The Precautionary Principle: A Critical Appraisal of Environmental Risk Assessment

Copyright © 2002 by the Cato Institute. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Exiting the Balkan thicket / edited by Gary T. Dempsey p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-930865-17-1 1. Balkan Peninsula—Foreign relations—United States. 2. United States—Foreign relations—Balkan Peninsula. 3. United States—Foreign relations—1993-2001. I. Dempsey, Gary. DR38.3.U6 E93 2002 327.730497—dc21

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Cover design by Amanda Elliott. Photography © AFP/Corbis. CATO INSTITUTE 1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001

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Contents INTRODUCTION Gary T. Dempsey

1

PART I BOSNIA AND KOSOVO IN PERSPECTIVE 1.

2.

3.

PART II 4. 5.

6. 7.

High-Handed Nation Building: The West Brings ‘‘Democracy’’ to Bosnia Ted Galen Carpenter

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Making the World Safe for Human Rights: A Closer Look at Kosovo David Chandler

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Daytonia and the UNMIKistas: My Odyssey of Disillusion Stephen Schwartz

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EXITING THE THICKET Let Dayton Be Dayton Robert M. Hayden

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Drawing Lines in Shifting Sands: The Territorial Question in the Former Yugoslavia Raju G. C. Thomas

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America Should Escape Its Balkan Imperium John C. Hulsman

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Passing the Baton in the Balkans: Europe May Not Be Willing, But It Is Certainly Able E. Wayne Merry

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CONTRIBUTORS

125

INDEX

127 v

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Introduction Gary T. Dempsey Advocates of America’s dual interventions in the Balkans—Bosnia and Kosovo—are in an odd position. History records no instance in which an outside party has successfully forced rival ethnic groups into a self-sustaining liberal democracy after a bloody civil war. The idea that a multiethnic society can be imposed on Bosnia and Kosovo, in other words, has no precedent. Against that backdrop, members of the administration of George W. Bush have demonstrated fundamental reservations about using the U.S. military for open-ended, nation-building operations in areas of limited national interest like the Balkans. In August 2000, for example, then-vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney said that it was time to consider phasing out American ground deployments in Bosnia and Kosovo, noting that staying on at this point ‘‘strikes me as an appropriate role for our European friends and allies.’’1 A short time later, Bush’s then-presumptive national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, stated: ‘‘When it comes to nation building or civilian administration or indefinite peacekeeping, we do need for the Europeans to step up to their responsibilities. We are not going to do anything precipitous, but unless we set this as a firm goal, we will never get it done.’’2 Likewise secretary of state–designate Colin Powell indicated: Our plan is to undertake a review right after the President is inaugurated, and take a look not only at our deployments in Bosnia, but in Kosovo and many other places around the world, and make sure those deployments are proper.3

Since taking office, the administration has made it clear that it will not cut and run from the Balkans, but that it is serious about recalibrating the U.S. role there. In February 2001, for instance, Powell assured America’s European allies, ‘‘We are committed to ensuring that as we review our force posture in the Balkans, we do so together 1

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET with our NATO allies.’’4 He then added, ‘‘We went in together; we will come out together.’’5 Taken alone, some interpreted Powell’s last point as a reversal of the administration’s thinking. In fact, Powell’s point was not inconsistent with comments made earlier by Rice that a U.S. troop drawdown would not necessarily mean ‘‘withdrawing the kind of support we can provide, like air power.’’6 Nor was it inconsistent with earlier statements by Cheney that the United States should draw down its troop presence but perhaps keep a small presence there to gather intelligence and help the remaining international force with logistics.7 Powell later reaffirmed the administration’s core view. ‘‘Washington is always looking for ways to reduce its peacekeeping forces in the region,’’ but any drawdown will not be undertaken without close consultation with European allies regarding the timetable and implications or mean that all U.S. troops must be out by a specific date.8 During his trip to Kosovo in late July 2001, President Bush called on Europe to shoulder a greater share of the peacekeeping duties in the Balkans and urged local and international police to quickly take the place of NATO combat forces so that American troops can return home. ‘‘We must step up our efforts to transfer responsibilities for public security from combat forces to specialized units, international police, and ultimately local authorities,’’ explained Bush.9 ‘‘NATO’s commitment to the peace of this region is enduring,’’ he added, ‘‘but the stationing of our forces here should not be indefinite.’’10 ‘‘We will not draw down our forces in Bosnia or Kosovo precipitously or unilaterally,’’ he assured America’s allies in the region, ‘‘but our goal is to hasten the day when peace is self-sustaining, when local, democratically elected authorities can assume full responsibility, and when NATO’s forces can go home.’’11 ‘‘None of us should be forever using military forces to do what civilian institutions should be doing,’’ national security adviser Rice told reporters upon Bush’s return. ‘‘So the president pushed very hard while he was in Kosovo in his conversation with the civilian folks who were supposed to be doing the civilian institution building.’’12 Some European policymakers are beginning to understand the Bush administration’s point. Romanian foreign minister Mircea Geoana, who also serves as the chairman for the Organization for 2

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Introduction Security and Cooperation in Europe, recognizes that the ‘‘U.S. military is not trained [for] and it’s not supposed to do police-type operations.’’ ‘‘So that’s why countries like Romania, Italy, or France,’’ he explains, should ‘‘come in with . . . gendarmes or police-type operations. I want to say it’s a matter of division of labor, who’s best equipped at doing what, rather than duplicating everything across the board.’’13 The two big questions now facing the Bush administration are how to translate its genuine concerns into a specific policy, and how that specific policy should fit into overall U.S. national security strategy. This brief book is intended to provide some perspective and recommendations on those two questions. The Analytical Context To put it mildly, the economic and political conditions in Bosnia and Kosovo are not changing the way many advocates of the original interventions had claimed they would. Indeed, both places remain woefully dependent on foreign largess. What’s more, the U.S. General Accounting Office laments that although full-scale military hostilities have ceased in both Bosnia and Kosovo, the security situation in the Balkans is still ‘‘volatile’’ and ‘‘local political leaders and people of their respective ethnic groups have failed to embrace the political and social reconciliation considered necessary to build multiethnic, democratic societies and institutions.’’14 In other words, the conditions the Clinton administration and others said would be created in Bosnia and Kosovo are not, in fact, being created. At the same time, support for the Balkan missions among the American public and its elected representatives is flimsy. When Washington committed U.S. forces to Bosnia in 1995, 55 percent of the respondents in a Time/CNN poll disapproved.15 During the air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, less than 50 percent of those polled considered vital U.S. interests at stake.16 In May 2000, the U.S. Senate narrowly defeated a bill cosponsored by then–Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) that would have pulled U.S. troops out of Kosovo by July 2001.17 The new Congress— which is almost evenly divided between the two major political parties—is likely to remain lukewarm in its support for U.S. involvement in the Balkans. And the longer the Bush administration delays 3

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET extricating U.S. military forces from the region, the more likely it will be held accountable if anything goes wrong. Meanwhile, Europeans have demonstrated an increasing interest in developing their own security and defense structures and have announced plans to create a sizable emergency force of their own. The catalyst for this development was the U.S.-led Kosovo air war, which dramatized for Europeans the vast disparity between their military power and America’s, especially the U.S. superiority at the high end of military technology. At the European Union’s December 1999 Helsinki summit, the idea of a common European Security and Defense Policy was cast as a way to give Europeans a formal mechanism for crisis management and to develop their capabilities in key military areas. In November 2000 the EU began to give teeth to this idea by pledging troops and equipment to create its own 60,000-strong rapid reaction force (RRF) by 2003. An Opportunity for the Bush Administration It is unclear what course the Bush administration will chart for transatlantic relations. Practically, however, it should welcome the ESDP and RRF, because these initiatives offer the most realistic hope for the United States to extricate itself from Bosnia and Kosovo and to avoid similar open-ended commitments in the future. Moreover, by diverting American forces from their primary deterrence and war-fighting missions to Bosnia-style peacekeeping missions, it is more difficult for Washington to meet security challenges outside Europe. In fact, far from augmenting America’s grand strategic posture, in important ways Bosnia-style missions have become a yoke that limits U.S. options. More important, Bosnia-style deployments saddle the United States with diversions that can potentially cut into America’s ability to respond to high-intensity contingencies should they suddenly arise. This was hinted at in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon when 900 Marines had to be pulled out of the Balkans to support the military build-up against Afghanistan. Should more troops and equipment be needed in some other future emergency, Washington could find its Balkan commitments competing directly for finite manpower and resources. The time has come for the United States to let the Europeans take care of the Balkans and similar parochial matters while the United 4

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Introduction States directs its attention to maintaining its (and by extension, Europe’s) global geopolitical interests. This would satisfy President Bush’s call for a ‘‘distinctly American internationalism,’’ an internationalism that is fitting of a superpower, and not that of the world’s presumed babysitter.18 Added Benefits Left unaddressed, the disparity between U.S. defense spending and European defense spending could undermine the NATO alliance. U.S. defense spending accounts for 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product, while France spends 2.8 percent; the United Kingdom, 2.7 percent; Italy, 2.0 percent; Germany, 1.5 percent; and Spain, 1.3 percent. Not only do the Europeans spend less, their defense outlays are declining. Public and congressional support for the NATO alliance in the United States could prove politically untenable over time if the burden-sharing gap continues to widen and America’s European allies are seen as free riders. Added to the growing defense spending disparity is a widening capability gap that is leaving the alliance unbalanced—Americans are increasingly the only ones that can do high-intensity war-fighting, while the Europeans sit on the sidelines. Indeed, during the Kosovo air campaign, a U.S. Air Force general said the shortcomings of European aircraft were so glaring—such as the lack of nightvision capability and absence of laser-guided weapon systems—that European sorties had to be curtailed to avoid unnecessary risks to other alliance pilots and civilians on the ground.19 Unless remedies are found, he added, the alliance will be riddled with ‘‘secondand third-team members.’’20 Europe’s desire for more independence should be encouraged precisely because it could lead to reducing the potentially poisonous burden-sharing and capability imbalances between the United States and its allies. The post-Milosevic political, economic, and social transition of Yugoslavia will also be helped by Europeanizing the Balkan missions. While Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica announced in November 2000 that he was prepared to restore diplomatic ties with the United States, Germany, France, and Britain, he is likely to keep the United States at arm’s length because of bitterness among the Serbian people over the U.S.-led 1999 bombing, the occupation of Kosovo, and the decade-long economic sanctions that were imposed 5

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET on Yugoslavia. Belgrade’s mistrust of the United States may leave European states better positioned to work with Yugoslavia’s new government than Washington. And if a U.S. objective in the Balkans is not to harm the chances that Yugoslavia will become stable, prosperous, and integrated into Europe, doing so in a way that engrains Europe’s primary role there should be encouraged. Organization of the Book Part I of this book will review the West’s postwar occupation of both Bosnia and Kosovo. The first chapter, written by the Cato Institute’s vice president for foreign policy and defense studies, Ted Galen Carpenter, argues that the West’s democracy-building efforts in Bosnia have been anything but democratic. In the section’s next chapter, David Chandler, a research fellow with the Policy Research Institute at Leeds Metropolitan University, argues that the West’s administration of Kosovo has had a disempowering effect on the local population. Finally, journalist Stephen Schwartz argues in his chapter that the reflexive anti-nationalism of Western administrators has led them to embrace former communist politicians and to adopt authoritarian practices in both Bosnia and Kosovo. Part II of the book presents a variety of scenarios for exiting the Balkans. Robert M. Hayden, director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, makes the case that what is needed in Bosnia is a return to the Dayton Agreement as it was originally understood when it ended the Bosnian war in 1995, ‘‘as a partition plan, de facto legitimating the separate Muslim, Serb, and Croat polities within Bosnia, but continuing to deny them separate international legal personalities.’’ Marquette University professor Raju G. C. Thomas suggests in his chapter that the best option for getting out of Bosnia and Kosovo might be to play the ball where it now lies and ‘‘enforce the prevailing territorial status quo as of 2001.’’ The final two chapters, written by John C. Hulsman, senior European analyst at the Heritage Foundation, and E. Wayne Merry, senior scholar at the Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Center in Nova Scotia, look at two mechanisms by which NATO’s operations in the Balkans might be nearly fully Europeanized. 6

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Introduction Since the essays included here come from analysts and observers with differing perspectives and professional backgrounds, they disagree on a few points here and there. What all the book’s contributors agree on, however, is that it is time for new thinking on the Balkans, not the same old thinking redoubled. Notes 1. Quoted in Michel Cooper, ‘‘Cheney Urges Rethinking Use of U.S. Ground Forces in Bosnia and Kosovo, New York Times, September 1, 2000, p. A22. 2. Quoted in Michael Gordon, ‘‘Bush Would Stop U.S. Peacekeeping in Balkan Fights,’’ New York Times, October 21, 2000, p. A1. 3. Quoted in James Kitfield, ‘‘Peacekeepers’ Progress,’’ National Journal, December 23, 2000. 4. Quoted in Alan Sipress, ‘‘Powell Vows to Consult Allies on Key Issues,’’ Washington Post, February 28, 2001, p. A22. 5. Ibid. 6. Quoted in Gordon. 7. Cooper. 8. Quoted in James Hider, ‘‘Powell Tells Kosovo Leaders to Focus on Poll, Not Independence,’’ Agence France Presse, April 13, 2001. 9. Quoted in Bill Sammon, ‘‘Bush Asks Europe to Boost Balkans Peacekeeping Role, Washington Times, July 25, 2001, p. A1. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Quoted in ‘‘The People’s Justice in the Balkans,’’ editorial, Washington Times, August 6, 2001, p. A16. 13. Ibid. 14. General Accounting Office, Balkans Security: Current and Projected Factors Affecting Regional Stability (Washington, April 2000), p. 27. 15. Brett Schaefer, ‘‘Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy and Defense Issues,’’ Issues ’96: The Candidate’s Briefing Book (Washington: Heritage Foundation, 1996). 16. American Enterprise Institute compilation of public opinion data on Kosovo cited in Steven Metz, ‘‘The American Army in the Balkans: Strategic Alternatives and Implications,’’ Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, January 2001, p. 20. 17. Eric Pianin and Helen Dewar, ‘‘Senate Sinks Proposal for Kosovo Withdrawal Deadline,’’ Washington Post, May 19, 2000, p. A10. 18. Quoted in Dan Balz, ‘‘Bush Favors Internationalism,’’ Washington Post, November 20, 1999, p. A1. 19. William Drozdiak, ‘‘U.S. Allies’ Air Power Was Lacking in Conflict,’’ Orlando Sentinel, July 11, 1999, p. G1. 20. Ibid.

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PART I

BOSNIA AND KOSOVO IN PERSPECTIVE

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1. High-Handed Nation Building: The West Brings ‘‘Democracy’’ to Bosnia Ted Galen Carpenter With the signing of the Dayton Agreement in December 1995, the Western powers committed themselves not only to help bring peace to Bosnia but to help build a viable democratic political system in that country.1 More than five years later, it is all too apparent that the results bear almost no resemblance to the original intentions. Far from becoming a functioning democratic state, Bosnia is little more than a colony of the West run by increasingly arrogant and autocratic international officials. A potent symbol of the political reality in Bosnia was conveyed in a January 2000 front-page story in the Washington Post. According to the Post account, the three members of Bosnia’s collective presidency were called to the New York home of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke, the principal architect of the Dayton Agreement. Once there, they were pressured by Holbrooke to sign a new three-page statement affirming an intensified commitment to political cooperation and measures for greater ethnic integration. The three elected presidents responded that the document was far too complex and had far too many political ramifications for them to sign it without careful, extended scrutiny. All three men also told Holbrooke they had social commitments that evening and simply did not have the time to give the document an adequate review. Holbrooke reportedly responded that they could not leave until they accepted the document. Ultimately they did so, and the U.S. government hailed the accord as another step toward ethnic reconciliation in Bosnia.2 The spectacle of a U.S. policymaker holding the top elected officials of another country hostage until they agreed to a diktat from Washington should be a jarring image for anyone who supports democracy. Yet that episode in Holbrooke’s apartment is an appropriate symbol of the policy that the West has been pursuing in Bosnia. It 11

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET is a policy based on disdain for the electoral process, a fondness for ruling by decree, and contempt for even the most basic standards of freedom of the press. It is in every respect a perversion of democratic norms. Muzzling the Media One of the most troubling aspects of the international nationbuilding mission in Bosnia is the lack of respect shown for freedom of expression. From the beginning, officials from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the United Nations showed an almost casual willingness to harass or suppress media outlets that were critical of the Dayton Agreement, the conduct of the NATO peacekeeping force, or the decisions of the special war crimes tribunal. That trend has only grown worse with the passage of time. The flip side of that policy is a belief that media outlets controlled by the international authorities—or by their political allies among the country’s three ethnic groups—are an essential tool in carrying out the provisions of the Dayton Agreement. Beyond that goal, there is an implicit assumption that a ‘‘tame’’ media would be an essential component in the transformation of Bosnia into the cooperative, multiethnic model society visualized by the nation-building bureaucracy. The result has been a rigged, manipulated, and censored media more typical of those found in dictatorships than in democratic countries. Western officials portray their actions in a different light, of course, contending that they are endeavoring to introduce greater media diversity and a wider range of viewpoints. The UN high representative, the chief international civilian official in Bosnia, complained in 1997 that the major political parties controlled most media outlets and that those nationalist elements ‘‘spoke to one nation only.’’ The population had ‘‘the right to hear other opinions too, and therefore we are trying to establish a principle of pluralism in public life through the opening of the media.’’3 The OSCE’s Media Branch stressed that outside financial as well as political and moral support would be necessary to bring about greater pluralism. ‘‘The OSCE must join other international organizations in supporting media organizations identified by our regional and field officers and by other international organizations as enriching media pluralism in Bosnia, but who must be supported to survive.’’4 12

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High-Handed Nation Building The conduct of the international officials, however, suggests that ‘‘media pluralism’’ is a synonym for enthusiasm for the Dayton Agreement and the objective of a united, multiethnic Bosnian state. Because the Dayton Agreement gave the OSCE authority to supervise elections and make certain that they were open, competitive, and honest, OSCE officials argued that they also had an implied mandate to ensure freedom of expression and the press. To that end, OSCE’s Provisional Election Commission drew up an electoral code of conduct in early 1996 that included specific standards for journalists and their media outlets. The PEC also created a Media Experts Commission, headed by former U.S. State Department official Robert Frowick, to monitor compliance with those standards. The MEC held its initial meeting in May 1996, and shortly thereafter held a roundtable discussion with Bosnian journalists and broadcast editors. It was apparent from that discussion that the MEC had some rather peculiar ideas about the permissible extent of debate on political issues. For example, MEC functionaries chastised journalists for using the ‘‘rhetorical jargon of war’’ in their news accounts. Referring to the ‘‘Bosnian Serb entity’’ or the ‘‘Muslim-Croat federation’’ rather than focusing on Bosnia-Herzegovina as a nation was deemed an example of such warlike jargon. As one scholar notes in his detailed study of the West’s nation-building effort in Bosnia, ‘‘Terms in common use in the international media were held to be inflammatory in Bosnia itself, and the framework was already established that the media in Bosnia should be pressured to play down the segmented reality of Bosnian politics and to challenge the nationalist outlook.’’5 The standards became even more restrictive as Bosnia’s municipal elections approached in 1997. PEC rules required all Bosnian officials to adhere to the provisions of a new document, the Standards of Professional Conduct for the Media and Journalists, adopted in March of that year. Many of those standards seemed reasonable, even highminded, but they were also terribly vague. For example, all media were obligated to report the news in a manner that ‘‘is factually accurate, complete, fair, equitable, and unbiased.’’ Moreover, journalists ‘‘shall not engage in distortion, suppression, falsification, misrepresentation and censorship, including systematic omission of information.’’6 Some forms of reporting were emphatically out of bounds. ‘‘Media and journalists shall avoid inflammatory language 13

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET which encourages discrimination, prejudice, or hatred, or which encourages violence, or contributes to the creation of a climate in which violence could occur.’’7 There were two major problems with such standards. First, despite the euphemism of ‘‘standards of professional conduct,’’ the document was a censorship code replete with enforcement provisions. It seemed more than a little inconsistent to teach the people of Bosnia the virtues of Western-style freedom of the press by starting with the imposition of far-reaching restrictions on that freedom. Second, the standards were so vague that international officials had virtually unlimited latitude in interpreting them. The potential for bias, arbitrary decisions, and the outright suppression of views disliked by OSCE, NATO, or UN policymakers was all too real. The potential of the standards to chill meaningful press freedoms was mild, though, compared to the potential of the enforcement provisions to do so. For example, a journalist or media outlet accused of violating the standards was required to provide the MEC ‘‘any information, including copies of documents, or any materials, including audio and video tapes’’ requested by MEC officials.8 It should be noted that members of the American press corps have for decades resisted attempts by law enforcement agencies to subpoena audio- or videotapes or reporters’ notes or force disclosure of the identity of a source. A good many American journalists have gone to jail rather than sacrifice that principle. Yet, there has been little protest from that same journalistic community about imposing such requirements on the Bosnian press. MEC functionaries were given breathtakingly broad authority to impose penalties and ‘‘remedies’’ for violations of the standards. They could require alleged violators ‘‘to publish or broadcast specific materials, at a time and in a manner determined by the MEC.’’ Moreover, media outlets could be required to do such penance even if other parties committed violations. ‘‘Publications or broadcast stations can be required by the MEC to publish or broadcast such materials to redress Government or authorities violations.’’9 In addition to such so-called remedial measures, the MEC was given a virtual blank check to impose clearly punitive measures (including fines ‘‘or any other appropriate penalties’’) or to take ‘‘other appropriate action.’’10 The extent of the ‘‘other appropriate action’’ provision became evident in May 1997 when the high representative 14

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High-Handed Nation Building acquired the authority to suspend or curtail any media broadcast or publication the output of which contravened the letter or the spirit of the Dayton Agreement.11 It quickly became apparent how the self-anointed media monitors would use their vast powers to make a mockery of freedom of expression in Bosnia. Even before the 1997 guidelines went into effect, the intent to silence nationalist voices was evident. The Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) was ordered to forfeit $50,000 for statements that allegedly threatened the territorial integrity of Bosnia and, therefore, the Dayton Agreement. What was especially notable was the reason for the alleged violation. SDS speakers were penalized not because they directly challenged the Dayton Agreement’s provisions, but because they ‘‘continually stressed the substantial autonomy granted to the Republika Srpska (RS) in the General Framework Agreement, to the total exclusion of any reference to the unity of Bosnia-Herzegovina.’’12 In June 1997, the MEC ruled that a Croat-controlled television station in the city of Mostar had broadcast an ‘‘inflammatory’’ speech by a former police commander. The MEC then admonished the editor-in-chief of the station and ordered him to broadcast an editorial reply condemning the speech. Instead, the station rebroadcast the original speech and followed with an editorial endorsing most of its content. The MEC ruled that the editorial was also inflammatory and ordered the station to broadcast an OSCE-prepared statement on the evening news for four consecutive days. If the station did not comply, the Croat political party that had provided it with financial support would have candidates stricken from the ballot for an upcoming municipal election.13 As the Mostar episode indicated, defiance of MEC edicts was guaranteed to bring the full wrath of the international bureaucrats down on recalcitrant journalists. That point was underscored in September 1997 when Serb Radio and Television, based in the nationalist stronghold of Pale, signed an agreement under duress to refrain from ‘‘inflammatory reporting’’ against the NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) and international organizations supporting the Dayton Agreement. Coercing a station to agree to such terms was bad enough, but the diktat also required the station to provide an hour of prime-time programming each day for the airing of other political views and to give the high representative a weekly half-hour primetime slot.14 15

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET SRT broadcasters committed a fatal act of defiance the following month. A video of a press conference by the special war crimes tribunal prosecutor, Louise Arbour, had been given to SRT with orders to broadcast it in its entirety. SRT edited the tape, however, and added editorial comments equating SFOR to the Nazi occupation during World War II and charging that the war crimes tribunal was a biased political instrument directed against the Serbs. That action was considered intolerable by the high representative’s office. SRT apologized and promptly rebroadcast an unedited version of the press conference. High representative Carlos Westendorp spurned the compliance as ‘‘too little, too late’’ and ordered the Pale broadcasts closed down entirely. NATO troops immediately moved in and seized the transmitters.15 When the stations were reopened, the operation was placed under the full control of a Serb faction favored by the United States and its NATO allies—the so-called Banja Luka faction headed by Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic. That step was taken only after Plavsic agreed that all broadcasters brought in as replacements would first be ‘‘retrained’’ by foreign professionals and that a foreign official would temporarily supervise the broadcasts.16 The degree of arrogance now infecting the international authorities can be gauged by the comment of Duncan Bullivant, the spokesman for the Office of the High Representative. ‘‘We are in a position where we can do what we want with the transmitter sites.’’17 Even the change of management to Serbs loyal to Plavsic did not fully reassure Westendorp and his colleagues. The following February, an international administrator was appointed to oversee editorial content.18 In the spring of 1998, the occupying powers created a permanent tribunal to oversee the media. The charter creating that agency institutionalized the rules that had been promulgated by the MEC—in particular the authority to impose fines, require a media outlet to publicly apologize for news stories or editorials deemed inflammatory or inaccurate, and to revoke licenses. The new entity, the Independent Media Commission, was also empowered to license (or deny applications) for all radio and television stations in Bosnia and to ensure that they operated according to ‘‘internationally accepted standards.’’19 Westendorp’s action against SRT belied the arguments that the goal of the international authorities has been to promote greater 16

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High-Handed Nation Building media diversity in Bosnia. The comments of Western officials at the time suggested a very different motive. The seizure of the transmitters ‘‘shows we are willing to take tough, hard measures to make sure there is no mucking around with the Dayton peace process,’’ said then British defense secretary (later NATO Secretary General) George Robertson.20 NATO’s action certainly sent a message that any criticism of the Dayton Agreement within Bosnia was likely to be silenced. Shutting down a media outlet for airing critical—even unsavory— views is troubling enough, but the subsequent steps were even worse. The high representative did not open the process to bidding by private organizations that might have wanted to operate one or more of the transmitters. Instead, control was merely passed to a competing political faction favored by the West. (How committed that faction was to a diversity of viewpoints became apparent in July 1998 when the government fired en masse the editorial staffs of 16 local broadcast stations.)21 Westendorp’s maneuver strongly suggests that he and other international officials were not interested in fostering a free press; they merely wanted a tame press. The appointment of an international administrator provided additional evidence of that motive as did the subsequent creation of the Independent Media Commission. The rationale of the nation builders is that steps had to be taken to weaken the alleged stranglehold of the nationalist parties on the media. In defending the seizure of the SRT transmitters, Richard Holbrooke noted, ‘‘Some argued that this action was a violation of the Serb right to freedom of expression. This argument was backward: in fact, the Bosnian Serbs had ruthlessly suppressed all media except their own.’’22 Holbrooke’s argument does not stand up to scrutiny. There was little evidence of media sources being hampered by the Bosnian authorities. Merely because the media outlets that were opposed to the main nationalist parties generally remained marginal did not prove that they were being restricted. In fact, it would appear that Bosnian citizens had a wide and varied choice of media sources. The data confirm this analysis. In mid-1998, at a time when the international authorities were tightening their media controls because of an alleged lack of information diversity, there were some 270 media organizations in the Muslim-Croat federation and an 17

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET additional 220 in the Republika Srpska—virtually double the numbers that existed at the end of the war. Those outlets included 156 radio stations, 52 television stations, 5 daily newspapers, and 20 periodicals. That is an extraordinary saturation for a country the size of Bosnia. Indeed, some media experts have argued that rather than an inadequate range of views, ‘‘there are more media than the market can realistically sustain.’’23 Even the International Crisis Group, one of the loudest proponents of the nation-building mission in Bosnia, concedes, ‘‘The scale of the alternative [non-nationalist] media and the number of journalists is out of proportion to the size of the population.’’24 What the International Crisis Group did not say was that many of the media outlets that lacked significant audiences had been generously funded by the high representative’s office and other Western sources, both public and private. Those outlets were widely viewed by the people of Bosnia as nothing more than paid mouthpieces for the international authorities.25 At the time the Independent Media Commission was created, OSCE spokesman Simon Haselock asserted, ‘‘What we’re trying to do is put in place a regime that offers a legal framework that improves and guarantees press freedom. It is not about censorship.’’26 Yet, less than a year later the Commission ordered a Bosnian Serb television station off the air because its coverage of the Kosovo crisis was deemed inflammatory and unbalanced. Charges included that the station failed to mention that the forces of Serbia’s president Slobodan Milosevic had driven Albanian Kosovars from their homes and that the station portrayed Serbia as a victim of NATO aggression.27 That was a troubling escalation of the campaign to restrict the Bosnian media. The previous acts of censorship had dealt with allegedly inappropriate coverage of developments inside Bosnia, using the rationale that such coverage threatened to undermine the Dayton Agreement. This latest action sought to dictate media coverage of events outside Bosnia. Nor was the April closure of the television station an isolated episode. Earlier that month, NATO spokesman Lt. Col. J. David Scanlon stated that the alliance was very concerned about the quality of some media reports in the Bosnian Serb republic. The Independent Media Commission expressed frustration that an address by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, translated into Serbian, appeared on Bosnian Serb television ‘‘only under direct order’’ of the Commission.28 Apparently 18

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High-Handed Nation Building freedom of the press in Bosnia now means that media outlets can be ordered by international bureaucrats to transmit statements by a foreign official dealing with events in a neighboring country. One doubts seriously whether James Madison and other architects of the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution would recognize such a perverted concept of press freedoms. Indeed, the restrictions on the Bosnia media go far beyond those found even in West European countries, whose standards on freedom of the press tend to be significantly less libertarian than those in the United States. One of the more depressing aspects of the stifling of freedom of expression in Bosnia is the dearth of criticism from alleged defenders of that freedom in the United States and other Western countries. The New York Times did accuse Washington of taking ‘‘dangerous short cuts’’ in pursuit of its Bosnia policy. One example cited was the Clinton administration’s approval of ‘‘military force to drive ultranationalist broadcasters from the airwaves.’’ A better approach, according to the Times, and one ‘‘more consistent with free speech values, would be to adopt more effective programs to help independent local media compete for audience attention.’’29 On another occasion the Times criticized the portion of the draft charter of the Independent Media Commission that empowered the agency to fine or shut down media outlets that violated vague standards of coverage. The licensing provision, however, the editors found acceptable, and they added that licensing requirements should ‘‘include the airing of competing viewpoints.’’30 In other words, the Times wanted a broadcast regulatory system with a strong ‘‘equal time’’ requirement—the requirement the United States abandoned nearly a decade earlier because of its inherent chilling effect on the airing of controversial views. Unfortunately, that tepid and conditional defense of media rights in Bosnia was typical of the response among the U.S. media. A distressing number of American journalists actually defended the censorship regime in Bosnia. Columnist Anthony Lewis, who routinely portrays himself as a staunch defender of the First Amendment, urged NATO to shut down the Bosnian Serb radio and television stations more than a month before that action occurred. ‘‘That is a hard thing for a believer in the First Amendment to say. But we have no more obligation there [in Bosnia] than we would have had in post-war Germany to let Goebbels stay on the air.’’31 19

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET That same rationale—that any media outlet that expresses racist or ‘‘intolerant nationalist’’ views should be silenced—has gained an alarming foothold not only among officials in Western governments but even among journalists. Columnist Georgie Anne Geyer, like Lewis, compared the Bosnian Serb media to that of Nazi Germany. She added that in Bosnia, ‘‘as in so many other areas, the United States had the power to change the media story. The Western militaries have the technical means to fly over a country and knock out their TV and radio—and even replace the original programming.’’ Geyer clearly thinks that is a splendid idea, but bemoans that ‘‘there is still no resolve’’ to embrace such a tactic.32 It is more than a little distressing to see journalists advocating the forcible suppression of views they dislike. Nor is that attitude confined to questions about how to deal with Bosnia. The rationale that media outlets that transmit inappropriate views are merely instruments of propaganda that can and should be silenced was the rationale for the NATO bombing strikes against radio and television stations in Serbia during the 1999 Balkan war. And again, the level of criticism of that action within the Western journalistic community ranged from tepid to barely discernable. Even worse, the enthusiasm for politically correct censorship has become a growth industry throughout the circles that embrace nation-building missions by NATO, OSCE, and the United Nations. Jamie F. Metzl, a former UN human rights officer, published a major article in Foreign Affairs openly advocating a campaign of ‘‘media intervention.’’33 The goal of such a campaign would be to ‘‘monitor, counter, and block radio and television broadcasts that incite widespread violence in crisis zones around the world.’’34 And who would decide what broadcasts were guilty of such offenses? Apparently, the judges would be the same international officials who would carry out the countermeasures. Such countermeasures would include jamming the offending transmissions and replacing them with ‘‘peace broadcasting’’ of unbiased—or at least more responsible news and information into crisis zones.35 Not surprisingly, Metzl is an admirer of the measures taken to suppress obstreperous media in Bosnia. Also not surprisingly, one of the admirers of Metzl’s broader concept was Richard Holbrooke— although he bemoaned the fact that such an ambitious objective on a global basis was probably not practical at the moment.36 20

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High-Handed Nation Building In other words, there is more than a slight danger that the Bosnia model of media control may become the norm in future nationbuilding enterprises. One can hardly imagine a better way of engendering cynicism and anger toward the West among the populations of target countries. The lesson being conveyed is that the West’s real definition of freedom of the press is the freedom to air views favored by Western authorities. After watching NATO troops occupy the SRT stations, one peasant woman in Pale said to a reporter that the station spoke for her and many other Bosnian Serbs. ‘‘I thought that in the West everyone has a right to be heard,’’ she said, ‘‘What about people like me?’’37 To those in the West who aren’t hypocrites on the issue of freedom of expression, it is a very good question. Rigging Elections In addition to manipulating and stifling the media in Bosnia, the international authorities have used questionable tactics with regard to a core component of any democratic political system: the holding of elections. Candidates for public office have been threatened with removal from the ballot repeatedly by the high representative or the PEC. That tactic gained prominence as early as the period leading to national and entity (the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation) elections in September 1996, barely nine months after the signing of the Dayton Agreement. In July the PEC amended its rules to specify that any political party that allowed a person indicted by the war crimes tribunal to hold ‘‘a party position or function’’ would be ‘‘deemed ineligible to participate in the elections.’’38 (The Dayton Agreement has merely specified that no one under indictment could hold any appointive or elective public office.) The PEC amendment was clearly directed against former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic’s continuing influence over the SDS. It soon became apparent that the international authorities were not content with barring Karadzic from a party post. Just four days before the election, the authorities warned the SDS that even displaying Karadzic’s likeness on posters would lead to the party’s disqualification.39 The extent and arbitrary nature of the disqualification process grew worse in the lead-up to the September 1997 municipal elections. A month before the balloting, the OSCE had removed more than 50 candidates, the overwhelming majority of them from the SDS and other nationalist parties such as the Croatian Democratic Union 21

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET (HDZ). Even when the international officials retreated from the most outrageous examples of interference, it was solely because of tactical considerations, not any newfound respect for democratic norms. For example, OSCE head ambassador Robert Frowick overturned an 11th-hour attempt by the election commission to disqualify the SDS from fielding candidates in its stronghold in and around Pale. But he stated that he did so out of concern for the safety of international election supervisors throughout the Republika Srpska, not because he believed the decision was wrong.40 Whenever the international authorities thought they could safely get away with mass disqualifications, they did so. For example, they removed all nine candidates of the HDZ from the ballot in the city of Zepce. Such tactics turned the elections into something of a farce.41 Matters did not improve the following year in the national and entity elections. Election commissioners disqualified 9 Bosnian Serb and 15 Bosnian Croat candidates in the final stages of the election campaign. Four of the latter were disqualified because of allegedly biased television coverage in their favor by television stations in the neighboring country of Croatia.42 The authorities even toyed with the idea of disqualifying Radical Party presidential candidate (and ultimate winner) Nikola Poplasen for a television appearance in Serbia on the eve of the election. Such an appearance, some election watchdogs argued, violated the 24-hour ‘‘media blackout period’’ imposed in Bosnia.43 (One wonders just how far the international bureaucrats in Bosnia thought their writ extended. Would a Poplasen appearance on a program in Russia or Britain have put his candidacy in jeopardy?) The habit of disqualifying candidates disliked by the international administrators reached its apogee (at least thus far) in the period leading up to the April 2000 municipal elections. On that occasion, the authorities disqualified the entire Radical Party slate from the ballot in the Republika Srpska. Since that party’s candidate had won the presidency in the previous national elections, the action was analogous to disqualifying all the candidates of the Republican or Democratic Party in an American election. Routinely harassing and disqualifying candidates they dislike is not the only method international authorities have used to attempt to manipulate election results. Indeed, skewing the voter registration lists has been an even more pervasive tactic. Instead of requiring voters to vote in the district where they currently reside, the process 22

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High-Handed Nation Building in Bosnia allowed voters to vote in the place where they resided in 1991 before the civil war erupted, in the place of their current residency, or in the place they wished to live in the future. The OSCE strongly encouraged displaced persons (nearly 37 percent of those eligible to vote) to register in their prewar locales. To discourage voters from choosing the ‘‘future locality’’ option, the OSCE tightened the registration rules going into the 1997 municipal elections. Displaced persons within Bosnia (some 18 percent of the electorate) had that option taken away entirely. Refugees abroad (some 19 percent of the electorate) could choose the option only by providing ‘‘clear and convincing documentary evidence’’ that the voter had a ‘‘preexisting’’ connection with that locale.44 The result was that most voters cast ballots in their current place of residence, but a sizable minority—including virtually all of those residing abroad—voted for candidates in their prewar places of residence. Votes by the latter contingent amounted to the creation of ‘‘rotten boroughs,’’ since most of the refugees had little prospect of ever returning to their prewar homes.45 Their votes, however, greatly altered election results in several places. In the 1997 municipal elections, six municipalities actually elected displaced-person governments.46 More than a fifth of the parliament in the Bosnian Serb republic consisted of delegates of Muslim parties ‘‘elected’’ by voters unlikely ever to set foot in the territory of their district. Indeed, the victory of the West’s favored candidate for the Serb seat on Bosnia’s three-member presidency over his nationalist rival was due almost entirely to the votes cast by some 200,000 displaced (primarily Muslim) voters. Allowing voters to cast ballots in that fashion helped preserve the fiction that more than a million refugees would someday return to their prewar homes and that Bosnia will become a tolerant multiethnic state. But it was also seen by many in Bosnia as a cynical ploy by the West to dilute the power of the nationalist parties. Whether intended or not, enabling massive numbers of nonresidents to cast ballots delegitimizes the democratic process. Imagine, for example, the potential effect of such a rule were it applied to other countries that experienced civil wars and large refugee flows. If the Palestinians who fled their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war could cast ballots in Israeli elections, the face of Israel’s politics (and the nature of Israel itself) would be very different. The same 23

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET could be said of the Hindus who had to flee Pakistan (and the Muslims who had to flee India) to escape the bloodletting that followed the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. If GreekCypriots who were expelled from northern Cyprus by invading Turkish troops in 1974 could cast ballots for candidates in their prewar home districts, the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus would likely have a Greek-Cypriot majority parliament. One could cite several other examples. The refugees in all of those situations undoubtedly suffered grievous injustices, and in an ideal world their property would be restored and they would be able to return safely to their homes and enjoy full political rights. But the reality is that they are rarely able to do so. It merely compounds the problem to pretend otherwise and create a political system that is based on a convenient fantasy rather than reality. That is what the international authorities have done in Bosnia, and it has a profoundly corrosive effect on the concept of democracy. Those authorities have shown contempt for the political process in Bosnia in other ways as well. When Bosnian Serb president Plavsic broke with hard-line Serb nationalists in the summer of 1997, the international organizations operating in Bosnia did not maintain a discreet neutrality but instead openly displayed favoritism. When she dissolved the parliament and called for new elections, the Serb republic’s constitutional court ruled that her actions were illegal. The OSCE simply overruled the court and proceeded to organize the elections. When the parliament supported the court decision and declared her dissolution of the legislative body illegal, OSCE ignored that measure as well.47 NATO forces in essence became her palace guard, helping her faction gain control of radio and television stations, military outposts, and police stations. It was clear from the outset that Plavsic’s political support was shaky at best and her actions of dubious legality. It was equally clear that the Western governments cared little about any of those matters; she was their client—a ‘‘reasonable’’ Serb who was prepared to implement the Dayton Agreement—and they were prepared to lavish financial aid on her government and support her by fair means or foul. Some of the nation-building personnel were surprisingly candid in expressing their cynicism. ‘‘She is a creature of our creation,’’ admitted one United Nations official. A Western diplomat stated, ‘‘We have to help her build a base of support’’— 24

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High-Handed Nation Building implying that she didn’t have one of her own.48 The transparent effort of the Western powers to support Plavsic regardless of the wishes of the Bosnian Serb population led veteran New York Times correspondent Chris Hedges to observe, ‘‘President Plavsic, essentially a figurehead, is always accompanied by her bodyguards, never strays more than a few blocks from her heavily guarded office, has no budget, and is propped up by NATO troops who seized this city’s [Banja Luka’s] police station last week.’’49 When the RS parliament sought to resolve the crisis by authorizing new parliamentary and presidential elections, NATO and OSCE balked, fearing that Plavsic would lose such a contest. Once again, the international authorities intervened in the republic’s internal politics, supporting Plavsic’s position that only elections for parliament should take place. OSCE’s explanation for its stance was that for ‘‘practical reasons’’ a presidential election before the onslaught of the usually brutal Balkan winter was simply not feasible.50 OSCE spokesmen did not explain why it would have been more difficult for voters to mark two places on the ballot instead of one under difficult weather conditions. Even with the promises of Western aid if the Bosnian Serbs voted ‘‘correctly,’’ and a significant contingent of Muslim delegates elected by displaced voters, the election left control of the new RS parliament in doubt. Candidates endorsed by Plavsic won only 15 of the 83 seats, but her Western allies worked diligently to line up additional support and to block the nationalists from regaining control of the parliament. At one point, when it looked as though milder measures might fail, the high representative threatened to remove ‘‘obstructionist deputies,’’ an action that would have guaranteed the proPlavsic forces a comfortable victory.51 The combination of threats and the lure of Western aid finally prevailed. Plavsic’s choice for prime minister, Milorad Dodik, and a new cabinet were approved, albeit by the narrowest of margins. Western aid began to flow in impressive amounts as soon as the new government was in place. By the time the presidential election was held in September 1998, the United States alone had pledged $75 million in aid—approximately one-third of the entire budget of the Republika Srpska.52 Tens of millions of additional dollars came from Western European governments and the OSCE. Washington Times correspondent Philip Smucker described the nature and extent of the support for Plavsic and her faction: 25

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET Mrs. Plavsic’s party was inundated with Western help, both direct and indirect. Funding came from the OSCE, the U.S. government and the European Union to provide jobs and infrastructure. . . . NATO’s Stabilization Force also provided satellite links for a pro-Plavsic TV station and beamed television pictures from a special U.S. airplane.53

The assistance was not enough to keep Plavsic in power. Indeed, there were some indications that it may have backfired, angering Bosnian Serbs and consolidating her image as a Western puppet. Whatever the reason, she was defeated by Radical Party candidate Nikola Poplasen. But anyone who expected the Western powers and the international officials to accept gracefully the verdict of the electorate was in for a rude awakening. An indication of trouble came just days after the balloting when Westendorp warned that he could simply remove Poplasen if he proved to be uncooperative. Robert Gelbard, the U.S. special envoy to Bosnia, added, ‘‘This man, in our view, is on probation and has to prove himself as a democratic leader.’’54 The disdain that Westendorp, Gelbard, and other Western officials displayed for the democratic process had reached breathtaking proportions. If voters had the temerity to elect someone the international nation builders didn’t like, they would simply overrule the voters. Ousting Elected Officials and Ruling by Decree Poplasen discovered that the threat of removal was not an idle one. Western leaders made it apparent from the beginning that he had better choose a prime minister and a cabinet acceptable to them. When Poplasen defied that warning and nominated Dragan Kalinic of the SDS, Washington made its extreme displeasure known and warned that Bosnian Serbs would suffer a cutoff of aid and other unspecified penalties if the parliament ratified that choice.55 Indeed, Western policymakers dropped less than subtle hints that the only acceptable candidate would be the incumbent, Milorad Dodik.56 Poplasen took the position that the results of the election indicated that the population of the RS wanted a different set of leaders and a different set of policies. His defiance proved politically fatal. On March 5, 1998, High Representative Westendorp removed Poplasen from office for obstructing the peace process and ‘‘ignoring the will of the people.’’57 The West’s democratic mission in Bosnia had 26

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High-Handed Nation Building reached sufficiently Orwellian levels that an unelected bureaucrat could oust a duly elected office holder and accuse the latter of operating contrary to the will of the people. Poplasen was not the first elected official to be removed by Bosnia’s increasingly intrusive nation builders, but he was the most prominent up to that point. The temptation to remove insufficiently cooperative office holders has only grown with time. The urge to purge reached another peak in November 1999 when the new high representative, Wolfgang Petritsch, fired 22 elected officials, including two leading figures in the principal Croat and Muslim parties. Not only were the offending politicians removed from office, they were prohibited from running in the 2000 municipal elections. Alexandra Stiglmayer, spokesperson for the high representative, told a news conference, ‘‘The dismissed officials are not the officials that Bosnia needs.’’58 The fact that the voters believed differently, she implicitly regarded as irrelevant. Petritsch himself displayed the same patronizing attitude. ‘‘I hope that you will agree that you deserve politicians who will serve you and not only their own interests,’’ he said in a statement to the Bosnian people. He added that the removed officials ‘‘had blocked your road leading to a better future.’’59 Apparently, the voters were too obtuse to recognize that point, since Petritsch decided they had to be protected from the temptation to vote again for such politicians in the upcoming election. As with the disqualification of candidates from the ballot, the arbitrary removal of elected officials has grown more pervasive over time. In March 2001, Petritsch fired Ante Jelavic—the Croatian member of Bosnia’s three-member presidency—as well as other senior officials.60 Their principal offense was to advocate modifying the Muslim-Croat Federation so that predominantly Croat areas would have a status comparable to that of the Republika Srpska. As in the case of his earlier dismissals of elected officials, Petritsch also banned Jelavic from running for elected office in the future, including the presidency.61 The reality is that Bosnia’s international guardians seem congenitally uncomfortable with the messy give-and-take of a democratic political system. Petritsch has complained: ‘‘Politics here is too slow, too inefficient. It has not achieved what the country and the people need.’’62 Petritsch and other international officials certainly have not 27

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET shown much respect for even the most basic democratic norms. When Croat nationalists sought to hold a referendum on their proposal to divide the Muslim–Croat Federation and create a new political subentity for their people, not only was it banned from the ballot but election authorities subsequently took away 10 seats in regional assemblies that the HDZ had won. That action also had the effect of greatly enhancing the political strength of the more moderate parties favored by the West. An HDZ spokesman aptly termed the ploy ‘‘electoral engineering.’’63 When the Croat nationalists continued to push their agenda to create a new subentity, Petritsch and his colleagues struck back hard. They ordered the seizure of a leading bank affiliated with the HDZ and froze all the accounts. That action punished not only the HDZ but also thousands of pensioners and other small account holders who needed the money for living expenses. Their plight did not seem to bother Petritsch unduly.64 At the time of the 1998 elections, one prominent Western diplomat stated privately that it might be time for the high representative to dispense with all pretense about democracy and turn Bosnia into a protectorate.65 Other diplomats and representatives of nongovernmental organizations active in Bosnia had been whispering similar desires for some time. Yet, in terms of substance, it could be argued that the international authorities had been running Bosnia as a protectorate with an increasingly tattered democratic facade. The high representative’s dictatorial tendencies have extended to matters large and small. He imposed his own choice for the country’s currency—with a close convertible link to the deutsche mark—and his preference for the design of new coins. He threatened to impose his choice of a design for a national automobile license plate. His office even controlled the choice of a new Bosnian national anthem, selected by a handpicked commission of academics.66 Bosnia’s Potemkin Democracy The West’s nation-building enterprise in Bosnia may be called many things, but a model of fostering democracy is not one of them. Today, Bosnia is a Potemkin state run by legions of autocratic international bureaucrats. Wall Street Journal correspondent Neil King Jr. aptly summarized the situation: ‘‘Thousands of international 28

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High-Handed Nation Building diplomats, human-rights workers and soldiers now run this countryin-the-making as a virtual protectorate, with the Americans by far the weightiest presence. Together, they write the laws, provide security, determine monetary policy and broker deals on everything from mosque construction to the colors of the national flag.’’67 Even Christopher Bennett, the International Crisis Group’s Balkans project director, conceded that Bosnia’s so-called democracy was a charade and admitted that international officials ‘‘rode roughshod over Bosnia’s democratic institutions.’’68 Little consideration seems to have been given to what lessons the people of Bosnia—and, indeed, people throughout the Balkans who have been watching the process—may draw from witnessing this charade. The unintended lesson may well be that Western rhetoric about the virtues of democracy is nothing more than cynical cant. What is seen in Bosnia today is not the evolution of a democratic system, but the ugly face of new-style colonialism. The officials who implement this new, multilateral colonialism may have better motives than their predecessors in the now dead European colonial empires that once dominated Asia and Africa, but their charges do not enjoy political rights any more meaningful. Worst of all, ambitious would-be nation builders throughout the West apparently see the Bosnia intervention as a template for similar missions in the Balkans and beyond. The same pattern of media control, for example, is already emerging in Kosovo. NATO forces shut down one Albanian-language newspaper in Pristina for publishing a story with the headline ‘‘KFOR Tolerant with Serb Criminals and Tough with Albanians.’’69 The OSCE has also set up a Kosovo media board, patterned after its Bosnia counterpart. In fact, the Kosovo media board would appear to have at least as much censorship authority over radio and television as does the Bosnia regulatory agency and even more authority over print journalism.70 The micromanagement of the electoral process is also evident. International officials decreed that one-third of all the candidates for Kosovo’s municipal elections in the autumn of 2000 had to be women. This was Western-style political correctness and quota politics run amok. The nation-building effort in Bosnia may have begun as a wellmeaning attempt by Western leaders to help construct a pluralistic, democratic society from the ruins of civil war. The results, however, 29

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET confirm Lord Acton’s memorable observation that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And regardless of the initial motives, the international mission in Bosnia has turned into a mockery of every significant democratic principle. It is an experiment that should be terminated immediately, before it becomes even more of a symbol of Western hypocrisy and shame. Notes 1. An earlier version of this essay appeared in Mediterranean Quarterly 11, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 1–22. 2. R. Jeffrey Smith, ‘‘Outside Efforts Do Little to Mend Fractured Bosnia,’’ Washington Post, January 23, 2000, p. A25. 3. High Representative Carlos Westendorp, quoted in David Chandler, Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton (London: Pluto Press, 1999), p. 113. 4. OSCE Media Development Office, Media Development: Strategies and Activities for 1997, Sarajevo, Media Development Office, February 12, 1997, p. 4. 5. Chandler, p. 116. 6. OSCE Provisional Elections Commission, 1997 Rules and Regulations as Amended and Recompiled from the 1996 Rules, Sarajevo, May 1997, Article 130. 7. Ibid. Article 133. 8. Ibid. Article 149. 9. Ibid. Article 149. 10. Ibid. Article 150. 11. Peace Implementation Council, Communique: Political Declaration from the Ministerial Meeting of the Peace Implementation Council, Sintra, Portugal, May 30, 1997, www.ohr.int/docu/d970530a.htm. Emphasis added. 12. Quoted in Chandler, p. 122. 13. Chandler, p. 124. 14. Office of the High Representative Bulletin 59 (September 5, 1997), www.ohr.int/ bulletins/b970905.htm. 15. Office of the High Representative Bulletin 61 (October 1, 1997), www.ohr.int/ bulletins/b971001.htm. 16. Mike O’Connor, ‘‘NATO Says It Shut Down Serb Radio to Silence Propaganda,’’ New York Times, October 21, 1997, p. A3. 17. Quoted in Chris Hedges, ‘‘NATO Troops in Bosnia Silence Karadzic’s Television Station,’’ New York Times, October 2, 1997, p. A3. 18. Office of the High Representative Bulletin 66 (February 23, 1998), ohr.int/bulletins/b980223. 19. Philip Shenon, ‘‘Allies Creating Agency to Rule Press in Bosnia,’’ New York Times, April 24, 1998, p. A1. 20. Quoted in Srecko Latal, ‘‘NATO Pulls Plug on Serbs’ TV,’’ Washington Times, October 2, 1997, p. A11. 21. ‘‘Bosnian Serb Government Fires Journalists,’’ Washington Post, July 28, 1998, p. A16. 22. Richard Holbrooke, letter to the editor, Foreign Affairs 77, no.1 (January– February 1998): 158.

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High-Handed Nation Building 23. Safax Agency (Sarajevo), ‘‘Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Spreading Democracy,’’ Media News, March 9, 1998. 24. International Crisis Group, Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina: How International Support Can Be More Effective, ICG Report, March 7, 1997. 25. Chandler, pp. 129–132. 26. Quoted in Shenon, p. A1. 27. Aida Cerkez-Robinson, ‘‘Bosnian Serb TV Station Banned,’’ Associated Press, April 15, 1999. 28. Quoted in R. Jeffrey Smith, ‘‘Serbs Get One Side of News,’’ Washington Post, April 5, 1999, p. A14. 29. ‘‘A Flawed Achievement in Bosnia,’’ editorial, New York Times, September 12, 1998, p. A20. 30. ‘‘Creating Professional Bosnia Media,’’ editorial, New York Times, April 30, 1998, p. A36. 31. Anthony Lewis, ‘‘Confront the Gangsters,’’ New York Times, August 22, 1997, p. A27. 32. Georgie Anne Geyer, ‘‘Media Controls Role in Bosnia,’’ Washington Times, November 29, 1997, p. C3. 33. Jamie F. Metzl, ‘‘Information Intervention: When Switching Channels Isn’t Enough,’’ Foreign Affairs 76, no. 6 (November–December 1997): 15–20. 34. Ibid., p. 15. 35. Ibid., p. 17. Emphasis added. 36. Holbrooke. See also Stephen S. Rosenfeld, ‘‘Free to Incite Genocide,’’ Washington Post, May 1, 1998, p. A15. 37. Quoted in O’Connor, ‘‘NATO Says It Shut Down Serb Radio.’’ 38. Office of the High Representative Bulletin 11, July 22, 1996, www.ohr.int/bulletins/b960722.htm. 39. Chandler, p. 120. 40. Guy Dinmore, ‘‘Poll Highlights Serb Divisions,’’ Financial Times, 17 September 1997, p. 3; and Lee Hockstader, ‘‘American Voids Order Barring Serb Candidates,’’ Washington Post, September 17, 1997, p. A1. 41. Chandler, p. 124. 42. Radul Radovanovic, ‘‘Serb Official Banned from Elections,’’ Associated Press, September 7, 1998. 43. Katarina Kratovac, ‘‘Bosnian President Concedes Defeat,’’ Washington Times, September 22, 1998, p. A19. 44. Chandler, pp. 116–17. 45. Indeed, Bosnia has become more ethnically segregated in the years since the approval of the Dayton Accords. See Gary Dempsey, ‘‘Rethinking the Dayton Agreement: Bosnia Three Years Later,’’ Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 327, December 14, 1998. Moreover, the pace of refugee returns to their prewar homes slowed in 1999 from its already anemic level. International Crisis Group, ‘‘Is Dayton Failing? Bosnia Four Years after the Peace Agreement,’’ October 28, 1999, Annex 7, Part 1, www.crisisweb.org.projects/bosnia/reports/bh51main.htm. 46. International Crisis Group, ICG Analysis of 1997 Municipal Election Results, Press Release, October 14, 1997. 47. Edward Cody, ‘‘Serb Military Gives Boost to President,’’ Washington Post, August 27, 1997, p. A21; Chris Hedges, ‘‘Bosnia’s Latest Power Struggle Puts Serb

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET against Serb,’’ New York Times, August 27, 1997, p. A3; and Raymond Bonner, ‘‘Belgrade and Moscow Stall Bosnia Vote Desired by U.S.,’’ New York Times, October 16, 1997, p. A5. 48. Quoted in Hedges, ‘‘Bosnia’s Latest Power Struggle,’’ p. A3. 49. Ibid. 50. Raymond Bonner, ‘‘Russia Fails to Block Bosnian Serb Vote,’’ New York Times, October 20, 1997, p. A3. 51. Chris Hedges, ‘‘With West’s Help, Bosnian Serb President May Form Cabinet,’’ New York Times, January 13, 1998, p. A3. 52. Mike O’Connor, ‘‘Bosnian Election Tests Western Resolve,’’ New York Times, September 13, 1998, p. A8. 53. Philip Smucker, ‘‘Left Hand Hinders Right on Bosnia,’’ Washington Times, December 6, 1998, p. A1. 54. Quoted in Mike O’Connor, ‘‘Bosnia Results Confirm Serb Hard-Liner’s Victory, and Gains by Moderates,’’ New York Times, September 26, 1998, p. A6. 55. ‘‘U.S. Says Kalinic Approval Would Hurt Bosnian Serbs,’’ Reuters, November 17, 1998. 56. ‘‘West Slams Bosnia Serb PM Nomination,’’ Reuters, November 14, 1998. 57. ‘‘Envoy Sacks Hardline Bosnian Serb President,’’ Reuters, March 5, 1999. 58. Quoted in Darla Sito-Sucic, ‘‘Bosnia Officials Sacked for Obstructing Peace,’’ Reuters, November 29, 1999. 59. Quoted in Aida Cerkez-Robinson, ‘‘22 Bosnian Politicians Fired,’’ Associated Press, November 29, 1999. 60. Aida Cerkez-Robinson, ‘‘Croatian Officials Fired for Violating Peace Pact,’’ Washington Times, March 8, 2001, p. A13. 61. For Petritsch’s explanation for his action, see Wolfgang Petritsch, ‘‘Why Jelavic Had to Go,’’ Financial Times, March 8, 2001, p. 11. 62. Quoted in Carlotta Gall, ‘‘Bosnian Election Returns Point to Little Change,’’ New York Times, November 20, 2000. 63. Quoted in Phillipa Fletcher, ‘‘Serbian, Croatian Nationalists Punished,’’ Washington Times, November 11, 2000, p. C10. 64. ‘‘Bosnian Croats Accuse West, Croatian Prime Minister Worried,’’ Reuters, April 20, 2001. See also, Daniel McAdams, ‘‘The Great NATO Bank Robbery,’’ American Spectator Online, May 7, 2001. 65. Tom Walker, ‘‘Triumph for Radicals Imperils Peace,’’ Times (London), September 17, 1998. 66. ‘‘Bosnians Get a Common Denominator: Banknotes,’’ New York Times, January 22, 1998; ‘‘Bosnian Mediator Imposes New Coin Design,’’ Agence France-Presse, September 29, 1998; and ‘‘License Plates,’’ Balkan Watch, January 27, 1998. 67. Neil King Jr., ‘‘In Latter Day Bosnia, Foreigners Try to Piece It All Back Together,’’ Wall Street Journal, August 26, 1998, p. A1. 68. Quoted in ‘‘Report: Bosnian Democracy a Charade,’’ United Press International, September 9, 1998. 69. ‘‘KFOR Shuts Down Albanian Newspaper, Arrests Publisher,’’ Kosovapress, August 9, 1999. Obtained from www.antiwar.com/rep/kosovapress1.html. 70. Garentina Kraja, ‘‘Kosovo Board Planned to Oversee Media,’’ Washington Times, October 18, 1999, p. A15; and ‘‘Kosovo’s Incipient Media Ministry,’’ editorial, New York Times, August 30, 1999, p. A22.

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2. Making the World Safe for Human Rights: A Closer Look at Kosovo David Chandler Leading international commentators today assert that there is a radical moral shift going on in international affairs: Human rights is the language of victims and the dispossessed and it cannot be stressed too much that the idea of human rights is a defense against abuse of power everywhere.1 Similarly, advocates of the new practice of humanitarian intervention argue that in an increasingly globalized world, people need to be seen as human beings first and as citizens second, and that human rights should therefore transcend and subordinate national governments. In this context, international law based on state sovereignty and principles of nonintervention is increasingly seen as an impediment to human rights and as a cover for states to deny rights to their citizens.2 Interventions, on the other hand, are portrayed as efforts to empower vulnerable if not victimized peoples, thereby challenging traditional notions of government and authority. As human rights advocate Hugo Slim sums up: At a personal level, rights dignify rather than victimize or patronize people. They make people more powerful as claimants rather than beggars. They reveal them as moral, political, and legal equals. Using [human] rights-talk together with, and on behalf of, those civilians who endure the suffering, atrocity, and impoverishment of war puts them center stage in the prosecution of the war and international response to it. Explicitly recognizing people’s equal rights makes it more difficult to marginalize their violation as a somehow collateral, accidental, or unfortunate outcome of the violence and politics of the conflict.3

The international intervention and war over Kosovo, widely greeted as the first war initiated in the name of human rights, is the leading example of this approach.4 The NATO powers argued they were morally impelled to intervene in order to protect the human 33

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET rights of Kosovar Albanians, rights that trumped those of Yugoslav territorial sovereignty.5 Following the end of the conflict, it was further argued, international administration of the province was necessary to safeguard the human rights that were reclaimed. Two years of international involvement later, there is now an opportunity to test whether the international regime of human rights promotion has matched its original empowering promise. On a more practical level, the Kosovo effort provides the Bush administration with a prototype as it decides whether or not to continue the interventionist approach of the Clinton years. What follows is a brief analysis of the extent to which the people of Kosovo have actually been empowered by having their human rights safeguarded by the world’s most powerful states and international institutions, including NATO, the United Nations, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The line of analysis will begin by clarifying the problem of communal violence in Kosovo, followed by a discussion of democratic accountability there and the likely scenario for the province’s future if the level of outside intervention is not changed. Clarifying the Problem of Violence Today there are more refugees from Kosovo than there were prior to the 1999 NATO human rights bombing campaign. The province is now virtually mono-ethnic, with more than 90 percent of its non–ethnic-Albanian population forced to leave out of fear of murder, arson, and intimidation.6 At the end of 2000, UN SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan estimated that around 200,000 Kosovo Serbs and 30,000–40,000 other ethnic minorities had fled.7 The UN High Commission for Refugees estimates that those figures will remain constant, at around a quarter-of-a-million people. Few were expected to return in 2001, due to the inhospitable security situation in the province.8 For those minorities that do remain in Kosovo, violence and attacks are almost a daily occurrence. In February 2001, the UNHCR reported that the situation was still so bad that Serb and Roma live in a virtual state of siege in mono-ethnic enclaves under the heavy guard of the NATO-led Kosovo Force. The UN Mission in Kosovo, UNHCR, and other humanitarian agencies sustain these isolated communities with food and other basic assistance.9 34

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Making the World Safe for Human Rights The ongoing violence aimed at Serbs and other minorities and the apparent general lawlessness in Kosovo, however, has done little to discredit the international administration of the province. That is despite the fact that the international administrators have taken on responsibility for law and order by removing the Yugoslav police and armed forces on one hand, and preventing Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians from establishing their own police control on the other. Still, international administrators speak out against interethnic violence and speak of crime as if it were not occurring under what is essentially their watch. Indeed, the head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Daan Everts, says that the international community has spent the last two years working hard to create a more democratic and tolerant climate and that the violence is undermining all those efforts.10 For some commentators the ethnic bloodletting and criminality are evidence that the international administrators have an anti-Serb agenda and therefore tacitly condone the situation. Other analysts conclude that the levels of interethnic violence indicate the international administration lacks the political will and resources to impose its agenda for multiethnic coexistence and human rights in Kosovo. The recommendation that usually follows from both critiques is that the international community should have more troops and police on the ground to keep order in the province. That approach assumes that the people of Kosovo are the problem and that the international community is responsible for the solution. But that ignores two important factors: the impact of NATO’s war on the political calculations of many Kosovar Albanians and the consequences of the ongoing failure to develop a postwar constitutional solution in Kosovo. Both those factors have created barriers to improved ethnic-Albanian and Serb relations. NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign helped destroy the basis of cooperation and coexistence among ethnic Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo. Indeed, as long as the independence cause lacked powerful external backers, the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army had difficulty persuading potential recruits that arms could achieve more than negotiation. Once leading international powers offered political backing and material support, with NATO powers publicly committing themselves to the withdrawal of Serb police and troops and threatening military intervention, it became far easier to convince people they had little to lose by breaking inter-ethnic communal ties. 35

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET In addition to bearing a large responsibility for rising conflict in the province prior to and during the NATO bombing, the postconflict international regime has subsequently done little to provide security or facilitate interethnic coexistence. There is no constitutional framework in Kosovo and no certainty over the future status of the province. As Mary Kaldor, director of the Program on Global Civil Society at the London School of Economics, notes, it is very difficult to normalize everyday life when Kosovo has no constitution or basic law that could guide decisions on a whole range of issues, including security, currency, and even planing regulations.11 There have been protests over the high-handed international regulation in the legal system and in health, education, and the media, with Kosovar Albanians finding it hard to understand why the departure of Serb managers and administrators has meant that the UN, rather than ethnic-Albanian management teams, has taken over.12 While Kosovar Albanians have seen international officials take over Serb positions of authority, albeit with the aim of eventually handing over policy and management responsibilities to Kosovars, the only visible gain from the war after two years of international regulation is that the Serbs lost.13 Accepting Serb refugee returns right now, therefore, would make the wartime sacrifices of many Kosovar Albanians appear pointless. Indeed, without a constitutional settlement first or any significant role in the management of the province, Serb returns would simply be viewed as a revival of Yugoslav influence. There is thus little incentive for Kosovar Albanians to participate in interethnic cooperation.14 Bearing in mind these realities, education programs established by international bodies to promote nonviolent conflict resolution are somewhat disingenuous. One example of such a program is the conflict resolution project Training for Trainers on Interethnic Dialogue and Reconciliation, which is supported by the OSCE and several European nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The project organizes workshops on Interethnic Dialogue and Conflict Resolution, bringing together individuals representing Albanian, Serbian, Bosniak, Roma, and Gorani ethnic communities, coming from both Kosovo and Serbia.15 Its sessions introduce the participants to the basic principles of understanding conflict and nonviolent methods of conflict resolution. With the aid of Western facilitators and attractive locations, such as Florence, Italy, it is hoped that these forums can 36

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Making the World Safe for Human Rights provide a true and unique platform for interethnic dialogue.16 Local NGO activists have all-expenses-paid holidays in exchange for pledging that they will return equipped with new capacities to deal with situations of oppression and conflict and practical ways to utilize dialogue, and attempt to convert other members of their community to Western values of peace and nonviolence. While the attraction of such peace projects to the individual participants is obvious, it is the Western sponsors that grow and expand through the public confirmation of their essential civilizing role. Indeed, the people of Kosovo are seen to be no longer in need of saving from the Serbs but from their own inability to contain their violent urges. The OSCE-run Kosovo Law Center is another example that illustrates a patronizing mind-set. It promotes seminars on Alternative Dispute Resolution in Family Issues. Funded by European NGOs and the UN’s Development Fund for Women, the seminars focus on interrelated subjects such as cross-cultural and traditional aspects of dispute resolution and resolving conflict between spouses using both practical psychology and the legal system.17 Although in many countries family disputes are considered private issues, explain supporters of the program, the seminars are justified because of an apparent lack of awareness of alternative ways to settle family disputes within Kosovo.18 Again and again, the problem of violence in Kosovo is characterized by Kosovo’s caretakers as a psychological or cultural problem of the citizens of Kosovo, not as a political consequence of international intervention and pervasive foreign administration. But in fact, it was the NATO powers that encouraged and emboldened the KLA, and NATO that carried out a three-month high-altitude bombing campaign that provoked more conflict, triggered massive refugee flows, and killed many civilians.19 The fact is that the international powers, now encouraging ‘‘tribal coexistence’’ in Kosovo, themselves ensured that there would be little coexistence in the region.20 To ignore that reality misreads the practical consequences of the intervention and portrays the problem as being with the people of Kosovo—be they ethnic Albanian, Serb, or otherwise. Teaching Democracy The treatment of the people of Kosovo as helpless victims of atavistic culture and psychological dysfunction is demeaning. The 37

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET international community began the process by filling the vacuum left by the expulsion of all Serbian and Yugoslav authorities.21 It is claimed that foreign administration was necessary because the people of Kosovo were not ready for the pressures of self-government, and that they are still learning about democracy. In February 2001, the head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo urged the people in Kosovo and their political leaders to show that they are serious about embracing democracy and civil society.22 That was the same message heard when Kosovo was taken over by foreign administrators 18 months earlier. In October 2000, the OSCE held municipal elections and claimed that the occasion presented a historic opportunity for the unready Kosovar Albanians to show the international community that the people of Kosovo were committed to a democratic future.23 The influential policy organization International Crisis Group similarly argued that the significance of the October elections lay in what they revealed about the commitment of Kosovo Albanians to democracy.24 If there is a question about commitment to democracy, however, it is one that is better asked of the international administrators of the province than its citizens. The international community is virtually autonomous in Kosovo, with no legal or political standing assented to by local parties. In fact, there are fewer limitations on international action in Kosovo, nominally still a province under Yugoslav and Serbian sovereignty, than there are in Bosnia. In Bosnia the international community is bound by the Dayton Agreement, which at least on paper establishes a political framework of state and entity bodies as well as elected bodies at canton and provincial levels.25 In Kosovo there has been no such settlement. UN Resolution 1244, which ended the war, promised substantial autonomy for Kosovo while respecting the sovereignty and integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia but provided no constitutional framework.26 However, the UN administrative structures in place in Kosovo were drawn up by a select group of Western powers with no input from Kosovar or Serbian representatives.27 No Kosovar Albanians or Serbs were consulted when representatives of the G7 powers and 11 other Western states, meeting under UN auspices, selected Bernard Kouchner, former French health minister and leading advocate of human rights intervention, to head the Kosovo administration as the Special Representative of the United Nations in Kosovo. 38

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Making the World Safe for Human Rights Kouchner was replaced, again without any input from Kosovar Albanians or Serbs, in January 2001, by Hans Haekkerup, the former Danish defense minister. The special representative is supported by four deputies, principal deputy Gary L. Mathews, from the United States, and one deputy each from France, the Netherlands, and the UK. The deputies were all selected by the lead international agencies operating in Kosovo: the United Nations, which is in charge of civil administration; the European Union, which is in charge of economic reconstruction; and the OSCE, which is responsible for democratization and institution building.28 Additionally, the head of the Central Financial Authority, which is responsible for managing the province’s $260 million annual budget (mostly funded by international donors), is Australian Alan Pearson, formerly a director of the Barents Group of KPMG, a global consulting and accountancy firm.29 The vast foreign administration is divided into 20 departments, such as those for education, health, social services, labor and employment, trade and industry, transport, agriculture, and public utilities. Each department is run by international appointees from outside the region, with UN-appointed Kosovar co-heads who have purely titular positions and are not even allowed access to internal memos to department heads.30 These departments even include the Administrative Department for Democratic Governance and Civil Society, which, without any hint of irony, was established by edict of the special representative.31 Below the administrative departmental structure there is also a regional structure with five UN-run regional authorities based in Pristina, Pec, Prizen, Mitrovica, and Gnjilane, and beneath them, a further layer of international management, the thirty UN-administrated municipalities. The extensive international bureaucracy leaves little space for any Kosovar governance. There is some involvement of Kosovar representatives in the UN administration, but only in an ad hoc consultative capacity. Four representatives from the province have been appointed by the special representative to sit in on the meetings of the UN-created Interim Administrative Council, which serves as an advisory discussion forum. The special representative has the right to veto decisions adopted by the IAC, or to impose his own, and is under no obligation to consult with the IAC over decision-making. Below that level there is another discussion forum, the Kosovo Transitional Council, made up of 36 UN appointees from political parties, 39

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET religious communities, and nongovernmental organizations.32 The KTC is merely a sounding board for the special representative, as Kouchner explained at its first meeting: ‘‘There will be no voting. . . . We will work together to reach agreement, but if we fail to do it, I will have to make a decision.’’33 At present, there is no time limit or clear benchmark for international withdrawal despite the fact that province-level elections were held in November 2001. Even after the provincial elections, however, it is not expected that the elected body will hold a decision-making power superior to that of the international administrators now running Kosovo. Indeed, there were municipal council elections in October 2000, but the elected representatives still do not have policymaking responsibilities. Instead, they work under a UN municipal administrator in charge of the local municipal administrative boards, each responsible for the day-to-day running of a municipality.34 The local municipal administrative board is actually the executive body at the local level. The municipal councils are merely consultative bodies representing a spectrum of local opinion.35 The UN Municipal Administrative Board’s administrator not only has responsibility for all municipal property, budgets and financial decisions, and appointments, but he or she also convenes and attends meetings of the local municipal council and its committees and can overrule council decisions without any right of appeal. In two-thirds of the municipalities, the UN special representative chose to appoint additional municipal council members, and three municipal councils consist entirely of UN appointees.36 In addition to these powers, the special representative can dismiss elected representatives or dissolve the municipal councils if its members are seen to be obstructing the implementation of international policies.37 The attitude of Kosovo’s international administrators to elections is also remarkable. In most countries, elections are held as a referendum on the government and its policies. In Kosovo, elections are not a test of government policy but a test of the people, and if they fail the test—regardless of which political parties achieve the most votes — government policy will be decided by international appointees. That attitude reflects one similar to that outlined by Bertolt Brecht in the anti-Stalinist poem The Solution: The Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee

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Making the World Safe for Human Rights Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?38

In the October 2000 municipal-level elections, the people of Kosovo did not have much of a chance at winning the confidence of the government. Prior to the election all the parties had already been characterized as lacking democratic principles. In fact, according to the head of the OSCE mission, the political parties’ unanimous support for independence was undemocratic because it failed to provide voters with a substantive choice at the ballot box.39 The OSCE sought to lecture the political parties by bringing out its own view of what voters should want. It produced Voters’ Voices: Community Concerns, which was based on questionnaires of policy options that excluded any mention of the province’s future status.40 The OSCE then accused the parties of being out of touch with the electorate and of following their own agendas, and took it upon itself to provide guidance to bring the agendas of the electorate and politicians together.41 The OSCE attempted to do that by assisting in the writing of election programs and deciding who the candidates from the smaller political parties would be. 42 On election day, Kosovo’s administrators were very impressed with the high turnout and patient queuing: They considered the election a huge success, fully justifying their continued international regulation, but not the a transference of powers.43 The Future The fact that both Belgrade and the Kosovar Albanian leadership are reliant on U.S. and international support has meant that the NATO powers have been quite open about ignoring major aspects of UN Resolution 1244. In de facto if not de jure terms, the province is no longer part of Serbia or Yugoslavia. There is no independent Serbo-Croat–language television or radio in the province, the Yugoslav dinar has been replaced by the German mark, postal links have been cut, and the new cellular network no longer retains the 38 Yugoslav country code.44 The legal system has also been changed 41

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET without any Yugoslav input; the UN Mission in Kosovo has assumed control of the administration of identity cards and international travel documents; and all Yugoslav government property has been taken over by the UN.45 There are no Yugoslav flags at the border, and there were none on display outside the municipal polling stations, which were instead draped in Albanian and U.S. flags. 46 Despite the fact that the municipal elections went smoothly, and that every party (including the Green Party) stood on an independence platform, and that there has been no serious attempt to return Serb refugees, there is little chance that Kosovo will see real self-government anytime soon.47 The international community is under scant pressure to draw up a constitutional framework for the province, and elections for a provincial government have been consistently delayed. The UN special representative is reluctant to grant any real authority to an elected provincial assembly and is unwilling to allow Kosovar Albanian leaders to negotiate directly with Belgrade. The favored position at present is to grant policymaking authority neither to Kosovar representatives nor to the Yugoslav or Serb government. A UNcommissioned independent panel headed by Justice Richard Goldstone has recommended for Kosovo something it calls conditional independence.48 In practice, this would reproduce in Kosovo the situation of Bosnia, where the international powers have decided that their regulation of the nominally independent state will continue in open-ended fashion. Bosnian independence is conditional until the major powers are convinced that the political leadership of Bosnia can take over in a suitably constructive fashion, whatever that is, and until then it is simply beside the point to apply the traditional concept of noninterference in internal affairs in Bosnia.49 Former special representative for Kosovo Bernard Kouchner argues that it is important to back the Kosovar Albanians because ‘‘they were and they are still the victims.’’ But this support apparently does not extend to acceding to their demand for self-government.50 It seems that those whose human rights are violated enjoy the right to have international institutions act on their behalf, but do not have the right to actually decide things for themselves. At this time, there are no concrete plans to constrain the international regulatory powers in Kosovo within formal limits, despite growing demands for accountability from Kosovar political parties 42

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Making the World Safe for Human Rights and elected representatives.51 In reality, moreover, conditional independence within an international framework means international regulation of both Kosovo’s internal affairs and its external relations with other states.52 For the foreseeable future, therefore, the UN special representative will have legislative and executive powers over the province and attend regional forums as the international representative of the people of Kosovo. Conclusion The lesson of Kosovo is that the new international regime of human rights can be contradictory. It certainly weakens state sovereignty; there is no sovereign power or authority in Kosovo, either ethnic-Albanian or Serbian. However, the lack of sovereignty does not necessarily mean more power or rights for the formerly persecuted individuals living there. Kosovars are far from being empowered through the new regime, despite having their human rights enforced by the most powerful states and international institutions in the world. In fact, the experience of Kosovo serves to demonstrate that individual rights are intimately tied to sovereignty. It is sovereignty—within a framework of self-government—that enables the establishment of a constitutional system with rights and legitimacy.53 The former victims in Kosovo do not live under a framework of rights. There is no sphere of political autonomy in which they can develop or articulate claims, either individually or collectively. They are unable to elect a democratically accountable government or to challenge the dictats of the UN special representative. Although geographically located in Europe, the Kosovo protectorate even falls outside the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights— because decisions made there are not the responsibility of any individual state.54 It would appear that, far from empowering victims and allowing vulnerable people to set their own international agenda, the human rights regime has had the opposite effect, empowering the dominant international institutions and world powers, who have acquired a novel set of rights of interference in the affairs of other states. Far from institutionalizing expanded rights, the human rights framework has politically legitimized a new hierarchy in international affairs, reinforcing economic and military inequalities between the powerful and the powerless.55 43

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET Under Belgrade’s rule Kosovar Albanians may have been denied regional government when the special status of the province was dissolved in 1989, but they were formally treated as equal rightsbearing citizens. Today the people of Kosovo are treated not as citizens but as childlike dependants, incapable of dealing with conflict nonviolently, incapable of managing the most intimate of personal relationships, and incapable of making a rational decision at the ballot box. Far from empowering or dignifying victims, the emerging human rights regime in international relations has facilitated a modern analog to the ‘‘white man’s burden.’’56 The experience of Kosovo provides a strong argument against the claim that Western interventions to protect human rights have promoted individual rights or empowered and elevated victims of human rights abuses. It also provides the Bush administration with a strong argument for beginning serious efforts to reverse course in Kosovo and to encourage less outside interference there, not more. Notes 1. See, for example, David P. Forsythe, Human Rights in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 219; and Jack Donnelly, International Human Rights, 2d ed. (Colorado: Westview, 1998), p. 20. 2. Geoffrey Robertson, Crimes against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1999), p. 372; Max Boot, ‘‘Paving the Road to Hell: The Failure of UN Peacekeeping,’’ Foreign Affairs 79, no. 2 (March–April 2000): 143–148; Brian Urquhart, ‘‘In the Name of Humanity,’’ New York Review of Books, April 27, 2000. 3. Hugo Slim, ‘‘Not Philanthropy but Rights: Rights-Based Humanitarianism and the Proper Politicization of Humanitarian Philosophy.’’ Paper presented at A Seminar on Politics and Humanitarian Aid: Debates, Dilemmas and Dissension. Commonwealth Institute, London, February 1, 2001. 4. Francesca Klug, Values for a Godless Age (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 2; see also Lord Robertson, Secretary-General of NATO, Kosovo One Year On: Achievement and Challenge, p. 22, www.kforonline.com. 5. R. C. Longworth, ‘‘Human Rights Now May Trump Sovereignty,’’ Chicago Tribune, December 9, 1999; Louis Henkin, ‘‘Kosovo and the Law of Humanitarian Intervention,’’ American Journal of International Law 93 (1999): pp. 824–28; Antonio Cassese, ‘‘Ex Inuria Ius Oritur: Are We Moving Towards International Legitimation of Forcible Humanitarian Countermeasures in the World Community?’’ European Journal of International Law 10 (1999): pp. 23–30; Mary Ellen O’Connell, ‘‘The UN, NATO, and International Law after Kosovo,’’ Human Rights Quarterly 22 (2000): pp. 57–98. 6. See ‘‘Assessment of the Situation of Ethnic Minorities in Kosovo’’ (covering June through September 2000), UNHCR/OSCE, www.unhcr.ch/world/euro/seo/ protect/0010min.pdf.

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Making the World Safe for Human Rights 7. Letter dated December 28, 2000, from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council, United Nations Security Council, S/2000/1246, www.un.org/Docs/sc/letters/2000/1246e.pdf. 8. UNHCR 2001 Global Appeal, UNHCR, p. 199, www.unhcr.ch/fdrs/ga2001/ yug.pdf. 9. Ibid. 10. OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Press Release, ‘‘Violence Undermining Democracy,’’ February 16, 2001. 11. Mary Kaldor, ‘‘Time to Be Constructive,’’ Guardian, October 24, 2000. 12. Jonathon Steele, ‘‘UN Forces Fight to Make Old Foes Work Together,’’ Guardian, July 11, 1999; ‘‘Reversals in the Workplace Leave Albanians on Top,’’ Guardian, July 8, 1999. See also David Chandler, ‘‘Bosnia: Prototype of a NATO Protectorate,’’ ed. Tariq Ali, Masters of the Universe? NATO’s Balkan Crusade (New York: Verso, 2000), pp. 271–84. 13. OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Press Release, ‘‘Ambassador Everts Outlines OSCE Priorities for Kosovo in 2001,’’ January 11, 2001. 14. International Crisis Group, Kosovo Report Card, Balkans Report no. 100 (August 28, 2000), www.intl-crisis-group.org/projects/balkans/kosovo/reports/A400011_ 28082000.pdf. 15. OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Press Release, ‘‘Conflict Resolution Project Creates a Way Forward,’’ February 20, 2001. 16. Ibid. 17. OSCE Mission in Kosovo Press Release, ‘‘Kosovo Law Centre Sponsors Seminar on Alternative Dispute Resolution in Family Issues,’’ February 8, 2001. 18. Ibid. 19. United Kingdom House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 1999–2000, Fourth Report, May 23, 2000, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm199900/cmselect/cmfaff/28/2802; Noam Chomsky, The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo (London: Pluto Press, 1999); Christopher Layne, ‘‘Miscalculations and Blunders Lead to War,’’ in NATO’s Empty Victory: A Postmortem on the Balkan War, ed. Ted Galen Carpenter (Washington: Cato Institute, 2000); Robert M. Hayden, ‘‘Biased ‘Justice’: Humanrightism and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,’’ Cleveland State Law Review 47 (2001): pp. 3–25; and Peter Beaumont, Ed Vulliamy, and Paul Beaver, ‘‘CIA’s Bastard Army Ran Riot in Balkans,’’ Observer, March 11, 2001. 20. A Future for Kosovo, The Economist, November 4, 2000, p. 21. 21. Slavoj Zizek, The Fragile Absolute or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? (London: Verso, 2000), p. 59. 22. OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Press Release, ‘‘Violence Undermining Democracy,’’ February 16, 2001. 23. OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Press Release, ‘‘Statement of the OSCE Chairpersonin-Office Benita Ferrero-Waldner on the Eve of the Municipal Elections in Kosovo,’’ October 27, 2000. 24. International Crisis Group, ‘‘Elections in Kosovo: Moving Toward Democracy,’’ Balkans Report 97 (July 7, 2000). 25. The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, www.ohr.int/gfa/gfa-home.htm. Also see David Chandler, Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton (London: Pluto Press, 1999).

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET 26. UN Security Council Resolution 1244, June 10, 1999, www.un.org/Docs/scres/ 1999/9sc1244.htm. 27. Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 10 of Security Council Resolution 1244, June 12, 1999, un.org/Docs/sc/reports/1999/s1999672.htm; Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, July 12, 1999, un.org/Docs/sc/reports/1999/s1999779.htm. 28. United Nations Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo, http://www.un. org/peace/kosovo/pages/kosovo9.htm. 29. UNMIK-JIAS Fact Sheet: Central Fiscal Authority, www.un.org/peace/ kosovo/pages/twelvemonths/cfa.htm; and UNMIK-JIAS Fact Sheet: Kosovo Consolidated Budget, www.un.org/peace/kosovo/pages/twelvemonths/kcb.htm. 30. International Crisis Group, Kosovo Report Card, Balkans Report no. 100 (August 28, 2000), www.intl-crisis-group.org/projects/balkans/kosovo/reports/A400011_ 28082000.pdf, p. 29. 31. ‘‘On the Establishment of the Administrative Department for Democratic Governance and Civil Society,’’ UNMIK Regulation no. 2000/40, July 10, 2000, www.un.org/peace/kosovo/pages/regulations/reg04.htm. 32. UNMIK-JIAS Fact Sheet: Joint Interim Administrative Structure, www.un.org/ peace/kosovo/pages/twelvemonths/jias.html. 33. UNMIK Press Release, ‘‘UNMIK Convenes First Meeting of Kosovo Transitional Council,’’ July 16, 1999, www.un.org/peace/kosovo/unmikpr12.htm. 34. UNMIK-JIAS Fact Sheet: Joint Interim Administrative Structure. 35. On the Appointment of Regional and Municipal Administrators, UNMIK Regulation no. 1999/14, October 21, 1999, www.un.org/peace/kosovo/pages/ regulations/reg14.html. 36. Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN Security Council, S/2000/1196, December 15, 2000, www.un.org/Depts/dhl/docs/s20001196.pdf. 37. On Self-Government of Municipalities in Kosovo, UNMIK Regulation no. 2000/ 45, August 11, 2000, www.un.org/peace/kosovo/pages/regulations/reg045.html. 38. Bertolt Brecht, ‘‘The Solution,’’ in J. Willett and R. Mannheim (eds.) Bertolt Brecht Poems (London: Methuen, 1979), p. 440. 39. Daan Everts, Foreword, Voters’ Voices: Community Concerns, OSCE Democratisation Department, Pristina, Kosovo, September 2000. 40. Voters’ Voices: Community Concerns, OSCE Democratisation Department, Pristina, Kosovo, September 2000. 41. OSCE Publishes Voters’ Voices: Community Concerns, OSCE Mission in Kosovo Press Release, October 3, 2000. 42. Political Party Guide, Municipal Elections, Kosovo, 2000, OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Department of Democratisation. 43. Daan Everts, Kosovo Joins World’s Democracies, OSCE Mission in Kosovo Press Release, October 28, 2000; for further details see David Chandler, ‘‘Kosovo Elections: Failing the Test of Democracy?’’ www.bhhrg.org. 44. Eve-Ann Prentice, ‘‘Kosovo Links with Belgrade ‘Severed,’’’ Times (London), July 5, 1999. 45. Second Phase of Identity Card Distribution Begins in Kosovo, News Archive, UN Interim Administration in Kosovo, www.un.org/peace/kosovo/pages/kosovo2.htm; Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, July 12, 1999.

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Making the World Safe for Human Rights 46. R. Jeffrey Smith, ‘‘U.S. Officials Expect Kosovo Independence,’’ Washington Post, September 24, 1999. 47. Paul Currion, ‘‘Dialogue in Jeopardy,’’ Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Balkan Crisis Report No. 190 (Kosovo Local Elections Special Issue), October 27, 2000; and Steven Erlanger, ‘‘Self-Determination in Kosovo Will Take Much Determination,’’ New York Times, February 1, 2001. 48. Report of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, October 2000, www.kosovocommission.org. 49. OHR Press Release, ‘‘The Role of Peace Implementation Council Steering Board Ambassadors in Bosnia and Herzegovina,’’ February 8, 2001. 50. Cited in ‘‘Back Albanian Kosovars but Not for Independence: Kouchner,’’ Agence France Presse, Paris, February 16, 2001, listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/ twatch-l.html. 51. Currion, ‘‘Reaction in Kosovo to Kostunica’s Victory,’’ International Crisis Group, Balkans Briefing, October 10, 2000. 52. Report of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo. 53. See also Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1973), pp. 290–302. 54. This also applies to The Hague War Crimes Tribunal; see Robertson, p. 284. 55. See also David Chandler, From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention (London: Pluto Press, 2002), forthcoming. 56. Vanessa Pupavac, ‘‘Pathologising Populations and Colonising Minds: International Psychosocial Programmes in Kosovo.’’ Paper presented to the Political Studies Association, 51st Annual Conference, Manchester, United Kingdom, April 10–12, 2001.

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3. Daytonia and the UNMIKistas: My Odyssey of Disillusion Stephen Schwartz On November 7, 1987, three years before the outbreak of open combat in Yugoslavia, I wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle: For the past two years, scholars of East-West politics have noted rising tensions in Yugoslavia, and a crisis now looms with chilling parallels to another conflict that began there, World War I. Yugoslavia is exploding with what was called during the 1930s ‘‘the dynamite of minority nationalism.’’ This is not surprising in a country that was ‘‘designed’’ at the close of the 1914–1918 war. . . . The cultural gaps separating the Yugoslavian nationalities are wide and the political grudges are bitter. . . . A sinister phrase has already come into play in discussions of the region: ‘‘Lebanonization.’’ What would ‘‘Lebanonization’’ of Yugoslavia mean? Well, it could mean . . . war between the Serbians and YugoslavAlbanians. The Soviet Union might very well intervene; the conventional wisdom is that NATO and the U.S. would deplore such an action, but not obstruct it—that Moscow can play a stabilizing role in such an outbreak. But what if ‘‘Lebanonization’’ of Yugoslavia should prove, as in Beirut, not amenable to the stabilizing actions of outside powers? Might it not touch off other brushfire conflicts in the region? The possible ramifications are both many and grim. . . . World War I began with a Serbian terrorist’s assassination of an Austrian prince as a protest over the failure of Serbia to gain full dominion over Bosnia. Prior to the beginning of that war in 1914, the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913 saw bloody fighting and terrorism. . . . [C]ommunism is rather a secondary issue for the various disgruntled minorities. The belief that the brotherhood of the workers would overcome national feelings and prejudices has proved a cruel hoax, for the Yugoslav nationalities no less than for the Central Asians in the Soviet Union or the Tibetans in China. The political labels grow distorted or fade away; ethnic realities remain.

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET The opinion page editor of the Chronicle titled the article from which this is quoted, ‘‘Birth Pangs of World War III?’’ Well, a third world war it wasn’t, but the breakup of Yugoslavia and the ensuing Balkan conflicts were still awful indeed. Certainly, they saw some of the worst aspects of the Second World War: ethnic atrocities, bombing of civilians, and terrorism by irregular forces. The wars in Yugoslavia would provoke in the West a yoked pair of political phenomena: among conservatives, a ‘‘realist’’ opposition to intervention in the conflict, and on the surviving ideological left, the enthusiastic defense of an otherwise fascist dictator, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia. Finally, the post-Yugoslavia agony would produce its most significant parallel with World War II: military action by the West, culminating in the first war NATO has ever fought. The first question that springs to mind about this decade-long nightmare is: Why was the world so blind to its coming, and then so helpless to respond appropriately? Until 1990, nobody in the West, except for a handful of experts and other interested parties who followed the Yugoslav media, had the slightest idea how fragile the Yugoslav state was or how rapidly and brutally its dissolution might occur. Those who spoke up in the West, alarmed at the rise of ethnic demagoguery after the 1986 ‘‘leaking’’ of the Serbian Academy Memorandum, a manifesto of nationalist-communist incitement, were either ignored or subjected to attacks from comfortably ensconced experts in academia and think tanks. The Yugoslav national conflicts had been resolved, it was explained; the society was fundamentally stable and faced nothing other than the economic challenge of cooling excessive growth, spending, and inflation in its uniquely liberal form of state socialism. Yugoslavia’s form of economics had, by the way, been analyzed by many Western academics, including Laura d’Andrea Tyson, who would become a leading adviser to President Bill Clinton. Here, however, lay the nub of Western incomprehension of Yugoslavia, which led to democratic leaders being taken completely by surprise when serious fighting began, first between Serbia and Slovenia, in 1991. To begin with, notwithstanding four and a half decades of the Cold War, preceded by another 20 years or so of Stalinism, very few in the West had seriously studied, or really understood, how the internal dynamics of communist societies might lead to crises within them, and how they might collapse or be overthrown, 50

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Daytonia and the UNMIKistas transformed, or otherwise replaced. Indeed, the dismaying reality is that nobody in the West has begun to understand this even today. A vast field of inquiry has been left completely fallow. Here are the essential issues that have yet to be seriously examined or even addressed: the functional relationship of the party, the state, and property; the sociology of the party elite or nomenklatura as a property-holding class; the relationship between the party elite and the nonparty professional classes; the competition of ethnic groups in the party-state; how economies work in the absence of entrepreneurship, free markets, and efficient management; how an entrepreneurial class may or may not develop in such a society or after its collapse; how an entrepreneurial class may overthrow or otherwise supplant a party elite as the dominant class in society. In other words, nobody had asked basic questions about how and why communist societies would break down as in Yugoslavia, and how bourgeois societies would be erected on their ruins. Everybody hoped for the best and theorized in the dark on the details. For example, nearly every post-communist society formulated privatization schemes (some of them notably successful) with advice from Westerners, but without anybody asking, among other things, what the business psychology of the formerly communist managers, who would retain control over enterprises, would be. Few asked how socialist accounting and other business practices would differ from normal commercial habits; how decades of party-based, often ethnic cronyism was to be overcome; how media, even if freed from direct censorship, would liberate itself from the habits of servility; how a new social conflict of all against all was to be avoided. There remains no manual of ‘‘party-state sociology,’’ much less a handbook for revolution against it, in print anywhere today. The truth was that very nearly everybody in the West expected communism to last forever. The fraudulent normality of the system duped much of the world. Yugoslavia was the most unfortunate victim of this obliviousness because the Belgrade regime was favored by a particular complacency on the part of foreign observers. Westerners simply did not worry about Yugoslavia and did not think they had to. It wasn’t just that it lacked natural resources like oil; foreigners believed Yugoslavia, with ‘‘self-managed socialism,’’ had succeeded where other communist states had not; its people had the freedom to read Orwell, 51

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET Trotsky, and Friedman, as well as the right to travel the world. Yugoslavs ate and dressed well, owned cars, worked abroad, and welcomed foreigners to relax on their spectacular beaches. This view of the Titoite era persists today among many Western observers, and nostalgia for the Titoite past is powerful among the foreigners responsible for the future of de facto protectorates like Bosnia and Kosovo. Unfortunately, however, as every Yugoslav knew in his or her heart, the Titoite illusion was belied by a gruesome reality. However pleasant the face it turned to the West, however well it seemed to satisfy the immediate needs of its citizens, within the Titoite universe there lurked a seething mass of ethnic discontent. Indeed, Yugoslavia represented the most reckless, dangerous, and ultimately unsustainable example of a practice visible throughout the communist world: favoring a single ethnic group in the state bureaucracy and concentrating state power into its hands. In Yugoslavia there was a natural backlash against this. After 1971, Slovenes openly turned to integration of their economy with capitalist Italy and Austria, increasing their average income dramatically. Croatia in 1971 had rebelled in the name of cultural autonomy. But the tax and major economic policy power—administration of the hallowed socialist ‘‘plan’’—in communist Yugoslavia remained concentrated in Belgrade, the federal and Serbian capital. Efforts at constitutional reform by Tito, in his last years, in which political power was devolved to six republics and two autonomous entities, left much of Belgrade’s predominance untouched. But none of this had been reported in the West; nor is it seen today. Westerners judge the conflicts between Serbs and others in ex-Yugoslavia exclusively in terms of one group’s virtues and their adversaries’ historic evil. Few look at Yugoslavia in terms of a classic ‘‘rent seeking’’ relationship in which state and party bureaucrats were threatened in 1991 with being dislodged from their positions of economic advantage. Avoidable Wars Could the Balkan wars of the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century have been avoided? Of course, and without the outlay of military force. But first the West would have had to understand Yugoslavia, and it would have needed a vision of how to replace a 52

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Daytonia and the UNMIKistas lopsided, unjust communist system with one based on entrepreneurship. Yugoslavia could probably have ‘‘survived’’ as a customs union or very loose confederation. Given that Yugoslavia had preened itself as the success story of the communist states, this should have been the logical and successful progression of events. But none of the necessary factors were present in the West, and so Yugoslavia exploded. The violence of the Yugoslav breakup would reflect, much less than pure ethnic rivalries, the desperation of an all-out fight for the spoils in an economic environment that had been marked by undeniable but artificial prosperity, and the artificial but undeniable ethnic monopolization of power. Even after the crisis became especially bloody, in Croatia in 1991, I did not support direct Western military intervention. As a journalist, I attempted to follow a line of strict neutrality. But, in a parallel I think has clear precedent in World War II, I came to reject the argument that journalistic accuracy and objectivity required neutrality. Having been present in the Serb Krajina region or zone within Croatia when the war began, it was clear to me that the aggression had originated in Belgrade, and I sympathized with the Croats, then openly supported the Muslim Bosnians in response to the horrors that began the following year. But while I wrote and spoke in defense of the Bosnian cause and called for the end to the arms embargo against them, I never argued for U.S. or Western troops to be sent there. This position reflected several concerns. As a veteran of the Vietnam antiwar movement with 4F draft status, I did not consider it moral for me to urge others to risk their lives in war when I had not. But also, I experienced a holdover of a romantic ideal I had known, in the past, as a leftist—I believed that if the ragged and underarmed Bosnian Muslims defeated the superior forces of the Yugoslav army, it would serve a fine lesson on the world powers, and would inspire other oppressed populations to adopt the practice of semi-anarchist citizen self-defense. (Indeed, this model had worked spectacularly in Slovenia, but only because there were few Serbs there to support Belgrade’s objectives.) Finally, I feared that if the powers did intervene they would do so incompetently; we, especially the United States, would just mess it up more. The corrupt and criminal activities of various British and French politicians and military officers, in their involvement with Bosnia prior to the Dayton Agreement in 1995, reinforced my doubts about the efficacy of foreign intervention. 53

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET By 1995, however, the dreadful character of the Sarajevo siege and the horror of the Srebrenica massacre made me welcome the Dayton Agreement and the arrival of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Some Bosnian Muslims insisted that the Dayton Agreement ceasefire had come only when their forces had turned the military situation around and had begun to defeat the Serbs; in other words, intervention, held in abeyance so long as Muslims were being slaughtered, became unavoidable once Muslims gained the opportunity to prevail. But as a foreigner, I was chiefly concerned to see an end to the violence. In 1997, I began going to Sarajevo on humanitarian missions, as a journalist and expert on ‘‘media development.’’ It was then that my education began in just how badly intervention could be botched. Even though Western observers, experts, and advocates for the various ex-Yugoslav interest groups continue obsessively to debate the correctness or incorrectness of the Dayton Agreement and of armed intervention in general, I learned on the ground in Bosnia and later in Kosovo that that issue has been moot for a long time. The real problem in the Balkans today is how the ‘‘international community’’ has mismanaged the reconstruction of its de facto protectorates. Coming Clean on the Balkans To begin with Bosnia, three essential lies purveyed by the foreign authorities must be addressed: The first is that ethnic conflict in Bosnia originated there; the second is that Western troops must remain in Bosnia to prevent a new outbreak of violence; the third is that a return to some kind of previously existing Bosnian ethnic comity is the prerequisite to the departure of foreign troops. Ethnic violence did not originate in Bosnia; it was imported into the country by the Yugoslav Army with the withdrawal of large detachments of the latter from Croatia. This elementary fact became obvious upon reading the day-to-day reports in newspapers published throughout the world—that is, if one ignored the lengthy theorizing that usually accompanied and often overshadowed such bulletins. It must be said that the world press was disastrously bad when it came to reporting background, motivations, and trends in ex-Yugoslavia, even though it normally reported the details of events quite accurately. 54

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Daytonia and the UNMIKistas The will to avoid war on the part of ordinary Bosnians was fully visible in the Bosnian media, which unlike its Croatian and Serbian counterparts did not beat the drums for the warriors. Bosnian journalists understood very well that expanding the Serbo-Croatian war into Bosnia would greatly intensify its horror. They went out of their way to promote tranquility, defuse rumors, and support the idea of ethnic coexistence. The prewar Bosnian media were also defensive about Yugoslavism, but without the edge of conspiratorialism, paranoia, and demagoguery visible when the Serbian press addressed the issue of the state’s breakup. Proof that the ‘‘issues’’ in the Bosnian war had originated outside Bosnia was reflected even in the discourse of Bosnian Serb advocates and their Western supporters. Neither articulated any grievances having to do with Bosnia itself, but, rather, protested that because Bosnia had ‘‘hurriedly’’ seceded from Yugoslavia, the Serbs were afraid of what might happen if they fell under Muslim control. Serbian propaganda against the Bosnian Muslims and Croats simply recycled the more simplistic and crude Yugoslav-defensive arguments coming out of Belgrade. Anybody who was in Bosnia in the period immediately preceding the war, as I was, knows that the Muslim political leadership in Sarajevo were not avid for a premature declaration of independence, and began to organize a referendum on the topic only when it became clear that the Yugoslav forces were inclined to withdraw from Croatia through Bosnia in a provocative fashion. Given the conduct of these forces in Croatia, which had included vandalism and looting but also mass murder, the Bosnian Muslims had every reason to be concerned. It became clear that the Bosnian Serbs were prepared to launch a subversive movement intended to take advantage of the movement of the Yugoslav troops through Bosnia. The Bosnian Muslims saw independence and foreign diplomatic recognition as their only means to defend themselves. It was even more instructive to observe Bosnia with open eyes after the war. Because fighting in Bosnia originated in Belgrade, once the role of Belgrade in Bosnia was nullified by Slobodan Milosevic’s signature at Dayton, and even more so after the fall of Milosevic from power, there was no basis for a renewed conflict inside Bosnia. The most interesting untold story about Bosnia is the absence of real strife once American troops arrived. Serbs have rioted here and 55

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET there against the return of Muslim refugees and the reconstruction of mosques; Croats have rioted against the activities of foreign police; and Muslims have grumbled. But in reality, these are protests against meddling by the foreign authorities; there has not been one serious violation of the Dayton Agreement since it was imposed—not a single uprising, battle, formation of a new militia, arms scandal, or massacre. The reason for this is simple but has gone completely unperceived by the foreign authorities in Bosnia: Bosnians, whether Serb, Croat, or Muslim, did not want war, and once a means of ending hostilities was introduced, they readily agreed to it. Regardless of the rhetoric employed by foreigners in Sarajevo anxious to keep their highpaying jobs as peace administrators, nobody among the domestic Bosnian population—at least since I began observing the situation in 1997—has shown either the desire or the will to restart a war. Does this mean the Dayton Agreement and all that came after it was justified? Not at all. What would have been justified would have been a truce, perhaps (but only perhaps) with the importation of a foreign police body to enforce it. The continuing presence of large numbers of regular foreign troops over the past six years has been unnecessary. Foreign administrators needed to understand that the probability of renewed fighting after 1995 was and is virtually nonexistent; they needed to perceive that Bosnians of all ethnicities were exhausted and disgusted with war. Yet the foreign authorities could not see such a thing because to do so would invalidate lie two—that Western troops in Bosnia are necessary to prevent a new outbreak of violence. Thus lie three was formulated: that a return to some kind of previously existing Bosnian ethnic comity is the prerequisite to the departure of foreign troops. Thus the standard for withdrawal was set absurdly high. Bosnians were not merely required to abstain from new clashes; they were to be forced to act as if no quarrel had ever taken place. A vast bureaucratic effort would be employed to further that clearly utopian goal. This experiment in compulsory political correctness would never be attempted in Northern Ireland, the Basque country, or the Middle East—certainly not by foreigners. In Bosnia, billions of dollars would be spent for thousands of consultants, experts, and administrators. Just as the West had walked into the Yugoslav wars without an understanding of Yugoslav history, the reconstruction of Bosnia has 56

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Daytonia and the UNMIKistas been attempted in the absence, on the part of the foreign overlords, of any plan or vision except for nostalgia for the Titoite past and suspicion of any form of private entrepreneurship as criminal or corrupt. The foreign rulers of Bosnia, the Office of the High Representative, and the local ambassador of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, would have absolute power to censor and suppress media, ban political candidates and parties, dictate the content of educational curricula, and remove and install local governments. The idea was to cajole Bosnians into public demonstrations of mutual love and affection for one another. ‘‘Minor’’ issues like employment, labor law, restitution of private property seized by Nazis and Communists, rehabilitation of higher education, and pension reform would wait. Before the Bosnians could eat, they had to kiss and make up. And before they would kiss, all the war criminals had to be punished. But since the war criminals benefited from the vagaries of the Dayton Agreement, there would be no improvement in the lives of the Bosnians themselves. And that is how it has been in the six years since the Dayton Agreement was signed, with the expenditure of more than $5 billion in reconstruction aid. A Rude Awakening I learned about these things the hard way, by making myself a nuisance to the foreign authorities in ‘‘Daytonia.’’ I decided, at the beginning of the Kosovo bombing, to leave my job at the Chronicle and move to the Balkans. I had completed a couple of media consulting contracts and thought I could make a contribution by continuing to work for the occupation authorities. But I was wrong. It was all in line with Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia: the foreigners I thought were helping get Bosnia back on its feet were doing everything possible to keep it dependent, in order to justify their high salaries, many amenities, and weekends on the Adriatic coast. My personal crunch came when I attempted to defend First Amendment principles, arguing that the domestic Bosnian media, if left alone, might occasionally emit nationalist noises, but that renewal of fighting was virtually impossible and ethnic incitement would go without echo. This ultraradical view got me labeled ‘‘enemy number one of the international community in Bosnia-Herzegovina,’’ in the words of Regan McCarthy, an American woman and ‘‘senior media expert’’ 57

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET for the OSCE. Denunciation via gossip was supplemented by printed attacks on me placed in Bosnian media by the foreign authorities. I learned, to my shock, that I was virtually alone as a foreign critic of the ‘‘international community.’’ Asking basic, reporterly questions wasn’t allowed in Daytonia. Foreign journalists visited briefly and reported home whatever the OSCE and OHR representatives told them. They were the angels. Why would anyone doubt what they said? If the Serb media had to be shut down, Croat politicians barred from the ballot, and Muslim educators forbidden to mention in the classroom the recent destruction of mosques, who could doubt that the foreigners knew best, and that anyway the locals were violent savages unfit to judge media for themselves, vote, or tell their children what had happened to 500-year-old religious monuments? Hadn’t these same people—Bosnian journalists, politicians, and intellectuals—started the problem in the first place, and weren’t they all, by pressing their own interests, obstacles to the great and glorious Bosnian group hug? Foreign journalists bought the occupiers’ program and resold it to their readers in London, Paris, and Washington, without ever asking the most necessary questions: What disruption in Daytonia had Serb media, Croat politicians, or Muslim educators really caused? Aside from a limited number of incidents obstructing refugee returns that were often hasty and ill-conceived, who in Daytonia had started a major uproar, fired weapons, or seriously threatened their neighbors? Was it purely by accident that no U.S. soldiers were ever injured by hostile action in Bosnia? Indeed, in the majority of reported incidents of trouble, foreigners, not locals, complained the loudest. Croats and Muslims had their own media and didn’t care what was in the Serb media, which they didn’t read or watch; Serbs and Muslims had their own political leaders and didn’t care what Croat politicians said; Serbs and Croats had their own educational systems and didn’t care what the Muslims taught in theirs. Oh, but the ‘‘internationals’’ would complain—that’s horrible, that’s making ethnic separation permanent! Actually, it isn’t necessarily permanent. Ethnic separation was an immediate consequence of the war, but it could perhaps be overcome—if one granted a longer period of time to achieve such an objective and did not make it a criterion for Western disengagement. Ethnic separation had been the norm in Ottoman Bosnia for 400 years, but not on a countrywide, 58

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Daytonia and the UNMIKistas regionalized basis. The multiculturalism of the Tito era had been a Communist Party construct created to facilitate party rule. The hypocrisy of the foreign authorities in attempting to force an immediate return to a multiethnic Bosnia is manifest when the situation is compared with similar conditions in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, and the Basque country. Nobody would claim that a solution in Israel would come by shutting down the Jewish and Arab press, banning all ethnic politicians, and imposing a strictly neutral school curriculum. Nobody would say that peace would come to Northern Ireland by depriving both Catholics and Protestants of their right to their own media, political organizations, and education. Nobody would argue that terrorism could be halted in the Basque country by shutting down the local press, banning local politicians, and dissolving local schools. Indeed, the way to peace in all these critical areas—as well as in Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Macedonia—required encouragement of moderate nationalism and freemarket economic incentives. But Bosnia was to be held to a different standard. There, no nationalism of any kind would be tolerated. The lesson was clear: Yugoslavia had not mattered enough in 1990 for the great powers to pay attention to it, and Bosnia did not matter enough after 1995 for the powers to develop an intelligent policy for its reconstruction. Instead, Bosnia’s international administrators have busied themselves with restoring Bosnia’s former communist officials—relabeled as social democrats—to power. After all, they were multiethnic, since Titoite communism had to be multiethnic to rule. It is clear that the international administrators felt they had the right to experiment on Bosnians; Bosnians had few friends, in contrast to the Jews, Arabs, Irish, and Basques, who would never tolerate crass meddling by uninformed outsiders. So it was that foreign nostalgia for Tito intersected with Bosnian nostalgia for Tito in a manner that has forged new and heavy chains on Bosnians of all ethnicities. Media Control Postwar Bosnian media, which are subsidized extensively by the United States, have come to be dominated by the same sort of acquiescence and conformity that has so far characterized foreign reporting from Bosnia. Not coincidentally, this replicates the journalistic climate under the Tito regime, and U.S.-backed media—and in some 59

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET cases, U.S.-owned media—have supported the restoration of pseudosocial democrats, i.e. the ex-communists, to power. Nine million U.S. dollars were frittered away to support a ‘‘multiethnic’’ television enterprise, the Open Broadcast Network, that never functioned as a broadcast system, but that provided immense quantities of cash to foreign consultants—as much as $1,000 per day. U.S. funds, by way of IREX ProMedia, an American NGO, were also poured into two weeklies, Dani (Days) and Slobodna Bosna (Free Bosnia) that distinguished themselves by scurrilous personal attacks on any and all dissenters from Tito-nostalgia. IREX ProMedia took over and directed a daily newspaper in Sarajevo, Vecernje Novine (Evening News), which was turned into Jutarnje Novine (Morning News), with no perceptible improvement in quality or even in market share. IREX ProMedia also became the proprietor of Nezavisne Novine (Independent News), a daily in Banja Luka, the capital of the Bosnian Serb zone. Incredibly, the concept of U.S. ownership of media in foreign countries, especially outright neo-communist media like Dani, stimulated no inquiry or objections by American journalists who visited Bosnia. Worse, genuinely independent Bosnian media, such as the moderate Muslim weekly Ljiljan and the daily Oslobodjenje (Liberation), the latter of which had been hailed during the Bosnian war for its multiethnic stance and its heroic operation under fire, were subjected to slanderous whisper campaigns and other attempts to undermine their work. American media professionals contracted as consultants in Sarajevo, including those employed by IREX ProMedia, were expected to follow the ‘‘international community’’ line not only regarding the questionable practice of foreign financing of local media, but also in minor issues. While Americans trained local journalists in vague concepts of ‘‘professionalism’’ (but suppressed the core value of independence), European media representatives in Bosnia extolled the uses of censorship. When David DeVoss, the activist chief of party for IREX ProMedia in Bosnia in 1999, defended a First Amendment attitude toward journalistic expression, in opposition to European-backed practices of media control, he was fired and forced to leave the country—at the instance of Regan McCarthy, who attempted the same action against me. As DeVoss told me, ‘‘Some Americans who come to work in Bosnia forget all about their constitutional heritage.’’ 60

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Daytonia and the UNMIKistas That comment applies to most of the American international functionaries in the Balkans; for them personally, as well as in the programs they administered, basic civic values gave way to political correctness. I learned so many bitter lessons along these lines in Bosnia that I came to the conclusion that those Muslims who called the Dayton Agreement a betrayal of their aspirations were correct. Then I went to Kosovo. From Bad to Worse In the Kosovo crisis of 1999, I took a more stridently interventionist position than I had on Bosnia. To begin with, I had much closer relationships with Albanians in America than with Bosnians, who had never had a large diaspora to this side of the Atlantic. Because of this, a number of aspects of the Albanian tragedy affected my judgment. Above all, I knew the Kosovar Albanians had hewed to a line of peaceful protest in Kosovo for a decade, which I believed left them unprepared for a direct confrontation with Serbian state power. The Belgrade authorities and their police, military, and paramilitary resources greatly outweighed those available to the Albanians; the Army of the Bosnian Republic had much greater capacity to wage war than did the Kosovo Liberation Army. I was acutely mindful that Albanians, with their isolated language and unique traditional culture, and as victims of an extraordinary worldwide campaign defaming them variously as gangsters, communists, Nazi collaborators, and Muslim extremists, had even fewer friends in the world than the Bosnians. Thus, I considered NATO’s intervention justified. Critics of NATO’s Kosovo involvement have tended to concentrate on the post-1999 policy favoring Albanian control of the territory, which is viewed as a mere reversal of Serbian ethnic discrimination. Given the overwhelming Albanian demographic predominance— reaching 90 percent—such an option was an almost unarguably predictable outcome. But notwithstanding complaints about Western favoritism to the Albanians, NATO and the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) went to extraordinary lengths to assure a continued Serbian presence both within the population and at the top layers of the local structures created by the international community. Lacking an understanding 61

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET of economic relations in communist-era Kosovo, international functionaries assigned there—let us call them ‘‘UNMIKistas’’—never grasped that much Albanian anger at Kosovo’s Serbs reflected resentment of Serbs as the former nomenklatura more than mere ethnic hatred. When the UNMIKistas insisted on the return of Serbs to Kosovo, many Albanians believed that meant Serbs would return to positions of command in a state economy. Albanian anxieties about such a possibility were aggravated by the policies the international community adopted toward the Kosovar Albanian domestic economy. UNMIKistas directly blocked efforts toward rapid privatization. During the Milosevic era, Albanians had been excluded from the Yugoslav state economy, a fact that many Albanians considered unintentionally to favor them: They had responded by establishing a highly entrepreneurial alternative economy. And unlike the Bosnians, the Kosovar Albanians had the advantage of a large and prosperous diaspora prepared to invest in the reconstruction of Kosovo. But neither of these possibilities was ever recognized, let alone exploited, by the UNMIKistas. NATO and UNMIK let the Kosovar Albanians know from day one that they viewed the alternative economy as nothing other than a pretext for corruption and crime. While crime certainly exists in Kosovo, most of it reflects malfeasance by elements of the former Kosovo Liberation Army and its political rivals rather than by any element of the former alternative economy. But the UNMIKistas treated any form of Albanian enterprise from a corner grocery to a travel agency as a cover for corruption, a characterization that was both inaccurate and unfair. A similarly heedless position was adopted by UNMIK with regard to the alternative educational system that the Kosovar Albanians had created in resistance to Milosevic’s repression. UNMIK educational experts informed the Albanians that the alternative educational workers would have to begin the new epoch by dismissing the bus drivers, nurses, and food workers who had served in the alternative schools; since education would now be paid for by the UN, costs would have to be trimmed. In reality, the alternative education workers had traditionally been paid in services or in kind, and imposition of economies on the schools therefore made little or no sense. The main effect of discharging the transportation, medical, and food workers had been to lower the number of Albanian students in the schools, to eliminate the only health services available 62

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Daytonia and the UNMIKistas to many children, and to impose further hardship on parents in an economy devastated by war. Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, thus experienced a problem unknown in Sarajevo: hordes of children outside the schools during the day, selling cigarettes on the street. Albanian nationalism and the bias of the international community against privatization intersected in a paradoxical phenomenon completely invisible to foreign journalists and other outside observers, but oppressive and menacing to Albanians themselves. Denied the opportunity of expansion and transformation of the alternative economy by the UNMIKistas, certain Albanian political and economic leaders, some of whom had been members of the Titoite nomenklatura, held out to Albanians expelled from positions in the state economy by Milosevic the mirage of their restoration to positions in a revived state economy. The pernicious nature of this fantasy was especially visible in the Albanian discourse over the Trepca mining complex. The minerals extracted at Trepca were all subject to world oversupply and the technology of the complex was dangerously obsolete. Thanks to Trepca, Kosovo was the worst environmental black hole outside the former U.S.S.R. Yet numerous Albanians were gulled by their leaders into believing Kosovo could become fabulously rich if Albanians were to resume the state jobs they had had in the mining industries a decade before. Similar illusions were fostered by the worst and by far most reprehensible element in the ex-nomenklatura—the Titoite labor bureaucracy. In Yugoslav ‘‘self-managed socialism,’’ the state trade union structure all communist countries used to control the working class, was paired, in the interest of a false ‘‘autonomy,’’ with a vast network of ‘‘workers’ councils’’ and ‘‘self-management bodies’’ from which a stratum of rent-seekers, including a quota of Kosovar Albanians, derived income. With UNMIK governance in Kosovo, former statist managers sought to gain positions in the new command economy. An army of parasitical labor and ‘‘self-managing’’ functionaries began maneuvering to regain their income supplements, chauffeured cars, and other perks, this time subsidized by the West. Given the incentives to economic revanchism present in such a situation, it was small wonder that Kosovar Albanian politics was soon plagued by gangsterism, as the former cadres of the KLA began to fight for place in the incipient ‘‘economy.’’ 63

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET The Economic Reality If I have derived a single insight from my Balkan experiences it is the following: Ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia represented a resort to violence on the basis of competing economic interests as, in the aftermath of the communist system’s fall, each group struck out for its own advantage. International support for communist economic restoration, with the pretext of Titoist-style multiethnicity, perpetuates and envenoms the situation even more. In the absence of meaningful free market reforms, entrepreneurial efforts by Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, as well as by Kosovar Albanians and, in their enclaves, Kosovo Serbs, must turn in illegal directions—a development that further aggravates the desperate struggle over the shareout of a ravaged economy, reinforces ethnic divisions, and discourages entrepreneurs from moving from the informal economy to an efficient market system. Domestic markets thus labeled ‘‘criminal enterprises’’ become targets of new reproaches and confused experiments by the international community. Until Balkan entrepreneurs and the international community comprehend the region’s economic reality, intervention will only make matters worse, and the transition to capitalism and democracy in the war-torn Balkans will remain a cruel and brutal hoax.

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PART II

EXITING THE THICKET

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4. Let Dayton Be Dayton Robert M. Hayden

In April 2001, Bosnia became less peaceful when the international diplomat overseeing the peace, high representative Wolfgang Petritsch, began dismantling the constitutional system created by the 1995 Dayton Agreement. The political party that received more than 80 percent of Croat votes cast in the 2000 elections withdrew from the governing bodies of Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Federation1 after Petritsch summarily removed the Croat member elected to the threemember state presidency and replaced him with a rival who had lost the election.2 Most Croat soldiers withdrew from the federation’s armed forces, creating the prospect of a militia in opposition to the Bosnian Muslims and to NATO forces. Most Croat police withdrew from the federation police force. An armed raid sanctioned by Petritsch on Bosnia’s leading Croat bank led to massive protests and the withdrawal of international civil servants after some of them were assaulted.3 In Serb-populated areas of Bosnia, arrests by NATO troops of people secretly indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia provoked mass demonstrations, as did an arbitration decision to transfer jurisdiction of a Bosnian Serb neighborhood in Sarajevo to Muslim control.4 Meanwhile, attempts by Petritsch to rebuild mosques in the Bosnian Serb cities of Trebinje and Banja Luka produced riots and injuries.5 Petritsch appointed individuals who had lost the elections as the official Croat representatives in the Bosnian government, while dismissing those who had the support of the majority of voters as ‘‘extremists.’’6 At the same time, he demanded that a long list of his decrees be codified as laws, without discussion or amendment, by the elected parliament.7 In violation of the rule of law, he seemed intent on increasing inter-group tensions by ordering jurisdiction over criminal investigations of certain Croat leaders to be transferred to local courts controlled by Bosnian Muslims.8 67

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET In short, Bosnia has become a territory in which an unelected Western diplomat exercises nearly plenary powers over the elected leaders of Bosnia’s constituent peoples. Petritsch’s stated goal in ruling by fiat is to overcome ‘‘obstruction’’ by ‘‘nationalists,’’ and his actions have been praised by activist nongovernmental organizations such as the Washington and Brussels-based International Crisis Group.9 Yet as even the ICG acknowledges, these ‘‘nationalists’’ have consistently won elections that have been pronounced free and fair by international observers. Thus Petritsch’s Office of the High Representative is acting not only without the consent of the governed, but very much against their expressed will. For their part, NATO forces, which were sent to Bosnia in early 1996 to enforce a cessation of hostilities, have been employed to impose Petritsch’s dictates on the population.10 Today the international community is engaged in a contradictory exercise in Bosnia: frustrating the will of voters in the name of democracy.11 Denying self-rule to people under the guise of protecting democracy deprives them of the basic protections of the rule of law, and thus of their ability to act as rights-bearing citizens. It is difficult, to say the least, to see how the increasing exercise of dictatorial powers by unelected noncitizens of Bosnia will prepare the citizens there for the kind of stable self-rule that the international community claims to be its ultimate goal. It is also difficult to see how constantly provoking tensions between the communities living in Bosnia can lead to the stability that would allow NATO to withdraw without leading to a new round of warfare and population displacements. In the end, stability in Bosnia will likely be achieved only when most of the people living there accept the polity in which they live. Since the 1995 Dayton Agreement was effective in stopping the conflict in Bosnia and in providing the conditions in which free and fair elections could be held, a return to stability may be possible by returning to those parts of the Dayton Agreement that worked to stop the conflict. But these are precisely the parts of the Dayton Agreement being dismantled by Petritsch today. To understand the error of Petritsch’s approach, it is necessary to go back to the fundamental realities of Bosnian politics and recall the unreality of the rhetoric that has surrounded Bosnia since 1991. 68

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Let Dayton Be Dayton Bosnia: The ‘‘State’’ That Never Was State socialism in Yugoslavia was premised on the theory that the Yugoslav state would serve the interests of the collective ‘‘working class,’’ rather than the population as a body of individual citizens. With state socialism’s collapse in 1989, the link between state and group continued but was transformed: The state was now to serve the collective interests of ethnically defined groups, or ‘‘nations,’’ rather than a body of undifferentiated individual citizens.12 This ideology of nationalism, envisioning both territory and government as belonging to an ethnic group, was what elicited the most votes among a populace used to viewing politics in collectivist terms. As Bosnian Muslim politician Alija Izetbegovic put it, if he had based his political party on the principles of civil society he would have attracted a few intellectuals, but once he invoked the idea of a Muslim nation, they came to him by the tens of thousands.13 Bosnia’s problem was that there was no single group that could claim Bosnia as theirs: Muslims constituted 43.7 percent of the population, Serbs 31.3 percent, and Croats 17.5, according to the 1991 census.14 The political divisions among them were not a new or simply post-socialist phenomenon. Ethnic fighting, complete with massacres and mass movements of populations, occurred when Ottoman imperial rule was exchanged for that of Austria in 1878, when the Austrian rule ended in 1918, and when the first Yugoslav state collapsed during World War II. Moreover, at no time after its incorporation into the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century was Bosnia ruled by an indigenous government. And whenever the population was asked to vote in the 20th century (1910, 1914, the 1920s, 1990, 1996, 1997, and 2000), it always voted in blocs that corresponded to the percentages of Muslims, Serbs, and Croats in the population.15 By the early 1990s, as Yugoslavia was disintegrating, Bosnian Serbs and Herzegovinian Croats were clearly in favor of partitioning Bosnia, the Serbs wanting to remain part of Yugoslavia and the Croats wanting to join their motherland, Croatia.16 But the Serb and Croat plans to divide Bosnia could only be realized at the expense of the Bosnian Muslims, who favored the preservation of Bosnia as a unitary state in which they would be the largest group. Overwhelmingly, however, Serbs and Croats—slightly more than 50 percent of the population before the war—rejected inclusion in a Bosnian state. 69

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET Since it was clear that the partition of Bosnia would be very bloody, international diplomacy was aimed at preventing the division that the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats were determined to bring about. Specifically, Western recognition of Bosnia’s independence from Yugoslavia was an attempt to prevent partition by forcing Serbs and Croats to remain part of an officially recognized unitary state. The effort failed. As U.S. Ambassador Warren Zimmerman put it later, ‘‘Our view was that we might be able to stave off a Serbian power grab by internationalizing the problem. . . . It turned out we were wrong.’’17 Bosnia was thus recognized not because a majority of Bosnian people really wished to establish a state, but rather because half of the population rejected such a state.18 The Muslim-dominated Bosnian government that was given international recognition in April 1992 thereby gained a seat in the United Nations but never controlled more than about 30 percent of the territory of the putative state that it supposedly ruled, or could claim the allegiance of even half of its putative citizens. Serb military campaigns in 1992–93 and Croat ones in 1993 brought about the forced movement of populations, so that by summer 1993 Bosnia was effectively partitioned into Serb, Croat, and Muslim regions: This was what ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’ was about. While Muslim victims were most numerous, Muslim forces massacred Serbs and Croats, and most members of those groups who could do so fled Muslimcontrolled areas.19 Thus, if we view a state as ‘‘a community which consists of a territory and a population subject to an organized political authority,’’ as did the European Union when considering the status of Yugoslavia in 1991,20 Bosnia was not actually a ‘‘state’’ when it was granted recognition, and since the central authorities of Bosnia still have neither formal power nor political acceptance in either Croat or Serb areas, it still is not, in fact, a state. The Dayton Agreement: Pronouncing a House Divided a Condominium The Dayton Agreement, negotiated in November 1995, recognized the realities of Bosnia’s divisions by creating a nominal Bosnian state with virtually no central authority of any kind. This nominal state was patterned after the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia that was invented by the United States and imposed on the Croats in March 1994.21 The Muslim-Croat Federation gave almost all governmental 70

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Let Dayton Be Dayton powers to ‘‘cantons,’’ leaving the central government in essence only a coordinating role, with little authority to execute decisions. The federation constitution also permitted separate Croat and Muslim military forces. The Croats accepted this arrangement because it legitimated their own local control over parts of western Herzegovina, while affording no governmental power to central government authorities. Post-Dayton Bosnia is much like the Muslim-Croat Federation in its (dys)function. According to Bosnia’s constitution, which was adopted as part of the Dayton Agreement, the country is formed of two ‘‘entities,’’ the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. According to Article III of the constitution, ‘‘All governmental functions and powers not expressly assigned to the common institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall be those of the Entities.’’ The powers expressly assigned the central government involve foreign policy and foreign trade, customs, and common and inter-entity systems and communications. There is no provision for common defense. Indeed, not only did the Dayton Agreement recognize the existence of two armies, but it also specified in Article V that ‘‘under no circumstances shall any armed forces of either Entity enter into or stay within the territory of the other Entity without the consent of the government of the latter.’’ Essentially, then, Bosnia under the Dayton constitution is a common market with a foreign ministry and an international legal personality, composed of two entities that have all powers of internal government and are armed against each other.22 Within the Muslim-Croat ‘‘entity,’’ moreover, the government is divided, so that the Croats have governmental authority in the regions they control. Thus Bosnia is officially a country of two entities boasting three separate armies. This political architecture was necessitated by the unwillingness of either Serbs or Croats to consent to inclusion within a state that would have any control over them of whatever kind. Thus in order to gain Serb and Croat consent to inclusion within Bosnia, the Dayton Agreement had to provide that there would be no real Bosnian government. Put another way, the Dayton Agreement gained the nominal consent of the governed by providing that the proposed government would be only nominal. This de facto partition of Bosnia worked to stop the war because it gave the Croats and the Serbs most of what they wanted: assurance 71

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET that they would not come under the authority of a Muslim-dominated regime, or of a coalition of the Muslims with either Serbs or Croats, respectively. At the same time, it gave the Muslims almost all of Sarajevo and the rest of central Bosnia, along with Bihac in the northwest. The demarcation of the inter-entity boundary was largely peaceful, albeit locally disruptive. In the Serb-controlled areas turned over to the Muslim-Croat Federation, Serbs left, encouraged both by their own political leadership and by the Muslims themselves.23 Muslim forces, for example, burned Serb houses on Mt. Ozren so that Serbs could not return.24 Thus the Dayton Agreement displaced people, but they were largely going into areas that they regarded as safe, where they would no longer be members of a minority. Petritsch claims that since Dayton, about 100,000 ‘‘minority returns’’ have taken place.25 However, it is common knowledge that many of these ‘‘returns’’ are only nominal, done in order to lay claim to property that the owners had been forced to abandon in order to enable the supposed returnees to sell it. As a partition plan, then, the Dayton Agreement worked well, by dividing the Bosnian ‘‘state’’ into three ‘‘statelets,’’ each with its own nation, its own territory, its own government, and its own army. The High Representative’s Dismantling of Dayton The Dayton Agreement was unable to create a Bosnian state because there was no Bosnian nation and about half of the population continued to reject the concept. If this political fact was not clear enough during the war or when the Dayton Agreement was signed, it was incontestable shortly thereafter. Internationally supervised elections in 1996 returned the three antagonistic nationalist parties to power in their respective territories. The central institutions of Bosnia had been given very limited powers by the Dayton constitution, and even those required consensus for the very practical reason that trying to impose a decision on a people who rejected it could have led to a resumption of war. To be sure, the Dayton Agreement was inconsistent in that it mandated the return of refugees and displaced persons to the places they had lived before the war began in 1992. The Dayton Agreement thus created political entities based on the principle of the ethnic state while proclaiming a right to return that would make such states unstable by recreating the demographic distributions of the prewar 72

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Let Dayton Be Dayton period. By 1997, however, with the supposed central institutions of Bosnia clearly nonviable, and minority returns blocked by all parties (Muslims, Serbs, and Croats), the international community could have resolved matters by recognizing the obvious: that however desirable a common Bosnian state might have been in the abstract, it was rejected by at least half of the population. Instead of using the Dayton Agreement’s divisions as the basis for a formal partition of the country, however, the international body charged with overseeing the implementation of the Dayton Agreement, the Peace Implementation Council, gave the high representative the power to: make binding decisions, as he judges necessary, on . . . interim measures to take effect when the parties are unable to reach agreement . . . [and on] other measures to ensure . . . the smooth running of the common institutions. Such measures may include actions against persons holding public office or officials . . . who are found by the High Representative to be in violation of legal commitments made under the [Dayton] Peace Agreement.26

The scope of authority granted to the high representative was breathtaking, literally unreviewable in any court and not subject to control by any elected authorities in Bosnia. Thus the high representative was given broad autocratic powers to impose democracy in a highly undemocratic fashion. But can democracy be imposed on Bosnia? Perhaps the most revealing indication of the answer is given by the high representative’s handling of the symbol of Bosnian statehood, the official flag. One of the few powers clearly given to the Bosnian parliament at Dayton was to decide on such symbols (Article I, Section 6). Since both the Serb and Croat representatives in the parliament spoke for constituents who did not want to be included in Bosnia in the first place, it is not surprising that they did not agree on a common flag. The high representative, using the powers granted to him by the Peace Implementation Council, created a commission to design a ‘‘neutral’’ flag that did not incorporate the iconography of any of Bosnia’s national groups. He then chose a design of a gold triangle on a blue background with a row of white stars, in which ‘‘the triangle represents the three constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the gold color represents the sun, as a symbol of hope, the blue and the stars stand for Europe.’’27 At the press conference 73

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET introducing the flag, the high representative’s press officer admitted that it looked like a box for breakfast cereal. At a more basic level, however, the high representative chose as a symbol of Bosnia a flag that had no emotional meaning whatsoever to the people it was meant to symbolize. The high representative’s imposition of laws and removal of duly elected officials from office have caused deep resentment, and there is no sign that he intends ever to devolve power to the people of Bosnia. In fact, the opposite is happening. The high representative has more power today, nearly six years after the Dayton Agreement was signed, than ever. In 2000, the high representative began revising the Dayton constitution while piously proclaiming to be upholding it. In July 2000, Petritsch granted himself the power to engage in ‘‘constitutional interpretation’’ in order to annul actions of the elected parliament, a power clearly not found in the Dayton constitution.28 More importantly, however, Petritsch has revised the constitutional provisions that provide for the constituent peoples of Bosnia each to have representatives of their own choosing, and to be able to protect their own vital interests. These provisions are meant to and do threaten the ability of the Croats and Serbs to maintain their independence, and are thus highly destabilizing as they annul the primary condition under which Serbs and Croats ended the war. The dismantling of the Dayton constitutional structure has taken two forms. The first was a decision by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia, declaring that the provisions in the entity constitutions that proclaimed Croats and Muslims to be ‘‘constituent peoples’’ of the Muslim-Croat Federation, and Serbs of the Republika Srpska, are contrary to the Dayton constitution’s provisions for equality of peoples.29 Yet Article IV of the Dayton constitution creates a House of Peoples, composed specifically of five Muslims and five Croats from the territory of the Muslim-Croat Federation and five Serbs from the Republika Srpska, and also provides means for the representatives of the constituent peoples to challenge legislation that is contrary to the interests of that people. Thus the constitutional recognition of these peoples as constituent in their respective entities is an essential element of Bosnia’s constitution. The Constitutional Court of Bosnia seems to have taken the curious position that the most basic structure of Bosnia’s constitution is unconstitutional. The five-to-four case was decided by a majority composed of two Muslim judges and three 74

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Let Dayton Be Dayton international ones, over the dissents of both Serb judges and both Croat judges. High representative Petritsch then used this decision as the pretext to impose constitutional commissions in both entities, with members and chairs appointed by himself, to prepare laws and constitutional changes in order to comply with the decision of the Constitutional Court. The structure of the commissions is such that three members can block any actions by the commission, in which case the high representative can impose his own decision.30 Thus Petritsch has given himself carte blanche to revise the entity constitutions, despite the wishes of the voters and their elected representatives, and despite the provisions of the constitution itself. Petritsch also changed the federation constitution by issuing election rules in 2000 that were clearly contrary to the document, and that deprived Croats of their right to elect their own representatives in the Federation House of Peoples, the chamber that can block legislation that it feels is contrary to the vital interests of a constituent nation.31 While the federation’s constitution calls for members of the House of Peoples to be elected by the Croat and Muslim members voting separately for the members from their respective nations, Petritsch issued orders allowing all members to vote for candidates from both groups. Since there were more Muslim representatives than Croat ones, this meant that Muslims selected some Croat representatives, not the Croats themselves. It is this effective disenfranchisement that led the major, and by far the most popular, Croatian political party to withdraw from federation government, producing crisis and violence. Democratic constitutions are amended all over the world, but by legislative means, not court or administrative edicts. The high representative, however, is changing Bosnia’s constitution by judicial and administrative actions precisely because he knows that he cannot do it democratically. Confronted with the contradiction between the Dayton Agreement’s mandate of returning people to the places where they had lived before the war, and the Bosnian constitution’s formal structure of institutionalizing and legitimizing separate ethnic polities, Petritsch simply deconstructed the constitution created in Dayton. However useful his actions might seem in theory, they ignore the fact that the people of Bosnia, like most Europeans historically, see their 75

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET own security in ethnically defined polities. Dayton’s constitutional structures may have met the wishes of the majority of Bosnia’s people when the war ended, but Petritsch is now trying to impose on them a kind of Bosnia that many, perhaps most, of those people reject. Structuring a Bosnian (Con)Federation to Avoid Further Conflict The likely consequences of continuing to forcibly impose a Bosnian central government on Croats and Serbs who reject it are not pleasant. Such an imposition might lead to war and certainly means further occupation; and if the imposition succeeded, many Serbs and Croats would probably leave Bosnia rather than endure occupation. Their departure would be yet another ethnically driven population movement, this time directly provoked by the actions of the supposed peacemakers. While the large-scale departure of Serbs and Croats might stabilize a unified Muslim state, it would predictably lead to long-term instability based on the refusal of the expatriates to accept their fate, likes Greeks from Northern Cyprus or Palestinians in Israel. Another possibility is that forcibly imposing a unified Bosnian state on Serbs and Croats could draw Serbia and/or Croatia back into the conflict, especially if either were to be confronted with new waves of refugees. Of course, an attempt to forcibly impose Bosnia might also fail, leading to long-term civil strife and, again, refugees. A more promising alternative would be to strive to create state structures that people in Bosnia will accept, and where they feel themselves protected. For Serbs and Croats, this means a return to the de facto partition of the Dayton structure. While this plan is obviously less attractive to Muslims, they, too, would then control their own territory, and could then build links with the other states of the former Yugoslavia, and beyond. Indeed, it is just this division into national territories that might finally permit the creation of a Bosnian state that is more than nominal. If the various peoples of Bosnia are convinced that their control over their territories—thus over homes and holdings—is secure, they may become willing to enter into real alliances with each other on a federal basis. The model would be Switzerland, formally a confederation but actually a federation of cantons that are defined by association with 76

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Let Dayton Be Dayton (and control by) a particular national group.32 In this model, Bosnia could actually serve as a link between Serbia and Croatia, maintaining the ‘‘special relations’’ with them allowed by the Dayton constitution while also maintaining an internal market. This possibility was recognized by U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith in his 1997 farewell speech. Croatia’s special relationship with Bosnia, authorized by the Dayton Agreement, he said, is actually a ‘‘de facto plan for economic union with the Republika Srpska and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.’’33 As the United States was still insisting on sanctions on Yugoslavia at that time, however, Galbraith thought such a union would be ‘‘premature.’’ With the recent reincorporation of Yugoslavia into the world community, however, perhaps the time has come for Bosnia to serve this linking function, through the ‘‘special relations’’ between Croatia and the Muslim-Croat Federation, on the one hand, and the Republika Srpska and Yugoslavia, on the other. What is needed, then, is a return to the Dayton Agreement as originally understood, as a partition plan, de facto legitimating the separate Muslim, Serb, and Croat polities within Bosnia, but continuing to deny them separate international legal personalities. The role of the international community would then not be that of trying to impose a state on the half of the population that rejects it, but rather on assisting the separate polities in building their own democratic systems and links to each other. That task is doable, and it would allow NATO to reduce its role to deterring cross-border aggression and to create the conditions for a timely withdrawal. Notes 1. Under the Constitution adopted as part of the Dayton Agreement, Bosnia is divided into two ‘‘entities,’’ a Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska. Each entity has its own army (while in practice, the supposed federation army is divided into separate Croat and Muslim forces). The term Bosniak has been adopted by Bosnian Muslims as a name for themselves. Until 1994 they were known politically and constitutionally simply as Muslims. In SerboBosno-Croatian, ‘‘Bosniak’’ (Bosˇnjak) means exclusively a Bosnian Muslim, while ‘‘Bosnian’’ (Bosanac) could mean any person from Bosnia. 2. European Stability Initiative, ‘‘The End of the Nationalist Regimes and the Future of the Bosnian State,’’ www.esiweb.org/reports8-2001.html, contains the best concise account of the conflict between the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and the leading Serb and Croat political parties in Bosnia; hereafter ESI Report. 3. See ‘‘Nationalist Fires, Fanned by Croats, Singe Sarajevo Again,’’ New York Times, April 16, 2001, p. A3; ‘‘Bomba i Hercegovina,’’ Feral Tribune, April 14, 2001; ‘‘Novac za Hercegovinu,’’ Globus, April 6, 2001.

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET 4. See ‘‘Seridanova Presuda Konacna,’’ Oslobodjenje (Internet edition), April 26, 2001, www.oslobadjenje.com.ba/asp/frame.asp. 5. ‘‘Serbs Halt Bosnia Mosque Building,’’ BBC News Online: World: Europe, Monday, May 7, 2001, 18:32 GMT, news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/europe/newsid_ 1317000/1317366.stm. 6. See Hrvatski Narodni Sabor of Bosnia and Hercegovina, ‘‘‘Alijansa’: Illegal and Illegitimate Authority in Bosna and Herzegovina,’’ www.hns-bih.org/elections_ indicators.htm. 7. ‘‘Petricevi Zakoni Skinuti s Dnevnog Reda,’’ Oslobodjenje, April 25, 2001, www.oslobdjenje.com.ba/asp/frame.asp. 8. High Representative’s Decision allocating jurisdiction for the investigation, prosecution, and trials of incidents of violence and intimidation in the Federation during the past month to the Cantonal Prosecutor and Cantonal Court of Sarajevo, April 27, 2001, www.ohr.int/decisions/20010427a.htm. 9. See International Crisis Group, After Milosevic: A Practical Agenda for Lasting Balkans Peace, April 2001, pp. 138ff. 10. Dayton Agreement, Annex 1A, Art. I(2). When the mandate of the original NATO force, IFOR, ended on December 20, 1996, a new 18-month mandate was given to a new force, SFOR (see ‘‘Letter dated December 23, 1996 from the SecretaryGeneral of NATO addressed to the Secretary-General [of the UN],’’ UN Secretary General S/1996/1066, December 24, 1996. SFOR, of course, is still operating in Bosnia almost five years after the expiration of its original 12-month mandate. 11. David Chandler, Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton (London: Pluto Press, 1999) is a brilliant analysis of the self-defeating, and antidemocratic, efforts to impose democracy in Bosnia in the six years after Dayton. 12. See generally Robert Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflicts (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999). 13. J. F. Brown, Nationalism, Democracy and Security in the Balkans (1995), epigraph quoted from Izetbegovic interview in Die Welt, November 23, 1990. 14. That ethnicity is defined by religious heritage in Bosnia is confusing to Americans but should not be—think of Jews, for example, or Muslims and Hindus in India (the reason for the formation of Pakistan). 15. Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflicts (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001,) p. 92. This phenomenon is hardly limited to Bosnia; see generally Jack Snyder, Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000). 16. See Xavier Bougarel, ‘‘Bosnia and Hercegovina: State and Communitarianism,’’ in Yugoslavia and After, edited by Ivan Vejvoda and David Dykers (London: Longman, 1996). That the major Croatian party, the HDZ, was overwhelmingly for secession is shown in Igor Lasic and Boris Raseta, ‘‘Herceg Bojna,’’ Feral Tribune, February 2001; there were moderate Croats, but they were powerless. See Steven Burg and Paul Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), p. 66. There is no doubt at all that the main Serb party, the SDS, favored secession, and that this position was held overwhelmingly by Serbs in Bosnia. 17. Quoted in David Binder, ‘‘U.S. Policymakers on Bosnia Admit Errors in Opposing Partition in 1992,’’ New York Times, August 29, 1993, p. 8. 18. A referendum on independence in early March 1992 showed clearly the rejection of independence by a large portion of the population; it was also both unconstitutional by the then-valid Bosnian constitution, and illegal, having been mandated by a

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Let Dayton Be Dayton parliament that was, by proclamation of its president, in recess for the night (see Hayden, pp. 95–97). Since the referendum was illegally mandated against the wishes of those who rejected it, its divisive nature was ensured. 19. Burg and Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina, pp. 178–80. 20. ‘‘Opinion of the Arbitration Committee of the Conference on Yugoslavia,’’ Yugoslav Survey 23, no. 4 (1991): 17. 21. See Hayden, chapter 7. 22. See generally Hayden, chapter 8. 23. See Carl Bildt, Peace Journey (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998), pp. 193–99. 24. S. Latal, ‘‘Bosnian Army Destroys as It Exits,’’ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 18, 1996, p. A6. 25. ‘‘Report by the High Representative to the Secretary-General of the United Nations,’’ March 12, 2001, www.ohr.int/reports/r20010312a.htm. 26. Bonn Peace Implementation Conference 1997: Conclusions, XI.2, www.ohr.int. 27. OHR Bulletin 65 (Feb. 6, 1998), www.ohr.int. 28. Joint OHR/OSCE Press Release, ‘‘OHR and OSCE Are Forced to Review Proposed Law on Presidential Succession,’’ July 28, 2000, www.ohr.int/press/ p20000728a.htm. 29. Ustavni Sud Bosne i Hercegovine, Delimicna Odluka, July 1, 2000, Sluzbeni Glasnik B i H 23, p. 472ff. (September 14, 2000). This decision was taken before reasons for it were adopted by the court, which may explain why its publication was delayed for more than two months. 30. High Representative’s Decision Establishing Interim Procedures to Protect Vital Interests of Constituent Peoples and Others, Including Freedom from Discrimination, January 11, 2001. 31. See ESI Report, Part B. 32. See Lidija Basta Fleiner and Thomas Fleiner, eds., Federalism and Multiethnic States: The Case of Switzerland, 2d ed. (Bale, Geneva, and Munich: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 2000). 33. United States Information Service, text of Ambassador Galbraith’s Farewell Speech on Leaving Croatia, December 19, 1997.

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5. Drawing Lines in Shifting Sands: The Territorial Question in the Former Yugoslavia Raju G. C. Thomas During a visit to Belgrade and Pristina in April 2001, British foreign secretary Robin Cook declared that the era of redrawing the borders of the Balkans in blood was over, and that if either Kosovo or Montenegro wanted to seek a new relationship with Belgrade, each must not do it through any plan to unilaterally secede from Yugoslavia.1 Cook urged Albanians and Montenegrins to instead pursue dialogue with Belgrade and reminded them that the international will that brought NATO troops to the Balkan region was not a mandate for their independence. No doubt, these are words of wisdom, but they come about 10 years too late. Indeed, Cook’s position is a radical turnaround from Western policies during the previous decade: the hasty and reckless recognition of new states carved out of the former Yugoslavia. So what is an appropriate territorial solution now, given all the contradictions and inconsistencies of Western policies toward the successor states and former Yugoslav territories during the 1990s? For the answer to that question, we must understand that Western policymakers during the 1990s repeatedly ignored longstanding historical and legal precedents, and that the consequences of those decisions have fundamentally shaped the political reality in the Balkans today. Unilateral Declaration of Independence The West played an instrumental role in the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991–92 by encouraging and then recognizing the unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) of Slovenia, then Croatia, and then Bosnia. Normally UDIs are considered a violation of international law because they are typically carried out against the wishes of 81

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET the majority of a country’s population and/or the objections of a country’s standing federal-level government.2 In 1965, for instance, Britain refused to recognize a UDI by Prime Minister Ian Smith’s white minority government in Southern Rhodesia, declaring the act of breaking away from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland illegal under international law. Supporting the British position, the United Nations proceeded to impose economic sanctions on Rhodesia as punishment for its illegal UDI. In 1983, when Turkish Cypriots unilaterally proclaimed the Turkish-populated area of northern Cyprus an independent state, the United Nations declared the move ‘‘legally invalid.’’3 In August 1998, the Canadian Supreme Court, while acknowledging that Canada is not indivisible, declared that Quebec could not secede through a simple majority vote among its residents.4 The terms of secession would have to be negotiated with the rest of Canada as an amendment to the Canadian constitution. The nine Canadian justices indicated that while such a secession would be theoretically feasible, it would be difficult, painful, and costly, and not likely to be accepted in practice. More importantly, the Canadian Supreme Court (including three judges from Quebec) declared that under international law, there is no right of unilateral secession except for territories judged to be colonies and especially oppressed peoples. Quebec fulfills neither category. The court warned that unilateral secession by French Canadians would likely be rejected as illegitimate by the ‘‘international community,’’ presumably the same international community, including Canada, that rushed to recognize the unilateral declarations of secession by Slovenia and Croatia. If the Canadian Supreme Court’s determination of international law is correct, then French Canadians—and, for that matter, Slovenians, Croatians, and Bosnian Muslims, all of whom were economically better off than Serbians and hardly oppressed or backward colonials—had no right to secede. Their UDIs should have been deemed illegal and their demands for recognition rejected. Note, too, that the unilateral declarations of independence by Slovenia and Croatia in June 1991 were probably a violation of the Helsinki Agreement Final Act of 1975, which guaranteed the boundaries of the states of Europe. In any case, these UDIs were not carried out because there were widespread human rights violations. Rather, they provoked 82

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Drawing Lines in Shifting Sands subsequent wars in which human rights violations and violence occurred on a massive scale. Accepting UDIs Inconsistently Having recognized Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, the West then refused to concede the same right of self-determination and secession to the Serb minority in Croatia or the Serb and Croat minorities in Bosnia. Indeed, the UDIs of the Serb Republic of Krajina in Croatia, and the Republika Srpska and the Croat Republic of Herzeg-Bosna in Bosnia were all rejected by the West. The Helsinki principles were invoked to support the territorial integrity of the new states of Croatia and Bosnia, the latter of which had never before existed as an independent state. Having rejected the earlier claims to statehood of the Serb Republic of Krajina in Croatia and those of the Republika Srpska and Croat Republic of Herzeg-Bosna in Bosnia, the West now seems prepared to recognize the independence of Kosovo, historically as much a part of Serbia as Dalmatia is a part of Croatia. And while prepared to allow the Albanians of Kosovo to secede from Serbia, the West will not tolerate secession by the Serbs from Kosovo. Thus, all the nationalities of the former Yugoslavia have been effectively adjudged to have the right of self-determination and secession, except the Serbs. The Irish, Indian, and Russian Experiences One significant principle established in two earlier cases was that when new states are forged through secession from an existing state, the former internal boundaries of the state cannot automatically become the external boundaries of new states.5 Thus, when Catholic majority Ireland seceded from Britain in 1921, the Protestant majority areas of Northern Ireland were dislodged from Ireland and retained by Britain despite the protests of Ireland and the Catholics of Northern Ireland. When Pakistan seceded from India in 1947, Punjab and Bengal were divided between India and Pakistan despite protests by Pakistan that the majority of the population in these two formerly British provinces were Muslim. In the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, however, no territorial and boundary changes of the former internal ‘‘republics’’ were allowed by the international community. The preservation of the Soviet boundaries was particularly puzzling because the boundaries 83

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET of Russia and its neighbors had fluctuated over the centuries. One post-disintegration analysis of the Soviet Union stated: ‘‘Because Russia became an empire before the Russians consolidated as a nation, the psychological limits of the state and of the Russian identity have always been problematic. Russia has always been a premodern empire with a center and a periphery.’’6 Another analyst pointed out: ‘‘The Russian state has never existed within its current borders.’’7 The origins of the Russian state are found in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, around the ninth century. The distinctions among the Orthodox Christian peoples of Russia, Ukraine, and Byelorussia (now Belarus) are relatively minor. Certainly, the differences are much less than those of various ethnic groups, such as Chechens and Tatars, which are now seeking secession from Russia. The rationale for the emergence of 15 independent states after 1991 was that there existed no more than 15 ‘‘republics’’ within the former Soviet Union, regardless of whether or not the boundaries made sense. Today, Russian-majority Crimea is a part of independent Ukraine because Khrushchev decided to transfer Crimea to the Ukrainian republic in 1954. The reason that Armenian majority Nagorno-Karabakh became part of independent Azerbaijan instead of Armenia is that Josef Stalin decided to transfer it from Armenia to Azerbaijan in 1921.8 As long as the Soviet Union remained one state, these internal boundary questions among its ‘‘republics,’’ or whether there ought to be more than 15 ‘‘republics’’ for the USSR’s more than 100 nationalities, were not burning issues. But they can become matters of life and death when a state disintegrates and historical memories of conflict and persecution persist among the new minorities. New State Recognition and International Law Under what conditions should new states be recognized?9 Article I of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the rights and duties of states provides the basic set of guidelines for the recognition of new states: ‘‘The State as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) a government; and (d) a capacity to enter into relations with other states.’’10 A state possessing those qualities and recognized by other states is endowed with sovereignty, which in essence means that the state controls its own internal affairs and makes 84

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Drawing Lines in Shifting Sands its own foreign policy. Sometimes an added requirement for the recognition of new states is the expectation that the state’s government be established consistent with the principle of self-determination. According to legal scholar Hurst Hannum, however, that principle ‘‘seems to be applicable only in the context of decolonization, such as the refusal of the world community to concede statehood to Southern Rhodesia from the time of Ian Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence in 1965 to the establishment of majority rule in 1980.’’11 In the case of Yugoslavia, all these principles were discarded in cavalier fashion by the international community. When Bosnia was recognized in April 1992, it fulfilled neither the narrow criteria of an ethnic nation (race, language, religion) nor the broad criteria of a civic nation (a commitment to common political institutions, processes, and destiny). In short, Bosnia did not fulfill the criteria of a state as defined by the 1933 Montevideo Convention. Serbs continue to resist common citizenship and there is little prospect of the country becoming a civic entity. In April 1994, Croats and Muslims agreed to join together into a single Bosnian state, but their ties and commitment to the state remained superficial, enforced mostly by the United States and the European Union through the promises of reward and threats of punishment. Moreover, the internal and external boundaries of Bosnia have been contested by both the Serbs and the Croats, and following recognition and the outbreak of civil war, Bosnia lacked a stable population, and the Bosnian government did not control all of its territory. Yet the independence of the largely Muslim-led Bosnian government was recognized by the rest of the world. Michael Libal, former director of the German Foreign Ministry in charge of dealing with the problems of the former Yugoslavia, however, defends the West’s recognition of Bosnia, as well as of Slovenia and Croatia. Because the frontiers of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina were on the whole historical frontiers, the choice was easier to make. Nothing, therefore, is further from the mark than [the] claim that ‘‘new’’ states were being created out of Yugoslav territory. No ‘‘new’’ states had to be created. Just as there is a state of Bavaria in the Federal Republic of Germany, and as there was a state of Slovakia in the

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET Czechoslovak republic and a state of Georgia in the former USSR, there existed states in the former Yugoslavia. . . . And in this context, contrary to what . . . [some contend], the Serbs were granted exactly the same, albeit rather limited, right of self-determination, as all other Yugoslav nations. They were allowed to claim international recognition for their republic (Serbia) and respect for its territorial integrity, which meant denying the right to secession to the Albanians in Kosovo and the Muslims in the Sanjak.12

Libal’s statement is not only wrong from the standpoint of international law and politics among sovereign states, but extremely dangerous. His claim that the internal ‘‘republics’’ of the former Yugoslavia were in reality states under international law is patently absurd. Their status under international law was no different from that of Kosovo or Sanjak within the Serbian republic of Yugoslavia, or that of Dalmatia, Krajina, and Slavonia within the Croatian republic of Yugoslavia. Internal boundaries have no sanctity under international law and may be changed. In many cases, internal boundaries may have no historical or legal justification within the state and may be the subject of intense domestic controversy as in the case of Serbian complaints prior to 1991. If Libal’s statement represents the official German position, then it is clear that Germany invented an arbitrary international rule of convenience to advance the secessionist cause of its favored ethnic units, Slovenia and Croatia. Given Libal’s official position in the German Foreign Ministry dealing with the crisis in Yugoslavia, his views are an indication that Germany contributed to the destruction of Yugoslavia by acting on such erroneous beliefs. There are two other major problems with Libal’s arguments. First, the current political boundaries of Croatia and Bosnia are historically dubious. Until their emergence as independent states in 1991 and 1992 (with the exception of the Nazi puppet ‘‘Independent State of Croatia’’ between 1941 and 1945), they were parts of other political units. Within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Dalmatia, Krajina, and Slavonia were not always integral parts of Croatia, which was mainly concentrated around Zagreb. Bosnia was switched from the Ottoman Empire to the Austrian Empire in 1878. Bosnia was not recognized as a separate province in the unitary state of Yugoslavia under the Serbian monarchy during the interwar years. The Kingdom of Serbs, 86

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Drawing Lines in Shifting Sands Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) recognized three nationalities, and no more, and did not demarcate their constituent territories. Much of the territory of current-day Bosnia and Croatia was collapsed into the Ustashe Croatian state by the Nazis during the Second World War. Macedonia and Montenegro were considered part of the Serb nation during the interwar years. Macedonia had been part of South Serbia. Much of Vojvodina, which later became part of Serbia, had been under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While some historians may claim that Tito followed historical boundaries of provinces that existed within the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, Yugoslav specialists such as David Martin have claimed that Yugoslavia’s internal borders were essentially the ‘‘recent inventions of a Communist dictator [Tito] and have no historical validity.’’13 Similarly, the British author Nora Beloff noted: ‘‘The internal borders, which we treat as permanent features of Yugoslavia, were in reality drawn up secretly by Tito’s men in 1943 and were designed as administrative boundaries, within a centrally planned Stalinist state.’’14 There are few states in the world today whose ‘‘historic’’ boundaries have been constant. Many had no past boundaries of any kind at all. No ethnic logic prevails in the boundaries of African states, except the colonial legacy. This was the argument made by the Catholic Ibos of Biafra who had declared independence from Nigeria and were crushed by Muslim federal forces in a brutal civil war between 1967 and 1970. At the time of British India’s independence, there existed several large British Indian provinces proper and more than 580 autonomous Indian princely states ruled by maharajahs and nawabs. After independence, the new Indian government changed those internal boundaries so that virtually none of the old historic boundaries remained. The relevant question, therefore, is whether when provinces secede from a sovereign state, internal boundaries should automatically become external boundaries. From the standpoint of equity and justice, this should not be allowed to happen. No government of India of any political party or persuasion would tolerate Libal’s argument that internal provinces, whether they are called states or republics, have the right to become independent states within those borders. Indeed, as far as India is concerned, they have no right to become independent states whatever their borders. And by implication, 87

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET unilateral declarations of independence are acts of war, which India will contest by all possible means. That resolve is no different elsewhere in the world—including the United States, as evident in the civil war that it fought in the 19th century. But, whether historical or not, internal boundaries do not justify the perpetuation of those same borders when territories secede. Indeed, there are real dangers in allowing territories to secede without changes to their boundaries. One is civil war, as occurred in Bosnia and Croatia. Another is that the governments of states dominated by an ethnic majority will be motivated to set up highly centralized political systems to prevent internal distinctions. That could result in aggravating ethnic dissatisfaction and secessionist pressures rather than reducing them. Alternatively, there could be an escalation in conflict between ethnic minorities and majorities for the creation of more and more ‘‘provinces,’’ ‘‘republics,’’ and other internal divisions as stepping stones to independence. Populations, Territories, and the Proportionality Question If the principle of the territorial integrity of existing states is to be unwisely abandoned—as it was in Yugoslavia—then the boundaries of the breakaway territories should be open to negotiation. The crucial question, of course, is whether territory should be parceled out according to a group’s numeric size or some other criteria. In Bosnia, the international community was outraged that the Serbs had seized 70 percent of Bosnian territory when they constituted only 33 percent of the population. However, as mainly peasants and farmers, the Serbs had owned or occupied much of the countryside while the richer Muslims occupied the denser populated cities. The urban-rural distinction was not new. The 1910 Austrian census showed that Christian Orthodox Serbs constituted 43.5 percent of the population but 74 percent of ‘‘servile tenures’’ (land occupation and tenancy). The comparable figures for Muslims were 32.4 percent and 4.6 percent, and for Catholic Croats, 22.8 percent and 21.4 percent.15 The land-to-population-size principle hardly makes sense when rural-urban distinctions are so dramatic. More appropriate criteria for territorial renegotiation would be the location, the quality of land occupied or to be received, and claims of historical residence that may have been usurped by others. Land allotted at the time of 88

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Drawing Lines in Shifting Sands secession should encompass as much of the population of the seceding ethnic group, or conversely, retain in the old state as much of the population of the old majority ethnic groups that do not wish to be part of the new state. Likewise, vast acres of agricultural or barren land cannot be equated with small territories of resource-rich or industrialized land. Sarajevo alone is worth much more than all of the 49 percent of the land allotted to the Serbs, which is mainly mountainous and lacks industries or power plants. According to scholar and journalist Peter Brock, Bosnian Serbs were wary of early Western peace proposals because they would have received only $6.1 billion of the total $31.5 billion identified assets in Bosnia; none of the known deposits of bauxite, lead, zinc, salt, or iron; none of the 10 hydroelectric plants, which would all fall under Bosnian Croat jurisdiction; 160 of the 960 kilometers of railroad lines; and 200 kilometers of the improved roadways. Moreover, the Serbs faced the loss of 24 percent of the land that they had held for generations.16 Establishing a Dangerous Precedent In choosing between the principle of the right of self-determination and the principle of the territorial integrity of sovereign states, the ‘‘international community’’ (i.e., those nations strong enough to enforce their will) has now established the following self-contradicting and dangerous precedents and principles in the Yugoslav case: (1) The internal boundaries of a sovereign state will automatically become international frontiers if that sovereign state is taken apart through the new state-recognition policy, and (2) these newly recognized international frontiers of the newly created sovereign states will be preserved and enforced at any price, thus contradicting the earlier decision to take the international frontiers of the preexisting sovereign state apart based on the rights of self-determination and secession. Whether reasonable or unreasonable, practical or impractical, acceptable or unacceptable to the states involved, the following are three basic options that may be considered in settling the territorial mess that has resulted from Yugoslavia’s disintegration: 1. Compel the different ethnic groups to live together as they did in the old Yugoslavia because multiethnic tolerance and coexistence is a good thing. 89

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET 2. Divide the former Yugoslavia into its basic constituent ethnic groups, granting to all groups their ethnically pure states through population exchanges. 3. Enforce the prevailing territorial status quo as of 2001, whether logical or illogical, just or unjust. Option 1: Reunite Yugoslavia If the West believes that the territorial status quo should now be maintained, as Foreign Secretary Robin Cook informed the Kosovar Albanians and the Montenegrins in April 2001, and that different ethnic groups must learn to live together, as Wolfgang Petritsch, the Austrian head of the international authority for Bosnia-Herzegovina, insisted, then why not turn back the clock 10 years and restore the old Yugoslavia and its multiethnicity as it existed before 1991? In that Yugoslavia, no single ethnic group had a clear majority. In pre1991 Yugoslavia, Serbs constituted 35 percent of the total population, only a pluralistic majority. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, a smaller version of the larger Yugoslav state, Muslims had only a pluralistic majority of 42 percent. Petritsch has insisted that the Dayton Agreement was the right solution instead of breaking up Bosnia into three separate pure monoethnic states: ‘‘The victory of Dayton and international engagement has been a lasting peace, a slow but perceptible lessening of fear in Bosnia and Herzegovina and an increasing focus among ordinary citizens on issues that really matter: jobs, a decent education for one’s kids, a state that can do business with the outside world. Bosnian citizens are returning to their homes in increasing numbers, thanks to the imposition of strict property laws.’’ Petritsch continued: ‘‘Market reforms and the rule of law are making inroads into the shady economic fiefdoms under the nationalists’ control and are putting Bosnians’ rights as citizens on a firm, legal footing. To walk away now would be to throw away billions of dollars and years of effort. It would vindicate only the proponents of ethnic cleansing. It would lead to territories of ever decreasing and more absurd proportions—and to continuing instability in Europe.’’17

Ironically, the same policies proposed by Petritsch in 2001 could have kept Yugoslavia together in 1991 and saved countless lives on all sides. If only Petritsch had advised his government in Vienna 90

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Drawing Lines in Shifting Sands accordingly before 1991. If Western policymakers, especially in Germany and the United States, thought it was impractical to hold a multiethnic Yugoslavia together in early 1991 before any violence had occurred in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, then given all the bloodshed that has occurred it is even more impractical today for these policymakers to insist that Bosnia be made multiethnic. Option B: Divide Further into Monoethnic States A diametrically opposed solution would be to partition the former Yugoslavia into a series of monoethnic nation-states. Speakers at a Columbia University symposium in early March 2001 agreed, according to a report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, that Balkan borders should be redrawn to create ‘‘smaller, more stable monoethnic states.’’ Ethnic cleansing by Serbs in Republika Srpska, Croatians in Croatia and Herzegovina, Muslims in Muslimheld territories, and Albanians in much of Kosovo, has already reduced these territories to de facto monoethnic nation-states. Therefore, complete the process by allowing the Serbs of the Mitrovica region of Kosovo and the Albanians of Macedonia to secede. Since there is little ethnic difference between Montenegrins of Montenegro and Serbs of Serbia except a separate historical experience before 1918, Montenegro should be incorporated as part of Serbia just as Dalmatia is within Croatia even though Dalmatia was not always historically a part of Croatia. The great powers should then allow Serbs, Croats, and Albanians to join up with their mother states into a Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia, and Greater Albania. There is nothing evil about the objective of uniting peoples of the same ethnic group into a single state by redrawing international boundaries. It would seem more cruel to keep them apart when they wish to be together. The uniting of Serbs, Croats, and Albanians would be no different than the uniting of Italian territories in the 1860s into a ‘‘Greater Italy’’ under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi and Conte Camillo di Cavour, and the uniting of German territories into a ‘‘Greater Germany’’ under the leadership of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Parts of Krajina in Croatia and Kosovo where the Serbs were a majority should be returned to a newly forged Greater Serbia, fulfilling the original plan of Milosevic and other Serbian nationalists. 91

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET Unlike Hitler’s efforts to enlarge the German state through the ‘‘anschluss’’ with Germanic Austria forbidden by the 1919 Versailles Treaty and the annexations of German majority regions of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia and Silesia in Poland, the Serbian objective of forging a united Serbian state did not involve annexations of territories lying outside of the former Yugoslavia within longstanding sovereign states such as Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, or Romania. Indeed, the Serbs could have had a greatly expanded Greater Serbia for the asking at the end of the First World War for having fought with the victorious Entente powers and suffered enormously. Instead, based largely on Croatian initiatives and Woodrow Wilson’s directives, a larger South Slav state was forged. The Serbian demand in 1991 was that, if Yugoslavia was going to be taken apart through the policy of international recognition of internal provinces that had resorted to illegal unilateral declarations of independence in defiance of Belgrade, then those Serbian majority areas of those newly recognized states should be separated and retained within the remnant Yugoslavia. These territories were, after all, already a part of Yugoslavia for more than 70 years. The essential and, in my view, logical argument here is that when states fall apart, the boundaries of its internal provinces cannot automatically become international frontiers. Internal boundaries must be renegotiated as they were in the precedents set in the cases of Northern Ireland in 1921 and Punjab and Bengal in 1947. It should be kept in mind that Europe achieved stability at the end of the Second World War when some 15 million Germans were driven out of Silesia in Poland, the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, and other parts of Eastern Europe, and the relocations were conducted with the approval of the victorious allied powers, including the United States. With all of its Jews exterminated and its Germans expelled, Poland became and is now a monoethnic Polish-speaking Catholic state. Yet there have been no cries of righteous shock and horror by the moral advocates of multiethnicity against this ethnically cleansed, pure linguistic-religious nation-state. Perhaps after all the warring ethnic groups of the former Yugoslavia are separated into ethnically pure nation-states, they will seek to reintegrate as part of a united Europe. Slovenia, the only republic of the former Yugoslavia that was almost ethnically pure in terms of religion and language, is notably stable and peaceful and ready to join the European Union. 92

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Drawing Lines in Shifting Sands Option 3: Perpetuate the Prevailing Territorial Status Quo A third option would be to enforce the prevailing territorial status quo as of 2001 with all of its inconsistencies and contradictions. Thus, Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in Bosnia, and Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, will all have to learn to live together. The Dayton Agreement will prevail in Bosnia, and Kosovo will remain an autonomous province of Serbia as required by UN Resolution 1244. All refugees must be allowed to return to the homes they occupied before 1991. This also means that Serbs of Krajina and Eastern Slavonia in Croatia must be allowed back onto the land of their ancestors, and Krajina given an autonomous status in Croatia, similar to Kosovo’s status within Serbia. There is a tendency to forget that President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia, and Croat nationalists, were almost as guilty as Slobodan Milosevic and Serb nationalists were for the breakup of Yugoslavia. Croatia’s UDI in June 1991 was accompanied by the firing of Serbs from their jobs, the expulsion of Serbs from the Zagreb region, the denial of citizenship to Serbs, the restoration of the old symbols of the Nazi-Ustashe regime, and the legitimization of the old Ustashe leaders by naming streets and monuments after them. A de facto ethnically pure Greater Croatia was accomplished by the mid-1990s through mass murder and ethnic cleansing of Serbs without objections or resistance from the West, where an ethnically pure Greater Serbia had been prevented by the West. The difference in the culpability between Serbs and Croats was that less mass murder and ethnic cleansing needed to be done by Croatians to achieve their ethnically pure Greater Croatia than by Serbs to achieve their ethnically pure Greater Serbia. Otherwise, the Croatian and Serbian objectives and policies were essentially the same. It is no consolation to hear now from the chief international war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, that the case for the indictment of Tudjman for war crimes was completed only after he died—more than four years after the war ended. Del Ponte now argues that it is not possible to prosecute Tudjman for war crimes because he is not alive to defend himself.18 Lessons and Prognosis Ultimately, most solutions to territorial disputes and secessionist demands would be to maintain the territorial integrity of existing 93

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET states. Undoubtedly, the promotion of the self-determination principle, and the enforcement of human rights worldwide, are noble and worthy goals. Self-determination appears to be an extension of the principles of democracy and freedom. And who could object to humanitarian intervention by the international community to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing by state authorities within their national borders? However, there is a problem that is usually overlooked. Often the threat and willingness to intervene militarily by the ‘‘international community’’ (which usually means the United States) in the internal affairs of sovereign states in support of the self-determination principle actually provokes further bloodshed and human rights violations that may not otherwise occur. And, where the territorial integrity of the state is violated and territorial secession is encouraged, the result is more demands by other ethnic or ideological groups for the same right of self-determination and secession leading to increased violence, death and destruction, and human rights violations. Disgruntled minorities and ethnic groups seeking secession then have a vested interest in provoking the state authorities into massive human rights violations in order to invite ‘‘humanitarian interventions’’ by the international community. Where such problems were at first restricted and localized, they now become massive and widespread. Indeed, the encouragement of the right of self-determination, unwillingness to respect the sovereignty of the state, and willingness to indulge in humanitarian interventions create the conditions where such an intrusive international policy posture becomes necessary. A standing or threatened policy of humanitarian intervention by the United States and the West then in practice encourages and exacerbates human rights nightmares. Although NATO and its supporters now claim routinely that the alliance attacked Serbia in violation of the UN Charter in order to return the one million Albanians driven out of Kosovo, it was the illegal assault that triggered the flight of refugees in the first place. During the previous year, some 2,000 Albanians and Serbs had died, some 300,000 Albanians had been internally displaced, and another 700,000 may have moved out of Kosovo to Albania and safer areas abroad, because of the overreaction of Serbian security forces against the Kosovo Liberation Army. 94

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Drawing Lines in Shifting Sands This is not an unusual phenomenon where the insurgents and terrorists are unknown and hidden within the civilian population, e.g., Chechnya, Kurdistan, and Kashmir. A policy posture encouraging the right of self-determination could undermine the unity and stability of multiethnic states, thus contradicting the other noble Western goal of promoting interethnic tolerance and coexistence within a state compromising different linguistic, religious, and cultural groups. Human rights violations could then reach epidemic proportions, keep the proposed permanent UN peacekeeping force busy indefinitely, and create the need for even more peacekeepers. The rising tide of insurgency and terrorism in Chechnya in Russia, Xinjiang in China, and Kashmir in India, all Muslim-majority areas no different from Kosovo in Yugoslavia, illustrates the scope of the potential problem. Notes 1. See ‘‘UK Warns against Yugoslav Split,’’ BBC News (Online), World: Europe, April 25, 2001. 2. See Donald L. Horowitz, ‘‘Self-Determination: Politics, Philosophy and Law,’’ MacArthur Foundation Program in Transnational Security, Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, Working Paper Series, 1995, p. 11. 3. See Gary Dempsey, ‘‘Kosovo Crossfire,’’ Mediterranean Quarterly 9, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 99. 4. See Anthony DePalma, ‘‘Canadian Court Rules Quebec Cannot Secede on Its Own,’’ New York Times, August 21, 1998. 5. For a study on this issue, see Frederick Barth, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston: Little Brown, 1976.) 6. Paul Goble, ‘‘Russian Break-Up,’’ NEFTE Compass 2, no. 2 (January 15, 1993): 11. Cited in Jessica Eve Stern, ‘‘Moscow Meltdown: Can Russia Survive?’’ International Security 18, no. 4 (Spring 1994): 42. 7. Jessica Eve Stern, ‘‘Moscow Meltdown,’’ p. 42. See also Jack Snyder, ‘‘Nationalism and the Crisis of the Post-Soviet State,’’ in Survival: The IISS Quarterly 35, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 5–26. For a study of the South Asian case involving similar issues, see Raju G. C. Thomas, ‘‘Competing Nationalisms: Secessionist Movements and the State,’’ Harvard International Review 38, no. 3 (Summer 1996): 12–15, 76; and Raju G.C. Thomas, ‘‘Secessionist Movements in South Asia,’’ Survival: The IISS Quarterly 36, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 92–114. 8. For a discussion of Crimean and Nagorno-Karabakh issues, see Stephen H. Astourian, ‘‘The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Dimensions, Lessons and Prospects,’’ Mediterranean Quarterly 5, no. 4 (Fall 1994): 85–109; and Roman Popadiuk, ‘‘Crimea and Ukraine’s Future,’’ Mediterranean Quarterly 5, no. 4 (Fall 1994): 30–39. 9. For two studies on this subject, see Allen Buchanan, Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce from Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec (Boulder, Colo.: Westview

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET Press, 1991); and Lee C. Buchheit, Secession: The Legitimacy of Self-Determination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978). 10. From Hurst Hannum, Autonomy, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination: The Accommodation of Conflicting Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), p. 16. 11. Ibid. 12. Michael Libal, Harvard International Review 18, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 87. See my article in the following issue where I proposed in the case of South Asia that, while the states in this region may seek to move toward confederal arrangements, they should recognize for the sake of avoiding tragedy that ‘‘the existing international borders, whether good or bad, legal or illegal, are inviolable; and that none of the states in the region will aid and abet each other’s separatist movements.’’ Raju G. C. Thomas, ‘‘Competing Nationalisms,’’ p. 76. 13. See David Martin, ‘‘Croatia’s Borders: Over the Edge,’’ New York Times, November 22, 1991. 14. Nora Beloff, ‘‘Hope and History in Yugoslavia,’’ The Overseas Guardian Weekly, December 1, 1991. 15. From Stephen Clissold, H. C. Darby, R. W. Seton-Watson, Phyllis Auty, and R. G. D. Laffan, A Short History of Yugoslavia: From Early Times to 1966 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), p. 71. These figures were obtained from L. von Sudland, Die Jugoslaviche Frage (Vienna: 1918), p. 211. 16. See Peter Brock, ‘‘Dateline Yugoslavia: The Partisan Press,’’ Foreign Policy, Winter 1993–94, pp. 168–69. 17. Wolfgang Petritsch, ‘‘Don’t Abandon the Balkans,’’ New York Times, March 25, 2001, p. WK15. 18. The following is the relevant segment of an interview she granted the Bosnian weekly, Dani: Dani: Were you preparing an indictment against Franjo Tudjman and did his death save him from the interests [sic] of the prosecution? Del Ponte: Yes, we were carrying out an investigation against Franjo Tudjman. It was almost completed/finalized and we were ready to issue an indictment when he died. Had he not died, today he would have been one of The Hague indictees. ‘‘Exclusive: Carla Del Ponte, Prosecutor Says Tudjman’s Death Saved Him from The Hague!’’ (translated), Dani (Sarajevo) 20, no. 202, 20. April 2001.

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6. America Should Escape Its Balkans Imperium John C. Hulsman As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy. Abraham Lincoln, 1858

In assessing where the United States should go from here regarding its Balkans policy, and looking beyond the public relations pyrotechnics of the Clinton administration, a simple but essential starting point must be recognized: Western policy in the region has been an abject failure. In Bosnia, after more than five years of military involvement, $5 billion in reconstruction aid, and $1 billion in stolen public funds, the country is run as a Western colony and a majority of voters there still elect nationalist parties that are not committed to the notion that Bosnia should be a multiethnic, unitary state. In Kosovo, due to the persistent ambiguities surrounding the final status of the province embedded in United Nations resolution 1244, the patience of Albanian nationalists has been fraying. Moreover, a prime indicator of the geopolitical miscalculation the Clinton administration bequeathed to the Bush team is that veterans of Washington’s erstwhile allies, the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army, have exported their weaponry and separatist agenda across the porous Kosovo border to the heretofore peaceful country of Macedonia. Former leaders of the KLA also continue running one of the most lucrative organized crime rings in Europe. The Problem of Imposing Democracy That nation-building from the top down has failed in the Balkans can best be illustrated by the five-year effort to ‘‘teach the people of Bosnia to elect good men.’’ Efforts to impose democracy there have led to a predictable outcome—repression of the democratic 97

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET rights of the very people who are supposed to be learning about democracy. A recent example: In March 2001, high representative Wolfgang Petritsch, the West’s ‘‘viceroy’’ of Bosnia, dismissed the duly elected Bosnian Croat representative to the country’s threeman presidency, Ante Jelavic. Jelavic was the leader of the main Bosnian Croat party, the Croatian Democratic Union, which enjoys the support of around 80 percent of all Bosnian Croats. His crime had been to challenge the cornerstone of the West’s nation-building efforts in Bosnia, the Dayton Peace Agreement. According to Dayton, Petritsch can remove anyone from office whom he sees as an obstacle to peace. Jelavic wanted to create a Croat entity within Bosnia on par with what Bosnian Serbs already have in the Republika Srpska. He threatened to go ahead with secession unless Western officials running the country withdrew a new election law they had promulgated that was designed to promote largely unpopular multiethnic parties by excluding parties that draw their support from a single ethnic group. Rigging election laws, stifling self-determination, and removing democratically elected officials from office do far more than underline the implacable politics of Bosnia; they call into question the methods the West has utilized in ‘‘promoting’’ democracy there. Is it really morally correct and practical policy to try to mold other societies and cultures? As Samuel Huntington has noted, ‘‘To intrude from outside is either imperialism or colonialism, each of which violates American values.’’1 By its methods in the Balkans, the United States and its Western allies have nullified the principles for which they stand. Using authoritarian tactics, coercion, and other undemocratic means of ‘‘persuading’’ others to become more democratic misses the forest for the trees. Successful democratic development, in the Balkans or elsewhere, is largely an organic political development that cannot be dictated or crudely transplanted. This fundamental analytical flaw explains the ongoing failure of nation-building in the Balkans. Time to Reevaluate It’s time to reevaluate the entire Balkans deployment by exploding the myths put forward by America’s nation builders. Anyone remotely acquainted with geopolitics recognizes that the Balkans are not a primary American interest. The United States has no treaty 98

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America Should Escape Its Balkans Imperium obligations with the countries of the region, no major commercial involvement, and no deep historical ties. These facts raise the question: Why expend billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and risk significant numbers of American servicemen there? America’s global credibility should not rest on the outcome of predictably doomed missions, even though Washington sometimes foolishly takes on such missions. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe, moreover, are not lining up to join NATO so they can participate in peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. They seem more focused on the NATO treaty’s Article V provision that guarantees that America will defend them against foreign attack. NATO’s credibility also suffers by tying it to doomed missions. There is substantial evidence that Western attempts at nation-building in the Balkans have been counterproductive. Public opinion in the three Bosnian communities has been studied systematically by the United States Information Agency and the Department of State’s Office of Research in semiannual surveys. Contrary to conventional Washington wisdom, the results of the surveys illustrate that secessionist forces in Bosnia are primarily internally motivated, and to the extent that Western efforts at nation building have affected public attitudes, the effect has been primarily negative. What’s more, it is decentralized governance that has proven to be integrative, rather than Western attempts at increased centralization. Indeed, according to the USIA, between 1995 and 1999, support for a unified Bosnia decreased dramatically among Bosnian Croats, who do not have a governing entity within Bosnia, and increased among Bosnian Serbs, who do have an entity within Bosnia.2 The reason behind this shift in public opinion is obvious. Dayton gave the Serbs a stake in Bosnia, in the form of institutions built around the Republika Srpska entity. The same institutional structure was not granted to Bosnian Croats, who, as a result, feel increasingly alienated from the idea of a unified Bosnian state. Until Bosnia reflects the indigenous facts on the ground—that is, that the Croats do not wish to be engulfed in a Bosniak-dominated federation— and until the requisite decentralization occurs, Bosnia will remain an artificial Western construct. Ivo Daalder, a Clinton appointee to the National Security Council and long-time supporter of the Clinton administration’s approach to the region, now admits, ‘‘Bosnia is a ward of the international community. That is not a recipe for a 99

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET lasting, self-sustaining peace.’’ 3 How very true. As the former defense minister of the Muslim-Croatian federation, Miroslav Prce, put it, international policymakers ‘‘look to discredit nationalism and expect the subject peoples to simply outgrow it, a policy of wishful thinking that inevitably ends in failure.’’4 The West’s imposed solutions, as they are not linked to basic Balkan realities, are doomed. A Parting of the Ways? Considering the Balkan quagmire the Clinton administration left for the Bush administration, the United States must determine how to adjust its strategy toward the region. The foundation of a new strategy should begin with a shift from nation building to facilitating indigenous regional solutions while drawing down American military forces committed to the Balkans. Such an approach reflects the campaign pledges of George W. Bush and the long-standing aversion to the Clinton approach for which his staff is known. However, America’s European allies may not be as quick to desire a military withdrawal from the region, which seems to put two American priorities at odds: revising how the United States addresses regional contingencies and cultivating strong alliance links. Fortunately this apparent disconnect is an illusion. The United States and Europe have been building new mechanisms, particularly the European Union’s European Security and Defense Policy and NATO’s Combined Joint Task Force, to avert just such a disaster when American and European interests are not in lockstep. As a result, Europe can exercise its right to remain in the Balkans if it so chooses, and the United States can decide to draw down, without hurting alliance cohesion. Despite the transatlantic unity behind the Clinton Doctrine, Europe originally envisioned playing a greater role in the Balkans than it does today. For the Europeans, the Kosovo air campaign and the peacekeeping mission that followed were originally viewed as an opportunity to play the leading role in stabilizing the continent. After being supplanted by the United States in Bosnia in the first half of the 90s, the EU created the European Security and Defense Initiative (ESDI) in December 1998 at the Saint Malo summit to ensure that Europe could handle the next Bosnia. This vision was also in accord with the Clinton administration’s early view toward the Balkans. As Secretary of Defense William Cohen described the arrangement prior 100

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America Should Escape Its Balkans Imperium to the talks at Rambouillet, ‘‘Our European allies must bear a substantial burden in terms of dealing with Kosovo and . . . any participation by the United States should be as small as it could be.’’ 5 But military necessities forced the United States to take the dominant role during the Kosovo air campaign, which made it abundantly clear that Europe is not on par with the United States when it comes to war-fighting capabilities. The day after bombing began the Financial Times noted how the balance of forces came into being: ‘‘The military argued in Britain and France that they simply did not have the kit. . . . If it came to air strikes, the U.S. would have to take the lead.’’ 6 The Europeans’ acquiescence seemed to validate the idea that the United States would do what it had to—fight an air war— and Europe would do all it could—pay for reconstruction and contribute the majority of peacekeepers. As one European official at NATO stated, ‘‘Peacekeeping operations the Europeans can do, but not war-fighting.’’ 7 Europe’s rhetoric after the bombing ended seemed to be driven by this statement. Kosovo reinvigorated Europe’s efforts to create an ESDI, but it would focus on ‘‘Petersburg Tasks’’ including the kind of armed peacekeeping force being deployed in Kosovo. The EU would try to show it was serious by appointing recently retired NATO Secretary General Javier Solana as its chief for policy planning. At the Helsinki Summit in December 1999, the EU set a goal of being able to rapidly deploy 60,000 troops by 2003, turning ESDI from an initiative into the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). Like the ESDP, NATO’s Combined Joint Task Force is a response to the changed security environment of the post–Cold War world. The CJTF was first proposed at the informal meeting of NATO defense ministers at Travemunde, Germany, in 1993 and was endorsed during the 1994 NATO summit. From those early days, the CJTF was designed to embrace a European mission, at the time headed by the Western European Union.8 The 1994 summit’s final declaration directed the Council in Permanent Session ‘‘to examine how the alliance’s political and military structures and procedures might be developed and adapted to conduct more efficiently and flexibly the alliance’s missions, including peacekeeping, as well as to improve cooperation with the WEU and to reflect the emerging European Security and Defense Identity.’’9 Since 1994, the CJTF has been constantly refined. Not only did NATO undertake exercises to 101

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET test the mechanism’s viability, but it also looked at the Bosnia mission, which, according to a former NATO assistant secretary general for defense planning and policy, Anthony Cragg, bore many of the characteristics of a CJTF.10 The CJTF was finally institutionalized at the NATO Washington Summit in 1999. It, like ESDP, was not born out of Western involvement in the wars of Yugoslav succession but is very much a child of these missions and represents the future of how the alliance should react to regional contingencies. Stepping Forward With these new institutions in place, the only thing keeping Europe from taking a greater role in the Balkans is its own Balkan ghost, the fear of responsibility after its involvement in the Balkans in the early 1990s was undermined by Washington’s backseat driving. However, both the ESDP and the CJTF were created to dispel this European fear, and American policy should be geared to seeing that these mutually reinforcing institutions succeed. Just as Europe has long sought a greater role in providing for the continent’s security, the senior members of the Bush administration have historically been against the kind of foreign policy embodied by the Kosovo campaign. For many in the administration, this philosophical difference comes from lessons learned during earlier administrations, particularly for those officials who served as junior staffers during the Vietnam War. Secretary of State Colin Powell is probably the best examplar of this viewpoint. Powell, who served as a junior Army officer during Vietnam, learned early on about the flaws of nation building and the dangers of undertaking open-ended military commitments without a strategic rationale. Powell’s conceptual differences with the previous administration’s mindset surfaced during an exchange between him, when he was serving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then–UN ambassador Madeleine Albright, regarding the wisdom of using the U.S. military in Bosnia. In his autobiography, Secretary Powell recounts the incident: ‘‘What’s the point of having this superb military if we can’t use it?’’ Albright asked Powell. ‘‘I thought I would have an aneurysm’’ he recalled. ‘‘American GI’s were not toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of global game board’’ without regard for any underlying national interest.11 102

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America Should Escape Its Balkans Imperium As the Bush administration’s secretary of state, Powell’s strategy for the deployment of American forces is likely to follow the logic of what has come to be called the ‘‘Powell Doctrine,’’ which sets six strict criteria for when the United States should commit military power. The Powell Doctrine asserts that: 1) America must have vital national interests at stake; 2) have a clear goal; 3) have the support of U.S. public opinion; 4) have a plan for victory; 5) be able to achieve overwhelming force to guarantee such a victory; and 6) have an exit strategy. Neither the Bosnia mission nor the Kosovo mission meets Powell’s criteria. National security advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Vice President Dick Cheney all voice a strikingly similar line. In particular, Rice has criticized the fact that the Kosovo deployment has no exit strategy, implicitly using the standards for military intervention outlined in the Powell Doctrine. Secretary Rumsfeld has gone even further, directly linking the Balkan peacekeeping missions to America’s experience in Vietnam. When describing the need for a review of American deployments in the Balkans he noted, ‘‘Since 1996 NATO has reviewed troop levels every six months. This is how it should be. America never again wants an open-ended commitment—a quagmire, that is—such as Vietnam.’’12 Cheney, Powell’s former boss as secretary of defense, wholeheartedly agrees with that point of view. The Bush administration, in short, has a tremendous amount of collective experience gained from careers stretching over three decades, and its views on military intervention are not ‘‘isolationist’’ or ‘‘unilateralist’’ as its critics disparage, but based on the real-world lessons its top appointees have learned from America’s past actions. Despite their shared aversion to the mission, however, the Bush administration has made clear it will not abandon Washington’s NATO allies. This was most clearly articulated by Secretary Powell during his first visit to NATO headquarters as Secretary of State. ‘‘We went in together; we’ll come out together,’’ he said. But in a follow-up sentence that received less media attention, Powell added, ‘‘And in the process of doing so, make sure we have the right mixture and balance of forces at all times.’’13 Taken together, Powell’s statements seem to leave room for an evolution in the Balkan missions. 103

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET Evolving a Way Out of the Balkans In the short run, the United States should use the ESDP and the CJTF mechanisms to provide the basis for a realistic U.S. military exit strategy from Bosnia. Furthermore, such an approach is entirely consistent with the Bush administration’s well-founded skepticism of open-ended nation-building missions and America’s strategic interest in recalibrating NATO in such a way that the Alliance’s viability and adaptability are secured in the post–Cold War world. That goal could be achieved in four steps. Step #1 Recognize that recalibrating NATO around the twin concepts of power sharing and burden sharing is essential for the alliance to thrive in the post–Cold War security milieu. During the Cold War, two hypocrisies dominated intra-alliance relations: Europeans wanted a greater say in NATO, while contributing a far smaller percentage of overall alliance capabilities than the United States; the United States, on the other hand, wanted Europe to do far more in terms of capability and defense spending, but it did not want to grant the European allies a greater voice in the alliance. The uneven distribution of military capability exhibited during the Kosovo air campaign was a turning point in this contradictory relationship. The United States accounted for 85 percent of the military wherewithal over the skies of Serbia and Kosovo. Such a lopsided capability distribution may have been acceptable during the Cold War, while confronting the expansionistic hegemon known as the Soviet Union. However, in the post–Cold War era, American geopolitical calculations have changed while European defense spending has gone down. To preserve the most successful alliance in history, it is now necessary to formally link the concepts of power sharing and burden sharing; that is, Europe should be given a proportionally greater operational say regarding the goings-on of specific NATO missions if it assumes a greater proportion of military capability in NATO. Such a reciprocal approach is the only longterm way to maintain the health of the alliance in a world without a single overarching threat.

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America Should Escape Its Balkans Imperium Step #2 The United States should support ESDP as a way to facilitate greater burden-sharing efforts from the Europeans. While at present European defense spending and capabilities remain moribund, through economies of scale alone, ESDP could facilitate Europe’s possessing a greater rate of capability. Such an outcome, if grounded in the British conception of ESDP (with NATO retaining the first right of refusal and planning being done primarily through NATO to prevent unnecessary duplication) should be warmly backed by Washington. A Gaullist version of ESDP, which would create a security institution in Europe that is independent of any American role or influence, is unlikely to emerge, as some American analysts warn, for several reasons. (1) French elite opinion is divided on whether to pursue ESDP as a means toward that end (witness the divisions between the Quai and the French Ministry of Defense). (2) The British, Germans, Dutch, Spanish, and Italians are on record as saying that they favor ESDP to ameliorate burden-sharing problems and thus keep America engaged in Europe. As such, they are unlikely to accept French efforts to cut the American link. The Nice EU Summit outcome of December 2000 confirms this point, as French efforts at constructing a more autonomous ESDP were derailed by British, German, and Dutch objections. (3) No European country is prepared to massively increase defense spending, which would be the requirement to fully decouple the United States from the European security environment. The potential is not that Europe does too much through ESDP, but that it does too little.14 Step #3 Operational aspects of the CJTF should be adopted as a way to limit America’s military role in Bosnia. Until recently, the member states of NATO had only two options in a military crisis—either commit to a full alliance mission or veto NATO involvement. Such a rigid decisionmaking structure was eventually bound to cause political tensions within the alliance whenever the specific interests of member states diverged. In April 1999, NATO ratified the new CJTF mechanism as a third option that adds a needed dimension of flexibility to alliance decisionmaking. Through the Combined Joint Task Force mechanism, states 105

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET opting out of a specific NATO mission (while remaining politically, economically, and diplomatically engaged) would not stop other NATO members from using alliance assets to participate in military action if they chose to do so. The CJTF initiative arose as a response to European complaints that U.S. dominance of NATO operational decisionmaking limited their ability to respond to crises where significant European interests were involved while U.S. interests were present to a lesser extent. In other words, the CJTF mechanism allows European ‘‘coalitions of the willing’’ to use NATO’s assets on an ad hoc basis for specific multinational out-of-area missions. While the decision to intervene in the Balkans through NATO was taken long ago, the principles underlying the CJTF structure, if organizationally adopted in Bosnia, could lead to an American military drawdown from that country. America could still offer its European allies the use of American communications, logistics, and intelligence-sharing support without requiring that thousands of U.S. troops remain on the ground. The European states, following a phased and coordinated American military withdrawal, would then wholly command the newly reconfigured Bosnia mission under NATO auspices, but with European command and control. Step #4 The newly reconfigured Bosnia mission could be comprised of the proposed ESDP force and Bosnia could form the test case for the new European pillar of the alliance. The realities on the ground in Bosnia closely match the core competencies of Europeans; the mission calls for a civil-military police role on the light end of peacekeeping of the kind the Europeans are better versed in than the United States. Thus it is logical that the new ESDP force could form the basis of a Europeanized Bosnia mission. While the United States should remain politically, economically, and diplomatically engaged in the region, such an outcome would represent, at the operational level, the logical thrust of overall American policy toward the region, and is in line with the need to recalibrate the power-sharing and burden-sharing aspects of NATO itself. Further, a similar transition could be applied to Kosovo once the military situation stabilizes. Admittedly, the situation on the ground in Kosovo today is very different than that in Bosnia. While Bosnia 106

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America Should Escape Its Balkans Imperium no longer faces an armed insurgency attempting to redraw political borders, the Kosovo insurgency has spread. In both Macedonia and the Presevo Valley, recent rebel movements have been comprised of veterans of the KLA’s war against Milosevic and relied on the UN-administered Kosovo province for material and logistical support as well as safe haven. Placing lightly armed European troops alone in this environment would invite dangers similar to the early days of the Bosnian conflict when European peacekeepers found themselves captured by Bosnian-Serb forces. Nonetheless, the United States and Europe should begin discussing a mechanisms for withdrawing from Kosovo, something the Clinton administration was apt to ignore, with the recognition that the same ESDP/CJTF mechanism can, over time, be applied to Kosovo. Taking the Evolutionary Course There are many advantages to pursuing such an evolutionary policy. By saying yes to ESDP and employing it in the Balkans, Washington can shape the initiative in a manner consistent with American efforts to recalibrate the alliance. By offering the Europeans what they are now clamoring for, and urging the use of ESDP in Bosnia, the United States can change the terms of the alliance debate, forcing the allies to make good on their promises to alleviate burden-sharing problems within the alliance while at the same time drawing down American forces in a region that is less than vital to U.S. interests. By reconstituting the Bosnia mission around lightend peacekeeping tasks, the West will hopefully dampen its desire to impose unsustainable outcomes on the region, and instead focus on encouraging indigenous, self-sustaining solutions. Notes 1. Samuel Huntington, ‘‘American Ideals versus American Interests,’’ Political Science Quarterly 97, no. 1 (Spring 1982): 20. 2. Miroslav Prce, ‘‘Revising Dayton Using European Solutions,’’ Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, no. 143, winter 2000, p. 2. 3. Paul Taylor, ‘‘Croat Threat Masks Bosnia Peace Process,’’ Reuters, March 6, 2001. 4. Prce, pp. 2–3. 5. Dana Priest, ‘‘U.S. and Allies Seek to Shape a Kosovo Peacekeeping Force,’’ The International Herald Tribune, February 3, 1999, p. 5. 6. ‘‘Lessons of Kosovo,’’ Financial Times, March 25, 1999, p. 18. 7. John-Thor Dahlburg, ‘‘Crisis in Yugoslavia: Battle for Kosovo Shows Europe Still Needs the U.S.,’’ Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1999, p. A1.

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET 8. The WEU has since been folded into the EU. 9. The North Atlantic Council, ‘‘Declaration of the Heads of State and Government,’’ NATO Headquarters, Brussels, January 10–11, 1994. 10. Anthony Cragg, ‘‘The Combined Joint Task Force Conception: A Key Component of the Alliance’s Adaptation,’’ NATO Review 44, no. 4 (July 1996). 11. Steven Thomma, ‘‘Retired General More Dovish about Force than Albright,’’ Miami Herald, December 15, 2000. 12. ‘‘Staying the Course with Balkan Troops,’’ Allentown Morning Call, March 2, 2001. 13. United States Department of State, ‘‘Press Availability with NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson,’’ Brussels, Belgium, February 27, 2001. 14. For a differing view of the Nice summit outcome, see Chris Layne, ‘‘Death Knell for NATO? The Bush Administration Confronts the European Security and Defense Policy,’’ Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 394, April 4, 2001.

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7. Passing the Baton in the Balkans: Europe May Not Be Willing, But It Is Certainly Able E. Wayne Merry

Commentaries in Europe and the United States generally assume that a continued large-scale American military presence is essential to maintain the multilateral peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. This assumption is based on the conviction that Europeans cannot do the job without Americans. The apocalyptic expectation of renewed war and chaos throughout the former Yugoslavia if American forces are withdrawn does not bear close examination and is based on two fallacies. One fallacy is that American military forces are actually good at peacekeeping, despite a very mixed record and an obvious lack of enthusiasm for the role. The more fundamental fallacy is that the European states, a decade after the end of the Cold War and more than two generations distant from the last major European conflict, are incapable of managing regional and local disputes on Europe’s periphery rather than just unwilling to do so. These fallacies are useful to politicians and diplomats in preserving the Balkan status quo, but an objective assessment demonstrates why this status quo need not be preserved. Some confusion stems from loose application of the term ‘‘peacekeeping’’ to refer to everything from treaty monitoring to open conflict or to encompass tasks ranging from limited war to conflict suppression, paramilitary police work, civic organization, public relations, and humanitarian relief. To employ the same word to describe what British forces encountered in Sierra Leone or Australian troops found in East Timor and the daily boredom of soldiers on the dividing line of Cyprus or Russian units in the Transdniestrian region of Moldova is to exceed practical definition, yet these are all called ‘‘peacekeeping.’’ 109

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET In American discourse, peacekeeping generally denotes the use of combat formations on a considerable scale, usually in a coalition setting, in a distant area of ethnic violence beyond the capacities of local law enforcement (if, indeed, local forces are not part of the problem). The United States devotes much less attention to the noncombatant aspects of peacekeeping, which are often viewed as the slippery slope to the dreaded morass of ‘‘nation building.’’ While the U.S. military has considerable experience of humanitarian relief operations, it has comparatively little in the broad range of peacekeeping tasks. Americans also think of peacekeeping as a new mission, while our military categorizes it merely as a subset of ‘‘operations other than war.’’ In contrast, some countries devote much of their national military activity to multinational peacekeeping and have a very different perspective. A Brief History of Peacekeeping There is nothing inherently new about governments sending military forces, either individually or in coalitions, to attempt to sort out local or regional conflicts. Generally these undertakings serve broader political goals and, often enough, they end badly for all concerned. For example, an attempt by Athens to resolve local disputes in western Greece was one (among several) of the proximate causes for the Peloponnesian War. History provides innumerable other instances of what, in retrospect, could be classified as peacekeeping operations. Modern, multilateral peacekeeping emerged in the aftermath of the Suez crisis of 1956. A key element of United Nations efforts to resolve the crisis was the creation of an international separation force that helped the warring parties save a measure of face essential to a settlement. The main author of this solution was Canadian foreign minister Lester Pearson, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work and later commemorated in the Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Center in Nova Scotia, the world’s premier institution for transmitting lessons learned from past peacekeeping experience to those who must do the job in various parts of the world today. The UN Suez mission succeeded in its immediate goal by helping to resolve the crisis, succeeded in its intermediate purpose of limiting tensions between Egypt and Israel, 110

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Passing the Baton in the Balkans but ultimately failed in 1967 when Nasser decided to pursue his aims without peacekeepers, a blunder on his part.1 Since Suez, peacekeeping operations have multiplied in number and kind and have proven much harder to terminate than to initiate. Most are United Nations missions featuring the famous ‘‘blue helmets,’’ who were collectively honored with a Nobel Peace Prize before the sad UN experience in Bosnia tarnished their image. Blue helmet operations during the Cold War generally did not involve participation of military units from the five permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, Soviet Union, China, United Kingdom, and France) to avoid introducing Cold War rivalries into peacekeeping missions. The United States often provided logistical and technical support or seconded personnel to UN missions, but did not commit armed forces. In consequence, when the U.S. military entered the Balkans, it had little relevant peacekeeping experience. The same might be said of the British and French, but their extensive experience of colonial wars generally served them in good stead. The Russian performance in Bosnia and in Eastern Slavonia has been fairly good, but on a quite modest scale. The Chinese, from either inherent conservatism or wisdom, have stayed out. U.S. armed forces, of course, have often intervened in the American ‘‘near abroad’’ in a form of peacekeeping, but the uses of force in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, etc., were more acts of imperial housekeeping. U.S. operations in Suez, Lebanon, and in Somalia comprised most of America’s onthe-ground peacekeeping experience prior to Bosnia. U.S. Peacekeeping Experience The ‘‘Multinational Force and Observers’’ in Suez was established to monitor the 1979 Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel. The MFO has engaged the activities of two American battalions (one infantry, one support) on a rotating basis for nearly two decades. However, the relevance of this experience for real peacekeeping is small. Unlike the tenuous environment for the UN operation in Suez between 1956 and 1967, the MFO (not a UN mission) has operated in the most benign of peacekeeping contexts: The parties to the conflict had agreed to a genuine and comprehensive peace settlement, with a wide expanse of largely uninhabited desert 111

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET as a cordon sanitaire for the MFO to monitor. Indeed, the extraordinary thing about the U.S. involvement in Suez is that such a large commitment of American troops (nearly nine hundred at a time) should have continued in only a symbolic role for so long. Only recently has the Defense Department, under Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, served notice that it wants out of the MFO due to the Army’s need for the units and the lengthy time required to retrain and reintegrate them into our reduced ground forces. Perhaps the relevant lessons from the MFO experience are not to expect such an easy task again and to be wary about open-ended commitments.2 Somalia left a bad taste in the mouth of almost every American and doubly so for our military. Rarely have we used our armed forces for so laudable a purpose—to feed the starving—with so frustrating an outcome. There is no need to rehash the Somalia experience here, so familiar is it, other than to note that the mission caused many in government and the military to take the most jaundiced view of peacekeeping in general as an inevitably thankless task in which mission success is a chimera and ‘‘mission creep’’ the ultimate danger. A key lesson we needed to learn is that ‘‘you gotta know the territory,’’ as U.S. policymakers never quite understood that in Somalia the distribution of food was the core of the local power structure and we, by taking on what seemed the work of angels, acquired in the eyes of the competing Somali factions the image of devils. If anything, Somalia taught Washington two lessons that have hampered our troops in the Balkans: to insist on command relationships far more rigid than used in many successful peacekeeping missions, and to give top priority to force protection—the avoidance of American casualties—as more important than mission goals themselves. In short, while Somalia was certainly a learning experience, it was not a positive one for a country about to engage in its first large-scale multilateral peacekeeping. Seen in this comparative context, the achievements of U.S. forces in Bosnia and Kosovo are not insubstantial (whether they should have been so deployed in the first place is a different issue). On force protection, the record is near miraculous, but at the cost of a highly constricted method of operations compared with those of contingents from other countries. Let it be said again, if necessary, that it is not Americans in uniform who are so risk-averse; it is their political leaders with one eye on the television screen and the other on the 112

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Passing the Baton in the Balkans latest opinion poll. Indeed, many of our troops resent being cosseted like babies in a profession they well understand is dangerous. In their ability to coordinate effectively with forces from other countries, the U.S. military record in the Balkans is also good, but we have generally called the shots. Indeed, the record of American/Russian cooperation in Bosnia is one of the few bright spots in the bilateral relationship, and is to the credit of the Russian personnel deployed. In broader mission implementation, however, the U.S. record is mixed, though often due to political constraints and to the inherent difficulty of attempting to create multiethnic societies of peoples who do not wish to live with each other.3 Force protection has certainly proven a handicap. Unlike their British or French counterparts in Bosnia, American troops have minimal opportunities for informal contact with local inhabitants and cannot even take advantage of the obvious desire of many locals to practice their English with an American over a beer.4 These limitations are not the fault of the troops, but do reflect a misconception of peacekeeping. Other countries recognize that local fraternization can be positive and is often important both to mission success and to force protection. U.S. forces in the Balkans stand alone among the dozens of countries represented in their intentional alienation from the peoples they were deployed to help. The initial purpose of deploying large combat forces into the Balkans was peacemaking through intimidation, to exploit the understandable reluctance of a person with an assault rifle to match arms with a battle tank. This was a transitional task and, with the passage of time, we have changed the mix of forces to lighter, more flexible, and less expensive units. In doing so, the Army has increasingly called on military police units with their experience in control of the rear of the battle area, a function similar to peacekeeping, and the National Guard.5 Large-scale reliance on the Guard in the Balkans is itself controversial. Many Guardsmen did not sign up for that kind of duty, which is very disruptive of both family and professional lives. There are serious concerns that frequent peacekeeping missions will erode the Guard just when our reduced active duty force makes the Reserves and Guard increasingly important for mobilization in a crisis.6 At the same time, the Army clearly prefers that, if repetitive peacekeeping deployments are mandated by the political leadership, 113

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET much of the burden be on the Guard rather than on active duty units. It is no secret that peacekeeping deployments have a deleterious impact on combat skills and on the readiness of regular Army units. This was most recently illustrated by the downgrading of the rating of the Third Infantry Division to the second-lowest standard for wartime readiness as a result of Balkan missions.7 The Third Infantry is the so-called ‘‘heavy division’’ of XVIII Airborne Corps, the first-line contingency force available for use in case of war (as it was during the Gulf conflict). That such a critical force is hobbled for potential use due to Balkan peacekeeping operations raises serious questions of whether priorities for our armed forces are out of order. If the United States undertakes long-term peacekeeping as a normal part of its military posture (a very large if), either the Army will need to acquire more sophisticated peacekeeping skills and doctrine than are now the case or the National Guard must adjust its basic roles and missions to include peacekeeping as a permanent component. Either approach, or a combination of the two, has significant implications for resources, training and doctrine, and sustaining enlistments in volunteer services competing for personnel with the civilian sector. Given the widespread dislike of peacekeeping deployments among both active duty and Guard units and the serious concerns of military leaders about the impact of such missions on warfighting skills and readiness, it is clear that any such alteration of the existing U.S. military posture should be the result of a systematic and high-level policy review and of a decision by the top political leadership rather than be, as to date, the consequence of ad hoc measures without due consideration of long-term implications for our armed forces. Comparative Advantage There is no doubt the American military can acquire excellent peacekeeping skills over time if necessary. There is also little doubt it does not wish to do so and has been reluctant to give prominence to peacekeeping in the development of doctrine and training out of concern that such capabilities, once acquired, will tempt political leaders to find occasions for their use. Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s comments to then-chairman of the joint chiefs 114

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Passing the Baton in the Balkans Colin Powell about finding things for the military to do are a haunting reminder that many in the Washington policy elite are inherently dissatisfied when the armed forces are not ‘‘doing something,’’ just preparing to fight the nation’s wars.8 While some U.S. military personnel have undergone specialized peacekeeping training or served in comparable missions, American units (with the exception of military police) do not have a comparative advantage over units from countries with extensive blue helmet experience. U.S. units in the Balkans have therefore tended to learn by doing rather than executing established peacekeeping doctrine. We have relied on carefully crafted and strict rules of engagement, with excellent results in force protection but making U.S. units less flexible than other participants. This rigidity is compounded by the frequent rotation of units, in part due to the unpopularity of the missions. The bottom line is that the American approach has been half-hearted rather than fully engaged. In Europe the most experienced peacekeeping forces are from the smaller neutral and Nordic states with a wide range of blue helmet operations to their credit. While these countries applied their skills in the Balkans, in every case they were subordinated to commanders from larger states lacking similar experience. Italy and Spain deployed their hybrid military-police units, which have frequently earned praise from both military and political commanders for their adaptability and talent in using the minimum of force to achieve maximum results. Still, among the 40-odd national contingents operating in the Balkans, the largest non-U.S. forces come from the major European states (Britain and France in Bosnia; Britain, France, Germany, and Italy in Kosovo). It comes as a surprise to many Americans that most peacekeeping in the Balkans does not involve U.S. forces at all; non-American forces are responsible for two-thirds of Bosnia and four-fifths of Kosovo. Yet, peacekeeping in the nonAmerican sectors proceeds day by day with a level of accomplishment at least comparable to our own. In addition, many units in the two American sectors come from other countries and are responsible for much of what has been achieved under U.S. command. Thus, Europeans have already tangibly demonstrated the ability to do peacekeeping without direct American participation.9 Why should it be otherwise? The major European states (and many of the smaller ones as well) have been in the military business 115

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET rather longer than we and possess experience not inferior to our own. While the current operational standards of the U.S. military are unequaled, combined as they are with our unique global logistics and communications capabilities, that does not mean other countries do not possess high-quality operational assets. Our major European allies are the world’s leading military powers if the comparison is not with the United States. All too often the question posed is a false one, as ‘‘Are the Europeans able to conduct operations in the American style and with our level of technological sophistication and with our global reach?’’ The answer is negative, because the question is a tautology. To the more relevant query, ‘‘Are the Europeans able to conduct operations in the European region on a scale and with capabilities vastly superior to any regional adversary and sufficient to achieve reasonable political goals, while accepting some level of casualties?’’ the answer is quite different. After all, it is not necessary to fight a war from fifteen thousand feet to prevail, as Argentina learned when British forces retook the Falklands using operational techniques that would have been dismissed out of hand in a U.S.-conducted war. Britain still won.10 The proof of European peacekeeping capabilities lies in their performance to date. In addition to the established records in Bosnia and Kosovo, there are two separate examples of peacekeeping conducted successfully in the Balkans without any U.S. military role: the Italianled intervention in Albania and the UN peacekeeping mission in Eastern Slavonia, with military leadership from Belgium. Both missions encountered major challenges on the ground, required significant operational and logistics skills, and depended for success on effective command arrangements and coalition management. In both cases Washington was highly skeptical that Europeans could do the job, but the results compare very favorably with examples of the American record in peacekeeping. Operation Alba In Albania, the collapse of financial pyramid schemes in early 1997 produced domestic unrest in which much of the southern part of the country was seized by antigovernment forces after the looting of military armories. The crisis threatened chaos in Albania and a renewed flood of refugees into Italy, Greece, and other European countries. The United States, despite its previous close relationship 116

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Passing the Baton in the Balkans with the Albanian military, quickly washed its hands of the problem. Although secretary Albright reportedly favored NATO intervention, including U.S. troops, the Pentagon argued forcefully that no national interest was involved to justify use of American forces and expressed little confidence that European efforts could accomplish much.11 Despite considerable hand-wringing and self-doubt, Italy faced up to the challenge. Rome already had considerable experience of Albania, both as occupier from 1939 to 1943 and during a humanitarian intervention of 1991 with one thousand troops deployed. In 1997, after both the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe proved unwilling to exercise oversight responsibility, the United Nations Security Council on March 24 provided a mandate for what became Operation Alba, a UN-sanctioned mission that was not a blue helmet activity (i.e., not under UN supervision and not involving UN resources). Under Italian leadership, a ‘‘coalition of the willing’’ assembled over 7,000 troops from 11 countries (most from Italy, Greece, and other southern European countries, the so-called olive coalition) for an armed intervention lasting from mid-April to mid-August. During that period, a considerable measure of order was restored, humanitarian assistance distributed, and, most important, a credible sense of authority established to allow Albanians to express their views in elections rather than through violence. What factors allowed Italy to succeed where Washington feared to tread? First, Rome knew the territory; it was familiar with Albanian realities, in contrast to the naivete which had characterized the Pentagon’s earlier assistance programs to the Albanian military. Second, Operation Alba operated under a limited mandate and with realistic goals, but with robust rules of engagement sufficient to establish its authority quickly and without dithering. Third, the coalition of the willing was goal-oriented and practical; Albania was not a distant abstraction but a nearby pot boiling over with immediate implications in terms of refugee flows. Fourth, Italy was the unambiguous leader, providing half the troops, most of the logistics, and overall military and policy direction. Ironically, one advantage of not operating as a NATO, EU, OSCE, or blue helmet mission was that Italy encountered no institutional veto or back-seat driving from countries not engaged on the ground. The critical political guidance was provided by a steering committee of the foreign and defense ministries 117

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET of the contributing states under Italian diplomatic leadership that not only kept the forces on the ground focused on their mission but also coordinated the work of nongovernmental and multilateral organizations so that all functioned as a team rather than pulling in different directions. Finally, Operation Alba succeeded because the participants, military and civilian, were experienced professionals dedicated to getting the job done. They achieved more, perhaps, than they thought themselves capable of after so many years under American tutelage. Although official Washington was slow and grudging to offer praise where it was due, at least one American observer quickly drew the obvious conclusions: Operation Alba ‘‘demonstrated that Europe can conduct military missions without the United States. There is thus no practical reason why Europe cannot assume full responsibility for extended peacekeeping in the Balkans.’’12 Eastern Slavonia Some critics may say Operation Alba was too brief and limited a mission to demonstrate European capacities to deal with real crises, but no one could reasonably doubt the difficulties of peacekeeping in Eastern Slavonia. This border region of Croatia and Serbia was among the most fought over and ravaged pieces of territory in all the ‘‘wars of the Yugoslav succession,’’ best known for the brutal siege of its largest city, Vukovar. At Dayton, the warring parties agreed to the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Sirmium. This became known as UNTAES, an example of a blue helmet mission that succeeded, in sharp contrast to the galling experience of the UN mission in neighboring Bosnia. UNTAES was initially authorized by the Security Council for one year, but was extended to complete a two-year mandate in January 1998. Despite entering a heavily militarized region with ethnic hatreds compounded by years of conflict, UNTAES sustained only three fatalities from hostile action while succeeding in reintegrating the region into Croatia with protections for ethnic Serbian inhabitants. With an authorized strength of 5,000 troops, the core of UNTAES was four mechanized infantry battalions from Belgium, Russia, Pakistan, and Jordan. Efforts to include an American battalion were vigorously rebuffed by the Pentagon, which wanted no part of what it believed 118

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Passing the Baton in the Balkans to be a ‘‘mission impossible.’’ The civilian boss of UNTAES was an American diplomat, Jacques Klein succeeded by William Walker, but the actual force commanders were two experienced and nononsense Belgian major-generals, Jozef Schoups and Willy Hanset. The factors that allowed UNTAES to succeed were, first, what Klein characterized as ‘‘abundant firepower’’ combined with effective rules of engagement to overawe local paramilitaries. Second, UNTAES had a clear and achievable mandate within a limited time frame: to demilitarize the region, reintegrate it into Croatia, and provide for return of displaced persons. Importantly, the mandate was not open-ended nor did it call for maintenance of an unsatisfactory status quo. Third, the mission contained extensive civil affairs, police, and administrative personnel to achieve the mandate under the benign intimidation provided by the heavily armed troops. UNTAES was not just a peacekeeping entity; it was the transitional authority for the region in fact as well as in name. Fourth, UNTAES gave top priority to rapid demilitarization and to purging the region of the paramilitaries associated with the previous violence. Its success was strikingly in contrast to previous peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia and later in Kosovo. This achievement was vital to mandate fulfillment and to overall mission success. Once demilitarization was complete, UNTAES was the sole source of coercive power in Eastern Slavonia. Finally, in contrast to the organizational Tower of Babel that is the international presence in Bosnia or Kosovo, UNTAES enjoyed unified and unambiguous chains of command for both military and political functions. While Eastern Slavonia was in some respects an easier mission than Bosnia (involving only two competing ethnic groups rather than three), the level of violence and destruction in the region bore comparison with any part of the former Yugoslavia. In addition, UNTAES supposedly suffered major deficiencies in comparison with NATO’s Stabilization Force in Bosnia in that no American forces were engaged, there was no NATO command structure, and the much-maligned United Nations was in charge. These ‘‘weaknesses’’ (from Washington’s perspective) may, in any event, have proven assets. The work of UNTAES was not bogged down either in the morass of the inter-agency process in Washington or in the talking shop of the North Atlantic Council. The mission had to deal with many nongovernmental organizations and state entities, but it was 119

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET largely spared the Rube Goldberg structure of administration persisting in Bosnia. Finally, while the military components of UNTAES were definitely low-budget outfits compared with NATO deployments in Bosnia, and certainly not up to U.S. logistical standards, the combat battalions and supplementary units in Eastern Slavonia gave priority to mission goals rather than to force protection; in the event, they succeeded in both.13 Passing the Baton Clearly, the European powers have the potential, if not always the will, to look after their own regional problems. What is most instructive from the examples of Operation Alba and UNTAES is that even smaller European states can do so when properly motivated. How much more, then, is Europe as a whole capable of? Whether by ‘‘Europe’’ we mean the European members of NATO or the European Union, we are speaking of an aggregate economy as large as our own and a population much larger. While European spending on defense is often quite low as a proportion of national income, this amount still dwarfs spending anywhere else in the world other than our own. As noted above, these countries enjoy a wealth of military traditions, operational skills, and peacekeeping experience—in some respects more than we. They certainly have more familiarity with the Balkans. When American critics point to current European deficiencies in military logistics or communications, one need only look at the achievements of Airbus, Maersk, and Daimler in logistics and of Nokia, Ericsson, and Vodafone in communications to see what the Europeans are capable of. The problem lies not in technology, resources, or skills. The failure is of will, a failure to commit resources or to make a whole that equals the sum of Europe’s parts. Europe has been very slow to take on its responsibilities, reflecting both a turgid decision-making process in the European Union and a reluctance by many governments to reduce the enormous American subsidy of European defense. However, some real progress has been made, beginning with the European Security and Defense Identity, and more is on the way. The Balkans are where the overdue process of European selfsufficiency in the security field has already started as a response to necessity. 120

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Passing the Baton in the Balkans The better part of wisdom for the United States is to welcome Europe’s hesitant steps at military self-reliance and to encourage the process through a phased but firm turnover of peacekeeping responsibilities to the Europeans, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo, but in both within the current U.S. presidential term, which ends January 2005, and let them carry the entire load in Macedonia. This is more than ample time. While many Europeans will wring their hands and predict the end of NATO—one of the stalest chestnuts of European doomsayers—Washington has an opportunity to eat its cake and have it too: to remove our precious combat forces from engagements not vital to U.S. interest and to encourage trends of European self-responsibility that are in our own interest. The major objections from the American side spring from vanity, hubris, and an unwillingness to adapt the transatlantic relationship to new realities. The major objections from the European side reflect a rationalization of their wasteful and redundant national militaries, a lack of self-confidence bred by too long a dependency on America, and, worst of all, a preference by European politicians that the continent’s dirty work be performed by American quasi-mercenaries. Few European leaders want to accept responsibility for the use of force, and they willingly pass the opprobrium to the United States. After all, they say sotte voce, America is a land of gun nuts and capital punishment, what else can you expect from them? The real challenge for Washington is quite different. Removing our armed forces from the Balkans can be comparatively easy: Some diplomacy, some firm decisions, and the job will be done. The hard part will be then to stand aside from political leadership in the Balkans. The international affairs commentator of the Financial Times, Quentin Peel, expressed it very well. It is not so much that the U.S. forces are essential for the peacekeeping exercise, because the Europeans are already providing more than eighty percent of the men and women on the ground. They are in a position to provide the entire force. But that would ignore the real reason for wanting the United States to be involved. The Europeans are desperate not to have a repeat of the Bosnia peacekeeping operation, when the Europeans provided the troops, but the United States continued to pursue its own diplomatic initiatives.14

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EXITING THE BALKAN THICKET driving. For years, Clinton undercut European diplomacy and cost European lives while dithering over U.S. involvement. If it now gives Europe the job, will Washington be able to sit on its hands and let its allies call the shots? Does Washington have the discipline to let the Europeans succeed or fail on their own? These are the key questions for the Bush administration and for the Congress. Bringing U.S. troops home is easy; political self-restraint will be hard. Notes 1. There is extensive literature about the Suez crisis. A good starting point is Hugh Thomas, Suez (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). A Canadian-centric view of Lester Pearson’s role can be found in Terence Robertson, Crisis: The Inside Story of the Suez Conspiracy (New York: Atheneum, 1965). 2. Jane Perlez, ‘‘Rumsfeld Seeks to Withdraw American Troops from Sinai,’’ New York Times, April 19, 2001, p. 1. 3. Jeffrey Simon, ‘‘Sources of Balkan Insecurity,’’ Strategic Forum 150 (October 1998); and William Hagen, ‘‘Balkans’ Lethal Nationalities,’’ Foreign Affairs 78, no. 4 (Fall 1999). 4. Conversations by the author with U.S. troops in Bosnia in 1998. 5. Thomas Ricks, ‘‘U.S. Military Police Embrace Kosovo Role,’’ Washington Post, March 25, 2001, p. 21. 6. James Dao Currie, ‘‘Remember, They’re Not Replacements,’’ Washington Post, March 25, 2001, p, B3. 7. ‘‘Army Says Unit Is Unprepared for War Duty,’’ New York Times, March 27, 2001, p. 1. 8. See Steven Thomma, ‘‘Retired General More Dovish about Force Than Albright,’’ Miami Herald, December 15, 2000, p. A28; and Colin L. Powell with Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey: An Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1995). 9. The achievements of the Europeans were evident even before the Kosovo conflicts, as in Marie-Janine Calic, ‘‘Post-SFOR: Towards Europeanization of the Bosnia Peace Operation?’’ Institute for Security Studies of the Western European Union, Chaillot Paper no. 32, May, 1998, pp. 10–22. 10. See, for example, Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1983). 11. There is a fair amount of literature about Operation Alba in English, despite its neglect in the mass press. Among the better sources are: Joseph Codispoti, ‘‘Fallen Eagle: An Examination of Italy’s Contemporary Role and Relations with Albania,’’ Mediterranean Quarterly 12, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 81–99; Beryl Nicholson, ‘‘The Beginning of the End of a Rebellion: Southern Albania, May-June 1997,’’ East European Politics and Societies 13, no. 3 (1999): 543–65. Ettore Greco, ‘‘New Trends in Peacekeeping: The Experience of Operation Alba,’’ Security Dialogue 29, no. 2 (June 1998): 201–12; Ted Perlmutter, ‘‘The Politics of Proximity: The Italian Response to the Albanian Crisis,’’ International Migration Review 32, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 203–222; and Stefano Silvestri, ‘‘Albanian Test Case,’’ International Spectator 32, no. 3–4 (JulyDecember 1997): 87–98. 12. Sean Kay, ‘‘From Operation Alba to Allied Force: Institutional Implications of Balkan Interventions,’’ Mediterranean Quarterly 10, no.4 (Fall 1999): 72–89.

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Passing the Baton in the Balkans 13. Good sources on UNTAES in English are: Pjer Simunovic, ‘‘A Framework for Success: Contextual Factors in the UNTAES Operation in Eastern Slavonia,’’ International Peacekeeping 6, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 126–42; John McGinn, ‘‘After the Explosion: International Action in the Aftermath of Nationalist War,’’ National Security Studies Quarterly 4 (Winter 1998): 93–111; and Jacques Paul Klein, ‘‘Prospects for Eastern Croatia,’’ Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies 142, no. 2 (April 1997): 19–24. 14. Quentin Peel, ‘‘A Testing Time ahead for U.S.-EU Relations,’’ European Affairs 2, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 14–18.

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Contributors Ted Galen Carpenter is the vice president for foreign policy and defense studies at the Cato Institute. He is the author or editor of 12 books, including NATO Enlargement: Illusions and Reality (1998) and NATO Enters the 21st Century (2001). Carpenter’s articles on international affairs have appeared in such journals as Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and Mediterranean Quarterly. David Chandler is a research fellow with the Policy Research Institute at Leeds Metropolitan University. He has written widely on international relations, democracy, and human rights, including Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton (1999) and From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention (forthcoming). Gary T. Dempsey is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute. He is the coauthor of Fool’s Errands: America’s Recent Encounters with Nation Building (2001) and the coproducer of the documentary film Collateral Damage: The Balkans after NATO’s Air War. Dempsey’s opinion articles have been published in numerous American newspapers, including the Christian Science Monitor and the Journal of Commerce and in regional European newspapers such as Glas Javnosti in Yugoslavia, Exoysia in Greece, and Sega in Bulgaria. Robert M. Hayden is the director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and a professor of anthropology. He is the author most recently of Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflicts (1999). Hayden is a contributing editor to the East European Constitutional Review and has done extensive fieldwork on law and politics reconstruction in the states of the former Yugoslavia. John C. Hulsman is a senior European analyst at the Heritage Foundation. He is the author of A Paradigm for the New World Order (1997) 125

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CONTRIBUTORS and Globalization and Its Enemies: The World Confronts the Post–Cold War Era (forthcoming). Prior to joining Heritage, Hulsman was a fellow in European studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. He also taught world politics and U.S. foreign policy at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. E. Wayne Merry, a former State Department and Pentagon official, is a senior fellow at the Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Center in Cornwallis Park, Nova Scotia, and senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C. His writings have appeared in the National Interest, Time, and the Washington Post. Stephen Schwartz is the author of Kosovo: Background to a War (2000). He is a board member of the Daniel Dajani, S.J., Albanian Catholic Institute and has consulted in the Balkans for the Council of Europe, the International Federation of Journalists, IREX ProMedia, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Soros Fund for an Open Society, the International Crisis Group, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. He is a frequent contributor to independent media in the Balkans. Raju G. C. Thomas is the Allis Chalmers Professor of International Affairs at Marquette University. Among his dozen books and edited books, he is the coeditor of The South Slav Conflict: History, Religion, Ethnicity, and Nationalism (1996), and editor of Yugoslavia Unraveled: Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Intervention (forthcoming).

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Index Acton, John (lord), 30 Afghanistan, 4 Albania Italian-led peacekeeping mission in, 116–18 Albanians in Kosovo alternative educational system of, 62–63 diaspora of, 62 entrepreneurial economy of, 62–63 human rights issue, 33–44, 61–64 as majority ethnic group, 35–36 NATO intervention to help, 61 resentment against Serbs, 62 restraints of UNMIK on, 62–63 Albright, Madeleine, 18, 102, 114–15, 117 Annan, Kofi, 34 Arbour, Louise, 16 Armenia, 84 Austro-Hungarian Empire, 86–87 Azerbaijan, 84 Balkans Bush administration position on, 1–3 failure of nation building in, 28–30, 97–99 minimal U.S. interest in, 98–99 mismanagement by international community, 54–64 peacekeeping by forces other than U.S., 115–16 security situation in, 3 U.S. military exit from, 104 U.S. peacekeeping in, 111–15 Beloff, Nora, 87 Bennett, Christopher, 29 Bihac, 72 Bosnia American/Russian cooperation in, 113 American troops in, 55–56 conditional independence of, 42 current political boundaries of, 86–87

under Dayton constitution, 67–68, 70–72 de facto partition of, 69–72, 76–77 economic and political conditions in, 3 ethnic conflict in, 54–55 federation in, 71 international administrators in, 11, 38, 56–59, 68 motivation of secessionist forces in, 99 Muslim-Croat Federation in, 17–18, 67, 70–72 NATO forces in, 68, 119–20 Open Broadcast Network, 60 under OSCE Provisional Election Commission’s rules, 13–14 peacekeeping forces in, 112–13, 115–16 as a protectorate, 28–29, 88, 97, 99–100 public opinion in, 99 recognition of Muslim-led government of, 85–86 reconstruction plan and spending in, 56–57 separate armies in, 71 Serbs and Muslims in pre-war, 55 UDI of (1991), 81–82 unfulfilled criteria of a state, 85 See also Croats in Bosnia; High representative to Bosnia; Media in Bosnia; Muslim-Croat Federation; Muslims in Bosnia; Republika Srpska; Serbs in Bosnia Bosnians. See Croats; Muslims; Serbs Brecht, Bertolt, 40–41 Brock, Peter, 89 Bulllivant, Duncan, 16 Bush, George W. campaign pledges of, 10 on idea of American internationalism, 5 on peacekeeping in the Balkans, 2 Bush administration

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INDEX experience of top appointees, 103 position on U.S. role in Balkans, 1–3 Chechnya, 95 Cheney, Dick, 1–2, 103 CJTF (Combined Joint Task Force). See NATO Clinton administration Balkan quagmire left by, 100 diplomatic back-seat driving of, 121–22 early view toward Balkans, 100–101 geopolitical miscalculations of, 97 position on media in Bosnia, 19 promises for Bosnia and Kosovo, 3 Clinton Doctrine, 100 Cohen, William, 100 Cook, Robin, 81, 90 Crimea, 84 Croatia current political boundaries of, 86–87 ethnically pure Greater Croatia, 93 as Germany’s favorite, 86 integration of Eastern Slavonia region into, 118–20 Nazi-Ustashe regime, 86, 93 recognition by the West, 85–86 relationship with Bosnia, 77 UDI of (1991), 81–82, 93 See also Serbs in Croatia Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), 21–22, 28, 98 Croat Republic of Herzeg-Bosna, 83 Croats in Bosnia, 54–56, 69–70, 76–77, 83, 85–88 areas of control, 72, 88–89 media of, 58 nationalists, 27–28 pressure to partition, 69–70 as victims of ethnic cleansing, 70 Daalder, Ivo, 99 Dalmatia, 83, 86, 91 Dayton Agreement absence of violations of, 56 binds international community in Bosnia, 38 Bosnia as nominal state under, 70 Bosnia-Croatia relationship under, 77 commitment of Western powers under, 11–12 constitutional system created by, 67, 70–72

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dismantled by high representative, 67, 72–76 effect in Bosnia of, 68 original understanding of, 6 OSCE authority under, 13–15 Provisional Election Commission of, 21 Serbs stake in Bosnia under, 99 UN Transitional Administration (UNTAES) under, 118–20 Defense spending disparity in U.S.-European, 4–5 of European countries, 4–5, 104–5, 120 of United States, 5 del Ponte, Carla, 93 DeVoss, David, 60 Dodik, Milorad, 25, 26 Electoral system, Bosnia disqualification of candidates, 22 election rules promulgated by high representative, 75, 98 intervention of international administrators in, 21–27 OSCE supervision of, 13, 15 Electoral system, Kosovo, 29 ESDP. See European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) Ethnic cleansing of Croats in Bosnia, 70 of Muslims in Bosnia, 70 of Serbs in Bosnia, 70 of Serbs in Croatia, 93 Ethnic groups Albanians in Kosovo, 35–36 conflict in Bosnia among, 54–55 in Greater Croatia, 93 mono-ethnic enclaves in Kosovo, 34 separation in Bosnia, 58–59 in Slovenia, 92 in Yugoslavia, 64, 90–91 European countries defense spending of, 4–5, 104–5, 120 greater role in Balkans, 102–4 peacekeeping experience and capabilities of, 115–21 peacekeeping role in the Balkans, 100–102 proposed civil-military police role in Bosnia, 106–7 request to undertake more peacekeeping duties, 2–3

INDEX European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), 4, 100–107, 120 European Union (EU) decision-making process in, 120 European Security and Defense Policy, 4, 100–107, 120 rapid reaction force (RRF) of, 4 Everts, Daan, 35

Independent Media Commission, Bosnia, 16–19 India, 83, 87 International Crisis Group, 18, 29, 38, 68 Ireland, 83 IREX ProMedia, 60 Izetbegovic, Alija, 69

Frowick, Robert, 13, 22

Jelavic, Ante, 27, 98

Galbraith, Peter, 77 Gelbard, Robert, 26 Geoana, Mircea, 2–3 Geyer, Georgie Anne, 20 Goldstone, Richard, 42

Kaldor, Mary, 36 Kalinic, Dragan, 26 Karadzic, Radovan, 21 Kashmir, 95 Khrushchev, Nikita, 84 King, Neil, Jr., 28–29 Klein, Jacques, 119 Kosovo absence of postwar constitutional solution, 35–36 autonomy of international community in, 38–40 Central Financial Authority in, 39 control of media in, 29 economic and political conditions in, 3 elections in, 40–41 EU role in, 39 Interim Administrative Council, 39 international administrators in, 35–44 mono-ethnic enclaves in, 34 OSCE role in, 39–41 peacekeeping forces in, 111–13, 115 post-1999 population composition, 34 recommended conditional independence for, 42–43 refugees from, 34 spread of insurgency, 107 Training for Trainers in, 36–37 Transitional Council, 39–40 UN administrative structures in, 38–41 UNMIK governance in, 61–63 UN Municipal Administrative Board, 40 U.S.-led air war over, 4, 5 U.S. occupation of, 5–6 violence aimed at Serbs and minorities in, 34–35 See also Albanians in Kosovo; Political system, Kosovo; Serbs in Kosovo Kosovo Law Center, 37

Hannum, Hurst, 85 Hanset, Willy, 119 Haselock, Simon, 18 HDZ. See Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Hedges, Chris, 25 Helsinki Agreement Final Act (1975), 82–83 High representative to Bosnia authority related to media actions, 15–17 dictatorial tendencies of, 28 dismisses Bosnian Croat representative, 98 intervention in electoral system, 21 power granted by Peace Implementation Council, 73–74 removal of elected officials by, 27, 74 revision of Bosnian constitution by, 74–76 Hitler, Adolf, 92 Holbrooke, Richard, 11, 17, 20 Human rights enforcement in Kosovo, 43–44 enforcement worldwide, 94 international law seen as impediment to, 33–34 as rationale for intervention, 33 Huntington, Samuel, 98 Independence conditional in Bosnia and Kosovo, 42–43 pre-war notions in Bosnia of, 55 recognition of Bosnian, 70 See also Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)

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INDEX Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), 35, 61, 97 Kostunica, Vojislav, 5 Kouchner, Bernard, 38–40, 42 Krajina, 86, 91, 93 Kurdistan, 95 Law, international state’s internal boundaries under, 86 status of republics of former Yugoslavia under, 81–90 unilateral declaration of independence interpreted by, 81–82 Lewis, Anthony, 19 Libal, Michael, 85–87 Lincoln, Abraham, 97 McCarthy, Regan, 57, 60 Macedonia, 87, 97, 107 Martin, David, 87 MEC. See Media Experts Commission (MEC), OSCE Media Experts Commission (MEC), OSCE, 13–15 Media in Bosnia effect of harassment and suppression of, 12 enforcement of OSCE standards, 14–15 OSCE standards of conduct for, 13–15 postwar restrictions on, 18–19, 59–61 prewar defensiveness of, 55 proposals to censor, 20 Serb radio and television, 19–20 Media in Kosovo, 29 Metzl, Jamie F., 20 Milosevic, Slobodan, 50, 55, 93 Montenegro, 81, 87, 91 Montevideo Convention (1933), 84–85 Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), 111–12 Muslim-Croat Federation, Bosnia Croatians withdraw from (2001), 67 divided government within, 71–72 media organizations in, 17–18 nominal Bosnian state patterned after, 70 Muslims in Bosnia, 54–56, 69–70, 76–77, 85–88 areas of control, 72, 88 media of, 58 post-war, 55–56

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pre-war notions of independence, 55 as victims of ethnic cleansing, 70 Nagorno-Karabakh, 84 Nationalism Albanian, 63 idea in Bosnia of, 59, 69 Nation building in Balkans, 28–30, 97–99 NATO Article V provision, 99 Combined Joint Task Force, 100–102 forces in Bosnia, 68 inequitable burden-sharing among members of, 5, 104–5 move against Serb Radio and Television, 16–17, 21 operations in Kosovo, 34–35, 37 rationale for intervention in Kosovo, 33–34 shut down of Albanian-language newspaper, 29 Stabilization Force (SFOR), 15, 119–20 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) authority under Dayton Agreement, 13 intervention in Bosnian elections, 21–24 Kosovo media board of, 29 Media Branch, 12 Provisional Election Commission, 13–15 role in Kosovo, 35, 39–41 See also Media Experts Commission (MEC) Orwell, George, 57 Pakistan, 83 Peace Implementation Council, 73 Peacekeeping operations in Albania, 116–18 Bush administration position on U.S., 1–3 definitions of, 109–10 forces from European countries, 114–16 modern, multilateral, 110–11 in Somalia, 112 U.S. experience, 111–15 Pearson, Lester, 110

INDEX PEC. See Provisional Election Commission (PEC), OSCE Peel, Quentin, 121 Petritsch, Wolfgang, 27–28, 67–68, 72, 74–76, 90, 98 Plavsic, Biljana, 16, 24–26 Political system, Bosnia under Dayton Agreement, 72–76 nationalist bias of, 97 role of international authorities in, 21–27 separate Serb, Croat and Muslim, 58 Political system, Kosovo role of UN and OSCE in, 37–41 under UNMIK governance, 63 Poplasen, Nikola, 22, 26–27 Powell, Colin, 1–2, 102–3 Powell Doctrine, 103 Prce, Miroslav, 100 Presevo Valley, 107 Provisional Election Commission (PEC), OSCE, 13–15, 21 Radical Party, Republika Srpska, 22 Rapid reaction force (RRF), 4 Republika Srpska (RS) under Bosnian constitution, 71 election-related parliamentary actions, 25 media organizations in, 17–18 rejection of UDI of, 83 Rice, Condoleeza, 1–2, 103 Robertson, George, 17 RRF. See Rapid reaction force (RRF) RS. See Republika Srpska Rumsfeld, Donald, 103, 112 Russia, 84 Sanjak, 86 Sarajevo, 54–55, 72, 89 Scanlon, J. David, 18 Schoups, Jozef, 119 Self-determination principle, 83, 89, 94–95 Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) attempt to disqualify, 22 MEC criticism of, 15 threats from international agencies in Bosnia, 21 Serbia/Slovenia conflict (1991), 50 Serb Radio and Television (SRT) defiant act of, 16 NATO actions against, 16–17 reporting-related agreement by, 15

Serb Republic of Krajina, 83 Serbs as former nomenklatura, 62 Serbs in Bosnia, 54–56, 69–70, 76–77, 83, 85–88 areas of control, 72, 88–89 media in Bosnia, 58 post-war, 55–56 pressure to partition Bosnia, 69–70 pre-war actions, 55 as victims of ethnic cleansing, 70 Serbs in Croatia, 83 Serbs in Kosovo international support for, 61–62 violence against, 34–35 Silesia, Poland, 92 Slavonia, 86, 93, 116, 118–20 Slim, Hugo, 33 Slovenia economic policies of, 52 ethnic purity of, 92 fighting between Serbia and (1991), 50 Germany’s favorite, 86 recognition by the West, 85–86 UDI of (1991), 81–82 Smith, Ian, 82, 85 Smucker, Philip, 25 Solana, Javier, 101 Somalia, 112 Soviet Union, 83–84 Srebenica, 54 Stalin, Josef, 84 Stiglmayer, Alexandra, 27 Sudentenland, Czechoslovakia, 92 Suez crisis, 110–11 Tito, Josip, 52, 87 Training for Trainers on Interethnic Dialogue and Reconciliation, 36–37 Trepca mining complex, 63 Tudjman, Franjo, 93 Tyson, Laura d’Andrea, 50 UNHCR. See United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) international law interpretations of, 81–82 rejection of Serb and Croat minorities’, 83

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INDEX related to breakup of Yugoslavia, 81–82 United Nations Bosnia’s seat in, 70 Development Fund for Women, 37 high representative in Bosnia, 12, 14–15 intervention in Albanian educational system, 62–63 Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), 34, 41–42 peacekeeping in Suez crisis, 110–11 Resolution 1244 requirements, 38, 41, 93, 97 Special Representative in Kosovo, 38–39 Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Sirmium (UNTAES), 118–20 United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), 34 United States aid to Bosnia (1998), 25–26 exit from Balkans, 104 intervention in the Balkans, 98 peacekeeping lessons learned, 111–14 Powell’s criteria for military commitment, 103 role in Kosovo air campaign, 101–2

Walker, William, 119 Warner, John W., 3 Westendorp, Carlos, 16–17, 26 Wilson, Woodrow, 92

Vojvodina, 87

Zimmerman, Warren, 70

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Xinjiang, 95 Yugoslavia after collapse of state socialism in, 69 breakup of, 53, 81 design of internal borders of, 87 ethnic conflict in, 64 Kostunica government of, 5–6 mistrust of United States by, 5–6 multiculturalism of Tito era in, 59 post-communist society in, 51–53 post-Milosevic transition, 5–6 pre-1991 ethnic groups in, 90–91 proposal to reunite, 90–91 proposed further division of, 91–92 proposed options to settle disintegration issues, 89–93 secession of territories from, 81–90 status of states under former, 85–86 UDIs of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia in breakup of, 81–82 Western lack of understanding of, 49–53

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Cato Institute Founded in 1977, the Cato Institute is a public policy research foundation dedicated to broadening the parameters of policy debate to allow consideration of more options that are consistent with the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, and peace. To that end, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government. The Institute is named for Cato‘s Letters, libertarian pamphlets that were widely read in the American Colonies in the early 18th century and played a major role in laying the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution. Despite the achievement of the nation’s Founders, today virtually no aspect of life is free from government encroachment. A pervasive intolerance for individual rights is shown by government’s arbitrary intrusions into private economic transactions and its disregard for civil liberties. To counter that trend, the Cato Institute undertakes an extensive publications program that addresses the complete spectrum of policy issues. Books, monographs, and shorter studies are commissioned to examine the federal budget, Social Security, regulation, military spending, international trade, and myriad other issues. Major policy conferences are held throughout the year, from which papers are published thrice yearly in the Cato Journal. The Institute also publishes the quarterly magazine Regulation. In order to maintain its independence, the Cato Institute accepts no government funding. Contributions are received from foundations, corporations, and individuals, and other revenue is generated from the sale of publications. The Institute is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, educational foundation under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

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