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

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October 17, 2021
Continuing RS boycott of state-level functions; heightened threat of secession

A lot has happened since my last blog entry came out. You'll remember from my previous blog that the outgoing High Representative, Valentin Inzko, had decreed an addition to Bosnia's criminal statute to the effect that no one may deny the Srebrenica genocide, nor may anyone glorify war criminals in any way. The new law applies not only to convicted Serb war criminals in the 1990s war, but also to war criminals of any other ethnicity.

In response, Milorad Dodik, leader of the strongest Serb party (SNSD) and member of the three-part state-level presidency, announced a boycott of state functions. He was supported in this by other Serb officials and the entire Serb opposition in the Republika Srpska. His demand was to roll back Inzko's decrees. At the same time, he and other Serb officials refused to recognize the legitimacy of the appointment of the new High Representative, Christian Schmidt.

What ensued was an ever-escalating series of threats and obstructions by Dodik and his colleagues. He refrained from attending meetings of the state-level presidency, and when he did, once or twice, he voted against every measure under consideration—even those allocating budgetary funds to the Republika Srpska. He attended a meeting with visiting President Erdoğan of Turkey and, bizarrely, proposed that Erdoğan help sort out Bosnia's problems. The Serb members of the Council of Ministers likewise boycotted that state-level institution. And elected representatives boycotted the state Parliament. This brought certain functions, particularly in the economic sector, to a standstill.

Parties of the Serb opposition in the Republika Srpska quickly ran to show that they were as opposed to Inzko's decrees and eager to boycott as were members of Dodik's SNSD. They played a tag game with Dodik, making sure to castigate him whenever he even appeared to falter in shunning all state functions. Over a period of a few weeks Dodik's stance became ever more militant and threatening, as it became clear that Schmidt was not going to roll back Inzko's decrees.

President Dodik spent the bulk of September threatening the secession of RS from Bosnia-Herzegovina. There was nothing new about this threat; Dodik had been warning about secession, without specifics, for the entirety of his tenure in one office or another since 2006. Now Dodik has gone beyond threatening an eventual referendum to announcing specific plans for separation. Outstanding among these are the abolition of the authority of the Bosnian Army in the RS; the Army would be removed and replaced by a newly established RS army. (The three-part armed forces of Bosnia were united in one, by mutual agreement, in 2004.)

Beyond this measure, Dodik threatened to remove most or all Serb officials from the Council of Ministers; to abolish the authority of the state-level OSA (Intelligence-Security Agency; similarly to abolish the functions of SIPA (State Investigation and Protection Agency); to withdraw from the Constitutional Court and the VSTV (High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council); and to withdraw from the Indirect Taxation Authority as well. The RS would set up its own institutions to replace these.

In the middle of this, the Constitutional Court found that forest lands in the RS are the property of the state, not the entity. Some 70% of the RS is forested (that's why some people call it the "Šumska republika," or Forest Republic). This measure was an echo of a previous decision that found that unused farmland in the RS was also state property. The new finding added fuel to Dodik's fire; he responded that before long, "our buildings, and then our houses, will be usurped by the state."

The rationalization for all of Dodik's threats was that the Bosnian state, under the tutelage of foreign officials including the High Representative, had successively carved away at the "sovereignty" of the RS. He and his supporters wish to go back to the "original Dayton," which in Annex 4 contains the Bosnian constitution. He argues that the constitution calls for a stripped-down state function, with near-complete autonomy devolving to the entities.

On the other hand, commentators state that what's actually driving Dodik's current moves, on top of Inzko's decrees—are chaos and debt in the RS economy, combined with the upcoming national elections of fall 2022. The present boycott and spate of threats, they say, represent the kick-off of the 2022 campaign.

The situation might be even more dire than the usual pre-electoral madness. People in Sarajevo kafanas, rattled by Dodik's threats, are deliberating as to where and when the next war will break out. And it's my assumption that, regardless of Dodik's ongoing talk about a "peaceful separation" or "dissolution," no secession will be able to take place without violence.

Responses to the threats

The response of the international community—that is, the Western powers that ostensibly would prefer to see Bosnia hold together—has been anemic, amounting to declarations of concern and vague threats of sanctions. High Representative Schmidt, in mid-September, commented, "I'm observing the situation, and then I'll do some things. I'm not ruling out use of the Bonn powers. But people need to work together."

The US Embassy and other high Western officials pointed out that Dayton guarantees Bosnia-Herzegovina as one state. Schmidt added that, according to that document, the entities have no right to secede.

Toward the end of September Gabriel Escobar, President Biden's special envoy to the Western Balkans, warned Dodik that threats of secession could lead to his isolation. Dodik responded, "We don't have a specific plan, but secession will happen." I note that either or both parts of this statement may be true or untrue.

The next day, in a meeting, Escobar raised the prospect of sanctions. Dodik said to him, "Fuck the sanctions; if you want to talk to me, don't threaten." Escobar responded that the possibility of sanctions was "not a threat, but a fact."

So far, international response to Dodik's threats has been so weak as to be useless. It's worth noting that, since Dodik has been threatening separation, and expertly raising and lowering the level of tension and crisis to suit his needs for many years, that the international community and some part of Bosnia's population have become inured to the spectacle. And it's possible that there comes a time when what's going on is no longer a political performance. At present, in mid-October, some Western countries are still threatening sanctions. But if they are imposed, it will not be with unanimous support on the part of the EU, as several countries have already explicitly declared opposition to the move.

During September there was talk about the dire prospect of a funding shortfall if the state-level government did not approve temporary financing, to last to the end of the year. Out of some 20,000 state employees, 7,000 are inhabitants of the Republika Srpska. If they were to lose their income, it would be a direct result of Dodik's boycott of state functions. Dodik declared that the RS could cover the payments. At 35 million euros, this was a stretch of the imagination. Finally, toward the end of the month the Council of Ministers met by telephone and approved the financing. Mirko Šarović, president of the opposition SDS party, called the participation of Dodik's SNSD members an "inglorious capitulation" because it was, as he termed it, a recognition of HR Schmidt's legitimacy.

In this, Serb officials broke their boycott momentarily—so that they could be paid to continue boycott.

Escalation

In the first part of October Dodik escalated his threats anew. He announced that the SNSD was preparing documents to present to the RS Parliament (NSRS) that would initiate withdrawal from the Bosnian army, tax authority, judiciary, and courts. He also promised to annul implementation of all laws decreed by previous High Representatives (about 140 laws). "Bosnian-Herzegovinan institutions won't be allowed to work in the RS. We'll give them a deadline of several days, and then if they do not leave, we will accompany them with the means at our disposal, in a decent manner," Dodik said.

In response to this statement, the journalist Avdo Avdić asked how the RS would remove the Bosnian army from the entity. Dodik replied, "I refer you to what the Slovenians did in 1992. We will blockade the army barracks nicely as they did, and our people will say who can come in and out...we will put the barracks at the disposal of the new RS Army." Avdić commented, "That sounds like a revolt." Dodik, surprised: "We won't touch anyone; not a hair on their heads will be disturbed."

Dodik also mentioned a poll that revealed that some 80% of Serb members of the Bosnian Army did not wish to remain in that force. This was disputed by the Chief of the Joint Headquarters of the Bosnian Army, who stated that no such poll had been carried out, and that it would have been illegal to do so.

With Dodik's latest announcements about impending withdrawal, the level of alarm in the media and around the country heightened to the point where violence started to become a plausible scenario. The prominent German newspaper Tageszeitung posted a worried comment recalling that Russian military officers had been training RS police under the guise of the fight against terrorism.

The Democratization Policy Council called for NATO, otherwise involved and responsible for the security of Bosnia, to station troops in Brčko, a strategic choke point.

Dodik stated that he had sought assistance from Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov during a recent meeting in Belgrade. He said, "If there is a confrontation, we will defend the RS with our forces. If NATO intervenes, we will seek help from our friends, who have said they would never leave their friends hanging. For example, the police from the Federation do not have the right to cross into the RS. If they do, we will consider that aggression, and we'll seek help" (all quotes are my translations and  paraphrases). Dodik added that "at least seven EU countries support our secession" but, as with so many of his other assertions, this was a fabrication, as noted by an EU spokesperson.

The role of Russia and of Serbia in supporting Dodik's drive for secession is a complicated subject and beyond what I can write in this entry. But both countries have long been supporting a buildup of "security forces" under Dodik's control in the RS—and for that matter, in recent years Serbia has undertaken a rather staggering buildup of its own. It now possesses 14 Russian-made MiG 29 jet fighter aircrafts. Its "defense" spending is 2.6% of its GDP, well above the European average. According to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia's military is now five times stronger than it was a few years ago, and it will "always be in a position to defend our country and people."

This aggressive stance is in harmony with Serbian Minister of Defense Aleksandar Vulin's discussion of the "Serb World"—an echo of the talk of Greater Serbia in the 1990s. Vulin often speaks of "peacefully and eventually...uniting all Serbs formally."

What Dodik really plans to do, and what he can rely on from Serbia and Russia, are questions that are rather unanswerable now. Perhaps Dodik doesn't know what he is going to do; he is an improviser. Some commentators describe him as being cornered and lashing out in the only way he knows. But nervousness is justified.

In this light, it seems understandable that Bosnian Minister of Defense Sifet Podžić postponed military exercises that were scheduled between the Bosnian Army in the RS and Serbian forces. One can imagine what kind if minor "incident" it would take to set off a major round of violence under present conditions.

It even seems strange to comprehend that Serbian troops—especially including units that participated in the 1992 war in an aggressive capacity—would participate in any exercises in another allegedly sovereign country. But the sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina is always under question, and Serbia has regularly treated the RS as an autonomous territory of its own. (There have even been joint parliamentary sessions between Serbia and the RS.)

In any case, on October 4 Sifet Podžić postponed the exercises. They had been planned to take place in three locations in the RS. Among other components, in one place members of the population were going to "spontaneously" throw flowers at the Serbian troops, as if they were liberators.

In response to Podžić's move, Dodik announced that this was "a frontal attack on the Serb people, their rights, and their interests... Podžić did not have the authority to make this decision without the involvement of the Presidency, and it is thus a criminal act of abuse of power. This is a pure act of hatred toward the Serb people and toward Serbia as a state."

In response to this hyperbole, Podžić insisted that he had postponed the exercises, but didn't cancel them. As an explanation, he pointed out that the current wave of Covid-19 infection is out of control, and that the Serbian army was insufficiently vaccinated. He also noted that funding for the exercise had not been approved.

In this one case, I'm not terribly inclined to believe Podžić's rationale completely; it would seem to me that fear of the explosion of a powder keg would be even stronger than fear of a super-spreader Covid event.

In recent weeks the RS opposition has notably backed away from Dodik's more extreme threats. Mirko Šarović announced that the SDS would "not support anything that could lead to the endangerment of peace and security," and that it would not support Dodik's moves to remove the army, SIPA, and other state institutions from the RS. "Normal people need to speak up against these crazy politics. Dodik's policies are the greatest threat for the Republika Srpska," Šarović said.

In mid-October Dodik seemed to temper his pronouncements, saying things like "We don't want any escalation. This is a political issue; it's not about war" and "We in the RS have no intention to destroy the territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, just to return the sovereignty given to us by the constitution...I have said before that I would not sacrifice peace for the RS."

Questions for the near future

I don't like to make predictions and it's hard to know which way this heightened crisis will go. Some people are predicting the most dire outcome, while others are brushing it off. The latter say things like "They can't secede because they don't have an army." Or, "This is impossible because there's no provision in the constitution for it." These statements aren't convincing. On the other hand, neither am I convinced that the Serbian army will be arriving at Kozija ćuprija (at the edge of Sarajevo) very soon.

Here's what the staff of the Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje wrote in an unattributed column: Dodik can succeed because the RS "has institutions, a strong police force, a judiciary, an autonomous tax administration, an entity government, and clearly marked territory...Who will stop him? Not Schmidt, who has shoved his Bonn powers deep into a drawer...the EU will express concern—as they did with the situation in Ukraine. NATO will bomb RS positions much like they did in the Donbass."

And journalist Avdo Avdić writes that Dodik will continue to make unconstitutional decisions without any hesitation. For Avdić, the only thing that can stop Dodik is a new chief prosecutor. Current state prosecutor Gordana Tadić has never, according to Avdić, processed a single official close to Dodik, for any crime. Now the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council has decided to remove her, but her ultimate dismissal comes after one more meeting, and that decision hinges on a very close vote. If Tadić goes, then a new chief prosecutor can tamp down on Dodik's illegal moves and put a stop to the present crisis.

On the other hand, by way of example, there's the position of Ivo Komšić, former mayor of Sarajevo and member of the wartime presidency of Bosnia. Ivo Komšić says that the institutions Dodik wants to abolish were formed by the state-level Parliament, so that they can't be removed without the Parliament's approval. To attempt to do so would be a criminal act of revolt. He adds that the threats of secession are not feasible because Dodik has neither the army nor the legal grounds to make secession happen. The RS cannot withdraw from the Dayton arrangement because without Dayton, there are no entities. Dodik is panicking; he can't abolish anything.

Komšić adds that with his actions, Dodik could provoke sanctions. He (Komšić) guesses that the "persistent silence" of HR Schmidt must mean he's "preparing something significant."

I'm not convinced by either of these positions. We learned in the 1990s not to expect the international community to do anything significant. And Dodik, if he really wants to break up Bosnia-Herzegovina, will do it with or without the threat of indictment. There's precedent for this.

We'll see what happens. One consolation, and not much of one, is that there won't be a war this season. In this part of the world, wars start in the spring.

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