BOSNIA: DESTROYING PEACE TO 'SAVE' IT
1. Another Imperial Purge: Destroying Peace to 'Save' It (by Nebojsa
Malic)
2. Bosnia Serb PM resigns in protest against Western pressure
(Xinhua News Agency, China)
3. Bosnia foreign minister follows PM in resigning (Reuters)
=== 1 ===
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/
Antiwar.com - December 18, 2004
Another Imperial Purge
Destroying Peace to 'Save' It
by Nebojsa Malic
The Tyrant of Bosnia struck again Thursday: almost six months after
the last purge of such kind, Imperial viceroy Paddy Ashdown has
launched another, proscribing officials, confiscating property and
threatening further repression if the Bosnian Serb authorities
failed to comply with near-impossible demands by next April.
The pretext this time, just as this summer, was that the Bosnian
Serb Republic (Republika Srpska, RS), has failed to arrest the
suspects wanted by the Hague Inquisition. However, it is becoming
increasingly obvious that this is an excuse presented by Ashdown as
a cover for the continued forced centralization of Bosnia. Accusing
the RS of violating the Dayton Peace Agreement by not "cooperating"
with the ICTY lets Ashdown and the Empire cover up their own
violations of the DPA, which are legion.
Empire's ongoing efforts to overturn the peace agreement's
provisions and "reintegrate" (i.e. centralize) Bosnia-Herzegovina
have now reached a point where the continued survival of the
settlement that ended the 1992-95 civil war is very much in doubt.
A Three-Pronged Attack
Compared to June's count of 59, the nine purged officials this week
doesn't sound like much. But unlike the earlier exercise of Imperial
powers, this effort was not aimed at people so much as the
institutions of the RS. Also, this time Ashdown's accomplices did
most of the heavy lifting.
Standing at his side at the Sarajevo press conference Thursday was
Douglas McElhaney, the U.S. ambassador to Bosnia, who announced that
his government was freezing the assets of the SDS, and banning SDS
leaders – as well as those of its coalition partner, the PDP – from
entering the U.S. Since PDP leader Mladen Ivanic is Bosnia's foreign
minister, this will make it nearly impossible for him to do his job.
It's hard to believe this effect was not deliberate.
Furthermore, commander of the EUFOR occupation troops, British
General David Leakey, said his forces would close down a major RS
military base in Han-Pijesak, because of "evidence" that war crimes
suspects may have visited the premises last summer.
"I have no other option but to act, as every week new evidence of
obstruction comes to light," Ashdown told the press speciously.
The "evidence" in question consists of allegations aired in the
Muslim daily Dnevni Avaz, which has long enjoyed a cozy relationship
with Ashdown's Office of the High Representative (OHR). General
Ratko Mladic's supposed appearance in Han-Pijesak, as well as his
ostensible continued employment with the RS military, were both
Avaz "discoveries."
An editorial in another Sarajevo daily, Oslobodjenje, praised the
joint appearance of three major representatives of
the "international community," terming this a "united front against
the RS." This certainly appears to be the case.
Words from Washington
The Ashdown-McElhaney-Leakey assault got heavy artillery support the
following day, as the U.S. Department of State spokesman Richard
Boucher left no room doubt as to where Washington stood on the
matter. Said Boucher:
"The United States strongly supports High Representative … Paddy
Ashdown's actions of December 17 to reform institutions in the
Republika Srpska that have obstructed full cooperation with the
International Criminal Tribunal...
"The United States remains committed to helping Bosnia and
Herzegovina assume its rightful place as a full member of the Euro-
Atlantic community. Elements within the Republika Srpska are
impeding progress towards this goal… Its failure to cooperate fully
with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
constitutes a fundamental breach of the Dayton Accords. It is clear
that systemic changes to the Republika Srpska police and security
structures are necessary to overcome this obstructionism."
A "fundamental breach"?! Only if one makes the extreme reasoning
leap between the posited presence of some elements in the RS
military and police that supposedly sabotage efforts to arrest war
crimes suspects, and the assertion that these efforts are condoned
or even directed by the RS government. Such reasoning is tenuous at
best, and at worst completely outlandish. There is nothing "clear"
about this, except perhaps Washington's determination to blame the
Serbs for denying Bosnia its "rightful place" in the Neues
Weltordnung.
The Strange Case of Police Reform
Earlier in the week, there was speculation that Ashdown's purge
would focus on police reform. At the present, there is no central
police authority in Bosnia; instead, both the RS and the Muslim-
Croat Federation (FBiH) have their own police ministries. An
international commission set up to reform this arrangement – for
whatever reason – recommended Wednesday that both ministries should
be replaced by a "single structure of policing under the overall
political oversight" of the central government.
According to this proposal, Bosnia would be broken into "Local
Policing Areas" without regard to entity borders. There is also a
provision for "community oversight" by "local elected officials,
members of the judiciary and community leaders." There is no place
in the plan for entity governments. The recommendations were based
on Ashdown's edict from earlier this year, and recommendations by
the EU, but the commission in no way addressed the incompatibility
of all this with the Bosnian Constitution.
Needless to say, the RS authorities rejected this arrangement on
constitutional grounds. Viceroy Ashdown replied it was "unfortunate
that the Serb Republic representatives ... felt unable to agree to
this concept of modern policing." As if modernity was an issue!
But when the purge came, there was no mention of police reform.
Instead, Ashdown cited NATO's repeated refusal to admit Bosnia into
its "Partnership for Peace" program, under the excuse that the RS
has not arrested any "war criminals." Certainly, displeasing NATO
and preventing Bosnia to join the ranks of this aggressive alliance
is a war crime in itself, is it not?
None of this means the viceroy has given up on centralizing law
enforcement; he is determined to ram it through the Bosnian
legislature before the end of the year. But "obstructing police
reform" doesn't sound as sinister as "protecting war criminals." And
when one is on a mission to trample law and logic, good propaganda
is everything.
'To Them, We Are Objects'
Earlier this week, RS president Dragan Cavic did not hide his
frustration with Ashdown's policies in an interview with the Serbian
weekly NIN, calling the coming purge "an absolutely needless
exercise in brutality, interventionism, imperialism and supremacy."
Yet Cavic's interview was a revealing exercise in cognitive
dissonance. On one hand, the surrender or arrest of war crimes
suspect was an inevitable necessity, he said, not open to discussion
or political considerations; but on the other hand, "the RS is
always at fault. We do something, we get punished. We don't do
something, we get punished anyway. They must know that if we'll get
punished no matter what, then we won't do anything." Even though
doing nothing is emphatically not an option, and the Empire has been
using the war crimes issue as purely political.
Cavic also refused to believe that Ashdown harbored a personal
grudge against the RS, but he claimed that "part of the
international community harbors a deep distrust of Serbs in general,
no matter who represents them. To them we are objects, not
subjects." One would think that Ashdown, known for his adulation of
the late Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic – who also thought of Serbs
as objects – would easily fall in this category. Ah, but remember:
Ashdown has the power to remove Cavic and strip him of all rights
and property; he can hardly afford to anger the viceroy.
He does, however, point out the allegations that the RS is doing
nothing to arrest war crimes suspects are spurious. For nine years,
it has been SFOR's responsibility to arrest suspects, one in which
they've failed miserably and repeatedly. "They don't want to
acknowledge that SFOR has had shameful failures," Cavic said. "Not
one of their actions was anything but a complete screw-up. God
forbid anything like that happened to us."
When Ashdown and SFOR began insisting that RS authorities began
hunting for war crime suspects, a bungled raid in April this year
resulted in one innocent death and a tremendous political and media
backlash. As Cavic said, they are damned if they do, damned if they
don't. And it's hard not to think they were forced into such a
situation on purpose.
Resistance has already begun. Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic
resigned Friday, telling reporters he was sick and tired of being
bullied. "I do not wish to be a servant to the international
community, or obey their whims," Mikerevic told the Serbian press.
Abolition by April?
According to Al-Jazeera, Ashdown threatened to "take measures that
deal directly and powerfully with the assets and the institutions of
the Republika Srpska" if NATO rejects Bosnia's PfP membership again
in April. There is little more than Ashdown can do short of
abolishing the RS outright, and that may be exactly what he is
planning.
Notice, however, what is going on here: even if Karadzic and Mladic
were somehow seized before April, that doesn't mean NATO would
accept Bosnia's application. It can simply cite another excuse for
rejection, such as "inefficiency of government structures" or some
such, and provide the viceroy with a pretext he hopes for. Since
Ashdown has the unequivocal support of both Brussels and Washington,
odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the RS disappearing come April,
no matter what its leaders do.
President Cavic claims Ashdown does not have the authority to
abolish the Serb Republic. But every viceroy so far has done so, one
cut at a time, and the count is getting awful close to a thousand.
On paper, the RS is protected by the Dayton Peace Agreement and the
Constitution contained therein. In practice, the DPA is dead letter,
and there are no obstacles to its abolition. If the United States,
the world's first constitutional republic, could not preserve its
own Constitution from being trampled by Empire-seeking rulers, the
Bosnian Serbs are naïve if they believe their constitution – imposed
by the U.S. to begin with – is immune from such fate.
Unless Ashdown and the Empire are somehow stopped, next year may
well see the end of the Serb Republic, and with it, the Bosnian
peace.
=== 2 ===
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-12/18/content_2350502.htm
BELGRADE, Dec. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Dragan
Mikerevic resigned on Friday, one day after International High
Representative Paddy Ashdown fired nine officials to punish Bosnia's
Serb Republic for failing to arrest war crimes suspects.
"I am not ready to accept and implement threats and ultimatums
of the High Representative, " Mikerevic told a news conference,
adding that he decided to tender his resignation for the good of the
country and the Serbian people.
Meanwhile, Dragan Cavic, president of the mountainous Balkan
country, denounced Ashdown and US Ambassador Douglas McElhaney,
saying his country has been a scapegoat for them to cover their
incompetence in punishing the war crime suspects.
Ashdown, who has wide-ranging powers under the 1995 Dayton peace
accords, told a press conference on Thursday that he sacked the
officials due to the Bosnian Serbs' lack of cooperation with the UN
war crimes tribunal at The Hague.
"I have no other option but to act, as every week new evidence
of obstruction comes to light," he said.
It was his second such move this year after earlier sacking of
several senior Serb officials due to their refusal to cooperate with
the UN war crimes tribunal to pursue Bosnian Serb wartime leader
Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic.
The tribunal indicted both men for genocide and war crimes
nineyears ago.
At the press conference Thursday, McElhaney also announced the
US decision to freeze all the assets of the Bosnian Serb republic in
the United States, and to impose a unilateral visa ban against
Bosnian Serb officials.
=== 3 ===
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?
type=worldNews&storyID=640732
Bosnia foreign minister follows PM in resigning
Sat Dec 18, 2004
By Olga Lola Ninkovic
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - Bosnia's Foreign Minister Mladen
Ivanic has quit, saying his party will refuse to bow to
international pressure and enact police and defence reforms.
Ivanic's move on Saturday came as no surprise after Bosnian Serb
Prime Minister and party colleague Dragan Mikerevic resigned on
Friday to protest what they said were moves against the Serb
Republic's constitution by top peace overseer Paddy Ashdown.
"We do not want to take part in a process that would lead to
creation of Bosnia without the Serb Republic. This is an attack on
us and it is a direct consequence of our opposition to
unconstitutional changes," Ivanic told a news conference.
Ashdown fired nine Bosnian Serb officials on Thursday to punish the
Serb Republic for its failure to arrest war crimes fugitives, thus
blocking the Balkan country's admission in the NATO Partnership for
Peace (PfP) programme for non-members.
But analysts said the immediate reason for the resignations was a
U.S. travel ban imposed on the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP),
led by Ivanic and Mikerevic, simultaneously with Ashdown's measures.
The Serb half of Bosnia has not arrested a single war crimes
fugitive since the 1992-95 war ended.
The two most wanted men -- Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan
Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic -- are believed to be
sheltered by army elements in the Serb Republic and neighbouring
Serbia.
The central cabinet confirmed Ivanic's resignation but did not
comment.
Prime Minister Adnan Terzic told the Dnevni Avaz daily on Saturday
that he expected Ivanic to act after the travel ban, as "it is
certainly very difficult to perform duties of foreign minister if
you are banned from entering the United States."
Bosnian Serb President Dragan Cavic can reject Mikerevic's
resignation. If he accepts it, the constitution says the government
must resign and the president has 10 days to propose another prime
minister, who must be approved by parliament.
But analysts say the outgoing government could remain in a caretaker
capacity until a new government is formed, and that an early
election was unlikely.
In June, Ashdown used his wide-ranging powers as the international
community's High Representative to sack 60 Bosnian Serb officials
for failing to arrest Karadzic and Mladic.
The Serbs this week again refused to create a unified police force
that would put their separate police under state command together
with forces of the Muslim-Croat federation -- a defiant stand
Ashdown says is another piece of deliberate obstruction.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
1. Another Imperial Purge: Destroying Peace to 'Save' It (by Nebojsa
Malic)
2. Bosnia Serb PM resigns in protest against Western pressure
(Xinhua News Agency, China)
3. Bosnia foreign minister follows PM in resigning (Reuters)
=== 1 ===
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/
Antiwar.com - December 18, 2004
Another Imperial Purge
Destroying Peace to 'Save' It
by Nebojsa Malic
The Tyrant of Bosnia struck again Thursday: almost six months after
the last purge of such kind, Imperial viceroy Paddy Ashdown has
launched another, proscribing officials, confiscating property and
threatening further repression if the Bosnian Serb authorities
failed to comply with near-impossible demands by next April.
The pretext this time, just as this summer, was that the Bosnian
Serb Republic (Republika Srpska, RS), has failed to arrest the
suspects wanted by the Hague Inquisition. However, it is becoming
increasingly obvious that this is an excuse presented by Ashdown as
a cover for the continued forced centralization of Bosnia. Accusing
the RS of violating the Dayton Peace Agreement by not "cooperating"
with the ICTY lets Ashdown and the Empire cover up their own
violations of the DPA, which are legion.
Empire's ongoing efforts to overturn the peace agreement's
provisions and "reintegrate" (i.e. centralize) Bosnia-Herzegovina
have now reached a point where the continued survival of the
settlement that ended the 1992-95 civil war is very much in doubt.
A Three-Pronged Attack
Compared to June's count of 59, the nine purged officials this week
doesn't sound like much. But unlike the earlier exercise of Imperial
powers, this effort was not aimed at people so much as the
institutions of the RS. Also, this time Ashdown's accomplices did
most of the heavy lifting.
Standing at his side at the Sarajevo press conference Thursday was
Douglas McElhaney, the U.S. ambassador to Bosnia, who announced that
his government was freezing the assets of the SDS, and banning SDS
leaders – as well as those of its coalition partner, the PDP – from
entering the U.S. Since PDP leader Mladen Ivanic is Bosnia's foreign
minister, this will make it nearly impossible for him to do his job.
It's hard to believe this effect was not deliberate.
Furthermore, commander of the EUFOR occupation troops, British
General David Leakey, said his forces would close down a major RS
military base in Han-Pijesak, because of "evidence" that war crimes
suspects may have visited the premises last summer.
"I have no other option but to act, as every week new evidence of
obstruction comes to light," Ashdown told the press speciously.
The "evidence" in question consists of allegations aired in the
Muslim daily Dnevni Avaz, which has long enjoyed a cozy relationship
with Ashdown's Office of the High Representative (OHR). General
Ratko Mladic's supposed appearance in Han-Pijesak, as well as his
ostensible continued employment with the RS military, were both
Avaz "discoveries."
An editorial in another Sarajevo daily, Oslobodjenje, praised the
joint appearance of three major representatives of
the "international community," terming this a "united front against
the RS." This certainly appears to be the case.
Words from Washington
The Ashdown-McElhaney-Leakey assault got heavy artillery support the
following day, as the U.S. Department of State spokesman Richard
Boucher left no room doubt as to where Washington stood on the
matter. Said Boucher:
"The United States strongly supports High Representative … Paddy
Ashdown's actions of December 17 to reform institutions in the
Republika Srpska that have obstructed full cooperation with the
International Criminal Tribunal...
"The United States remains committed to helping Bosnia and
Herzegovina assume its rightful place as a full member of the Euro-
Atlantic community. Elements within the Republika Srpska are
impeding progress towards this goal… Its failure to cooperate fully
with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
constitutes a fundamental breach of the Dayton Accords. It is clear
that systemic changes to the Republika Srpska police and security
structures are necessary to overcome this obstructionism."
A "fundamental breach"?! Only if one makes the extreme reasoning
leap between the posited presence of some elements in the RS
military and police that supposedly sabotage efforts to arrest war
crimes suspects, and the assertion that these efforts are condoned
or even directed by the RS government. Such reasoning is tenuous at
best, and at worst completely outlandish. There is nothing "clear"
about this, except perhaps Washington's determination to blame the
Serbs for denying Bosnia its "rightful place" in the Neues
Weltordnung.
The Strange Case of Police Reform
Earlier in the week, there was speculation that Ashdown's purge
would focus on police reform. At the present, there is no central
police authority in Bosnia; instead, both the RS and the Muslim-
Croat Federation (FBiH) have their own police ministries. An
international commission set up to reform this arrangement – for
whatever reason – recommended Wednesday that both ministries should
be replaced by a "single structure of policing under the overall
political oversight" of the central government.
According to this proposal, Bosnia would be broken into "Local
Policing Areas" without regard to entity borders. There is also a
provision for "community oversight" by "local elected officials,
members of the judiciary and community leaders." There is no place
in the plan for entity governments. The recommendations were based
on Ashdown's edict from earlier this year, and recommendations by
the EU, but the commission in no way addressed the incompatibility
of all this with the Bosnian Constitution.
Needless to say, the RS authorities rejected this arrangement on
constitutional grounds. Viceroy Ashdown replied it was "unfortunate
that the Serb Republic representatives ... felt unable to agree to
this concept of modern policing." As if modernity was an issue!
But when the purge came, there was no mention of police reform.
Instead, Ashdown cited NATO's repeated refusal to admit Bosnia into
its "Partnership for Peace" program, under the excuse that the RS
has not arrested any "war criminals." Certainly, displeasing NATO
and preventing Bosnia to join the ranks of this aggressive alliance
is a war crime in itself, is it not?
None of this means the viceroy has given up on centralizing law
enforcement; he is determined to ram it through the Bosnian
legislature before the end of the year. But "obstructing police
reform" doesn't sound as sinister as "protecting war criminals." And
when one is on a mission to trample law and logic, good propaganda
is everything.
'To Them, We Are Objects'
Earlier this week, RS president Dragan Cavic did not hide his
frustration with Ashdown's policies in an interview with the Serbian
weekly NIN, calling the coming purge "an absolutely needless
exercise in brutality, interventionism, imperialism and supremacy."
Yet Cavic's interview was a revealing exercise in cognitive
dissonance. On one hand, the surrender or arrest of war crimes
suspect was an inevitable necessity, he said, not open to discussion
or political considerations; but on the other hand, "the RS is
always at fault. We do something, we get punished. We don't do
something, we get punished anyway. They must know that if we'll get
punished no matter what, then we won't do anything." Even though
doing nothing is emphatically not an option, and the Empire has been
using the war crimes issue as purely political.
Cavic also refused to believe that Ashdown harbored a personal
grudge against the RS, but he claimed that "part of the
international community harbors a deep distrust of Serbs in general,
no matter who represents them. To them we are objects, not
subjects." One would think that Ashdown, known for his adulation of
the late Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic – who also thought of Serbs
as objects – would easily fall in this category. Ah, but remember:
Ashdown has the power to remove Cavic and strip him of all rights
and property; he can hardly afford to anger the viceroy.
He does, however, point out the allegations that the RS is doing
nothing to arrest war crimes suspects are spurious. For nine years,
it has been SFOR's responsibility to arrest suspects, one in which
they've failed miserably and repeatedly. "They don't want to
acknowledge that SFOR has had shameful failures," Cavic said. "Not
one of their actions was anything but a complete screw-up. God
forbid anything like that happened to us."
When Ashdown and SFOR began insisting that RS authorities began
hunting for war crime suspects, a bungled raid in April this year
resulted in one innocent death and a tremendous political and media
backlash. As Cavic said, they are damned if they do, damned if they
don't. And it's hard not to think they were forced into such a
situation on purpose.
Resistance has already begun. Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic
resigned Friday, telling reporters he was sick and tired of being
bullied. "I do not wish to be a servant to the international
community, or obey their whims," Mikerevic told the Serbian press.
Abolition by April?
According to Al-Jazeera, Ashdown threatened to "take measures that
deal directly and powerfully with the assets and the institutions of
the Republika Srpska" if NATO rejects Bosnia's PfP membership again
in April. There is little more than Ashdown can do short of
abolishing the RS outright, and that may be exactly what he is
planning.
Notice, however, what is going on here: even if Karadzic and Mladic
were somehow seized before April, that doesn't mean NATO would
accept Bosnia's application. It can simply cite another excuse for
rejection, such as "inefficiency of government structures" or some
such, and provide the viceroy with a pretext he hopes for. Since
Ashdown has the unequivocal support of both Brussels and Washington,
odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the RS disappearing come April,
no matter what its leaders do.
President Cavic claims Ashdown does not have the authority to
abolish the Serb Republic. But every viceroy so far has done so, one
cut at a time, and the count is getting awful close to a thousand.
On paper, the RS is protected by the Dayton Peace Agreement and the
Constitution contained therein. In practice, the DPA is dead letter,
and there are no obstacles to its abolition. If the United States,
the world's first constitutional republic, could not preserve its
own Constitution from being trampled by Empire-seeking rulers, the
Bosnian Serbs are naïve if they believe their constitution – imposed
by the U.S. to begin with – is immune from such fate.
Unless Ashdown and the Empire are somehow stopped, next year may
well see the end of the Serb Republic, and with it, the Bosnian
peace.
=== 2 ===
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-12/18/content_2350502.htm
BELGRADE, Dec. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Dragan
Mikerevic resigned on Friday, one day after International High
Representative Paddy Ashdown fired nine officials to punish Bosnia's
Serb Republic for failing to arrest war crimes suspects.
"I am not ready to accept and implement threats and ultimatums
of the High Representative, " Mikerevic told a news conference,
adding that he decided to tender his resignation for the good of the
country and the Serbian people.
Meanwhile, Dragan Cavic, president of the mountainous Balkan
country, denounced Ashdown and US Ambassador Douglas McElhaney,
saying his country has been a scapegoat for them to cover their
incompetence in punishing the war crime suspects.
Ashdown, who has wide-ranging powers under the 1995 Dayton peace
accords, told a press conference on Thursday that he sacked the
officials due to the Bosnian Serbs' lack of cooperation with the UN
war crimes tribunal at The Hague.
"I have no other option but to act, as every week new evidence
of obstruction comes to light," he said.
It was his second such move this year after earlier sacking of
several senior Serb officials due to their refusal to cooperate with
the UN war crimes tribunal to pursue Bosnian Serb wartime leader
Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic.
The tribunal indicted both men for genocide and war crimes
nineyears ago.
At the press conference Thursday, McElhaney also announced the
US decision to freeze all the assets of the Bosnian Serb republic in
the United States, and to impose a unilateral visa ban against
Bosnian Serb officials.
=== 3 ===
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?
type=worldNews&storyID=640732
Bosnia foreign minister follows PM in resigning
Sat Dec 18, 2004
By Olga Lola Ninkovic
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - Bosnia's Foreign Minister Mladen
Ivanic has quit, saying his party will refuse to bow to
international pressure and enact police and defence reforms.
Ivanic's move on Saturday came as no surprise after Bosnian Serb
Prime Minister and party colleague Dragan Mikerevic resigned on
Friday to protest what they said were moves against the Serb
Republic's constitution by top peace overseer Paddy Ashdown.
"We do not want to take part in a process that would lead to
creation of Bosnia without the Serb Republic. This is an attack on
us and it is a direct consequence of our opposition to
unconstitutional changes," Ivanic told a news conference.
Ashdown fired nine Bosnian Serb officials on Thursday to punish the
Serb Republic for its failure to arrest war crimes fugitives, thus
blocking the Balkan country's admission in the NATO Partnership for
Peace (PfP) programme for non-members.
But analysts said the immediate reason for the resignations was a
U.S. travel ban imposed on the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP),
led by Ivanic and Mikerevic, simultaneously with Ashdown's measures.
The Serb half of Bosnia has not arrested a single war crimes
fugitive since the 1992-95 war ended.
The two most wanted men -- Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan
Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic -- are believed to be
sheltered by army elements in the Serb Republic and neighbouring
Serbia.
The central cabinet confirmed Ivanic's resignation but did not
comment.
Prime Minister Adnan Terzic told the Dnevni Avaz daily on Saturday
that he expected Ivanic to act after the travel ban, as "it is
certainly very difficult to perform duties of foreign minister if
you are banned from entering the United States."
Bosnian Serb President Dragan Cavic can reject Mikerevic's
resignation. If he accepts it, the constitution says the government
must resign and the president has 10 days to propose another prime
minister, who must be approved by parliament.
But analysts say the outgoing government could remain in a caretaker
capacity until a new government is formed, and that an early
election was unlikely.
In June, Ashdown used his wide-ranging powers as the international
community's High Representative to sack 60 Bosnian Serb officials
for failing to arrest Karadzic and Mladic.
The Serbs this week again refused to create a unified police force
that would put their separate police under state command together
with forces of the Muslim-Croat federation -- a defiant stand
Ashdown says is another piece of deliberate obstruction.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.