The Republic of Srpska: The New Authorities and Corruption

It is hardly likely that crimes committed by Dodik's Government will be subject to a serious investigation. The reason is insufficient evidence. But, not the lack of evidence on someone stealing from someone else, but rather lack of evidence that Dodik has stepped down from power and lost his powerful protectors.

AIM Banja Luka, February 6, 2001

One of the first things Mladen Ivanic, the still fresh Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska (RS), swore to do was to crack down on corruption and crime. However, he was not so loud on the subject of launching a serious investigation into the thefts of members of the former regime. Not even people from the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), who would be ready to sacrifice two more of their Ministers just to see Milorad Dodik behind bars, are too loud about this.

Naturally, they agree with Prime Minister's suggestions that they should not attract attention in their next term, even with their humanitarian activities. As such, they should not get involved in anything that foreigners, who are already breathing down their necks, could interpret as revanchism towards the former authorities. That is why Dragan Kalinic and his comrades tried in the past days to secretly supply the media with something from the rich assortment of the traces Milorad Dodik's Government had left behind and did not know how or did not want to remove.

To start with, the Government's housing scandal came to light. After the papers published a document showing that the Government had spent over DM 5 million for flats and housing credits for Ministers and their entourage, a layman could make (a wrong) conclusion that after their first session in January 1998, homeless Dodik's Ministers retired for the night into the bitter cold of Banja Luka parks accompanied by their aids. Luckily, the Government was efficient and of all refugee camps it first dissolved the 'ministerial' camp.

NOTHING LEFT TO STEAL: Naturally, this was not all: as production and living standards slumped after the first Dodik's year, the production of scandals grew: "Telekom" robbed people so easily and skillfully that they did not even notice it; the "Brod" refinery did the same to the state; the customs services couldn't allow to fall behind and did the same to both sides; the Defence Ministry paid so dearly for car batteries for communication systems as if these batteries were truly inhabited by dwarfs; Dodik's ally Nebojsa Radomanovic, was at the head of the Banja Luka housing clan; cigarettes crossed the border like a smoke just to materialise into their original form somewhere deep in the country; coffee was not measured by cups but by trailers; judging by documents on excise goods RS consumed more cognac than gasoline; privatisation became the most profitable brotherly business; smuggling of medicines forced some Ministers to double the number of their bodyguards; "kleptocracy" became more than a method of rule, practically a lifestyle of the ruling elite which told the shocked foreigners: we are at least manufacturing losses and not blood like our predecessors.

In the end, will anyone be called to account for that? No, and it seems that Ivanic is fully aware of that when his Ministers are announcing the review of allocated flats and housing credits, sending at the same time a harsh message to his Ministers that if they plan to resolve their housing problem while in the Government, they should look for another government. A resolved and legally founded show-down with crime would be a logical and efficient message to citizens that the new authorities would not sit in the back room twiddling their thumbs. But, it seems that Ivanic and SDS have chosen another option: there is nothing left to steal, they say, occasionally supplying the media with scarce information on empty cash boxes devastated by Dodik's locusts.

CLOSER TO POWER, FURTHER FROM JAIL: This is not a good sign for the legalistic pedigree of the new authorities, but nor a sign that a new king of the Serbian grey zone should be sought among them. In the first place, it is required, if not sufficient, for a person to first step down from power in order to be called to answer for corruption in a system such as the one in B&H. This did not happen to Milorad Dodik and he is still a player on whom the foreigners count, but not as a goal-getter, but (why not) as a back with prospect of getting in the first ranks at the right time. That Dodik has not yet stepped down is best confirmed by the establishment of various anti-corruption commissions, committees and similar promises of the type "We shall not be like them" which are the more declarative the less those uttering them are resolved to launch a fierce and uncertain campaign against Dodik's corruptionists.

Besides, in case the Prime Minister is appointed from the ranks of the Alliance for Change, which Ivanic himself would have to accept, Dodik will, in all likelihood, take the influential position of the Minister for Foreign Economic Cooperation. In other words, he will be a kind of (double) entity treasurer and, in any case, a man no one asks for the money in his pockets (which he keeps for himself), because of the money he is carrying in his bag (which he distributes around). Perhaps his political position will not be directly stronger than at the time he was Prime Minister, but it will certainly be more stable and comfortable and the one from which, despite the animosity towards him in SDS, and even in the circles around Ivanic, he will be able to control much power in the RS.

In other words, it will be interesting to see how will SDS and Ivanic relieve of duty, for example, the over-corrupted Director of the RS Electric-Power Industry, Marko Asanin, Dodik's man for eastern RS whom he placed there after he lost the elections. It will be equally interesting to see who will dare ask Dragoljub Trivanovic, Dodik's Director of the Customs Service, why did people for years consume more lead-free cognac than lead-free gasoline; same as it will be interesting to find out who of Dodik's Ministers has increased his wealth from the beginning of his term till today.

A HALL WITH A THOUSAND YEARS OF PRISON: Hardly anything will come out of it this time. The reason is insufficient evidence. But, not the lack of evidence of someone stealing from someone else, but rather the lack of evidence that Dodik has really stepped down from power and lost his powerful protectors. He probably knows that his career at elected functions, if something like that ever existed, is definitely over after Mirko Sarovic defeated him at the November elections. That is why Dodik will turn to foreigners who will obviously raise their new protege, which for change is not called the RS Government, irrespective of how much he has distanced Ivan Kalinic and his comrades from that Government, but is called the Council of Ministers in which also Dodik will be sitting.

"There is at least one thousand years of prison in this hall" remarked with humour a deputy of a minor party at the constitutive session of the RS Parliament. "Thousand years" of prison is a sign that the corruption has made a complete circle, that it involves representatives of the authorities from the times they were in power for the first time, as well as members of the opposition, from the times when they were in power. The closing of the corruption circle is a bad sign for Ivanic's Cabinet: if another generation of corrupt politicians gets away with it for the sake of peace in the house, the message will read: you can steal in RS and even if they catch you no harm can come to you if you are in power.

Zeljko Cvijanovic

(AIM)