Paddy Ashdown goes back the the Balkans?

Article: Paddy Ashdown Proposed as European Special Envoy for Balkans 

Paddy Ashdown is going back to the Balkans? If they send him back, the European Union would be sending quite a powerful message. It would certainly look like they're taking the region seriously and putting their money where their mouth is. He could work out if they really are going to do that. Perhaps the Europeans wish to push relations in the region along- in recent months there has been some notable progress. There have been numerous meetings and visits between the region's leaders. The Croatian president visited Bosnia's Republika Srpska for the first time (the previous Croatian president had threatened to invade the region should it declare independence). Meanwhile the Serbian president met with Bosnia's Bosniak president in Turkey recently as well.

Despite improvements in the relationships at the top, there are still dangers in the region. Is Ashdown's "muscle" what's needed at this time?

Paddy Ashdown has quite a long history in the Balkans- and Bosnia in particular, where he led the international state building effort from 2002 to 2006. He was the longest serving High Representative and was by far the most controversial. During his time he was liberal (but not necessarily democratic) in his use of his office's powers to pass laws and fire reticent officials.

Regardless of any controversy surrounding Ashdown's  prospective role- a regional approach is the right one for the Europeans to take. People, economies and problems all cross borders in the Balkans, and the countries are not large in either population or geography. The goal in the long run is to reintegrate the region under the mantle of the EU- a map for getting there has been lacking however. As someone who spent a great deal of time reading Paddy Ashdown's speeches, I do think he can push progress in the region in the short term at least. This would have to be backed up with a clearer plan and a process for the region- which has been in somewhat of a drift for the last several years.

Repairing Relationships in the Balkans

Story: Bosnia, Serbia pledge to mend ties, lure investors.

There hasn't been a whole lot of good news out of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the last several years. This year however has seen some progress in repairing the relationship between Serbia and Bosnia. At the end of March, the Serbian parliament voted to condemn the Srebrenica massacre- and Serbian president Boris Tadić agreed to attend this year's commemorations of the massacre. These are huge steps forward for the region- and I would venture to say aren't without risks as nationalism remains a potent force in Serbia.

However this relationship is complex (in a way that the article doesn't touch on). Bosnian Serbs and Republika Srpska have a rather close relationship with the Republic of Serbia (and its precedents) dating back before the 1992-95 war. Since the war this relationship has been exclusive to Bosnian Serbs (a previous visit by Tadić to the Republika Srpska- without an matching visit to national level institutions or the Federation- caused quite a few waves).

The Bosnian Serb member of the presidency is frustrated with recent improvements in the relationship between Bosnia and Serbia. On the surface this seems a paradox. But its not so much the close ties as much as it is who the close ties are with.

The meeting in Turkey threatens the Bosnian Serb leadership's exclusive hold on close ties with Serbia- and that likely plays into the objections of the Serb member of the Bosnian presidency. This time it was a Bosniak president of a state level institution that met with the president of Serbia, and not members of a Serb affiliated party or a someone associated with Republika Srpska. This does little to nurture the secessionist dreams still held by some leaders in Republika Srpska.

Bosnia and its people have suffered from these damaged dysfunctional relationships. For much of the late 1990s Croatian and Serbian nationalists funneled resources to obstructionist leaders in Bosnia and paralyzed its politics. Since 2000 changes in leadership in these neighboring countries have improved relationships, but progress is slow.

A broadening of political debate in Bosnia?

Yesterday I attended this event hosted at the US Institute of Peace;



Bosnia Herzegovina: One Country or Not

The title of this event proved to be quite controversial. The Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina sent a representative with a letter explaining their displeasure. Copies were available at the front desk, of which I have one. I don't really know much about this organization, but I could see their point: Bosnia suffered an extremely violent and bloody war from 1992-95. From a Bosniak perspective they lost many people to maintain a unified Bosnia.

So the event began with a brief mea culpa from the moderator about the title- the offense was quite unintentional. Moreover the speaker was more likely than not to agree with the BAACBH.

The panel only had one speaker, Fahrudin Radončić a Bosnian media magnate, critic of the country's current politicians and founder of a new political party called Union for a Better Future of BH. He and his party argue that the main reason for Bosnia's ongoing political crisis and tenacious nationalism is due to a lack of economic development.

He actually spent very little time talking about the subject in the title- only mentioning that he didn't belive that Milrad Dodik, (Prime Minister of one of the country's two major political entities) wasn't serious about joining his entity with Serbia. He rather snarkily stated that if he did that he did he could no longer be Prime Minister- and enjoy the legal and illicit benefits of that office.

Many of the problems he identified weren't new to me- the need to combat corruption for example. Other ones were specific and were new. For example, he had some specific examples of corruption that he would address. The most prominent of these was prosecuting war profiteers who had used the war in the 1990s to privatize Bosnia's government owned enterprises. They used their political connections to take over said businesses. Although he didn't use names- he knew, and I suspect other people in the room knew as well exactly who he was talking about. The result of all this corruption he argued was that the country was unable to spend its reconstruction funds and most were sitting in the bank.

Mr. Radončić gave his perspective on political participation in Bosnian politics. Bosnians had to contend with heavily entrenched interests if they wanted to participate in politics. He argued that he was justified in using his media empire as a base of power politically because Bosnia's current leaders use their influence to freeze most citizens out of political discussion. There is a bit of a "can't make omelets without breaking eggs" mentality here. It is notable that he looks up to Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. 

In many ways he talked the talk. He was a moderate and spoke of the value of including all Bosnians, and even working closely with Croatia and Serbia.

My impression was that he had picked up the politician thing rather well-- he was very good at using the questions to explain his message (and avoiding their uncomfortable aspects) and he stuck with his message. I'm not so certain that his fusion of politics and media is really a great direction for Bosnia's still emerging institutions. Sure, the goals seem good enough- put people to work on public works projects (Bosnia has an excessively high unemployment rate and needs work on its physical infrastructure) but in a sense he is proposing the exchange of one type of elite for another.

Most importantly he didn't address the social trust issue, which is a huge obstacle to broadening the inclusivity of the country's social and political institutions.