Bosnia, Twelve Years Later
by Nebojsa Malic
SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA – Winter came early this year in the Balkans mountains; the first snow of the season has come and gone, leaving the streets of the capital a soggy mess. As late as last week, Sarajevo’s thousands of cafés still had their summer gardens set up, as a spell of warm weather extended into early October. All through the past weekend, café owners grudgingly packed away their parasols and lawn chairs, cursing the weather for eating into their profits.
The weather, however, had no perceivable effect on Bosnia’s continuing political crisis. Twelve years after the Dayton accords ended the brutal civil war, the country is no closer to true peace. As the U.S. and EU continue seeking to transform Bosnia-Herzegovina into a modern, centralized state, the country’s ethnic communities continue to fight for a better position under such an arrangement. Bosnia’s Muslim community, Slavs whose ancestors embraced Islam during the long centuries of Ottoman rule, are the largest group in the country, and their leading political parties therefore advocate a “citizen state” with outright majority rule. The Serbs, who make up over a third of the population, reject this outright and seek to preserve the Dayton model that recognized their right to a territorial autonomy under a weak central government. The dwindling Croat population, which is federated with the Muslims under a 1994 treaty arranged by Washington, is almost entirely marginalized. The only place their votes count, ironically, is neighboring Croatia; most Bosnian Croats have Croatian citizenship, and their vote will most likely prove crucial in the upcoming Croatian elections.
Though officially sovereign and independent, with a constitution and elected governments, Bosnia also has an international viceroy, a “High Representative” of the countries that co-signed the Dayton treaty (U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy and Russia), with near-absolute power. The current viceroy, Slovakia’s Miroslav Lajcak, has just availed himself of that power; on October 19, he issued a decree changing the voting procedures in the country’s parliament and cabinet. The decision drew a storm of protests from the Serbs, and escalated the ongoing political crisis.
Zero-Sum Politics
Lajcak’s October 19 decree lowered the quorum requirements in both the legislature and the cabinet, making it easier – in theory – to pass laws and make decisions concerning their implementation. Under the old system, any decision required the consent of a majority from each entity (the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serb Republic), allowing the Bosnian Serbs to effectively veto any law they disagreed with simply by not showing up.
Interestingly enough, this system was put into place in 2000, by one of Lajcak’s predecessors, as a way to improve decision-making within the central government.
Predictably, Lajcak’s measures received statements of support from the U.S. and UK ambassadors, as well as Muslim politicians. Croat leaders appeared resigned – as this had no bearing whatsoever on their situation – while the Serbs, predictably, erupted into a storm of protests. The Serb Republic’s Prime Minister, Milorad Dodik, even threatened wholesale resignations of his MPs and ministers from the central government, and a boycott of state institutions at one point. By October 22, however, Dodik had backpedaled on some of his rhetoric, following a meeting with Lajcak.
Serbs’ fussing may be a substantial blunder. No viceroy has ever rescinded his own decree, and it is unlikely Lajcak will be the first to do so. Furthermore, well-informed analysts pointed out privately, Lajcak’s decision is remarkably similar to the constitutional reform Dodik and other Serb politicians voluntarily accepted in April 2006, only to see it torpedoed by Muslim nationalist Haris Silajdzic. Someone with more political savvy could have spun Lajcak’s decision as a reassertion of the April Reforms, rubbed it in Silajdzic’s face, and turned an apparent setback into a victory. As it is, Muslim nationalists now get to claim a victory on account of the same reforms they originally rejected, simply because they are perceived as a defeat for the Serbs. In Bosnia, more so than elsewhere, politics is a zero-sum game.
Junior’s Airbrush
October 19 was also the anniversary of the death of Alija Izetbegovic, Islamic revolutionary and wartime leader of the Bosnian Muslims. The occasion was marked by the opening of the Alija Izetbegovic Museum, located in two towers of Sarajevo’s old Ottoman citadel. Izetbegovic’s son Bakir was the driving force behind the museum, which is reflected in the choice of artifacts and documents on exhibit. Although the current leader of Izetbegovic’s SDA party, Sulejman Tihic, called it a “museum of truth,” it is in fact an airbrushed and romanticized account of Bosnia’s recent history, arranged by Izetbegovic Jr. There is no mention in the museum of Izetbegovic’s fellow party founders, or his wartime partners in government. Anyone who fell out of the Leader’s graces was simply airbrushed from history.
Columnist Ahmed Buric of the daily Oslobodjenje noted the phenomenon in an October 23 op-ed, openly comparing this to Stalin’s infamous doctoring of Communist history. Buric also noted that “Izetbegovic’s dream was a Bosnia in which everyone would be in the service of a handful of strong Muslim families.” Those families are still gathered around Bakir Izetbegovic, and his faction within the SDA.
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=11809