Bosnia Fraud Probe Triggers Political Clashes

Sarajevo | 20 February 2009 |

Milorad Dodik

Bosnia’s State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, has pressed charges for fraud and misuse of public funds against the Premier of the Serb-dominated Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik and several other Bosnian Serb senior officials.

The move, apparently done outside the usual legal channels and standard criminal procedures, has enraged Bosnian Serb leaders and triggered volleys of Bosnian Serb counter-accusations against Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and international officials of trying to “frame” Bosnian Serb leaders in a “politically-motivated” with-hunt.

This turn of events is likely to further worsen personal and political animosities among the country’s local leaders, whose radical rhetoric and uncompromising attitudes over the past few years have led the country into its worst crisis since the end of the 1992-95 war.

Bosnian Serb officials – and the rest of country’s public – learned about the charges which SIPA has pressed against Dodik only on Thursday evening, while they were reportedly submitted by SIPA to the Prosecutor’s Office already on Tuesday. Only a few details, mostly from anonymous sources, became available throughout Friday.

According to these reports, Dodik and 11 other Bosnian Serb officials – mostly ministers from Dodik’s government – have been charged with possible fraud and misuse of some 70 million of euros from the entity’s budget. The fraud and misuse of funds is linked to several construction and development projects from 2007 and 2008, including the construction of a new government building, renovation of the Repbulika Srpska President’s office, work on the Banja Luka –Gradiska highway, and others.

Based on repeated claims by local media and anti-corruption NGOs that both the law and usual tender procedures were violated in these cases, SIPA tried to get hold of documentation related to those cases from the Republika Srpska government, and succeeded only under strong international pressure.

While several Bosniak parties cheered the development, Bosnian Serb leaders strongly condemned the procedural irregularities. Bosnian Serb officials in both SIPA and Prosecutor’s office said they were not aware of the charges until media reported about it. The spokesman of the Prosecution Office, Boris Grubesic, refused to comment on the case.

Dodik and his political allies condemned SIPA's move saying the “politically motivated” case is actually aimed at preparing the ground for Dodik’s removal from power by Bosnia’s new head of the Office of the High Representative, who is expected to be named in the coming week.

“This is aimed at weakening the position of Republika Srpska,” said Rajko Vasic, the general secretary of Dodik’s ruling party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats.

(Reporting by Srecko Latal)

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Comments:

2009-02-20 18:20:28

This is definitely a politically motivated witch hunt, something Croats in Bosnia-Hercegovina are very familiar with... However, people there just become more nationalistic, and hateful, when this happens, so it will ultimately backfire...

He had it coming
2009-02-22 18:45:07

Dodik's arrogant and pompous style of leadership where he imagines himself to be a little Serbian czar on his throne in Banja Luka was bound to end in a criminal lawsuit. He himself has too much power in the RS entity and his arrogant character makes that a dangerous amount of power to have, bound to be abused and that's what it seems has finally come to light. It is better for the Bosnian Serb people if he is checked now and prevented from allegedly stealing any more state funds for his own pet projects.

Witch hunt?
2009-02-22 20:52:11

Bah, the Prosecutor and the vice-director of SIPA are ethnic Serbs, so this hardly qualifiesd as a "Musim plot". Rather it isa "Bosnian plot", and if it serves to prevent the partition of BiH than I approve of it. And as for the Bosnian Croats (at least all those who still dream of "HRHB"): behave yourselves, or else...

2009-02-23 20:22:11

Or else what, Abdulmajid? ... I'm sorry, but someone with an Arabic name like "Abdulmajid" is foreign to Croats in Bosnia and Hercegovina, and Croats want absolutely nothing to do with Muslims like you there...

An evil man pursuing evil policies
2009-02-23 23:35:34

That man is only "Karadzic by other means". Or "Slobo by other means". He has that same flamboyant, prepotent, arrogant, scornful style and demeanor, and he pursues the same evil goals: "Serb government for the Serb people by the Serb people" (yes, I know, at first sight it sounds like Abraham Lincoln but if you look closer it reeks of the Ku Klux Klan! Because it excludes all non-Serbs.) Yet, like Karadzic and Slobo, he will not succeed. But I hoope that if the Western powers come up again with an "Appeasement" solution for BiH which favors the Serbs(and they well might; a representant of a "major European power" said tha the ICJ judgment, unprincipled as it was should stay shelved, because it condemned Serbia for "not preventing genocide" at Srebrenica, when it should have said "Serbia is guilty of genocide in Bonsia-Herzegovina" because that's what the facts on the ground say.) the Bosniaks must reject it out of hand. Any solution which again leads to partition or separation of BiH is unacceptable. Because those same European powers say (of course not in public: "A country with an independent and sovereign Muslim community in our Chrtistian Europe is just not on, because it might become a beachhead of Islamism." Which is pure Islamophobia and 19th century thinking. And it is against international right and aginst the human rights which Europe purports to defend, to deny a majority its rights, particularly because the Bosniaks have not attacked nor invaded anyone, nor besieged their cities, nor commited mass rape and mass murder nor destruction of cultural property. It is high time they stood up for their rights and claimed what is legitimately theirs, put the Islamophobic leaders in Eastr and West before accomplished facts and then say to the whole world: "This is Bosnia and Bosnia remains. Here we are and here we stay. On our homeland on which we have been a people for over 1000 years, and Muslims for 600 years. And we are not giving it up, we will not sacrifice ourselves for <>. And we dare you to take away from us our homeland and our national identity!" Slobo, Rasho and Mladic are evil men who pursued or pursue evil purposes. This world would not be worth living in, and the human race would not be worth to continue existing if these evil creatures were allowed to get away with murder. In Rwanda the evil genocidal Hutu misrule was ended and the Hutu war criminals run out of the country, and some were even brought to justice, and Rwanda HAS become a better place than before. So why not finally in the Balkans too?

Abdulmajid
2009-02-24 02:30:02

Are you threatening anyone who doesn't embrace Bosnia (Muslim rule)? Bosnia is finished. It's going through it's last twitches. It's laughable how you Muslims act so tough when backed by a big bully. Is this bully always going to be in a position to back you?

Bosnia just beginning
2009-02-25 04:14:28

I am sorry to hear you say that "Bosnia is finished" when in fact it is just beginning to become the multiethnic country that is was created as in 1992 before the Bosnian Serbs and their buddy Milosevic decided to start a pre-planed ethnic cleansing and genocidal campaign against the Bosnian Serbs' Bosnaik and Bosnian Croat neighbors. Bosnia has waited a long time to become a multi-ethnic state, as it must be, and hopefully with the necessary reforms and the help of it's friends' in the EU and US it will be, for the benefit of all its citizens. No group can rule over another and no discriminatory/segregationist institutions like the "Republika Srpska" entity. Let a truly multi-ethnic Bosnia be born up from the ashes of war and ethnic cleansing.

The problem with ....
2009-02-25 21:15:58

people like "Peggy" and "Anita" is that their postings which consist mostly of hate speech and rehashed old Greater Serbian or Tudjmanist propaganda could incite other, more stupid and brutal people to actually go out and commit acts of violence, even murder, against Muslims. I wonder why the admins of this site let them spew their venom here, and when somebody tries to give them back a little of their own "medicine", because their obtuse stubborn blind hate gets on his nerves, they block him!!! It's a scandal, an outrage! And I will write to them very sharply about it. And judging by their writ, people like "peggy" and "anita" would surely not have any qualms if they had the chance and oportunity, to slit a few Muslims' throats and so contribute to the Greater Serbian or Greater Croatian cause (the latter of which btw. is, like its tinpot instigator long since DEAD and GONE.)

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Bosnia Fraud Probe Triggers Political Clashes