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Republika Srpska President Dodik Tuesday got the
entity’s Assembly to revoke a 2004 report that confirmed its army’s
murder of about 8000 mostly men and boys near Srebrenica in 1995.
The Assembly action changes nothing. The murders
occurred, most of the remains have been identified, and the murderer
in chief, Ratko Mladic, as well as his political overseer Radovan
Karadzic have been convicted at the International Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia. Dodik and his minions cannot change the facts or
undo the convictions. The mass graves containing bodies with hands
tied and gunshot wounds to the back of their heads do not disappear
because of a speech or a resolution in an Assembly.
At the same time, it should change everything.
Genocide deniers should have no place in power in post-war Bosnia
and Herzegovina. Most of the country’s population cannot be expected
to tolerate official acts that challenge the dignity and humanity of
mass murder victims. Dodik has confirmed what his enemies always
say: Republika Srpska is founded on atrocities against its enemies
that it denies and should not have been allowed to continue to exist
after the 1995 peace agreement.
It was however permitted to remain, as one of two
constitutional “entities” within Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupying
49% of its territory with a population that is now 83% Serb due to
ethnic cleansing during the war and resistance to non-Serbs
returning after the war. There is nothing that can be done to change
that, short of renewed warfare no one wants.
Dodik should not however get off untouched. The
Americans have already levied travel and financial sanctions against
him. They should now expand those to include all members of the
Republika Srpska National Assembly who voted to revoke the Srbrenica
report. The Europeans need to act as well. They have been hesitant
about sanctioning individuals, partly due I understand to judicial
challenges. If it is impossible to reach agreement at the level of
the European Union, individual European states should prohibit
travel and financial sanctions by all supporters of revoking the
report. The US and EU should also join together in denying World
Bank funding for projects in Republika Srpska, until it reinstates
the Srbrenica report.
Some will argue this would be over-reacting. If
the Assembly action changed nothing, why should anyone get excited
about it? The answer is that Dodik and his minions are pushing the
envelope. They are trying to see how far they can go without
precipitating a serious response. They have made it eminently clear
that their escalation ladder will culminate in a declaration of
independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina, a move that is guaranteed
to restart the war and absorb gigantic international resources. It
would be far better to stop the escalation now than to let it go
further.
Dodik has been emboldened in part by talk about
“border correction,” “land swaps,” and “ethic partition” in Kosovo.
German Chancellor Merkel ruled out border changes in the Balkans
earlier this week, but the Americans have still not been heard from
on the subject. They need to speak out forcefully against such
propositions. Doing so would not only calm the situation in Kosovo
but also send a clear signal to Dodik and his Russian backers.
It is hard to get excited about anything in the
Balkans these days, as the rest of the world is in such miserable
shape. The State Department has issued a strong statement. But words
no longer suffice. Stopping instability before it starts and grows
is far cheaper and easier than intervening afterwards. Dodik menaces
a peace that has held for 23 years. The Americans and Europeans can
still stop him from creating havoc. They should do it.
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