Bosnia options
I think of myself not as an optimist or pessimist, but as a realist, albeit an occasionally imaginative (hopefully not delusionary) one. What does that mean in Bosnia and Herzegovina today?
I am finding wide agreement among the internationals on at least one thing: the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, should be taken seriously when he advocates maximum autonomy for his Serb entity, with a view to gaining independence. Where they differ is on the remedy: some think none is needed, since the day when independence is possible will never arrive, while others think it necessary to react, one way or the other, to his threats.
Ignoring Dodik is certainly one option. Those who advocate doing so think it was a mistake for the European Union’s High Representative, Catherine Ashton, to cut a deal with Dodik to postpone his proposed referendum on the role of the international community in enforcing the Dayton agreements and on the Bosnian judicial system. They think it would also have been a mistake for the international community to annul the referendum law, which was the intention before Ashton cut her deal. The EU and US might have done better, some would argue, just to ignore the referendum, thus minimizing its political significance.
Another option would be to challenge Dodik when he crosses well-defined red lines. One clear red line is independence for RS, or anything that leads irreversibly in that direction. Neither Europe nor the U.S.–not even Serbia–would allow a referendum on independence, and the other High Representative (Valentin Inzko, who represents not only the U.S. and EU but also the Russians, Turks and other members of the international community) was poised to cancel Dodik’s proposed referendum on grounds that it would have led irreversibly in the direction of independence. Had Ashton not acted, Inzko would have.
What else can be done?
Some argue in favor of an early Bosnian application for EU membership. This they say would put Bosnia into a process that will require it to have a more functional central government and reduce the temptation of the EU to do what Ashton did, i.e. deal directly with Republika Srpska. It will also reduce the significance of Dodik’s independence talk and force him to deal with the central government, which will be responsible for most of the reforms EU membership requires.
It can also be argued that the right response to Dodik’s campaign for maximum autonomy for the RS is maximum effort in the Federation (the other 51% of Bosnia) to become more functional and effective. This would set up a competition between the two halves of the country and accelerate progress to towards the EU, as well as convergence between the two administrations, which will have to meet the same EU requirements. Given the current difficulty of forming a government–Bosnia has been unable to do so since elections eight months ago–this to some is an appealing way of turning the current situation to advantage.
Another possibility is a referendum in all of Bosnia on whether its population wants a government that can fulfill the requirements of EU membership. This would answer the question many people pose: do Bosnians want to live in the same state? Dodik has made a lot of political hay among Serbs with his referendum proposals. But there is no reason why the fate of Bosnia should be decided exclusively in the RS, with only one quarter the country’s population voting. A referendum in the whole country would likely pass handily and end Dodik’s referendum bravado.
Some would like to see a new Dayton conference. While in the past the people who advocated this were mainly those who wanted to partition Bosnia along ethnic lines, today some of those who would like to hold it together believe that a new grand bargain is necessary. Dayton has become in Dodik’s hands an instrument for maximizing RS autonomy. Some of those who would prefer a stronger central government think that they could get more of what they want from a renegotiated agreement.
If Dodik goes ahead with his referendum at some point, the country’s majority could react in several ways. What if a million Bosnians walked into the RS and sat down in polling places? What if the constitutional court intervened? What if the EU and U.S. pulled their ambassadors and levied sanctions against Dodik and his close advisors?
And finally: there is the war option. Let me be clear about this: I am not advocating it, just posing it as one among a number of other possibilities. Among those who fought for a single Bosnia in the 1992-95 war, there are at least some who took their guns home with them and would be prepared to fight again if the unity of the country were threatened.
The only scenario for this I can realistically imagine is a lightening quick Muslim lunge for Brcko, the linchpin of the two parts of RS that lies only a short distance from Federation territory. Once split, the western portion of RS (where Banja Luka lies) would fall quickly. Eastern Bosnia, where the terrain is difficult and the population heavily Serb since the war, would likely require negotiation.
It is admittedly difficult to imagine this last option in a Sarajevo bathed in sunshine and teeming with Bosnians eating ice cream and drinking the many different types of coffee that remain as a symbol of the country’s one-time role as a crossroads of civilizations. Who would want to give up a job in one of the five (yes, count them: district, municipal, cantonal, entity and central) governments headquartered here for a bug-challenged tromp through the mountains and across the Posavina corridor?
The answer is someone feeling threatened by ethnic nationalist rhetoric and other reminders of a war that took about 100,000 lives and close to four years of depradations of the civilian population. Or maybe someone in the Muslim community feeling as emboldened as Milorad Dodik, as he plunks for maximum autonomy, challenging and manipulating the Americans and Europeans into partitioning Bosnia.
I know too well that America has many problems that come before Bosnia in the current hierarchy of priorities. But let’s be clear: a radicalized Islamic state in central Bosnia would be no more welcome today than 15 years ago. There are lots of options. Bosnians and Europeans should tend to the problem before the Americans feel they need to.
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3 thoughts on “Bosnia options”
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Do you have any way to judge whether the situation is changing as the older generation that fought is being replaced by a younger, more internationally-oriented generation? What I have in mind are some optimistic articles in US papers suggesting that young people see inter-ethnic quarrels as hopelessly passé.
Does Dodik have any expectation, realistic or not, that a declaration of independence would not be immediately condemned by the UNSC? This is one of those cases – violation of an international agreement – that is clearly illegal under international law, no? Even recognition by Serbia seems a stretch – Serbians still remember what living under sanctions was like.
Which side wins if nothing dramatic happens?
And why do you assume a Bosnian entity would be radically Islamic? Neither Albania nor Kosovo is.
Putting Albania and Kosovo in the same group is nonsense. To Albanians religion means nothing, whereas to Bosnians (and other people) religion is the main pillar of national identity.
A Bosnian entity would be radically Islamic because its people would be convinced the West is favoring the Christians. As simple as that.
A community that is 80%-alcohol-drinking and traditionally of the softer, Western variety of Islam is going to form a radical Islamic government, complete with support for jihad operations abroad? (That’s the “radical” part.) It all sounds rather fusty, past its sell-by date, with what’s going on in the Mid-East, where they’re demonstrating and dying for the kind of society Islamic Bosnia already has. In any case, without the trouble-making politicians of RS, they’d probably be better off. Bosnia would enter Nato and RS would become a pariah state, along with Serbia if the two merged. It’s good news that the Bosnian forum participants seemed calmly confident – desperate people do stupid things.
“Radical Islam” in the Balkans sounds like something out of Serbian politicians’ over-heated imagination, on a level with charges of the Greater Albania aspirations of Kosovo. Clinton claimed his greatest accomplishment in foreign affairs was to prevent the establishment of an Al Qaeda base in the Balkans, but that was a different time. If there’s fighting this time, the Bosniaks won’t be forced to turn to AQ for support, and the Serbian army won’t be riding to RS’ rescue.
The information on the parlous state of RS’s finances is interesting, BTW, since one Serbian claim for RS deserving independence is that it is the only part of the country with a healthy economy, that the other entity is simply economically incompetent and this unfairly impacts good, hard-working Serbs.