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My Bosnian daydream

Like many of the Bosnians quoted by Reuters, I’ve got mixed feelings about the ferocious protests of the past few days.  The violence and destruction are deplorable.  The resentment and demand for change understandable.  The country has seen little economic, political or social progress for more or less a decade.

Bosnia is stuck in an institutional morass created at the Dayton peace talks that ended the war in 1995 but failed to provide functional governance.  My colleague at SAIS Ed Joseph thinks the US and EU should make another push at internal reforms in exchange for acceleration of Bosnia’s EU candidacy.  I agree that is a good idea.  And as he suggests, there are constitutional proposals left over from past efforts that are worth reviving, revising and returning to parliament for approval.

But little will change unless Bosnians decide it has to. Peaceful continuation of the protests is one way to signal the desire for change.  Peaceful protests have a much better chance of mobilizing large numbers of people across ethnic lines than the violence of the past few days, which frightens Bosnians concerned with anything that might return the country to war.  Minorities in particular worry that the protests may take an ethnic turn.  Even peaceful demonstrations unnerve older Bosnians, who may remember that the war started with one.

Another opportunity comes in next fall’s presidential and parliamentary elections.  By then, the Dayton constitution will have kept Bosnia enchained in a strait jacket of ethnically-based parties for almost twenty years.  The Americans and Europeans would do well to abandon their usual refrain, “we support the process, not any particular candidates.”  They need to support those who are ready to cross ethnic lines to find allies willing to advocate constitutional change that will enable more effective governance consonant with EU requirements.  Otherwise, the ethnic nationalists may well succeed once again, electing people who advocate an entirely different kind of constitutional change, including independence for Republika Srpska and a third, Croat entity.

These two ideas are the zombies of the Bosnian war.  They never seem to die.  Here is my wooden stake:  both notions would lead to a three-way partition of Bosnia, with one of the emerging entities a land-locked, non-viable Islamic republic ripe for radicalization and seething with irredentist ambitions.  It is hard for me to picture a worse neighbor for Belgrade and Zagreb, or a less welcome development from the US and EU perspective.

Fortunately, the idea of a Bosnian Islamic republic isn’t very attractive to most Bosnian Muslims either.  The more common and deeply rooted Bosniak attitude is support for a unified secular state on the whole territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with minority protection primarily based on respect for individual (rather than group) human rights and the rule of law.  But the Bosniak political leadership has failed to find sufficient Croat and Serb allies to give that vision the votes it needs in parliament, partly because it is so much easier to fish for votes with the bait of Bosniak nationalism.

This is the bad habit Bosnians need to break:  the slide back to identity politics because the Dayton political system and long habit make it so much easier to garner votes that way.  Someone has to emerge with the capacity to transcend ethnic nationalism and speak effectively for the genuine Bosnian aspirations that put people into the streets this week:  jobs, equality, good governance and a European future.  When that happens, there will be a rush to cross-ethnic coalitions, because it will be the only way to compete effectively.  So far, only Željko Komšić, the Croat member of the presidency, has succeeded at this, which is why he comes in for so much approbation from the nationalists.

Am I day dreaming?  Yes.  But sometimes daydreams come true.

It is only a matter of time

Edita Tahiri, the main “technical”-level negotiator on behalf of Pristina with Belgrade and now in charge of implementation of the agreements reached, has issued a report on implementation of the Brussels Agreements that is well worth reading, especially as I need to moderate an event Friday with Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Petrovic and Foreign Minister Hoxhaj on the subject.  While definitively written from a Pristina perspective, the report does an admirable job of maintaining a relatively neutral tone, including by citing various Belgrade positions on the issues.

The main lacunae in implementation that Edita underlines are

1. Continued existence of Serb civil protection forces in northern Kosovo;
2. Failure to integrate Serb judges and prosecutors into the Kosovo judicial system.

There are many other complaints in the report about this delay or that misinterpretation, and I have no doubt a comparable Serbian report (I don’t know of one, but will gladly receive and post it if someone has it) would include many complaints as well.

But the complaints do not negate the main point:  real progress is being made in reintegrating the Serb-majority north with the rest of Kosovo, progress that would have seemed impossible even a few months ago.  The progress is not only, or perhaps not primarily, in inter-ethnic relations, which remain tense.  But it is impossible to read Edita’s report without recognizing that the Kosovo institutions really do now exist:  courts, parliament, police, customs, cadastre, civil registry, etc.  There has been enormous advance of institionalization in Kosovo, even if the state remains a work in progress and leaves much to be desired in terms of efficiency and incorruptibility.

By the same token, there has been enormous progress also in Serb behavior and attitudes.  The protests that once dogged integration of the north are attenuating.  Belgrade deserves a lot of credit for that:  Deputy Prime Minister Vucic and Prime Minister Dacic have chosen to favor Serbia’s own European Union ambitions over an empty claim to Kosovo, which two-thirds of Serbia’s citizens already thought specious even before the Brussels agreements were reached.  Belgrade’s focus now seems mainly on maintaining and expanding its own influence over the Serbs in Kosovo, which can be used either for or against establishment of Pristina’s authority but will not change the simple fact that Kosovo is independent.  And the EU should want to make sure that Belgrade’s influence is used in the right way.

As I’m sure Edita would agree, the task is not fundamentally a technical one.  The real issue in this process is legitimate authority.  Pristina has been wise to recognize that the north could not be forced into integration with the rest of Kosovo, to allow for transitional arrangements, and to devolve many responsibilities to local (therefore mostly Serb) authorities.  None of this will hurt the Kosovo state if Serb citizens in the north accept its legitimacy.

But Kosovo is not yet fully sovereign, as it still relies on the NATO-led KFOR military forces to protect its territorial integrity and on EULEX, the EU rule of law mission, for some judicial functions.  Neither mission will still be around in its current form five years from now, so it is time that Kosovo begins to plan for their drawdown.

A US-led security study to be unveiled soon will lay out the parameters for Kosovo’s military forces.  Unless Belgrade decides to recognize Kosovo and establish diplomatic relations with it, the threat of a Serbian military incursion will have to be taken seriously and the security forces sized and equipped accordingly.  Kosovo will require some combination of its own forces and NATO guarantees to respond.  Ensuring that the necessary arrangements are in place five years hence will require fixing the formula soon.  Now that NATO has certified Kosovo’s existing security force as fully operational, the process of arming and equipping them appropriately should start with Kosovo entry into NATO’s Partnership for Peace and end eventually in NATO membership.

EULEX is a more complicated question.  While the Kosovo judicial system has dealt with many difficult issues–including two constitutional questions regarding the presidency–I don’t know anyone who thinks it is yet up to the admittedly challenging task of trying war crimes or high-level corruption cases.  It is not alone in the Balkans in those respects, but the number and complexity of the war crimes is extraordinary.  Corruption cases are also particularly difficult in a small country where everyone knows everyone else and witness protection is difficult.  Would it have been possible for a Kosovo court without international participation to hold a prominent Serb like Oliver Ivanovic in pre-trial detention without causing major disturbances?  Would it have been possible to bring a corruption case against Kosovo judges?

So establishing legitimate authority in the judicial sector may still take time.  Better to get it right than to rush the process.  The right approach might be to incorporate EULEX into the Kosovo justice system, reducing its role as a separate mission but maintaining the international judges and prosecutors it provides.  Another important step will be entry of Kosovo into the Council of Europe, enabling its citizens to avail themselves of remedies in the European Court of Human Rights.

Establishing legitimate authority is a long and difficult process.  But Belgrade and Pristina are on the right path and clearly moving ahead.  If that continues, it is only a matter of time before they put things right.