DPC on Bosnia policy vacuum
Kurt Bassuener June 9th, 2009
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Dangerous Policy Vacuum Leaves Space for Unfulfilled Agendas
By Kurt Bassuener
Last Friday, William Montgomery, former US Ambassador to Croatia and Serbia, advocated in the New York Times an “achievable” US policy toward Kosovo and Bosnia: partitioning them along ethnic lines. This is essentially what Dobrica ?osi? and other Serbian nationalist theorists have advocated for some time.
In the mid-to-late 1990s, when postwar Bosnia was stagnating, such arguments were heard more often. It was a flawed prescription then, as it is now. Montgomery alludes to the reality that partition would be accompanied by violence when he mentions a need for “demonstrated will and readiness to use force to prevent violence along the way.” And violence we would see, both in BiH and in Kosovo, if this policy were actively pursued.
But the global environment and the international posture in Bosnia is much different than it was in say 1998. For this reason, Montgomery’s article could not have come at a better time for those who wish to present BiH as an “impossible country.” The faux simplicity of Ambassador Montgomery’s proposal is what makes it dangerously seductive to those who simply wish to be done with it.
Bosnia and Hercegovina is far from a lost cause. But arriving at a system that can make it work won’t be easy. No durable solution in the country can be achieved without a consensus on what the state can be, and how it can meet popular needs for security and functioning, accountable governance.
The current constitutional and structural system designed to maximize opacity and unaccountability. Regardless of their varying views on the full range of issues, that is one common foundation for all members of the political cartel in BiH. Pressing the nerves of fear and mistrust has kept them in their comfortable positions; they have little incentive to develop a functioning democratic system.
The real question for the international community is how to ensure the necessary stability for those Bosnians who do want to make their country work to have a chance to come to accord. This means maintaining an ability to prevent further deterioration while adopting a strategy to promote the necessary popular accommodation to arrive at a functional system.
Despite the big bang of Vice President Joe Biden’s visit and his direct statements to the BiH Parliament, there remains no clarity in international approach. Bosnian politics went back to business as usual in days, with politicians predictably approaching Biden’s speech as a smorgasbord, picking out (and spinning) the elements they thought favorable to their positions and ignoring what they didn’t like. There has been no follow up from Washington since.
The most likely way to catalyze a common approach is through a US presidential special envoy. However, Biden said in an interview to this newspaper Friday that none was forthcoming. The US remains stuck still hoping to follow an EU lead, should one materialize. None is visible on the horizon.
Only leadership by EU member states can move the Brussels bureaucracy, which thinks it has arrived at a magic formula that need only be applied. Without any members proposing a strategy, the Brussels bureaucratic sausage machine will generate more lowest-common-denominator policies with no prospects of success.
While the US cannot run an effective policy in Bosnia without the EU, only the US can galvanize a coherent strategy among its members. Vague articulations of “the European path” and various process checklists are no substitute.
There needs to be a clear articulation of what sort of Bosnia the EU will accept into the fold. The international community must commit that any such solution would have to obtain qualified majority consent of all Bosnia’s constituent peoples, as well as those “others” who are effectively second-class citizens in the Dayton system. This will end speculation that some “Dayton II” is in the works that will impose a solution. The EU and US both need to state that will help facilitate the process by which a working consensus is reached. To make the discussion possible, the determination to maintain the guardrails that have averted implosion in Bosnia for 13 years remains essential. That means retaining an operationally credible EUFOR and the legal platform, though not necessarily the office, of the High Representative.
The only fixation of the EU and most of its members regarding Bosnia, including the incoming Swedish presidency, is “transition” – closing the OHR and inaugurating a “reinforced” EUSR. This is touted as an end in itself. Aside from the amount of personnel EUSR will likely have, there is still no clarity on what this mission would actually aim to achieve. In theory, this “reinforced” EUSR could be a positive development, if launched after full completion of 5+2 and if designed and equipped for the Bosnian reality. Yet it seems the main goal is to divest itself of any power, and therefore responsibility should Bosnia fail. While not a policy design, the essence of Montgomery’s vision might arrive by default, with the attendant consequences.
The costs of failure – human, moral, and financial – would be massive and enduring for the EU – and the US as well. The EU must recognize that the bill would land on its doorstep. The reality is that the EU would have to devote far more troops than it currently fields to manage a carve-up, and it would be a far more dangerous mission for them, given that many Bosnians would see them as complicit.
Even with a coherent strategy and the will to see it through, there is no guarantee of success. Ultimately, if Bosnia’s citizens cannot agree on a way to make the country work, it cannot. But under the current system, they haven’t had that chance. Given the stakes, the international community owes Bosnia and its own taxpayers a full-bore effort to allow them that opportunity. Once again, only American leadership can prevent a broader international failure.
Kurt Bassuener is a Senior Associate of the Democratization Policy Council, a global initiative for accountability in democracy promotion.
