Even if the current system had not been a political sclerosis, today,
the Kosovo question hangs over the fate of Bosnia-Herzegovina as the
sword of Damocles.
The Boiling Cauldron Bosnia-Herzegovina
Can Karpat, AIA Balkan Section
Eleven years ago in Srebrenica 8000 Bosnians had lived the hell on
earth. War is over, the land is pacified. However Bosnia-Herzegovina is
still a boiling cauldron. The land with the over-sophisticated state
structure, which consists of 3 or 4 tiers of governance, 13
parliaments, 13 executive branches and about 180 ministries, will go to
the polls on 1st October. By that time Kosovo would be already
independent. And some 40 percent of the Bosnian Serbs are for the
unification with Serbia. Are the same devils in motion?
"All around the world butterflies are the symbol of spring. Not in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Here butterflies are symbols of genocide". The
Bosnian, who was interviewed by a Bosnian TV channel, went on
explaining that there is a specific kind of butterfly that used to
perch on those flowers, which grow up in graves. Mass graves are hard
to found out in Bosnia, for the Serbian militia used to blend the
ground in order to camouflage the graves. Following these butterflies,
the International Commission of Missing Persons discovered some of
these many mass graves. That is why butterflies are not joyful symbols
of spring for the Bosnians - not anymore.
The Srebrenica massacre where nearly 8000 people had lost their lives
is the most horrible massacre that Europe ever witnessed since the end
of the World War II.
Last Tuesday 40.000 Bosnians were in Potocari, the scene of the 1995
carnage, to commemorate the victims and to bury 505 of them, whose ages
are between 15 and 78.
Many international TV channels were there to witness the commemoration.
However the Turkish national TV, TRT-INT broadcasted perhaps one of the
most sentimental live programmes last Tuesday. During the programme the
speaker had one time lost his nerves, and given the severe discipline
of this channel this was a special moment.
Nearly 7 million Bosnians live in Turkey today. These people immigrated
to Turkey throughout the whole period when Bosnia was under the Ottoman
rule and thereafter. Especially those, who came to seek refuge in
Istanbul and other Anatolian cities during the 1875 revolts, the Balkan
Wars and the collapse of Yugoslavia, have firm family relations with
Bosnia-Herzegovina today. As one guest in the studio put it, "Bosnia
is the catastrophe of catastrophes for Turkey".
The Turkish live was highly sentimental. The Bosnians and Turks that
participated in the programme were unanimous in their anger at the
international community. More than the Serbs, they were angry at the EU
and UN, which would have stopped the carnage if they had really wanted
to.
One Turkish reporter, who was present in the programme, had been in
Bosnia to cover the war. She had even fallen hostage to the Serbs. The
latter exchanged her for their two dead comrades afterwards. She was
highly critical of the EU, which runs after the family skeletons of the
candidate states, though dismisses Srebrenica as a closed case. "This
is the real genocide", she said for several times.
This commemoration attracted less international attention than the 10th
anniversary last year. The same reporter stated that the presence of
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Chief
Prosecutor Carla del Ponte that day meant nothing. "Where was she
during the 10th anniversary last year?" she asked.
October elections
Turkish reporter went on telling that today in Sarajevo there are
institutions where even the corridors are divided between the Serbs and
the Bosnians. She added, "I'm not free until Bosnia is free".
Today in Bosnia-Herzegovina there are two to three economic systems,
two separate energy generation and distribution systems, two
transportation and water supply systems.
The Dayton system, which was imposed to end the war, divided Bosnia for
the first time in its history along ethnic or confessional lines.
According to the international community it is high time that the
current institutional arrangements in Bosnia be replaced with a
simpler, more transparent and institutionally homogeneous political
system. However the three constituent nations of Bosnia-Herzegovina
cannot come to a consensus upon the real nature of their problem and
its possible solution.
T
he problem is that the Dayton system still cannot be replaced eleven
years after the war. This system, which should have been ephemeral,
became seriously sclerotic now. As the years go by, "to abolish the
two existing entities and to establish instead five or six
institutionally similar but culturally individualized federal units
corresponding to historic regions", as the International Institute
for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) suggested, become harder
and harder.
On the contrary the Bosnian Serbs toy with the idea of breaking away
from Bosnia-Herzegovina and uniting with Serbia. According to the
Partner Marketing poll undertaken on 5th July, 40 percent of the
Bosnian Serbs fully
agree and 22.3 percent of them mostly agree with this idea.
Prime Minister of Republika Srpska (RS) Milorad Dodik expressed the
idea of secession, not unexpectedly, right after the independence
referendum in Montenegro. The main concern is what would happen once
Kosovo is independent by the end of this year.
Milorad Dodik's nationalistic statement seems to increase the public
support to his party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats
(SNSD), otherwise a moderate party. According to the poll undertaken by
IFIMES at the beginning of July, 36.10 percent of those surveyed would
have voted for SNSD if the elections were held today. Serbian
Democratic Party (SDS), once led by the indicted war criminal Radovan
Karadzic, followed its rival with 16.20 percent only. Leader of SDS and
President of RS, Dragan Cavic had condemned his Prime Minister's
secession statement as "pre-election propaganda". However it seems
that his propaganda works well.
According to the same poll in RS, multi-ethnic parties like Bosniak
Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and Social Democratic Party of Bosnia
and Herzegovina (SDP) obtained respectively 4.90 percent and 3.80
percent.
The fact that SDS and Serbian Radical Party (SRS) follow far behind the
once moderate SNSD indicates that a new kind of
nationalist-*****-populist party has been born. The Serbs as a whole are
boycotting the reform process, which foresees the reduction of the
powers of either republic in order to re-establish a more centralised
Bosnian-Herzegovinian state.
Haris Silajdzic
As to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the rise of the Party
for Bosnia-Herzegovina (SzBiH) is noteworthy. With 20.10 percent of
support they came second after SDP. While the latter is in favour of
the adoption of the proposed constitutional amendments, the former is
against them. Former prime minister and well-known Bosnian nationalist
demagogue Haris Silajdzic's return to SzBiH seems to pump fresh blood
into the party. Silajdzic also announced his candidacy for the member
of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is significant that SDA,
the most popular party in the Federation so far, came third in the poll
with 18.20 percent. SDA leads the bloc, which is in favour of the
adoption of the proposed constitutional amendments.
As the elections draw nearer, the general political atmosphere in
Bosnia-Herzegovina would be even more radicalised. On 29th June the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe called
Bosnia-Herzegovina to implement the constitutional reforms. The
constitutional amendments were rejected in Parliament on 26th April.
However, "the political awareness of the citizens which has remained
at the level of the dominant consciousness in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the
early 1990s" -as IFIMES put it- and the political irresponsibility of
the politicians make this prospect improbable. Even if the current
system had not been a political sclerosis, today, the Kosovo question
hangs over the fate of Bosnia-Herzegovina as the sword of Damocles.
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