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

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Bosnia crisis update: Secession moves continue; War in Ukraine heightens the tension

During February and March much has happened that has an impact on Bosnia-Herzegovina. For the purpose of breaking the news down and analyzing it, I identify three subjects: the RS's ongoing project of secession from Bosnia; the Russian assault on Ukraine and its repercussions in Bosnia; and the attempts to negotiate a reform of Bosnia's electoral law. While the present situation is rendered fraught by the Ukraine war, I must start with what's going on in the Bosnian background: the secession crisis.

I. Ongoing RS and Croat secessionist maneuvers

Čović's scandal

An incident that took place at the very beginning of February brings into high contrast the role of Croat leader Dragan Čović as collaborator with Milorad Dodik in their overlapping drives to separate their respective territories from Bosnia-Herzegovina in whatever way they can manage. The relationship between the two operators has been described as a "gentleman's agreement to support each other."

On the first day of February, Čović attended a session of the Republika Srpska Parliament (NSRS) and gave an enthusiastic boost to the leading party there, saying, "You are safeguarding the RS. You have expressed so much emotion here when you spoke, that everyone can only envy you. And you will defend the RS the most, not only here, but also in BiH institutions"—thus calling on Serb officials to return to participation in Bosnia's state-level institutions, as President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić had also recently done.

The mind-boggling scandal here is Čović's craven gesture of admiration of the leaders of the entity that was built not only on genocide perpetrated against the territory's Bosniaks, but against the Croats as well. In response to Čović's words, there was an immediate, powerful backlash from several directions. Commentators pointed out archly that the RS had killed or driven out most of its Croat inhabitants. Of the prewar Croat population in the present territory of the RS, 95% were expelled or killed. It was noted especially that in Briševo, in Prijedor municipality, Serb extremists killed 67 Croats in one day.

The Association of Expelled Croats of Banja Luka addressed Čović: "You have stood on the side of the aggressor and thus lost all credibility...Čović portrays himself as the representative of all Croats in Bosnia. But the Croats in the RS never chose him, and he has never done anything for the Croats in the RS. His characterization of the RS as a normal entity is an insult to the intelligence and salt in the wounds of all the expelled.

"The statement of Čović is worrisome and unsupportable...Cović is not interested in the massacred and killed Croats in the RS entity, their bombed houses and churches, the raped women, the concentration camps for torture and killing. He is not interested in the years of terror among innocent Croats...Just in the Banja Luka parish 1,054 people were killed, including 614 civilians, of whom 144 were women, only because they were Croats."

On top of this Association's comments, a Croat political party in the town of Orašje called for the removal of Čović's honorary citizenship, saying "we see not one reason why we Croats should glorify or admire what was done to us in that entity."

The barrage of commentary on Čović included biographical material noting that, during the war, he was director-general of the Soko aircraft factory in Mostar, and in that capacity, as shown by documentary evidence, he requested the use of ten forced laborers to be sent from one of the Croat-run concentration camps in the region. Since 2005, Čović has been the leader of the nationalist HDZ party which, during the war, ran the separatist statelet of Herceg-Bosna, which was intended to annex to Croatia. For one period, under suspicion of corruption, Čović even ran his party from jail. Charges were later dropped and he has served as a member of the Bosnian Parliament, and from 2014 to 2018, as Croat member of the state-level Presidency.

The commentator Avdo Avdić asserted that after Čović's tawdry declaration at the NSRS, his rival for the Presidency, Željko Komšić, will not need to campaign strenuously for the seat of Croat member of the Presidency. But there will be a lot of water under the bridge before the October elections, and voters are selectively forgetful.

The incident is important in that it illustrates the long-term, close relationship between Dodik and Čović. It should be very clear that that relationship depends on the mutual pursuit of wartime goals by various means—those goals being the secession, or at least further entrenchment of corrupt ethno-national power—of the respective Serb- and Croat-dominated territories.

The strong commonality between Dodik and Čović, supported by each politician's respective separatist clique, connects via various avenues to leadership of Serbia and part of the leadership of Croatia. To a great extent, the Croat and Serbian separatist impulses depend on support from these neighboring countries, neither of which has entirely given up their wartime goals of annexing parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina or, at the very least, enhancing extraterritorial powers over the country. There are repeated manifestations, over many years, of meddling by both countries in the internal affairs of Bosnia, of blatant support for separatism and, at least in the case of Serbia, of military support of Bosnian Serb separatists.

Furthermore, the axis of collaboration between Bosnian Croat and Serb separatists reaches through, and sometimes around, neighboring Croatia and Serbia all the way to the Kremlin. Both Dodik and Čović have met with Putin—numerous times over the years, in Dodik's case. There is a clear political resonance along these axes that explains much of Dodik's and Čović's political behavior, as I will address below.

RS politicians end boycott...sort of

Also at the very beginning of February, RS Serb politicians began coming back to state-level Parliamentary sessions. Ever justifying their behavior with legalism, the RS Parliament drafted a list of twelve conditions for Serb officials' renewed participation. These included the demand that the state-level Parliament, Council of Ministers, and Presidency present all materials from upcoming meeting agendas to the NSRS for preliminary consideration. Another demand was to for the state-level Parliament to ban "abuse," that is, mention, of the term "genocide."

The latter demand is in effect a re-introduction of the original excuse for the boycott, that being a reaction to former High Representative Inzko's decree prohibiting genocide denial and glorification of war criminals, back in July of 2021. And the former demand was rejected immediately by pro-Bosnia officials, who noted that a higher state institution is not requred to submit agenda items in advance for approval to lower institutions in the entities.

A Parliamentary representative from the Bosniak nationalist SDA pointed out that the real reason for the Serb return to the body was to vote in favor of measures providing grants to the RS.

In mid-March President Dodik further reinforced the end of the boycott by participating in a number of joint meetings of the Presidency in international forums and other events. One of these was with EU Foreign Policy head Josip Borrell, In this meeting, Dodik stated that "there is no talk of secesssion"...and that he would "respect the constitution as he understands it."

High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC)

I have mentioned the HJPC a number of times over the past year or so, beginning with the scandals around the corrupt behavior of the previous president of the body, Milan Tegeltija. He was in the pocket of President Dodik, and he served to stonewall any important investigation of corruption in the RS. He was finally removed last year and replaced by the more upstanding Halil Lagumdžija to lead the state-level body that appoints judges and prosecutors, and conducts oversight of their work.

The state-level HJPC has been in existence since 2002, before which it existed at the entity level. This is one of the authorities that Dodik has been talking about "returning to the entity" ever since he took power in 2006. In February the RS Parliament decreed that it was going to re-create the entity-level HJPC. This, along with an entity-level agency regulating medicines and medical equipment and an indirect tax authority. All of these measures are part of the creeping de facto secession that has been underway in earnest since the second half of 2021.

The fragmentation of the overall judicial system via replacement of the state-level HJPC with a lower corresponding body will create chaos. The international corruption watchdog Transparency International declared that such a move would lead to "complete legal uncertainty," and "state capture of the judiciary by Bosnian Serb politicians."

It is clear that this measure is a way for RS politicians to avoid prosecution for corrupt practices. Pro-Bosnia officials have pointed out, again, that lower-level bodies do not have the authority to flout decisions made by higher institutions; the transfers of various competencies from the entity level to the state level were agreed upon—by Dodik's SNSD and other Serb parties—in the state-level Parliament, and that is where they must be reversed.

There is a one-year period of waiting until the RS HJPC is to be formed. If it indeed takes place at that time, it will be declared unconstitutional by the Bosnian Constitutional Court. A better option, it has been pointed out, would be for the High Representative to pre-empt the damage and delay this process would involve by employing his Bonn Powers to annul the NSRS's decision.

It remains to be seen whether the HR will have the gumption—and the international support—to make such a move. It seems a possibility, as the Dayton Peace Implementation Committee (PIC) has come out against the RS HJPC as "incompatible with EU accession," and HR Schmidt has agreed that use of the Bonn Powers is a possibility. However, domestic pro-Bosnia officials have complained that to date, there has been much declarative objection to RS secessionist moves, and no action.

Meanwhile, Dragan Čović stated, true to form, that he "doesn't mind the creation of an RS HJPC, as long as it doesn't violate the Constitution."

Republika Srpska officials are continuing with their moves not only to create an entity-level tax authority and pharmaceutical agency, but also to expropriate state-owned property. The Constitutional Court has found against this latter move, but no action has been taken yet.

Sanctions

There is ongoing discussion about the EU levying sanctions against RS officials to discourage their secessionist measures. In a significant move, the European Parliament called for sanctions against Dodik, sharply condemning his policy of undermining the Bosnian state. Voting for the resolution were 504 members, with 93 opposed. This resolution is directed at the European Council, which has the power to levy sanctions. It is also significant that three EU member nations that had previously wavered or opposed sanctions then (three weeks into February) supported them: Slovenia, Greece, and Slovakia.

Croatia and Hungary opposed the sanctions, and there is logic to this. In the case of Croatia, the implicit support of RS secessionism is in accord with Croatia's support of similar Bosnian Croat trends, as I have explained above. And Hungary's autocratic leader Viktor Orban has long exhibited support for President Dodik.

As it stands, an EU decision on sanctions must be unanimous, so Croatia's and Hungary's obstruction may be decisive—if it continues in the face of events in Ukraine. The alternative will be unilateral sanctions from individual EU members.

II. Russian assault on Ukraine

Everyone has heard of the war in Ukraine, and everyone knows what they know, or at least what they think. One thing that is clear is that Russia's mythical/medieval expansionism neither starts in Ukraine nor ends there. We also know that the February 24th invasion marks a turning point in world history, and the event has drawn all possible commentators out of the woodwork, from Phyllis Bennis to Jeremy Scahill to Tarik Ali, and beyond.

Most of them, pundits that they are, spend an awful lot of time speaking about things that haven't happened and, most likely, won't happen. It's rather astonishing what kind of predictions people are willing to put in print or on the air, perhaps assuming that no one will look back in a few months or years to see what they said. So it will be my intention to stick to describing, rather than predicting. And rather than discussing the Ukraine war in full, my comments here pertain to the impact of the war on Bosnia-Herzegovina and vicinity.

A Bosnia that was already on edge due to the secession crisis has been thrown into a fit of nerves because of Ukraine. On average, Bosnians know more about what's going on in Ukraine than we do in the West, and even than ordinary Europeans do—although their memory of war on their hearth is much more recent than ours. If you travel through many parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina you still see plenty of ruins in the villages, rocket craters on the city sidewalks, and shrapnel holes in the fences and walls. These can be a symbol for the wounds in people's psyches, because unlike broken glass, those wounds never go away. The traumas from the 1990s are revived now, reverberating in recognition of aggression and brutality.

There is much in common between the aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, and the present frenzy of destruction being visited upon Ukraine. Both are examples of expansionist violence perpetrated by fascist regimes. I use this word very carefully, with the awareness that it is so often used randomly as an epithet. But it means something specific, albeit with different characteristics in different circumstances. The term "fascism" stands up to scrutiny in both cases. For further discussion of the meaning of fascism in this context and an excellent examination of the Putin regime vis-à-vis Ukraine, I strongly recommend Yale professor Timothy Snyder's recent talk here.

Both wars were assaults on a sovereign state with intent to take permanent control of territory. Both were genocidal in intent. Bosnians who were on the receiving end of the violence feel these things instinctively, and those who were among the perpetrators of the violence may be confused, indoctrinated, and defensive. This dynamic of historical distortion plays out among the ethno-nationalist leaders, who exploit people's memories and, in some cases, work to erase and reconstruct them. This refers to the genocide denial and glorification of war criminals taking place in various parts of Bosnia. I mention this here because, as the Ukraine war plays out, the varied responses in Bosnia correspond to the memories—real or "reconstructed"—of Bosnian citizens.

Given that February 24th changes everything (to steal Naomi Klein's phrase), power relationships throughout Eastern Europe have been destabilized dramatically. Leaders are jockeying for safe positions; some who have stridently or covertly leaned toward Russia are now hedging; some of them are keeping their heads down. Some are rushing back to the perceived security of the EU and NATO.

This latter refers, for example, to Viktor Orban of Hungary and Janež Janša of Slovenia, both racist, autocratic, and militarist leaders who have been more inspired by Putin's style than by what we often call Western liberal democracy. This is relevant because both states are geographically close to Bosnia and have been involved with the country economically and politically. And it is not too surprising, because even an Orban must remember what happened in 1956. For him and many others, Russia's assault on Ukraine must be a cold shower.

Meanwhile, a developing, de facto alliance between Croatia and Serbia in covert support of a renewed breakup of Bosnia has fractured. Croatia, "safe" in the EU and NATO, has cooled its relationship with Serbia and, certainly, its furtive collaboration with Russia in the destabilization of Bosnia. Serbia is still sitting on the fence. For many years it has espoused movement "toward Europe," that is, eventual accession to the EU—but without joining NATO, which bombed Serbia in the 1990s. At the same time, it has collaborated with Russia in economic, political, and military matters. Russia has invested significantly in Serbia, and has bequeathed or sold military goods to the country. Russia has also consistently supported Serbia's rejection of Kosovo's independence at the UN Security Council, and has also supported Serbia's genocide denial regarding the events at Srebrenica.

Backing up a little, what has Russia been angling for in the region? I don't want to use up too much space on this, but as Russia has recaptured a measure of its lost influence, economic strength, and military power since the Yeltsin years, it has increasingly vied for influence in the former Yugoslavia. As with Ukraine, Russia is particularly interested in preventing any further expansion of the EU or NATO into this space, but Montenegro and North Macedonia have both joined NATO, and are both working to join the EU. That leaves Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as targets of Russian encroachment.

Bosnia has been particularly susceptible to Russia's influence because of internal instabilities that can be exploited, and domestic actors who can be played off against each other. Serbia is very often a willing implementer of Russia's project, with the most blatant example being its participation, with some Russian operatives, in the attempted 2016 coup in Montenegro.

The extended hand of Serbia in Bosnia is the Republika Srpska, particularly in the person of Milorad Dodik, who since 2006 has been prime minister of the RS, then president of the entity, and in the last four years, Serb member of the state-level three-part presidency. Both Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Dodik have pursued a clear policy of cozying up to Putin and equivocating in their allegiance to the West. They have both met periodically with the Russian leader, refused to comply with Western sanctions against Russia, and cooperated with Russia in many military, political, and economic matters.

In the present situation, Serbia has continued its ongoing policy of refusing to implement sanctions against Russia. This leaves it the only country in Europe to do so. At the beginning of March, it did consent to vote for the UN resolution that condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 141 states voted for the resolution, and 5 voted against.

A representative of Serbia to the UN said, “Just like it is committed to preserving the sovereignty and integrity of its own territory, the Republic of Serbia likewise advocates respect for the territorial integrity of other sovereign nations and, regardless of not agreeing with all formulations stated in the resolution, we will vote in favour of the resolution,”

It is hard not to zoom in on the language of "territorial integrity" without thinking of Serbia's fixation on Kosovo, and its long-term opposition to Kosovo's (in my opinion justified) secession from Serbia. In this context, it is understandable that Serbian officials would seize this wording and emphasize it. This, while continuing to reject sanctions, seems like a pragmatic deal that could have been sealed in Moscow. This is, of course, just my conjecture, but the logic of it works.

The Serbian media actively praised the Russian invasion, calling the attack a "response to NATO threats." The tabloid "Informer" went so far as to claim that Ukraine attacked Russia, and it quoted Trump as saying that Putin was a genius.

In spite of the rhetoric, which probably reflected the feelings of a good percentage of the Serbian populace, Serbia's vote on the side of the anti-war resolution was described as a "slap in the face" to Dodik.

President Dodik has been more reticent than usual lately as, presumably, it is harder to pledge loyalty to Putin under present circumstances. But he has intrepidly opposed sanctions against Russia and has insisted on maintaining Bosnia's neutrality regarding the war. In this, he was foiled when Bosnia's UN Ambassador Sven Alkalaj voted in favor of the UN resolution condemning Russia's assault. In late February Dodik attempted to send a letter via a Russian envoy to UN General Secretary Guterres stating that Bosnia was neutral regarding Ukraine, but the letter was ignored. Dodik, of course, did not miss the opportunity to criticize Alkalaj's behavior, saying that he did not have the authority to take an affirmative vote on the resolution.

It is notable that, at least in the first week or so after the Russian invasion, Dodik "pulled the handbrake," as one commentator said, on  his rhetoric regarding secession. He said nothing when Bosnia voted in favor of Russia's suspension from the European Council (Serbia abstained from this vote). But when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson commented that Russian attacks on Kyiv reminded him of the siege of Sarajevo, Dodik responded that the Ukrainians fighting Russia were "just armed gangs."

Dragan Čović, meanwhile, avoided condeming the Russian assault. He was satisfied with calling for "urgent de-escalation" and a "ceasefire, solidarity, and dialogue." This, he conveyed via tweets.

In late February the Bosnian branch of the Russian bike club Night Wolves (Noćni vukovi), based in Banja Luka and other towns in the RS, announced their support for the Russian assault. Members of the club in Trebinje flew a Russian flag during a football match. In earlier days, the Russian branch of this club had participated in fighting in Crimea and the Donbas. In the RS town of Bratunac, supporters of Russia in the organization "Eastern Alternative" have mounted posters of Putin.

On the same weekend about 300 people described as "Russophiles" gathered publicly in Banja Luka, listened to Russian music and, it was reported, "cursed Europe." A journalist from the Sarajevo daily "Oslobodjenje" asked what the people gathered in Banja Luka were supporting: "killing Ukrainian children? Bombing hospitals and maternity clinics? Expulsion of three million people? Bombing houses, schools, kindergartens?..."

In the second weekend of March, Russian supporters held another gathering in Banja Luka, organized by the association "Serb-Russian Bridge." A poet there was quoted as saying, "We send a message of support to our brothers in Donbas and our brother Russian soldiers who are at this moment at the front. Intervention was unavoidable. The Russian army is defending not only Russian territory and Russian people, but also that part of the Ukrainian people who are not Nazified."

In contrast, around the same time four to five thousand demonstrators came out to support Ukraine in Tuzla. Participants came all the way from Novi Sad and Zagreb, as well as from Banja Luka, Mostar and Široki Brijeg (in the heart of separatist Croat country). The city government of Tuzla donated 55,000 KM to health-care institutions in Ukraine.

Just about the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine, the European EUFOR troops in Bosnia increased its ranks by 500. This was greeted as a significant improvement in security for the country, although it only brought the outfit's number up to 1100. This had been planned before the renewed assault on Ukraine, in response to the already simmering domestic crisis. The new troops were seen marching or driving armored personnel carriers in Sarajevo and up in the hills behind Pale, in the RS. There, they were referred to as an unhappy reminder of the early postwar period.

Ultimately, the new troops were stationed in Prijedor and Bijeljina, two potential flash points should tensions ignite in Bosnia. A couple of weeks after the EUFOR increase, French fighter jets made a show of flying over the skies of Bosnia, adding to the sense of security for some Bosnians.

On the other side, in the eastern city of Višegrad the Ravnogora Chetnik Movement, an atavistic collection of monarchists who celebrate the legacy of the World War II-era fascist collaborator Draža Mihailović, announced that they planned to hold a rally in support of Russia, and in memory of Mihailović, in front of a monument commemorating Mihailović on the outskirts of the city.

The rally was quickly canceled by the RS Minister of Interior Dragan Lukač. Lukač is definitely not known as a peacenik and proponent of inter-ethnic brotherhood around Bosnia; rather, he has the demeanor of an enforcer for Dodik's autocratic pretensions, and his stern face and crew-cut looks reinforce that impression. However, on this occasion he announced, "Now is not the time for this...Considering tensions in the country, with an increased, armed EUFOR presence, with their airplanes flying overhead, such an event would send only the wrong message, raising tensions...We in RS can't allow this kind of thing to take place. It is the RS police's job to maintain the security of all citizens. I can understand how Bosniaks may feel when see the Ravnogorci in uniforms; they can't look at that and not feel endangered" (my paraphrase).

It is a matter of strong cognitive dissonance to hear anything from Lukač bordering on empathy like this. I credit it to a sincere heightened feeling, as Lukač referenced, of tension and the accompanying violence that hangs in the air.

With Russia's assault on Ukraine heightening the already strong tension in Bosnia, as analysts have noted, the days that politicians in the region can sit on the fence are numbered. President Dodik, now advocating neutrality, is seen as being in an "unenviable position." And pro-Bosnia politicians are increasingly advocating Bosnia's streamlined entrance into the EU and NATO, but that is not a simple thing.

In the midst of increasing tension in Bosnia, Russia's ambassador to Bosnia came out with an incendiary statement in the middle of March. In a television interview, Ambassador Igor Kalabuhov was asked how it would react if Bosnia were to join the EU and NATO. He responded, "Russia is for what Bosnia decides. If it decides to be a member of anything, that is its internal business. But our reaction is a different thing. We have shown what we expect with the example of Ukraine."

It is easy to interpret this as a dire threat against Bosnia, and that is what many have done. Kalabuhov further expounded on Russia's position, saying, "What happened in Ukraine is not an invasion nor aggression. It is a special military operation. People can say what they want...it is the Western world who says that it is a war. There is a special military operation whose goal is to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine."

On the question of whether Russia would bring Belarus into the war, Kalabuhov responded, "There is no war. When you say something, you have to be responsible. If you say there is a war, you have to show that there is a war. I will prove that there's no war; the Ukrainians did not officially announce that there is a war. We are not in a war with Ukraine. A war is officially announced.

"There is no direct threat to Bosnia-Herzegovina. If there is a threat, we will react. It is a deceit from the West that Russia is allegedly preparing some plan. We have no kind of plan. In any case, there is no fantasy about Bosnia joining NATO, because we can see that there is no consensus...And what is secession? Who posed the question of secession of the RS? These are lies stemming from the imagination of our European colleagues, who say that all citizens of BiH want to be part of EU."

Of all this Orwellian distortion, the truest part is that there is no consensus in Bosnia about joining NATO. Those who want a stable country are ever more in favor of it, and those who want the country torn apart are against it. As for the rest of Kalabuhov's feverish performance, it is funneled directly from the Kremlin into Bosnia and into the mouths of Dodik and his ilk. Again, the maintenance of this pro-Russian line among Bosnian Serbs—and officials in Serbia—is becoming ever less sustainable.

In response to Kalabuhov's statement there was an outcry about the Russian threat, with calls for the Ambassador's expulsion from the country. President Dodik countered, "Kalabuhov cannot be proclaimed persona non grata because there is not agreement about this among the members of the Presidency...members Komšić and Džaferovič are constantly crying that children are dying somewhere."

The abrasive disregard for the fact that children are presently being killed or made refugees in Ukraine should be astounding, but this is the Dodik that we know.

III. Possible outcomes

I will have to bring this long entry to a close without discussing negotiations on the Bosnian electoral laws, nor going on in depth about what is going to happen. But what happens in Bosnia-Herzegovina—as in the rest of the continent—depends greatly on the outcome of the war in Ukraine. If Russia quickly takes over the important cities of Ukraine and establishes its authority in the country, this will encourage the separatists in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and will buttress Serbian President Vučić's regional ambitions. The latent blood lust among these operators will be stirred, and they will receive support from the Kremlin. On the other hand, if Russia's offensive continues to stall, the fascist impulse in the Western Balkans will receive a significant setback. And it has been noted that Putin has managed to revive cohesiveness both in the European Union and in NATO, in a way that could not have been expected a month ago.

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