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

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June 16, 2021

Appointment of a new High Representative; Conviction of Ratko Mladić; Denial offensive; Corona update; Response to Israeli violence

New High Representative

Of late there have been several news episodes that have, each in its time, temporarily blocked out just about all other news from Bosnia-Herzegovina. One of these was the appointment of the German politician Christian Schmidt as next High Representative, due to take office at the beginning of August. He will replace the Austrian Valentin Inzko, who has been HR since 2009.

The Office of the High Representative (OHR), set up at Dayton, is responsible for interpreting and enforcing that agreement. The HR is the final arbiter and thus something like a viceroy over an international protectorate. However, BiH is only a protectorate to the extent that the international community, as represented by the PIC (Peace Implementation Council), deigns to be involved. Otherwise, the domestic leaders of the country are free to pursue their own course—generally a corrupt and undemocratic one.

In counter to such corrupt and undemocratic, even secessionist, trends, the High Representative has at his disposal the "Bonn Powers," granted in late 1997 by the PIC. These powers enable the HR to remove uncooperative officials and to promulgate new laws by decree. Earlier High Representatives, notably Wolfgang Petritsch and Paddy Ashdown, put the Bonn Powers to use vigorously. But Inzko has not used them in 11 years.

Inzko's role has, for the most part, been to observe the behavior of Bosnian officials and the country's lack of progress in just about any field, and then to deliver periodic complaints to the UN Security Council. His criticisms are pretty much to the point, but nothing comes of them.

This is not to say that Inzko is pleased with his position. Several times of late he has described in detail the course of international policy with regards to Bosnia. He notes that for the first ten-odd years the international community, and by extension the High Representative, carried out a robust interventionary policy in Bosnia. Then, and especially by Inzko's time, a new phase of "domestic responsibility" was declared in which Bosnian leaders would make decisions and carry them out.

Inzko notes that this second phase was initiated precipitously and that it proceeded ineffectively. This is perhaps a way of using bureaucratic language in order not to say that the second phase has been a failure and that corruption, ethnic discrimination, and atrocity denial have gone on unchecked and have only escalated. Inzko considers that a new "hybrid phase" should be initiated, with domestic responsibility, but with stronger involvement of the international community. He laments that he did not have international support to use the Bonn Powers.

There are any number of steps that Inzko or a new High Representative could take that would conceivably help Bosnia make progress. One that Inzko has promised to take is to decree a law against genocide denial. But that promise has not yet been carried out. Inzko has also pressured the Republika Srpska's National Assembly to withdraw decorations awarded in 2016 to several founders of the RS who have been convicted of war crimes. Those include Radovan Karadžić, Momčilo Krajišnik, and Biljana Plavšić. In the spring Inzko demanded that the RS National Assembly revoke the awards by late April. But in early May the Assembly refused, saying Inzko had "overstepped his authority."

In response, Inzko said that he was "sorry that the deadlines were not met," but that "punishment is not the most important thing for me...it doesn’t matter. It is more important that some Serbs begin the process of thinking differently about their past, thinking about where they want their children to live." This timidity is a good example of Inzko's approach. Paddy Ashdown would be rolling over in his grave.
 
Meanwhile RS officials, led by Milorad Dodik and others of the governing SNSD party, objected to the appointment of Schmidt or any other new High Representative. They have demanded for quite some time that the OHR be closed down so that Bosnians can run the country for themselves. They pointed out that the new HR has been appointed in a manner that's inconsistent with custom. That is, the appointment took place without the agreement of the UN Security Council. This is true, but pro-Bosnian (anti-separatist) commentators respond that the PIC has the right and the power to appoint the new HR in any case.

The above-mentioned Serb leaders, separatists all, turned to Serbia for support, in the person of their mentor President Aleksandar Vučić. Dodik, along with the RS prime minister, president, and other top SNSD figures, went to Belgrade to meet with the autocrat in early June. There, Vučić threw a bit of cold water on the RS stalwarts by failing to object outright to the continued existence of the OHR. He spoke to Dodik's company of "real-politik," and said, "We will talk to the new High Representative in any case." But Vučić was clever enough, insisting that the Schmidt must be approved by the UNSC, and saying that under no circumstances must the Bonn Powers be used without the approval of all parties concerned. This last point is probably moot, as Germany has opposed the use of the powers for many years.

Russia has gotten involved in the matter as well, criticizing Schmidt's appointment as "illegitimate" without UNSC approval. Russia may not be able to prevent the arrival of Schmidt to office. But it has the power to exacerbate chaos in Bosnia-Herzegovina and to put more wind in the secessionists' sails (this includes not only Serbs, but also Croat nationalists). One way of doing so would be to veto an extension of the EU military observer force's mandate later this year. As member of the UN Security Council, Russia has the power to block the mandate when it comes up for renewal.

Rejection of Mladić's Appeal

In a first-instance trial in 2017, former RS Army commander Ratko Mladić was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of one count of genocide in Srebrenica, and ten other counts involving crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war. These crimes included terrorizing the population of Sarajevo through a nearly four-year siege; persecution of non-Serbs throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina; and kidnapping UN soldiers. Mladić was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mladić appealed before the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals at The Hague (successor to the ICTY) for the conviction to be reversed. The prosecution appealed in the other direction, for conviction on an additional genocide charge involving crimes committed in the municipalities of Prijedor, Vlasenica, Foča, Kotor Varoš, and Sanski Most. A reversal of Mladić's first-instance acquittal on the second genocide charge would be the last chance to establish legal precedent confirming what the non-Serb victims of those municipalities know: that genocide was not a random incident that took place in mid-July of 1995. The killings on the fall of Srebrenica were the end point of what started there and in many other parts of the country in spring of 1992.

One analyst offered a reasonable explanation of the Hague court's failure to identify any genocidal intent in the rest of Bosnia. Professor Nevenka Tromp, a former investigator at the Tribunal, commented that a conviction for genocide in the other five municipalities would have amounted to a condemnation of the international community's failure to act in the face of a genocidal process that was much longer than what happened at Srebrenica. And failure to prevent genocide is a violation of the UN Genocide Convention—so, per Tromp, this had to be avoided.

Tromp said, “According to such a verdict, it would mean that the genocidal process lasted from 1992, from the beginning of the war to the end in 1995. In my opinion, all UN member countries, especially those present in the field during the war, would be responsible under the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide...This explains why it was important for the international community and Serbia to reduce the genocide to Srebrenica only, so that, under those verdicts, it looks as if Srebrenica was a reflection of an escalation of violence, and not, as all the historians see it, a culmination of the genocidal process that started in 1992."

In the run-up to the June 8 verdict on Mladić's appeal, separatists and atrocity deniers ramped up their practice of glorifying war criminals. A mural appeared in Mladić's east-Bosnian birthplace, Kalinovik, calling him a "hero." A local resident said, "Everyone is proud that he is from here," adding that "crimes were committed by all sides. But such a soldier was not capable of ordering the killing of people, especially not civilians."

In Bratunac, just before the new verdict, the hyper-nationalist group Istočna Alternativa (Eastern Alternative) gave a public showing of a documentary film about Mladić on the town's main square, leading to chanting of "Long Live Ratko Mladić." The tabloids in neighboring Serbia joined in with headlines reading, "Mladić is forever a Serbian hero," and "Hague injustice for Mladić."

In the event, the second-instance verdict held no surprises. The convictions from 2017 were upheld, and the second genocide charge was again rejected. Predictably, Mladić's victims and their supporters were disappointed, and Mladić's supporters were outraged. Also predictably, all conceivable manner of analysts, commentators, pundits, and journalists churned out reams of comment, much of it repetitious, some of it helpful and thought-provoking. I will compound that endeavor with just a couple of thoughts here,

One is that you can't expect absolute justice from any judicial procedure. Absolute justice doesn't exist outside of people's imaginations, because the aggrieved party's conception of justice is impossible to achieve. For example, if 28,000 (or even a tenth of that number) of people participated in the Srebrenica genocide, most of them are going to walk free.

Another thought is the question, what comfort can the surivors of genocide expect? Not much, as they always point out, because no matter what happens to Mladić, their sons, husbands, and fathers are still dead.

And in that vein, what do the courts actually do? As I've mentioned on social media, and expanded upon in my book, court trials take place for one thing only: to decide whether the defendant is guilty or not. One hopes that the main consideration is the evidence, but as in the present case, politics can be involved too. It's a wonder that any justice is achieved under the circumstances, but (again as I have discussed in my book) on the whole, the ICTY and its successor court have provided a valuable record in case history, historical documentation, and a (relatively small) number of convictions.

One final thought is that "reconciliation" has nothing to do with the judicial processes and no one should expect that nor, to my taste, even bother talking about it. Professor Eric Gordy wrote "Only say ‘reconciliation’ if you mean it" and commented, "What we’re seeing now is the limited effect of what happens when you ask the courts to do something that the whole society needs to be doing” That is, for reconciliation to happen, you need someone to say they're sorry. You need leaders who will help people to understand that they should have empathy for the Other, for the victims. And people need to have the opportunity, meanwhile, to spend their time in the fruitful pursuit of their ordinary, human dreams.

None of these conditions obtain in Bosnia, because the warlords and their political heirs, buttressed by the Dayton system, still run the country. Until big changes take place in Bosnia, "reconciliation" is the fantasy of foreigners, careerists, and people who don't understand.

As Gordy wrote, "Whether people are acquitted or convicted, none of this is going to have any effect unless there’s a political class committed to telling the whole story and promoting a narrative of responsibility."

The atrocity denial and glorification of war criminals escalated after the verdict. Mr. Dodik said, "Genocide in Srebrenica is a myth; it didn't happen," and "General Mladić goes directly to legend [status]; the Serb people would have suffered even more if it weren't for him. The Serbs are a suffering people, they had misfortune everywhere, in Slovenia, in Croatia, the Federation, in Macedonia, and in Kosovo."

And convicted war criminal Biljana Plavšić declared that she respected Mladić as an "exceptional soldier, also as a man, because he protected civilians regardless of their faith and ethnicity...he was condemned because he defended his people...he did not differentiate people [by ethnicity]...and he especially respected women. He had nothing to do with genocide. Genocide is what happened to the Serbs in 1941." This is the person who expressed regret while being tried for war  crimes, and then immediately recanted her statement upon being released from prison.

For a couple of worthwhile articles on the rejection of Mladić's appeal, see After Mladic’s Verdict: Six Lessons to Learn from Hague Trials by Eric Gordy, and War Victims Hope for Double Genocide Conviction for Ratko Mladic.

Denial Offensive

After the June 8th Mladić verdict there was a barrage of relatively sophisticated denial coming from the Serb separatists of the Republika Srpska. I say "relatively sophisticated" because, for the most part, I think of the genocidaires who created the RS and their separatist heirs as crude gangsters in somewhat cheaper suits than those of the gangsters who run our country. But it requires at least a modicum of sophistication to keep a population under the sway of propaganda while dividing and robbing them.

Here I'll share some words from the Banja Luka-based cultural analyst Srđan Šušnica, who recently wrote, "As long as the Republika Srpska exists, Bosnia-Herzegovina will not stand on its own feet as a citizens' state. It will remain as some combination of three ethno-nationalist constructs and as the step-daughter of their ethno-national elites behind which, in fact, are hidden frantic robbery, nepotism, corruption, privilege, and enrichment.

"It is clear to them that at that moment when they stop promoting those cultural and political myths, that tower would collapse, and the RS would not have a single basis for its existence, and they would not have the support to govern and to wheel and deal with our lives and destinies. The only thing they would have left would be to start a new irrational war, plunder, and some new mass extermination."

So says Šušnica, and I think he's nailed it. Which is to say that the governing apparatus of the Serb separatists (and for that matter, the Croat separatists—nor is the Bosniak nationalist leadership entirely unblemished) understands that it is compelled to keep its constituency in thrall to the mountain of denialist lies that compose the mythology of the "state" (or para-state, in the case of the RS).

The Republika Srpska's latest contribution to that foundational mythology stems from the 2018 removal from the official record of a report the RS issued in 2004 that admitted that the RS had committed serious crimes during the war. Early in 2019 the RS formed the "Independent International Commission for Research on the Suffering of All Peoples in the Srebrenica Region between 1992 and 1995." This, in the face of literally millions of pages of court-introduced and recorded testimony collected over nearly 30 years about what happened in that region and that period. The RS engaged a group of what they called "unimpeachable authorities from all fields," including people from Nigeria, Japan, Australia, China, Italy, Germany, France, the US, and Serbia. The commission was headed by Gideon Greif, a historian from Israel.

Coincidentally or not, the RS government released the Commission's 10,000-page report three days after the Mladić verdict was released. Predictably, it denied the Srebrenica genocide and reduced the number of non-Serbs killed in that event to 3,500 (from over 8,000), and asserted that 2,000 Serbs were also killed in the "conflict." President Dodik commented that the "ultimate goal of the report was to establish trust, but we are so bloodied in this area that it is very difficult to expect that goal will be fulfilled." And the RS Prime Minister Radovan Višković asserted that the report would contribute to reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, since it was "based on facts, and it was not directed against anyone."

Dodik added that the report was now "one of the most important documents for the Republika Srpska and the Serb people." He announced that the report, "among other things, contains information about how journalists, paid to conduct contemporary warfare, oriented from the start and before the war to qualify Serbs negatively, wrote their reports in the warm offices in London and Washington, thus influencing the general perception. They described events that disturbed the entire world—but which did not even happen."

Thus the average indoctrinated (Serb) citizen of the Republika Srpska can rely on newly-minted "facts" by "international experts" who confirm that Serbs are the real victims and that all the rest is lies. They don't have to read the report, any more than Dodik had to.

Šušnica comments that in spite of all the propaganda, there are people in the RS and in Banja Luka who don't believe it, but who are not yet ready to speak publicly. But, he thinks, the "majority of people feel all the irrationality, the entire lie concealed in the RS construct, they feel that isolation, the hopelessness of this thing that is called the RS. But they do not want to think about it, but rather to get along from day to day, trying to live in their one short life."

Corona

When I last wrote, in early May, Bosnia was just starting to come out of its third deadly resurgence of the Covid epidemic. In April and part of May reports held that Bosnia took second or third place in the world in per capita deaths from the virus. The country was a good five or six months behind the US in vaccination. Vaccines were starting to arrive in small amounts from several directions. The UN's Covax mechanism for distribution was a disappointment. To a significant extent its shortcomings, admittedly, had to do with the vaccine apartheid that has reigned in the world.

Every week the news reports an impending delivery of quite some hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses, but these reports fall in the category of "future news." Actual deliveries per week have been closer to the tens of thousands, such that going into the second week of June some 120,000 people had received their first vaccination in the Republika Srpska, and a similar number in the Federation.* Federation Prime Minister Fadil Novalić announced that the Federation had received 600,000 doses—mostly bought, not donated—but that the problem with distribution was at the lower levels. There, local agencies were apparently suffering from lack of organization.
*update: as of June 15 that number was up near 137,000 in the Federation.

Novalić's May 20 announcement of 600,000 doses for the Federation contradicts the more likely statement just a week earlier, by the state-level Ministry of Civil Affairs, which announced that the entire country had received some 412,000 doses altogether. At present the vaccination rate in Bosnia is around twelve percent.

In any case, the springtime surge has been subsiding, and several announcements in various parts of the country portend an opening up. In the Federation the curfew on kafanas, nightclubs, and all other businesses has been lifted, and gatherings of up to 50 people inside and 100 people outside are now permitted.

In a helpful gesture from Serbia, any citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina is now invited to travel to that country to receive a vaccination at any location where they are offered.

Response to Israeli violence

The mid-May the Israeli assault on Gaza provided an opportunity for the three ethnicities of Bosnia-Herzegovina to express their domestic leanings through the prism of the Israel-Palestine conflict. In Mostar, divided between Croats and Bosniaks, people on the west (Bosniak-controlled) side asked for permission to hang a Palestinian flag from the Old Bridge. They did not receive permission, but they hung the flag anyway. That displeased some other Mostarans, principally Croats, who expressed their support for Israel via Twitter.

The recently elected mayor of Mostar, Mario Kordić, announced that he had rejected requests from both sides of the city to mount flags, saying that he did not wish to "politicize any building in the city." So instead of hanging an Israeli flag, people in west Mostar hung the wartime flag of the Croat nationalist breakaway territory of Herceg-Bosna, along with the slogan, "United against terrorism." In the RS capital Banja Luka, the governmental palace was lit up in the colors of the Israeli flag. The ancient walls of Trebinje (in Serb-controlled eastern Herzegovina) were lit up in the same way. And the flag of Palestine was projected onto the old City Hall in Sarajevo.

Then-president Netanyahu posted a tweet thanking a number of countries for their support. He included Bosnia-Herzegovina. This prompted a rousing objection from Bosnian officials who did not take Israel's side.

A humanitarian organization "pomozi.ba" (help.ba) collected 100,000 KM (about $62,000) in aid funds for medical equipment for the Palestinians.

President Dodik declared, "The fact is that someone is constantly inciting the Palestinians to get everything, instead of accepting to form two states for two peoples...for some reason many people are escalating the conflict and saying that there needs to be a mixed or multi-ethnic country." Dodik emphasized that "wherever there is contact between different civilizations there will be tension, and then it is only a matter of time when a spark will ignite."

It's fascinating that Dodik, channeling Samuel Huntington and his Clash of Civilizations, projects onto Israel/Palestine exactly what he would like people to believe about the Republika Srpska. And his idea of a resolution to the conflict doesn't even conform with that of the Israeli extremists, who oppose Palestinian statehood.

Countering Dodik's stance, Bosniak politician Denis Zvizdić said, "Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has suffered terrible destruction, cannot be supporting the attacks on Gaza...BiH and its officials have made it clear that they are in favour of a ceasefire and a peaceful solution that will stop attacks on Gaza and the killing of civilians."

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