In late December 1991, Karadžić led the SDS and the Bosnian Serb Assembly in laying the foundations of a separate Bosnian Serb state. Guided by senior party officials, the assembly established a Council of Ministers on December 2, proclaimed the Republika Srpska (RS) on January 9, 1992, debated and promulgated a constitution on February 28, and – in a seemingly redundant gesture – declared the state to be independent on April 7. The assembly sessions in this period served as ceremonial public performances, replete with self-congratulatory speeches, pledges of loyalty, and rallying cries to mobilize Serb support for the new state. Despite demonstrably celebrating their many common goals, however, the Bosnian Serb nationalists were a diverse and fractious bunch who resisted the unity that Karadžić sought to impose on them. During 1992, as this chapter recounts, the willful Serbs of the Bosnian Krajina again raised the spectre of regional separatism, complicating the task of forming the new state and posing a threat to Karadžić’s leadership.

Mutiny in the ARK

As Karadžić moved to form a Serb state in Bosnia, SDS Serbs in the ARK raised a cry that the newly-proclaimed Bosnian Serb state would, like the Bosnian republic government, seek to dominate them from Sarajevo. Their objections were familiar. Shortly after the assembly voted on December 21 to “commence preparations for the establishment of the Republic of Serb Bosnia and Herzegovina as a federal unit within Yugoslavia,” Serb leaders in the Bosnian Krajina demanded autonomy within the Bosnian Serb state or equal status with it. The ARK Assembly, meeting in Banja Luka on January 8, approved a proposal entitled, “The Bosnian Krajina as a Constituent Part of the New Yugoslav Federation.” Delegates underlined their intent to circumvent Karadžić and his yet-to-be-proclaimed Serb polity by approving a five-member commission to “have talks with Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade about the position of the Serb people outside Serbia.”