POST-ELECTION BOSNIA

America is the Winner

AIM Sarajevo, September 20, 1996

By carrying out the elections and counting the votes which followed, the international community turned another page of its peace plan intended for Bosnia & Herzegovina. However, essentially, nothing significant has changed inside Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Therefore, although it may sound cynical, it is not far away from the truth that the United States of America and Clinton's administration are the true winners of the elections in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Without much false modesty they can now say that they have brought peace to Bosnia and made its authorities legal, then order their soldiers to start packing their bags to return home, which is the most important thing for Washington anyway.

For Bosnia & Herzegovina, however, struggle for power is still impending and it will be fought by parties - winners in the elections: The Party of Democratic Action, the Croat Democratic Community and the Serb Democratic Party. Without any doubt, it will mean continuation of the war, but through politics, because the elections were won by the very same parties whose role in the armed conflicts in B&H was decisive.

The first declarations of the new members of Presidency of B&H and the moves they have made are an indicator of quite uncertain prospects for Bosnia & Herzegovina. Alija Izetbegovic, the future president sent word to Momcilo Krajisnik that he would sit down at the same table with him only after the latter was ready to swear on the Constitution of B&H, in other words when he recognized that the state was integral.

Krajisnik responded with ae proposal not at all unusual for logics from Pale - to have a new building of the Presidency built somewhere on the border between the two entities which he would enter from Republika Srpska, and Izetbegovic and Zubak from the Federation. Kresimir Zubak, representative of the Croats in the Presidency, has already talked to Krajisnik in Pale, but also to Izetbegovic, showing "understanding" for the opinion of both, even for Krajisnik's fear that he might be killed in Sarajevo, but also onsisting on the Croat stance.

Therefore, the new authorities have not even been inaugurated, and it has already become quite clear that they will operate on the exclusive representation of different nations. This recipe was already tested after the elections in 1990 and the bloodshed which followed showed how efficient it was. However, the international community cut out the Dayton accords according to this very pattern and transferred it into this post-war period.

Alija Izetbegovic is nevertheless, an optimist. He claims that the present relation of political forces in B&H "might be the same as the one in April 1992, but the circumstances are essentially different". His argument in favour of this is that the idea of "Greater Serbia was militarily and politically defeated in 1992".

But, he is at the same time aware that paving the road to an integral state still depends much more on neighbours of B&H in the east and the west. That is why he hopes that Serbia will be busy with its own problems in the years to come and that "sobering up from nationalistic drunkenness awaits it", and that Croatia will become a democratic country which will not interfere with internal affairs of B&H.

Izetbegovic clearly knows that the future of Bosnia & Herzegovina still is not in the hands of the politicians in it, but its neighbours. As long as Belgrade is ready to support Krajisnik or any other politician who advocates secession from B&H, Sarajevo will not be powerful enough (or will not wish) to politically prevent it. The relation between Zagreb and HDZ B&H is absolutely the same, which is a fact proved for two and a half years through the futile creation of the Federation.

Due to all that, it is also clear that the elections were useful for Bosnia & Herzegovina only to the extent to which they made its state authorities formal. But, they have not really inaugurated it and it is a big question when the Serbs in Republika Srpska will be ready to accept Izetbegovic as the president of their state, just as the Bosniacs will not accept Krajisnik.

Some moves have been made during the elections already. The effect of Richard Holbrooke's visit was making arrangements for a meeting between Izetbegovic and Milosevic in Paris, by which the official Washington demonstrated its intention to continue, without turning back, its job in Bosnia & Herzegovina. The meeting between Izetbegovic and Milosevic is expected to remove the main obstacles to full mutual recognition between B&H and Yugoslavia and establishment of diplomatic relations.

Of course, Clinton's administration will also benefit from this meeting, because it will, first and foremost, bring confirmation of its domination in the Balkans, and then it will be able to tell Sarajevo that it has kept its promise about guarantees concerning the integral state. Not less important is that the Serbs in Bosnia will, directly from belgrade, receive a message that nothing will come out of the idea about secession and "Greater Serbia".

But, this is just one of the roads which might await Bosnia & Herzegovina. The other one is the less cheerless one, which leads to its final division. The key argument speaking in favour of it is that the Serbs do not wish a joint state, and the Croats are just waiting for the Serbs to exercise the right to secession and then demand the same for themselves. Additional evidence for such forecasts is mutual intolerance created by the four-year long war which was transferred to the new authorities through election results.

It is possible that a different outcome of the elections and better success of the opposition parties, if nothing else, would have at least made the road to the integral state less bumpy. But, the opposition would have been forced first to neutralize the influence of national oligarchies whose seat is not in B&H but elsewhere, where territorial aspirations have not been removed yet. For instance, the Croats probably have not agreed to lose Posavina or Central Bosnia for good, nor have the Serbs reconciled themselves to the fact that their country will not extend wherever the "Serb graves" are, and that is the slogan which they had set out with to war for "Greater Serbia". Unsettled accounts remaining from the war are the first thing the rule of national parties is founded on, so not much is needed for a spark to fly and start a new war.

The elections, therefore, certainly are a step towards establishment of Bosnia & Herzegovina, but this state still needs firm supports from abroad. The first among them certainly are the USA, whose emissaries can now tell Milosevic that this state has its own authorities and that there are Serbs in it, that it is not just a Muslim government and that the interest of the Sserb nation is protected to the maximum. Everything that Milosevic would ask beyond that would be his open persisting on division of B&H, and he will not dare go that far. And by keeping Belgrade silent, similar ideas in Croatia would be ckecked. At the same time, a "mini-Dayton" is announced, which could mean the genesis of a post-election process in B&H by dictate of the USA, the result of which will just confirm that the elections in Bosnia & Herzegovina were more formal than essential.

SEJAD LUCKIN