You reap what was sown

A reader tweets:

Personally I prefer Bosnia to stay one single state. But how can we say YES to #Kosovo but NO to #RS and Croats in Bosnia!?

This in my view is an important and legitimate question, one that merits more of an answer than I am able to fit into 140 characters.  A Serb colleague has been asking me this question for many years.  So here goes.

The Bosnia and Kosovo outcomes are different because of the different history and evolution of the two places. I am not talking ancient history here, but recent events. And Belgrade played a critical decisionmaking role in these events. I’d even say it was Belgrade that determined the two different outcomes.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belgrade supported the effort of Republika Srpska (RS) to secede by force of arms, starting in 1992 by ethnically cleansing the territory the RS controlled. The leadership and other officers of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) were in fact officers of the then-Yugoslav National Army (JNA). This effort failed in 1995, when an attack on Sarajevo precipitated NATO bombing that tilted the military situation in favor of the Federation (mainly Croat and Bosniak) forces. The Dayton ceasefire that ensued and the Dayton agreements saved the VRS from imminent defeat and gave to Republika Srpska 49 per cent of the territory, in exchange for its remaining inside Bosnia as one of two “entities” (the other being the Federation). Thus Slobodan Milosevic at Dayton snatched a kind of victory from the jaws of defeat, since he would have been blamed had the Federation forces taken Banja Luka and Brcko. But he signed away any right the RS might claim to secession and independence.

What about the Croats? They did not ask for or get a separate entity at Dayton. This I know since I conducted, with Michael Steiner, the Federation negotiations that took place in the first ten days there. Why? Because the Bosnian Croats were getting an excellent deal: half the Federation, when they were far less than half its population, and one-third of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, when they likely weren’t at the time of Dayton more than 10 per cent of its population.  Tudjman was also concerned to prevent the emergence of an Islamic Republic in central Bosnia, which the Federation did by tying the Bosniaks to a governing structure they shared with the Croats.

In Kosovo, Belgrade tried to prevent the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) from gaining independence from Serbia by force of arms, using ethnic cleansing to try to redress the population balance in a province of Serbia that had become heavily Albanian. This effort also ended with a NATO bombing campaign, which in turn ended with a UN Security Council resolution in which Milosevic again snatched a kind of victory from the jaws of defeat, as it put Kosovo under UN administration and appeared to require a new UN resolution to change that outcome. It looked as if Kosovo would, like RS, not be able to secede and declare independence.

So the initial outcomes in the two places were about as favorable to Serbia’s interests as possible under the particular circumstances, which included two failed military campaigns and extensive ethnic cleansing as well as NATO intervention. Milosevic, contrary to what many may think, proved much better at diplomacy than fighting. But post-war developments diverged in the two places.

Kosovo, guided by the UN, U.S. and EU, implemented extensive provisions to protect Serbs and other minorities (standards before status, then the Ahtisaari Plan) and decided to declare independence in February 2008. Seventy-six states have now recognized its sovereignty, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has advised–in response to Belgrade’s request–that the declaration of independence did not violate international law.

Of course RS could also declare independence. But Belgrade at Dayton signed away its right to do so (and RS leaders had authorized Milosevic to speak for them at the negotiation). Any case at the ICJ would likely be decided differently for the RS than for Kosovo. And it is unlikely in any event that under current circumstances RS would get any significant recognition. It has done little to welcome back its Croat or Bosniak populations, and its secession would likely lead to a result that no one in the international community (including Serbia and Croatia) wants: the creation of a non-viable Islamic state in central Bosnia with irredentist ambitions.

Note:  I have not above used the legal arguments about whether Kosovo was a “federal” unit of former Yugoslavia or not.  Bosnia certainly was a federal unit with the right to independence and declared it in 1992 in accordance with the Badinter criteria, which included a referendum that passed by a wide margin, with many Serbs boycotting.  RS was certainly not a federal unit of the former Yugoslavia, so according to the Badinter criteria it did not have the right to secession.  Kosovo is arguable both ways.  So I’ve chosen not to argue at all.

Note some more:  The Badinter Commission was asked:

Does the Serbian population in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as one of the constituent peoples of Yugoslavia, have the right to self-determination?

Its answer, in typically oblique Europeanese, was this:

(i) that the Serbian population in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia is entitled to all the rights concerned to minorities and ethnic groups under international law and under the provisions of the draft Convention of the Conference on Yugoslavia of 4 November 1991, to which the Republics of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia have undertaken to give effect; and
(ii) that the Republics must afford the members of those minorities and ethnic groups all the human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized in international law, including, where appropriate, the right to choose their nationality.

In American, that would be “no,” but the Serb community’s minority rights have to be respected.

Bottom line:  Kosovo is independent because of what Belgrade tried to do there; RS will not be independent because of what it and Belgrade did in Bosnia and at Dayton.

That’s why the outcomes in Kosovo and Bosnia are different: because their evolution and circumstances, largely determined by decisions made in Belgrade, are different.  None of this was done by the people who are today in power in Belgrade, but you reap what was sown.