Month: February 2025
How to solve the Dayton puzzle
Bosnian Fulbrighter Cancar will present tomorrow 11-12:30 at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Please register and join us!
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The bad ideas keep on coming
Two weeks have brought us these, just on the foreign policy front:
- Proposed take over Greenland, Panama Canal, Canada, and now Gaza.
- Eviscerated the world’s largest humanitarian agency, recalling all its overseas staff.
- Reached bogus deals to postpone promised tariffs on Mexico and Canada
- Failed to reach a deal with China, which retaliates.
- Arrested thousands of legal immigrants and try to deport them.
Gaza
Trump’s idea is to make Gaza “the riviera of the Middle East.” That’s not the crazy part. I’ve been there (between the two Intifadas, around 1999). Gaza would make a very nice resort community on the Mediterranean. It has beautiful beaches and a flat approach to the seaside. It could accommodate a good sized airport and seaport. When I was there, its hotels were capable of serving Kosher as well as Halal food, shipped from Israel.
But to accomplish his developer’s goal, Trump wants to remove the 2 million or so Palestinians who call Gaza home. When they visit soon, Egyptian President Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah will tell him what they think of the idea. Neither is willing to accept large numbers of Palestinians even temporarily. Both think their more or less autocratic regimes would not survive such an influx. Neither would want to exclude the possibility of a Palestinian state in the future.
A US takeover of Gaza would require tens of thousands of troops for at least a decade of occupation. Not to mention tens of thousands of contractors to clear unexploded ordnance, clear rubble, and start reconstruction. The cost would be many billions even before beginning to construct the resort.
US occupation of Gaza would also end hopes of a Palestinian state. Hamas and Hizbollah terrorists, Houthi drones, and Iranian missiles would target the Americans. Defense would be costly. The opportunity costs of putting that many American troops into a static position in the Middle East would be astronomical.
The other real estate propositions
Trump’s other real estate propositions are no better. Greenlanders oppose becoming part of the US by a margin of more than 10/1. Canadians feel about the same way. Panama isn’t going to give up the Canal, which is not run by the Chinese, as Trump claims.
In short, none of these things are happening because they are all the fantasies of a failed real estate tycoon. Trump has been successful in tacking his name onto other people’s buildings, not in developing his own projects. That isn’t going to change.
USAID
I am no fan of USAID, but yanking its overseas personnel and abruptly closing its life-saving programs is irresponsible. Folding the agency into the State Department is not necessarily a bad idea. Canada, the UK, and Australia have all incorporated their aid agencies into their foreign ministries. But it has to be done carefully and thoughtfully, which is definitely not what we are seeing right now.
Aid should come in two varieties. One is unconditional humanitarian assistance needed to relieve human suffering. Food, water, health, and shelter for victims of natural disasters, poverty, and oppressive governments belong in this category.
The other is assistance on building governmental and nongovernmental institutions where people are striving for more open and just societies. Even if their governments are oppressive, we should be willing to consider assistance that will improve the situation. This latter type of assistance really does belong in the State Department. The humanitarian relief part should be freestanding.
Mexico and Canada
Mexico and Canada handled the tariffs well. They threatened to retaliate, then offered Trump concessions that they had already made during the Biden Administration. Canada is beefing up its border controls. Mexico has already deployed more troops to its border with the US. Trump swallowed these non-concessions and declared victory. Mexico did even better, as it got Trump to agree to limit arms trafficking from the US into Mexico. That has been a perennial Mexican complaint. Now they get to complain when the US fails to follow through.
It remains to be seen what will happen in 30 days, when the postponement of the tariffs expires. My guess is not much. Maybe another empty concession or two. Then return to the free trade agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term in office. Trump will declare it a win.
As for immigration, Southwest Land Border Encounters were way down already in November and December 2024. Trump can declare victory, ignoring the fact this was accomplished under Biden/Harris.
China
The 10% tariff on Chinese imports to the US is far less than Trump has sometimes bruited. Beijing was ready. It responded with both tariffs on imports to China from the US and limits on exports of rare earth metals. It also launched an antitrust investigation of Google and labeled a couple of US companies unreliable. Those latter moves are not for now important, but they may indicate one direction of Chinese policy in the future.
Americans buy a lot from China, on the order of $500 billion per year. Without equally priced other sources for the goods, the tariffs mean a $50 billion hidden tax increase on US consumers. That’s still relatively small. Wait until Trump gets to his 100% tariff.
Immigration
So far, the majority of people arrested in Trump Administration sweeps of immigrants have not been criminals. This isn’t surprising. All Administrations, including Biden’s, have kept themselves arresting and deporting criminal immigrants. Now the Administration has exceeded the capacity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities. So it is starting to release some detainees.
It is also flying hundreds on military planes out of the US to be repatriated. This is an expensive proposition. Someone will eventually tell the Defense Department to save its resources for a more useful purpose.
What could happen next?
Who knows. There is no lack of things we need to do. Trump can even be expected to stumble on a few.
Is there a better option for Iran than restoring maximum pressure? That is what the Administration is going to try to do. If that is preliminary to negotiations on both Iran’s regional malfeasance and its nuclear program, I’ll be for it.
The Administration seems headed for a tougher policy on Ukraine than many had thought possible. That’s good too, if it aims to end the Russian invasion and restore Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
But the ratio of good ideas like those to bad ones is unlikely to be high. The bad ideas keep coming because the President has so many of them.
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Serbian civil society boycotts Government
Here’s a statement, published by European Western Balkans, from leading civil society organizations in Serbia, who want nothing to do with a government that is suppressing the student protest movement:
Since the beginning of the student protests in Serbia, we have publicly and unequivocally supported all their demands. The loss of innocent lives in the collapse of the train station canopy in Novi Sad on November 1st last year deeply shook us, as did the violence we are witnessing and the actions of institutions that, instead of fulfilling their duties, are using various maneuvers to suppress the student movement. The students have demonstrated that the movement cannot be suppressed and that the struggle will continue until institutions begin fulfilling their mandates. The rule of law and accountability of public officials must be the foundation of a functioning society. However, Serbia has long ceased to be a country governed by the rule of law.
For years, we have witnessed pressure, attacks, and intimidation campaigns against civil society organizations, human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and citizens who dare to stand up against corruption and abuse of institutions. We see the misuse of state security structures and other institutions for illegal surveillance of activists and the fabrication of criminal and other legal proceedings aimed at intimidating activists and journalists. The pressure on civil society has now taken on an institutional form for the first time through the proposed law on a special register of foreign influence agents, modeled after regulations in Russia and Belarus. In response to all this, the responsible institutions remain silent and fail to perform their fundamental duty – they do not protect citizens or the common good.
In recent days, we have witnessed harassment, arrests, deportations, and entry bans imposed on activists, students, and public figures from abroad. We are also seeing the targeting of citizens with dual citizenship, while convicted war criminals publicly share students’ personal data, thereby endangering their safety.
We are also witnessing authorities attempting to uphold a false facade of democracy and inclusivity in policy-making by formally involving civil society in decision-making processes. However, regardless of how well these initiatives may appear, they are not implemented in practice, and the standards for protecting human rights and freedoms have been in steady decline in recent years. Citizens and civil society have no real opportunity to influence decisions regarding projects and activities that already have or could have a negative impact on their rights, property, health, and safety. Public spaces and services, cultural heritage, and natural resources are being systematically taken from citizens, with the active complicity of public institutions, public servants, and the country’s highest-ranking officials.
Due to all the aforementioned reasons, and guided by the conviction that the rule of law must finally prevail, we have decided to suspend our cooperation with the legislative and executive authorities in Serbia. By cooperation, we refer to any form of membership – formal or informal – in working groups within government ministries, as well as in all other permanent and ad hoc working groups, councils, and similar instruments of state bodies that require our direct involvement.
We will not abandon the effort to restore institutions of the Republic of Serbia to their rightful functions and to the citizens. We remain committed to our work and will continue to monitor all decision-making processes, regularly inform the public about their effects, and, in the coming period, utilize all legal, administrative, and other mechanisms available within state institutions. In doing so, we will protect human rights, report criminal offenses and violations, highlight harmful decisions and actions, and make use of all available mechanisms to safeguard the public interest, human rights, freedoms, health, safety, and property of citizens, in accordance with the goals, vision, and mission of our organizations.
Signatories:
- A11 – Initiative for Economic and Social Rights
- Alternative Girls’ Center
- ASTRA – Anti-Trafficking Action
- Autonomous Women’s Center
- Belgrade Centre for Human Rights
- Belgrade Centre for Security Policy
- Center for Contemporary Politics
- Civic Initiatives
- CRTA – Center for Research, Transparency, and Accountability
- European Movement in Serbia
- FemPlatz
- Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
- Humanitarian Law Center
- Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia
- Initiative for the Rights of Persons with Mental Disabilities – MDRI-S
- International Aid Network – IAN
- Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights – YUCOM
- Media Association
- Ministry of Space Collective
- National Coalition for Decentralization
- Online Media Association
- Partners for Democratic Change Serbia
- PIN – Psychosocial Innovation Network
- Polekol – Organization for Political Ecology
- Regulatory Institute for Renewable Energy and Environment – RERI
- SHARE Foundation
- Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation
- Youth Initiative for Human Rights
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Bosnian constitutional reform on one page
I hope my friends at Circle (Krug) 99 in Sarajevo won’t mind my republishing this statement. It is a clear and concise proposal for constitutional changes in Bosnia and Herzegovina presented at their January 19 session. It also puts the responsibility where it belongs: primarily on Bosnians.
| The current Constitutional arrangement of Bosnia and Herzegovina is based on Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, whose principal attribute Is the cessation of armed conflict in our country. However, its implementation over the past three decades has clearly shown that this consensual constitutional arrangement in fact represents an obstacle to the development of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a democratic state in harmony with contemporary standards. For this reason, constitutional reform is necessary and should unfold in three directions. First, we should incorporate into the constitution the actual achievements of constitutional development attained up to now. For example, the Constitution provides for legal regulation of state symbols, and this has been realized. The symbols have been adopted and have taken on a life of their own. Now it is necessary to raise their normalization to the constitutional level. In addition, reform of the armed forces, introduction of a Court and Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, intelligence agencies and indirect taxation – these are all new institutions and authorities for our state that should be dealt with in a coherent text of the principal law of the land. Second, the Constitution is replete with provisions of a limited time nature. In other words, their validity and implementation are linked with precisely defined timelines. Some of these have either expired, or they present solutions that are no longer realistically implementable because of the afore-mentioned developments. For example, there is the convening of the Constitutional Court, the first naming of the Executive Council of the Central Bank with a foreigner as its governor, and the Permanent Committee for military issues. Constitutional reform would include eliminating references of this kind. The third direction of reform is perhaps the most demanding, since it calls for the harmonization of the Constitution with decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, which has time after time referred to the discriminatory nature of current provisions that limit the active and passive voting rights for the House of Peoples and for the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It would be enough to recall the decision in the Kovacevic vs. Bosnia case, where the claimant demonstrated that the House of Peoples at the state level has no electoral legitimacy under today’s constitutional arrangements. There exists in this country the will, the professional expertise and expert communities necessary to conduct a thorough constitutional reform, whose work hopefully would be augmented with considerable assistance of international players. ** Presenters at the “Krug 99” session were: Professor Dr. Sukrija Baksic Law Faculty of the University of Sarajevo 19 January 2025 ** Adil Kulenović, president |
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Why a PM resigning doesn’t matter
I’ve been preoccupied with events in DC and thus slow to comment on Serbian politics. Certainly the resignation of the prime minister is a credit to the demonstrators. They have maintained the pressure for months in the aftermath of the collapse of the Novi Sad train station canopy.
Waves of protests
In my way of counting this is a third wave of recent popular protests against President Aleksandar Vucic. The first wave was the anti-violence protests starting in late 2023. The second was environmental protests against lithium mining last summer and fall. Now we are seeing massive protests asking for accountability for the Novi Sad tragedy, which occurred last November 1. The common thread is that Serbs are asking for more transparency, accountability, and rule of law.
The protests show profound dissatisfaction with Vucic. He has introduced a semi-authoritarian system. The state vilifies and arrests dissenters, denies them outlets for free expression, and buys support with government jobs and contracts. Meanwhile, he and his allies are harvesting rents from any and all who want to do business in Serbia.
While united on the street, the opposition is fragmented among small political parties and their egotistical leaders. There is no opposition ready to govern. Some of the demonstrators are calling for a technical government to prepare for elections. Vucic won’t likely do that. He doesn’t hesitate to cheat when need be during electoral campaigns and at the polls. A technical government might put a crimp in his style.
Democratic backsliding has worked well for Vucic
But he is also genuinely popular in much of the country. He is a devoted Serbian nationalist who has attracted a lot of foreign investment from China, Europe, and the US. Despite his democratic backsliding, he has also gained political support from Washington and Brussels. They have regarded him as better than any of the conceivable alternatives, which are mostly on the nationalist right. And they like Vucic’s supply of ammunition to Ukraine and his willingness to mine lithium. Fawning over Vucic by the US government and by Germany has been particularly noteworthy.
Beijing has been investing mainly in steel, other metals, mining, and the automotive industry. In addition to its potential future in the European Union, Serbia is attractive partly because of lax regulation and enforcement. The Novi Sad collapse is symptomatic. China also supplies internal security technology that Vucic no doubt appreciates.
Moscow is not a big investor anywhere these days but gets lots of electronic components and political support from Serbia. Most notable is Serbia’s refusal to align with EU Ukraine sanctions.
One lapdog is as good as another
In this context, the resignation of a prime minister with little power doesn’t make a lot of difference. Vucic is the man, not Vucevic. If he thinks he’ll win, or can ensure that he’ll win, the President will call new elections. That has worked for him in the past to quiet protests. Or he will choose another lapdog prime minister who will do what the President wants without objection.
The prospects for real democracy in Serbia are dim, but of course that is true elsewhere as well. But that’s not a good reason not to try. My sentiments are with the demonstrators.
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