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Mr. Dodik came to Washington too

The President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, is careful.  Unlike Slobodan Petrovic, the Kosovo Serb deputy prime minister who spoke in public to a group at Johns Hopkins/SAIS that included people who do not agree with him, Dodik declined an invitation to do a public event and instead talked to a SAIS class taught by David Kanin, a retired CIA analyst for whom I have a lot of respect.  But he is also a  sympathizer with ethnic separation in the Balkans.  The message is clear.

I was not invited to the class, or to last night’s reception for Dodik.  The reception was held at an institution run by retired Foreign Service officers, presumably in order to give it the air of an official diplomatic reception and avoid using the Bosnian Embassy, which belongs to an institution (the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina) that Dodik wants to weaken.

I’m particularly amused by the effort to restrict exposure to those who might disagree with Dodik because Obrad Kesic, one of his Washington handlers, is someone whom I invited to speak repeatedly during my years at the United States Institute of Peace though he espoused views I do not agree with.  When he wanted, I published a dissent from a USIP paper on Bosnia he prepared with colleagues.

Dodik had trouble getting good meetings on the Hill but was supposed to see Senator Inhofe (R-Oklahoma).  At the State Department, Phil Gordon was unable to see him due to a family matter, so he talked with Deputy Assistant Secretary Phil Reeker.  Dodik forgot to push Republika Srspka independence there.  It was all about Dayton and EU membership, without any mention of the now well-established incompatibility between the Dayton constitution and a state capable of meeting EU requirements.  I am pleased to report that this charade fools no one at State.

Dodik doesn’t owe me anything.  I’ve got more than enough lectures and diplomatic receptions to attend.  He can appear or not in front of any audience he chooses in this open society, and invite or not invite to his liking.  But someone who chooses to avoid rather than engage his critics and tries to give the impression of engaging in public discourse at a university when he really hasn’t is not my kind of guy.  I trust he’ll impress his carefully chosen audiences in Chicago more.

PS, November 3:  A Bosnian visitor called this video from Dodik’s Columbia event to my attention yesterday. He discusses Russia, Srebrenica and other interesting topics: