Tag: United States
Returning to Sarajevo
This is an interview that appeared this week in the Sarajevo weekly Dani. I arrived in Bosnia’s capital just this afternoon, and it has certainly fulfilled my expectations of being livelier and more normal than during the war.
Dani: When was the last time you visited Sarajevo? Are you looking forward to coming again next week and what are your expectations, if any?
A. I’m not entirely sure when I was last in Sarajevo, but it is about 10 years ago.
Yes, I am looking forward to coming next week. I expect to find a much livelier and more normal Sarajevo than the one I knew during the war, when I had to worry when walking to the Embassy about making sure I couldn’t be seen by snipers. On the morning of the day the Dayton agreements were signed in Paris, I was awakened in the “Holiday Inn” by a barrage of anti-aircraft fire hitting the façade just one room from where I was sleeping. I expect nothing resembling that!
It seems to me that some of the same conflicts that were once fought with snipers and anti-aircraft guns are now fought in the political arena. That is progress, but it is not the kind of progress I had hoped to see. I’d prefer to hear that Bosnians are discussing how they can cooperate to accelerate their progress towards EU membership rather than how they can protect their own ethnic group.
Dani: You are a Senior Fellow at CTR – SAIS. At the conference, you will moderate session on Regional Cooperation and Reconciliation. This ended up to be very high level panel, looking at the speakers list. You have vast experience in issues of Regional Cooperation and Reconciliation. Which one of them you consider to be the best and which are the worst, from your own experience?
A. My view is that every country needs to decide for itself what level of reconciliation and regional cooperation is appropriate to its particular circumstances. There are lots of things I would not want to ask people to be reconciled to. But at the same time it just isn’t possible to live always in the past. The countries of the Balkans need each other and will need to cooperate if they are going to prosper in the future. My job is to help people find the right balance, not to tell them what to do.
Dani: Do you think that Mladic arrest will help this process in our region and first and foremost in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
A. I don’t know—it is one of the issues I’ll be interested in discussing with Bosnians. It seems to me that the prospect of justice in this case should help at least some Bosnians to see their way to greater cooperation. And others may begin to see that those who claimed to be protecting them were in fact criminals who created problems rather than solving them.
At The Hague, Mladic clearly acknowledged the heinous nature of the crimes of which he accused—he couldn’t bear to have them read out. But he claimed all he was doing was protecting his people. What he in fact did was to deepen a conflict that put his people at great risk and created the conditions in which his army came close to defeat—it was saved only by the Dayton ceasefire. For those who are seriously interested in this history, let me recommend Ingrao and Emmert’s “Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies,” which is now available in—what shall I say—“the language.”
Dani: How do you comment on obvious differences between the US and EU in respect to Dodik and how to deal with him? Is there any way out from this situation now and have a jointly agreed and firm policy towards Dodik, and to that end, anyone else who would obstruct national building process in BiH?
A. This is a serious problem. The Americans and Europeans have been telling everyone for years that they are on the same page in the Balkans, but Lady Ashton’s agreement with Dodik was not only a surprise to the Americans, it was also unwelcome because it undermined in both style and substance the Bosnian state. I am entirely with the Americans on this—the agreement suggested that the Europeans were prepared to discuss Bosnian state institutions with Republika Srpska, whose president gained in prestige from Ashton’s going to Banja Luka and appearing with Dodik without even a flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina present. I hope a lot of this will be walked back now: the “structured dialogue” should deal with the RS court system as well as the state courts, the question of a supreme court will have to be raised, and state officials will, I hope, lead the Bosnian side, in particular because the EU will be represented by the enlargement commissioner.
This is all very surprising at a moment when the EU has been doing a good job with the Belgrade/Pristina talks. It is important to get the Americans and Europeans back on the same page. The headline on that page is this: Bosnia and Herzegovina will need to qualify for EU membership, not either of the entities.
Dani: Dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina. Do you think significant progress will be made soon and what the Mladic arrest means for both Belgrade and for Pristina?
A. The Mladic arrest helps Belgrade to argue with Brussels that it should be given candidacy status for the EU, though of course there is still one indictee outstanding. I don’t think it affects Pristina much, though it is certainly an indication that this Serbian government is capable of acting responsibly and doing the right thing. I hope it can also see its way to doing the right thing on Kosovo.
President Tadic’s failure to go to the regional meeting in Warsaw last month was unfortunate and I imagine will have annoyed the Americans a good deal. It is time for Serbia to accept that the authorities in Kosovo are democratically elected and legitimate, regardless of status. The Serbian chief negotiator did the right thing visiting Pristina, and the Kosovars did the wrong thing to protest his visit violently.
Dani: If you were government official and you have religious leaders interfering with the Government policy, what would you do? We know that one of the pillars of healthy democracy is separation of church and state businesses.
A. Since you’ve asked me what I would do, here’s my answer: I’d tell them where to go.
But there are lots of countries in which religious leaders have a good deal of influence—I spent 10 years in Italy, where the Vatican has at times been decisive in Italian politics. But I would add this: religious leaders put themselves in peril, and ultimately reduce their own influence, when they even appear to favor one politician over another. The Vatican has learned to stay out of most Italian government business, a habit that increases its prestige.
Dani: Many prominent US and EU people are coming to the upcoming conference. Strong follow-up is planned. Civil society organizations in the whole region are excited about this. Sarajevo did not have a major conference of this magnitude. Do you think it came at an late hour already? Or you think there is still time to make BiH a functional and truly European country?
A. No it is not too late for BiH to become a functional and truly European country. I would even say it made a great deal of progress in the first decade after the war, and that progress was not been completely reversed in the subsequent five years of political stalemate. People forget too readily how truly terrible the war and immediate post-war period were.
That said, there are real challenges now. People don’t feel sure they will be treated fairly, regardless of ethnicity, and throughout the whole country. That is a serious problem, one that the European Court of Human Rights decision requires be fixed not only in the constitution but in fact as well. Non-discrimination is fundamental to the rule of law. The day all Bosnians feel they are treated equally will be a day on which a lot of problems disappear.
Bosnia also needs a new bargain that will empower the state government to do the business it needs to, especially negotiating membership in the EU and all that entails, while leaving a lot of other things to the entities and the municipalities. I hope Bosnian citizens of all groups will demand functional, accountable governance at all levels. It is overdue.
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How do you say serendipity in Arabic?
Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh has gone to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, due to injuries suffered Friday in an attack by rebellious tribal forces on the presidential palace. This is an extraordinary bit of good luck for Yemen, but the country will need a lot more serendipity if this story is to end well.
Vice President Abd Al-Rab Mansur Hadi, in office since 1994, is the constitutional successor. Who knows what he will do, but the right thing is to implement the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreement that Saleh never signed. It calls for an opposition-led government of national unity to prepare free and fair elections. If the attack on the palace leads in this direction, without further violence, we can all thank our lucky stars (and the Saudi princes who fund Yemeni bigwigs).
What could go wrong? Just about everything: tribes or the protesters could refuse to go along, someone in the military could try to seize power, Saleh’s family and cronies could balk, the Vice President could decide to crack down hard on the protesters, the Saudis could decide to back someone else, Saleh could try to return to Yemen…my imagination runs amuck. Yemen is one of the most fragile states on earth, more like neighboring Somalia than like the GCC rich guys who live on the other side of the Arabian peninsula. Its oil and water are running low, the population is very poor and very young, it faces an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south, and its institutions are weak enough to attract Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to take up residence.
That abused word, stability, is what Yemen needs now. A constitutional succession that follows the path outlined by the GCC is likely to be the best deal on offer. Anything else bodes ill not only for Yemenis but also for the United States. Can we get lucky again?
PS: I took down the video originally posted with this, because it was starting up automatically.
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Marvel the Syrians!
From Hama, yesterday:
You’ve got to admire the fortitude and organizational capability of the Syrians. Josh Landis has the most complete coverage I’ve seen of both the “Friday of the Children of Freedom” and the opposition conclave Wednesday and Thursday in Antalya, Turkey.
The demonstrators inside Syria managed to turn out in good numbers to protest the torture and murder by security forces of a 13-year-old boy as well as other atrocities against children, despite shut-down of a large part of the internet and cell phone systems. Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two biggest cities, are still not turning out big numbers, but yesterday’s demonstrations were widespread and energetic according to the reports that have leaked out. Several dozen people appear to have been killed.
The opposition meeting in Antalya that ended Thursday not only reached agreement on a statement (not yet available in its entirety) but also elected an executive board. So far as I can tell, the program focuses on getting rid of Bashar al Assad in favor of his vice president and holding free and fair elections within a year. There is talk as well of maintaining separation of state and religion as well as Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (Kurdish representation in Antalya was strong, so this is significant). The Washington Post reported:
The statement also called for the creation of a democratic, secular Syrian state, in which freedom of worship would be guaranteed, but religion would play no role, and the rights of the country’s minorities would be respected.
All of this is fine, but of course the big problem is the regime’s determination to hold on to power. My understanding is that the protesters are not promising amnesty to Bashar al Assad, who therefore has a choice of using maximum repression to stay in power or expatriating himself to some safe haven. All indicators are that he is determined to hold on.
The protesters now have the challenge of maintaining nonviolent discipline and unity while under enormous pressure from the security forces. They also need eventually to spread their mass mobilization efforts into the centers of Damascus and Aleppo. Only when some of the security forces begin to hesitate–when they refuse to fire on protesters or even join them–will the revolution in Syria begin to see the fruits of its labors. Connecting with the army, some units of which are believed to be less committed to Bashar al Assad than others, needs to be a priority objective. This is likely to happen earlier in the provinces than in the major cities, where Assad will station the most loyal troops.
The international community is still proving ineffective on Syria. No UN Security Council resolution has emerged, despite expectations earlier in the week. Washington is sounding a bit more stentorian, but nevertheless holding on to the slim hope that Assad will institute reforms. The Wall Street Journal had a good article Friday detailing Obama Administration efforts to win Assad over to a settlement with Israel and a break with Hizbollah, Hamas and Iran. The odds of that now seem vanishingly small, but I suppose someone in the White House (and in Senator Kerry’s office) may still harbor hopes.
The die is cast. Either Assad will succeed, as his father did, in repressing the protests with state violence or he will have to yield to what is beginning to look like a more or less united, determined and focused revolution.
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Anyone want to write this up?
If you are interested in writing this event up for www.peacefare.net, please contact me at daniel@serwer.org
The Johns Hopkins SAIS Center on Politics & Foreign Relations (CPFR)
The Johns Hopkins SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR)
University of California Washington Center
The Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Governmental Studies
Financial Times
Invite you to a discussion on
“A Conservative Constitutional Foreign Policy”
Featuring
Senator Rand Paul
(Republican-Kentucky)
With
Robert J. Guttman, CPFR Director
Richard McGregor, Financial Times Washington Bureau Chief
Wednesday, June 8
8:30-9:30 a.m.
The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)
The Johns Hopkins University
Rome Building Auditorium
1619 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
Space is limited. Please RSVP using the following link:
Media should respond to Felisa Neuringer Klubes, SAIS communications director, at fklubes@jhu.edu or 202.663.5626.
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Memorial Day for all
I spent my high school years marching in the Memorial Day parade in New Rochelle, New York and have never lost respect for those who serve and make sacrifices in uniform. Even as an anti-war protester in the Vietnam era, I thought denigration of those in uniform heinous, not to mention counterproductive.
It is impossible to feel anything but pride and gratitude to those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Kosovo, Bosnia, Panama and Somalia during the previous decade. Nor will I forget my Memorial Day visit to the American cemetery in Nettuno accompanying Defense Secretary Les Aspin in the early 1990s, or my visit to the Florence cemetery the next year. These extraordinarily manicured places are the ultimate in peaceful. It is unimaginable what their inhabitants endured. No matter what we say during the speechifying on Memorial Day, there is little glory in what the troops do and a whole lot of hard work, dedication, professionalism and horror.
That said, it is a mistake to forget those who serve out of uniform, as we habitually do. Numbers are hard to come by, but a quick internet search suggests that at at least 1000 U.S. civilians have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. They come in many different varieties: journalists, policemen, judges, private security guards, agriculturalists, local government experts, computer geeks, engineers, relief and development workers, trainers, spies, diplomats and who knows what else. I think of these people as our “pinstripe soldiers,” even if most of them don’t in fact wear pinstripes. But they are a key component of building the states that we hope will some day redeem the sacrifices they and their uniformed comrades have endured.
I spend my working hours worrying about how to improve the performance of the pinstripe soldiers, but that should not reduce by one iota appreciation for them. These are people who sometimes go places before they are safe enough for the troops, and they stay long after the troops are withdrawn. I hope my readers will add a minute to their Memorial Day reflections for those who serve in mufti. And count the many non-Americans who support our people also in your appreciation.
PS: I wrote this yesterday and this morning found Marc Chretien’s piece in the Washington Post arguing that civilian government employees who work in war zones should be eligible for burial at Arlington. It’s not a cause I’d have invented, but he has my support.
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Après eux?
President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and non-president of Libya Muammar Gaddafi will soon be gone. They have cracked their respective countries beyond repair. It looks unlikely that Bashar al Assad will last much longer in Syria. What can, or should, come next?
There is no reason why these revolutions should follow a common pattern, but it may be worthwhile to look at what is happening in Egypt to get an idea of the issues that will arise. The New York Times has made a brave effort in this week’s magazine to give us a well-rounded, if optimistic, snapshot. I was struck with this compelling observation:
The revolutions of 2011 were led by a generation that is tired of ideologies and that tends to see its own struggle in terms of more concrete personal rights and freedoms.
Many observers worry that the generals who now run Egypt may want to remain in power, or that the well-organized Muslim Brotherhood may dominate the post-revolution political space, or that economic distress will upend hopes for democracy. All these worries are real, but the Times found the generals interested in returning to barracks, the Muslim Brotherhood split and other Islamist groups less threatening than imagined. Economic problems may well endure and present the most serious threat to improvements in personal rights and freedoms.
Jane Novak, a keen observer of Yemen blogging at Armies of Liberation, proposes a locally-based approach to politics, social services and jobs once Saleh is gone. I don’t really know if her “Interim Transitional Mechanism” and its local “Community Centers” is realistic. Is it too schematic? Cartesian organization doesn’t strike me as a likely formula for success in Yemen. But she is on to something: the Saleh regime’s attempt to run Yemen from Sanaa has been notably unsuccessful, and the political “opposition” seems also to lack strong roots outside the capital. It might be a lot smarter post-revolution to try something more locally based, drawing on tribal loyalties. There is of course a risk that southerners will take advantage of the opportunity to secede, but Novak seems to feel this can be prevented, at least temporarily.
It is easy to imagine something similar in Libya, where the resistance to Muammar Gaddafi seems to have evolved largely along municipal and tribal lines, starting in Benghazi but certainly extending also to Misrata and other towns. The same is true on Gaddafi’s side of the ledger, where his tribal strength in Sirte helps to protect Tripoli from the insurgent forces. Building the new Libyan state from the grassroots up strikes me as preferable to replacement of Gaddafi with some internationally acclaimed worthy. Far better a decentralized approach that makes Tripoli listen to other population centers more than it has in the past. Libyans seem fully committed to national unity, despite the current civil war, and economic hardship could pass quickly if the oil revenue is used effectively. But of course that is a tall order.
In Syria, the risk of disintegration is serious. Some of its Kurds–treated as second class citizens in an Arab Republic–aspire to the kind of autonomy they see next door in Iraq. So too is the risk of a Sunni Islamist takeover that would breach one of the current regime’s only virtues: commitment to religious pluralism. Many Syrians will be looking to settle accounts with the Alawites who run the current regime, and they will not wait to be attacked before defending themselves (that in a sense is already what they are doing). Constitutional succession in Syria seems even more unlikely than in Egypt, which abandoned that route mid-stream. Economic problems are likely to be at least as challenging, as Syrian oil production is declining and the current regime’s repressive efforts are no doubt emptying the treasury (if it hadn’t already been emptied by the kleptocrats).
I don’t have a ready-made formula for Syria, Yemen or Libya except this: we need to listen to the locals, and follow their lead if we can figure out what it is. It is striking, as the Times observes, how the street protesters are committed to individual rights and freedoms. We should be finding and supporting that vein of gold in each of these societies. I remember all too well how we quickly abandoned the Otpor youth who led the revolt against Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, because we were more concerned to support the new government than to make sure it was true to democratic ideals. Above all, we should not make that mistake again.
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