Who is terrorizing Bosnia?
by
HARUN KARCIC*

Secessionist-oriented Bosnian Serb politicians were quick to seize the opportunity and accuse Bosnia and Herzegovina of being a “terrorist base” and a “transit point for terrorism.” This development from Bosnian Serb politicians came as no surprise since for years now they have been associating Bosnia and Herzegovina’s gradual revival of Islam in a few larger cities with “Islamic fundamentalism.” Furthermore, following the attack in Bugojno some Bosnian Serb politicians from the hard-line nationalist SNSD (Alliance of Independent Social Democrats) party called for a banning of the burqa in public, while others from the same party called for a banning of the Wahhabi movement. Exactly what connection the burqa had with a man who carried out the terrorist attack remains to be explained by SNSD politicians.

For his part, the notorious prime minister of the Republika Srpska (the ethnically cleansed part of Bosnia and Herzegovina), Milorad Dodik, whose SNSD party has been a major obstructer of reforms intended to move Bosnia and Herzegovina closer to European Union accession, used the terrorist attack to shift the ball over to the Bosniaks by stating that it was precisely due to the existence of terrorism in Bosnia and Herzegovina that the EU was prolonging its decision of visa liberalization for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But not everyone agrees with Mr. Dodik. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in a report to the United Nations clearly criticized the Republika Srpska and Bosnian Serb politicians for the current political stalemate in the country, including, for directly endangering the Dayton Peace Accord in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the authority of the high representative in the country and for putting into question the integrity of the country and for putting on the table the possibility of secession.

Likewise, Brig Gen. David Enyeart, commander of NATO headquarters in Sarajevo, did not consider that threats of terrorism in Bosnia and Herzegovina were any higher than in other countries. He stated that “we see no threatening activities. What happened in Bugojno was done by an individual who decided to plant a bomb in front of the police station.” He also pointed to the fact that a post-war country such as Bosnia and Herzegovina had large amounts of mines and explosives left over from the 1992-1995 war that were not easily accessible to criminals and gangs.

The situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina seems rather clear to foreign officials. But what exactly are Bosnian Serb politicians up to this time? Well, the ultimate goal of Bosnian Serbs since the early 1990s was to destroy the non-Serb population in eastern and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, making sure only Serbs live there and to populate it further with Serbs from other parts of the country. This they have achieved during the 1992-1995 war, and following the Dayton Peace Accord signed in late 1995 their self-proclaimed Republika Srpska won legitimacy as an autonomous political entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their next goal would be to call a referendum on independence, secede, and eventually join neighboring Serbia. Since they are not getting the desired green light from the “international community” for their secessionist claims and since the “international community” has been unequivocal in supporting a united Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Serbs politicians have adopted a new technique -- trying to associate Bosniaks with fundamentalism and trying to associate Bosnia and Herzegovina as a “safe haven” for terrorism.

The goal of such an attempt is self-evident. If the Republika Srpska can convince the “international community” that Islamist terrorism is an additional threat to a country that has already been (thanks to Bosnian Serb politicians) in a political quagmire for years, and if they can convince the international community that Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a stable and sustainable state, then they will be one step closer to having more right and outside support for their own independence.

It is in our hope that the views of Ashton, Enyeart and the like will prevail.