http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic/News&Views.htm
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic/NewsST100302.html
THE BOSNIAN ELECTION
by Srdja Trifkovic
October 9, 2002
Three political parties more or less accurately described as
"nationalist"
-- one Serb, one Croat, and one Bosniak-Muslim -- have won a resounding
victory at the parliamentary election in Bosnia and Herzegovina last
Sunday (October 5). Seven years after the Diktat of Dayton, the
international nation-builders' goal of a "multiethnic" Bosnia remains as
elusive, nay, impossible as ever.
Turnout was low: 55 percent, down 10 percentage points from the last
elections two years ago. Since exactly the same proportion of voters
turned out for Serbia's presidential election a week earlier, it is
evident that many denizens of the former Yugoslavia are too cynical or
too resigned to bother. In Bosnia their reluctance is additionally
explained by the fact that the "High Representative of the International
Community" (i.e.
Gauleiter) may dismiss any elected official at his discretion at any
time. Nikola Poplasen, President of the Bosnian-Serb Republic, was thus
summarily removed from his post in March 1999, having inconveniently
defeated the "cooperative" (that is, pliable) Mrs. Biljana Plavsic.
As a Serb commentator has noted, "Elections are being advertised as a
way of claiming responsibility for one's future. In reality, they are
nothing but a way to fool the people into believing that their opinions
matter." But in Bosnia-Herzegovina nobody is fooled, least of all the
majority at or below the poverty level. The place is in shambles: Since
the end of the war in 1995, the Dayton creation has received more than
$5 billion in reconstruction aid, but the beneficiaries were local
crooks, international bureaucrats, and foreign contractors. It is now
ranked economically behind Albania; in South Eastern Europe, only
Moldova is poorer.
The current High Representative, a failed yet pathetically
self-important British politico by the name of Paddy Ashdown, declared
before the elections that the thought of the nationalists returning to
power kept him awake at night. Now he is trying to dismiss the result as
a protest vote against the outgoing government's inefficiency. He is
being disingenuous, and he knows it: the result reflects the refusal of
"Bosnia" to come into being as a viable project, because there is no
"Bosnian" nation -- only three distinct ethno-religious communities
that, sadly, hate each others' guts. The hatred will abate only if and
when they are allowed to develop their polties side by side, as good
neighbors (one day, perhaps). Enforced cohabitation will only perpetrate
further resentment that may result in another bout of blood-letting.
The lessons of the war of 1992-95 remain unlearned by "the International
Community." Of the three constituent peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as
defined by earlier Yugoslav constitutions, the Muslims were the most
numerous (43 percent). Most of them were prepared to accept a
compromise that would fall short of full independence -- especially if
full independence risked war -- but they nevertheless nervously followed
their leaders in the Party of Democratic Action (Stranka demokratske
akcije, SDA) who demanded a leap in the dark by insisting on an
independent yet unitary state in which they would call all the shots.
Last Sunday's election confirms that the SDA is still the leading Muslim
party.
Back in 1992 the Croats (17 percent) were the least numerous, but --
especially in their stronghold of western Herzegovina -- they were the
most determined to get Bosnia out of Yugoslavia, and then to break away
from Bosnia with the support of Croatia. Their party (Hrvatska
demokratska zajednica, HDZ BH) was prepared to enter a tactical alliance
with the Muslims to get the independence vote a decade ago, but most
Bosnian Croats were not prepared to see their long-term future in a
sovereign Bosnia. The HDZ is still the leading Bosnian-Croat party by
far, and its supporters are still determined to unite with Croatia,
sooner or later.
The Serbs of Bosnia, overwhelmingly, refused to be ejected from
Yugoslavia, especially as the Bosnian referendum on "sovereignty"
(February 1992) was held in violation of the constitutional right of
each of Bosnia's three peoples to veto any decision unacceptable to its
vital interests. At that time the Serbian Democratic Party (Srpska
demokratska stranka, SDS) was willing to settle for a regional autonomy
far less substantial than what the Serbs were subsequently offered in
Geneva in 1993 and at Dayton in 1995. Today, the SDS Leader Mirko
Sarovic is triumphant, and determined to reject any centralizing
tendencies that would go beyond the strict letter of Dayton.
In the aftermath of the first post-communist election in Bosnia (fall
1990) those three main ethnic political parties were clear winners.
Twelve years and some tens of thousands of human lives later they are
still firmly in command of their peoples' loyalties. Now we know that
Bosnia was not much affected by international intervention. This
indicates the limits of internationalists' ability to dictate outcomes.
If the old Yugoslavia was untenable and eventually collapsed under the
weight of the supposedly insurmountable differences among its
constituent nations, it is unclear how Bosnia -- the Yugoslav microcosm
par excellence -- can develop and sustain the dynamics of a viable
polity. This election provides the answer: it cannot be done. Its full
implications will become known only when the outside powers lose their
present interest in upholding the constitutional edifice made in Dayton.
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
