Kurt Bassuener July 29th, 2010

On July 16, in response to the Open Letter to EU Governments calling on them to not take any additional steps toward Serbia’s EU integration until Ratko Mladic is arrested and transferred to The Hague, DPC (which co-wrote and organized this campaign) received a letter from Caspar Veldkamp, the Director of the Netherlands Foreign Ministry’s Department for Eastern and Southeastern Europe.  The Netherlands had long been the holdout against granting Serbia an SAA without full cooperation with the ICTY.  In last month’s meeting of EU foreign ministers, they - including the Netherlands - assessed that the cooperation was sufficient to begin the SAA ratification process.  Mr. Veldkamp asked that we pass his letter on to all of the appeal’s signatories.  His letter and the response to Mr. Veldkamp, written by DPC senior associate Bodo Weber, Steve Albert and myself, sent today, are both posted here.

Albert, Bassuener, Weber response to Caspar Veldkamp, 7-28-10

Veldkamp letter to DPC 7-16-10

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Kurt Bassuener June 21st, 2010

Last Monday, in advance of the EU foreign ministers’ meeting, Srebrenica survivor and author Emir Suljagic and DPC Senior Associate Eric A. Witte had an op-ed in Dutch daily De Volkskrant calling on EU governments to demand Serbia’s handover of Gen. Ratko Mladic to the ICTY.  Below is the English-language of the article which ran in the paper on June 14.

Mladic Must Be Arrested!

De Volkskrant (Netherlands)
14 June 2010

Emir Suljagic and Eric A. Witte

There was a time in recent Dutch politics when the weight of genocide in Bosnia was enough to bring down a government. The international community’s failure to protect civilians in Srebrenica is now almost 15 years removed.  But the effort to bring to trial Ratko Mladic, that genocide’s lead architect, is an issue for today.  It faces a major test on Monday, and once again the Dutch find themselves on the front lines. 

In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb Army overran the UN Safe Area of Srebrenica. International fecklessness left Dutch soldiers as the last hope for tens of thousands of Bosniaks who had survived the initial Serb onslaught in April and May 1992 and taken refuge in the town. Serb forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic deported women and children. Then, between July 11 and 16, they butchered some 8,000 men and boys in a series of massacres. As a result of Mladi?’s genocidal operation in Srebrenica, the Bosniak community in the eastern part of the country has effectively ceased to exist in all but name. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, established with Dutch support and hosted in The Hague, subsequently charged Mladic with genocide and other crimes.  Nearly 15 years on, he remains a free man.

Over this period, Mladic’s general whereabouts have been known.  Unreformed elements of the Serbian military, civilian intelligence, and security services, amid stretches of complicity at the highest echelons of government, offered him protection. But even as Serbia was unwilling to confront powerful nationalist and criminal elements in its own midst to bring Ratko Mladi? to justice, it continued to progress toward European Union membership.  Two years ago, the EU invited Serbia to sign a Stabilization and Association Agreement, a major stepping stone toward EU candidate status.

Just as it appeared that the EU and its member states would allow Serbia to gain membership while a man wanted for genocide was roaming its territory, survivors of Srebrenica took heart when Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen made clear that The Netherlands would block Serbia’s SAA by refusing to ratify it until Mladic was arrested and brought to trial. 

Serbia’s history of cooperation with the ICTY demonstrates that it has only undertaken the most difficult cooperation in response to firm conditions on aid and steps toward Euro-Atlantic integration. For years, despite some improvement, Serbian governments have continued to hinder the work of the ICTY, chiefly through extensive activities of its diplomatic and intelligence communities. Many promises have been broken.  On 31 December 2003, current President Boris Tadic promised that Mladic would be arrested during 2004.  This year his justice minister made a similar pledge.  Past claims that Mladic was out of the country or otherwise out of the reach of the authorities have been later disproved through photographs and other documentation. 

On Monday EU foreign ministers will meet, and many of his colleagues will press Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen to relent on Serbia’s SAA.  Foreign Minister Verhagen has signaled that Mladic’s arrest is no longer the bottom line, and that the government could ratify Serbia’s SAA if ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz merely notes Serbian cooperation.

For its principled stand to date, with only Belgium offering tacit support, the Dutch government has faced tremendous pressure from a number of EU member states, the EU institutions, and increasingly, Washington. These actors argue that what reforms Serbia has made should be rewarded with EU candidate status now.  Underlying this pressure is a belief that justice for genocide in the 1990s should not be a priority.  In any case, Serbia’s boosters argue, the government is doing all it can to make the arrest, and the Dutch policy has been tried now without results.

Yet there are indications that the Dutch stance was responsible for the July 2008 arrest of Mladic’s fellow genocide fugitive, wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.  Since that time, EU officials and various governments have undercut Dutch leverage by assuring Serbia that the Dutch government would eventually give up, and the SAA could be approved even without Mladic’s arrest.  The resulting ambiguity has discouraged Belgrade from making the last politically difficult arrest. 

Principled and astute Dutch leadership is now at risk.  Ratko Mladic is 68 years old, and without firm reiteration that his arrest is the condition for ratification of Serbia’s SAA, Belgrade has every incentive to let him live out his old age as a free man.  If the current Dutch caretaker government allows this to happen, it would be sacrificing its legacy as guardian of justice in a city and country that has come to embody the very concept.  It also would be depriving a new governing coalition from weighing in on a shift in policy that has enjoyed broad parliamentary support. 

In July 1995, before the international community abandoned civilians to slaughter, it abandoned Dutch peacekeepers.  In the effort to bring to justice the man most responsible for the crimes at Srebrenica, the international community is echoing this act.  Unfair as it may be, the Dutch are once again the bearers of final hope for the victims of Ratko Mladic.

Emir Suljagic is a Srebrenica survivor.  Eric A. Witte is a Senior Associate of the Democratization Policy Council.

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Kurt Bassuener June 16th, 2010

Unfortunately, EU foreign ministers decided on Monday to allow the ratification process for Serbia’s Stabilization and Associate Process to begin, despite the fact that the ICTY Chief Prosecutor believes Gen. Ratko Mladic to be in Serbia and he believes efforts toward his arrest and transfer for trial are insufficient. A BIRN report on the open letter, along with another by Human Rights Watch, is linked here.  Another BIRN article after the decision quoted DPC’s Bodo Weber thus:

“The EU’s foreign ministers opted for a compromise that sacrificed conditionality and risks that the chief architect of the Srebrenica massacre will escape justice forever.”

In the meantime, the open letter to EU governments gathered a number of additional signatories since its publication last Friday.  Below is an updated list.  The individual signatories at the Bosnian Community Centre in Dublin are appended below the letter.  We are particularly pleased that two Irish legislators, Senator David Norris and MP Joe Costello, the Labour Party Spokesman on European Affairs, have both added their names.

This is particularly significant since the next step in this process is the actual parliamentary debates and votes in the 27 EU member states.  As the Srebrenica massacre’s 15th anniversary approaches, legislators should ask their governments serious questions as to whether granting Serbia the benefits that accrue from the SAA without full cooperation with the ICTY will help achieve the ends of the entrenchment of rule of law, democratic control of the security forces, and that country’s taking EU conditionality seriously.  We will update readers on these parliamentary discussions.

Also pertinent to the Srebrenica genocide, I would like to direct readers to an innovative project being undertaken by the OSA Archive at the Central European University in Budapest (full disclosure: I am an alum, back when CEU had a Prague campus).  The Archive, a repository which has collected documentation on (inter alia) human rights violations in the wars in the Balkans, has opened an exhibition with a forensic reconstruction of the 1995 genocide.  I quote from their Communiqué on the exhibition:

Yet, even after fifteen years, Ratko Mladi? remains at large and out of reach of law enforcement officials. We, the keepers of the Balkan Archive at OSA, archivists and historians, curators and organizers of the commemorative exhibition, of various nationalities, know that the book of the Srebrenica massacre cannot be closed. The relatives, all human beings, those who are directly or indirectly involved in or touched by the tragedy, cannot find peace until the case is concluded, until – at least legally – justice is done. We ask all decent human beings not to rest until the individual who can be held chiefly responsible for the mass murders is brought face to face with his judges.

Their website is www.osaarchivum.org

Open Letter to the Governments of the European Union
 

We, the undersigned, are writing to express our concern that General Ratko Mladic will escape justice. Nearly a decade and a half after he was indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Mladic is still at large.

We support the insistence of the Government of the Netherlands that the apprehension of persons charged with carrying out genocide in Europe be a condition for the ratification of the Stabilization and Association Agreement with Serbia, a crucial step towards joining the European Union.

Insistence on conditionality led to the transfer of Radovan Karadzic to The Hague. Continued insistence will help ensure that Ratko Mladic faces justice.

In applying for membership in the European Union, President Tadic of Serbia promised that General Mladic would be apprehended. He acknowledged that arresting him was an obligation under international law. We urge you to make any further steps towards membership in the E.U. conditional upon the fulfillment of that obligation.
 

Signatories:
Payam Akhavan, Professor of International Law, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; formerly Legal Advisor, Office of the Prosecutor, ICTY, The Hague
Steve Albert, former Editor of BosNet, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Ahmet Alibasic, Lecturer, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Sarajevo
Vlado Azinovic, Secretary General, Atlantic Initiative in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Nina Bang-Jensen, Public International Law and Policy Group, Washington, DC
Kurt Bassuener, Democratization Policy Council, Sarajevo
Nidzara Beganovic, Sarajevo
Owen Beith, Freelance and human rights activist, London
Carl Bethke, Lecturer, Leipzig University
Sonja Biserko, Belgrade
Dusan Bogdanovic, Belgrade
Bosnian Community Centre, Dublin (individual signatories listed below)
Dr. Colm Breathnach, Dept. of Geography and Sociology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Darko Brkan, CA Why not? (UG Zasto ne?), Movement Dosta!, Sarajevo
Tobias Bütow, Schwarzkopf-Foundation Young Europe, Berlin
Hajra Catic, President, Association Women of Srebrenica (Zene Srebrenice), Tuzla
Norman Cigar, Professor, former Consultant at the ICTY, Virginia
Joe Costello, Member of the Irish Parliament and Labour Party Spokesman on European Affairs, Dublin
Isabelle Delpla, philosopher, Université Montpellier III France
Tanya L. Domi, Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Affairs, School of International and Public Affairs Columbia University
Azra Dzajic-Weber, Berlin
Douglas Ebner
Rev. John Feighery, Dublin, Ireland
Justice Richard Goldstone, first Prosecutor of the ICTY
Mladin Grbin, Glasgow
Dr. Michael Haltzel, Senior Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations,
Johns Hopkins University SAIS, Washington, DC
Marshall Harris, former State Dept official, Alston and Bird LLC, Washington, DC
Florence Hartmann, Journalist and former Spokesperson to the ICTY Chief Prosecutor
Nader Hashemi, Assistant Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver
John W. Heffernan, Director, Speak Truth to Power, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Washington, DC
Marko Attila Hoare, Kingston University, London
Paul Hockenos, Global Editor, Internationale Politik, Berlin
Carole Hodge, Writer, Glasgow
Jan Willem Honig, Senior Lecturer in War Studies, King’s College London, Professor of Military Strategy, Swedish National Defence College
Jim Hooper, Managing Director, Public International Law and Policy Group, Washington, DC
Alain Horic, Literary Editor, Montreal
Ivana Howard, Balkan policy analyst, Washington, DC
Nedad and Nasiha Hrvacic, Ireland
Valerie Hughes, Ireland Action for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dublin, Ireland
Biba and Muja Imamovic, Ireland
Bianca Jagger, Founder and Chair, Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador
Cécile Jouhanneau, Ph.D. candidate, Institute for Political Science, 
Paris
Erdin Kadunic, Bosnian Academic Circle, Munich
Tomasz Kamusella, Thomas Brown Lecturer, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Chris Keulemans, writer, artistic director Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam
Ben Kiernan, Director, Genocide Studies Program, Yale University
Daniel Kofman Professor, University of Ottawa.
Thierry Laborde-Ombasic Paris
Roger Lippman, Editor, Balkan Witness, Seattle
Branka Magas and Quintin Hoare, The Bosnian Institute, London
Noel Malcolm, Professor, Faculty of History, Oxford University
Dzenita Mehic-Saracevic, Washington, DC
Hatidza Mehmedovic, Association Srebrenica-mothers (Srebrenicke majke)
Fadila Memisevic/ Belma Zulcic, Section of Bosnia-Herzegovina - Society for Threatened Peoples, Sarajevo
Alan Mendoza, Executive Director, Henry Jackson Society, UK
Stjepan Mestrovic, Professor, Department of sociology, Texas A&M University
David Muhlstock, Professor, Dawson College, Montreal
Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University, New York
Maja Nenadovic, Amsterdam
Lara Nettelfield, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals and Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University (Canada)
Senator David Norris, Irish Parliament, Dublin
Sadija Ombasic, Paris
Andras Riedlmayer, Editor of International Justice Watch
Philipp Ruch, Center for Political Beauty, Berlin
Elisabeth Samarcq, Lille
Craig Scott, Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, Director, Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security, Toronto
Dr. Inela Selimovic, Sarajevo
Brendan Simms, Professor of the History of European International Relations, University of Cambridge
Ivo Skoric, Rutland, Vermont
Alison Smith, International Criminal Justice Program Coordinator, No Peace Without Justice, New York
Dzemal Sokolovic, Professor
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Arlington
Sean Steele, Ireland Action for Bosnia, Dublin
Chuck Sudetic, Writer
Emir Suljagic, Srebrenica survivor, Author, Advisor to the Mayor of the City of Sarajevo
Garret Tankosic-Kelly, Sarajevo
France Théoret, Writer, Montreal
David Tolbert, President, International Center for Transitional Justice, former deputy prosecutor, deputy registrar ICTY, former Registrar STL
Patricia Wald, former Judge at the ICTY
Peter Julian Walsh, Ireland Action for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greystones, Ireland
Bodo Weber, Democratization Policy Council, Berlin
Dr. Mark Wheeler, former OHR/OSCE, former Head of ICG Sarajevo office, Sarajevo
Julie Wornan, Paris
Tilman Zülch, President, Jasna Causevic, Society for Threatened Peoples International, Göttingen
Said Zulficar, Network for Colonial Freedom

Bosnian Community Centre, Dublin:
Razija Ademovic, Semso Alibasic, Edisa Becirovic, Ramo Becirovic, Edin Dizdarevic, Hajrija Durmo, Mirza Durmo, Medin Ejublovic, Mehan Ejubovic, Salkuna Ejubovic, Selmin Fale, Azra Kadragic, Damir Kadragic, Dzemila Karaman, Ismet Karaman, Izudin Karaman, Edin Mustic, Emir Mustic, Sead Mustic, Emir Omerovic, Enver Ramic, Fatima Ramic, Ifeta Ramic, Izet Zahirovic, Medina Zukanovic, Suljo Zukanovic

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Kurt Bassuener June 12th, 2010

On Monday, an open letter was sent to the attention of the governments of the European Union, calling on all of them to insist on the arrest and transfer of Gen. Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide, to the ICTY before any further steps toward EU membership can be taqken by Serbia.  Please find the letter and list of signatories, which includes former senior ICTY personnel, prominent academics, civic activists, political figures, and other concerned persons, below.

Open Letter to the Governments of the European Union

We, the undersigned, are writing to express our concern that General Ratko Mladic will escape justice. Nearly a decade and a half after he was indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Mladic is still at large.

We support the insistence of the Government of the Netherlands that the apprehension of persons charged with carrying out genocide in Europe be a condition for the ratification of the Stabilization and Association Agreement with Serbia, a crucial step towards joining the European Union.

Insistence on conditionality led to the transfer of Radovan Karadzic to The Hague. Continued insistence will help ensure that Ratko Mladic faces justice.

In applying for membership in the European Union, President Tadic of Serbia promised that General Mladic would be apprehended. He acknowledged that arresting him was an obligation under international law. We urge you to make any further steps towards membership in the E.U. conditional upon the fulfillment of that obligation.
 

Signatories:

Payam Akhavan, Professor of International Law, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; formerly Legal Advisor, Office of the Prosecutor, ICTY, The Hague
Steve Albert, former Editor of BosNet, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Ahmet Alibasic, Lecturer, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Sarajevo
Vlado Azinovic, Secretary General, Atlantic Initiative in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Nina Bang-Jensen, Public International Law and Policy Group, Washington, DC
Kurt Bassuener, Democratization Policy Council, Sarajevo
Nidzara Beganovic, Sarajevo
Owen Beith, Freelance and human rights activist, London
Carl Bethke, Lecturer, Leipzig University
Sonja Biserko, Belgrade
Dusan Bogdanovic, Belgrade
Dr. Colm Breathnach, Dept. of Geography and Sociology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Darko Brkan, CA Why not? (UG Zasto ne?), Movement Dosta!, Sarajevo
Tobias Bütow, Schwarzkopf-Foundation Young Europe, Berlin
Hajra Catic, President, Association Women of Srebrenica (Zene Srebrenice), Tuzla
Norman Cigar, Professor, former Consultant at the ICTY, Virginia
Joe Costello, Member of the Irish Parliament and Labour Party Spokesman on European Affairs, Dublin
Isabelle Delpla, philosopher, Université Montpellier III France
Tanya L. Domi, Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Affairs, School of International and Public Affairs Columbia University
Azra Dzajic-Weber, Berlin
Douglas Ebner
Rev. John Feighery, Dublin, Ireland
Justice Richard Goldstone, first Prosecutor of the ICTY
Mladin Grbin, Glasgow
Dr. Michael Haltzel, Senior Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations,
Johns Hopkins University SAIS, Washington, DC
Marshall Harris, former State Dept official, Alston and Bird LLC, Washington, DC
Florence Hartmann, Journalist and former Spokesperson to the ICTY Chief Prosecutor
Nader Hashemi, Assistant Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver
John W. Heffernan, Director, Speak Truth to Power, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Washington, DC
Marko Attila Hoare, Kingston University, London
Paul Hockenos, Global Editor, Internationale Politik, Berlin
Carole Hodge, Writer, Glasgow
Jan Willem Honig, Senior Lecturer in War Studies, King’s College London, Professor of Military Strategy, Swedish National Defence College
Jim Hooper, Managing Director, Public International Law and Policy Group, Washington, DC
Alain Horic, Literary Editor, Montreal
Ivana Howard, Balkan policy analyst, Washington, DC
Valerie Hughes, Ireland Action for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dublin, Ireland
Bianca Jagger, Founder and Chair, Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador
Cécile Jouhanneau, Ph.D. candidate, Institute for Political Science, Paris
Erdin Kadunic, Bosnian Academic Circle, Munich
Tomasz Kamusella, Thomas Brown Lecturer, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Chris Keulemans, writer, artistic director Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam
Ben Kiernan, Director, Genocide Studies Program, Yale University
Daniel Kofman Professor, University of Ottawa.
Roger Lippman, Editor, Balkan Witness, Seattle
Branka Magas and Quintin Hoare, The Bosnian Institute, London
Noel Malcolm, Professor, Faculty of History, Oxford University
Dzenita Mehic-Saracevic, Washington, DC
Hatidza Mehmedovic, Association Srebrenica-mothers (Srebrenicke majke)
Fadila Memisevic/ Belma Zulcic, Section of Bosnia-Herzegovina - Society for Threatened Peoples, Sarajevo
Alan Mendoza, Executive Director, Henry Jackson Society, UK
Stjepan Mestrovic, Professor, Department of sociology, Texas A&M University
David Muhlstock, Professor, Dawson College Montreal
Lara Nettelfield, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals and Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University (Canada)
Andras Riedlmayer, Editor of International Justice Watch
Philipp Ruch, Center for Political Beauty, Berlin
Elisabeth Samarcq, Lille
Craig Scott, Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, Director, Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security, Toronto
Dr. Inela Selimovic, Sarajevo
Brendan Simms, Professor of the History of European International Relations, University of Cambridge
Ivo Skoric, Rutland, Vermont
Alison Smith, International Criminal Justice Program Coordinator, No Peace Without Justice, New York
Dzemal Sokolovic, Professor
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Arlington
Sean Steele, Ireland Action for Bosnia, Dublin
Chuck Sudetic, Writer
Emir Suljagic, Srebrenica survivor, Author, Advisor to the Mayor of the City of Sarajevo
Garret Tankosic-Kelly, Sarajevo
France Théoret, Writer, Montreal
David Tolbert, President, International Center for Transitional Justice, former deputy prosecutor, deputy registrar ICTY, former Registrar STL
Patricia Wald, former Judge at the ICTY
Peter Julian Walsh, Ireland Action for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greystones, Ireland
Bodo Weber, Democratization Policy Council, Berlin
Dr. Mark Wheeler, former OHR/OSCE, former Head of ICG Sarajevo office, Sarajevo
Julie Wornan, Paris
Tilman Zülch, President, Jasna Causevic, Society for Threatened Peoples International, Göttingen
Said Zulficar, Network for Colonial Freedom

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Kurt Bassuener June 2nd, 2010

The international community’s collective approach toward Bosnia and Herzegovina has failed to gain any traction, as it remains based on false assumptions. The governments comprising the Peace Implementation Council’s Steering Board (PIC) have not been able to summon the will to confront the actual challenges posed by Bosnia.
 
The collective international posture lurches between frenetic diplomatic activity in search of a short-term deliverable and passivity. This has allowed Bosnian political actors with unfulfilled agendas to operate without constraint, even calling the survival of the state into question.
 
As the October general elections approach, the spectrum of possibilities, from improvement to further worsening of the situation, is wider than at any point since Dayton was signed. While fear among B-H citizens is more salient than ever recent incidents all point to the potential for both planned and spontaneous outbursts of violence.
 
Nevertheless the EU, the US and others can still exert positive influence in Bosnia this year. On how this is achieved and what can be done to create the conditions for progress in 2011 and beyond that would lead to  a self-sustaining democratic Bosnia read DPC’s new policy brief: “Are we there yet? - International impatience vs. a long-term strategy for a viable Bosnia,” authored by Senior Associates Bodo Weber and Kurt Bassuener.

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Kurt Bassuener March 9th, 2010

In the February edition of the German foreign policy journal Internationale Politik’s English version, IP Global, Bodo Weber and I have written “Balkan Tango - The EU’s disjointed policies compound Bosnia’s paralysis.” In it, we argue that the international community’s policies toward Bosnia - and the EU’s in particular - are in disarray and without a strategic goal or plan.  This has accelerated Bosnia’s downward slide, which began four years ago.  To get out of this dynamic, we argue that the United States must first shift its own policy and make an effort to develop a coalition within the EU to restablilize the country, and then develop a more long-term approach.  We believe getting Germany onside is essential to developing critical mass within the EU.

The most recent Peace Implementation Council Steering Board meeting on Feb 24-25 (see the PIC Communique here) wasn’t encouraging from that persepective.  The issue of a referendum by the Republika Srpska didn’t even rate a mention in the communique, since doing so would mean a Russian footnote.  For some continental EU members, Germany prominent among them, maintaining consensus was more important that drawing the line…

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Kurt Bassuener November 3rd, 2009

 (posted for Bodo Weber): 

The latest issue of the German weekly Die Zeit, published last week, carries an op-ed by me in which I argue that after the failure of the “Butmir process” initiated by  the EU’s Swedish Presidency it is time for the EU to finally take serious course in its policy towards Bosnia and that such a turn will demand Germany to take the lead. You can go to the link here for the article. An English version of the text is below.

Suddenly there is talk about war again

Die Zeit, 29.10.1009    Bodo Weber

This week the trial against Radovan Karadzic finally opened. Bosnia-Herzegovina may reach the soccer world championship in South Africa. And in all postwar countries of the former Yugoslavia, politics revolves around EU-integration. Sounds like successful calming and stabilization of Europe’s most recent theatre of war? Wrong.

High-level representatives of the European Union and the U.S. are currently en route to Bosnia-Herzegovina as crisis managers. For three and a half years ethnonationalistic rhetoric is escalating there and preventing political reform. For the first time in over a decade, the terms “war” and “violent conflict” have been resurrected in public debate. In this process Milorad Dodik, prime minister of the Republika Srpska (RS), the Serb entity in Bosnia is acting as the most vociferous agitator. He maintains an authoritarian regime with nationalistic populist speeches and regularly snubs the international community.

The international community had planned to stabilize the post-war state with the help of a semi-protectorate, but then initiated a phase-out. Its rationale: Over a decade after ending the war it was time for Bosnians and Herzegovinians to take over full responsibility for their country. From this view, the existence of international watchdogs is itself basically undemocratic. This putatively self-critical argumentation obscures two crucial problems: First, the international community wanted to get rid of the Bosnian problem child. And second, it wanted to hide the fact that at no point over the last fourteen post-war years has it developed a strategy for a long-term political stabilisation of the country without authoritarian international control.

One of the causes of the problems lies in the very Dayton-Agreement that secured the ending of the war in 1995. The Dayton post-war order has contained the aggressive effects of ethnic nationalism, it restored security and freedom of movement. The war armies have been dissolved, the military removed as a conflict factor.

But peace came at a special price: Instead of a functional Bosnian post-war state Dayton created a weak, dysfunctional and unsustainably expensive state; a complex state structure in which the constitution secures the decentralization of power and the predominance of ethnic political parties. At the same time, it sets hurdles too high for reaching substantial constitutional change from within, even though the majority of the population has long turned its back on the political elites.

The international community had tried to take corrective action through the Office of the High Representative (OHR). Its head was equipped with the authority to enforce laws or suspend them and to fire state officials whose ethnonationalistic policy and rhetoric represented a threat to Dayton. But this strengthening of the OHR was less motivated by the will to develop a real strategy for political stabilisation than by the wish to end the expensive and not very effective engagement in Bosnia in the foreseeable future.

When the U.S. took the Balkans off its top priority list after 9/11, the complete responsibility for the region fell to the EU. Without further ado, it declared the EU integration process to be the new statebuilding strategy. The High Representative additionally became the EU Special Representative for Bosnia. Europe put the EUFOR military mission in place for securing peace, thus turning Bosnia into one of the first test cases for its common European foreign and security policy. This sounded good – except for one shortfall: Brussels never had a strategic discussion on whether the prospect of EU membership could be a sufficient incentive for the local political elites in the southeast European countries (especially Bosnia) to take on the necessary economical and political reforms.

As the gap between the EU’s pretension and the Bosnian reality widened, “Bosnia-fatigue” inside the union grew. Instead of reacting politically Brussels turned on the bureaucratic autopilot and in 2006 decided to flee forward: The EU ascribed political maturity to the domestic elites and announced the imminent closure of the OHR. As the political elites’ zeal for reform vanished with the announcement of the pullout the EU dropped a central condition for signing an association agreement with Bosnia. The immediate consequences were: The expected reform dynamics did not take place. Two High Reps perished, the OHR sank into ineffectiveness. The EU lost the rest of its authority in Bosnia.

Brussels takes comfort in stating that the outbreak of a new war is unthinkable, if not for other reasons then because there do not exist ethnic armies any more. That is correct but still diverts from the real dangers. Bosnia lacks reliable state actors that could prevent an outbreak of violence.  Neither does there exist a de-politicized police nor a judiciary that could function in a way that guarantees the rule of law without external assistance. Without these instruments and a state monopoly on force, it is very realistic to imagine a local outbreak of violence as trivial as a clash between fans of two rivalling soccer teams to escalate into a regional ethnic conflict. And there is no lack of weapons in Bosnia even today.

Despite all that the EU remains politically motionless. Inside the union advocates of a harder approach (mainly Britain and the Netherlands) are standing vis-à-vis supporters of a softer course (lead by Sweden). But none of the European governments is prepared for a reinforced engagement in Bosnia. And yet the EU would neither need to reinvent the wheel nor invest additional resources. In Bosnia today, authoritarian-nationalistic forces are substantially weaker than they had been a few years ago. The recent political escalation is less the expression of a new strength of the political elites then of the power vacuum left over by the EU.

What then, should the EU do? It has to reengage. And it has to understand that both forceful interventions into the Bosnian sovereignty and the existing European military contingent will still be necessary through the course of the EU integration process. What is necessary is political will and a long-term perspective that will give the population security and curtail the elites’ space for manoeuvring and manipulation. With its current politics of ignorance, Europe risks generating considerably higher political costs in the long term.

Germany could take a leading role within the EU and thus bring the community back to a serious course in Bosnia. Both the emergence of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and Germany’s pretension to become a global player are inseparably linked to the Srebrenica genocide and Europe’s failure in Bosnia. That should actually be motivation enough for Germany. It remains to be seen in the upcoming weeks and months whether the new conservative-liberal government is going to move away from the Bosnia-fatigue of its predecessor. It then also remains to be seen how big the discord between pretension and reality in the German foreign policy will be.

Bodo Weber is a Berlin-based Senior Associate of the Democratization Policy Council (DPC)

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Kurt Bassuener October 22nd, 2009

Today’s issue of the weekly the European Voice carries an op-ed by me in which I argue that the “Butmir process” pursued for the past two weeks in Bosnia by the EU’s Swedish Presidency and the US has failed, and for a different approach: strengthening the Dayton instruments of OHR and EUFOR and extending them until Bosnia undergoes sufficient constitutional reform to obviate the need for them.  You can go to the link here for the article.  The full text is below.

It is time for a Plan B for Bosnia
 
The international approach to Bosnia needs a strategic re-think.

For more than three years, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political situation has been deteriorating. Fears have re-surfaced that the state may violently collapse. The international community, without a strategy for years, has responded irresolutely.
 
The international community has now re-engaged, at least. On 10 October and again on 20-21 October, Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for enlargement, and Jim Steinberg, the US deputy secretary of state, called most of Bosnia’s political party leaders together at Butmir, outside Sarajevo, where they outlined a ‘package’ of reforms necessary, as they sold it, for deeper Euro-Atlantic integration.
 
The effort, though, has failed. Most Bosnian party leaders rejected the package. And there has been collateral damage: Milorad Dodik, the prime minister of Republika Srpska, called for his largely Serb-populated region to have the right to a referendum on independence. The Butmir process further weakened the international community’s high representative, Valentin Inzko, who was relegated to the sidelines.

This highlights one of the core problems in the EU’s current approach: its fixation on the Office of the High Representative (OHR). The EU’s Swedish presidency and many EU states believe Bosnia is a ‘protectorate’ as long as there is an OHR, the peace implementation body created by the Dayton peace accords. They are categorical that they cannot negotiate with Bosnia on further steps toward the EU until the OHR is closed.

As a result, the aim of the ‘Butmir process’ appears to be more to close the OHR than to halt Bosnia’s downward political spiral.

This poses tactical problems: while Bildt seems willing to give anything away to achieve that end, Dodik seems unwilling to give anything.

But the bigger issue is that the real criterion for closing the OHR should be whether Bosnia can function as a state without it. The European Commission has, to its credit, gone some way toward defining the EU’s demands by enumerating constitutional reforms needed for Bosnia to gain candidate status. NATO too should clarify its requirements.

But Bosnia’s politicians have long shown little willingness to expend political capital to meet EU and NATO standards, a response conditioned by years of the international community fudging its own standards to create the illusion of progress. Those habits will be hard for both sides to break.

Now that the Butmir effort has clearly failed, the entire international approach must be re-thought. What key elements should a Plan B contain?

First, it should be made clear that Dayton’s executive instruments – the OHR and the military side of peace implementation, EUFOR – will remain in place until Bosnia has undergone deep reform. A clear, open-ended commitment would signal to Bosnia’s politicians that they cannot simply wait out the international community.

The roles of OHR and EU Special Representative should not be occupied by the same person, as is the case now. Linking these missions at the top ensures a lowest common-denominator approach, with the EU attempting to veto the use of the extensive Bonn Powers that the OHR has.

The EU and NATO should approach constitutional reform strategically, by forming an international commission tasked with identifying popularly legitimate solutions for Bosnia’s governance.

The status of state (public) and military property, included in the five objectives and two conditions set for the OHR’s closure, must also be resolved.

International judges and prosecutors should remain involved in war-crimes and organised-crime cases beyond the end of this year. The OHR should impose a three-year extension.

Finally, the West needs to develop and demonstrate a long-term common strategy. This was clearly lacking at Butmir. The fact that Bildt can have such influence shows that few member states have firm policies. A US special envoy may need to be the catalyst for any common strategy, working with EU members that share Washington’s concerns, primarily the UK and the Netherlands. They and others in the EU that back a tougher approach now need to bring Germany on board.

Kurt Bassuener is a senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council, a global initiative for accountability in democracy promotion.

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Kurt Bassuener June 9th, 2009

Following the publication of an op-ed in the New York Times by former US Ambassador to Serbia and Croatia William Montgomery that advocated partition of Bosnia and Kosovo, DPC Senior Associate Kurt Bassuener was invited by Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje to comment.  The following article appeared in the paper’s June 9 edition.  This is the original English language version.

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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.

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Kurt Bassuener June 9th, 2009

USIPeace Briefing - Unfinished Business in Bosnia and Herzegovina: What is to be Done?

On April 3rd, DPC Senior Associates Kurt Bassuener and James Lyon attended a policy briefing on international policy toward Bosnia and Hercegovina hosted by the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. 

In late May, USIP published a USIPeace Briefing written by Bassuener and Lyon reviewing both the proceedings and then presenting the authors’ view on what the US-EU joint strategy must be.  This paper was followed by two papers with alternate points of view on the necessary approach - also available at the link above.  Bassuener and Lyon’s briefing is available in PDF format above.

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