entity’s presidency, Milenkovic Dijana, director of Radio Television of Republika Srpska and Goran Rakovic, who was head of protocol in the office of the president.
All four were sanctioned at different times for participation in the organisation of the Day of Republika Srpska on January 9, which the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina twice declared unconstitutional.
The decision to remove sanctions comes after the Serb-led entity invested heavily in lobbying the US after Donald Trump returned as US president in January. The lobbying was aimed mainly at removing sanctions on former Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik and his close associates, including the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, Zeljka Cvijanovic.
Numerous other high officials from the entity have been sanctioned by the US and its allies for undermining the 1995 Dayton peace accords and for organising January 9 entity day celebrations.
Bosnian foreign policy analyst Denis Avdagic said he sees this relaxation of measures as a result of Dodik’s recent departure from the Republika Srpska presidency. He said that Dodik is the main reason why Dragicevic and the others ended up on the US list.
“If Dodik … is no longer president of Republika Srpska, and if neither he nor his associates are 1760738170 involved in undermining the Dayton Agreement, in principle they have the possibility of being removed from the list, but this is a process that requires certain proof,” Avdagic told BIRN.
Bosnia’s Central Election Commission terminated Dodik’s term as president of Republika Srpska after the state court in August definitively sentenced him to one year in prison and ordered six years of disqualification from holding public office for not complying with the decisions of the country’s international peace overseer, the High Representative.
Dodik’s prison sentence was then replaced with a fine. Elections for a new president of Republika Srpska have been scheduled for November.