Why is Bosnia seething?
by
HAJRUDIN SOMUN*

Following US Vice President Joe Biden's warning to Bosnian politicians against falling back into “old patterns and ancient animosities,” which has brought no tangible effects since his visit to Sarajevo at the beginning of summer, the US-based Foreign Affairs magazine wrote in its last issue that “the country now stands on the brink of collapse.” The Washington Post stressed that “the old divisions and hatreds are again gripping this Balkan country.” The New York Times went further in the first week of September, expressing that “Bosnia could well return to violence.” In his article “While Europe Sleeps, Bosnia Seethes,” Nicholas Kulish writes, “Renewed fighting in Bosnia may not launch World War III, but it could well spread to other parts of the former Yugoslavia, including Kosovo.”

The New York Times perhaps went too far, although the situation on the ground indicates that internal Bosnian divisions are reaching dangerous levels of tension already existing in the wider Balkan region. Last week's controversial visit of Serbian President Boris Tadic to Bosnia was the most recent example in that regard.

Not a diplomatic visit

In fact, this visit by one head of state to another -- in this case to a neighboring state, cannot be called by any diplomatic term. It was a visit by President Tadic to only one part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, within walking distance of the country's capital, but without seeing any of its high officials. He landed at Sarajevo International Airport on Sept. 8 and went to Pale, only 18 kilometers from Sarajevo. That small place, near popular Olympic ski venues, used to be one of the city's municipalities. Now, however, it belongs to Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb entity. There he attended the opening ceremony of a new primary school, named “Serbia” and partly financed by Serbia.

At the same time, Bosnia's Presidency, a building President Tadic could easily see while being driven to Pale, Zeljko Komsic, a Croat and the chairman of the tripartite presidency, and Haris Silajdzic, its Bosniak member, strongly criticized President Tadic's visit to Pale. Silajdzic considers that such “behavior represents a direct blow to the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” They were followed by harsh critics from the media. The Serbian president rebuffed the criticism, saying he was not requested to meet the Bosnian leadership and remarking that he would be glad to open a school called “Bosnia” somewhere in Sandzak, the predominantly Muslim region of Serbia. Back in Belgrade, he reconfirmed that Serbia “respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina” and denied that his visit to Pale represents interference in the internal politics of the neighboring country. Regarding his alleged wish to meet the Bosnian state leadership, it was hardly possible even if he had really wanted to. The Foreign Ministry was officially informed about his trip only a day in advance, and the Serbian Embassy in Sarajevo rejected state protocol, saying everything would be taken care of by the protocol of the Serb entity.

The reaction in Sarajevo might be exaggerated if we reduce the case to the opening of a school, although its very name, “Serbia,” and the place it was built could provoke the sentiments of many Bosnians. It would be different to have a school named “Bosnia” somewhere in Serbia because Bosnia and Herzegovina has never expressed its territorial ambitions toward Serbia, while the role of Serbia in the aggression against Bosnia in 1992 is very well known. Pale was Radovan Karadzic's capital during that aggression.

Suspicions about more or less hidden old intentions were aroused by the Pale ceremony itself, not attended by anyone but Serbs and not having any insignia showing that it was happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The president of Serbia said to the Bosnian Serb children, waving flags of Serbia and the Republika Srpska: “By opening this school, we are contributing to a great thing: the education of our people. I want to tell you that Serbia, of which I am president, has the responsibility to look after Serbs wherever they are.”

And the main host, Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, called the Serbian president “our dear President Tadic.” This was understood as a provocation not only in Sarajevo, but among some liberal Belgrade circles as well. As quoted by Radio Free Europe, Miljenko Dereta, a political analyst from the Serbian capital, said the school ceremony in Pale was “just the latest salvo in the ongoing Serbian campaign to shutter Bosnian sovereignty and build a unified Serbian nation.” His colleague, Aleksandar Popov, suggested that “the West, by turning a blind eye to such events, may be trying to appease Serbia for the loss of Kosovo.”

It was particularly significant that the school, which should not only be open to Serbs or Orthodox Christian children, was blessed by the Bosnian Orthodox Church's leaders, the same ones that blessed Karadzic's soldiers during the war.

Somebody might object that I prolonged the story about President Tadic's trip to Bosnia, because similar cases or diplomatic incidents could happen elsewhere. In spite of the freedom of movement between EU member states, Slovakian authorities recently stopped Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom from crossing their border on an alleged private trip. He was planning to unveil a statue of St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary, in the Slovakian city of Komarno, predominantly inhabited by Hungarians.

 This was not the first time the same President Tadic visited Bosnia in a similar manner. Earlier in the year, he went to Banja Luka, the capital city of Republika Srpska, trying to soften Dodik's radicalism and save senior Serb officials from being removed from office by the international community and EU High Representative Valentin Inzko due to their opposition to anything aimed to strengthen the central government and the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Here we are coming to the core of Bosnian problems and tensions as well as a possible answer to the question of why Bosnia is seething and approaching a period of renewed violence.

Bosnia still deeply divided

I pointed out the details about the Serbian president's visit to Pale to indicate how Bosnia is still deeply divided between two confronting political corps: Most of the Bosnian Serbs' supreme objective is to preserve their entity Republika Srpska, while Bosniaks see as their dominant objective the preservation of the integrity of the state, a goal shared by many Croats. The state constitution, adopted as part of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, is the main source of that division. In a paper presented to the US Institute of Peace (USIP), Edward Joseph, who spent 10 years working in the Balkans, stresses: “It is the [Bosnian] constitution that encapsulates the power relationship between the Serb entity and the central state. It is this unresolved relationship that helped bring the country into war -- and keeps it mired in polarization and acrimony.” I belong to the Bosnians who agree with his assessment that the “parties can attain equilibrium and render the country functional” only by changing key provisions of the constitution.

Now the question is how to do it and who can convince the leadership of Republika Srpska, as they oppose any serious constitutional reform, threatening the country with a referendum on secession. It would be best for Bosnia, of course, to reformulate its entire state structure, probably one of the most complicated in the world. In a country of less than 4 million people, there are three presidents, 13 constitutions, 13 governments, 13 prime ministers and no one knows how many ministers. Such a system favors and feeds nationalism and could be transformed at a new international conference on Bosnia, a new Dayton. It is not, however, realistic to expect such attention to be given to Bosnia in the present international circumstances. It is also delusional to expect -- and there are many among Bosniaks cherishing an illusion -- that the entity structure of the country could be transformed at a new Dayton-type conference because Republika Srpska is supported not only by Serbia, but by Russia as well.

There are some who consider that internal Bosnian confrontations can be dissolved easier once the country joins NATO and the European Union. This is true, but that “once” remains too far away, and political -- especially constitutional -- reform is one of the major conditions for accession to Euro-Atlantic integration. What is left as a less distant possibility is that the new US administration, due to the inability of the EU to deal decisively with nationalistic politicians in Bosnia, is preparing a new diplomatic offensive to reach a compromise among the Bosnian parties on constitutional reform. The previous initiative, which shared the same aim and was led by the experienced diplomat Donald Hays, failed three years ago. We Bosnians are aware that the Obama administration has much more important priorities than Bosnia, but we believe Vice President Biden did not come to Sarajevo last May only to say that Bosnian politicians should stop their ethnic divide.

It might be that all that recent alarm about probable new violence in Bosnia by the US officials and media, alluding even to a world war, is nothing but pressure and a warning of what could happen if diplomacy fails. There are no visible arguments that a new war could break out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as happened in 1992.

It might be, however, that many Bosnians, and particularly we Bosniaks, are deluding ourselves into thinking that we could no longer be victims of a new war. It was the same in 1992. Although I was in a senior position in the Bosnian presidency at the time, I did not believe a war was possible until the first shells started to fall on Sarajevo.