EU says Bosnia almost ready, but trouble still looms

While European Union officials have given Bosnia-Herzegovina the high sign that its aspirations to join the EU are improving, United Nations diplomats there say the political situation is bleak because of continued infighting, and EU troops will have to stay in the country at least another year. At the same time, Sulejman Tihic, a top Bosnian Muslim leader, sided with international officials who have accused Bosnian politicians of having ties to organized crime, and a new spate of feuding began over the negative assessments, especially the UN report which said Bosnia has many problems that are at odds with what EU integration requires.
Swedish Ambassador Anders Liden, who chairs the EU group at UN headquarters in New York, said Bosnia’s internal political process is reaching a decisive phase, requiring a compromise to settle differences.“Momentum needs to be built before the spring when Bosnia- Herzegovina enters a period dominated by the election campaign, which may be less conducive to reform and compromise,” Liden said. Recent progress to meet EU benchmarks for integration, including a liberal visa policy, has proven that the country can implement difficult and demanding reforms “once there is sufficient political will. This is encouraging,” Liden said. He added that the EU has given Bosnia significant development and humanitarian assistance over the years, and that future assistance will focus “exclusively on facilitating EU integration.”
During the debate on Bosnia’s political problems, diplomats complained that the situation has deteriorated because of continued divisions in the top leadership in Sarajevo. A report by High Representative Valentin Inzko, the EU envoy, said a “series of obstacles, delays and failures” have prevented progress in settling disputes over political leadership, the constitution and implementing the 1995 Dayton Peace agreement. “All of these failures - and let me say the word all - are the consequences of political differences and obstructionism,” Inzko said.
The Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb party in the three-party government in Sarajevo - the others being Croat and Bosnian Muslim parties - has “from time to time created a problem at state level and then criticizing the state for having the problem,” he said, expressing his exasperation. The Republika Srpska, which allies with Serbia, has wanted to secede from Bosnia and has blocked democratic reforms. Bosnian Serbs were blamed for the 1992-1995 Bosnian ethic war, which ended with the Dayton agreement.

Dire straits
Inzko said a quarter of the Bosnian population is unemployed, salaries and pensions are low, poverty is endemic and bank lending has dried up. He said Sarajevo’s political stalemate was not helping Bosnia to take necessary steps to join the EU and NATO. British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said Inzko’s report was “bleak and honest.”
“We have seen another negative European Commission Progress Report,” Grant said. “And the political climate has deteriorated further, with a worrying increase in nationalist rhetoric, particularly but not exclusively, from the authorities in the Republic of Srpska. This threatens to seriously impede any further progress.”
But Nikola Spiric, the chairman of Sarajevo’s Council of Ministers and Prime Minister, disagreed with Inzko’s assessment of the situation. Spiric said the report had received contributions from Inzko’s local associates who had fallen into “the trap of superficiality and unprofessionalism.” Spiric defended the Bosnian Serb party, saying that it can contribute to political progress. “The opinionated tone with which the report refers to the Republika Srpska as an obstruction and the Federation of Bosnia- Herzegovina as being in difficulty cannot but disturb any objective observer,” Spiric said.
In yet another sign of how the political morass in Bosnia is holding back the country’s EU hopes, the United Nations Security Council has given the EU Stabilization Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina a new 12-month mandate to pursue implementation of the peace agreement there. The EU force arrived in the Balkan nation in 2004, replacing NATO troops tasked with implementing the 1995 Dayton Peace agreement that ended the 1992-1995 ethnic conflict in that country. But the council said in a resolution it adopted unanimously that the primary responsibility for peace lies with the Bosnian authorities. Compliance with the Dayton agreement, in particular full cooperation with the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, would determine the continued willingness of the international community and major donors to provide economic and political support for Bosnia, the council said.
The tribunal, based at The Hague, has been prosecuting war criminals charged with the killing of Bosnian Muslims. The Bosnian- Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, is standing trial at The Hague. The tribunal has issued arrest warrants against Serb general Ratko Mladic and other Serbs, who still elude arrest. Mladic and Karadzic were responsible for alleged atrocities against Bosnian Muslims.

Crime story
Meanwhile, the Muslim leader Tihic, concurred with reports from the Office of the High Representative on alleged ties between top Bosnian politicians and the underworld.  In doing so, they have managed for the first time to unite all ethnic groups in Bosnia against the OHR, an international organization charged with implementing the Dayton peace agreement, and Raffi Gregorian, OHR’s deputy chief, whom they see as the main culprit for the reports. “Serbs, Croats and Muslims turn every possible process against them into a national interest or an attack on the (self-ruling ethnic) entities, which is not true,” Tihic, the leader biggest Muslim party in Bosnia SDP, told the daily Oslobodjenje.
The newspaper reported that, according to an OHR report, the prime minister of the Serb Republic, Milorad Dodik, and other top Serb officials have a private police force consisting of former military intelligence officers from the 1992-95 Bosnia war who have ties to criminal groups and spy on foreign officials in Bosnia. “These reports speak about the bad intentions of the people from the OHR,” Dodik told reporters in Sarajevo.