SURVIVING THE PEACE The Struggle for Postwar Recovery in Bosnia-Herzegovina

home  ♦  about the blog ♦ the book ♦ the author ♦ buy the book  ♦  contact

January 2, 2021
Judiciary capture. The international community comes back(?). Russia. Corona. Mostar.

There's more news than ever from Bosnia this last month. I'll start right in with an update on the judiciary, a matter headlined in my last blog entry (December 7). The big news is that Milan Tegeltija, president of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC), has stepped down. See my previous entry for a fuller description of what happened, but Tegeltija's second major scandal—again involving "abuse of power"—brought him down. After he denied his crime and calling the affair a frame-up, other members of the HJPC leaned towards supporting Tegeltija's resignation.

After retreating to Banja Luka, Tegeltija resigned during the second week of December. He asserted that his life was in danger, especially if he were to remain in Sarajevo. He claimed that he was the "victim of intelligence operations" to discredit him. He announced that he would also resign from his other judicial functions because he "no longer believed in the Bosnian justice system."

The buzz is that Tegeltija had to fall because of international pressure, and that his removal to Banja Luka, and his fanciful accusations, were a foil to cover for the embarrassment of the Dodik regime.

All this is important because the judiciary, called "a cancerous wound" on the body politic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, has been a center of corruption for decades—and Tegeltija was, in recent years, as guilty of perpetuation of that regime of corruption as anyone else involved. And given that judicial corruption goes hand in hand with nationalism and separatism, it's clear that Tegeltija was in the pocket of Milorad Dodik and his clique.

The downfall of the kingpin of judicial corruption comes at a time when there is a change in the way winds from the West are blowing. The United States will be seeing in a new president who is familiar with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Balkan affairs; Biden will most probably work to reverse the policies of his predecessor. That figure knew nothing about Bosnia; he delighted in supporting separatism, dangerously attempted to secure a couple of quick fixes ("deliverables") in the Balkans, and was otherwise content to let Bosnia remain a political shambles, drifting more and more under the influence of Russia.

The EU and some international think-tanks are supporting a renewed international approach to Bosnian affairs; the EU was in some ways as neglectful of Bosnia as was the American regime. But in addition to the OSCE's report on the judiciary (mentioned in the previous blog), the Slovenia-based International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) also recently issued an incisive and well-thought out report on the subject, titled "2020 Bosnia and Herzegovina: No rule of law without comprehensive reform of the judiciary." See here for the entire report. 

The IFIMES report states that the judiciary is essentially in the hands of Dodik and Dragan Čović, eternal advocate of Bosnian Croat separatism. Judges and prosecutors under their control ensure that corruption cases be delayed and forgotten when they involve cronies of the two leaders. The report calls for the complete disbanding of the current composition of the HJPC and its re-staffing with new members who will be restricted to a four-year term. It emphasizes that standards for the rule of law depend on equality of enforcement in all situations—a standard not presently upheld.

One Bosnian commentator noted, "With some exceptions, the judiciary is characterized by the absence of humane values and by a general scramble to grab more and better judicial positions at all costs. Appointments are arranged in at lunch in the kafanas. There is a social-pathological 'Tegeltism' afoot, wherein true legal work has been placed in the realm of the impossible."

The departure of Tegeltija doesn't guarantee reform of the HJPC or of the entire judiciary. It could be a turning point only if pressure from the international community keeps up and if there is mobilization on the domestic front as well.

More about the International Community and Bosnia

Going back to the late fall, there have been indications of the international community beginning to find its feet again with regard to Bosnia. Some of those signs appeared in the behavior of High Representative Valentin Inzko, who has held that position since 2009.

Background: In late 1997, at a meeting in Bonn, Germany, the Peace Implementation Council held one of its regular meetings. The PIC, composed of 55 countries, was formed after the Dayton agreement to oversee the implementation of that agreement. At that meeting, the PIC endowed the High Representative with the "Bonn powers" that made it possible for him to decree laws and to remove public officials from office, among other things.

The Bonn powers were used robustly by earlier HRs in the first decade after the war, notably by Paddy Ashdown. But then their use was tapered off in an attempt to let Bosnian leaders do things well on their own. Inzko has used the powers rarely and, in recent years, not at all. But in late November he announced that he was going to impose a law banning genocide denial if Bosnian leaders did not do so on their own. Since the entire political infrastructure of the Republika Srpska is built upon genocide denial and other forms of war crime revisionism, there will be a conflict about this. Inzko stated that if the law is not in force by July 11 of 2021, he will impose it.

At about the same time, Inzko called for Dodik to remove a plaque honoring convicted war criminal Radovan Karadžić. Dodik had attended the unveiling of the plaque on a student dormitory in Pale, the wartime capital of the Republika Srpska, in 2016. The dormitory was named after Karadžić. Inzko gave Dodik six months to remove the plaque, threatening to ban Dodik's travel to the EU if he failed to do so. In response Dodik, as is his habit, called Inzko a "monster" and stated that Inzko was a supporter of the Bosniaks, "taking revenge on Serbs and Croats." Then Dodik called on Inzko to come remove the plaque together with him.

As it happened, in mid-December Karadžić's daughter Sonja called for the removal of the plaque, and it was done. She complained that the controversy "put pressure on Karadžić," and was a "misuse of his name.

All this takes place in an atmosphere of tension heightened by an international conference called by Russia to give Dodik and Dragan Čović a chance to respond to ongoing criticisms by the High Representative. During that conference Dodik spoke for 30 minutes, calling Inzko a "criminal." But representatives of many countries backed up Inzko, and this could be seen as an early sign of a change of attitude on the part of the international community.

In an interview in early December Inzko spoke optimistically of the upcoming leadership of Joe Biden. He also acknowledged the possibility of heightened use of the Bonn powers. Inzko criticized the past behavior of the international community, saying that turning over the reins of power to domestic leaders too early had been a mistake, and that it was time to go into a "third phase," where international officials would again take power.

Inzko has also recently mentioned the possibility that he would be replaced next spring by a German official, Christian Schmidt, who is a former Minister of Agriculture. The timing or particular choice of Schmidt has not been explained, but he is a member of the Christian Social Union, a coalition partner with Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. What is problematic about the possible choice of Schmidt is that he and his party are not only close to Vladimir Putin, but are also strong supporters of the Republika Srpska. If Schmidt becomes High Representative, his allegiances could sabotage any resurgence of involvement from the West.

More about Russia and Bosnia

In mid-December Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov visited the Balkans and stopped in East Sarajevo to meet with Dodik. He was due to meet the next day with the other two members of the state-level presidency, Croat member Željko Komšić and Bosniak member Šefik Džaferović. But a couple of things happened during the meeting with Dodik that angered the other two. One was that, as is Dodik's custom, there was no Bosnian flag present at the meeting, only the RS flag and the flag of Russia. And secondly, Lavrov made some statements that reporters characterized as "scandalous." Among these was his repetition of the demand that it is time for the Office of the High Representative to be abolished and that the international officials "should have left long ago." He also stated—in response to recent suggestions from the West that the Dayton agreement should be updated—that not a word of the agreement should be changed.

This is Russia's pushback against increased overtures from the West for reform in Bosnia. The hypocrisy and inconsistency of these demands is plain, and Komšić and Džaferović decided to draw the line and make a statement against Russian meddling. They cancelled their attendance at the scheduled meeting with Lavrov.

The gesture, in my opinion, straddled the line between brave and foolhardy. It was lauded by Bosnian patriots from all directions as "statesmenlike" and a "new 'NO'" echoing Tito's famous "NO" (1948) to Stalin. Some commentators said that Komšić and Džaferović's act was logical and that nothing could make Russia-Bosnia relations worse than they already are. That Russia has supported Dodik's and Ćović's separatism and, for that matter, Tegeltija's corruption of the judiciary system.

Other people stated that Komšić and Džaferović had fallen into a populist trap by boycotting and snubbing one of the most powerful foreign ministers on the planet. There was renewed acknowledgment that Russia wishes to create chaos in the Balkans and to obstruct Western influence in any way possible. This has been demonstrated regularly since the late 1990s, but especially in the last few years.

The columnist Gojko Berić made a couple of important evaluations. One was that, while Komšić and Džaferović "fell into a trap of political emotions," it would be naive to think that anything they could have said to Lavrov in protest would have made any difference.

Berić also pointed out that the essence of the incident, more than anything about flags and symbolism, was that Russia is bent on cementing ethnic and entity divisions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. That from the first day, Russia supported Radovan Karadžić, and then Dodik. That Russia wants more turbulence in Bosnia, not peace. That is why Russia so strongly supports cementing the Dayton agreement—because it is a vehicle for stagnation, corruption, and division.

As it happened, after the diplomatic incident Russia curtailed its supply of natural gas to Bosnia by 50%, without changing Serbia's or Hungary's portions.

There was an epilogue to the current series of incidents in Bosnia-Russia relations. After the cancelled high-level meeting, Dodik met with Lavrov again and gave him a 300-year-old Orthodox icon of St. Nicholas as a gift. This flared up into a controversy immediately, as Ukrainian officials announced that the icon had been stolen from a church in Lugansk, a Ukrainian city now under occupation by pro-Russian separatists.

There were questions about how Dodik had come by the icon; none have definitively been answered. Or perhaps it's more accurate to that all have been answered—with definitive but contradictory responses. For example, Serb extremists have been traveling to Ukraine since 2014 to help "defend their Russian brothers" on the separatist side. Did someone steal an icon (or many such treasures) and bring it back to Bosnia?

Another "well informed source" dates the acquisition of the suspicious icon to 2014, when Russian "Cossacks" masquerading as a folklore ensemble visited Banja Luka, ostensibly on a cultural exchange tour. This sounds ridiculous, but that visit did take place. The tour was led by Nikolaj Đakonov, a Russian latter-day "Cossack" who had been involved in paramilitary engagements in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine on behalf of pro-Russian separatists. Đakonov led a corps of mercenaries disguised as folklore enthusiasts to Banja Luka, where they served then-RS President Dodik by intimidating people involved in ongoing protests against his regime.

The source in question asserts that Dodik bought the icon, worth $10 million on the black market, from Đakonov for $1 million as a way of repaying him for his services in repression. 

Officials in Dodik's office deny all versions of illicit acquisition of the icon and say that it was a sacred family-owned object indigenous to Bosnia. The controversy stands there. But Russia returned the icon to Bosnia, and it now rests secure in Dodik's safe.

Migrants

Early in December, some disturbing news was issued about the fate of migrants stranded in the northwest of Bosnia, in Uno-Sanski Kanton (USK). There, somewhat outside of Bihać, a rudimentary camp had been established in April. The isolated location of Lipa was chosen intentionally to keep migrants out of the cities, where friction between them and local residents was increasing. It has never stopped increasing, but Bira, a camp in the center of Bihać, was closed down in September and this reinforced a measure of separation between the two populations.

The state-level government of Bosnia-Herzegovina had promised in the spring of 2020 that it would provide finances and other resources to turn Lipa into a secure camp with liveable conditions. But the resources were never provided. The International Organization for Migrants (IOM) and other international agencies stepped in to help provide food and some materials for shelter. They promised to maintain the camp through November 30 of 2020. In the entire period, the Bosnian government failed to take over and provide for Lipa.

Then around the 10th of December, the IOM announced that it was going to pull out of Lipa if the Bosnians did not begin to finance the camp, to provide electricity and water, and to establish trailers and other solid structures to take the place of the tents that people were using.

Officials of the Bosnian government, notably Minister of Security Selmo Cikotić, stated that the funding was available, but that there had been "problems in the chain of decision-making bodies" from the presidency, through the Council of Ministers, all the way to the local level. When pressed, Cikotić blamed the authorities in the USK Canton—but this was the body that had been spending thousands to feed and shelter the migrants for the last couple of years.

I should note that this calamity is a perfect illustration of the point of my recent article for Transitions Online ("Trapped in the Krajina"), where I described the Dayton-based dysfunctionality of Bosnian governance as responsible for the dismal condition of migrants in Bosnia.

Without straining to provide a serious explanation, Cikotić stated that the state-level government was "slow in making its decisions." He said that the blockage was the result of complicated constitutional, state, and security systems in Bosnia. Then finally—after eight months of waiting, on December 21 the Council of Ministers agreed to fund the refurbishment of Lipa. At this time Cikotić warned that there would be a humanitarian catastrophe if the USK authorities did not allow migrants to return temporarily to Bira until Lipa could be restored.

The IOM indeed pulled out of Lipa on December 23, leaving 1,500 migrants stranded. The state-level government and international actors strongly requested that Bira be reopened until Lipa could be refurbished, but the USK assembly rejected this request. At this point there was a fire in Lipa, destroying all but one of the tents there. The press suggested that a migrant had set the fire. But hundreds of migrants remain stranded at Lipa, trying to improvise shelter and sleeping on cardboard.
A humanitarian catastrophe is what is happening now. If you want to see what that looks like, click here for a short video.

As the new year arrived, the Bosnian Council of Ministers decreed that Bira camp must be a shelter for the migrants temporarily, that is, until next April, while Lipa camp is being refurbished. International officials backed up this decision by issuing statements pressuring the USK authorities. But the mayor of Bihać responded by declaring that local citizens would continue to prevent migrants physically from entering Bira. Now the Bosnian armed forces have sent 150 soldiers from all over the country to set up tents in Lipa as an emergency measure.

The latest figure I've seen for migrants in Bosnia is around 8,000. There are three operating camps in the USK and a couple in Sarajevo, with dozens of informal and/or privately operated shelters in a number of parts of the Federation—but none in the Republika Srpska.

One development may bring migrants to a shelter in the RS, but it's probably a long shot. In Srebrenica, located in the RS, there is a pleasant, modern hotel run by Safet Alić. On December 29th Alić offered the use of his hotel, which stands empty at this time of year, to house stranded migrants. He appealed to the Bosnian government to help migrants get to his hotel, where they could stay for free, at least through the winter. He said, "Don't let Allah punish us! Houses are empty, and people are on the streets."

Corona update

The pandemic continues to spike in Bosnia-Herzegovina as in much of the rest of the world. Over 112,000 people have been infected with the corona virus and, with more than 4,000 fatalities, the per capita rate of deaths (~1,250) is one of the highest in the word. Authorities have accordingly reinstated strict controls, including overnight curfews in Sarajevo, and obligatory mask wearing in public. In response to an appeal against these measures, the Constitutional Court decided that they were unconstitutional—but did not annul them. The court criticized the way the measures were decided, since the measures were passed at the executive level, and it called on the legislative level to get involved in the process.

A new "business" has developed in Doboj and Modriča: the forgery and sale of negative covid test results that enable the bearer to travel illicitly out of Bosnia. One man in Modriča was jailed for a month for this offense.

And Milorad Dodik was diagnosed with covid a few days before Christmas. His condition has been stable and improving.

Disturbingly, no plan has been announced yet for acquisition and distribution of corona vaccines. Neighboring Croatia has ordered a significant number of vaccines from AstraZeneca of Oxford, and Serbia has been buying vaccines from the West, from Russia, and from China as well. The only promise so far has been from Serbia, which plans to supply the Republika Srpska with some of its vaccines. So the continued lack of transparency and stalemate in vaccination portends ongoing isolation and economic stagnation for Bosnia.

Meanwhile, you'll remember that earlier in 2020 a scandal arose when the government of the Federation approved the expenditure of 10.5 million KM to buy a hundred ventilators from China—with the deal to be implemented by a raspberry processing company, Srebrena Malina, based in Srebrenica. For details on this case, see my blog entry from April 29, 2020 here. Suffice it to say that an array of criminality was evident, from cronyism in the selection of Srebrena Malina as the go-between, to an apparent rake-off of profits garnered by overstating the price of the respirators well beyond the actual market price.

There were rumors of indictments throughout the summer, but charges were finally delivered only at the beginning of December. As predicted, Federation Prime Minister Fadil Novalić, Srebrena Malina director Fikret Hodžić, and a couple of other entity officials were indicted for "abuse of position" (the catch-all term for corruption), trading influence, money laundering, and document fraud.

My inclination was to believe that everyone named was guilty. After all, finding crooks among the elected officials in Bosnia is as simple as hitting the wide side of a barn with a basketball at 15 paces. However, the IFIMES report mentioned above shed a new light on the indictment of Novalić.

Let's remember that it is that very same judicial infrastructure, the one I described above as corrupt, that delivers criminal indictments. And it should be no surprise that criminal charges tend to be politically motivated. Well, the IFIMES report points out that it was not Novalić who promoted the allocation of funds to Srebrena Malina for the ventilators, but a deputy prime minister. The report calls the indictment against Novalić "fabricated" with the purpose of discrediting the prime minister, whose political views and actions stand in opposition to the behind-the-scenes masters of the judiciary, Dodik and Čović. IFIMES terms the present indictment a manipulative and downright illegal maneuver, and expects that the exposure of this kind of manipulation could unmask what it calls a "judicial mafia."

At this distance it is a bit difficult to sort the ins and outs of this indictment. It looks like a case of the big fish (Dodik and Čović) eating the little fish. Or it could be something resembling a political shootout between the separatists (again, Dodik and Čović) on one side, and the Sarajevo-centered old-guard Muslim infrastructure (the SDA) represented by Novalić, on the other side. We will see if Novalić comes out clean on this one. Maybe we'll see.

Elections in Mostar

After municipal elections took place mid-November throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, they were held in Mostar on December 20. There had been no municipal elections in that city since 2008, because of a long-term disagreement about how citizens of the six municipalities that compose the city would be represented. The standstill meant that from 2012 to today there has been no city council to review the budget or other decisions of mayor Ljubo Bešlić, who was acting mayor of Mostar for eight years.

This meant that Bešlić's party, the Croat nationalist HDZ, and secondarily the collaborating Bosniak nationalist SDA, had the run of the city unsupervised by the unwillingly dormant electorate. It is a fractured polity in any case, with the war-enforced ethnic divisions between east and west/Muslim and Croat, but the absence of a legislative level of local government allowed that thin layer of nationalist profiteers to benefit, while seeing the city's infrastructure run into the ground.

There's a long and rather alarming list of systems and institutions that were neglected, that would not have been difficult to maintain had the city leaders cared to do their job. Commentator Dragan Markovina described Mostar thus as "urbanistically and communally devastated," with main thoroughfares unmaintained and full of potholes and shrapnel damage; green zones likewise uncared for; and war-ruined buildings unrestored. Public spaces and state-owned buildings have been usurped by profiteers. The scandal of the city garbage dump, with its leaking of hazardous materials into adjacent neighborhoods, is ongoing. Some important historical monuments and institutions such as the Partisan cemetery and the university's music department building could be maintained, but have not been. All this, against the protests of some activists but with no formal avenue for advocacy.

Finally, in June of 2020 local politicians, under pressure from the international community, achieved a compromise of sorts wherein the elections were unblocked and a new electoral law was created. This law has been described as devolving the center of power to the municipal level, which in effect cements ethnic division by virtue of the absence of an overarching city-wide authority. This, of course, suits the separatists on both sides who have been running the city since the war's end.

Final results of the elections are still being tallied, but regardless of the count of some mailed ballots and other outliers, at least 70% of the votes are going to the HDZ and the SDA. So a strong majority chose the same old leaders. Even so, there may be a chance for citizens to be more involved in their governance. But it will be an uphill struggle to make Mostar a city with healthy political dynamics.

To respond to this blog, click here to e-mail me.