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Parliament in Banja Luka: majority in favor of leaving the Bosnian army
Photo: Radivoje Pavicic / AP
Despite warnings from the international community, the parliament of the Serbian part of the country, Republika Srpska, decided on Friday evening to withdraw powers from the central government in the areas of taxes, justice, security and defense.
The MPs gave the regional government six months to implement the exit.
The leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Milorad Dodik, had repeatedly threatened to detach his part of the country from the central state.
"It is time for the Republic of Srpska to conquer freedom," he said on Friday.
He left open whether he - as announced earlier - wanted to create a separate army of the Republika Srpska.
Almost all of the opposition stayed away from the vote in the Banja Luka parliament in protest.
Nevertheless, the proposal by Dodik's party achieved a clear majority with 49 votes in favor.
The Serbian parliament had already decided to split off from the central pharmaceutical authority in October.
As a result, the highest public prosecutor's office in the capital Sarajevo opened an investigation on suspicion of "violation of the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina".
For years, Dodik has threatened to separate the Republika Srpska from the Bosnian state.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is nothing more than "a paper republic," said Dodik.
Dayton Peace Treaty architecture at risk
Dodik's venture threatens to destroy the architecture of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords.
This ended more than three years of war between Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks.
The treaty created two largely autonomous parts of the country, the Serbian Republic and the Bosniak-Croatian Federation.
A number of state institutions are intended to guarantee the normal functioning of the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Dodik, who has the support of Russia for his plans, accuses the western states of having rebuilt Bosnia at the expense of the Serbs and in favor of the Bosnian Muslims.
If, on the other hand, no "political reflex" emerged, the Serbs would have "nothing more to defend in two years," he warned.
Dodik's plan "amounts to a split without announcing it," warned the high representative of the international community for Bosnia-Herzegovina, the CSU politician Christian Schmidt, in a UN report at the beginning of November.
On the basis of the Dayton Treaty, a high representative formally controls the political process in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Among other things, he is allowed to enact laws.
The so-called Peace Implementation Council gives him his mandate.
sol / dpa / Reuters