LOCAL PRESS

 

Preparations begin for visit of Chinese president (Beta/RTS/Tanjug)

On the eve of the visit of the Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic met with the president of the Development Research Center of the Chinese government Li Wei with whom he discussed bilateral cooperation. Vucic underlined that, in modern history, the relations of the two countries had never been at such a high level and added that China had in Serbia a sincere friend and partner. He underlined that the previous visit of Chinese Prime

Minister Li Keqiang and the upcoming visit by the Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed to the importance which the Chinese side attached to bilateral relations.

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said at the meeting with Li Wei that Serbia could be this country’s support in Europe, and an important partner for the future, it said in a press release.Nikolic was quoted as saying to the Chinese government official that he was pleased to see China supporting the Serbian candidate for the leading post in the United Nations Vuk Jeremic.

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic received Li Wei to highlight the importance that Serbia attaches to the forthcoming visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Li is at the helm of the Chinese government think-tank that formulates the national strategy for economic and social development. The Chinese guest talked with Dacic about the bilateral relations and economic cooperation, and Serbia's stand on “The Belt and Road” intercontinental initiative and economic growth strategy, the foreign ministry said in a release. Dacic noted that the meetings Li had had during his three-day stay in Belgrade were a very important part of preparations for the Chinese President’s visit to Serbia.

 

Ivanic informs Vucic on deterioration of political circumstances (Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has talked in Belgrade with the Serb member of the B&H Presidency Mladen Ivanic who has acquainted the Prime Minister with the emerging deteriorating political situation and interethnic relations in B&H. In talks on the situation in B&H, Ivanic told Vucic that the Serbs in B&H, after many years, are feeling again lonely and that he fears outvoting in the B&H institutions would continue, which started with the decision on the population census, as well as the endangering of national interests of the Serbs in B&H. Vucic thanked Ivanic for the information, and the responsible treatment in protection of vital interests of both B&H and the Serbs in it. “Serbia wishes good and closest relations with B&H, but Serbia cannot and will never abandon the Serb nation in B&H,” said Vucic. Due to the emerging circumstances, Vucic and Ivanic have agreed on more frequent visits and exchange of information and opinions, the Serbian government stated.

 

Ivanic and Nikolic on tensions in the region (Radio Belgrade)

Ivanic also talked with Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic. President Nikolic especially pointed out that, for years. Serbia has been investing great efforts to maintain stability of the region, but that it didn’t always have the support of neighboring countries. “Certain politicians, for the sake of short-term political benefits, foster tensions among the nations in the region, and thus inflict enormous damage to the reconciliation process among citizens and states. This especially refers to B&H where the situation has been rapidly deteriorating. The future of entire Balkans lies in cooperation, in seeking to accept European standards, while the prerequisite of this cooperation must be peace and stability, and Serbia firmly insists on this,” the Presidency quoted Nikolic as having said. Ivanic said that the statements made by the Head of the Islamic Community and the Catholic Church in B&H, the rhetoric of politicians in the Federation of B&H are returning citizens to the early 1990s. Ivanic considers that this should be stopped, since such behavior endangers peace and stability and creates uncertainty, especially with the Serbs.

 

Vucic, Dodik: Better future for RS, good relations with B&H (Tanjug)

Serbia will always insist on the survival of and a better future for Serbs in the RS, and on good and friendly relations with B&H, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said at a meeting with RS President Milorad Dodik. Vucic and Dodik discussed the current political situation in the B&H and the Western Balkan region, said a statement released by the Serbian government.
Dodik pointed out that an organised campaign against the RS and its Serb population is underway in the B&H and some other countries. “The RS sees its ally in Serbia first and foremost, and expects the Serbian government and its authorities to provide full support to the RS in line with the Dayton peace agreement and help protect it from all forms of threat,” Dodik said. Peace and stability are vital interests for Serbs wherever they may live, Vucic noted, adding that Serbia will always insist on the survival of and a better future for Serbs in Republika Srpska, and on good and friendly relations with the B&H as a whole.

 

Djuric meets Australian Foreign Ministry official (Beta)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric met with an official of the Australian foreign ministry, Kevin Magee, to discuss relations between Serbia and Australia. The Office said that the Serbian government official used the opportunity to underline the importance of the Serbian diaspora in the relationship. “The Serbian people are proud of the Serbs living in Australia, who provided a significant contribution to its development and prosperity. The diaspora is a bridge between Serbia and Australia, which we need to use more in the future,” Djuric said. During the meeting, Djuric acquainted Magee with the status of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, explaining to the Australian diplomat that the focus right now was on the establishment of the Community of Serbian Municipalities.

 

Abdulah Numan new Mufti of Serbia (Blic)

The Supreme Council of the Islamic Community of Serbia (IZS) appointed Abdulah Numan to the position of the new mufti of Serbia, as the former Mufti Muhammad Jusufspahic was dismissed, media carried a release issued by the IZS Supreme Council. Jusufspahic left the office because he was appointed to the position of the Serbian ambassador in Saudi Arabia. The newly appointed Mufti Numan (66) is actually Ivan Trifunovic, a Serb from Belgrade, who converted to Islam at the age of 19. He is a nephew of legendary Serbian actress Ruzica Sokic, who passed away recently. Numan has a Ph.D., he finished three faculties - Faculty of Islamic Studies and Philosophy, Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Business and Management, and also has a Master’s degree on the theme of “Islamic theology.”

 

Jeremic: Serbia has chances of its candidate becoming UN Secretary General (RTS)

If East Europe places forward a candidate for UN Secretary General, Serbia will be very close to victory, Serbia’s candidate for this position Vuk Jeremic told Radio Television Serbia (RTS). “This game is difficult, complicated and complex. The people taking part in it are mostly those who have for years been in the circle in which the highest international relations are discussed”, Jeremic said. “If the whole world takes part in this race, it is very difficult to make an estimate as to who could have the biggest chances”, Jeremic said. To the question of whether someone could, by veto, prevent the decision to also accept the candidates from outside Eastern Europe, Jeremic said that, considering the geographical position, in this situation this could eventually be done only by Russia. He added that out of the 11 registered candidates, only

Serbia’s nomination was accompanied by a document, a concrete platform which contained 53 specific promises as to what would be done if he was elected. “These 53 promises are divided into five thematic wholes: sustainable development, climate changes, peacekeeping operations, human rights and the reform of the UN system of management. We are entering into this race very transparently, we have presented to the whole world what we wish to achieve,” Jeremic said.

 

Presiding of North Kosovska Mitrovica Municipality Assembly replaced (Tanjug/RTS)

The deputies of the municipality assembly, at the Monday session, voted a vote of no confidence in the presiding over the municipality assembly Ksenija Bozovic from the Civic Initiative Serbia – Democracy – Justice (SDP), and elected Dejan Guresic as the new president. Eleven, out of the 18 present deputies of the municipality assembly of North Kosovska Mitrovica voted for Bozovic’s dismissal.

 

Ninety-four percent of Albanians, other non-Serbs opposed to ZSO (Beta/B92)

According to a poll presented in Pristina, 94 percent of Kosovo Albanians and other non-Serbs are opposed to the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO). Beta reports that the survey, dubbed “Public Pulse” and prepared by UNDP in Kosovo and USAID, also found that 69 percent of Serbs support the formation of the ZSO “strongly or somewhat strongly”.
At the same time, 94 percent of Albanians and members of other ethnicities said they “strongly or somewhat strongly” oppose its establishment. According to the poll, 32 percent of Albanians and 29 percent of Serbs believe that the ZSO “allows Serbian institutions to continue existing in Kosovo”. Thirty-five percent of Albanians declared that the ZSO would represent “segregation of Kosovo into Albanian and Serb sections” - an opinion shared by only 17 percent of Serbs.
Six percent of Albanians think the ZSO would be “equivalent” to the Republika Srpska (RS) in B&H, while 20 percent of Serbs think it would mark “the end of Serbian institutions in Kosovo”.
Around four percent of Albanians said the ZSO would have “an insignificant impact on Kosovo’s development, while 48 percent of other ethnicities said its formation was not relevant to their lives. According to the poll, 62.5 percent of Serbs, 56 percent of Albanians, and 52.5 percent of “others” think the Brussels agreement on normalization of relations “will be of high importance”. Nearly 54 percent of Albanians and about 25 percent of Serbs said that “the agreement on border demarcation between Montenegro and Kosovo is the most important issue to be discussed at, and finalized through the Brussels agreement”.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Jukic: I didn’t break the law – if anybody has doubts, do investigate me (Patria)

Director of Agency for Statistics Velimir Jukic made a decision about a unique program for data processing of census in B&H, which provoked strong reactions in Republika Srpska. SNSD club requested a parliament discussion. There were serious accusations that the law was violated.

According to the decision about methodology of data processing, 196.000 of disputable units will be treated as resident citizens, which greatly aggravated the representatives of RS. Jukic’s deputy Miljan Popic disagreed with the decision too. Jukic, however, is certain about his decision. “I didn’t break the law. The decision about adoption of unique methodology of data processing for Census 2013 is entirely based upon the law,” he said. “One of the standards that we have to stick to is to remain independent. That is our obligation and we have to abide by the Law on Statistics. I have worked in accordance with the law and that is the only truth. That is my response to accusations and innuendos that somebody has done this or that. What the program contains has entirely to do with the implementation of the team, and I believe that one has to respect their knowledge and good intentions towards everyone in B&H,” said Jukic. During the meeting of the B&H Parliamentary Assembly one could hear suggestions that Prosecutor’s office should investigate the leak of the information. Jukic made a comment that ‘as far as I'm aware, nobody from the statistics institutions has ever abused any census related data’.

“That’s what some people say when they speculate. If anyone had gotten an access to data by breaking the law, that should be investigated and I support that,” Jukic added. “Otherwise, a 5th urgent session of Home of Representatives of Parliamentary Assembly started yesterday. One of its first conclusions is that Council of Ministers is to submit information about census from 2013 within 10 days. B&H Council of Ministers is requested to submit this information in relation to the agenda item of the 5th urgent session of Parliamentary Assembly, which reads as follows: Information of the Council of Ministers about Decision on adoption of unique program for data processing of citizens, homes and apartments in B&H 2013, brought by Director of Agency for Statistics Velimir Jukic.

 

Support to B&H in its efforts to activate Membership Action Plan (Fena)

At the session of the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO (NATO PA) in Tirana, which gathered members of the Delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of B&H (PA B&H) in NATO PA Nikola Lovrinovic and Asim Sarajlic, a Declaration was adopted in which member countries of NATO, ahead of the upcoming NATO Summit in Warsaw, have given full and unequivocal support to B&H in its efforts to activate the Membership Action plan (MAP) and in which the NATO member countries are invited to support and assist Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European and Euro-Atlantic path.

 

Djukanovic: I believe NATO member states will ratify the protocol without delay (CDM)

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic believes that NATO member states will recognize Montenegro’s commitment and responsibility and therefore will ratify Montenegro’s Accession Protocol in their national parliaments in order for Montenegro to become a full member of the alliance. Djukanovic said that at the session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly held in Tirana. The fact that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is open to countries that closely cooperate with the alliance is very important. Thereby, mutual confidence and understanding of security issues of mutual importance have been strengthened, said Djukanovic at the session. “My country particularly respects the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. It was this forum that opened the door to Montenegro sixteen years ago at the session in Berlin on 28 November 2000. That was an opportunity for me to address lawmakers from NATO countries and announce that Montenegro, which was formally a part of Milosevic’s Yugoslavia then, saw itself as a part of developed Europe, not as an episode in the destruction of his regime. I also said that any arrangement, according to which Montenegro would be a part of a fourth Yugoslav federation, represented a long-term unfavorable solution for the stability of the region. Our vision has proved to be realistic. Today Montenegro is recognized as a European success story and a factor of stability in the Balkans”, Djukanovic said.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Serbia's EU bid comes with heavy environmental bill (Reuters, by Aleksandar Vasovic, 30 May 2016)

BOR, Serbia - For cattle in the Serbian village of Slatina, drinking from the Borska Reka river is likely to prove deadly. A stream of yellow and brown sludge comprised largely of toxic waste, the Borska Reka has for a century been a run-off from a nearby copper mine and is one of Serbia's most polluted places. It also symbolises the multi-billion-euro environmental problem that heavily indebted Serbia must tackle in its next phase of talks on joining the European Union.

The Borska Reka is so polluted with copper and other waste from the RTB Bor mining and smelting complex that 60 percent of the Bor municipality's arable soil is irreparably contaminated, said Nebojsa Buzej, a local environmental activist. "Cattle drop dead, chickens drop dead, nothing grows along riverbanks, people in the area are dying from horrific cancers and sudden heart attacks ... we cannot possibly enter the European Union with such a river," he told Reuters. Later this year, Belgrade and the EU plan to open talks on Chapter 27, the area of membership negotiations which covers the environment and climate change. The cost of successful completion of these talks, according to Serbian government data, is around 10 billion euros ($11 billion). Serbia's government will have to find up to 8 billion euros, or 8 percent of its gross domestic product, to comply with the provisions of the chapter. Another 2.5 billion euros will be made available from EU funds if it joins in 2020 as planned. Some say Serbia cannot meet that deadline and the environmental problems could delay membership. More likely, government and EU officials say, Serbia will join and complete the clean-up later. Either way, the cost will add substantially to a debt burden that Serbia's 7 million people are already struggling to carry. Neighbouring Croatia, which joined the EU in 2013, has asked the bloc to extend its deadline for environmental recovery to 2025.

NEW LAWS

In February, Serbia adopted laws paving the way for Chapter 27 talks, including setting up a Green Fund that will be operational in 2017 to help it meet the cost of the clean-up from the state budget, said Stana Bozovic, state secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture. The Fund would be financed partly by environmental fees and taxes. "In addition to that, the industrial sector, companies, will have to invest another 1.3 billion euros (in cleaning up their own facilities)," Bozovic told Reuters. Serbia could borrow from official lenders such as international development banks or seek to increase budget revenues through the Green Fund, said Sasa Djogovic of the Belgrade-based Institute for Market Research (IZIT). It can also try to attract private investors as partners in setting up recycling and waste treatment facilities. "If authorities recognise the potential there, the country could actually make good money," Djogovic said. Bozovic said the government was negotiating deadlines with companies for them to clean up waste and meet EU regulations. "We could not set a fixed date for all (companies) because in that case nearly 80 percent of them would have to be shut down and that is something we want to avoid, hence time frames and deadlines," she said. In Bor, Blagoje Spaskovski, chief executive of the RTB Bor copper complex, said a new smelter had greatly reduced air pollution, but cleaning up the topsoil would remain an expensive problem. "The soil has been absorbing heavy metals during 110 years of mining and smelting," he said. Richard Masa, a senior member of the EU mission, said Serbia would not comply in time for its planned accession and would instead get a transition period likely to last until 2041 to meet environmental requirements. "This is expected by this Chapter ... Nobody is given an easy ride (in negotiations)," Masa said. But some in Belgrade say the size of the problem, coupled with other accession issues, could delay Serbia's EU membership. "The 2020 goal is ambitiously set and I cannot see EU accession happening within the mandate of this government (that ends in 2020)," Djogovic said. "Maybe the next government could do it, provided there's enough EU appetite for enlargement."

(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Giles Elgood/Ruth Pitchford)

 

Montenegro Under Pressure to Open Secret Files (BIRN, by Dusica Tomovic, 31 May 2016)

Opposition parties say if their joint candidate is made inspector of the country's intelligence service, the agency will be depoliticised and sealed Communist-era files can be opened up.

Opposition parties, which are now part of the Montenegrin government, are set to propose their candidate for the post of Inspector General in the National Security Agency, hoping to probe the work of the intelligence agency, which is widely accused of abuses favouring Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic's party. BIRN has learned that opposition parties, which entered the cabinet in early May as part of the pre-election agreement, will propose a retired intelligence officer, Gojko Pejovic, for the post whose holder is allowed access to secret service operations and surveillance files. Nedeljko Rudovic, an official of the opposition Civic Movement URA, confirmed that the three opposition parties will submit their candidate for the post by the end of this week. He told BIRN on Monday that the first plan for the opposition representative in the post would be to prevent abuses and what he called "electoral engineering”. "The National Security Agency has to become a political neutral service," Rudovic said. However, the main opposition alliance, the Democratic Front, also says opening up the secret files from the Communist era and from the Nineties also has to be Pejovic's first task. Montenegro is one of the few ex-Communist countries which has not done that so far. The alliance is not part of the new government formed to include the opposition. However, one of the Front's leaders, Nebojsa Medojevic, is pushing for an emergency opening of the secret files. "The files of the UDBA [the Yugoslav communist secret police] have to be opened. Many politicians, tycoons, intellectuals, writers, actors, analysts, especially journalists and NGO activists would be found among the UDBA's associates," Medojevic predicted. Despite a decade of promises and international pressure, most of Montenegros’s state security files remain closed, mainly for political reasons, even though other Balkan countries started opening up their archives long ago. Last September, Croatia handed all secret service documents dated between 1937 and 1990 to the state archives, which will ultimately allow them to be seen by the Croatian public, under certain restrictions. The documents come from the UDBA, as well as from the secret services of the previous Kingdom of Yugoslavia and those of the World War II-era fascist puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia. In December 2015, Albania started the process of selecting the members of the state office which is to be in charge of opening up secret police files amassed under the Communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. No all Balkan countries have embraced transparency. In Serbia, while some documents from the Communist era have been declassified, those from the wars of the 1990s are still sealed.

 

From Bosnia to Iraq: The Failure of Forced Coexistence (The National Interest, by Janko Bekic, 30 May 2016)

The U.S.-led military interventions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, rump Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq have revealed Washington’s inclination toward forcible regime change and external democratization, but also its propensity for the maintenance of the status quo in regard to international boundaries (with Kosovo’s secession from Serbia as an obvious exception to the rule). In three out of four cases, the interventions have included neither border changes nor the diplomatic recognition of breakaway regions; in two, they’ve comprised the foreign imposition of experimental federal arrangements as part of a larger policy of compulsory coexistence between disparate ethnic and/or religious groups.

Legal But Illegitimate

In 1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina became a sui generis (con)federation, incorporating three constituent peoples but only two territorial entities, even though the second largest ethnic group—the Bosnian Serbs—clearly expressed the wish on a referendum in 1991 to remain within rump Yugoslavia, and boycotted the official Bosnian independence referendum of 1992. A decade later Iraq was established as an asymmetric federation of Shia and Sunni Arabs and mostly Sunni Kurds, although the second largest ethnoreligious group—the Sunni Arabs—overwhelmingly rejected the proposed constitution on the Iraqi constitutional referendum of 2005 (e.g., the predominantly Sunni Arab Anbar Province voted with 97 percent against the proposed document).

The severe lack of political loyalty among the Sunni Arab and Kurdish populations to the new Shia-dominated Iraqi state became brutally obvious in the summer of 2014, when it disintegrated within weeks, making room for a revived Islamic caliphate (ISIS) and a de facto independent Kurdistan. Even though the country practically broke apart along ethnic and sectarian lines, just as former U.S. diplomat Peter W. Galbraith predicted in his 2006 book The End of Iraq, the U.S. government stood firm on its One Iraq policy, frustrating the Kurdish Regional Government in Erbil to the point of reevaluating its staunch foreign political orientation toward Washington.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the other hand, lingers on, despite the fact that Milorad Dodik, the president of the Serb entity since 2010, threatens Sarajevo with separation on a regular basis. The Balkan country remains mostly peaceful (it experienced three small-scale terrorist attacks with an Islamist background in the last five years), yet at the same time it is chronically dysfunctional due to its enormous and deeply corrupted public sector and debilitating model of power sharing between the three constituent ethnic groups: Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats.

While state building created a bureaucratic monstrosity, Bosnian nation building wasn’t even seriously attempted, as the dominant ethnic parties cater to and draw support exclusively from their respective ethnic electorates. Add to this the persistent identification of Bosnia’s Croats and Serbs with neighboring Croatia and Serbia, three mutually irreconcilable collective memories, especially regarding the bloody Bosnian War of the 1990s, and an unemployment rate of roughly 40 percent, and you have all the necessary ingredients for a renewed ethnic conflict. Nevertheless, U.S. policymakers occasionally point out the Bosnian “success story” and even recommend its unique (con)federal model for use in other post-conflict societies.

Internal Geopolitics

Beside the shortage of political legitimacy, another feature shared by Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iraq is that federalism in either country means three territorial units for three major ethnoreligious groups. In fact, an equitable allocation of land was deliberately avoided in order to hinder secession and avoid state disintegration. In Bosnia, only the Serbs enjoy an entity of their own, the Republika Srpska, while Bosniaks and Croats were rounded up in the Federacija BiH, a federation within the (con)federation, to the detriment and continued chagrin of numerically inferior Croats. The special Brčko District in northeastern Bosnia was created as a condominium of both entities, with the primary purpose of splitting the Serb Republic in two halves, thus obstructing its sedition and possible unification with Serbia.

In Iraq, only the Kurds have been allotted a quasi-state, in the form of the autonomous Kurdistan Region, whereas the Shia and Sunni Arabs haven’t received anything above provincial level in the rest of the country—an outcome clearly favoring the Shia segment, considering their numerical advantage. However, the Kurdistan Region has been intentionally crippled similarly to the Serb entity of Bosnia. With the goal of discouraging Kurdish secessionism, Iraqi Kurdistan has been deprived of the city of Kirkuk and the adjoining oil fields, the rationale being that the KRG wouldn’t dare embarking on the course of independence without full control over the only giant oil field in the north of Iraq. Yet Baghdad lost its leverage over Erbil following ISIS’s offensive in 2014 and the subsequent Kurdish capture of most of the disputed territories, including Kirkuk. With the advantage on his side, Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani announced the organization of an independence referendum in 2016—the symbolic hundredth anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement that carved up Ottoman possessions in the Middle East.

Fragile vs. Failed States

With all this in mind, a fair assessment of the current situation would be that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a fragile, and Iraq a failed state. There are two variables explaining the different outcome (for now) of the otherwise similar cases. Firstly, while Iraq is run by Iraqis, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a protectorate headed by the High Representative, a regent of sorts appointed by the European Union and invested with despotic powers. The High Representative has the authority to impose legislation without parliamentary consent, remove public officials, annul decisions made by the constitutional court and even design national symbols such as the flag and coat of arms. His position allows him to break the political deadlock every time the elected officials of the three constituent ethnic groups reach one. This way the Potemkin state, as John J. Mearsheimer labeled it back in the 1990s, keeps on going against all odds.

Secondly, while Iraq has no prospect of joining a politico-economic union (unless the Arab League evolves into one), Bosnia and Herzegovina is a potential candidate for membership in the EU. At the moment it doesn’t fulfill even the most basic requirements for becoming an official candidate country (for example, members of minorities are excluded from the tripartite presidency reserved for the representatives of Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats). However, its inhabitants strongly support EU membership and approximately half a million of them are already EU citizens due to their dual—Bosnian and Croatian—citizenship. Furthermore, Brussels has always been outspoken about its goal of integrating the so-called “Western Balkans” (former Yugoslavia plus Albania) into the EU. This outlook, no matter how distant, is another key factor that keeps Bosnia’s political elites from resorting to violence.

In short, the fact that “Mandatory” Bosnia remains an international protectorate twenty-one years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, and that it has a theoretical chance of becoming an EU member state in the future, is basically what prevents the fragile Balkan country from falling apart Iraqi-style. Take these two variables out of the equation and you can expect a resurgence of bloody ethnic conflict in the midst of the European continent.

Territory: Prerequisite for Equality

In hindsight, we must admit that the experimental federal arrangements in Iraq and Bosnia and Herzegovina have failed, and so has the morally questionable policy of compulsory coexistence. While it is probably too late to fix things in Iraq (Shia-Sunni relations are at a historical low, and the Kurds are not likely to give up their hard-fought statehood), it may still be feasible to transform Bosnia into a viable polity.

In order to do this the local political elites, together with their patrons in Ankara, Belgrade and Zagreb, as well as the international community at large, will have to reach a post-Dayton settlement that will allow all three constituent ethnic groups to effectively run their own affairs. This can only be achieved through a symmetric (con)federation consisting of three territorial entities, invested with equivalent competencies. Such an internal reorganization of the Bosnian state would ensure that all constituent groups enjoy a sense of ownership and diminish separatist attitudes among Serbs and Croats, who combined make up nearly 50 percent of Bosnia’s population.

In addition, the proposed reorganization would substantially decrease the number of governmental bodies and reduce the public sector to an acceptable level. Instead of the current fourteen executive bodies and a commensurate number of legislatures (the Bosniak-Croat Federation is further subdivided into ten cantons/counties with each having its own government and parliament), there would only be five of each—one on national level, three for the ethnic entities and one for the special Brčko District. Only the judicial branch of government would experience a small increase—instead of the current three constitutional courts, there would be four.

Critics might say that these entities would function as proto-states and that their breakaway would only be a matter of time. The response to them is that in a deeply divided country like Bosnia and Herzegovina there can’t be real equality among the constituent groups without their autonomous control of territory. Certainly, individual citizens can be equal in Sarajevo, Banja Luka or Mostar regardless of their ethnicity and confession, but the three Staatsvölker of Bosnia need territory in order to achieve self-rule and organize their communal life according to their preferences. This is what political scientists call internal self-determination. Obviously, a (con)federal model in which only one of three groups was granted this right isn’t sustainable in the long run.

Thinking Outside the Box

In his seminal book Ethnic Groups in Conflict, renowned political scientist Donald L. Horowitz wrote that if it was impossible for different groups to live together in one heterogeneous state, then it would be better to enable these groups to live separately in more than one homogeneous state, even if it implied population transfers. More recently, former CIA analyst and national security expert Steven E. Meyer has argued that the only stable borders in the world are those that are accepted by the local populations.

In this article, we have argued that the time has come to recognize the fact that Iraq’s ethnoreligious groups have reached a point beyond which continued coexistence becomes virtually impossible. The international community can respond by forcing them, once again, to renegotiate the terms of living in the same state (hereby laying the foundations for the next civil war), or it can do the right thing by allowing them to divorce and live next to each other as neighbors. In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is still hope that a post-Dayton agreement might persuade all three constituent groups to carry on together. To achieve this, it is essential that the Bosniaks abandon the goal of dominating the other two ethnic groups, while the Serbs and Croats have to give up the idea of merging with their kin-states across the border. There is still time to do this, but only as long as Bosnia remains an international protectorate and potential EU candidate.

In conclusion it can be said that the compulsory coexistence of incompatible ethnoreligious groups in unwanted states on the Balkan Peninsula and in the Middle East represents a continuation of the interwar policy of major European powers to help create weak and internally fragmented countries that can be easily controlled, or at least influenced from the outside. It also attests to the rigidity and short-sightedness of international mediators, whose unyielding adherence to the principle of inviolability of borders often paralyzes divided societies in a grey area of enforced peace and patronized polity. “Better a horrible end than horror without end” is a wise proverb that should be considered by decision makers when the minimum of overarching loyalty to the state and compliance with its constitution and body of laws is absent.

Janko Bekić is a political scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO) in Zagreb, Croatia. He holds a PhD in Comparative Politics and his work focuses mainly on ethno religious conflicts in the Balkans and in the Middle East. Currently he is conducting research on Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman foreign policy.