Getting to post-Dayton Bosnia

Here are the talking points I prepared for myself for today’s conference in Sarajevo on The Biden Administration’s Bosnia Policy: 30 Years of Federation of BiH sponsored by the US-Europe Alliance and the International University of Sarajevo:

1. It is a great pleasure to be back in Sarajevo, truly one of the most beautiful and welcoming cities on earth.
2. A great deal has changed since I first came here in November 1994, during the war, and even since I was here five or six years ago.
3. I was the US embassy’s most frequent visitor during the war.
4. The streets then were empty of both cars and people, the city was divided and isolated from its so-called suburbs, shelling was frequent, most shops were closed, heat and electricity were at best sporadic, telephones had stopped working, civilians needed to learn where they could walk without being targeted by snipers. Thousands of civilians were killed.
5. Small arms fire hit my UN plane while landing the first time I came to Sarajevo.
6. Things have changed a great deal. My compliments to those who have made it happen.
7. I find Sarajevo much enlivened, younger, and more cosmopolitan. It is good that so many tourists are making their way here, that you have a Sarajevo School of Science and Technology that grants British as well as Bosnian degrees, that the Vijecnica is restored and occupied by a young woman who has more experience as a university professor than as a politician.
8. But it is also true that the Dayton agreements froze the warring parties in place by institutionalizing the political divisions among Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats.
9. Each group has a veto on almost everything at the state level and in the Federation.
10. Dayton also reduced the role of people who refused to identify themselves with one of the three major groups, preferring to think of themselves as individuals with inalienable rights.
11. I believe it is high time to correct those mistakes.
12. The two entities are the warring parties of 1995. One is now threatening secession. The other is threatened with division by those who want a third entity.
13. These objectives are ethnic war by political means. That is better than war by military means, but it is still not the best option available.
14. You will later in this conference discuss the legal strategy aimed at reforming Dayton Bosnia, which has been notably successful at the European Court of Human Rights but remains largely unimplemented, due to the ethnic nationalist vetoes.
15. That however should not be the only strategy aimed at making Bosnia a more functional and effective state.
16. Others may talk today about economic strategies. Any Bosnian enterprise with ambition should be unhappy with today’s Dayton Bosnia.
17. A serious company should want a more unified economic space with improved relations with the rest of the world, especially Europe but also the United States.
18. But I want to focus mainly on political reforms, which I think are needed in two dimensions.
19. One is reform within Bosnia’s political parties, which are largely fiefdoms of the party leaders.
20. More competitive contests for party leadership would open up the existing political parties, enable them to have more policy and programmatic focus, and reduce the dominance of the political parties within the Bosnian state.
21. Political party reform would also reduce the risks of state capture by people exploiting public resources and patronage. And it would reduce the risks that state investigations of corruption would be blocked.
22. The second dimension of needed political reform is cross-ethnic cooperation.
23. This is not entirely lacking. Croat and Serb ethnic nationalists cooperate quite well these days, as they did in southern Bosnia during the war.
24. What is needed is creation of a more civic-oriented multiethnic coalition, one that would reinforce the legal strategy that has produced good results at the ECHR.
25. Such a civic coalition would focus on improving governance, not only at the national level but also in the municipalities.
26. That is where citizens and government interact most frequently. A coalition that proves it can meet citizen demands at the municipal level will have a much greater chance of winning at other levels.
27. Despite my wartime role as Mr. Federation, I am no longer a friend to the entities or the cantons. It seems to me Bosnia and Herzegovina could be more effectively governed at the municipal level and at the state level.
28. The state government should have full authority to negotiate and implement the EU’s acquis communautaire.
29. The municipalities, in accordance with the European principle of subsidiarity, should have responsibility for everything else.
30. It is not clear to me how you get to that kind of post-Dayton Bosnia from where things stand now.
31. It will take political courage and smart strategy, beginning with redefinition of Bosnians as citizens rather than ethnic groups.
32. Yes, you are correct in thinking that the Americans imposed the Dayton system on Bosnia. Some of you will want to fix what we broke.
33. But we imposed what the wartime leadership said they would accept.
34. Twenty-nine years later neither the Americans nor the Europeans have the clout to change the system.
35. Nor do they have the incentive to do so. Many fear instability and some have confidence in the transformational power of the EU.
36. It is now up to Bosnians to change the political system. There are good legal, political, and economic reasons to do so.
37. The simple fact is that Dayton Bosnia will not be able to join the European Union or NATO.
38. Many in the current political leadership know that but don’t mind. They fear their own political and economic fortunes would end in a Bosnia with strong judicial, legislative, and executive institutions.
39. It is Bosnia’s citizens who are going to have to do the heavy lifting.
40. The Americans and European should be prepared to help.
41. The Americans tried with European support in 2006 when they supported the negotiation of what became known as the April package.
42. That failed to get a 2/3 majority in parliament by just two votes.
43. The EU tried more recently with American support through the Citizens’ Assembly, municipal versions of which have also convened in Banja Luka and Mostar.
44. Much more of this kind of effort is needed to build a cross-ethnic constituency for peace.
45. Let me turn now to the hard part. I regret to say Bosnia also needs to be ready for war, in order to prevent it.
46. Milorad Dodik and Aleksandar Vucic have made their intentions clear. They are creating a de facto Serbian world that would remove Republika Srpska from any oversight by Bosnian institutions.
47. This is a clever scheme, with each step kept below the level at which it might stimulate a negative European or American reaction.
48. Nor would I rule out a military dimension to the Serb strategy like the attempt at Banjska in Kosovo last September. That would be a provocation intended to provoke a reaction that enables Republika Srpska or Serbia to justify intervention.
49. The Bosnian Army, EUFOR and NATO also need to be ready for what we call in Washington “little green men” used to infest Brcko in a kind of stealth takeover.
50. Only if Dodik and Vucic understand that there will be a rapid and effective US and EU military reaction can we be sure they won’t try these Moscow-inspired gimmicks.
51. Preserving the peace requires both military strength and political reform. Getting beyond the Dayton state in Bosnia will require commitment and inspiration.
52. Bosnia has come a long way in the past 29 years. But it still has a way to go before it is a normal democratic country, one without a High Representative, one whose unity and territorial integrity citizens of all ethnicities defend, and one in which individual rights are protected for everyone.
53. I am not suggesting something less than what I myself want. I would never trade my individual rights—protected by the judicial, legislative, and executive branches—for group rights.
54. I wish you well undertaking the worthy effort of creating a post-Dayton, civic Bosnia. One that can join the European Union and NATO without looking back!