A Bosnia watcher worries about war
I found this note in my email this morning, from a well-informed Bosnia watcher:
After all the time, money and energy the US has spent on Brcko, it appears that the upcoming Peace Implementation Council meeting in Sarajevo (29-30 March) will see an effort to end Supervision of the independent District of Brcko.
This comes at a time when Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik has begun to make unqualified statements that now is the time for BiH to dissolve; at a time when the Federation is entering its deepest crisis since the 2001 third entity attempt; at a time when there is not only no state government but also no sign of one being formed anytime soon; at a time when most state institutions are either blocked or dysfunctional; and at a time when the centrifugal forces tearing at BiH have begun to accelerate. It also comes on the heels of a rather insulting and arrogant public letter from Dodik to the Brcko Supervisor in which Dodik refused to provide assurances that he would respect the Brcko Final Award or the territorial integrity of Brcko District.
Brcko is important in that it is one of the few real levers we have to influence good behavior, both on the part of Republika Srpska and the Federation. It is also the place where the first shots will probably be fired in the event that BiH breaks up and conflict begins anew. It is the strategic bottleneck for Republika Srpska: without control of Brcko, the main population centers of RS have no contiguous contact with Serbia. Belgrade wants to seek compensation for losing Kosovo in Republika Srpska, and is facing an increasing acquiescence to such an approach from the Brussels bureaucracy.
Brcko is also a major success story in terms of refugee returns and is one of the few areas where substantial numbers of refugees have been able to re-establish their pre-war homes. Should supervision end without a stable, functional Bosnian state government and institutions, and as the situation continues to deteriorate, RS will probably attempt to regain control, and ethnic cleansing would most certainly be one of the outcomes.As such, we should not be considering closing Brcko Supervision for at least another decade and until we see proof of long-term good behavior from Republika Srpska. Yet, for some reason the Peace Implementation Council and the US seem hell-bent on recommending the closure of Brcko Supervision. This is one of those moves that makes one wonder if State Department and the EU are taking crazy pills.
Brcko is truly a game-changer, both for better and for worse. If Brcko goes, we will have started the countdown towards picking up where we left off in 1995.
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I agree with the comment above about the premature US withdrawal from Brcko. As is well known, I lived and worked in Brcko, and was part of the US project in Brcko, from 2005-2007. Yet the reality is that the US government withdrew from Brcko gradually but inexorably over a number of years, starting as early as 2004. Since then the Office of the Brcko Supervisor was progressively downsized until it is now a mere 5 professional staff, all of whom are Bosnian. The current and prior US Supervisors do not live in Brcko but in Sarajevo, 3.5 hours away in travel time but half a world away in terms of Bosnian politics. In fact the closure of supervision is a fait accompli. Brcko will indeed be a locus of any future Bosnian conflict should the country break up. But the loss of interest in this critical project began several years ago. The PIC’s decision finally to terminate supervision will be symbolic, and will be interpreted by Dodik as a green light inexorably to increase his control over Brcko District. But in practice Brcko supervision ceased to be effective towards the end of 2006.
I cite the rise and fall of Brcko District in my book, “A Free City in the Balkans”. This collapse of this once successful experiment in state-building is tragic indeed. What happens to Brcko will happen to all of Bosnia.