Dodik’s Lethal Regime in Bosnia Must be Confronted

Dodik is presently the current Serb member of Bosnia's tripartite state presidency, and in theory spends most of his time in Sarajevo.

 Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and President of the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, meet during the 2018 Formula One Grand Prix of Russia at the Sochi Autodrom circuit, in Sochi, Russia, 30 September 2018. EPA-EFE/MICHAEL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL MANDATORY CREDIT

But he remains the unquestionable boss of the RS. The SNSD as a party, including the entity's Prime Minister, Zeljka Cvijanovic, do nothing without Dodik's explicit direction and approval.

As in Vladimir Putin's Russia, where the likes of Boris Nemtsov and Anna Politkovskaya were not liquidated without (in)direct orders from the Kremlin, so too in Banja Luka, there is no question about who ultimately directs the harassment of critics of the regime.

We should be clear-eyed about the state of democracy in Bosnia overall: it is an illiberal or hybrid regime at best, and a long way from a fully functional liberal democracy.

What is happening in the RS though is worse still. There, Dodik has created an authoritarian regime within an illiberal state. It may be only a question of time before his regime, like Putin's, starts murdering its opponents.

As it is, there are credible reasons to believe that David Dragicevic was killed by members of the RS Ministry of the Interior.

Meanwhile, in December last year, the RS police openly showed their willingness to use force, including against children, to break up peaceful, legitimate protests.

We should also recall that the regime is openly associated with at least two distinct organized criminal/extremist groups, "Serbian Honour" and the Russian ...