Josip Glaurdic responds to a review of his new book, ‘The Hour of Europe: Western Powers and the Breakup of Yugoslavia’, by David B. Kanin, whose own response is also presented below.
By Josip Glaurdic
The twentieth anniversary of Yugoslavia’s breakup came and went without nearly the attention it warranted in the West. Perhaps that is fitting for the crisis which was originally allowed to simmer and boil over by the neglect of the Western powers. My book, ‘The Hour of Europe: Western Powers and the Breakup of Yugoslavia (Yale University Press, 2011)’, was an attempt to change that trend of indifference, so I am particularly grateful to Prof. Kanin for “lending me a hand” with his thoughtful and knowledgeable review. I am also grateful for his praise, but – in the good tradition of review responses – I have decided to move straight to his substantive critique. After all, that is the best way we can build a constructive dialogue and learn from each other.
It would perhaps be most useful to begin with Prof. Kanin’s suggestion that my analysis lacks “an assessment of why whatever forces – whether military, liberal, or ideologically ‘Yugoslav’ – failed to coalesce as events spun downward.” This is a very good question, which we can answer only after answering two related questions – which (credible) forces are we talking about and when?
If we are talking about the period between the decision of Slobodan Milosevic to marry his brand of socialism with Serbian nationalism sometime in mid-1987 and the collapse of the League(s) of Communists and its/their various defeats at the polls in 1990 – then my book answers that question at least implicitly because it deals extensively with the only credible force that could have stopped Milosevic’s march: the League of Communists itself. The book, thus, discusses the reasons why the rest of the Communist elite failed to collectively respond to Milosevic’s ousting of Ivan Stambolic (they did not want to meddle in Serbia’s internal affairs and they thought Milosevic was just a grey, controllable bureaucrat); it explains why nothing was done once the rallies of the “anti-bureaucratic revolution” started in Serbia (again, because it would have been meddling in the internal affairs of Serbia, because all republican Communist elites used their own nationalisms for the purposes of mobilization, and ultimately because some of them – like the JNA and Macedonia, for example – actually agreed with Milosevic); it suggests a set of plausible explanations for why what was done was done once the “anti-bureaucratic revolution” started to spill over beyond the borders of Serbia (new and weak Communist leaderships in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, miscalculations and spinelessness on the federal level, etc.).
Ultimately, however, the main point is that the Yugoslav Communists were deeply divided over what really constituted a “Yugoslav” platform and, besides, they derived their legitimacy from within their republics. For, say, the Croatian Communist leaders of 1989 – who were all of clearly Yugoslavist orientation – to reach out to someone beyond the borders of their republic in order to build an anti-Milosevic coalition, they would have needed courage, enough likeminded partners, an institutional pathway to oust Milosevic, and real payoffs for such a move in the form of increased legitimacy of their rule. They had none of that. As my book demonstrates, their feeble – but still clearly Yugoslavist – response to Milosevic’s campaign was actually the reason for their electoral defeat.
If, on the other hand, Prof. Kanin’s question is referring to the period between the downfall of the League of Communists in early 1990 and the breakup of the country and war in the second half of 1991 – then the answer is slightly different, partly because we are dealing with different actors, and partly because of increased importance of international signals to the Yugoslav players. As my book argues, the only scenario for a possible survival of the Yugoslav state during this period was dependent on the success of the federal government of Ante Markovic, which commenced its program of shock therapy in December 1989, and the success of the plan for the Yugoslav confederation officially proposed by Slovenia and Croatia in the fall of 1990. Since Prof. Kanin devotes some attention to my treatment of both Markovic and the confederal proposal, it may be useful if I answer his aforementioned question by responding to his critique of how these two episodes were dealt with in my book.
Prof. Kanin suggests that I am minimizing the role Ante Markovic played during this period, that I am ignoring his popularity, devaluing the success of his reforms, and taking him to task for “joining Milosevic in condemning Slovene and Croat movements toward independence after the disastrous Congress of Yugoslavia’s League of Communists in January 1990.” However, none of those suggestions are correct. Ante Markovic gets an extensive treatment in my book, from his appointment in early 1989 and the creation of his economic program (pp. 61-66), to his failure to get Western support (pp. 67-69, 80-81, 121-122), his participation in the elections of 1990 (pp. 102, 115), or his role in the war in Slovenia (pp. 169-170, 173, 177-178, 191-192). I also explicitly mention the level of his popular support (p. 120, p. 344n3). And I treat his reforms fairly, in light of their actual success as measured by a variety of economic indicators (presented in Table 5.1 on p. 122) and in light of the response they garnered in the West. Interestingly, I am not the one who termed Markovic’s reforms “illusory”, as Prof. Kanin suggests. It was the CIA, whose National Intelligence Estimate from October 1990 (and which I quote on p. 109) claimed that the reform achievements of Markovic’s government were “mostly illusory”.
As far as taking Ante Markovic to task is concerned, I take Yugoslavia’s last prime minister to task for three things: for harbouring irrational hopes throughout the crisis that the West would bail him out (p. 68), for aiding and abetting the Yugoslavist wing of the JNA in the war in Slovenia, and for the obstructive role his government played in early Western diplomatic efforts during the war in Croatia (as, for example, in the efforts of the CSCE, p. 187). Those criticisms aside, however, I clearly acknowledge the federal prime minister as “the only political actor who presented a pan-Yugoslav alternative to Milosevic” at the turn of the decade and as someone who may have had a chance to neutralize the Serbian leader (p.69). The problem for Markovic, however – and here lies the answer to Prof. Kanin’s question of why pro-Yugoslav forces did not coalesce around the federal prime minister – is that his reforms were doomed to fail without real financial assistance from the West – assistance Markovic never received.
One could also take Ante Markovic to task – though I do not do that in my book – for failing to support the confederal proposal of Slovenia and Croatia, which was officially presented in October 1990. Prof. Kanin suggests that the confederal proposal was not a truly workable plan, but merely a “slogan” which fooled some Westerners. He also suggests that the Slovenes were not intent on reforming Yugoslavia into a confederation, but were only interested in keeping their money. Moreover, Prof. Kanin questions not only whether the Slovene Communist leadership was committed to the idea of a Yugoslav confederation, but also whether it was committed to the idea of liberal democratization, and he asserts I provide no evidence for such claims in my book.
It is certainly true that the bulk of national/nationalist mobilization in Slovenia in the late 1980s, which was condoned and even fostered by the republic’s Communist leadership, was centred on Ljubljana’s financial contributions to the federal budget. This is hardly surprising, considering the economic environment of extreme austerity akin, perhaps, to what Greece has to go through today. To say, however, that the Slovenes wanted to keep more of their money and that they were committed to the idea or reforming Yugoslavia along confederal lines is not mutually exclusive. On the contrary: the confederation was exactly the institutional device which was – among other things – to allow the Slovenes to keep more of their earnings at home. Whether the confederal proposal of October 1990 was practicable or, as Prof. Kanin suggests, “there is no evidence the Slovenes or anyone else actually considered how such a construction would work” is debatable. The proposal was modelled on the European Community and contained a number of different options which were ultimately to be agreed upon in peaceful negotiations of all six republics. The main point is that this platform for negotiations did not “fool” any Westerners, as Prof. Kanin suggests. As my book demonstrates, the confederal proposal was met with basically uniform derision and disregard from the West in late 1990 and early 1991 (pp. 123-124, 137). Only after the Belgrade protests of March 1991 and the violence in Croatia later that April and May, did the Western governments begin to signal their possible acceptance of a confederal reformation of Yugoslavia, but by that time it was too late. It is rather ironic that a number of provisions of the confederal plan found their way into the proposals of the Carrington Conference in the fall of 1991 – after thousands of dead and wounded, and several hundred thousand refugees in the war in Croatia. Had the confederal plan received Western backing and diplomatic involvement in the fall of 1990 when it needed it, it is entirely possible that war could have been avoided, and that some semblance of a common Yugoslav structure could have been preserved.
When it comes to the question of evidence of Slovenia’s commitment to liberal democracy and to Yugoslavia’s confederal future, I can only recommend that Prof. Kanin re-reads the relevant chapters of my book. Is the fact that the leaders of the Slovenian League of Communists took Mladina’s side in its clash with the JNA in 1988 (pp. 27-29) not evidence of their clear choice to defend that quintessentially liberal idea of the freedom of the press? Are the Slovenian constitutional amendments of 1989, which abandoned the Party’s leading role in society and extended the rights of Slovenian citizens in areas such as freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, right to privacy, and freedom for organized participation in politics (pp. 54-56), also not evidence of a commitment to a liberal-democratic transformation? Is the fact that the Slovenian state-run media and the still ruling League of Communists supported Markovic’s reform program in spite of, as the Ljubljana daily Delo put it, the federal prime minister’s “inability to resist the discreet charms of centralization” (p. 65), not evidence of Slovenia’s commitment to a common Yugoslav future? Is the official platform of the League of Communists of Slovenia for the Fourteenth Congress of the federal Party organization, which – in the words of Milan Kucan – was the platform “undoubtedly for Yugoslavia: a voluntary state of equal republics, free and equal nations, a democratic community of free citizens which measures its socialist content and existence by the criteria of a European quality of life… not a Yugoslavia as an extended Serbia to which – according to its wishes – others can be joined” (p. 70) – is this platform not evidence of a still-present commitment to Slovenia’s future in a reformed and democratized Yugoslavia? Are the proposals put forward by the Slovene delegation at the Fourteenth Congress, which included a series of human rights amendments such as the ban on political trials and torture, and which were defeated by Milosevic’s sizeable bloc in the Party (p. 71), not a sign of the commitment of Slovenia’s Communists to liberal democratization? Last, but not least, is the fact that Slovenia was the first republic to call and hold democratic elections, after which the ruling Communists peacefully surrendered their political offices, not evidence of a commitment to liberal democratization? Prof. Kanin is certainly correct in stating that the Slovenes used their financial upper hand in an attempt to negotiate a better deal with the federal centre and that they had used it for years. They were, however, hardly alone in employing such methods.
The case of Slovenian liberalization and democratization is a good introduction to my response to another important critique by Prof. Kanin – the one regarding my supposed inaccurate use of the term Realpolitik to describe the policies of the Western powers. Prof. Kanin uses the example of Bismarck and his ability to mould the European order according to Prussia’s interests to draw a distinction with the Western leaders of the 1980s and 1990s who were operating “in the thrall of inertia”. None of them, as Prof. Kanin argues, deserve the same label of Realpolitiker that belonged to a statesman such as Bismarck.
It is interesting that Prof. Kanin uses Bismarck’s example to challenge my use of the term Realpolitik, because it was exactly the old Chancellor who was often quoted by the Western anti-interventionists who argued – as he did a century earlier – that “The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” This quote indeed captures the essence of Western Realpolitik when it comes to the breakup of Yugoslavia. Political realism in international relations is primarily concerned with power (derived from military or economic capacity) and the pursuit of stability. It has no place for ethical or ideological concerns. So, what would the quintessential Realpolitiker have done, had he been in some position of power in the West and confronted with the Yugoslav crisis? Well, he would most likely have noted the dwindling importance of Yugoslavia in the European geopolitical system of the late 1980s and he would have wanted it to remain quiet in order to devote his attention to more pressing interests further up north. He would have had little understanding for the liberalization and democratization agenda of Yugoslavia’s north-western republics, or for the clamouring for human rights by the Kosovo Albanians. He would, on the other hand, most likely have supported those who claimed to be fighting for the country’s preservation and centralization, especially since they happened to be wielding the biggest stick.
As my book repeatedly demonstrates, that was exactly the policy pursued by the Western powers until real war broke out in the summer of 1991. Inertia did play a large role, as Prof. Kanin rightly points out, but it was not the only, or even the most important, factor explaining Western policy. To get back to the case of Slovenian liberalization and democratization – inertia alone obviously cannot explain the fact that the Yugoslav Army received Western signals of support for its possible (and contemplated) intervention in Slovenia at the peak of the Mladina affair in 1988 (p. 28-29), as well as during the crisis with the Slovenian constitutional amendments in 1989 (p. 60). Just as inertia alone could not explain a host of other Western policies toward Yugoslavia during the period covered in my book: from the lack of real Western condemnation of the violence against the Kosovo Albanians in early 1989 (with the notable exception of the US Congress) (pp. 39-42); to Cutileiro’s and Carrington’s blackmail of Alija Izetbegovic with the military might of Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs, and with the withholding of the international recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in March 1992 (pp. 294-300).
The important thing to note is that the foreign policy apparatuses of all Western powers – including Germany – subscribed to this rationale until real war broke out in the summer of 1991. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung may have been making a clear distinction between Yugoslavia’s “democratic northwest” and “Communist Belgrade” (as did a number of other press houses elsewhere in the West), but such distinctions did not have any real effect on Germany’s policy toward Yugoslavia. What changed Bonn’s outlook on the crisis were the extreme violence and the clear aggression, first of the JNA on Slovenia, and then of Serbia on Croatia. As I argue in the concluding chapter of my book (p. 307),
The nature and the aims of the Serbian aggression galvanized some of the most deeply ingrained principled ideas within the German foreign policy community: the idea of peaceful self-determination (which had been the basis for Germany’s reunification), the idea of strong anti-expansionism and anti-irredentism (which stemmed from Germany’s own World War II traumas), and the idea of a strong commitment to the growing capability of European multilateral institutions (which was the foundation of Germany’s post–World War II foreign policy). It was Milosevic’s challenge to these three principled ideas which shifted the spotlight of German foreign policy makers away from their material interests in the continuing existence of Yugoslavia – and if any country had real material interests in the perpetuation of the Yugoslav federation, it was Germany – to the moral interests of self-determination for Yugoslavia’s republics and Europe’s strong resistance to Serbia’s expansionism.
The point is that Germany’s policy shift cannot be, as Prof. Kanin does, viewed outside the context of the extreme violence which was unleashed on Croatia and was threatened to be unleashed on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Prof. Kanin’s suggestion that Germany pursued the policy of recognition of Slovenia and Croatia without consideration for what would happen for the rest of the federation is false. As my book shows, Germany had a clear preference for the recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Slovenia and Croatia, but was forced to take a back seat due to the intense criticism it was subjected to, primarily by Britain and France. Unsurprisingly, and unfortunately, the Western diplomatic, humanitarian, and military effort in Bosnia and Herzegovina thus reverted back to the very same mistakes which marred its inglorious beginnings in Slovenia and Croatia. Had my book been longer than the already lengthy 432 pages, and had it continued into the Bosnian war, the analysis would have not only shown Milosevic repeatedly hoodwinking the Westerners, as Prof. Kanin suggests. It would have shown a long record of ultimately unsuccessful Western struggles to shake off their impulses of Realpolitik and appeasement – impulses which culminated with what Prof. Kanin rightfully labels the needless mistake of Dayton.
Dr. Josip Glaurdic is Junior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge. He earned his PhD in Political Science in 2009 at Yale University.
An immediate response by David B. Kanin:
Josip,
Thank you very much for taking the time to consider my review and respond to it. I am just about to get on a plane to Istanbul and then other places, so I hope you will not be offended by this very quick response.
First, you mischaracterize just a bit my comments on your treatment of Ante Markovic. In fact, I believe you gave him the right amount of attention and only would quibble with minor points of what you say about him. In fact, I meant to use your appropriate consideration of his shortcomings and failures to take a shot at those who have built up a mythology that he was a would-be liberal alternative to Milosevic and the others who brought Yugoslavia down.
When it comes to Slovenia, the issue is not whether its leaders were sincere about a society more open than Milosevic’s Serbia. The issue is whether – even before Milosevic came to power – they were sincere in their commitment to maintaining Yugoslavia at all. I believe they were not – they knew no re-tinkered “confederation” would hold together and prepared the ground carefully and over time to get out. You believe otherwise – I look forward to more exchanges with you on this point. In my view, part of the problem here is – as I wrote in my review – your narrow focus (1987-1992) just does not cover enough ground to consider the context and follow-on impact of your spot-on assessment of Western disarray and contradictory policies.
As to Bismarck – I agree he knew little about the Balkans, which is why he kept his country out of the region and worried about the implications of how Russia and Austro-Hungary played out their rivalry in the region. I must confess a little disappointment that your comments focused on Bismarck more than my critique of your treatment of Genscher and German policy in 1990-2.
On the later issue, I agree with you entirely that Germany’s policy shift cannot be considered separately from the context of the violence unleashed on Croatia (but not just Croatia). I disagree with your book’s contention that the Germans put the same priority on Bosnia’s independence as on Croatia’s – if that were the case they would not have been ready to drop the issue in reaction to the chaos in the policies of other Europeans until the Americans belatedly stepped in.
These are details, albeit not all minor ones. I want to stress again how valuable I believe your book is – I very much look forward to learning from the fruits of your future research. If I can ever be of any assistance to you, please let me know.
David B. Kanin is an adjunct professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University and a former senior intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Smart article. This guy knows his stuff. Republika Srpska should be given its autonomy so the region can move on. It appears the Serbs are the only people in the Balkans who have been denied self determination. Its time for the West to end this hypocrisy.
This must be the most balanced and articulate assessment of the reality in Bosnia today that has ever been written. I am not joking.
To say the Serb concerns must be considered and heard and not dismissed, is not how the Western press and academics view the situation in Bosnia.
Yet Zellman very correctly focuses on the root issues here. That the Serbs, who make up almost 40% of the population of Bosnia, demand their rights, as guaranteed by the Dayton Accords, to preserve their autonomy.
They fought and died to protect their very culture and ethnic identity as Serbs and collectively carry a debt to those who sacrificed so much to defend them.
That latter comment I know is complete anathema to the West and the average Bosniak after years of media demonization.
But to the Serbs it’s a universal truth which cannot be ignored. And as the author correctly states, cannot be further ignored by the West.
It’s refreshing to see an impartial analysis of Bosnia’s political/ existential issues free of any finger pointing. Dr.Sellman, perhaps you could get in touch with Daniel Serwer and give him a few pointers. It seems as though “blame the Serbs” has become an all too common conclusion when trying o make sense of the ethno-political mess that is Bosnia, hence dismantling any further political discussion.
I am responding to this article on the assumption that Dodik’s announcement of a postponement is the end of the referendum matter for the time being, although I have seen reports that Inzko might not find a simple postponement satisfactory. Either way, I am not sure that many serious observers of BiH politics would view the whole thing in terms of win and loss.
The writer presents the standoff and what underlies it as some sort of dispute between the Bosniaks, supported by the OHR, and RS. While this is in some degree true, it should be said that the OHR – which many in Europe would like to see abolished as much as Dodik would – is acting in a way that would bring BiH into line with what would be required from a unitary state capable of joining the EU. The writer omits to mention the reasons put forward by RS for the referendum, that there is a perceived bias against Serbs – a phenomenon which long pre-dates the OHR – specifically in terms of prosecutions for war crimes. To present this as an attempt to weaken the role of the OHR in Bosnian jurisprudence is over-simplification. Similarly, it might have been worth mentioning, at least in passing, the suggestions which regularly surface that Dodik might have personal reasons for wishing to fend off a more centralized state. Whatever the validity of these ‘reasons’, they need to be dealt with rather than viewing the standoff in this rather straightforward fashion.
One might be led by this article to the conclusion that there is a constant contest between the OHR (as proxy for ‘Sarajevo’, the Federation, the Bosniaks or whatever) and RS. There have been various occasions when Dodik (in particular) has tested how far he can push the boundaries of his authority but the number of times the OHR has invoked its powers has been rather limited. The idea that Dodik “cannot be faulted for his desire to alter the institutional status quo” is open to serious question. If his desire is to see the back of the Dayton provisions – where nobody could have predicted the present situation – few would argue. Most people would suggest that BiH moving towards EU membership is likely to be the best hope for peace and prosperity in both entities. This undoubtedly means a more centrally functional state and compromise on the degree of independence of the entities. If Dodik cannot be faulted on anything else, he can be on whether his actions are constructive in terms of his people’s future.
And since the article is concerned with leverage, there is one further aspect of Dodik’s actions which constantly escapes attention. If RS wants to maintain a greater degree of independence or alter its position in terms of BiH, it needs to act before Serbia moves closer to EU membership. Leverage decreases as progress towards accession continues.
Arthur, Michael, and Mark, thank you for your kind words.
George, to address a few of your points.
First of all, I do agree; viewing the postponement or cancelling of the referendum as a simple win or loss is too simplistic. What I meant, or at least should have been more explicit in stating, was that the outcome does not mean that the very proposal of the referendum has not had an effect on the political status quo. Insofar as Inzko’s agenda (and I choose this word in its least insidious meaning) is to preserve the status quo, I do not believe that this has been successful. Whether the challenge to the status quo will lead to a positive or negative end result is still up in the air.
As for the issue of perceived bias, I actually addressed this in an earlier piece I wrote on my own site: http://arielzellman.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/the-politics-of-referendum-republika-srpska/. As the article that appears here on transconflict also appeared on my site, I was trying to avoid repetition, not dodge the specifically expressed reasons the referendum was proposed.
Regarding Dodik’s more personal motivations, I think that you are also at least partially correct. In this regard, you may find an article by Charles King published in World Politics in 2001 to be particularly instructive: “The Benefits of Ethnic War.” Despite the rather bombastic title, his primary argument is that leaders of unrecognized states have an interest in perpetuating the uncertain status of their territories/quasi-states as it bolsters their personal authority versus contenders from whichever state they are seceding and may allow them to accrue economic benefits they would not otherwise in a regulated market. In short, Dodik may very well have a vested interest in preserving his autonomous authority because it also preserves his authority and position at the top of the Republika Srpska “food chain.” However, there is no reason that this approach cannot be complementary with one which demands (or appears to demand) a more “democratic” approach to governance of BiH.
Of course, there is always much more that can be said, but I will cut it off here in the interest of time and space. Truly, thank you for your input.
I am not sure what political status quo Inzko is trying to maintain. If this status quo is a state with a functional centre compatible with EU membership, he has little choice – although this is more like work in progress than status quo. It is hard to believe that he is trying to maintain the present political and governmental structure which he and everyone else knows is completely dysfunctional. It seems to me that his problem is not so much maintaining a status quo as having to deal with a situation where there is no consensus on how best to move forward – political stagnation with no encouragement for those who might wish to be constructive.
Dodik’s call for a referendum has indeed had an effect, irrespective of whether such a referendum ever takes place. However, the basis for the referendum – the secession option might be preferable but Inzko’s certain reaction is a little too final and predictable – seems to me unlikely to win too many hearts and minds beyond those already won over.
You write that “The image of a multiethnic Bosnia which is devoid of particularistic institutions and without conflicting nationalist interests is unachievable without meaningful domestic reconciliation.”
In my opinion we should make here a distinction between friendship and respect:
– Thousands in Bosnia have lost friends and family and thousands of others have risked their life for their ethnic group. No matter how much reconciliation we will achieve there will always be a lot of those people who keep grudges. I think that people who claim that it is possible to have a reconcilion where everyone is happy are selling snake oil. That is impossible.
– What is much more important is respect: the readiness to treat each other as equals. Read Serb accounts about why the war was started and it is about not being treated as equals by the Muslims at the time of independence. Recent Croat complaints are quite similar. The Serb entity serves as a symbol of equality. Serbs will only accept its abolition when they feel that there is no longer a need for such an entity as they are treated as equals in the whole of Bosnia.
In my opinion the West has chosen the wrong strategy in Bonsia. It should have embraced the Serb entity and given the Croats one too. Not as a first step towards partition but as a symbol that all groups are equal in Bosnia. From there they should have worked to achieve a situation where such equality is achieved with other means.
Very insightful and refreshingly impartial article. It is a matter of historical irony that the Serbs have now begun to insist on the letter of the Dayton Agreement, when it was in fact the Serbs that were its biggest opponents at the time it was signed. The Croats want their own federal entity similar to Republika Srpska. This cannot happen for one simple reason – they lost their military campaign. In 1993 they launched an offensive against the Muslims and were defeated. Tudjman managed to broker a deal for them in 1994 through the Washington Agreement and they must now live with the current Federation where they are the minority. It is about as realistic for them to get their own entity as it is for the Serbs to get their own political autonomy in Croatia which was on the table pre-operation Storm. Wars have a way of mercilessly and irrevocably altering political calculations.
As for the Muslims, they clearly have not learned their lesson either. Although secessionist tendencies were undoubtedly present among the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia in 1992, the Muslims rejected the Carrington-Cutileiro plan which would have given the Muslims a more centralized Bosnia than today’s arrangement under Dayton, and most importantly the war would have been prevented. Instead, 100,000+ people lost their lives, millions lost their homes, and they got a worse deal. And 16 years later, they continue to hope for a more centralist deal, except instead of using force of arms, they intend to force it through international overseers.
Muslims have to understand that the majority of Bosnian citizens (the Serbs and the Croats together) accept Bosnia as a compromise. They would prefer to be part of Serbia or Croatia but they don’t want bloodshed. If the Muslims continue to insist on unbalancing that compromise contained in the Dayton Agreement, all the King’s horses and all the King’s men won’t put Bosnia back together again. Surely someone in the West has to see that encouraging the Muslims to act on these unitarist tendencies will lead to war.
Reply to Jovan Ivosevic
Bosniaks do not want a completely centralist state – they realize that something like that is impossible. But they want, and have a right to demand, a governance framework that binds both entities in functional (based on compromise) central institutions that can further the country’s goals of joining NATO and the EU. Unless this is achieved no Bosniak can really feel safe living inside the Republika Srpska after the atrocities of the 1992-1995 war.
Damir:
I see no evidence that Muslims in Bosnia realize the impossibility of a centralized state. When Bosnian Muslim politicians refer to the Bosnian Serb republic as a “genocidal creation” and call for its abolishment, it is a stretch to suggest that they want a federal state.
The West has given Muslim politicians in Sarajevo political cover to seek centralization under the guise of furthering euro-atlantic integration. As you know today’s Bosnia is far more centralized than the one which was envisioned by the post-War agreement. The centralization has come largely from the office of the high representative which is basically there to implement the west’s agenda for that country, is not an elected institution and does not answer to anyone in Bosnia, but instead to Washington, London and Brussels.
However, Serbian politicians led by Milorad Dodik have made it clear that this top-down centralization approach has its limit and threatened a referendum, and it appears that the West has backed off. For this reason Mr. Dodik is loved among Bosnia’s Serbs and hated among its Muslims. Be that as it may, there is simply no consensus among the country’s three constituent people’s whether further centralization is worth joining the EU or NATO. I think that on the Serbian side you will find a diametrically different answer than on the Muslim side, which is no surprise.
Is this a ploy by the Bosnian Serb leadership to paralyze Bosnia? More than likely yes. Is this a recipe that has been successfully implemented by minorities like the Slovenes and Croats in the old Yugoslavia when the 1974 Constitution gave them the power to do so? Or the recipe implemented by Montenegrin leaders to break its state union with Serbia under the powers of the Belgrade Agreement in 2003? Most definitely Yes. The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, the 2003 Serbian and Montenegro Constitution and the 1996 Dayton Agreement which provided Bosnia’s post war framework all have one thing in common – they are instruments designed to keep people who don’t want to live together temporarily there in order to prevent a war. The Serbs of the 1980s were in denial about that and the result of that denial was Slobodan Milosevic. On the other hand, by 2006 they had no illusions about Montenegro leaving and the result was a peaceful and stable transition. The Muslims of Bosnia should look at those examples to see what the consequences are of them attempting to hold a Bosnian state by force or simply accepting the reality that exists.
The reality I am referring to has been decided by force of arms everywhere in Yugoslavia. The Serbs lost in Croatia but were given the right to remain in eastern slavonia because the Croatian Army did not and could not overrun this pocket so close to the Serbian border. The Croats lost to the Muslims in Central Bosnia and to the Serbs in Posavina which is why if they do a census of Bosnia one of these days, they will find that Bosnia’s Croats are probably half in number that they were before the war. Many have moved to Croatia or elsewhere because they don’t want to live in a state dominated by Muslims in Herzegovina and by Serbs in Posavina.
Meanwhile, the Albanians won part of Serbia (Kosovo, but not Presevo Valley) and the Serbs won part of Bosnia (today’s Republika Srpska) but both groups for political reasons were not given their independence immediately but instead tied into institutional arrangements which reduced that goal to a long and drawn out process. Albanians are presently on better terms with the West than the Bosnian Serbs, which is why their process is moving faster. Don’t mistake the process in Banja Luka being slower for the absence of such a process.
As for people and refugees returning, it is a wonderful and completely unrealistic sentiment. Not for the Balkans only, but for the whole world. Anywhere where there has been a conflict of this type, that lasted years and cost as many lives as it did in Bosnia, people will not and cannot live together anymore. It’s truly a credit that at least some refugees have been repatriated. But the notion that all the Muslims can go back to eastern Bosnia which is today Serbian territory, or that Serbs will return in full numbers to Sarajevo or Grahovo, Glamoc and Mostar, that’s simply fantasy and we both know it.
This is not a reality I like. I would have preferred a much different solution. Yugoslav politicians proved in 1939 they can resolve questions of national identity on their own and without bloodshed, and but for communist doctrine, they may have been able to find solutions to those new ethnic problems which were created by Nazi Germany after World War 2. But Tito believed that he could give every ethnic group their own demand by making Yugoslav republics fully sovereign, and then control them through the “democratic centralism” principles in the Yugoslav League of Communists., which were standard for communist societies everywhere. Seems to have been a flaw in the plan, as it was in the USSR.
We could have come up with a more realistic solution then, but we didn’t. All we can do is come up with a more realistic solution now, or be in denial, cause further tragedies and leave future generations to recognize reality after more bloodshed. As a Serb from Serbia, I realize how much simpler our politics are without the Montenegrins and Kosovo Albanians sitting in our Parliament, and how we can deal with non-ethnic issues in Belgrade far more effectively. I hope that one day the Muslims in Bosnia will realize that the only way to have an effective state is to have one which consists of people who actually want to be a part of it. I realize this is a painful realization. In Serbia, people still haven’t accepted the fact that Kosovo will never be a part of Serbia, although this is slowly changing. But this painful process will in the long run be a good thing. The sooner the same process begins in Sarajevo, the sooner it will be over and everyone can escape the ghosts of the 1990s.