BANJA LUKA (Bosnia) – Bosnian Serbs celebrated the independence of their Serb Republic with armed police force parades on Sunday. They defied a high court ban on commemoration as well as U.S. sanctions imposed this week against their leader Milorad Dodik.

Jan. 9, 1992, was the anniversary of Bosnian Serbs declaring independence. It triggered an uneasy war that saw 100,000 deaths. The holiday is also observed by the Serbian Orthodox Christian.

Bosnia’s Constitutional Court declared the holiday illegal because it discriminated against Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats in the area.

More than 800 police officers, some of them from anti-terrorist groups, marched with students, veterans, and other athletes along the streets of Banja Luka, the largest city in the area.

Onlookers, as well as those who were marching in the streets waved Serb blue, white and red flags. Special police officers sang songs about the Serb Republic being the state of Christian Heritage.

The Serb regiment from Bosnia’s mixed armed forces was not present. It had previously been at the parade previous years. Instead, the attention was drawn to the militarised police force which led the parade using specially-designed combat vehicle as the helicopters hovered overhead.

Dodik said, in an address to the audience, “There’s no freedom for Serb people without state.”

Dodik is a pro-Russian nationalist who has threatened repeatedly to remove the Serb representations from Bosnia’s Armed Forces, Tax System, and Judiciary and establish separate Serb institutions.

He was sanctioned last Wednesday by the United States, for corruption and threats to the stability and territorial integrity in Bosnia.

1995 saw the end of 3 1/2 years’ ethnic war in Bosnia. The U.S. brokered Dayton peace agreements, which divided the Balkan nation into two separate regions. These were the Federation dominated and ruled by Croats/Boshs.

Dodik’s rhetoric about secession in the last months encouraged Serb nationists, who have in recent days caused incidents across the Serb Republic by firing in the air near mosques during prayers and publicly applauding convicted war criminals while threatening their Muslim neighbors.