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Lost in the cacophony of international news about
Russian airstrikes against U.S.-backed anti-Assad rebels in Syria
and refugees flooding through the Balkans on their way to Western
Europe, a crisis is brewing in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the European
Union’s southeast flank. And here, too, Moscow has a hand in the
mischief-making.
Nov. 21 marks the 20th anniversary of the Dayton
peace agreement, which ended three-and-a-half years of brutal war
between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. In Dayton, Ohio, U.S. envoy
Richard Holbrooke achieved a major diplomatic victory that ended the
conflict and established the foundations of a viable state. The
Dayton agreement also created an internationally backed overseer
called the high representative to implement the peace accords. To
this day, Bosnia is a rare success story in post-conflict
state-building. The anniversary should be a time for celebration.
Unfortunately, it may not turn out that way. The
Dayton agreement created two highly autonomous entities inside
Bosnia: the Bosniak-Croat majority federation and the Serb majority
Republika Srpska. Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska,
plans to rain on the Dayton anniversary parade by openly violating
the agreement on Nov. 15 in a move that many see as a thinly veiled
independence referendum.
The scheduled plebiscite has only one question:
“Do you support the unconstitutional and unauthorized imposition of
laws by the High Representative of the International Community in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly the imposed laws on the Court
and Prosecutor’s Office of [Bosnia-Herzegovina] and the
implementation of their decisions on the territory of Republika
Srpska?” Such a biased and leading question offers only one right
answer. The referendum will give Dodik political and legal cover to
order Republika Srpska institutions — from government administrators
to tax collectors — to stop obeying state court orders, verdicts,
and rulings, and to obstruct the work of the prosecutor’s office.
This would undo 20 years of progress and commence the destruction of
Bosnia’s legal order. While the referendum only addresses the
judiciary, its destructive intentions make it a de facto declaration
of independence. Lest anyone doubt Dodik’s intentions, in April he
announced that Republika Srpska will hold an independence referendum
in 2018.
The referendum threat is unfolding amid a perfect
storm generated by Dodik’s strident Serbian nationalism, a
demonstrably flawed EU policy of appeasing him, Russian meddling in
the Balkans, and the United States’ dangerous unwillingness to
override the EU on Bosnia.
In 2006, Washington let Brussels take the lead in
Bosnia when a new international overseer arrived, High
Representative Christian Schwarz-Schilling, who publically declared
he would “step back” and take a “hands-off” approach — in keeping
with EU policy. He kept his promise. The EU abandoned a functioning
model of international oversight that had created a stable peace and
substantial state-building achievements, just as democratic reforms
were taking root. Brussels substituted a “local ownership” approach
and a vague promise of EU integration. Almost immediately, Bosnia
began a steady backward drift.
Sensing weakening international resolve, Dodik,
then-prime minister of Republika Srpska, began using virulent
nationalist rhetoric, speaking derogatorily of Bosniaks and the
Bosnian state, and announcing that the state established at Dayton
was temporary. Over the next nine years, he used the constitutional
powers of Republika Srpska and Serbs in state institutions to block
or roll back reforms, weaken state-level institutions, and hollow
out the Bosnian state that had been so painstakingly crafted by the
international community. He systematically attacked the Indirect
Taxation Authority, the state electrical transmission corporation
(Transco), the state judiciary and prosecution service, the State
Border Service, the State Investigation and Protection Agency, and
other government ministries.
In 2011, Dodik threatened a referendum on state
judicial institutions but backed down temporarily after Brussels
appeased him by creating a “Structured Dialogue on Justice,” which
seemed like a bureaucratic attempt to defuse the Republika Srpska
bluster. It didn’t work. Dodik’s animosity against the state-level
judicial system appears to be related to his distaste for an
independent judiciary and his personal fear of being indicted for
corruption.
The only person with the legal authority to call
off Dodik’s referendum, current High Representative Valentin Inzko,
has sat on the sidelines at the insistence of both Washington and
Brussels. In response to Dodik’s latest provocations, the EU has yet
to formulate a response that would persuade him to cancel the
referendum. Some international officials think it is merely a
bargaining chip and hope to deal with it, post facto, via the very
judicial institutions Dodik plans to flout. Others hope Belgrade can
be called upon to rein in Dodik, ignoring that Serbia’s deep state
regards Republika Srpska as its greatest foreign-policy success.
Indeed, Belgrade’s officialdom openly supports Dodik and hopes to
receive Republika Srpska in return for giving up on Kosovo.
Throughout these provocations, Moscow has backed
Republika Srpska. The Russian ambassador to Bosnia, Pyotr Ivantsov,
has stated that the referendum is an internal matter for the country
and has expressed his sympathy toward Republika Srpska complaints
over the state judiciary. Russian ambassadors have been notable in
their refusal to support the international community’s efforts to
stop Dodik’s attempts to tear Bosnia apart, as well as in their
opposition to Bosnia’s EU and NATO membership, issues that they had
earlier agreed to. In July, Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council
resolution that would have described the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of
more than 8,000 Bosniaks at the hands of Bosnian Serbs as
“genocide.” There is now even some question as to whether Russia
supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia.
By backing Dodik, Putin is able to create
substantial problems for the West without needing to invest
resources or diplomatic energy. This pattern should be familiar.
From Abkhazia in Georgia to Transnistria in Moldova to most recently
Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Russia has sought to prevent Western
encroachment in regions that it historically viewed as its own, yet
had lost after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It seems that if Moscow
can’t control a certain territory, then it will opt to create a
climate of instability that prevents the EU, the United States, and
NATO from gaining a meaningful foothold. This holds true for the
Balkans, which Russia has traditionally viewed as its sphere of
influence. As neighboring Montenegro now moves closer to NATO
membership, Moscow wishes to draw a line against further Western
advances in the region.
Officials who understand Bosnia’s fragility are
worried — and with good reason. Inzko sent an unprecedented report
to the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 4 stating that Republika
Srpska is “in clear breach” of Dayton and noting that if the current
course of action remains unchecked, “there will be increased risk
that [Bosnia-Herzegovina] will slide further towards
disintegration,” with “significant international peace and security
implications.” The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo stated that it was
“alarmed” by the referendum, noting that it poses a threat to the
“security, stability, and prosperity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
Similarly, seven of the eight foreign ambassadors in Bosnia who
comprise the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council —
the oversight body for the peace agreement — issued a statement in
July that the referendum represents “a fundamental violation” of the
Dayton agreement. (Not surprisingly, Russia refused to sign on to
this statement.)
But warnings are not enough. The West must now
prevent Russia from using Dodik’s nationalist agenda to destabilize
the Balkans and create yet another proxy conflict. Given the EU’s
distraction with its own larger issues, only vigorous and robust
U.S. engagement can forestall Bosnia’s impending collapse — and
Russia’s stepping into the vacuum.
Until 2006, the international community’s main
policy tool was the high representative, who holds executive powers
under the Dayton agreement. These powers permitted the high
representative to remove obstructionist officials from office,
impose legislation, and levy travel bans and asset freezes. But
those powers atrophied after 2005, due mainly to a lack of will
among EU members. Moscow, like Republika Srpska, opposes their use.
The international peacekeeping force put in place by the Dayton
accords has been reduced from 60,000 to fewer than 600 troops.
Seemingly, the options open to the West are limited.
The West must find a new way to exert influence in
Bosnia. It will require substantial energy and engagement, but it is
far from impossible. First, as a guarantor of the Dayton peace
agreement, the United States should appoint a special envoy to the
region to bring together the Western alliance and use diplomatic
means to thwart Dodik’s plans. Second, the high representative’s
powers must be rejuvenated. Third, the West should use financial,
administrative, and criminal sanctions against Bosnian politicians
who violate the Dayton agreement. Fourth, and most importantly, the
special envoy must revisit the Dayton agreement with an eye to
rewriting it completely.
While the Dayton agreement has proved to be a
worthy stop-gap measure to halt the fighting between Bosnia’s
factions, it has also shown its limitations, particularly since
Dodik began obstructing the functioning of the state and rolling
back reforms. Almost all Bosnians — Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats
alike — would like to see it replaced yet know their politicians
lack the will to do so.
The West has one more card to play. If Dodik moves
ahead with the referendum, it will be a blatant violation of the
Dayton agreement, upon which Republika Srpska’s only legal
legitimacy lies. If it chooses to renege on Dayton, then Republika
Srpska legally loses all legitimacy and becomes a rogue entity
founded on genocide. The international community should then act
accordingly and abolish Republika Srpska, which, while extreme,
would be enforceable via administrative and financial means.
True, U.S. engagement and greater international
involvement requires effort. But the wait-and-see approach will
prove far more costly. The Bosniaks and Croats went to war in 1992
to keep Bosnia together, and there is no indication that today
they’d be willing to let Republika Srpska go without a fight. Should
violence erupt, it will be felt across the Balkans. It could spill
over to Kosovo, south Serbia, Macedonia, and the Muslim-majority
Serbian region of Sandzak. And spillover from Bosnia could disrupt
ongoing talks between Belgrade and Pristina over the normalization
of relations. It could bring a return of the ethnic cleansing of the
1990s and renewed refugee flows. It could also radicalize Bosnia’s
moderate Muslims, who are under growing pressure from extremist Gulf
elements, risking the creation of an angry, Muslim-majority
ministate directly on the EU’s border.
Washington must decide now, not later, if it will
act proactively to keep Bosnia-Herzegovina together and the Balkans
stable — or whether it will let Moscow set the rules. Waiting
equates to letting the Balkans deteriorate into renewed regional
instability and conflict. And Syria has shown that choosing to wait
carries with it a significant price, one that the war-weary Balkans
should not have to pay.
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