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

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Bosnia update, Saturday, November 25, 2023
Secessionism ~ Corruption ~ Sanctions ~ Dodik’s Trial

After a two-month break from writing this blog, I look back at the “news” from Bosnia-Herzegovina. With more than the usual distance, events in Bosnia gain a bit of clarity. That is, it’s easier to see that what passes for news items, as I’ve said several times in the last year, really represents trend markers rather than significant changes. So there are trends that can lead in a variety of directions. One can predict, but only time will tell. And that may be a shorter time, or a longer time. Will there be war? Or just an ongoing frozen conflict? Opinions vary. Stay tuned.

Burgeoning autocracy

The salient trend now, as usual, is RS President Dodik’s ongoing agitation for secession. Dodik resembles a masterful symphony conductor in his ability to raise and lower political tensions throughout the country on a regular basis. He is not in control of all factors, of course. There are the reactions of the international community (split between east and west) and, occasionally, domestic opinion and activism. The latter has been sparse for some years, with minor exceptions. And the response of the international community has not been effective in discouraging Dodik’s secessionist drive. At the same time, both Russia and Western officials have encouraged policies favoring Croat nationalism in the Federation.

In Prijedor, near the main square, there is faded graffiti reading “Milorad Lukashenka,” joining Dodik’s first name with the surname of the Belarusian autocrat. On one hand, Dodik has solid support in his entity. On the other hand, there have always been people who have recognized his own imperious tendencies, which are not hard to spot.

Currently, for example, Dodik’s SNSD party has been promoting an entity law to declare all NGOs that receive foreign funding—which is all of them except for the “governmental non-governmental organizations”—as “foreign agents.” The new law would establish a special registry of NGOs as agents of foreign influence. It is modeled on a Russian law passed in 2012, and would ban NGOs from being involved in any political activity, including proposing any legislative action or policy papers pertaining to political institutions or political representatives.

In late October NGO activists announced a protest of this bill in Banja Luka. Their protest was banned by the police, but it was carried out anyway.

Let’s also recall that in July the RS Parliament also passed a law decreeing libel a criminal offense. The law pertains to any public speech, including statements on social media.

In late October Dodik called for a single state of all Serbs, one that would include Serbia, Kosovo, the RS, and Montenegro, which seceded from the last Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in 2006. Dodik states periodically that this will take place “at the right time, without war.”

This call is an echo of the expansionist “All Serbs in one state” slogan that set the tone for Milošević's aggression against Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990s. At that time it was pointed out that all Serbs did live in one state, when Yugoslavia existed. Now, a Montenegrin politician pushed back at Dodik, saying, “Tomorrow, we will clear away these borders and live together in the EU.”

Dodik has been issuing rhetoric and provocative statements along these lines since 2006; it’s part of a mechanism that keeps people on edge and keeps him in office. So it’s not news, but it does make people worry. The debate is not only about how much Dodik means what he says—there are widely differing opinions on this—but whether the political and economic situation in the entities can become so unstable that dissolution or secession happens regardless of Dodik’s real intentions.

In the last few months Dodik’s followers have carried on a campaign promoted by the slogan, “Granica postoji,” meaning “The border exists” or, alternatively, “There is a limit.” The phrase has shown up on billboards around the entity, and stickers on the walls around Banja Luka. Demonstrators have gathered at 15-odd locations, usually in smaller towns, alongside the inter-entity boundary. At times the participants have tried to block the boundary crossings, which are not checkpoints. A sardonic article in a Federation newspaper noted that the demonstrations “are characterized by their low turnout.” But they make the news. There has been no response from EUFOR, the EU military force maintaining a small presence in Bosnia.

Corruption

Meanwhile, what is arguably the primary function of the postwar economy, to make the neo-tycoons richer, continues at full steam. Both entities are losing their working-age population as people who can’t get a decent job, or are fed up with the party-ocracy (strankokratija) flee by the thousands to better-organized countries in Europe. And the RS continues to borrow money on international stock exchanges to pay its debts. But there is still plenty of money from taxes, loans, and sometimes international grants, to make the rich richer. Much of this upward flow of wealth is conspicuously directed toward Dodik’s family: his son and daughter, his in-laws, his kumovi (best man at his wedding), and his favored business partners.

The list of companies favored by un-tendered contracts, rake-offs, guaranteed cost-overruns, and business deals not justified by anything other than crony relationships is dazzling. Dodik’s son Igor is involved in lucrative deals with the IT company Prointer, which is owned by the Infinity International Group, staffed by favorites of Dodik. Igor, and Dodik’s daughter Gorica, both own produce farms that regularly receive lavish subsidies and incentives from the RS budget. Gorica’s husband is director of “Global Liberty,” a company owned by her and Igor. This company also receives hefty subsidies from the RS.  Dodik’s cousin owns a football team.

Dodik’s legal advisor, Milan Tegeltija (removed from his position as president of the High Judiciary and Prosecutorial Council for corruption), is president of a prominent football team. Mile Radišić, a tycoon convicted of corruption and very close to Dodik, profits greatly from special deals given to his construction company Grand Trade. You see the company’s logo on highway overpasses throughout the RS.

This is just the barest of “honorable” mentions of some of the advantages that Dodik’s family and accomplices at the high end of RS society receive simply by being associated with Dodik. A few companies owned by Igor and Gorica earn in the millions of KM, and all told, the “earnings” of the tight network of beneficiaries of Dodik’s favoritism runs into the billions. For just one article that provides a mind-boggling outline of this network and its income, see “Wealth at the Expense of Citizens: Family Companies Linked to the Authorities of Republika Srpska Receive Billions from Budget.”

Sanctions & Dodik's indictment, trial

The United States, via OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control), has twice laid sanctions on Dodik in response both to his destabilizing efforts and his corruption, in July of 2017, and again in February of 2022. Great Britain instituted sanctions as well, but the European Union is unable to do so as similar measures from that body require unanimity, and Hungary stands in the way.

The sanctions were directed at Dodik’s assets and a television company under his control. They had little if any effect, since Dodik’s considerable wealth is not preserved in the US, nor does he have much desire to travel there. So in recent months OFAC has escalated its attempts, now targeting not only Igor and Gorica and their businesses, but also Serb (SNSD) member of the state level presidency Željka Cvijanović and three other highly placed RS officials.

In early November, US sanctions went further by targeting the RS’s official internet domain, thereby shutting down state communications to the public for five days. The RS worked around this obstacle by paying to use neighboring Serbia’s domain. It was compelled to transfer some 3,000 web sites to the new domain. Use of Serbia’s .rs domain is probably only a temporary solution. Possible escalations of the sanctions include withdrawal of licenses for certain software applications, which would lead to “digital isolation." This could go even further, into the interruption of monetary transfers to the RS from international banks.

Another attempt to curtail Dodik’s expression of contempt for the international community and for stability in Bosnia-Herzegovina has been the indictment before the Bosnian state court for his refusal to implement decrees of the High Representative, as discussed in my previous blog. Dodik’s arraignment for this charge has been underway in recent weeks, as somewhat of a farce. In court, when he was requested to stand and identify himself, he refused to stand, saying that his back hurt. He stated his name, but declined to state his date of birth, saying “I don’t remember this, I was little then.” He has also failed to show up at scheduled hearings, citing “previously arranged commitments.” Dodik also refused to plead guilty or innocent, prompting the judge to enter a plea of not guilty. In response to a question from the judge, Dodik also responded that he did not understand the charges against him.

Commenting on the trial, Bosnia Parliament representative from the SNSD and Dodik devotee Sanja Vulić commented that the trial was a “farce,” and a “copy-paste scenario from Donald Trump’s life.” Clearly, this association is in no way coincidental. And Dodik’s friend and popular filmmaker, the Serb nationalist Emir Kusturica, asserted, “They want to ruin him.” In reality, there is little chance that the trial will result in any serious consequences for Dodik. But it provides publicity that he can use to his advantage. And Dodik’s colleagues in the SNSD, who dominate the RS Parliament, have threatened to boycott the state court system because of the trial.

There is, in fact, talk of Dodik’s removal and a ten-year ban from political activity. This talk is accompanied by the discussion of scenarios under which Dodik could be arrested. But the international community, which provides some support to rule of law in Bosnia, has shown no appetite for a real reckoning with the main engineer of instability in the country. On one hand, as I’ve described, the US and parts of Western Europe have escalated sanctions and other measures against Dodik. But these have shown no real effect on his behavior; his periodic lowering of tensions is just the other side of the coin of manipulation.

There has been talk from various angles about simply removing Dodik. The High Representative has the power to do so, but he probably fears repercussions and great instability, possibly a revolt in the RS. This is an unpredictable scenario. Commentator Dragan Bursać, in a 19 November article, stated that Dodik is “America’s child” and if America and the UK wanted him gone, he would have been removed a long time ago. The alternative to foreign intervention is grassroots mobilization, but in Bosnia this possibility has been dormant, if not dead, for nearly a decade as potential leaders have either been sidelined or have emigrated. Bursać warns that Bosnia-Herzegovina can remain Dodik’s “hostage for life.”

EC invitation to shape up

There has been one more measure of note enacted by the West. That is the 8 November announcement from the European Commission that if Bosnia-Herzegovina fulfills six conditions, then by March of next year the European Union will open negotiations on Bosnia’s accession to the EU. Among these conditions are laws on prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism; prevention of conflicts of interest in state institutions; a law on Bosnian courts;, and electoral reform. All of these reforms are possible—just as a functional state under the Dayton Constitution is conceivable—with political will on the part of Bosnia’s leaders.

There has never been any expression of this will, and the response to the EC’s overture continues in that vein, with RS politicians stating that there will be no negotiation on accession without the departure of the High Representative (whom Dodik calls the “German tourist”) and the two foreign members of the Constitutional Court. The above cursory description of Dodik & co.’s profiteering should be a good illustration of why the tycoons who run Bosnia are reluctant to give up a good thing. It may be that the scenario of a gerontocracy leading a country with an ever-diminishing population never even crosses their mind.

A little more corruption

Not to leave the impression that corruption is only the domain of the RS, the dominant parties in the Federation also overlook, or sometimes participate in, corrupt activities in their own realm. The latest manifestation of this is the conviction of Edin Arslanagić, former director of the huge pharmacological firm Bosnalijek, for embezzling 20 million KM from the company. Arslanagić received a sentence of 12 years in this first-instance judgment, and three other accomplices received seven to ten years. Other investigations pertaining to Bosnalijek are still underway, as discussed in my previous blog.

In another long-standing corruption scandal, the matter of “ready-made” college diplomas has been under investigation for years. In mid-October the trial of Admir Hadžipašić and Goran Lalović for the illicit sale of diplomas began. The pair, founders of the Cazin International College, are charged with being the organizers of a “criminal group,” receiving material goods and benefits in return for influence, and money laundering. Two deans of the college and another woman are also on trial. They are suspected of providing fictitious diplomas to many people between 2016 and 2019. Recipients of the diplomas obtained them without taking any exams, through falsified student records.

An undercover investigator was able to buy an economics diploma from Mr. Hadžipašić. Many other people have already provided evidence that they were able to buy diplomas; few of them had ever even set foot in Cazin, nor did they know the names of any of their putative professors. The trial involves a total of 148 false university diplomas. There are also investigations underway of similar practices in Banja Luka, Travnik, Brčko, and Mostar. Prosecutors involved in the case said that they could buy a diploma at the gas station, in cafes, and even in gyms.

There will be more on the diploma scandals.

Statehood anniversary

Today, November 25^th, is Bosnian Statehood Day, so I send holiday greetings to those of you who celebrate. It is the anniversary of the day in 1943 when 200 members of the Yugoslav Partisans’ Anti-fascist Council, in the midst of fighting the Nazis, met in Mrkonjić Grad, northwestern Bosnia. There, they declared that Bosnia-Herzegovina was on an equal legal footing with the other Yugoslav republics, and that their republic was one of equal rights for all its ethnicities. In fact, this declaration was an acknowledgment of the 1,000 years of history the country had behind it.

Today the date is mainly celebrated in the Federation, but members of the Republika Srpska branch of the SDP (Social Democrats) announced observances in Mrkonjić Grad and Banja Luka. However, police in both cities banned the celebration; in Mrkonjić Grad they asserted that it “could endanger of people and property.” In Banja Luka the police similarly claimed that the observance could “cause the disruption of public order and peace on a large scale.”

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