Source: http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/ ... state-5631

The Death of the Bosnian State

The Dayton Accords left Bosnia a divided ethnic quasi state, and their implementation has not much changed that fact. The decisive event solidifying the ethnic divide was the failure to stop the exodus of several hundred thousand Serbs from Sarajevo to the Serb entity in Bosnia—Republika Srpska (RS)—or Serbia itself. The multiethnic Sarajevo is history. The present major feature in Bosnia is a hardening ethnic divide. The RS basically seeks independence or, at a minimum, a great deal of autonomy. Bosnia’s Croats—still in a diminishing federation with the Bosniaks—have Croatian passports and many are leaving for Croatia or elsewhere, a trend stoked by the new, less restrained Croatian government. Only the Bosniaks seem determined to keep the state going. Bosnia has made some economic progress, not surprising given billions of dollars in foreign aid; a continuation of 15 years of marginal prosperity precludes large-scale violence. But if the RS were to leave Bosnia, widespread violence would likely follow.

All ethnic parties—some more than others—have contributed to the impasse that has left Bosnia with no central government ten months after elections. The Office of the High Representative (OHR), once the Western oversight mechanism to prevent ethnic backsliding and hopefully reduce Dayton’s structural separatism, is widely perceived to have frittered away its influence. It has become a relic, and yet the United States seeks to continue its existence, supposedly to preserve Dayton’s provisions. On the other hand, the EU wants replace OHR with a “robust” EU mission in the belief that its sizeable aid and its effective management, coupled with the promise of EU accession, (even if distant), will ultimately get the ethnic parties to join together in a workable central state.

The EU has become the top player in Bosnia and indeed the whole Balkans (replacing the Americans everywhere except for Kosovo) and provides most of the ever-diminishing peacekeeping forces. That division makes sense so long as membership in the EU remains the end goal for all Balkan countries. Whether dangling the accession carrot before the Bosnians will do the trick of uniting the country remains to be seen, especially when many European voices want to end EU enlargement after Croatia’s accession.

The major determinant of Bosnia’s future—a view many will contest—is likely to be what happens in Serbia and Kosovo. Serbian support is critical to maintaining the RS’s desire to become independent from Bosnia. Serbian President Boris Tadic has thus far cooperated with RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, but has not publicly endorsed his pronouncements on RS’s necessary separation. Nationalists in Serbia, moreover, have increasingly given attention to the RS becoming part of Serbia as the attachment to Kosovo weakens. As for Kosovo, Belgrade’s territorial agenda has shrunk to achieve legal ownership of the Serb-inhabited north, which it hopes to get in the current negotiations with Kosovo run by the EU. That is not acceptable to Kosovo, nor thus far to Brussels or Washington. Getting Kosovo’s north would obviously sharply open the question in Serbia of where the RS belongs. Not much will likely change in Bosnia until the Kosovo issue is settled.

Instead of pressing Tadic on both the RS and Kosovo, the EU apparently believes that its strong support for the more Westward-looking Serb politician, the beginning of Serbia’s accession talks this year, and continuing Kosovo-Serbia negotiations will not only preserve Tadic’s political standing in next year’s Serbian elections, but also alter his policies on Bosnia and Kosovo. Indeed, because of the EU’s internal division on the recognition of Kosovo’s independence, it has been reluctant to convey categorically to Belgrade that Serbia cannot enter the EU without first resolving its differences over Kosovo’s sovereignty. It is not surprising that Bosnia’s Croats are looking more to Croatia.

The EU deserves the chance to help make Bosnia a real country. But that will depend less on persuasion and the promise of EU membership than on fortitude in controlling Bosnia’s ethnic tensions, determined management of Serbia’s EU membership process (once they grant Belgrade accession status in the near future) and avoidance of land mines in the continuing Serbia-Kosovo negotiations that have borne a few modest administrative agreements. As Bosnia apparently settles into frozen conflict status, one should not be too optimistic that deferential EU diplomacy will prove transformative.

Bosnia is dead since long time ago, since 1992, too be exact. The war has made many sufferment to all ethnic groups in Bosnia.

Source: http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2011/07 ... ng-bosnia/

Partitioning Bosnia

Daniel Larison

The EU deserves the chance to help make Bosnia a real country. But that will depend less on persuasion and the promise of EU membership than on fortitude in controlling Bosnia’s ethnic tensions, determined management of Serbia’s EU membership process (once they grant Belgrade accession status in the near future) and avoidance of land mines in the continuing Serbia-Kosovo negotiations that have borne a few modest administrative agreements. ~Morton Abramowitz and James Hooper

As the authors suggest earlier in the article, the partition of Serbia with formal Kosovo independence in 2008 has made the disintegration of Bosnia that much more likely. Bosnia is not and never has been a “real” country as far as a majority of its population is concerned, and the EU has had more than a decade to try to make this cobbled-together political fiction into a state to which its constituent parts might feel some loyalty. In short, they have had their chance and failed. The Republika Srpska’s current position in Bosnia seems untenable, and there is no incentive for its inhabitants “to join together in a workable central state.” Most of them don’t want the central to exist. Earlier this year, Ted Galen Carpenter reviewed the history of Bosnia over the last fifteen years in his article on partitioning Bosnia:

The bottom line is that Bosnia seems no closer politically to being a viable country now than it was fifteen years ago when the U.S-brokered (and largely U.S.-imposed) Dayton accords ended the civil war that had cost more than 100,000 lives. Extinguishing that bloody conflict was no minor achievement, but it did not alter the reality that Bosnia and Herzegovina remained an unstable political amalgam of three mutually hostile ethnic groups. The country was politically dysfunctional from the moment it seceded from the disintegrating Yugoslav federation, and the Dayton Accords did not solve that problem.

The United States and its European allies used Dayton as the launching pad for the most ambitious nation-building mission since the rehabilitation of Germany and Japan following World War II. But continuous frustration has dogged the effort in Bosnia, and political paralysis has been the defining characteristic over the past fifteen years. To the extent that the country has functioned at all politically, it has been at the subnational level, that is, the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The national government has remained weak to the point of impotence.

Abramowitz and Hooper write:

The Office of the High Representative (OHR), once the Western oversight mechanism to prevent ethnic backsliding and hopefully reduce Dayton’s structural separatism, is widely perceived to have frittered away its influence.

Yes, and how did it fritter away its influence? It managed this by acting as if it were colonial administrative authority imposing the political outcomes that it wanted. As Carpenter explained:

Indeed, most real political power has resided with the UN high representative, an official who has often ruled like a colonial governor. Over the years, high representatives have repeatedly disqualified candidates for elections, removed elected officials from office, and imposed various policies by decree.

This has naturally bred resentment and helped to discredit and delegitimize the project of creating a unified Bosnian state in the eyes of many of the people subjected to this rule. Carpenter acknowledged that partition is not a panacea, but persisting in a failed policy of trying to create a Bosnian state where most of the people living in Bosnia don’t accept it makes no sense. Instead of seeing this as a cause for despair, the U.S. and EU should be willing to give up on the fiction of a unified Bosnia that has kept most of its inhabitants trapped in a political arrangement they don’t want and won’t support in the future. This is more likely to prevent a worse conflict down the road.

Here is an interview with Morton Abramowitz (who wrote the original article)

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/interview_ ... 95787.html

Interview: Morton Abramowitz On The 'End Of Bosnia'

Morton Abramowitz is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has served as ambassador to Turkey and Thailand and as assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. The author of many books, he recently co-wrote an article in "The National Interest" titled "The Death of the Bosnian State." RFE/RL's Balkan Service director Gordana Knezevic asked him what he meant by this.

RFE/RL: The recent article you co-authored in "The National Interest" is kind of alarming. Do you think Bosnia-Herzegovina can really fall apart?

Morton Abramowitz: To be frank, the title was put out by the editor; it was not our title. It's a rather alarming title. We had a much more subdued one.

On the other hand, I think there is a serious situation. The ethnic rivalry is hardening and it's like a frozen conflict in a sense. Leaving it that way is very dangerous, or potentially very dangerous. So we wanted to point out that one, this is a very uncertain and unsatisfactory situation and it had to be dealt with, and not a can to be kicked down the road. For example, the European Union approach to this seems to be that we will, over time, by providing aid assistance, make some progress in reducing tensions. This will culminate in some sort of better and more satisfactory relationship between the parties.

Clearly, I don't think it can work. There has to be a much more vigorous effort to deal with the situation. The center of the problem in my view -- a lot of people disagree with this -- both in Kosovo and in Bosnia is Serb domestic politics. And until that problem is resolved, I'm not optimistic we will see much progress made. That was the gist of the piece.

There was a relationship also between Kosovo and Bosnia in that as long as the Kosovo problem remained unresolved, the problem of north Kosovo, the problem of Bosnia, was likely to remain unresolved. And if for some reason north Kosovo was somehow partitioned, that would open a new channel for the exit of Republika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb entity) from Bosnia. It's a problem mainly of Serb domestic politics.

Now, the EU basically seeks to find some way to continue both in Bosnia and Kosovo ways that will indicate some progress in the Kosovo negotiations or through a new EU mission in Bosnia. This will lead to a situation that will enable Serbia to get the ability to win accession [to the EU] and permit [Serbian President Boris] Tadic to win [reelection] in Belgrade because they see him as the major source of progress on these Balkan issues. I think that's a very, very difficult row to hoe with very uncertain results.

RFE/RL: This is an amazing analysis.

Abramowitz: The problem is one of how you produce constructive change in two very difficult situations in which there is a potential for sliding backward and even for some violence. We've seen a little violence occur in Kosovo and that should be a wake-up call to the West and Kosovo, to realize progress is simply not going to be made by the parties getting together in Brussels and producing advances in useful but small issues.

The issue is more fundamental than that and it's the issue of north Kosovo. It's easier to proceed in hopes that over time, attitudes will change and there will be a little more forthcoming relationships between the Serbs and the Kosovars, but I don't believe that is a productive way for resolving this problem. I feel you have to attack the main problem, which is the future of north Kosovo. I may be too pessimistic, but I don't believe this problem in Kosovo can be resolved without some resolution of the north Kosovo situation and that problem lies in Belgrade.

A European Future

RFE/RL: Do you have any explanation for why the European Union isn't applying pressure on Belgrade?

Abramowitz: The European Union largely doesn't believe in pressure. The European Union basically believes in trying to find ways that are so-called constructive and enlist the parties in cooperation and over time produce a significant change in the situation. They also believe the promise of European accession will encourage the parties to compromise and find ways to get along better and produce an effective Bosnian government, etc. I would hope that to be the case, but I'm very skeptical.

RFE/RL: I'd like to ask you about the international community's Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia. It's seen by many as an obstacle to Bosnia's European future, but at the same time, it's an obstacle to the disintegration of Bosnia. At the very least, the office can declare null and void any unilateral proclamation of independence as it would be against the terms of the Dayton peace agreement.

Abramowitz: That's been a view of many in the United States. The U.S. has always been the principal champion of the continuation of the OHR position.

The fact is the OHR is a skeleton of what it once was. Its ability to fashion its will is very difficult. Look at the way the OHR was undermined by the EU in its dealings on the proposed referendum in Serbia. They undermined OHR, gave them a kick in the ass. So I have always felt OHR was a useful institution, but right now, in the way it's operating, I don't think those powers are very effective.

RFE/RL: Do you think that Bosnia should join NATO and do you think it would provide some sense of security to all ethnic groups?

Abramowitz: I think it would be useful if Bosnia could join NATO, as I believe it useful if the Greeks would stop preventing Macedonia from joining NATO. I think it would be a step forward, but I'm not quite sure that all parties in Bosnia would agree to it and I don't think it resolves the fundamental issue of how to reduce the ethnic abrasions and move forward. There are some people who are more optimistic about the impact of that; I'm not. But I'm obviously not opposed to it.

Healing Ethnic Divisions

RFE/RL: The fact that Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Muslims are cooperating and standing shoulder-to-shoulder in NATO missions in Afghanistan and Iraq is sending us a clear message within the right framework and in a truly professional environment...

Abramowitz: It doesn't deal with Bosnia's domestic politics. Maybe it will encourage change, I would hope that might be the case, but I'm not optimistic. Bosnian politicians are wedded to different things that are often inconsistent with what many people would want. I think there are a lot of people in Bosnia and in all quarters who want to see much more focus on the economy, much more growth, much more robust activity, but that doesn't seem to happen.

Rather we have [President Milorad] Dodik in [Republika] Srpska and other politicians there who always go back to ethnic issues. And the ethnic parties tend to vote in an ethnic way. The Bosniaks vote for Bosniaks, Serbs vote for Serbs, and it doesn't break this down.

Now, how this is to be done I frankly don't know. I think the biggest problem is Republika Srpska and to change the climate that has been produced by Mr. Dodik and all his statements.

RFE/RL: The division of the country along ethnic lines was actually legitimized by the Dayton agreement...

Abramowitz: Yes, of course, that's what they did; it consolidated the status quo and did nothing more. It did not provide adequately for the growth of a different country.

RFE/RL: And Dayton is now seen as a holy script for some....

Abramowitz: Well, it's a holy script because no one knows how to replace it. No one's going to get together and produce another Dayton agreement that integrates the country. If they wanted to do that, the parties themselves could, but they're not.

Unless the West were to impose a totally new agreement, which they're certainly not prepared to do, I don't know how a new Dayton conference will achieve anything. If it were possible to achieve something by a new Dayton conference, which would change the way the country operates, obviously I would support it, but I don't see that happening.

Look, over the past year there have been all sorts of meetings, high-level officials came back and forth. Nothing's changed.

Papering Over The Cracks

RFE/RL: I think what we're seeing now in Kosovo is the bad politics and hypocrisy of the international community exploding. When Kosovo simply decided to guard its own border, we had a new crisis.

Abramowitz: For whatever reason, [Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim] Thaci got mad and he decided to move ahead. Whether he talked to the Americans or not, I don't know; there's a lot of back-and-forth on this issue. Kosovars rarely do anything without American approval; Americans are their best friends.

But nevertheless he went and did it and I believe the status quo has been somewhat changed. I don't know where the negotiations are now. They may well go back to Brussels and try to restore the status quo. Further talks may solve the customs problem, but I don't think it's going to contribute to any long-term solution in the north.

Now, they may hope that over time good things will occur because they're cooperating more, but I don't think they're going to cooperate more.