The Bosnian Serb Autonomous Regions
The crisis committees emerged from the Serbian autonomous regions (Srpske Autonomne Oblasti), Bosnian Serb municipal coalitions created chiefly by Serbian Democratic Party activists in 1991 and early 1992.[29] Local government in Bosnia, like elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia, was a highly organized affair with a mayor, municipal executive committee, legislative assembly, police chief, and local territorial defense coordinator. The municipal coalitions were founded in autumn 1991, when Bosnian Serb activists responded to the Croatian fighting by creating their own political structures. At the center of each of five autonomous regions was a large municipality, typically controlled by the Serbian Democratic Party, which was then joined by other nearby Serbmajority municipalities or by Bosnian Serbs living in Muslim-majority municipalities.[30] In Olovo, for example, a Muslim-majority municipality in central Bosnia, Bosnian Serb political activists declared in September
At first, Bosnian Serb leaders rejected separation from Yugoslavia, viewing the federation as sole effective guarantor of ethnic Serb security and rights. The Romanija autonomous region spokesman, for example, announced that the "Serbian people will never allow any separation from their homeland of Serbia."[33] Three other autonomous regions declared in October 1991 that they would not recognize laws made in Sarajevo, but would instead respect Yugoslav law.[34] In November 1991, the Serbian Democratic Party organized a plebiscite in which Bosnian Serb voters elected to stay in Yugoslavia.[35]
When Serbia began to disengage from Bosnia in early spring 1992, however, Bosnian Serb leaders shifted gears, pressing instead for an independent state alongside Bosnian Muslim and Croat entities.[36] According to Nenad Kecmanovic, a former Bosnian Serb politician, "Independence and the notion of a separate state came very late in the game. The first idea was simply to stay in Yugoslavia and to have recognized control over certain areas inside Bosnia."[37] When the European Community recognized Bosnian sovereignty on April 7, 1992, Serbian autonomous region leaders gathered to declare independence, calling their new state the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, later renamed Republika Srpska.[38]