Day: April 17, 2011
What do Syrians want?
While the Arabist is certainly correct in noting the banality of President Bashar al Assad’s speech to his new council of ministers yesterday, I confess I read the whole thing on al-bab.com
What he presents is basically his reform program, which is offered in a more or less explicit trade for an end to the demonstrations. The major features of the reform program are these: citizenship for Syrian Kurds, lifting the state of emergency, a law regulating demonstrations (one that he anticipates will eliminate the need for organizing demonstrations!), possibly a law permitting political parties, a law on local administration and another on media, plus of course all the implementation required.
Like most political speeches, this one is most notable for what it omits: no freedom of speech or association, no free and fair elections, little consideration of corruption (none at the higher levels, but mention of bribes at the lower levels), and nothing to speak of on rule of law or an independent judiciary.
In fact, the concept of the state that Bashar puts forward would be inconsistent with these ingredients. He says at the opening:
What’s important at this stage is for us to reach a state of unity, unity between the government, state institutions and the people. We are supposed to be moving in parallel when we move in the same direction. In this case we maximize the outcome and the achievement. The more we distance ourselves from the Syrian population, the weaker our strength and the less our achievement.
And this appears towards the end:
What’s important is that we and the population are one party, not two parties. The citizen is our compass, and we get along with our citizens in the direction they identify. We are here to serve our citizens; and without this service there is no justification for the existence of any one of us. What is important is for the citizen to feel his or her citizenship in every sense of the word.
But clearly your citizenship does not allow for expressing your opinions freely, or having your disputes settled fairly by independent judges observing the rule of law, or voting freely. Rather your citizenship consists in state officials detecting your needs and responding to them.
This is an authoritarian concept of the state, perhaps even a totalitarian one. The question for Syrians is whether this is what they are demonstrating for, or whether they want a government that they choose freely rather than one provided by an allegedly benevolent Bashar. We’ll see in coming days whether the bargain Bashar offers–a state that is not created by its citizens but is purportedly responsive to them, in exchange for quiescence–is what Syrians want.
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Bosnia: fix thyself
Sead Numanovic of Dnevni Avaz, a Bosnian daily, has suggested I address the question I asked Friday about the Arab protests–how long can this go on?–about Bosnia and Herzegovina. The “it” I take to be President Milorad Dodik’s threats to take Republika Srpska (RS) in the direction of independence, whether by referendum or other efforts to assert that the Bosnian state and the international community have no say in how the RS is governed, denying in particular that jurisdiction of the Bosnia and Herzegovina judicial system extends to RS.
This has already gone on for a long time. Dodik has been unequivocal in his assertions of RS’s defiance of the High Representative–the international community’s designated guarantor of Dayton agreement implementation–for a couple of years now. He has made it absolutely clear that he rejects any constraints imposed by the High Rep or by the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, thus asserting de facto independence of an entity that in the international community view gave up any chance of independence at Dayton, in return for international community acknowledgement of its existence and authority within the limits imposed by the Dayton constitution.
But the international community has foolishly disarmed itself and no longer possesses the tools required to enforce its decisions on the RS. It has become a paper tiger, and Dodik is calling its bluff.
So what are the remaining limits on Dodik’s push for RS independence? There are three: the presumably limited patience of the majority of Bosnians, the financial resources at the RS’s disposal, and the unwillingness of other states to recognize an independent RS.
I am no expert on either of the first two limits, but people who are tell me that the crunch is coming.
Republika Srpska got 49 per cent of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s territory at Dayton. This was a dramatic increase from the territory it actually controlled at the end of the war, which was down to 34 per cent and shrinking rapidly as Croat and Bosniak (aka Federation) forces advanced towards Banja Luka. The Federation forces gave up 15 per cent of the territory to RS at Dayton, in exchange for RS’s incorporation in the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
If RS is now trying to leave that state–whether de facto or de jure–I would expect a substantial number of people, especially in the Federation, to oppose its effort. It is clear enough to me that a majority of Bosnians want to continue to live in a single Bosnian state: best guesstimates put the percentage of Muslims and “others” in Bosnia and Herzegovina today at over 50 per cent. They favor a single Bosnian state by a wide margin. Substantial numbers of Croats in Central Bosnia and Serbs wherever they live in the Federation also favor a single Bosnian state, since partition would mean they would likely have to move.
If a majority of Bosnians favor a single state, some percentage of that number will be prepared to take up arms to oppose Dodik’s attempt to walk away with 49 per cent of the territory. Their focus will be Brcko, which links the two wings of the RS. So long as it is not in his hands, Dodik cannot hope for independence. That is why he is aiming to squeeze Brcko dry, hoping to preempt his opponents by ending the multiethnic administration there.
Before it gets to violence, RS may well run out of money. Its finances are far from transparent, but those who study them tell me they can’t last long. The belt-tightening measures instituted so far are unlikely to buy the RS much time. This is one reason why Dodik so aggressively pursues state and defense property, which he hopes to sell off to refill his coffers, as he has done previously with other state assets. We are talking here about no more than a year or so more before the RS faces the real prospect of going to Sarajevo for help. Obviously that help would come only if Dodik abandoned his push for independence.
The third limit is the one I know most about: the prospects for international recognition of the RS as an independent state. Here I can be unequivocal: unless there is a dramatic change whose cause I cannot imagine, few sovereign states will recognize an independent RS. While there are people in Belgrade egging on Dodik, including Foreign Minister Jeremic and sometimes President Tadic, even Serbia would have to think three times before recognizing the RS, as doing so would end Belgrade’s hopes for EU membership for the foreseeable future. Serbia absorbing the RS would have the same result.
So Dodik’s best bet is to achieve as much autonomy as possible, desisting from a formal move towards independence until the moment is ripe, while trying to raise the funds he needs to keep the RS going and stopping just short of provoking Bosnians committed to the current state of Bosnia and Herzegovina from taking up arms. That seems to me an accurate description of what he is up to. I can’t tell you how long the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina will put up with this, but they should not rely on the international community to take action. It figures there is no need, as it has the final say by withholding recognition.
If Bosnians want to save their state, they’ll need to do it for themselves, either by cutting a financial deal with Dodik or enforcing the bargain made at Dayton. Dodik is serious about seeking independence for RS. How serious is the rest of Bosnia about preserving the Dayton state? If it is, it will need to do something definitive within the next year.
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