LOCAL PRESS
Mihajlovic expects Ivanovic and Delibasic to be released (RTS)
The Head of the Office for Media Relations Milivoje Mihajlovic has assessed that certain progress has been achieved in calming the situation in Kosovo and Metohija and expects that Oliver Ivanovic and Dragoljub Delibasic will be released pending trial. Mihajlovic told the morning broadcast of Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) that the dominant assessments in the reports of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UNMIK Head Farid Zarif at the UN Security Council session on the situation in Kosovo is that certain progress had been achieved. Outgoing Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic has assessed that progress had been achieved, but pointed also to the obstacles to the peace process that appear primarily in the activities of the Kosovo authorities, said Mihajlovic, adding that the reports that are examined at SC sessions are useful as they warn all actors of the events in Kosovo. Mihajlovic says he expects Ivanovic and Delibasic to be released pending trial, because Serbia guarantees that they will always be available to EULEX during the entire trial. The Serbian Government wishes to contribute to stabilization of state-of-affairs in northern Kosovo, primarily when it comes to Ivanovic, who is one of the mayoral candidates for northern Mitrovica, said Mihajlovic. “We consider that the Pristina authorities, i.e. EULEX, significantly influenced the implementation of the Brussels agreement by arresting Ivanovic, primarily in northern Kosovo and the government thinks that his defense while freed is a contribution towards stabilizing the situation and conducting elections on 23 February in an atmosphere of regularity,” said Mihajlovic. He assesses that the Serbs in four municipalities in northern Kosovo have demonstrated high awareness with the formation of the leadership, which is one more step in implementing the Brussels agreement. He announced the constituting of the Union of Serb Municipalities, which is the stumbling block, because Pristina is trying to postpone, prevent and disavow this because it is “the most serious attainment of the Brussels agreement and an embryo of Serb power” when it comes to political influence in Kosovo and Metohija. Mihajlovic announced that the Union of Serb Municipalities will be assisted by the Serbian Government, the EU and international community, which thus recognizes the political influence and strength of the Serbs in Kosovo. Mihajlovic assessed that Pandora’s Box has opened in B&H, that at issue is a socially motivated insurgence, but that there are also attempts to turn this protest towards politics and changing at internationally verified system in B&H. “Those who have launched this can’t stop it now and the most important thing is to preserve peace in B&H, since this a threat to peace in the entire region,” said Mihajlovic. He assessed that the entire Balkans has this social bomb that represents a big threat and the international community must help the region to pull out of the social problems.
Leadership elected in four municipalities in northern Kosovo (Tanjug/Novosti)
The heads of the municipal councils in all four municipalities in northern Kosovo were elected on Monday. Ksenija Bozovic from the SDP Civic Initiative was elected in northern Kosovska Mitrovica, Nemanja Jaksic from the Serbian (Srpska) Civic Initiative was elected in Zubin Potok, Zoran Todic from the Serbian (Srpska) Civic Initiative was elected in Leposavic and Darko Radovanovic from the SDP Civic Initiative was elected in Zvecan. The meeting in Kosovska Mitrovica was finished a little before midnight and was closed to the public, even though the law does not state that it should be so. “I hope future meetings will not be held this way and that they will be open to the public, because there is no reason to hide anything,” Bozovic told reporters after the meeting. She took up office after four hours of consultations, while the meeting was observed by officials of the Kosovo Ministry of Administration and Local Government, OSCE and EU Office in Kosovo. We know these are huge tasks and we hope that we will also start doing something for the benefit of the people of Kosovska Mitrovica, Bozovic noted. She appealed to the authorities in Kosovo to release the SDP leader Oliver Ivanovic pending his trial. The meeting in Kosovska Mitrovica was attended by all the members of the local council, including Albanian and Bosniak representatives. “We were very constructive, in order to reach the final solution and form the municipal council of north Kosovska Mitrovica. That happened and we demanded that the political entities from the Serb community reach an agreement among themselves, because their mutual agreement is the most important,” Bosniak councilor Nedzad Ugljanin said. Ugljanin congratulated Bozovic on the election and added he hoped all members of the council would help improve the life of the people of Kosovska Mitrovica, regardless of their ethnicity.
“Jackals” sentenced to a total of 106 years in prison (Tanjug)
The Special Department of the High Court for war crimes convicted today nine members of the paramilitary formation “Jackals” for crimes against Albanian civilians during the conflict in Kosovo and Metohija in 1999. Judge Snjezana Nikolic Garotic has announced that the convicted are guilty of the murders of more than 120 civilians in the villages of Cuska, Zahac, Pavlan and Ljubenic. The youngest victim was 19 years old and the oldest was 87 years old. The first indicted Toplica Miladinovic was sentenced to 20 years, Srecko Popovic was sentenced to 10 years, Slavisa Kastratovic was sentenced to two years, Boban Bogicevic was sentenced to two years, Abdulah Sokic was sentenced to 12 years, Milojko Nikolic was sentenced to 20 years, Ranko Momic was sentenced to 15 years, Sinisa Misic was sentenced to five years and Dejan Bulatovic was sentenced to 20 years. Radoslav Brnovic and Veljko Koricanin were acquitted. Nine of the indicted were sentenced to a total of 106 years in prison.
NDS forms boards in Kosovo (Tanjug)
The New Democratic Party (in establishing) has formed initiative boards in all regions in Kosovo and Metohija that are inhabited by Serbs. This party has stated that it will advocate protection of interests of the Serb community in this territory and creation of conditions for establishing inter-ethnic trust, reconciliation and co-existence of Serbs and Albanians. The written statement by the former minister for Kosovo and Metohija Goran Bogdanovic says that certain municipal boards in the southern Serbian province had left the Democratic Party over disagreement with this party’s political leadership, because of which they transferred to the New Democratic Party. “The municipal boards in Leposavic, Klina, Obilic, Lipljan collectively left the Democratic Party, as well as the greater part of the board in Gnjilane, and transferred to Boris Tadic’s New Democratic Party,” wrote Bogdanovic. He said that the member of the DS main board and presidency Branko Ninic and members of the main board Goran Dancetovic and Milivoje Ribac, as well as the DS commissioner of the municipal board for Kosovska Mitrovica Ivica Mirkovic have also left DS. They all transferred to the New Democratic Party, said Bogdanovic in a written statement.
SDA decides to take part in Serbian parliamentary elections (Tanjug)
The Party for Democratic Action (SDA), which gathers Albanians from southern Serbia, has decided to take part in the early parliamentary elections scheduled for 16 March. The Chair of the SDA Bujanovac municipal committee Saip Kamberi confirmed for Tanjug that the SDA wishes to test its strength in the elections and hopes to win at least one MP seat. Other Albanian political parties from southern Serbia decided to boycott the early elections. Kamberi recalled at that time that the principled stand of the SDA, headed by Riza Haljimi since 2007, is that Albanians from the Presevo Valley should try and win their rights through the institutions of the system.
REGIONAL PRESS
Niksic: My resignation would lead to system paralysis in B&H Federation (FTV)
The B&H Federation Prime Minister Nermin Niksic reiterated that his resignation would lead to a paralysis of the system in the Federation. Niksic said he respects the right of citizens to protest and make legitimate demands for the resignation of prime ministers and ministers, cantonal governments, and assemblies. He recalled that the Federal government is already in a technical mandate and will respect the procedures of election of a new government. “At the moment when, in accordance with the Constitution and law, people appear who have legitimacy and can continue to take on functions in the Federation, we are prepared to leave our positions,” Niksic told FTV. The Federal Prime Minister said that B&H institutions cannot be stable when the Federation isn’t, a place where normal functioning is threatened, and he sought to ease tensions and discuss the system’s institutions. Niksic believes that exit from the present situation is in implementing early elections and he will put into procedure a change of the law, stressing that government can only change with a change to the parliamentary majority or elections. He added that, if changes to the electoral law do not receive the necessary parliamentary majority, he would seek from the High Representative Valentin Inzko that the law be enforced. “I think that elections are crucial at present and everyone who would obstruct the making of this law at the moment is in favor of chaos and disorder. It isn’t normal for the street to determine who will be in government,” said Niksic. He said that there is a political background to the demonstrations, adding that according to some information, apparently some are playing, directing, and ordering what the demonstrators are doing. “Who stands behind this will be discovered by intelligence agencies. I don’t want to speculate, but significant progress has been made in this respect and the code names are known of people who, via telephone, are giving the orders and directing all this,” said Niksic.
Davutoglu to arrive in Sarajevo tonight (Fena)
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will arrive tonight in Sarajevo, Fena was confirmed by sources in the B&H institutions. According to the schedule, the Turkish Foreign Minister should meet tomorrow with members of the B&H Presidency, his B&H colleague Zlatko Lagumdzija, the High Representative Valentin Inzko, and reis-l-ulem of the Islamic Community in B&H Husein ef.Kavazovic.
Greek foreign minister is right – name issue should be solved where it was opened (Vecer)
The name issue should be solved where it was opened – within the UN, Vecer quoted Macedonian diplomat Risto Nikoski as having said. According to Nikoski, for the first time Greek Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos is right, as he said a couple of days ago that the name issue is not a bilateral problem but an international one. The Macedonian diplomat commented further that the visit of Christian Danielson, Director General for Enlargement at the European Commission, showed that there were no problems in Brussels in terms of Macedonia’s European integration.
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
9 Serbs jailed for Kosovo massacre (AP, 11 February 2014)
BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia’s war crimes court has found nine former Serb paramilitaries guilty for the killings of over 100 ethnic Albanian civilians during the Kosovo war. They were sentenced Tuesday to between two and 20 years in prison.
The crime by the “Jackals” paramilitary group includes the massacre of 41 people in the Kosovo village of Cuska where Serbs rounded up villagers, robbed them, separated women and children from men, locked the men in a house and set it on fire.
The crime in Cuska was one of the most brutal of the 1998-99 conflict that killed 10,000 people after independence-seeking Kosovo Albanians rebelled against Serbian rule.
War crimes trials in Serbia are part of efforts by authorities to deal with the wartime past as the state seeks EU membership.
Elections Won’t Slow EU Talks, Serbian Leader Says (BIRN, by Marija Ristic, 11 February 2014)
Upcoming general elections this spring will not retard Serbia’s membership negotiations with the European Union, the Deputy Prime Minister said.
Aleksandar Vucic, Vice President of the government, said looming general elections and will not delay Serbia’s European Union membership negotiations, and parliament will rapidly adopt laws related to the ongoing integration process as soon as the election is over.
“Our goal is to conclude the process of negotiations by 2018 or 2019, so that the EU can then decide about [Serbia’s] membership,” Vucic said after the meeting European parliamentarian Hannes Swoboda.
President Tomislav Nikolic last month set elections for March 16 after Vucic’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party decided that fresh polls would consolidate its hold on power.
The Progressives current govern in coalition with the Socialists, – but some polls suggest they could win an outright majority of seats in the March election.
The minister for EU integration, Branko Ruzic, also said that the elections will not affect EU integration, adding that March is the “least bad moment” to hold them.
“There will be some changes in government after the elections, as some state secretaries in charge of some [EU] chapters will be replaced, but this will not affect the negotiations,” Ruzic said.
However, the opposition Democratic Party maintains that the elections will slow down an already dilatory negotiation process.
“Internal conflicts in domestic politics will further slow the reforms that the EU seeks,” Natasa Vuckovic, head of parliament’s committee for EU integration, a Democrat, said.
Serbia held its first intergovernmental conference with the EU on January 21, marking the formal start of accession talks.
However, Serbia has yet to form a team in charge of EU integration. So far, it has only appointed the head of the team, a former minister, Tanja Miscevic.
Besides establishing a negotiating team, a number of laws that form part of the EU agenda will also have to wait for a new parliament and government before they can be adopted.
The next intergovernmental conference between the EU and Serbia is scheduled for June 25.
Bosnian protesters demand politicians resign, want new govt of experts to tackle unemployment (AP, by Aida Cerkez, 10 February 2014)
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina – Thousands protested in a dozen Bosnian cities Monday to demand that politicians be replaced by non-partisan experts who can better address the nearly 40 per cent unemployment and rampant corruption.
It was the sixth day of the worst unrest the Balkan country has seen since the end of the 1991-95 Bosnian war, which killed 100,000.
“My father, mother and brother are unemployed,” said Meliha, a 34-year-old former art professor who earns 7 euros ($9.55) a day waiting tables. She refused to give her last name fearing she would lose that job as well. “I’ve had enough!”
Two elderly people held a banner noting that one politician’s monthly salary equals four years of the average pension payment.
Protesters say overpaid politicians are obsessed with inter-ethnic bickering.
“They are living in a different world, completely disconnected from the people,” said Anes Podic, a computer engineer without a steady job.
Protesters have gathered daily by the presidency in Sarajevo, the capital, and in a dozen other cities. They set the presidency and other government buildings ablaze on Friday, with graffiti on one reading: “He who sows hunger, reaps anger.”
Local governments in five cities, including Sarajevo, have resigned long before October general elections.
The peace deal that ended the war created a complex political system in which more than 150 ministries govern Bosnia’s 4 million people. Corruption is widespread and high taxes eat away at paychecks. One in five Bosnian lives below the poverty line.
Svjetlana Nedimovic, an unemployed political scientist, accused the European Union — whose 28 foreign ministers were discussing Bosnia on Monday — of turning its back on her country even as it supports protesters in Ukraine.
“We tried elections, peaceful protests — nothing worked,” said Nedimovic, 40. “All those who were teaching us democracy are now bailing out.”
In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged the authorities to guarantee the right to peaceful protests and to act on the people’s demands
Bosnians ratchet up demands on sixth day of protests (Reuters, by Maja Zuvela, 10 February 2014)
Thousands of Bosnian protesters called for the resignation of their regional government on Monday, ratcheting up demands on the sixth straight day of demonstrations over unemployment, corruption and political paralysis.
The protests were peaceful, following last week’s violent unrest, the worst since Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.
The turbulence has plunged the Balkan country into crisis, exposing deep social discontent over the dire state of the economy and the shortcomings of an unwieldy system of ethnic power-sharing that has kept the peace since 1995.
In the capital, Sarajevo, and other towns, protesters called for the resignation of the government in Bosnia’s Federation, one of two autonomous republics and comprising mainly Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.
Anger is high over the perceived corruption and aloofness of elected leaders in the country of 3.8 million people.
Demonstrators also repeated earlier demands for governments in several of the Federation’s 10 cantons to step down. Four canton heads have already quit.
In Sarajevo, several hundred protesters carried banners that read, “You have been stealing from us for 20 years and now it is over”, and “The courts and police are protecting the authorities”. Several thousand more turned out in other towns.
“If we need to have a war, let it be,” said Fehim Lovic, 58, a disabled war veteran who said he supports his three children on a monthly welfare payment of 50 Bosnian marka (25 euros).
“I’m ready to clean the streets without a single penny for two years if this is the price I have to pay for a new and better state,” he said.
Last week rioters set fire to government buildings in Bosnia’s four biggest cities – Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica and Mostar – after protests over factory closures in the former industrial hub of Tuzla exploded in violence.
Bosnia’s economic woes have been compounded by a highly-decentralized system of power-sharing that has scared away foreign investors and frequently paralyses government. Around 27 percent of the workforce is jobless, though the figure reaches 45 percent if those working in the informal economy are counted.
The turmoil saw Bosnia barge its way onto the agenda of talks between the EU’s 28 foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. It has provoked renewed calls for reform of the power-sharing system set up under the 1995 Dayton peace accord.
“What happened in Bosnia is a wake-up call,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters.
“We need to focus more efforts on helping Bosnia towards the EU, towards NATO membership, so that the stagnation in Bosnian politics and government can come to an end, and I think it’s probably going to become a more important issue over the coming months.”
The protesters say they want non-partisan technocrat governments, reflecting the loss of trust in a political elite that for years has played up ethnic divisions and protected vast networks of political patronage.
The Federation government on Monday called for an early election, but Serb and Croat leaders were unlikely to agree. Presidential and parliamentary elections at the state level are due in October.
Anger in Bosnia, But This Time the People Can Read Their Leaders’ Ethnic Lies (The Guardian, by Slavoj Žižek, 10 February 2014)
Protesters were carrying three flags side by side – Bosnian, Serb and Croat, brought together by a radical demand for justice
The protesters’ despair is authentic. One is tempted to paraphrase Mao Zedong: there is chaos in Bosnia, the situation is excellent!’ (Photograph: Sulejman Omerbasic/Corbis)Last week, cities were burning in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It all began in Tuzla, a city with a Muslim majority. The protests then spread to the capital, Sarajevo, and Zenica, but also Mostar, home to a large segment of the Croat population, and Banja Luka, capital of the Serb part of Bosnia. Thousands of enraged protesters occupied and set fire to government buildings. Although the situation then calmed down, an atmosphere of high tension still hangs in the air.
The events gave rise to conspiracy theories (for example, that the Serb government had organised the protests to topple the Bosnian leadership), but one should safely ignore them since it is clear that, whatever lurks behind, the protesters’ despair is authentic. One is tempted to paraphrase Mao Zedong’s famous phrase here: there is chaos in Bosnia, the situation is excellent!
“What Max Horkheimer said about fascism and capitalism back in the 1930s (that those who do not want to talk critically about capitalism should also keep quiet about fascism) should be applied to today’s fundamentalism: those who do not want to talk critically about liberal democracy should also keep quiet about religious fundamentalism.”
Why? Because the protesters’ demands were as simple as they can be – jobs, a chance of decent life, an end to corruption – but they mobilised people in Bosnia, a country which, in the last decades, has become synonymous with ferocious ethnic cleansing.
Before now, the only mass protests in Bosnia and other post-Yugoslav states were about ethnic or religious passions. In the middle of 2013, two public protests were organised in Croatia, a country in deep economic crisis, with high unemployment and a deep sense of despair: trade unions tried to organise a rally in support of workers’ rights, while rightwing nationalists started a protest movement against the use of cyrillic letters on public buildings in cities with a Serb minority. The first initiative brought a couple of hundred people to a square in Zagreb; the second mobilised hundreds of thousands, as had an earlier fundamentalist movement against gay marriages.
Croatia is far from being an exception: from the Balkans to Scandinavia, from the US to Israel, from central Africa to India, a new Dark Age is looming, with ethnic and religious passions exploding and Enlightenment values receding. These passions were lurking in the background all the time, but what is new is the outright shamelessness of their display.
So what are we to do? Mainstream liberals are telling us that when basic democratic values are under threat by ethnic or religious fundamentalists, we must all unite behind the liberal-democratic agenda of cultural tolerance, save what can be saved and put aside dreams of a more radical social transformation. Our task, we are told, is clear: we must choose between liberal freedom and fundamentalist oppression.
However, when we are triumphantly asked a (purely rhetorical) question such as “Do you want women to be excluded from public life?” or “Do you want every critic of religion to be punished by death?”, what should make us suspicious is the very self-evidence of the answer. The problem is that such a simplistic liberal universalism long ago lost its innocence. The conflict between liberal permissiveness and fundamentalism is ultimately a false conflict – a vicious cycle of the two poles generating and presupposing each other.
What Max Horkheimer said about fascism and capitalism back in the 1930s (that those who do not want to talk critically about capitalism should also keep quiet about fascism) should be applied to today’s fundamentalism: those who do not want to talk critically about liberal democracy should also keep quiet about religious fundamentalism.
Reacting to the characterisation of Marxism as “the Islam of the 20th century”, Jean-Pierre Taguieff wrote that Islam was turning out to be “the Marxism of the 21st century” prolonging, after the decline of Communism, its violent anti-capitalism.
However, the recent vicissitudes of Muslim fundamentalism can be said to confirm Walter Benjamin’s old insight that “every rise of fascism bears witness to a failed revolution”. The rise of fascism is, in other words, both the left’s failure, and simultaneously proof that there was a revolutionary potential, a dissatisfaction, which the left was not able to mobilise. And does the same not hold for today’s so-called “Islamo-fascism”? Is the rise of radical Islamism not exactly correlative to the disappearance of the secular left in Muslim countries?
When Afghanistan is portrayed as the utmost Islamic fundamentalist country, who still remembers that 40 years ago it was a country with strong secular tradition, including a powerful Communist party which took power there independently of the Soviet Union?
It is against this background that one should understand the latest events in Bosnia. In one of the photos from the protests, we see the demonstrators waving three flags side by side: Bosnian, Serb, Croat, expressing the will to ignore ethnic differences. In short, we are dealing with a rebellion against nationalist elites: the people of Bosnia have finally understood who their true enemy is: not other ethnic groups, but their own leaders who pretend to protect them from others. It is as if the old and much-abused Titoist motto of the “brotherhood and unity” of Yugoslav nations acquired new actuality.
One of the protesters’ targets was the EU administration which oversees the Bosnian state, enforcing peace between the three nations and providing significant financial help to enable the state to function. This may seem surprising, since the goals of the protesters are nominally the same as the goals of Brussels: prosperity and the end of both ethnic tensions and corruption. However, the way the EU effectively governs Bosnia entrenches partitions: it deals with nationalist elites as their privileged partners, mediating within them.
What the Bosnian outburst confirms is that one cannot genuinely overcome ethnic passions by imposing a liberal agenda: what brought the protesters together is a radical demand for justice. The next and most difficult step would have been to organise the protests into a new social movement that ignores ethnic divisions, and to organise further protests – can one imagine a scene of enraged Bosnians and Serbs demonstrating together in Sarajevo?
Even if the protests gradually lose their power, they will remain a brief spark of hope, something like the enemy soldiers fraternising across the trenches in the first world war. Authentic emancipatory events always involve such ignoring of particular identities.
And the same holds for the recent visit of the two Pussy Riot members to New York: in a big gala show, they were introduced by Madonna in the presence of Bob Geldof, Richard Gere, etc: the usual human rights gang. What they should have done there was to express their solidarity with Edward Snowden, to assert that Pussy Riot and Snowden are part of the same global movement. Without such gestures which bring together what, in our ordinary ideological experience, appears incompatible (Muslims, Serbs and Croats in Bosnia; Turkish secularists and anti-capitalist Muslims in Turkey, etc), protest movements will be always manipulated by one superpower in its struggle against another.
Bosnia unrest puts spotlight on broken peace accord (Reuters, by Daria Sito-Sucic and Matt Robinson, 11 February 2014)
TUZLA/SARAJEVO – Enver Mehmedovic spends his days behind an iron gate, guarding the factory he used to work in from its owner.
Production lines that once produced ‘Dita’ detergent used in households up and down the former Yugoslavia now stand idle and Mehmedovic suspects that the tycoon from the Bosnian capital who bought the complex wants to sell off the machinery.
“That’s what happened to all the other factories after they were privatized,” said Mehmedovic, a chemical engineer.
Under socialist Yugoslavia, Tuzla in northeastern Bosnia was a hub for the metals and chemical industries. Today, the city’s industrial zone is a wasteland and home to one in five of Bosnia’s 27 percent registered unemployed.
The mismanaged transition to capitalism in the town is replicated on a smaller scale in all the former republics of Yugoslavia, which splintered two decades ago.
But Bosnia, where more than 100,000 people died in ethnic warfare between 1992-5, is different, and more dangerous.
Days of unrest that began with a protest by workers from Dita and other idled factories last week in Tuzla have blown the lid on years of simmering post-war discontent.
Rioters set fire to government buildings in some of Bosnia’s biggest cities – Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica and Mostar and several hundred people were injured, most of them police in clashes with protesters.
“We are in unchartered waters,” said Srecko Latal, head of the Sarajevo-based Social Overview Service think tank.
The grievances – unemployment, corruption and political paralysis – have their roots in the deal that ended the war, divvying up power to stop the fighting between Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.
The accord agreed at a U.S. air base in Dayton, Ohio, brought peace – and planted the seeds of a future crisis.
Its highly-decentralized and dysfunctional system of power-sharing has proven woefully unfit to steer Bosnia through economic transition or the process of integration with the European Union, to many their best hope of prosperity.
To ignore the grievances of the Dita workers means to risk an even bigger explosion. To address them means opening up the peace deal, and a Pandora’s Box of competing agendas and ideas of how the country should be rearranged.
“Europe will try to use this crisis as an opportunity,” a Western diplomat told Reuters. But while the violence may spur efforts to restructure the country, it also risks stirring the kind of ethnic undercurrents the protests have so far avoided.
“UNCHARTERED WATERS”
Many in Sarajevo recoiled at the destruction wrought by the protesters – mainly Bosniak so far – the fire and smoke stirring painful memories of the wartime siege of their city by Bosnian Serb forces in the surrounding hills. A sixth day of protests on Monday was peaceful, but anger ran high.
“If we need to have a war, so be it,” said Fehim Lovic, 58, a disabled war veteran who said he supports three children on a monthly welfare payment of 50 Bosnian marka (25 euros).
Latal said it was clear Bosnia needed a thorough overhaul.
A labyrinthine political set-up, in a country of just 3.8 million people, has scared off foreign investors and frequently paralyses government, feeding huge networks of political patronage that all sides are reluctant to give up.
The sale of Dita and other factories in Tuzla was in the hands of one of ten cantons in Bosnia’s Federation – an autonomous region of mainly Bosniaks and Croats.
Each canton has its own prime minister and cabinet with broad executive powers.
On the other side is the autonomous Serb Republic, joined with the Federation at the state level by a weak central government and a rotating three-member presidency, both of which struggle to present any coherent national policy.
At least 40 percent of the workforce is employed in the public sector and parliamentarians earn around 3,500 euros per month, almost ten times the average monthly Bosnian wage.
The 100 or so workers still at Dita have not been paid for two years. For months, they and those laid off camped out in front of the factory and picketed the government building. Nobody received them. Finally, swelled by other workers and a hard core of youngsters, the protests turned violent.
Four cantonal prime ministers have resigned so far and the focus of the anger quickly turned to the presidency building in Sarajevo, the symbol of a broken state system.
“The protesters realize that the country’s dire economic situation is not merely the result of corrupt officials, but rather of the constitutional order itself,” Balkan affairs analyst Jasmin Mujanovic wrote in a blog post. “For the people of Bosnia, this is merely the beginning.”
Comprised of a Serb, a Croat and a Bosniak, the presidency, pinnacle of the power-sharing model, has been challenged by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
In a 2009 ruling, it said the Dayton constitution – in reserving high-level state jobs for the three former warring sides – is discriminatory.
Bosnia’s political leaders have failed to agree on how to reform the system to address the court ruling, and until they do the country’s bid to join the EU will go nowhere.
Serbian law professor Zarko Korac told Bosnian television: “Unless the politicians learn the lesson, unless they hear these people, the problem next time will be much bigger.”
NEW GENERATION
Piecemeal attempts by the West to prod Bosnia towards reform have run up against deep disagreement between the three communities over what their country should look like.
While Bosniaks want greater centralization, Croat hardliners argue Croats should have their own entity and Serb leaders say they see no future in Bosnia at all.
Full-blown overhaul of Dayton will take years. But, analysts said, the protests may provide fresh impetus to reform at least the Federation, with a U.S.-brokered plan to streamline government there already before parliament.
The crisis may also give urgency to Western efforts to negotiate a deal to implement the Strasbourg court ruling, as Bosnia barged its way onto the agenda of an EU foreign ministers meeting on Monday.
“There is a growing concern, especially in the U.S., that there should be a new and different international engagement,” said Latal.
The stakes are high.
While protests so far have been concentrated mainly among Bosniaks in the Federation, further unrest may take on an ethnic dimension, as each community seeks to protect itself from, or exploit, the turmoil.
Bosnia’s Serbs have already accused the Bosniaks of trying to use the situation to push for abolition of the two autonomous regions, centralizing power in Sarajevo.
In Brussels on Monday, Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic of former Yugoslav repubic and new EU member Croatia said it was vital the events in neighboring Bosnia do not take on any “national tone” – a reference to its ethnic divisions.
“It’s very important that all politicians, all public figures who have any responsibility do not push things in that direction,” Croatian news agency Hina quoted Pusic as saying.
Several EU foreign ministers said Bosnia should be moved more quickly towards the EU, as a way to encourage reform.
“What happened in Bosnia was a wakeup call,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters on Monday.
The movement has so far been largely spontaneous, fed through social media, but a political dimension is emerging, with some leaders speaking out in support of the protests ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections in October.
Bosnian Security Minister Fahrudin Radoncic accused the cantonal governments of robbing their citizens. He warned of a “tsunami of the citizens” without action.
For years, fear of a return to conflict has kept a lid on deep discontent. But many of those lobbing rocks at police last week were not even born when the war broke out.
“Older generations perhaps remember better times, or worse times during the war, but for us this is a situation that cannot get any worse,” said Dzenita Hodzic, a 23-year-old student of forestry in Sarajevo.
She said she wanted to stay in Bosnia, but saw no future if she could only get a job by joining a political party.
“I feel sorry for these buildings,” Hodzic said. “But it seems there’s no other way. This is the only language our politicians understand.”
Inspired by Bosnia, Montenegro Activists Demand Change (BIRN, by Dusica Tomovic, 10 February 2014)
A group of Montenegrins has announced a rally in the capital Podgorica to support Bosnian protesters and highlight corruption, poor economic conditions and bad governance at home.
A Facebook group entitled ‘Protest Against Thieving Authorities, Corruption and Poverty in Montenegro’ announced on Sunday that they would hold a rally inspired by protesters in Bosnia who challenged the authorities to address the country’s endemic social problems.
“For 20 years we have been keeping silent and bearing it. We are waiting for someone to change something for us. This is a citizens’ protest, without leaders and politicians, without a stage and speeches,” the Montenegrin group said in a statement.
The protest will be held in front of the parliament building on Saturday at noon.
Another new Facebook group called ‘Revolution in Montenegro’ also urged people to stage protests in the wake of events in neighbouring Bosnia.
“Bosnia hit the streets, what are we waiting for? Tens of thousands of unemployed and hungry people should take justice into their own hands,” said the group’s statement.
Representatives of the Montenegro’s divided trade union movement disagreed about whether there could be mass protests in the country.
Sandra Obradovic from the Free Trade Unions said that without protest, there would be no changes.
“In Montenegro the standard of living is significantly compromised and social dialogue collapsed,” Obradovic said on Sunday.
But the head of the Federation of Unions of Montenegro, Marko Nikcevic, stressed that the situation in Bosnia was not comparable with Montenegro and that he did not envisage any social uprising.
People in more than 30 Bosnian cities protested last week demanding better living standards and government resignations. The widespread unrest saw protesters clash with police and burn government buildings, leaving scores injured and arrested.
The trigger for the protests was the sudden collapse of four formerly state-run companies that employed thousands of people in the industrial town of Tuzla.
A Facebook group in Serbia also announced a rally on Monday to support Bosnian protesters.
Greek Deputy PM to Visit Macedonia (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 11 February 2014)
Greek Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos, whose country holds the EU presidency, next week will make a rare visit by a senior Greek official to Macedonia.
The Greek ministerial visit, taking place within the capacity of Greece’s EU presidency, was confirmed by the Macedonian Foreign Ministry.
Venizelos will be in Skopje as part of a three-day tour of the Western Balkans aimed at encouraging countries to pursue membership of the European Union.
However, the long-standing “name” dispute between Macedonia and Greece, which is impeding Macedonia’s progress towards joining the European Union and NATO, will inevitably be in focus during the visit to Skopje.
Despite repeated recommendations by the European Commission, the EU has not started talks with Macedonia, nor has it been invited to join NATO, owing to the dispute with Greece over its name.
Greece insists that Macedonia’s name implies territorial claims to its own northern province, also called Macedonia.
Last month, while presenting the priorities of the Greek EU presidency to the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Venizelos pledged that he would not discriminate against Macedonia during the six-month Greek EU presidency.
“I am ready to visit the region, including Skopje, without any difference or discrimination,” he said, adding that this would be a good opportunity for discussion with the Macedonian authorities.
At the same time, he repeated Greece’s demands in the dispute, noting that Athens still wanted a compound name for Macedonia that would include a geographical qualifier. He also insisted that any agreed compromise name would have to be used universally, not only bilaterally, and that Macedonia should change its constitution to incorporate the new name.
Venizelos also insisted that problems with the rule of law, democracy and human rights were the main obstacles blocking Macedonia’s EU path, not the “name” issue.
In its latest Resolution on Macedonia, the European Parliament reaffirmed calls for a start to EU talks with Macedonia and urged Greece to use its leadership position in the EU to overcome the stalemate over Macedonia and “inject new impetus” into the “name” talks.
Years of “name” talks held under UN auspices have failed to yield a compromise solution.
