LOCAL PRESS

 

Djuric: Joint future without hatred (FoNet)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric has talked in Pristina with the Belgrade Liaison Officer Dejan Pavicevic and stressed that both the Serbs and Albanians need a joint future without hatred. Djuric said that the topics of discussion with Pavicevic had also been economic issues and stressed that they should also talk with representatives of the Kosovo institutions about problems that concern both the Serbs and Albanians, FoNet reports.

“We discussed ways of how to unite existing economic potentials and how to work together with the representatives of provisional institutions on projects that would be significant for both communities,” stressed Djuric. Speaking about the formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities, Djuric recalled that the Union is the central part of the Brussels agreement and that intensive talks are being conducted on its formation. “We are discussing with the Serb representatives in Gracanica and in other regions where, unlike Pristina, the Serbs survived, ways of how to raise the Union most efficiently,” said Djuric. After Pristina, Djuric visited Gracanica, where he talked with the representatives of local institutions.

 

PACE: Truth about Kosovo organ trafficking comes to light (Tanjug)

The President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Anne Brasseur has welcomed a report by special prosecutor John Clint Williamson concerning an investigation into the 1999 Kosovo organ trafficking case, expressing satisfaction that “truth’s onward march continues also in this case.” “Although no final conclusions have as yet been presented, the EU Special Investigative Task Force has found compelling evidence to file indictments against certain former senior officials of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) with respect to major human rights violations, findings that are largely based on and consistent with Dick Marty’s report presented to the Parliamentary Assembly in 2011”, Anne Brasseur said. Saying that it is reassuring to her “that the EU Special Investigative Task Force is characterized by a high level of professionalism,” she also noted with satisfaction that “the EU is giving the necessary support to combat organized crime uncompromisingly to ensure that justice is done, without any considerations of political expediency.” “I note, with regret the existence, in certain quarters, of a climate of witness intimidation and I call on the authorities of Serbia, Albania and the Kosovo administration to co-operate unreservedly with ongoing investigations”, the PACE President concluded.

 

Quest for justice taking too long (Tanjug)

The families of the victims of crimes committed in Kosovo have been waiting for justice and the truth about the fates of their loved ones for too long, says Michael Montgomery, a U.S. journalist who discovered the “Yellow House” in Albania, identified in a report by Council of Europe special rapporteur Dick Marty as the site of an organ harvesting operation whose victims were kidnapped Kosovo Serbs. Clint Williamson is a serious prosecutor, and he has conducted a serious investigation, Montgomery told Tanjug, commenting on his report. However, the results of the investigation revealed nothing essentially new, Montgomery said. UNMIK has been aware of the organ harvesting accusations since as early as 2003 but never conducted a serious investigation into them, while EULEX had not dealt with the matter before the establishment of Williamson’s team in 2011, the journalist said. Information about secret camps in Albania where members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) held kidnapped civilians has been published in reports by many media and human rights organizations a long time ago, Montgomery added. Reporting for Britain’s Daily Telegraph with his colleague Steven Smith, Montgomery investigated war crimes committed in Kosovo and Metohija after the conflict there ended in 1999. Montgomery was the first to draw the “Yellow House”, located in Burrel, central Albania, to the attention of investigators from the United Nations and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The families of the victims have been waiting for justice and the truth for too long, Montgomery told Tanjug, adding that a trial based on the results of Williamson’s investigation will be a great challenge for international justice. Williamson’s team definitely encountered many obstacles that we ourselves had encountered, said Montgomery, who faced threats and instances of witness intimidation during his journalistic investigation of crimes committed by the KLA. How can you prove a crime that took place 15 years ago without knowing the names of the victims or the perpetrators, or without serious material evidence, Montgomery asked, noting that the international community reacted too late. Montgomery, who now works for the U.S. National Public Radio in San Francisco, said that reports of organ trafficking - which accounts for just a fraction of crimes committed against civilians after the Kosovo war - have distracted public attention from a great number of “ordinary” cases of kidnapping, torture and murder committed by the KLA. The motive behind our investigation, which remains open to this day, are the fates of the hundreds of people who went missing after NATO and UN troops entered Kosovo, Montgomery said, noting that representatives of the international community ignored KLA crimes for years.

 

DSS: Confirmation that Republic of Kosovo was built on crimes (RTS)

The Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) stated that the report of the Chief Prosecutor Clint Williamson confirms that the Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared by Albanians was created on the basis of crimes. The report confirms that those who recognized the unilaterally declared independence of the Republic of Kosovo and are participating in its establishment are also aiding the creation of a criminal, monster state, DSS released. The party recalls that crimes of KLA members, which Williamson claims can be substantiated by evidence, were committed upon conclusion of the bombing attack on Serbia, arrival of KFOR and NATO troops in Kosovo and Metohija, at a time when UNMIK was running civilian administration in the Serbian province. Under NATO management, KFOR was tasked with matters of security protection and preservation of peace and order in Kosovo and Metohija, and not only did it witness the crimes committed against Serbs, it was also responsible for them by failing to act, reads the DSS statement.
The Terrifying Court (Politika, editorial by Biljana Mitrinovic)

The Serbian public has expected much more, while the Albanians dreaded the report of EULEX’s Chief Prosecutor Clint Williamson who led the investigation on the crimes by KLA paramilitary members following the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999. Even though he didn’t mention one single name of those responsible for the crimes against Kosovo Serbs, Roma and disloyal Albanians in the statement, with which he announced to the Council of Europe his sealed report, Williamson deeply disturbed Kosovo political leaders, especially those who were occupying operative positions in 1999. He was less concerned with not disappointing Serb expectations for achieving justice.

Williamson would have satisfied the Serbian public only if he had announced yesterday that he has enough evidence to issue indictments over the “yellow house” and trafficking with the organs of the abducted Serbs and non-Albanians. However, when the American announced that he didn’t find enough evidence to substantiate the claims from the report of the special rapporteur of the European Parliament Dick Marty from 2011, the Serbs were resigned to disappointment. Especially since Williamson didn’t even mention Hashim Thaqi whom Marty still named, though only as the head of the KLA criminal organization that did drug trafficking and organized murders.

The most irritating observation for the Serbian public was the assertion that “only a handful” – less than ten of them, as Williamson explained to the press in Brussels, were victims of such crimes. As much as there were abducted, Williamson’s “less than ten”, 100 or 500, the terrible fate they suffered probably deserved special effort of the investigative team. No one can claim that all Serbs, whose mortal remains have not been found to this day, were in the “yellow house”, but even if they didn’t end up there, when will an investigator appear who will establish that they were victims of a war crime.

Since Williamson’s statement contained more elements of a political speech than the words of a prosecutor who had for three years at his disposal a team for collecting evidence, saying that he personally believes there had been such cases, he left open the possibility until the foundation of the court and issuing of indictments (at the beginning of next year) of finding evidence that substantiates such allegations. Therewith he left the Serbs a little hope that somewhat more can be rummaged from the evidence for organ trafficking and a consolation and certain indictment for “highly positioned representatives of the former KLA for war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

From now to the issuing of indictments, the entire war ensemble of the KLA will be in the state of terrible anticipation.

Special bitterness of Kosovo Albanians is caused by the fact that the Americans forced them to pass themselves a law that will remove their war leaders from the political scene. So they can bring new political forces of which the Americans will not have to be ashamed.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Izetbegovic: I didn’t have the heart to meet with Israeli Ambassador (Fena)

The Chairman of the B&H Presidency Bakir Izetbegovic told reporters that he “didn’t have the heart” to meet with Israeli Ambassador in B&H David Cohen from whom he had received an official invitation for a meeting. “After 1,000 people killed in Gaza, for who knows what time, my heart wouldn’t let me meet with the Israeli Ambassador. The dead pregnant women, dead children, Gazans and Palestinians, took place on the remains of what was their heritance. In Gaza live 1.4 million people in an area smaller than Sarajevo. Every minute, they kill them like… I have the right to emotion, and that’s why I couldn’t do it and why I gave the statement that I gave. I am disappointed in the reaction of the world. I can’t change anything important here, but I can say a human word. I am defeated by the reactions of Germany and the United States, who recognize the right of Israel to defend itself. From what? They took their land and on that land they are committing violence again. Every United Nations resolution and Security Council resolution ignores it, they throw them underfoot, and now, someone understands that they’re committing violence against women and children in Ramadan? Horror,” said Izetbegovic.

 

Demonstrations in Tuzla again (Dnevni Avaz)

New massive workers’ protests have started in Tuzla, while several hundreds of workers are requesting to re-examine the disputable privatizations of their companies. They are protesting in front of the Cantonal court and prosecution, by shouting “thieves”, “criminals”, “you’re hiding the thieves”, Dnevni Avaz reports. Columns of workers from other regions of the Tuzla Canton are arriving in Tuzla. There are university professors, as well as high and elementary school teachers among the demonstrators. A delegation was formed that will request the chief prosecutor to take out from the drawers cases of the criminal privatization of Tuzla companies and to perform an audit. The demonstrations are peaceful for the time being, and a large number of police officers are present around the building of the court and prosecution.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Senior Kosovo guerrilla leaders tied to persecution of ethnic Serbs (New York Times, by Dan Bilefsky and Somini Sengupta, 30 July 2014)
Prosecutors said minorities targeted at end of civil war
PARIS — A special European Union prosecutor said Tuesday that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army engaged in a campaign of persecution against ethnic Serbs after the 1998-99 Kosovo war, and said evidence suggested that the armed group had targeted a number of individuals after the war to harvest and sell their organs.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17, 2008, almost a decade after NATO bombs helped eject the former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic from Kosovo, ending a brutal civil war against the ethnic Albanian majority. But regional reconciliation has been hampered by accusations that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, known by its initials KLA, have not been held fully accountable for suspected war crimes.
A European Union task force was set up in September 2011 under the leadership of Clint Williamson, a U.S. diplomat who served as the war crimes envoy in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The task force was created after a Council of Europe report accused Kosovo’s prime minister, Hashim Thaci, the KLA’s former commander, of having led a “mafia like” group that smuggled human organs, weapons and heroin during and after the war. Mr. Thaci has strenuously rejected those accusations, and the Kosovo government at the time called them “despicable.”
While refusing to describe whether Kosovo’s current political leadership was potentially implicated in war crimes, Mr. Williamson said at a news conference Tuesday in Brussels that the suspects included “individuals at the most senior levels of the KLA.”
He said senior officials of the guerrilla group had intentionally targeted minority populations with acts of persecution that included “unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, other forms of inhumane treatment, forced displacements of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites.”
Mr. Williamson added that the practice of removing organs for transplant had occurred on a limited scale, and that evidence suggested that a “handful” of individuals were killed for the purpose of extracting and trafficking their organs. But he said there was currently insufficient evidence to prosecute anyone for the crimes, adding that the investigation had been tainted by witness intimidation in Kosovo.
“If even one person was subjected to such practice, that is a terrible tragedy,” he said, referring to organ trafficking accusations. “The fact that it occurred on a small scale does not lessen the savagery of the crime.”
He said the persecution resulted in ethnic cleansing of minority Serb and Roma communities from parts of the country. It also targeted ethnic Albanians who were political enemies of KLA leaders, he said.
Mr. Williamson’s statements are a blow to Kosovo, a poor country that has been struggling to find international legitimacy since it declared independence with the support of the United States and a majority of European Union countries. His conclusions will most likely be welcomed by Serbia, which has long argued that international justice has unfairly focused on Serbs suspected of war crimes at the expense of those who targeted Serbs during the war and its aftermath.
On Tuesday, the Kosovo government said it was determined to cooperate with the investigation. Deputy Foreign Minister Petrit Selimi said Mr. Williamson’s statements offered no new elements. “Kosovo’s war for liberty was a just cause supported by the free world, while individuals who may have allegedly engaged in unlawful behaviour under the umbrella of a guerrilla army must face justice,” he said in an emailed statement.
The possible indictment of KLA leaders comes more than a decade after the alleged war crimes occurred. There is no statute of limitations for war crimes under international law, a fact that has fueled several efforts to document crimes in Syria’s continuing war, including seven successive reports by a United Nations commission of inquiry.
Mr. Williamson said a special tribunal was expected to be established early next year, with the goal of trying alleged war crimes committed in the immediate aftermath of the Kosovo war. Crimes committed during the war have been tried in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where Mr. Williamson was once a prosecutor.
The new court is likely to face challenges. Past investigations of reports of organ trafficking in Kosovo have been undermined by witnesses’ fears of testifying in a small country where clan ties run deep and former KLA members are still feted as heroes. Former leaders of the KLA occupy high posts in the government, and the extent to which they will cooperate with investigations remains unclear.

'Compelling' signs Kosovo leaders trafficked in organs, says prosecutor (Los Angeles Times, by Carol Williams, 30 July 2014)
A special prosecutor appointed by the European Union to investigate allegations of war crimes by Kosovo Albanian leaders said he has found "compelling indications" of crimes against humanity, including the killing of minorities to harvest and sell their organs.
The organ trafficking incidents during the Kosovars' 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia appear to have been fewer than 10, said Clint Williamson, the US prosecutor named in 2011 to investigate reports of atrocities condoned by leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
"There are compelling indications that this practice did occur on a very limited scale and that a small number of individuals were killed for the purpose of extracting and trafficking their organs," Mr Williamson said in a statement read to reporters at a Brussels news conference on Tuesday.
Even one victim of murder for the purpose of harvesting organs for sale on international black markets constitutes "a terrible tragedy", Mr Williamson said. "The fact that it occurred on a limited scale does not diminish the savagery of such a crime."
Further evidence-gathering is necessary to bring charges against KLA leaders in the reported instances of killing captive Serbs, Roma and other ethnic minorities to extract their organs, the prosecutor said. But indictments are being prepared on other charges, including extrajudicial killings, abductions, sexual violence and other abuses, Mr Williamson said.
"We believe that the evidence is compelling that these crimes were not the acts of rogue individuals acting on their own accord, but rather that they were conducted in an organised fashion and were sanctioned by certain individuals in the top levels of the KLA leadership," Mr Williamson said without identifying the leaders. "The widespread or systematic nature of these crimes in the period after the war ended in June 1999 justifies a prosecution for crimes against humanity."
Serbia's war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, told the Associated Press in Belgrade that Mr Williamson's report "shows that we were right when we said that war crimes had been committed and that organ trafficking took place".
All judicial actions related to his nearly three-year investigation, however, are pending the establishment of a special EU court to try the cases, Mr Williamson noted. He said he hoped that the judicial forum would be up and running by next year.
The Special Investigative Task Force was created to probe allegations of war crimes said to have occurred after the conflicts elsewhere in the Balkans. War crimes charges relating to the 1992-95 conflicts in former Yugoslav republics are prosecuted at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Its independence is recognised by 107 UN member states, including Australia. Serbia does not recognise its independence, nor does its ally, Russia.

Signs of Organ Harvesting Found in Kosovo conflict (SwissInfo, 30 July 2014)
An EU-led inquiry prompted by a 2011 report by a Swiss politician has found “compelling indications” that Kosovo Albanian guerrillas extracted body organs from Serb captives during the 1998-99 war and sold them.
But the practice was not widespread and there was not enough evidence for a trial, according to the lead investigator.
After a three-year investigation, the EU-led task force said there was, however, enough evidence to prosecute former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) for war crimes against the ethnic Serb and Roma populations of Kosovo during the conflict.
The investigation was prompted by a 2011 report by Council of Europe member Dick Marty which accused senior KLA commanders of involvement in the smuggling of Serb prisoners into northern Albania and the removal of their organs for sale.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, himself a former KLA leader who was named in Marty’s report, has dismissed the accusations as an attempt to tarnish the Kosovo Albanian fight for independence.
Thaci, accused by Marty of heading a “mafia-style organisation”, lived in Switzerland between 1994 and 1998 and was given political asylum.
US prosecutor John Clint Williamson, who led the investigation, said there was no evidence of widespread organ harvesting, but that the crime had occurred a number of times.
“There are compelling indications that this practice did occur on a very limited scale and that a small number of individuals were killed for the purpose of extracting and trafficking their organs,” he told journalists on Tuesday.
Other crimes perpetrated by senior KLA members, such as unlawful killings and forced disappearances, amounted to the ethnic cleansing of large portions of the Serb and Roma populations, and there was enough evidence to prosecute, Williamson said.
Marty, interviewed on Swiss public television RTS on Tuesday, said he regretted that it had taken so long for people to take note of his report.
“The international community could have brought this to light years ago,” he said.
Dark cloud
The task force will file its indictment against former KLA leaders for war crimes once an ad hoc tribunal has been set up by the European Union and Kosovo, something Williamson said would happen next year. He did not name the people likely to be indicted.
Prime Minister Thaci said in a statement the government would continue cooperating with the task force.
“The government of the Republic of Kosovo appreciates the completion of ambassador Williamson’s work, which is an important step to determine potential individual responsibility and gives an end to the claims of the unfounded charges.”
Serbia’s counter-insurgency campaign of 1998 and 1999 eventually drew in NATO, which bombed for 78 days to drive out Serbian forces behind the killings of Kosovo Albanian civilians. Around 10,000 Albanians and just over 2,000 Serbs are believed to have been killed during and immediately after the war.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008 but the EU still plays a guiding role in policing and justice, particularly cases of war crimes.
Efforts to investigate alleged war crimes committed by the guerrillas have run up against widespread intimidation in a small country where clan loyalties run deep and former KLA rebels are revered as heroes.
Williamson condemned what he called “active efforts” to undermine the investigation.
“As long as a few powerful people continue to thwart investigations into their own criminality, the people of Kosovo as a whole pay the price as this leaves a dark cloud over the country.”

EU diplomatic pressure on Serbia highlights contract frustration risk for Russian energy companies (IHS Jane's Intelligence Review, 28 July 2014)
Italian foreign minister Frederica Mogherini lauded the progress of reforms in Serbia during a visit to the country yesterday (28 July), but also called for a higher level of policy alignment between Serbia and the European Union.
Mogherini, who was also speaking as rotating European Council president, underscored the EU's continued insistence that Serbia align its foreign policy towards Russia and Ukraine with that of the EU.
So far Serbia has preferred neutrality, which in practice has meant tighter integration within the EU while at the same time fostering its bilateral relations with its historical ally, Russia. This culminated with Serbia signing a USD2.9 billion contract with state-owned Russian energy company Gazprom on 8 July to build the South Stream pipeline across its own territory.

Why constitutional reform will not solve the Bosnian blockade (TransConflict, by Florian Bieber, 30 July 2014)
Whilst the strong link between ethnicity, territory and governance has caused problems that contribute to the Bosnian crisis, the constitutional reform cannot hope to overcome this, but can only reduce its impact at best. Constitutional reform entails a trade-off between seeking to achieve modest improvements of the institutional structure, whilst sustaining public debate on topics that sideline the issues of main concern for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s citizens, such as poverty, corruption and the economy.
At a meeting at the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin on the future of Bosnia with senior international officials and experts, I have had a chance to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of constitutional reform, a perennial topic for Bosnia. Here are some of the considerations I had the chance to present and discuss as to why I remain skeptical of the need to prioritize constitutional reform.
The constitutional structure is often identified as the main problem of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including two recent proposals by a coalition of Bosnian NGOs K143 (drafted by the Democratization Policy Council) and the International Crisis Group. The Dayton constitution is indeed not much loved and would find few supporters in its entirety. Over the past 15 years or so, countless drafts and ideas have been floated and no self-respecting international think-tank, political party and other observer would not have launched their own ideas. From abolishing the Federation (ESI), to abolishing the entities and replacing them with new multinational regions (SDP and SBiH), to creating a Croat entity (ICG) or just having strong municipalities (K143), there is hardly an option that has not been proposed. Indeed, considering the flaws of the constitution, it is easy to come up with better options. However, most proposals are unclear on one crucial question, how can such a change be brought about? A second question most proposals assume or leave unconsidered is whether such changes would unlock the country and bring about fundamental change.
Constitutional reform in Bosnia is inherently a process with a number of corollary reform needs. For example, any reform of the state presidency to bring it in line with Sejdic-Finci ruling of the ECHR would require the amendment of a number of other laws, most notably the election law. Other reforms of the constitution would require changing institutions (such as the constitutional court, parliament, council of ministers), thus constitutional reform per definition is more extensive than just changing Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Accords.
A comprehensive approach would reach even beyond this and at its foremost would reform the constitution not just of the state, but also of sub-state units, in particular the Federation and Cantons. Furthermore, it would address larger question of the link between the constitution and the Dayton Peace Agreement. Currently, the constitution is still part of the Peace Agreement and its binding version is English, not BCS. This might be a small and banal point, but it means that the constitution remains embedded in a broader peace agreement that remains in place, including the OHR and the provisions on refugee return. A comprehensive approach in regard to Dayton would address these issues, and replace or reform the constitution in conjunction with the Peace Agreement. The outcome would be a final peace settlement that would transform Dayton.
Another form of the comprehensive approach would be to expand the matters to include issues that were not part of Dayton, but are rather related to current needs of Bosnia, such as EU integration or reducing patronage and corruption in the Bosnian system. Thus, the package would be more transformative than constitutional reforms can be.
Taking a step back from these options, we need to consider the reasons for opting for a comprehensive approach. The first motivation is to unlock a number of blockages in Bosnian system and thus transform the political dynamic in Bosnia beyond the constitution. The second approach would be to increase the pie to facilitate settlement. Here, the comprehensive approach provides for additional incentives for parties to accept constitutional reform that otherwise might not be palatable for them. Here, the relevant comparison is the April Agreement between Kosovo and Serbia that provided external incentives in the form of EU accession to both parties. The two motivations for a comprehensive approach are not easily compatible as the former seeks to address the problems of Bosnia comprehensively which inherently would include clipping the power of ethno-nationalist political parties and their patronage networks, while the latter approach would be about securing a buy-in from all parties.
The format of such a comprehensive approach would require extensive international mediation, probably over several rounds of negotiations, even if short-term negotiated settlements might be more appealing, they risk failure considering the complexity of the subject matters and the varying incentives of political actors involved. Such comprehensive approach has not yet been tried in Bosnia and would require consensus among key international actors (in particular EU member states, the USA and preferably the two signatories of Dayton, Serbia and Croatia). A package solution also runs the risk of holding up reforms as they are all folded into the comprehensive package. Furthermore, external incentives for political actors are hard to come by, since currently rewards in terms of faster progress towards the EU appear to have little appeal.
If a comprehensive approach, or rather either of the two presented variants, appear unlikely, the option remains whether or not a constitutional reform by itself should be pursued and if so, whether through a gradual process or a “big bang” approach. The gradual process would see passing of several constitutional reforms over time, either negotiated by party leaders (with all normative problems this entails) or in parliament (with all practical problems) and build on each other. The big bang approach would seek a larger reform package to be passed in one go. The former has the advantage of building a gradual momentum, as well as normalizing the idea of constitutional change rather than reducing it to a one-off event. However, such process might take very long and failure at each step can derail the entire process. The big bang has the advantage of settling the most pressing issue at once and also allowing for some degree of horse trading that would provide different parties with incentives to compromise. The main problem is that both approaches have been failing for ten years. Gradual change has not happened and the constitution has only been changed once since Dayton to include the reference to the district of Brcko. The big bang approach also failed in April Package in 2006 and the Butmir Process in 2009 and also the Prud Agreement 2008 never reached fruition. Of course, the April package of constitutional reforms failed narrowly and was a near success. However, since Bosnian politics has become more intractable, the likelihood of a repetition of the constitutional reforms negotiated in 2006 appears slim.
The challenge arising from this observation is the tension between ambitions of those who have made plans for constitutional changes in Bosnia and the ability to translate them into reality. Any realistic process of constitutional reform will have to take place through the existing Bosnian institutions. Even an international conference on Bosnia will not have the legitimacy or the ability to enforce a large-scale institutional change without consent of Bosnia’s elected officials. There is no other realistic scenario of institutional change in Bosnia—even mass protests would at best create pressure on the institutions to act rather than overthrow them altogether, especially not country-wide. Thus, it is imperative to reckon with the political interest of the office holders in the country. In addition, despite evidence of significant disillusionment with the dominant political parties and the system, there is little to show that Bosnian citizens have a shared political project and consider themselves to be part of one community. Of course, if voters would bring into power parties with radically different politics, this would change, but so far there is little evidence for that.
Keeping these constraints in mind, there is no reason to believe that a comprehensive and far-reaching reform of the Bosnian constitution that would abolish the entities would be possible, as a recent proposal by K143 a coalition of Bosnian NGOs proposed, or otherwise transform the governing structure. Why would any political party from the RS agree to give up the entity veto when it provides it with an easy mechanism to block any decision at the state level? Similar questions can be raised about all major stumbling blocks of constitutional change. The only manner in which some elements of corporatist ethno-territorial control could be loosened would be through deals that offer other incentives or safeguards. Thus, increasing the number of members of the House of People would, for example, increase the number of MPs needed to evoke an entity veto, creating potentially higher hurdles. At best, such changes will undo some of the most egregious examples of ethno nationalist blockages or quotes, but not fundamentally transform Bosnia into a different political system. Thus, the link between territory and group identity is likely to remain strong, veto rights will exist, as will quotas. Removing open discrimination and somewhat streamlining decision-making could be achieved. This, however, neglects one key factor: is the main problem of Bosnia’s current crisis institutional or constitutional and can re-negotiated institutions alleviate these? The answer to the first part of the question is a partial yes, to the latter a no. Institutions are overly complex and blocked. However, it is telling that the protests in February focused on the local and cantonal level. In particular in Tuzla, neither does power-sharing matter nor is it one of the more dysfunctional cantons. Thus, grievances with political elites cannot be obviously fixed through constitutional amendments.
In effect the discussion about Sejdic-Finci in the aftermath of the protests in February seemed like the discussion among medieval angelology about how many angels can dance on the pin of a needle, esoteric and mostly irrelevant. Of course, discrimination is not desirable and deserves to be removed, yet the position of Roma is not going to change if one of them would have a theoretical chance of joining the state presidency as a Rom, since Roma can be elected as presidents in all neighboring countries without this having any practical effect.
Surely, the strong link between ethnicity, territory and governance has caused problems that contribute to the Bosnian crisis, but constitutional reform cannot hope to overcome this. It can at best only reduce its impact. At the same time, constitutional reform discussion have been reinforcing the power of established elites, as discussions on such reforms focus on protecting national interests, entity rights, threats to identity and other topics that are the life-blood of ethno nationalist rhetoric. Constitutional reform thus entails a trade-off between seeking to achieve modest improvements to the institutional structure while at the same time sustaining public debate on topics that sideline the main issues of concern for BiH citizens, such as poverty, corruption and the economy.
A procedural approach to constitutional reform would shift the focus on benefits of a having a process that seeks to build consensus and thus re-establishes Bosnia as a consensus-based polity, no matter the substance of the reforms themselves. Of course, taking a too liberal view of such a procedure of substance approach would accept even problematic „deals“, such as the „reforms“ agreed between Milorad Dodik and Zlatko Lagumdžija in 2012.
What constitutional reform (at the state and entity level) in the short and medium term at best can deliver is technical fixes to some matters that blocked decision making in Bosnia (i.e. by increasing the number of MPs in both chapters in order to increase the number of MPs needed to block laws through the entity clause or the formation of the House of Peoples in the Federation). This can alleviate some of the blockages that Bosnia encounters, but is more likely a recipe for further procrastination than a panacea.
Florian Bieber is a political scientist working on inter-ethnic relations, ethnic conflict and nationalism, focusing on Southeastern Europe. He is a Professor in South East European Studies and director of the Center for South East European Studies at the University of Graz. Florian is also a Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University. He is the editor-in-chief of Nationalities Papers and the associate editor of Southeastern Europe, and is on the editorial board of Global Society, Ethnopolitics, Südosteuropa

 

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.