Kurt Bassuener March 18th, 2008

OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut was interviewed in Dnevni Avaz, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s top-selling daily yesterday. In the charged atmosphere of the country’s politics, where the very survival of the state is now frequently questioned, it is easy to put a foot wrong, or worse. Brichambaut’s very visit to Dodik’s new office complex in Banja Luka helps undercut state institutions. But he then sprang head-first into the political minefield. First, he appeared to support the prospect of an independence referendum for the RS (unofficial translation circulating in BiH circles):

“In Republika Srpska, there are ever stronger voices calling for secession. What is your view on the issue?

The beauty of a democratic state lies in the possibility of its citizens to say what they think and decide which politician they trust, and in the way they decide. Sometimes, important decisions need to be verified with the citizens before they are taken.”

The whole international community concerned with Bosnia continues to reject an RS independence referendum, most recently in the declaration of the Peace Implementation Council, which met in Brussels less than a month ago, to which I believe the OSCE subscribed in full.

The interviewer then gave Brichambaut a chance to backtrack or clarify a statement which he should have known would come back to bite him, but he didn’t take the bait. He instead took the opportunity to dig the hole deeper.

“Does this mean that you support the secession of the RS?

I am completely neutral. It does not concern me. This is a decision that concerns the political process in a particular state. I can only say that, if this continues, there will be consequences outside BiH.

What consequences?

This is difficult to judge, but there will undoubtedly be consequences.”

One of those consequences should be Brichambaut’s departure or censure. At the very least, he should be compelled to recant and reaffirm his and the OSCE’s collective position on the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Eric Witte March 18th, 2008

China’s crackdown on Tibet continues. The extent to which government forces are provoking or reacting to the attacks on Chinese-owned shops that have taken place in addition to the peaceful protests since March 10 is unclear. What is clear is that Chinese government reaction has been brutal. Troops continue to stream into Tibet and house-to-house searches are reportedly underway.  Meanwhile, today the Dalai Lama threatened to resign if anti-Chinese violence in Tibet continues, saying that violence in the name of Tibetan autonomy is “suicidal”.

As the protests have spread, not only to the bordering Chinese provinces of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan, but into other countries, Beijing is receiving the support of its neighbors. Moscow’s enthusiasm for brutality in squelching the demands of an oppressed minority is hardly shocking, but it is disappointing to see the world’s largest democracy, India, follow suit.  On Friday, India arrested Tibetan protestors seeking to march to Tibet. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherje assured parliament yesterday that this was all part of a longstanding policy of “non-interference” in Chinese affairs, but it sure looks a lot like complicity. Mukherje was similarly unimpressive when Burma’s regime was killing, beating and detaining monks last October, stating: “It is up to the Burmese people to struggle for democracy, it is their issue.”

In Nepal, an ongoing police crackdown on peaceful Tibetan protestors yesterday became so brutal that the local UN office has protested and the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is also investigating.  The beating and arresting of peaceful protestors is a major setback for Nepal’s own tentative democratic progress, coming as it does after the April 2006 restoration of its parliamentary government.

China may have less luck in containing outrage elsewhere. European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering has raised the prospect of politicians’ boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games that begin in August.  French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner today called that idea “interesting”.  If China’s violent repression of Tibet continues, it’s hard to see how such calls won’t escalate and expand. The mounting international debate over whether the Olympic Games should be boycotted in part, in whole, or not at all, is not a debate that China wanted to be engaged in just five months from the games.

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