Over at Teekay’s

Putting Dayton to Bed
by Mirna Skrbic and T.K. Vogel
29 September 2006
TRANSITIONS ONLINE

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina | A few impatient Bosnian youths could not wait until the general election of 1 October to express their feelings about the country’s institutions. Just days before the vote, they splashed the presidency building in downtown Sarajevo with paint balloons, in colors that stood for Bosnia’s three “constituent peoples” as well as the group of “others,” which is not represented in Bosnia’s three-member presidency.

The heavy-handed reaction by policemen guarding the building sparked protests in the city. The public seemed to be mostly sympathetic to the pranksters as the presidency commands little respect. But will they vote accordingly in Sunday’s poll?

Read the whole thing here.

In Bosnia, War by Other Means
By T. K. VOGEL
September 29, 2006
WALL STREET JOURNAL

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — “I’m not anti-Serb,” Slobodan Popovic said. “I’m just trying to be a normal Serb.”

The difference is important to Mr. Popovic. He’s a senior lawmaker in the parliament of the Serb Republic, one of Bosnia’s two “entities” that were put under a very thin federal roof by the 1995 Dayton peace accords. His Social Democrats are Bosnia’s only truly multiethnic, countrywide opposition. In Sunday’s elections, they are campaigning against a Serb Republic government that nominally is from the same camp — fellow members of the Socialist International. But Prime Minister Milorad Dodik’s specialty is to play the ethnic card. “Dodik aspires to lead all Serbs, not just in Bosnia,” Mr. Popovic said, with just a bit of hyperbole. “It reminds me of the way Milosevic took power, by projecting the image of someone who can solve all problems,” he told me at a pit stop outside the Serb Republic capital Banja Luka in between campaign appearances.

Read the whole thing here.

Update: The piece iss now behind a subscription firewall. Sorry!

The UN population agency’s report State of World Population 2006 focuses on an issue that is often missing in the debate on ‘brain drain,’ namely the enormous contribution of remittances from migrants to development back home. (The overall theme of the report is the far sexier “women and international migration,” with such mind-blowing revelations as the fact that almost half of all international migrants today are women.)

In 2005, remittances — funds sent by migrants to their country of origin — rang in at an estimated US$232 billion. With US$167 billion of the total going to developing countries, remittances are considerably larger than official development assistance (ODA) and are the second-largest source of external funding for developing countries after foreign direct investment (FDI). Experts consider the actual amount to be much higher, since these estimates do not take into account funds transferred through informal channels.

This is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine, so bear with me. I’ve been telling people back in Bosnia for years that an overeducated Bosnian working on a German bauštela contributes more to his country’s development than an overeducated Bosnian sitting all day long at Karabit being smart and looking cool (though the four packs he’ll get through that day do help the government budget). UNFPA even has some numbers:

Remittances in Europe contribute 0.5 per cent of the total GDP in the entire region. In certain countries, however, they are much more substantial: 27.1 per cent for the Republic of Moldova; 23.1 per cent for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 18 per cent for Serbia and Montenegro.

Substantial I’d say, especially considering that once again, these numbers only include money transferred through banks or similar institutions, not through the bus driver or the relative.

Of course, exporting (mostly manual) laborers cannot be a development plan for a country like Bosnia and Serbia. But perhaps figures like those in the UNFPA report will make people think twice before they equate emigration with selfishness and staying — or returning — home with patriotism.

In an article in today’s TCSDaily I talk about the way in which the new war-crimes tapes coming out of Bosnia have provided yet another opportunity for Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks to roll out their stereotypes and prejudices.

In light of the generic, if awful, nature of the pictures, it was perhaps to be expected that they did not prompt a reassessment of well-rehearsed claims and counter-claims. Pundits and politicians on all sides took the footage as proof that they had been right all along in their interpretation of the war and the crimes it had brought.

While I hope that all of this evidence will eventually come to light, I do think that such atrocity tapes add rather little to our understanding of what happened.

It’s just two bloody hot, I’m racing to finish up my book on “ethnic cleansing,” and I have a whole bunch of other things to take care of. I did manage to write a quick update on the worrying situation in Bosnia over on East Ethnia, however.

No sooner had I posted a little item over at East Ethnia talking about the curious fact that both Peter Handke and Noam Chomsky, people who professionally deal with words, manage to tie themselves in knots every time they actually use same, than Diana Johnstone rushed to Handke’s defense since he is so evidently incapable of making his case himself.

Let me cut straight to the heart of the matter.

After criticizing the natural tendency of “every community involved in a civil war to see itself as pure victims” and the West’s echoing of the “charge that the Muslims of Bosnia were the target of a deliberate project of ‘genocide,’ because this justifies their illegal 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia,” she goes on:

It would be more helpful to point out that wars lead to massacres, and that evacuating women and children to safety (as the Serb forces did when they captured Srebrenica) is not a usual feature of what most people understand by “genocide.” There have long been indications of Serb willingness to admit guilt for whatever really happened at Srebrenica, but only for what really happened, and in return for recognition that atrocities of the same sort were committed on all sides. If the desire for revenge (against earlier massacres of Serb villagers by Muslim forces based in Srebrenica) spurred the massacres at Srebrenica, revenge now also motivates the insistence of the Bosnian Muslim party on branding the Serbs as “genocidal.” Muslim leaders in Bosnia hope it will enable them to force Serbia to pay billions of dollars of reparations — a prospect which would be about as helpful in promoting peace as the reparations imposed on Germany after World War I, which led to the Nazi victory.

Srebrenica was a “massacre” (the quotation marks are mine, of course) and it cannot have been a genocide since the Serbs also expelled women and children. (That’s a line of argument Handke also uses, by the way.) Atrocities “of the same sort” were committed “on all sides.” Attempts by “the Bosnian Muslim party” to “brand” the Serbs as genocidal (perhaps this is a reference to the genocide lawsuit before the ICJ) is “revenge.” And finally, the Serbs’ trump card whenever the going gets tough, insisting on Serbian responsibility would lead to the emergence of fascism in Serbia. (I’ll admit that that’s my interpretation of the last sentence in the quoted paragraph, but I don’t think I’m reading too much into it. Just comforting to know that Johnstone agrees that the SRS are Nazis.)

At least nobody can accuse her of obfuscation.

Just because you don’t see it, it doesn’t mean nothing’s happening…

NATO commander in Bosnia Gen. Louis Weber responding to accusations by Carla Del Ponte, the UN’s war crimes prosecutor for former Yugoslavia, that the alliance wasn’t doing enough to capture Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, according to Reuters.

Sarajevo, model city

Originally uploaded by teekay.

You know those miniature models of towns or landscapes? It’s very easy to achieve the same effect on photographs of real landscapes using a technique outlined here.
That’s the only way to turn Sarajevo into a model city.

…for many people in Podgorica, Europe’s youngest capital city, though not everyone will be happy. According to Montenegrin TV, reporting one hour after the polls closed, the yes camp pulled off just under two percentage points more than the 55 percent needed for the independence referendum to succeed.

Head over to East Ethnia to check out why I think the European Commission has done the right thing by giving Romania and especially Bulgaria a few more months to shape up, something that (judging by the reactions there) is well understood in Sofia and Bucharest but less well by Western experts.

Sorry, folks, to all of you who kept checking back only to be disappointed. I haven’t been lazy, just lazy with the blog — and I guess I still am, or else I wouldn’t just give you a list with stuff I’ve written in the meantime, but here it is anyway:

“Balkan Growing Pains: EU hopefuls Bulgaria and Romania have some work to do,” TCS Daily, May 18, 2006

“Gunned Down in Sofia,” Wall Street Journal (Europe), May 15, 2006 (no link, for subscribers only)

“Another Nation-State? Why should Kosovo gain independence, even against the wishes of its Serbian minority, while the same may be denied to Montenegro?” TCS Daily, May 2, 2006

“Constitutional Reform Falters: Bosnia’s parliament rejects constitutional amendments in a major blow to internationally-supervised reform,” Transitions Online, April 27, 2006 (with Mirna Skrbic)

I hope to write more in the coming days. If not, I’ll promise to post pictures from Istanbul — my favorite city in Europe — where I’ll be going with Mrs. Teekay next Thursday.

Bosnian lawmakers tonight delivered a stunning blow to the country’s main parties by failing to endorse constitutional amendments by the required two-thirds majority. 26 deputies voted in favor, 16 against, mostly the now dominant HDZ splinter group “HDZ 1990″ but also deputies from the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) Party for BiH and apparently at least one member of the Bosniak SDA.

It will be interesting to see what course those who rejected the amendments because they didn’t go far enough will now recommend. If modest reform cannot happen, why would radical reform fare any better?

It will also be interesting to see the reaction of those who claim Bosnia’s political establishment is fully capable of governing the country without outside pressure. This appeared hardly like a demonstration of “local ownership,” at least not in any meaningful way.

April 25th was supposed to be an historic day for Bosnia: for the first time, the country’s constitution, which it had acquired through the Dayton peace agreement, was to be overhauled. (The current constitution was drafted in English, and no one ever bothered to produce an official translation into Bosnian.)

Some, like the editors of Transitions Online, argue believe that the proposed amendments, though “modest to the point of being uninspiring,” are a “positive development” and that “it is hard to come up with any legitimate reason why anyone should be opposed.” But opposition was strong enough for the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) Party of Democratic Action to propose, in the wee hours of this morning, to adjourn the session (which had lasted from 10am to 1:40am) until later today so they can try to get sufficient support.

What went wrong?

The people who initiated the process of constitutional amendments, based at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, have been criticized for expending valuable political capital on an issue that ultimately just isn’t that serious. Indeed, the Dayton constitution did not create the division of Bosnia — Bosnians did — nor would it necessarily have to be a brake on development, as the creation of several new ministries and the delegation of authority from the entities to the central government have shown in the past. There’s some truth to the accusation, then, but I would still maintain that it was worth trying.

However, should the demagogues, led by Haris Silajdzic, prevail and the amendments be voted down, this would send a very bad signal indeed, not least to the EU which is worried that Bosnia’s cumbersome structures of governance can simply not deal with the demands of EU integration. Silajdzic opposes the amendments because they don’t go far enough and abolish the entity structure (read: Republika Srpska). By voting no, he will ensure that no change, as modest as it may be, will take place for years to come.

Expect the cajoling and bribing to continue through the day. A vote should take place sometime this evening.

I pointed out in a piece on TCSDaily (formerly TechCentralStation) last Friday that the EU needed to stay tough with Serbia on the war crimes issue or else it would lose the little respect it still had:

It would be a shame if the EU, for the umpteenth time, fell for the tired old threat — rolled out with great gusto by Draskovic himself — that the Radicals would take over if the government were pushed too hard on the war crimes issue. Pushing is needed, and if a fall follows, perhaps it will finally drive home the simple truth so many Europeans don’t want to see: as long as Kostunica and his allies remain in power, the old dictator will not really have been buried.

Imagine my dismay when I read in the Trib, over a lovely breakfast at the Bar Internazionale in Positano Sunday, the following:

The European Union on Friday extended a deadline by one month - until April 30 - for Serbia to hand over the war crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague after the UN’s chief war crimes prosecutor told EU officials that Belgrade was making progress in hunting him down.
International Herald Tribune, 1 April 2006

There are times when it is better to be far away from everything (and I can recommend Positano for that purpose, at least before the tourist madness sets in shortly before Easter). It certainly helped my blood pressure.

It’s a funny thing, the diffusion of ideas.

This time we really mean it
headline, Over at Teekay’s, February 27, 2006

This Time We’re Serious
headline, Transitions Online, February 27, 2006

What gives?

The EU never ceases to amaze me, but I don’t mean that as a compliment.

Last week, the Serbian government (via a crappy little TV station in Bosnia’s “Serb Republic”) launched a trial balloon to see whether it could get away with arresting Ratko Mladic. (Speculation, to be sure, but as good as any.) Nothing happened — no unrest, no outcry, no demos, nothing. (There was a small demo in Belgrade that had been scheduled long in advance to mark the third anniversary of Seselj’s departure for The Hague, and where people also called on Mladic to kill himself rather than to surrender.) The government felt it had to act before a crucial meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, or else they might suspend association talks with Serbia. Recent polls indicate that Serbs are cool with the government arresting Mladic but that they wouldn’t like any delay in getting to Europe.

Months of pressure seemed to finally have brought the Kostunica government to the point where it felt it had to act and get rid of the butcher and coward who was holding an entire country hostage. (Warning: rampant editorializing.) The government feared that the ongoing talks on a stabilization and association agreement (SAA) could be suspended, which would set the country back several months, possibly years, and send a bad signal to foreign investors.

While it might not be such a great idea for the Austrians, who currently hold the EU presidency, to present an ultimatum to Belgrade, this was clearlyu the moment for decisive action by the EU. And the EU did act decisively — by fudging the issue. It suggested that the SAA talks could be suspended if Belgrade failed to fully cooperate before the next round, scheduled for 4-5 April, and that Belgrade had until late March to cooperate.

“This is not the moment for an ultimatum,” Germany’s foreign minister told reporters. And Luxembourg’s FM said, “We are not going to give an ultimatum. That is not the right way.”

The logic behind such statements seems to be that pressure needs to be decreased the moment it starts working. Now Kostunica has breathing space again and the authorities will once again slack in their hunt for Mladic. (Karadzic seems to be entirely off the screen these days, as are four others still wanted by the tribunal.)

Technorati: Mladic, Bosnia, Serbia

Bill Murray:

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Vladeta Jankovic:

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Wire services — and now BBC World — are reporting that Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic has been arrested in northeastern Bosnia. The Serbian government is denying these reports.

Update, 06:53PM CET — … and I’ll believe it when it happens.
Update 2, 10:13PM CET — OK, it’s a hoax. Sorry, folks. Something may or may not be going on but I’m not going to waste any more space on this.

One aspect of the cartoon kerfuffle that is receiving more and more attention is the suspicion that the outcry, while certainly reflecting genuine feelings, may be steered. Both Iran and Syria — which are both in the middle of a showdown with the Security Council, over nuclear shenanigans in Iran’s case and over the Hariri investigation in Syria’s — have an obvious interest in trying to discredit any Western action as a crusade, and vilifying Denmark (which is a non-permanent member of the SC for 2005 and 2006) seems as good a course of action as any. The time lag between the publication of the stupid cartoons and this whole outpouring is rather interesting.

It’s perhaps also noteworthy that Europe’s oldest Muslim communities (not counting Turkey, parts of Russia, and parts of the Caucasus) seem rather unruffled by the whole affair, and I believe that’s due to the fact that these are open societies (unlike most in the Middle East) and that Muslims there are not part of a disaffected underclass (unlike in Western Europe) — even though considering three waves of “ethnic cleansing” directed at them in the last three decades, they would certainly have every reason to be bitter.

You can read a somewhat expanded version of this argument — slightly black and white but essentially true, I believe — over at TechCentralStation.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Muslim, Cartoons, Sarajevo, Balkania

…or is it just me?

Moshe Katsav:

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Milan Milutinovic:

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Richard Perle:

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