http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/world/europe/bosnian-serb-republic.html 2016-09-21 22:30:27 Feud Over a Holiday Threatens Fragile Peace in Bosnia A move by Bosnian Serbs to defy the country’s constitutional court in a disagreement over a Serbian holiday could be a pretext for an independence declaration, some observers fear. === Bosnia and Herzegovina On Sunday, the government of the Bosnian Serbs will defy the country’s constitutional court, the United States and the Observers fear the vote could be a prelude and pretext for the Bosnian Serb Republic, one of Bosnia’s two constituent entities, to declare its independence, effectively ripping apart the Dayton peace agreement. This week, representatives from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Turkey and the United States — who sit on a body that oversees implementation of the Dayton accord — “This referendum opens a Pandora’s box in Bosnia and in all of the Balkans,” said Outlining a worst-case scenario, Mr. Latal warned that the Bosnian Muslims “could take up arms and defend the country as they did in 1992,” while adding: “There is little appetite for war.” Adding to the tensions, Sefer Halilovic, a wartime commander of Muslim forces in Bosnia, said that if the vote went ahead, the Bosnian Serb Republic “would disappear.” Neighboring With the United States distracted by its presidential election and the European Union grappling with existential problems, Mr. Latal warned that the West had “dropped the ball on Bosnia,” leaving a vacuum to be filled by Russia, whose ambassador to Bosnia has defended the In a gesture that seemed aimed at solidifying Bosnia’s ties to the West, European Union member nations on Tuesday The The country is plagued by corruption, an unemployment rate of about 27 percent, and the departures of 80,000 people, many of them young and educated, who have left over the past two years. Some 400 EU-led peacekeepers help maintain calm, but that force could be expanded if hostilities break out. Petr Pavel But there are fears that any instability could spill over into a region where the prospect of European Union membership has seemed increasingly elusive. In Serbia, impatience is rising over the slow process of joining the European Union, and the country’s economy is shaky. Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, is grappling with weak institutions, graft and the threat of Even as the region struggles with corruption and ineffective administration, the European Union is facing a backlash from voters in countries like France, the Netherlands and elsewhere who are angry about the handling of the refugee crisis, and leery of expanding the 28-nation bloc. “The E.U,” said But Mr. Latal, the analyst in Sarajevo, said the West could not afford to ignore Bosnia. “The West has forgot the hard lessons of the past, that Bosnia can dangerously destabilize the region,” he said. “The risk is that they make the same mistake they made in early 1990s, where they were unable to prevent breakup of the former Yugoslavia and war.”