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A new idea

I don’t often hear new ideas from the Balkans.  Most of what passes for innovation there is rehashed from the detritus of failure and packaged in insincere compliments to the international community.  So it was with real pleasure that I spent an hour Monday listening to Bosnian Federation President Živko Budimir, whom I knew in the aftermath of the Bosnian war as the deputy commander of the Federation armed forces.

The General had a commanding brief.  He outlined the many weaknesses of the post-war transition in Bosnia, including:

• The structural asymmetry between the cantonalized Federation (the Croat and Muslim controlled 51% of the country) and Republika Srpska (the Serb controlled 49%).
• The ethnic homogenization down to the municipality level caused by the war and the failure to fulfill promises that displaced people and refugees could return to their homes (except for Serb returns along the Croatian border in Herzegovina).
• The continued strength of the entity (Federation and RS) level of governance, despite international efforts to beef up the “state” (i.e. central) government.
• Ethnic dominance of political parties, the civil service, interior ministries, police and the judiciary.
• Widespread corruption.
• The failure of economic recovery and consequent 40% unemployment.
• Determined and blatant RS efforts to precipitate the dissolution of the state.

This unflinching analysis already made the hour worthwhile.  But Budimir offered solutions as well.  Some of them were well known:  protection of individual rights, redistribution of entity responsibilities to the central government and to the municipalities, tougher international attitudes, acceleration of the EU accession process.

But he surprised me with a new idea:  he proposed that the relative success at Brčko, a northeastern Bosnian town where reintegration and economic revival worked well under American tutelage, be expanded by creating a “Posavina district” encompassing seven municipalities, including Brčko.

I don’t imagine this is going to happen tomorrow, but it is clever to build on the one place where reintegration has been successful.  There can be no dissolution of Bosnia (or of the RS) so long as the Posavina corridor, which links the eastern wing of the RS with its more populous western wing, is under multi-ethnic control.  This is why I have repeatedly suggested that the EUFOR troops in Bosnia be concentrated there.   President Budimir’s idea is better:  expand the area under multi-ethnic governance, keeping the populations of Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs more or less equal to ensure that no one group dominates the area.

How to get this done?  Budimir insists on the international community playing a strong role, both with sticks (especially in opposing dissolution of the state) and carrots (in particular NATO and EU membership), in particular to block corruption and promote reconciliation.  But he also proposes the founding of a new multiethnic political party in Bosnia to reinvent its politics.  This would require a good deal of courage and commitment, of which the general showed ample supplies in bringing his idea to Washington.  Now what he has to do is get them to fly at home.

PS:  Here is Budimir’s text.  Here is his powerpoint presentation.