The country of Bosnia and Herzegovina is embroiled in a crisis that may affect its political future and the stability of the western Balkans. Recent events in the bitterly divided country read a little like a spy novel. But the tensions that threaten three decades of tenuous peace since the region was torn apart by ethnic strife in the 1990s are only too real.
On February 26, 300 armed Hungarian police officers in civilian clothes crossed into Republika Srpska without approval from the Sarajevo state government. Republika Srpska is one of the two territorial entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Hungarian police were there, ostensibly, to train local police.
But they were reportedly sent to be ready to extract Republika Srpska president, Milorad Dodik, who had the same day been convicted by a Bosnian court for “separatist actions”. These included suspending rulings of the Bosnian constitutional court and refusing to publish decisions by the Bosnian high representative, which prevents them from becoming law in contravention of Bosnia’s constitution.
