Bosnian Serbs mark national day with show of force

Bosnia’s Serb entity on Sunday celebrated its 30th anniversary with a parade showcasing its police forces against the backdrop of new stirrings of secessionist ambition.

Around 800 members of the Republika Srpska (RS) police were among the 2,700 marchers -- who also included military veterans, aid workers and students -- with thousands of onlookers lining the capital Banja Luka's main artery.

"We formed  Republika Srpska because we know there is no freedom for the Serb people if they don't have their state," RS leader Milorad Dodic, the Serb member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, said at the event.

"The Republika Srpska is our state, whatever they say... Our goal is peace and the defence of our freedom."

Dodic last month set in motion plans to withdraw from Bosnia's central institutions including the army, the judiciary and the tax system.

The move earned fresh financial sanctions from the US on Wednesday, with Washington chiding Dodic for attempting to undermine the landmark peace deal that brought an end to Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Dodic, once a darling of the West who has since become pro-Russian, was accused by the US of carrying out "destabilising corrupt activities and attempts to dismantle the Dayton Peace Accords, motivated by his own self-interest".

Brian Nelson, under secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement that the moves "threaten the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entire region."

The 1995 peace deal effectively split Bosnia in two, with one half given to the ethnic Bosnian Serbs and the other to be ruled by a Muslim-Croat federation.

Sunday's celebrations mark 30 years since the Serbs' unilateral declaration of the RS, three months before the start of the siege of Sarajevo and the conflict that would claim some 100,000 lives.