Bosnian Security Minister Axed Over Violence

The House of Representatives, one of two chambers in Bosnia's parliament, dismissed Radoncic as Security Minister on the request of the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, which said he did not do all he could have done to prevent violence in protests in February.

In the February 7 unrest, several institutional buildings were set on fire in four towns, including cantonal and state-level institutions, such as the Bosnian Presidency and Archives.

Both Bosniak and Serbian parties backed the minister's dismissal. Bosnian Croat MPs and Radoncic's own party, the Alliance for a Better Future, SBB, voted against the move.

Radoncic said he was not to blame for the violence, as maintaining public peace and order lay in the jurisdiction of Bosnia's two entities and the cantons inside the Federation entity.

Radoncic said the Security Ministry lacked hard information on February 7 on what was happening in the streets.

“Unfortunately, the law says the police coordination directorate does not have an obligation to inform us,” Radondic said. “The Prime Minister and Federation Police Department do not have an obligation to inform us either, nor was I, as minister, allowed to ask what were they doing.”

He said the crisis over the escalation of the demonstrations was just one example of how police structures are not functioning together - and the issue of jurisdiction among the police agencies was not new, and had to be solved.

Radoncic said his dismissal had nothing to do with responsibility for the protests but was a matter of trade-off between the president of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Zlatko Lagumdzija and Milorad Dodik, president of the Alliance of Independence Social Democrats, SNSD.

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