Europe at Home and Abroad
Re-Repairing Bosnia
Morton Abramowitz and James Hooper
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Bosnia’s future is becoming increasingly uncertain. An ethnic veto has long made the central government ineffective, and, most recently, Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Serb-controlled entity, Republika Srpska, has responded to efforts at reform with a threat to hold a referendum on independence.
Many consider secession unlikely, but Dodik’s threat does heighten fear that today’s fragile status quo could break down. While nobody expects the mass violence of the 1990’s to recur, that does not justify diplomatic indifference and inaction.
The Dayton Accords of 1995 ended Serb-instigated ethnic cleansing and established peace in Bosnia. But that agreement did not create a functional Bosnian central government with the capacity to undertake the reforms needed to meet the terms of accession to the European Union.
To appease Bosnian Serbs led by Slobodan Milosevic (who died while on trial for war crimes), Radovan Karadzic (who remains on trial for war crimes) and Ratko Mladic (who was indicted for war crimes and is still on the run in Serbia), the West accepted the territorial division of Bosnia at the war’s end. This acceptance was manifested in a constitutional structure that gave the Bosnian Serb region quasi-independence and the power to obstruct the emergence of an effective central government in Sarajevo.
The EU, having helped rescue Bosnia from its past by mortgaging its future, seems in no hurry to change the country’s purgatory-like status. European leaders have allowed their most useful tool for preserving the peace and leveraging change – the once-respected office of the High Representative – to be diminished to the point that many Bosnian officials treat the incumbent with disdain. But it should be recognized that, in post-Cold War Europe, it has proven highly dangerous to allow disrespect for European purpose and resolve to take root.
If the Bosnians lack the capability to modify the iron corset bequeathed to them at Dayton, the EU remains indifferent, and the United States is preoccupied with the Middle East, South Asia, and China, what lies ahead? Leaving Bosnians to explore the options that befall a failed state (with a Muslim plurality) – located within Europe but on the margins of its prosperity, unity, and relative social cohesion – is to acknowledge policy bankruptcy and let others roll the dice on ways to end the current stalemate.
Some in Europe assert that over time the parties may eventually see the benefits of greater cooperation, that dissolution will not occur, or that, if it does, it will likely be relatively tranquil. Such assumptions do not inspire confidence. Violence has been the traditional agent of change in the Balkans, and the level of frustration in Bosnia is growing.
Faute de mieux , the Americans have allowed the burden of dealing with these issues and sorting out the unfinished business of Dayton to fall to the EU. Indeed, it is past time for the EU to take the diplomatic lead in fixing what Dayton left undone. While the new EU’s governance structure seems, at least on paper, to lend itself to more robust efforts in the Balkans, diplomatic habits die hard, and the Union will need to overcome its continuing legacy of relying on carrots without sticks to deal with knotty Balkan problems.
Regardless of the EU’s unhappy diplomatic past in the Balkans, the most practical way forward is to seek political reform in Bosnia rather than hoping for the US to resume its leadership role. Any EU effort should be based on the following reinforcing elements:
· A conference of the three Bosnian parties this spring to fix the Dayton agreement by strengthening the central government sufficiently to enable Bosnians to fulfill the requirements of the EU accession process while maintaining the existing entities. This gathering should include both the US and Serbian governments as active observers. European and US leaders would have to convey to the Bosnians and others that failure is not an option and convince them of the EU’s bottom-line unwillingness to accept opposition from those in Bosnia who impede the EU accession process.
· Since Serbia is essential to the continued existence of Republika Srpska, pressure must be brought to bear on its government, which seeks EU membership, to make clear to obstructionist Bosnian Serb leaders that they cannot hold a referendum on independence, and that they must accept enhanced central-government powers.
· Support for civil-society groups and democratic parties prior to elections throughout Bosnia this October. The EU and the US should underscore the need for political change and for candidates who support EU accession as indispensable to Bosnia’s economic and political progress.
The alternative – tinkering with reform while hoping that time, EU money, and a watchful eye will move the three Bosnian communities toward political harmony – is not prudent policy.
Morton Abramowitz is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and a former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. James Hooper is a managing director of The Public International Law and Policy Group.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.
www.project-syndicate.org
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belgradetokyo 04:13 12 Mar 10
If the E.U. is serious about helping achieve long term peace and stability in the former Yugoslavia, supporting a referendum and its results in Republika Srpska and the norhtern Mitrovica region of Kosovo is the only solution. The international conferences industry on Bosnia is past its used by date, and another one will only highlight the differences and possibly inflame tensions further. Real solutions for real problems, stop the talkfest.
hasanr 08:42 12 Mar 10
The above mummified comments show that Serbia has not changed her mythological expansionistic policy belonging to Milosevic's time. The article shrewdly points to the main problems to be resolved for the sake of the peace in the Balkans. Serbia, as the most unstabilizing factor in the Balkans must be brought to her senses, not appease.
Multiethnic Bosnian
miki111 04:47 13 Mar 10
To hasanr:
Your comment is usual bias stereotype story. Serbian expansionism!? When bosnian muslims want unified Bosnia, that too is expansionism, just as the creation of Greater Albania in Kosovo. Or perhpaps the principles you argue are viable for everyone except for Serbs, just because they are Serbs...
hasanr 05:27 13 Mar 10
To Miki instead instead of hasanr by Ed Vulliamy:
Author: Ed Vulliamy
Uploaded: Wednesday, 10 March, 2010
Outraged response to the recent arrest in London of one of Bosnia's wartime leaders by a journalist who covered the war in B-H for The Guardian and was (with Penny Marshall of ITN) responsible for revealing to the outside world the existence of concentration camps in areas occupied by Karadžic's forces
On the very day we have to listen to Radovan Karadžic - who rightly regarded the British government as a friend during the years 1992-95 - deliver his demented justification for the worst mass murder in Europe since the Nazis, the British decide to apprehend one of the leaders of the resistance to Karadžic, for delivery to Belgrade, where Karadžic himself was protected for 13 years, on the run from an international indictment.
Our primary and urgent concern must be for Mr Ganic, who has been arrested and is now detained without bail in Britain on the basis of a spurious indictment drawn up by the authorities in Belgrade, even now unable to shake off their ultra-nationalist psychosis and begin to reckon with their own vile history. Also for Mr Ganic's liberty and rights under rational - not politically didactic and contrived - law.
Our second concern should be with what this development tells us about the deluded view of Serbia as some kind of legitimate member of the international community worthy of admission to the European Union. This is still the country which shields and protects the indicted mass-murderer Ratko Mladic - as a national treasure and hero - while demanding Ejup Ganic!? One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry; what one does know, however, is that this is the same old rabid, deranged Serbia, to which the diplomats have wittingly blinkered themselves, just as they did during the war, and which Britain seems determined to appease. I am now waiting for Belgrade to start bleating that its ‘indictment’ of Mr Ganic is in some way measurable alongside those against Messrs Karadžic and Mladic. One cannot help wondering if these people are crazy, or just pretending to be crazy.
Our third concern must be with what this latest waltz between London and Belgrade - and it is hardly the first - does to undermine the cause of universal justice. Many people in the community of normal democratic nations are trying to establish the atmosphere in which known war criminals can be arrested in countries other than their own.
Britain, along with France, did more than any other country between 1992 and 1995 to appease the Serbian genocide machine - and to encourage it by making sure that for three long, bloody years it was un-harassed by the West during the pogrom designed to obliterate Bosnia's Muslims. Now, nearly two decades later, London still continues to pander to Belgrade, this time by arresting Mr Ganic at its behest. It is grotesque, it is politically and morally repugnant, and it undermines the cause of international justice.
miki111 06:07 13 Mar 10
Really Hasanr, couldnt you answer my comment with your own words, instead of hiding behind a propaganda article...
Where was universal justice in case of Naser Oric, Kravice etc?
However you try to spin this the fact remains: it is Bosnian Muslims, along with their Croat allies that started the war. Unlike Serbs, they had a genocidal plan to expell all infidels from Bosnia: it is called "Islamic declaration".
hasanr 10:47 13 Mar 10
Miki must be listening Karadcic's psychotic presentation of the "facts".
The lie is an aspect of our patriotism and confirmation of our congenital engineering.We lie creatively, imaginatively and inventively - said Dobrica Cosis, spiritual leader of Serb people in Borba daily newspaper 1993.
Return to the text and see what the author proposes to stop Serbia's mythologica lies about territories and wars. People, both Serbs, Muslims, Croats and all others living on this territory want peace and progress (konju jedan) and to get out from this poverty being forced into by politicians on all sides.
miki111 12:51 15 Mar 10
To Hasanr,
You keep on believing in your government's propaganda. Republika Srpska will be independent, sooner or later, and there's nothing you, or any of your allies can do about it. As soon as you realize that, it will be better for everyone. Bosnian muslims know that very well, but they can't admit that to themselves. Accept the reality and move on! (debilu).
hasanr 01:07 15 Mar 10
To Miki: You can only dream about it.
miki111 04:47 15 Mar 10
To Hasanr:
Right now, Bosnia as a single country relies exclusively on American military muscle. The day U.S. decides to leave Bosnia, will be the day Republika Srpska gains its independence. Last 15 years showed that Bosnia cannot survive without them, it's just not viable for independent existence. Accept the reality, YOU LOST THE WAR, just as we did in Croatia and Kosovo. Republika Srpska is lost for Bosnia...
It would be far better for you to drop this subject and think more about the future, how to rebuild infrastructure, or how to punish your war criminals, or how to prosecute islamic terrorists for whom Bosnia represents a European base. You should also take R.Srpska as a good example of economic development, instead of bitching and whining about alleged injustices. And Americans WILL leave Bosnia, as soon as they realize that Bosnian muslim politicians are just a bunch of pan-islamic fanatics.
miki111 03:28 11 Mar 10
Just like in case of Kosovo, it is time for Mr Abramowitz to accept reality: 95% of Serbs in Republika Srpska want to secede from Bosnia. No political acrobation can change that. Blaming Dodik for the situation in Bosnia isn't going to help Bosniaks. Is it Dodik's fault that 25% percent of Muslims are practicing fundamentalist Vahabi islam? Is it Mr Dodik's fault that Sarajevo authorities didn't build Sarajevo-Mostar highway? Is it Dodik's fault that Croats and Muslims in Mostar are in the pre-war state of mind? Is it Dodik's fault that Muslim-croat part of Bosnia is economically poorer than Republika Srpska? Why is Mr Abramowitz insisting that Serbs are to blame for the war, when in fact Islamic declaration, document signed by Alija Izetbegovic clearly states that "infidels" have no place in Muslim Bosnia? Not to mention Warren Zimmerman's direct instruction to Izetbegovic to torpedo Cutillero's plan. And the fact that first shots in the war were fired in downtown Sarajevo by Muslims killing people on the Serbian wedding. Muslims want to dominate Bosnia, plane and simple, and by helping them, U.S. is working against its own interests by creating "White Al Qaeda" safe haven in the heart of Europe.
It seems that blaming Serbs for everything is an easy answer which gives excuses to western powers to deny them their basic right to self-determination. Otherwise, how come that Mr Abramowitz supports independent Kosovo, while in the same time wants unified, muslim-dominated Bosnia? What principle is that!? The principle that Serbs have to be contained and humiliated...