THE WAGES OF SIN: CONFRONTING BOSNIA’S REPUBLIKA SRPSKA 8 October 2001 Balkans Report N° 118 Sarajevo/Brussels Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................................................... i I. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................1 A. THE PERIL AND PROMISE OF DAYTON .....................................................................................................1 B. A LESSER STANDARD: REPUBLIKA SRPSKA TODAY ...............................................................................2 C. SURVIVING ON INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT...............................................................................................4 II. HOW DID IT HAPPEN?.................................................................................................................................7 A. THE ELECTIONS FIASCO, 1996-97............................................................................................................7 B. POORLY EXECUTED ‘CONDITIONALITY’, 1998-2000...............................................................................9 C. SDS POWER DURING THE DODIK ERA ...................................................................................................11 III. IVANIC’S ‘REFORM’ COALITION: A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING OR A LAMB FOR THE SLAUGHTER?...............................................................................................................................................12 A. THE ELECTIONS COMPROMISE OF 2000: SDS POWER WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY................................12 B. THE SDS CONSOLIDATES ITS POWER: PUTTING A BRAKE ON REFORM ................................................14 1. SDS Control Of Ministerial Positions ........................................................................................................14 2. SDS Directors Of Public Enterprises And Major Administrative Bodies ..................................................15 3. The Battle Over Privatisation .....................................................................................................................16 4. Other Pillars Of Institutional Control .........................................................................................................17 C. KOSTUNICA, THE SDS AND THE THREAT TO BOSNIAN STATEHOOD.....................................................18 IV. CAN THE RS MOVE BEYOND ITS WARTIME PAST? ........................................................................20 A. THE NATURE OF THE SDS......................................................................................................................20 B. WAR CRIMES AND COOPERATION WITH THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL ..........................................................21 1. Law on Cooperation ...................................................................................................................................23 2. The SDS Conundrum..................................................................................................................................24 3. The Institutional Protection Of War Criminals In The RS .........................................................................25 4. Karadzic and Mladic...................................................................................................................................25 C. RS GOVERNMENT POLICY AGAINST MINORITY RETURN ......................................................................26 1. Low Property Law Implementation............................................................................................................27 2. Budgeting For Resettlement .......................................................................................................................28 3. Public Land Allocation To Support Resettlement And Discourage Return................................................30 4. Usurpation Of Minority Private Land To Stop National Reintegration......................................................32 5. Conclusion..................................................................................................................................................33 D. ETHNIC VIOLENCE ..................................................................................................................................33 1. May 2000 Rioting Against The Rebuilding Of Mosques In Trebinje And Banja Luka .............................33 2. Political Fallout From Trebinje And Banja Luka .......................................................................................36 3. The Price Of Minority Security In The RS.................................................................................................38 4. The Pattern Of Violence Against Returnees And Regime Complicity.......................................................38 5. Elements Of Organisation: The SDS Connection.......................................................................................40 6. Failing To Hold The RS Authorities Accountable .....................................................................................41 V. A ‘SOVEREIGN’ REPUBLIKA SRPSKA OR A EUROPEAN BOSNIA? .............................................42 VI. CONCLUSION: TIME FOR ZERO TOLERANCE..................................................................................45 APPENDICES A. MAP OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA.....................................................................................................49 B. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP .........................................................................................50 C. ICG REPORTS AND BRIEFING PAPERS....................................................................................................51 D. ICG BOARD MEMBERS ..........................................................................................................................55 ICG Balkans Report N° 118 8 October 2001 THE WAGES OF SIN: CONFRONTING BOSNIA’S REPUBLIKA SRPSKA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY By recognising Republika Srpska (RS) as a government, formed after the November 2000 legitimate polity and constituent entity of the elections under the leadership of another new Bosnia, the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement professed moderate and reformer, Mladen embraced a contradiction. For the RS was Ivanic, looks likely to repeat the experience of founded as a stepping stone to a ‘Greater Serbia’ previous years, but with the difference that the and forged in atrocities against – and mass SDS is now effectively back in power. It won expulsions of – non-Serbs. the RS presidency and vice-presidency and secured the largest number of seats in the Ten years ago, Radovan Karadzic led the National Assembly in the November 2000 members of his Serb Democratic Party (SDS) elections. out of the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia): soon afterwards, in January 1992, they Alarmed at the prospect of having to contend proclaimed ‘Republika Srpska’, as part of their once more with the stonewalling and strategy to undermine Bosnia’s integrity and prevarication of the SDS, international preclude its independence. First as an idea and representatives threatened to impose an embargo then as a fact, the RS negated Bosnia’s history, on all aid to the RS if the SDS were to be demography and integrity. included in the government. But when its new favourite, Ivanic, insisted he could not form a Fortunately, Dayton also gave significant powers viable government without the SDS, the to the international community to promote and international community backed down, allowing impose reforms on both entities, to push the party stalwarts to take portfolios as ‘independent integrative provisions of the agreement, and to experts’. make itself redundant as Bosnia moved towards Europe. The only hope of resolving this Since returning to power, the SDS has been contradiction lay in the vigorous exercise of consolidating its authority: in the public sector these civilian and military powers to reform the and black economies, in the media, in the police RS. and courts, in the army and intelligence service, in the backwoods of eastern RS, in enlightened Almost six years after Dayton, these hopes lie Banja Luka, and latterly in the Serbian unfulfilled and partly forgotten. The metropolis of Belgrade. unreconstructed nature of the RS and its political elite remain the major obstacles to the Ivanic continues to talk earnestly about establishment of a functional, stable and solvent implementing the economic reforms he promised Bosnian state. The current RS coalition the electorate – and the political reforms The Wages of Sin: Confronting Bosnia’s Republika Srpska ICG Balkans Report N° 118, 8 October 2001 Page ii expected by the international community – but entity prerogatives by eviscerating those of the has been stymied most of the time by his Bosnian state, RS deputies and ministers in partners’ determination that the RS should Sarajevo continue to oppose any legislation remain unreformed. which might enhance or even define the competencies of the state. In fact, the SDS has contrived (with the inadvertent assistance of the international In the absence of fundamental legislation on community) to have it both ways. Since it is not everything from human rights, to weights and officially in government, it cannot be held measures, to railways, Bosnians can only dream responsible for Ivanic’s failures to deliver about