Ousted president urges Bosnian Serbs towards 'Mother Russia'

Fears that separatist Dodik will fracture delicate 30-year peace

- Francisco Garcia

Even Milorad Dodik's most committed enemies and there are many wouldn't deny his capacity for showmanship.

On a Thursday night this month, thousands of his supporters packed out an election campaign rally in Banja Luka, de facto capital of Republika Srpska, the Serbian-majority entity that forms half of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina.

An imposing figure in his mid-sixties and its recently deposed president, Dodik told them what they wanted to hear. "I am the guarantor [of] our dream," he said. "We build [in] a way that ensures every person within it is safe ... We have, of course, those who try to create some disorder, but they cannot be a part of us."

Groups of athletic young men bellowed enthusiastic assent and waved the Republika Srpska flag, its horizontal red, white and blue stripes almost identical to that of Serbia, the territory's lodestar. Familiar foes and comrades were invoked. The EU and the "gay west" took a beating. Mother Russia and the indomitable spirit of the Bosnian Serb people drew rapturous applause. If Dodik gets his way, the modern Bosnian state forged in the hard-won peace achieved in the aftermath of the bloody conflicts of the 1990s will be no more.