HOW (POLITICALLY) VALUABLE IS BRCKO ?

On the Eve of Arbitration for Brcko

AIM Sarajevo, 4 February, 1998

Brcko, the town the political status of which has not been resolved, for the second time after the Dayton accords, is on the eve of arbitration, and for the second time it is passing through a phase of vehement political disputes between those for whom it is of "vital importance". The current authorities in the entities, equally firmly dug in their respective trenches, are using the destiny of this town for promotion of their exclusivistic political stands. And while the verbal inter-entity haggling over this town is going on, hardly anybody cares that this town is in B&H. And while this is pretty clear when Republica Srpska (RS) is concerned, since it is persistently refusing to accept "Unitarian B&H", it is difficult to understand the stand of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), which is equally persistently defending, verbally, united B&H in which it would truly be irrelevant where Brcko is.

In Dayton they agreed that Brcko should have an arbiter who would, after a year's time, with the help of representatives of the interested parties, decide who Brcko belonged to. About this time last year, this decision was postponed for another year. Robert Farrand, the mentioned arbiter, taking slow but sure steps, in the course of last year, directed developments towards making Brcko belong only in B&H and its citizens, or as he likes to say, become multiethnic. After this past year of observation of Brcko by the arbitration, a new discussion should begin in the next few days. Both parties are still, although it seems less than last year, interested and they showed it in the past few days by issuing quite extreme statements.

The new prime minister of Republica Srpska, Milorad Dodik, declared that he would submit his resignation if Becko became part of the Federation. At the same time, spokesman of the ruling federal party - SDA - says that Brcko much belong to the Federation, and the chairman of the B&H Presidency, Alija Izetbegiovic, also promised to resign if Brcko did not come into the hands of the Federation.

The statement of the gorvernment of RS is understandable, but much less rigid than the one coming from the federal authorities. If Brcko should become part of the Federation, Republica Srpska would be not only politically, but also physically divided. In other words, it would exist no more, and its existence was warranted both by the Dayton accords and declarations of the international community that "there is no division of RS, nor will there be". But, by such a well balanced statement, Dodik leaves a series of other possibilities for Brcko - open city, disctrict or similar. After all, it would be too naive to expect, after having invested so much effort to make the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) descend from the main post on the political scene of RS, that Dodik would readily jeopardize democratic changes in this entity and the post he has just got hold of. At the same time, those who know Dodik well say that he has never given statements, especially political ones, without having obtained thorough information and carefully considering what he would say.

In the Party of Democratic Action, the stand concerning Brcko is corroborated by data from the 1991 census which show that the greatest percentage of the population of Brcko were the Bosniacs. They also use the land registers as arguments which show that the biggest part of land in Brcko belonged to the Bosniacs and that it was pribately-owned. They are right there, but probably the statistical picture of Srebrenica is similar, and yet even after "winning" the local elections in this B&H town which is nowadays completely in RS, the SDA is doing absolutely nothing to help its councilmen enter this town. At the same time, when they talk about Brcko in the SDA, they never say that they will be satisfied if the Bosniacs returned to Brcko, to their homes and their estates, and continued to live there with freedom of movement, possibility of employment, medical treatment, and education for their children. Critics of the SDA say that with such a stand this party is actually working in favour of division of B&H, of annulling the Dayton accords and similar destructive intentions.

Some even do not hesitate to predict the possibility of an armed attack on Brcko by those who do not "get" Brcko, which is absurd of course, as long as SFOR is around here (and SFOR will certainly not leave as long as peace is not stable and lasting).

An interesting segment of the story about Brcko are the relations between the Bosniac and Croatian party within the Federation. Extreme lack of unity is quite obvious and acquires such proportions that open declarations are arriving from the HDZ that they will either stay away from the arbitration hearing or will go alone. The dispute has lasted for a long time, ever since the registration of voters for Brcko in September local elections, until the latest development - reconstruction of eight houses in the villages of Cerik and Bukvik into which refugees from Srebrenica moved, all of them Bosniacs, although the houses are, as the HDZ claims, on the territory where the Bosniacs have never lived - says federal minister for refugees and displaced persons Rasim Kadic at the press conference of his party, but these houses are in the competence of supervisor Farrand and nobody has moved into them of their own free will. Police administration in Ravne municipality is also disputable, but the president of the Federation and the president of the federal arbitration commission Ejup Ganic says that the police station in this municipality has already been approved, but that police administration can be established only for the whole region. After consultations with the IPTF, it is proposed that this problem be postponed until April this year. After the meeting of the federal arbitration commission which should have united the stands of these two parties, it is still uncertain whether representatives of B&H Croats will go to Vienna, and if they will, nobody knows whether they will go alone or as part of the federal delegation. After this meeting, Ganic declared that there are also speculations in the media concerning information about the meeting in Karadjordjevo, and that "division of Brcko is mentioned, because Brcko is the point where B&H is being united. The solution of Brcko is very significant for unity of the country", says Ganic and adds that he demanded from Croatian president Tudjman to say publicly that it is necessary to ensure justice for Brcko and reach a decision in accordance with the international law and righteousness, but, Ganic adds: "I have not heard yet that president Tudjman has made such a statement." The envoy of High Representative, Donald Lamont, who attended this meeting, declared that it would be best if the international arbiter Roberts Owen himself heard the testimonies of representatives of both the Federation and Republica Srpska, but also of all the other interested parties. But, it has still not been stated who from the Federation was going to Vienna and in what manner.

The opposition in B&H with its stand is probably the closest to the objective situation. "Is it important where Brcko is if it has one police, one currency, freedom of movement, possibility of return of refugees and impossibility of survival of war criminals and other sorts of criminals in their environemt?" It can easily be concluded that supervisor Farrand is slowly directing things towards such a final situation - joint police, occasional prayers in the places of worship of those who are the minority population in Brcko nowadays and so on. Changes going on in the whole state are also working in Farrand's favour - uniform licence plates for cars, identity papers, currency, flag.

It is to be expected that the new arbitration hearing will not bring anything new and that the decision will be identical to the last year's - postponement of the decision for a period of time. A political magazine in the Federation has formulated it best by the words that for the time being Brcko was too precious for all the interested parties and that the international community was wisely directing this part of the political game concerning B&H, and that the solution for Brcko will come at the moment it ceases to have such a high price for all interested parties. From the internal point of view, again using the vocabulary of the opposition, Brcko is perfectly usable for feigned homogenization of its own people and it will be used to oppose the policy of the authorities which only verbally want united B&H. From the angle of external protagonists of the story on Brcko, the international community is aware of the value this B&H town has for all the interested parties and why would it easily let this instrument go, even if it were blackmail, when it knows how powerful a weapon it has in its hands - concessions which all the parties are ready to make in order to show that only they are the ones who deserve Brcko and who should get it are numerous and the international community knows it only too well. That is why there is no use to wait for the final decision on Brcko in a few days, except if the decision that is expected is - status quo.

Rubina CENGIC

(AIM, Sarajevo)