Croatia's President gave a hint of attack to Bosnia

I wonder how many readers saw anything in western mainstream media related to informal statement of outgoing Croatian President Stjepan Mesic - published on 19.1.2010 - which he gave during informal meeting with journalists .

Here quote:

“If Milorad Dodik (head of Republica Srpska, AR) scheduled a referendum for secession of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and if I were the president…I would send the army,” and would ‘break the Bosnian Serb region in half’.

The Serbian half of Bosnia is split in two and connected by a narrow corridor that runs along the River Sava on the border with Croatia. Militarily cut off the corridor in Bosnia’s Posavina region would split Republika Srpska in two.

It is quite sensational that the president of country

• which joined Nato 2009 and
  
• is soon to be an EU member-state aims to attack neighbour country and
  
• split its province
  
• due that he does not like possible democratic referendum.
  

Sure Bosnia-Herzegovina is a quasi-state, an artificial creation of Dayton agreement, which has been administrated nearly 15 years by international community. However this kind of threads are not good for any “European perspective” (More Bosnia background e.g. in article “Bosnia Collapsing?” )

President Mesic has his office still nearly one month. Promising is that the new president – Ivo Josipovic – is not so warmongering saying in VoA interview following:

“Problems must always be solved through negotiations and with the agreement of all interested parties,”.

Hopefully Croatia's President-elected will bring more stability to Balkans and hopefully he can keep his peaceful position under pressure of Croatian Nazism. (more about Croatian elections in “Croatians voted for Change” )

Milorad Dodik said in a statement.

“This is a disturbing threat by a man who started his political career with a war and now wants to end it with a war ... It is a classic call to war and it is dramatic because Mesic is still president of Croatia and supreme commander of its army,” he added, calling on international community and political leaders in the region to condemn the threats “by the false peacemaker.”

Mr Dodik plans to hold a referendum on Bosnian Serbs’ support for Dayton, which he claims is under threat from western-backed efforts to strengthen Bosnia’s federal powers at the expense of its ethnic “entities”, Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The referendum will taken place earliest mid-February.