High Representative warns that blockades are leading to secession
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A new report to the United Nations from the Office of the High Representative warns that persistent blockades by the Republika Srpska leadership are effectively a path to secession. It is a familiar alarm from an office that monitors the 1995 peace agreement, and it was met with a familiar response: Željka Cvijanović, the Serb member of the state presidency, called the report a manipulative collection of lies.
The internal security situation is no calmer. Police in Sarajevo seized a cache of weapons and drugs in a suburban operation codenamed Black Peak, while in Gradiška, prosecutors have requested the detention of five police officers. Meanwhile, the Central Bank estimated core inflation at 4.33 percent; for most households, the figure is a secondary concern to the news that a single criminal clan allegedly used children to pickpocket 15 million euros.
A debate over whether the country can sustain its own student movement found that while energy exists, the political system is efficient at dividing it. Milorad Dodik, the Republika Srpska president, was less philosophical, telling students that their peers across the border in Serbia were facing a historic defeat.