The U.S. Treasury Department on March 13 unveiled sanctions against three individuals in Republika Srpska for undermining the peace and stability of Bosnia-Herzegovina by helping to organize an "unconstitutional" celebration of Bosnian Serb identity.
The three individuals -- Branislav Okuka, Jelena Pajic-Bastinac, and Srebrenka Golic -- were involved in "organizing and executing the commemoration of Republika Srpska Day on January 9, 2024, an activity determined to be unconstitutional" in Bosnia, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
Okuka, Pajic-Bastinac, and Golic were added to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list for contributing to the efforts of Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik “to undermine the peace and stability” of Bosnia by organizing the event.
The three were members of the organizing committee and participated in a meeting on November 27 when the event plan was approved, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said.
The president of Republic Srpska, Milorad Dodik
Dodik appointed the committee and demanded it plan the celebration, which included events taking place over three days beginning on January 8.
The main event was a parade in Banja Luka on January 9 in which some 3,000 people marched with Dodik, other Republika Srpska officials, and Russia's ambassador to Bosnia looking on.
On January 9, 1992, the so-called Assembly of the Serbian People in Bosnia-Herzegovina declared an “independent entity” within the country, and authorities in Republika Srpska have marked the date as the founding day of the Serbian entity.
Representatives of the Bosniaks and the Croats did not participate in the declaration. They consider January 9 the beginning of the Bosnian War and the ethnic cleansing and war crimes against Bosnia’s non-Serb population that took place during the conflict.
The January 9 celebrations occurred "in defiance" of a ruling by the country's constitutional court, OFAC said. The court found the marking of January 9 to be "unconstitutional" because it prioritized only Serbs in violation of the “constitutional obligation of nondiscrimination."
The Treasury Department also said the latest sanctions are part of the U.S. government’s “wider efforts to promote peace, stability, and functional democratic governance in the Western Balkans region."
Under the Dayton agreement that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian War, Bosnia has been governed by an administrative system made up of the Bosniak-Croat federation and Republika Srpska. The two entities are guaranteed a large degree of autonomy under a weak central government.
The United States, which brokered the Dayton agreement, said again on March 13 that it would continue to hold to account “those who seek to sow division to achieve their own political aims at the expense of the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”
Dodik has been designated for sanctions twice by the United States -- once in January 2022 for violating the Dayton agreement and for corrupt practices, and once in July 2017 for "actively obstructing or presenting a significant risk of active obstruction” of the agreement.
The sanctions against Dodik and those announced on March 13 against the three individuals freeze any property they hold in U.S. jurisdiction and block people and entities in the United States from dealing with them.
The U.S. announcement follows a similar decision by British authorities to sanction a marketing agency involved in organizing events around Republika Srpska Day.