Fundamentally Flawed
The Need to Realign Bosnia's Power Structure
The year 2000 launched an extraordinarily promising start for a new century of Balkan politics. For the first time, the three leading wartime nationalists, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, are no longer visibly controlling the moves of their respective ethnic constitutents. Yet for Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosnia), these promising signs have yet to produce improvements. Despite the long-wished-for removal of Milosevic from office in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), elements of his legacy continue, most notably the stubborn, self-destructive brand of Serb nationalism evident in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS). Similarly, the death of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and the demise of his Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in the January 2000 Croatian elections did not tangibly benefit Bosnia. Instead, the HDZ in Bosnia has clung even more to its nationalistic vision with extreme demands for Croat independence. Finally, the retirement of the Bosniaks’ nationalistic wartime patriarch, President Alija Izetbegovic, has had little effect in boosting the multi-ethnic Social Democrats.
The November 2000 general elections showed the continued vibrancy of the hard liners, with the Bosniak vote split between Izetbegovic’s Party for Democratic Action (SDA) and the Social Democrats, to the advantage of the HDZ, which took the most votes in the Federation. In addition, the hard line Serb Democratic Party (SDS) actually gained in the RS, despite the end of Milosevic’s reign in Belgrade the previous month. The outcome was so disappointing that the head of the International Crisis Group in Sarajevo, a watchdog thinktank, said "after five years and five billion dollars, we’ve [the international community has] achieved nothing. We’re back to the start." 1
Watchdog groups are not the only internationals to be disenchanted with the current state of the Bosnia project. Western governments are suffering from donor fatigue, with the United States and state-driven donors like the United Nations and World Bank saying they will cut their contributions by as much as a third. 2 Egregious and widespread corruption has made continued aid particularly problematic. The New York Times has estimated that as much as $1 billion has been lost to unscrupulous officials who milked public funds and foreign donations for their private benefit.3 The Washington Post reports that millions of dollars disappear in any single election. It also cites local corruption in a U.S. program that assisted the Bosnian government in privatizing state-owned factories and utilities. After spending $18.5 million on consultants and services, United States officials now say that most of the companies are still controlled by politicians who diverted much of the income to their private bank accounts and cronies. 4 The United States effort was part of a $1 billion aid package over a three-year period.
Although the West may well be tired of the Bosnia problem, now is hardly the time to give up. The stakes are high. Tensions in Kosovo and their reverberation into Macedonia are loud warnings of yet another round of warfare in the region. It is a given that fighting will again erupt; the question is only to what degree. No doubt any success by Bosnia’s Republika Srpska in gaining a ‘Greater Serbia’ or by the Bosnian Croats in seceding to form a ‘Herceg Bosna’ 5 would inflame the Kosovars’ quest for independence as a step toward a ‘Greater Albania.’ The reverse would also be true; Kosovo’s secession could provoke efforts toward the fragmentation of Bosnia. The possibility of bloodshed therefore makes the stability of Bosnia a high priority for the West.
Fortunately, the year’s dramatic changes in political leadership still afford the international community an opportunity to boost Bosnia’s fortunes. They lay the groundwork for a potentially more successful Western strategy which better empowers non-nationalistic elements and more successfully implements the Dayton Agree ment. 6 This paper advocates that the international community should more deeply assert a realignment of fundamental powers in Bosnia to strengthen the statehood of Bosnia and its individual citizens and to weaken nationalists and organized crime. The international community must strike the balance of its involvement in favor of greater intervention through more robust management of existing resources, not an increase in aid.
A NEW STRATEGY: STRIKING THE CORRECT BALANCE
Thus far, the international community has engaged in a sort of trial-and-error approach for gaining local cooperation. It has employed techniques of varying degrees of ‘intrusion,’ from polite requests with economic aid to use of the NATO Stability Force (SFOR) and its successor Implementation Force (IFOR) to seize forcibly properties used for illegal purposes. This range reflects the complexity of moving a post-war, post-Communist state riddled with ethnic hatred to a healthy democracy. It also reveals the dilemma facing the international community: how to be involved enough to effect change without becoming too involved, which could prolong dependence and thwart indigenous development.
The fundamental problem is that the international community has struck the balance too much in favor of distance rather than intrusion. This tilt has been the result of a strikingly flawed premise: that local leaders entrusted with aid would develop the country themselves. Most local officials, unfortunately, are not motivated by a noble desire to create a multi-ethnic state rooted in liberal democracy. Rather they are far more attached to their nationalistic parties and personal material gain. As products of Yugoslavia’s Communist past, they also lack the know-how for leading a transition to a free market society. In contrast, those who more genuinely champion democracy and the rule of law and are open to education to these ends do not hold the power necessary to make their goals possible. Thus adjusting the relative powers of these groups is central to any international strategy in Bosnia.
Calling for greater international involvement at this time may be politically inauspicious with the interventionist-shy United States President George W. Bush in power. U.S. Secretary of State General Colin Powell is also well-known for his doctrine of "using military force only when there is a clear goal, overwhelming numbers, popular support and an exit strategy." 7 The deeper intervention contemplated by this paper, however, could be described as a variant of the Powell doctrine to be applied in the post-war civilian context: if the international community chooses to be involved in the civilian aspects of rehabilitating a defined post-war area and has the popular support to do so, it must proceed overwhelmingly until the local institutions are able to govern themselves appropriately.
While these criteria are far more difficult to fulfill than the more clear-cut objectives of winning warfare, and sustaining popular support may be more difficult, this approach at least offers a chance of success. It also does not mean greater financial expense?the $5 billion already spent in Bosnia should have been sufficient for much greater progress in civilian reform had it been spent with deeper intervention and coordination. The magnitude of the investment is particularly apparent when considering the size of Bosnia’s popula tion?at 3.5 million, the international community has spent more than $1,400 per person, a year’s salary for those Bosnians fortunate enough to be employed. Far greater improvements should have resulted from this extraordinary amount.
WEAKENING THE NATIONALISTS AND ORGANIZED CRIME
It is well accepted that nationalism and organized crime are intertwined in the Balkans, with organized crime fueling the strength of the nationalistic parties and the nationalistic parties allowing organized crime networks to operate profitably. Leaders in both domains are often the same persons: warlords who acted with impunity with respect to human life during the war also acted that way with respect to criminal business opportunities that arose in the chaos, and they continue those channels today. Nationalistic elected officials perpetuate their own accumulation of wealth and power and that of their friends in organized crime. 8 Two key elements allow for this self-preservation: the financial flow system and the lack of a true state border.
The once singular public payments system has been divided along ethnic lines into three parts, each holding a monopoly on all financial transfers for that ethnicity. 9 This structure has become the most important factor allowing ‘Herceg Bosna,’ for example, to exist independently of the Bosniaks. Money is so completely controlled along ethnic lines that even the salary of the lowest level Croat police officer is about 100 DM higher per month than that of his Bosniak counterpart, despite the fact they are supposed to be equal colleagues in a single ‘mixed’ police station. Indeed, Croat banks in Herzegovina have been suspected as a means for organized crime leaders to launder their profits. 10 They are also believed to aid funding of hard line Croat parties by delaying pension pay-outs to allow time for re-investment of the money for their profit. The second element allowing organized crime to flourish, lack of a true state border, has made illegal trade an easy criminal lifeline. Bosnia has become the convenient gateway for smuggling from Eastern to Western Europe and thus creates significant problems for areas well beyond Bosnia’s borders.
The international community must therefore act far more vigorously to undermine the nationalistic and organized crime networks. It should do so in three ways: by arresting key war criminals, by stopping corruption in financial institutions, and by strengthening the State Border Service. Although more prominent nationalistic war criminals have been arrested in recent times, such as former Serb Bosnian presidency member Momcilo Krajisnik, stronger efforts by the international community must be made, particularly with respect to Bosnian Serb warlord Radovan Karadzic. Arresting Karadzic, the founder of the currently dominant Serb Democratic Party (SDS), would be the equivalent of arresting a mafia godfather, as he no doubt exercises influence in the RS, where he is believed to be in hiding.
The arrest of Milosevic by FRY authorities on 1 April 2001 on corruption charges was a dramatic demonstration favoring the rule of law that can only benefit Bosnia, as it strikes directly at corruption fueled by nationalism (or masked by it). 11 The international community should let the FRY try Milosevic in its own courts before extraditing him to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). There would be no better political demonstration by FRY President Vojislav Kostunica that his predecessor was an enemy to his own people. That would also best allow Kostunica to survive politically when he sends Milosevic to The Hague for further prosecution by a court that is perceived to be anti-Serb. Certainly, ICTY’s prosecution of Milosevic for genocide and crimes against humanity must take place to allow the fulfillment of the first international indictment of a sitting head of state, which occurred in 1999. Such an extraordinary precedent could be of great benefit in future sanctions against genocidal despots of any nationality.
As part of its crackdown on the corruption of the nationalist war criminals, the international community must also closely examine banking and other financial activities as an integral element of the organized crime network. Deep intervention is required to unearth and stop diversions and laundering. In addition, the international community must strengthen the State Border Service as the most direct attack on illegal trade flows. In theory, the State Border Service should provide for genuine customs inspection and enforcement with a state border police. In reality, however, this has not developed. Human trafficking, for example, is rampant. 12 The fact that current High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch, who is the highest ranking international in Bosnia charged with implementing the Dayton Agreement, was forced to impose the State Border Service law in January 2000 only further indicates that it was of serious consequence in curbing organized crime. However, the lack of local political support for it also predictably created lack of enforcement. The best solution, of course, would be the development of genuinely effective law enforcement in all of Bosnia, but this has yet to be realized.
STRENGTHENING THE STATEHOOD OF BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
The state of Bosnia is in reality hardly a state at all, but rather three ‘mini-states’ operating quite independently of each other along ethnic lines. The Dayton Agreement allows the existence of two entities: the Republika Srpska, which is overwhelmingly Serb, and the Federation, which is Bosniak and Croat. The Croats have never fully accepted their forced ‘marriage’ to the Bosniaks, instead insisting that they have their own entity, while the Serbs have always looked to Belgrade, not Sarajevo, as their guiding capital. The lack of a single central government with undisputed authority over these factions epitomizes the inherent instability of Bosnia. The statehood of Bosnia must therefore be strengthened in four ways: by bolstering the State Border Service, by liberally interpreting Dayton to put the primacy of Bosnia above its entities, by demilitarizing Bosnia, and by admitting it into the Council of Europe.
The State Border Service is highly important for another reason besides curbing organized crime. A state border is simply a fundamental element of sovereignty, as traditionally required by international law, in that it delineates the state’s territory. That the state border is to be controlled at the state level, rather than by the entities, is therefore enormously important for true statehood and creates a potentially significant source of revenue for the state. Enforcing the rule of law at the borders would also reverberate with greater rule of law implementation throughout the territory. Legal economic transactions would be encouraged as black market activity diminished.
The legislation upon which the State Border Service is founded construes the powers accorded in the Bosnian Constitution in favor of the state, as opposed to the RS and the Federation. Future legislation should also reinforce this interpretation. Although some have argued that Dayton needs to be re-written to make Bosnia a true state, interpreting it liberally should be sufficient for promoting strong statehood. Nationalist Serbs read Dayton as reinforcing their notion of the RS as ‘sovereign’ while nationalist Croats read Dayton as unfairly endowing an ethnicity with its ‘own’ entity while depriving them of the same. However, a plain reading of the Dayton Agreement does not support either of these positions. Annex Four (the Bosnian Constitution) clearly subordinates the Federation and the RS to the sovereignty of Bosnia and does not restrict the population in either entity to any particular ethnicity. 13 It must be recalled that the entities were fashioned out of pure political expediency to end the war and allow the existence of the new state of Bosnia. This was appropriate for November 1995, with civilian massacres and other atrocities still fresh events. Appropriate interpretation of the language today calls for consideration that nearly six years have passed since Dayton. Given the intent of Dayton to create the sovereign state of Bosnia, it seems more than appropriate in the year 2001 to interpret Annex Four in favor of state level institutions with increasingly weak powers for the entities. The Dayton Agreement should not be opened to a major re-writing, as it is legally unnecessary and would create a potential Pandora’s box of conflicts.
This interpretation of Dayton must also hold in addressing recent agreements by the RS and the FRY to establish officially a closer relationship with each other. Although Dayton allows the entities to establish ‘special parallel relationships,’ such must not jeopardize the statehood of Bosnia. Annex Four of the Dayton Agreement, the Bosnian Constitution, states:
The entities shall have the right to establish special parallel relationships with neighboring states consistent with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. [Article III (2)(a). (emphasis added)]
Obviously, the intent of Dayton was to ensure that the sovereignty of Bosnia overrode any competing claims to statehood within it. While allowing close ties may provide a useful outlet for nationalistic desires, they must be balanced with clear deference to the statehood of Bosnia. Notions of a ‘Greater Serbia’ or a ‘Herceg Bosna’ must not be indulged if there is to be any meaning in the Dayton Agreement’s promise of a right of return for Bosnia’s two million refugees and displaced persons. Most importantly, such fragmentation in the name of nationalism must be quashed to prevent further disintegration elsewhere in the Balkans.
The third device for strengthening the state of Bosnia is to demilitarize it. The current existence of three armies?which consume about 40 percent of all public spending?is unworkable. Bosnian Serb officers are trained in Belgrade and hold commissions in both the Yugoslav and RS armies. Bosnian Croat officers have a similar arrangement with Zagreb. This structure, combined with recent memory of war, makes lack of loyalty to the Bosnian government no surprise. 14 Demilitarization offers a far more realistic solution than attempting to create any single, mixed army. The international community has already experienced great difficulty in integrating other state bodies such as the police and judiciary. To attempt to integrate the basic instrument of bloodshed among the ethnicities would create too much propensity for mistrust to make it viable.
Finally, to further strengthen the state of Bosnia, it must be admitted now into the Council of Europe. Bosnia first applied for membership in April 1995 and was rejected due to its inability to meet the Council’s criteria, which included very high goals of full implementation of human rights and returns aspects of the Dayton Agreement. It still has yet to meet them, but certainly it has made progress, such as freedom of movement and increased security. If anything, Bosnia has met European standards at least as well as other member states, such as Russia and Croatia. The Council of Europe must reinforce the message to the Serb and Croat hard liners who still cling to delusions of partition: the state of Bosnia is here to stay, which the Council recognizes with the serious intent of one day inviting Bosnia into the European Union. In contrast, failure to admit Bosnia at this time could be dangerously interpreted as a lack of resolve by Europe to incorporate the Balkans into its vision. It would only reward those who caused its failure to meet the Council’s criteria in the first place. Ironically, the FRY has provided the most significant diplomatic reward favoring statehood recently by recognizing Bosnia on 15 December 2000, albeit that the motivation was its interest in gaining international support for preventing independence for Kosovo. 15
STRENGTHENING THE INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN
The great flaw of the current day-to-day living of average citizens is that ethnicity overrides individual rights and the rule of law. The use of pre-existing Communist structures only further enhances the undemocratic concentrations of power. The classic antidote in political theory is to endow the individual with rights that override any particular ethnic claims. The concept of ‘citizenship’ captures such rights and endows the citizen with protections by the state in return for duties owed to the state. 16 Accordingly, the relationship between a Bosnian citizen and the Bosnian state should be founded on mutual expectations of benefits and obligations. For example, a Bosnian citizen should be able to expect the fair implementation of the rule of law, protection of democratic freedoms, and national security; the state of Bosnia should be able to expect respect of the law and payment of taxes. Unfortunately, the current dominance of ethnicity over individual rights does not allow these expectations to be as reliable as they should be.
The concept of ‘ownership’ advocated by the High Representative is an inadequate answer to this problem. The concept is that the people of Bosnia ‘own’ their problems and therefore are primarily responsible for solving them. The international community, which numbers in the thousands actually living in Bosnia, is present merely to help. Thus the High Representative has neatly ducked the possibility of international community failure by definition. He has also missed half the picture. While he is correct that the problems of the people of Bosnia are in fact their problems and must engage in solving them, he must also acknowledge that the people of Bosnia must be empowered to do so. The average Bosnian citizen barely earns enough to pay the rent and put food on the table—if he is employed17—and is powerless against organized crime and nationalist politicians. In theory, elections are supposed to be the way for the average citizen to eliminate such elements from power. But practice?whether it be in a developed country like the United States or in Bosnia?shows that money substantially drives electoral outcomes. Nationalists funded by organized crime also repeatedly succeed in capturing votes because of the average voter’s search for security. So long as ethnicity dominates power and so long as other ethnicities succeed in promoting their nationalist agendas, the average voter will naturally seek the security of his own ethnicity’s ‘protector.’ Thus the ethnicity-driven voting cycle reinforces itself.
The emergence of the rule of law is the key to breaking out of the nationalistic quagmire. The international community can help Bosnian citizens take control of their own political destiny in two ways: by emphasizing international standards over ethnic quotas during monitoring and restructuring of government institutions, and by encouraging economic empowerment of ordinary citizens. The Dayton Agreement makes clear that the world’s highest levels of human rights and legal guarantees are required for each citizen of Bosnia. Annex Four, the Bosnian Constitution, enshrines the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights or ECHR) as directly applicable in Bosnia and taking precedence over all other domestic law. Of course, realizing these principles in the face of powerful countervailing forces is profoundly difficult. As a starting point, the international community must engage in far more penetrating scrutiny of the rule of law institutions and law enforcement as measured against the ECHR. The methodology is simple: the international monitor examines the particular activity in question and asks: Does it meet international standards? If not, then why not? If it is because of a particular person, then direct action can be taken against him or her, such as probation, suspension or removal from the position with criminal prosecution, if appropriate. If it is because of a particular law or administrative regulation, then that law can be amended to meet international standards. This methodology sharpens the goal of the international monitor’s examination and overcomes excessive generality in reporting. It can also be applied to the full range of problems faced by Bosnia simply because the essence of rule of law is that it governs all activities in which citizens and the government engage?policing, judiciary, business practices, banking, property recovery and ownership, etc. It also goes to the heart of the transition from Communism to democracy because it covers structural, institutional and procedural problems as well as substantive areas.
Other restructuring efforts, such as those by the international community to make the staffing of some public institutions reflective of the pre-war ethnic mix, can only have meaning if each individual staff member feels empowered to act according to professional, rather than ethnic, considerations. Otherwise, he or she is likely to follow an ethnic chain-of-command. Indeed, he or she may even feel especially pressured to do so, as a ‘representative’ of a particular ethnicity. The result may be an artificial veneer of ethnic harmony rather than genuine respect for the rule of law.
True enforcement of the law would pave the way to improving the economy, as a reliable legal system is the prerequisite to any serious foreign investment. That McDonald’s still refuses to operate in Bosnia, while doing so successfully in the FRY (prior to sanctions) and in Croatia, epitomizes the problem. A reliable legal system is also necessary for the average businessman in Bosnia to be able to compete with organized crime. He simply cannot offer better prices than criminals who sell products imported without duty fees or taxes. Privatization is another trouble spot requiring scrutiny and law enforcement, as it is well known other countries that have undergone the transition from Communism to capitalism have suffered illegal get-rich-quick schemes during the process, with state-owned factory assets grossly undervalued to the advantage of well-connected buyers. The other area in serious need of transition from Communist to democratic structuring is the public payments system, as discussed previously. The international community must closely examine banking activities and produce legislation that changes these opaque Communist structures into transparent engines for a viable economy.
At the same time, the international community should push for economic empowerment of the average citizen. This difficult task is most likely to follow the decline of organized crime and the rise of rule of law, rather than lead them. Nonetheless, the legal architecture should be put in place in anticipation of this transition, such as regulation requiring employment without discrimination. A middle class must again emerge as a fundamental element of a truly functional state.
Displaced persons and returnees require particular attention in terms of economic empowerment. Rather than focusing on municipal governments and politicians, the international community should work to empower returnees themselves to make their returns sustainable. International aid should follow?rather than try to lead?returnees, with choices allowed to them on how they would like to be helped. Housing reconstruction in and of itself does not determine whether a displaced person decides to return; as proof the international community has already seen the extremes of newly reconstructed houses sitting empty while returnees nearby inhabit rubble (they are actually camping with open fires for heating and open air sleeping arrangements). Housing aid should be part of a package of choices for a returnee, as each returnee family knows best how to sustain its return. Some may want a large amount of aid in the form of agricultural equipment with little for housing reconstruction, while others who have alternate sources of income may need most of the aid for that purpose. The point is to let each returnee family maximize its chances for long-term sustainability by allowing it to realize its preferences.
STRENGTHENING THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
Achieving this basic strategy of adjusting relative powers to the benefit of the average Bosnian citizen and the statehood of Bosnia and to the detriment of ethnically-based politics and organized crime is admittedly difficult. Although the international community has kept the peace, a significant success, the deeper civilian objectives of the Dayton Agreement have hardly been met. Fearing prolonged dependence, the international community has failed to use its resources robustly enough to meet these objectives, instead espousing the ‘ownership’ policy by expecting the locals to govern themselves as if in a fully developed democracy. It has failed to recognize that in the short-term this is impossible and that it must intervene more deeply to allow for democratic development. It must understand the timing distinction: the long-term goal is the emergence of the rule of law that meets international standards, produces viable democratic institutions, and can survive the international community’s withdrawal. The short-term goal is decisively thwarting elements that impede this development and supporting those that encourage it.
Unfortunately, rather than furthering these objectives, a great portion of the international community’s time, effort and energy in Bosnia gets drained away in bureaucratic overlap and repetition. This is because there are so many organizations present with similar mandates. In addition to the key organizations?the Office of the High Representative (OHR), the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the United Nations Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina (UNMIBH) and other United Nations agencies-?there are hundreds of smaller nongovernmental organizations. Although there are serious efforts to coordinate these groups to avoid duplication, the result is even more time drained away in coordination meetings. Reaching agreement on action in itself takes much time. Once agreement is reached, implementation is another problem of coordination. Ideally, the civilian international presence should be streamlined into one well-managed organization, but such a step would be politically impossible at this point, given the likely desire of existing organizations to preserve themselves.
Instead of dispersing energy among its own organizations, the international community needs to boost its power relative to the local authorities. It has an array of tools for gaining local compliance that must be used in proportion to the difficulty at hand. At one extreme is the use of force, such as SFOR’s seizure of radio transmitters in the RS in 1997 and IFOR’s seizure of Croat intelligence documents in Mostar in 1999. Another tool is banning uncooperative officials from office and non-compliant political parties from elections, which was used effectively against the Serb Radical Party (SRS) during the April 2000 elections. Withholding economic aid is an additional tool that should be persuasive, given the large amounts of money at stake and the great need for it. The challenge is for the international community to know when to use these tools and to what degree.
An example of the importance of magnitude is the High Representative’s dismissal of uncooperative elected officials. In coordination with OSCE sanctions, these officials have also been barred from holding public office. The High Representative once exercised this power with great caution, dismissing intransigent officials one at a time only after many warnings and months of patience. On 29 November 1999, he removed 22 officials at once in a sweeping move more in proportion to the scale of intransigence. Although politically risky given his limited enforcement ability, he made the correct calculation; the officials generally cooperated in giving up office. Even High Representative Carlos Westendorp’s most notorious removal, that of RS President Poplasen on 5 March 1999, appeared to have succeeded in that Poplasen was marginalized from the visible political theater, giving the international community the opportunity to cultivate the more pliable RS Prime Minister Dodik. The recent dismissal by the current High Representative of Croat Bosnian Presidency member Jelavic is therefore on the correct course.
The impact of removals is almost, by definition, limited because the ex-official can exercise influence behind the scenes. But the political advantage removals usually offer and the political message they send makes them a worthwhile tool for the interim, giving democratic elements a chance to grow. Recent U.S. and European diplomatic efforts in forging a coalition of ten moderate parties to rule the Federation is the logical complement to getting rid of undesirable hard-liners. Installing international officials with technical expertise in select positions is also a logical step for the interim. The success of the Central Bank, for example, is due in large part to the International Monetary Fund’s installation of an experienced foreigner as its governor. While the length of the interim may be long, it is certainly preferable to grappling with another war?a far more expensive and threatening problem that is likely to occur if the international community exits prematurely. In this sense, deeper intervention now is a cost-effective strategy.
The international community also must more comprehensively coordinate sanctions?namely, withholding aid?with clear linkage to local behavior. The coordination must include bilateral donors, such as the United States and Germany. The international community donates hundreds of millions of dollars each year, but that money comes from many sources so it is difficult to use it for influencing local official behavior. Instead, the aid bleeds away in a thousand little projects here and there. Bringing bilateral relations into basic strategies of the key multilateral organizations, such as OHR, OSCE, UNMIBH and other UN agencies is therefore critical for effective coordination of sanctions linked closely to local cooperation. Bilateral relations with regional players must also be built into the strategic architecture. Although Kostunica is no doubt a nationalist, he also wishes to rehabilitate the FRY and move it out of its long years of international isolation. His pragmatism can become a lever in managing the RS.
The most extreme interim tool available to the international community, the use of force by IFOR (previously SFOR), has thus far been used cautiously and for very limited operations. This prudence is appropriate, as deep structural change through the rule of law, not the use of force, must drive progress. One area, however, where more robust use of force should be supported is in the pursuit and arrest of war criminals. The fear has been that arresting the most significant war criminals would result in open battles against IFOR with catastrophic consequences. The trend to date, however, does not indicate this is likely. Although they have spouted angry threats, the Serbs have not taken any armed action in response to arrests such as that of Krajisnik. In addition, select use of force against nationalistic intelligence services should be encouraged, as it has not in the case of the Croats produced significant violent backlash against the international community. Indeed, all international sanctions have been ultimately accepted by the local population; threats were in reality just rhetoric and bluster. 18 This absorption further indicates that more robust action by the international community is the correct course. It also suggests that the international community should focus on further developing special units tailored for such limited circumstances to advance its wider strategy. The European Union’s Rapid Reaction Force is an obvious candidate for this role.
CONCLUSION
The relative power dynamics within Bosnia call for action by the international community to realign the forces at play. The international community must strike the balance of its involvement in favor of greater intervention for the short term through better management, not increased aid. Nationalists and organized crime must be weakened, while the state of Bosnia, as opposed to its entities, and the average individual citizen must be strengthened with rights that override ethnic considerations and allow for economic empowerment. International standards for the rule of law, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, should permeate the relationship between government and citizen and between citizens themselves. They are the key for Bosnia’s independence from international support in the long term. Communist-style structures must be dismantled in favor of democratic, free market ones that allow for the rise of a middle class. To realize the goals of Dayton, the international community must also focus more on sanctions, with far greater coordination and linkage to specific acts of local failure to cooperate. The strengthening of Bosnia is highly important for the stability of the region, which is currently poised for another round of warfare if this delicate situation is mishandled again.
Endnotes
1 Paul Watson, "Bosnian Vote a Setback for Democracy," Los Angeles Times, 14 November 2000, p. A10.
2 R. Jeffrey Smith, "West is tiring of Struggle to Rebuild Bosnia," Washington Post, 25 November 2000, p. A1.
3 Chris Hedges, "Leaders in Bosnia are Said to Steal $1 Billion," New York Times, 17 August 1999, p. 1.
4 Smith, "West is Tiring of Struggle to Rebuild Bosnia."
5 Extremist Croats contend that ‘Herceg Bosna’, which was a war-time ‘mini-state’ in Herzegovina, should be a separate Croat state.
6 The Dayton Agreement is the common name for the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was initialed on 21 November 1995 by the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
7 Steven Erlanger, "A Higher Threshold for U.S. Intervention Means Adjustments Abroad," New York Times, 18 December 2000, p. A20.
8 Graham M. Day, Senior Fellow, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C., telephone interview by the author, 17 March 2001.
9 European Stability Initiative (ESI), "Reshaping International Priorities in Bosnia and Hercegovina; Part One, Bosnian Power Structures," 14 October 1999, p. 5.
10 Day, telephone interview.
11 R. Jeffrey Smith, "Milosevic Probed Over Gold Exports," Washington Post, 1 March 2001, p. A15.
12 Carlotta Gall, "China’s Migrants Find Europe’s Open Back Door: The Balkans," New York Times, 22 August 2000, p. A1.
13 Article III(5a) states "Bosnia and Herzegovina shall assume responsibility...necessary to preserve the sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence, and international personality of Bosnia and Herzegovina..." In contrast, the Dayton Agreement does not stipulate ‘sovereignty’ for either entity, clearly subordinating them to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Dayton Agreement also does not assign any particular ethnicity to either entity. Instead, it calls for the entities to provide "a safe and secure environment for all persons in their respective jurisdictions..." (Article III (2c) emphasis added). This, of course, is necessary if the right of return for refugees and displaced persons stipulated in Article II(5) is to have any meaning.
14 R. Jeffrey Smith, "Outside Efforts Do Little to Mend Fractured Bosnia," Washington Post, 23 January 2000, p. A25.
15 R. Jeffrey Smith, "Yugoslavia Woos Allies to Control Kosovo," Washington Post, 17 December 2000, p. A45.
16 Brian O’Connell, Civil Society the Underpinnings of American Democracy, Hanover, NH. University Press of New England, 1999, pp. 10-13.
17 Unemployment is approaching 50 percent. Smith, "Outside Efforts Do Little to Mend Fractured Bosnia."
18 Day, telephone interview.