http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070130-085828-1072r_page2.htm
The Washington Times
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
January 31, 2007
Serbs and Dayton Accords
In response to the article, "U.N. envoy: Serbs cannot ruin Bosnia," (Web
site, Jan. 16) we are writing to point out that it is Sulejman Tihic, Haris
Silajdzic and other Bosniak nationalists who are continually calling for the
abolition of the Republika Sprska as a political entity in direct
contravention of the letter and spirit of the Dayton Accords.
They seek the dissolution of the Republika Sprska's political structures
and security capabilities, and most importantly, the Republika Sprska's
identity, which is guaranteed by Dayton. Nary an objection or admonition
emanates from the Office of the High Representative as the Bosniak leaders
challenge the existence of the Republika Sprska with impunity.
Yet, when the Republika Sprska's prime minister, Milorad Dodik, responds
to the militant challenges to the status of the Bosnian Serb entity, and the
integrity of the Dayton Accords, he is threatened by the High Representative
(the same person charged with the responsibility of implementing Dayton)
with ham-fisted threats and scoldings ill-suited for even pre-schoolers.
For reference, it is Mr. Dodik who has been struggling with the radical
nationalists for the last decade. Through his leadership of the Republika
Sprska and his Independent Social Democratic Party (SNSD), the Serb
Democratic Party (SDS) suffered an unprecedented defeat in the last
election. This is exactly the electoral outcome that the United States and
the rest of the international community have been hoping for since the end
of the war in Bosnia (and providing financial and technical assistance to
achieve since at least the elections of 2000).
In his struggles to vanquish the hard-line nationalists, Mr. Dodik has
continually put himself at great political and personal risk. He has staked
his political capital to support the Dayton Accord at the behest of the
contact group of nations that imposed it upon the people of Bosnia. Mr.
Dodik continues to support Dayton, but it seems that the Office of the High
Representative no longer does. Otherwise, the High Representative should be
threatening Tihic and Silajdzic with sanctions for instigating challenges to
the central tenet of the Dayton Accords the establishment of the entities
that comprise Bosnia.
The latest in a long line of High Representatives, Christian
Schwarz-Schilling, is proving once again that the Office of the High
Representative is a highly biased, anti-democratic, out-of-control
Frankenstein-type creation wholly unaccountable to anything resembling due
process as understood in liberal western democracies.
It is this behavior, among many other pathologies afflicting the Office
of the High Representative, which prompted the experts at the European
Stability Initiative to refer to the office as a "European Raj" (Journal of
Democracy, Volume 14, Number 3, July 2003).
It is time for the Office of the High Representative to support Dayton,
and the entities it created, or abandon Dayton and return sovereignty to the
people of the Republika Sprska and Bosnia.
MICHAEL ARNO
GREGORY MINJACK
Special Representatives
Republika Sprska
Washington
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