Serb referendum reawakens separatism fears in Bosnia
 

SARAJEVO/BANJA LUKA, Bosnia: Bosnia’s auto**mous Serb region is set to defy its highest court with a referendum on a national holiday on Sunday that may stoke separatist sentiment lingering since the 1990s war.

The United States, which brokered Bosnia’s 1995 peace treaty, and European Union fear the plebiscite could destabilise the region anew.

But Russia, a traditional Serb ally, backs the vote and the Bosnian Serb leader headed to Moscow on Thursday for talks with President Vladimir Putin in a show of solidarity.

The referendum, on whether to mark Jan 9 as “Statehood Day” in the Serb Republic part of Bosnia, will be the country’s first since a 1992 plebiscite on secession from then Yugoslavia that ignited three years of ethnic war in which 100,000 were killed.

Speaking before his departure for Moscow, nationalist Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik said he did **t expect Putin to try to talk him out of the vote, and that he would ask for help in training his region’s police to fight terrorism.

The Sarajevo-based Constitutional Court ruled on Saturday that the Serbs’ “Statehood Day” was illegal since it coincides with a Serbian Orthodox Christian holiday and so discriminated against Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats living in the Serb Republic.

The court also ordered the referendum to be cancelled. Jan 9 was the day in 1992 when Bosnian Serb legislators declared the creation of an independent Serb Republic after Bosniaks and Croats voted for independence from Serbian-dominated federal Yugoslavia.

Many believe that by defying the court ruling, Dodik aims to highlight the weakness of post-war Bosnia’s central authorities in Sarajevo and set the stage for a vote on secession.

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