Recently initiated Banja Luka publication, Reporter , published an overview of the current situation in Republika Srpska by Ivan Djordjevic in its issue of July 3, 1997.
The simmering conict between RS president Biljana Plavsic and the hard core SDS leadership in Pale turned into an open war when she suspender police minister Dragan Kijac. After this, neither side can go back, and it will remain to be seen whether, Biljana Plavsic, who has been strengthened during the last few months, is able to resist somewhat weakened Momcilo Krajisnik and his party faithful.
The problem of the top Bosnian Serb policeman can only be seen as a cause. Kijac disbanded the intelligence unit of the anti-terrorist brigade in the Ministry, which was considered to be loyal to Ms. Plavsic, and among other, which has given her information and proof on the illegal operation of Centroteks and Selekt-impeks, the companies under direct control of the people from the top. Since she demanded from the government two months ago to investigate the legality of the operations of these companies, and then (the government), as usual, lost it somewhere, the President took pen and paper in her hand , and under the mark strictly confidential, sent the gathered documents to the public prosecutor in Bijeljina.
As Reporter found out from very reliable sources in the Bijeljina prosecution ofce, the delivered package includes the information that Centroteks and Selekt-impeks illegally gave large sums of money to institutions and individuals, among whom the most interesting are the State security of RS and former RS president Radovan Karadzic.
After this, a state of siege came bout in Pale, the guilty ones are found in the anti-terrorist unit, the elite part of the Serbian police force. At the same time, Krajisnik attempted to organize a meeting with Biljana Plavsic in Bijeljina, halfway between Pale and Banja Luka. The outcome of the meeting was clear to him as soon as he saw that the president is showing up escorted by the guys from the military police unit of the First Krajina Corps, and not by those from the Police force, who usually escort the Serbian policemen. Of course, there could be no word of a compromise, and the problem moved to the Parliament, where the President conrmed that she had sent the compromising material to the court, and then also explained why she mentions the rule of law as a condition for the survival of RS in all her speeches. Worst off in all this was minister Kijac, who was pressured by Krajisnik, who demanded that he uncovers who supplied the president with such an abundance of material and who is messing around in his ministry. As an experienced professional and a man who spent the whole war as the head of State security, before becoming the minister, Kijac, of course, knew all that. The rest was a matter of a method. But, president Plavsic did not accept this.
In the statement about his suspension, it is said that Kijac is suspended due to self-will and disregard of the position of the president of the Republic and the supreme commander of the armed forces, to which the Ministry of interior belongs to. Biljana Plavsic insisted that the top Serbian policeman brought a number of decisions without obligatory consultations with the RS President. It is specied that Kijac decided to close down the department for intelligence and counter-intelligence operations of the anti-terrorist police brigade in Banja Luka, that he executed changes at the top of that brigade and that he pensioned the police head in Mrkonjic Grad. All these decisions of the police minister were made null and void. She ordered the commander of the police brigade for anti-terrorist activity, Dragan Lukac, not to engage the Sixth unit of the police brigade for anti-terrorist activity outside the Banja Luka region without her permission until further notice.
The RS government immediately recalled all the ministers from their weekend leaves, and with 14 of them which it was able to grab hold of, it nullied the suspension decision. From then on, the crisis turned into a snowball that is yet to stop rolling.
Source: Banja Luka weekly Reporter, July 3, 1997
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