At the start of his mandate in Bosnia-Hercegovina Carlos Westendorp
met with leaders of all the political parties with representation in the
parliaments of both entities. Thus, he met with Milorad Zivanovic,
the president of the Social-liberal party, and Milorad Dodik ,
the president of the Independent Social-democrats of the Republic of Srpska.
At the meeting the high representative put the following question to both of
them: "How to democratize the Republic of Srpska, how to reduce the
influence of Pale, how to strengthen the process initiated by Biljana Plavsic...?".
Philosopher Zivanovic, in his professorial style, provided Westendorp with a
long theoretical discussion of the hopelessness of the environment, full of somber
mood, and without practical answers to very concrete questions. However, Westendorp,
discouraged by Zivanovic's answer, was awakened from apathy with Dodik's first
sentence: "I have a very simple solution!" Seeing the
surprised expression on the High representative's face, Dodik continued:
"The strategy is as follows: first we send SFOR tanks and we run after
them. Thus we enter towns and take control of TV stations and police stations. That's
all!" The witnesses claim that Westendorp at first took Dodik's
proposal for a joke, and when he understood that Dodik was absolutely serious,
he started asking questions which prove that foreigners really don't know
anything about the Balkans: "What do you mean? What about the
democratic procedure? What about the elections? What about the democratic
transfer of power...?" Fortunately, Carlos Westendorp is a fast
learner, and only a few months after the above described conversation, Milorad
Dodik is the prime minister of Srpska.
Milorad Dodik majored in political science at the Belgrade University. The
former Secretary of the Laktasi Communist League branch, Dodik became famous
after turning Laktasi into a Mecca for private small scale enterprises.
Before the war, 2,500 companies from all over Yugoslavia were registered in
this town of 18,000 inhabitants. In addition, Laktasi became known because
of the first private radio station in the former Yugoslavia. Today, the prime
minister of the Republic of Srpska runs a private company in Laktasi; at the
election time he was a minister in the shadow government of Bosnia-Hercegovina
and the president of the executive council in the Laktasi local government.
Dodik is married and has two children.
There is no doubt that the high American officials in Bosnia who traveled to
Banja Luka several days after Dodik's election to extend their congratulations
had known about this assessment. Dodik accepted their congratulations but
the important guests didn't get out of his office until they gave the money
for several months of wage arrears for the teachers in the Republic of Srpska.
All those who listened to salvos of curses and crudest offenses against Milorad
Dodik by the SDS' and Radicals' representatives in the Republic of Srpska
parliament before the election of the new prime minister, couldn't hide their
surprise at his self-control. After Dodik's return from Perugia [place of
first meeting of opposition parties from the Federation and Srpska] in 1994
and his meeting with Sejfudin Tokic, a listener of the call-in program at the
radio station in Laktasi addressed Dodik with the following words: "Milorad,
you went to meet a Balija [Serb pejorative for Bosniaks], screw you!"
The interviewer was confused, but Dodik wasn't; he replied: "No,
screw you!"
The prime minister of the Federation Edhem Bicakcic doesn't have a hard time
being compared to grotesque Gojko Klickovic, former prime
minister of Srpska. The same was true of Bosniak ministers in comparison with
Ostojic, Buha and others, who are today viewed as potential
candidates for the war crimes tribunal in the Hague even in Banja Luka.
On the other hand, while the new information minister in the government of
Srpska, Rajko Vasic, described media in his entity as
unprofessional, at the same time the president of the Bosnian Presidency,
Alija Izetbegovic publicly praises his state-controlled
media, repeating the statement by the former minister Hasan
Muratovic which aimed to provoke a hysteria against independent
media in the public and according to which the independent media from Sarajevo
caused cancellation of some "200-300 millions of dollars of assistance and
loans". Also, even before he put furniture in his new office, Milorad Dodik
had taken a very definite stance with respect to the politicization of the
Serb Orthodox Church and its commissar-like and spiritual-logistic support to
certain political parties. Here in Sarajevo, we can only dream about a similar
statement by Edhem Bicakcic, in the context of several years
long total symbiosis of the Islamic Community in Bosnia-Hercegovina and the
SDA and their corresponding behavior.
A precondition for the victory is the urgent merger of the Social-democratic
party and the Union of Social-democrats of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Although it
doesn't guarantee the victory, the merger is a precondition for the victory.
Before Dodik, we may have swallowed that the leaders of these two parties
cannot achieve an agreement about the merger, because they cannot agree about
such "important" matters as the name of the new party or the number of
delegates at the founding congress of the new party. However, after the
materialization of the Dodik's vision, the voters in the Federation who are
dissatisfied with the ruling nationalist parties (and according to all
indications their number has been increasing) can only conclude with sadness
that, if they cannot go together, then, neither Lagumdzija, nor Beslagic,
nor Dapo, nor Tokic, are people who can realize their vision
of the democratic Bosnia-Hercegovina.
I cannot find a better conclusion for an article about Milorad Dodik than
these sentences written by a journalist from the AIM
news pool: "Those who expect Milorad Dodik to immediately start
with building of multiethnic society in Srpska and Bosnia-Hercegovina will
probably be disappointed, but the same follows for those who believe that all
Serbs are incurable nationalists."
Dodik's All or Nothing
by Senad PecaninDani, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, January 29, 1998
Milorad Dodik has never been a member of the Serb Democratic Party,
but he was the maker of an entrepreneurial miracle in Laktasi. During the
last few years the newly elected prime minister of the Republic of Srpska has
managed to convince even the westernmost representatives of the International
community in his pragmatism. Dodik's election has wiped the SDS off the
political scene; however, the position of the ruling as well as the opposition parties
in the Federation has also changed: overnight the starting advantage enjoyed
by the Bosniak authorities has evaporated. Nevertheless, those who expect
from Dodik multiethnicity galore will also be disappointed. Who is Milorad
Dodik?Entrepreneurial Weirdo
Milorad Dodik has never been a member of the Serb Democratic Party and entered
the Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina in 1990 as a
representative of the Alliance of Reformist Forces. In October 1991, Serb
Democratic Party withdrew from the Parliament of Bosnia-Hercegovina and with
the majority of the ethnic Serb representatives (82) founded the parallel
parliament of the Serb people in Bosnia-Hercegovina which has been active
until today. Because of "disagreements with the program and methods of work"
of the people gathered around Radovan Karadzic, Dodik
established a Club of Independent Representatives in the Pale parliament and
thus became the first public opponent of the ruling regime. After strong
condemnations by the Pale leadership, Dodik briefly pulled out of politics in
December 1994 and tried to re-establish himself as a businessman in his
Laktasi, a town which was named Yugoslav "entrepreneurial miracle" in the
[last Yugoslav prime minister] Markovic era. Without
imperative of getting rich during the war, due to the wealth acquired before
the war, Dodik quickly realized that he stood no chance in business besides
SDS war lords and decided to found a social-democratic party with Nenad
Bastinac. He found closest collaborators in Sejfudin Tokic
and Selim Beslagic, while he hasn't been trying at all to
suppress rumors that he is close to Slobodan Milosevic (which may have saved
his life during the war).Milorad's Practical Approach
All those who haven't been taking Dodik seriously all these years (not that he
didn't give enough reason for such interpretations) can now analyze the causes
of their bad predictions. It is probably the case that Dodik understood
before everyone else that the only rational policy in Bosnia today is to play on
"all or nothing". Only because the smallest possible elite from the top of
the ruling parties can objectively loose anything in today's Bosnia.
Dodik's friends have already built legends about his habitual sense for
practical. Dodik interrupts every conversation with foreigners (who love to
chat for hours about democratization and civil society) on behalf of the opposition with:
"We need money!" Once, the representatives of a western
embassy were preparing him for a conversation with an important official from
their country. They begged him to be patient and not ask for financial help
for at least the first ten minutes of the conversation. Dodik did his best
and held out for as long as fifty seconds. Well informed circles claim that
in the official American notes about Bosnian politicians Dodik is described
as "Good, only too pragmatic."Some 200-300 Million
The epicenter of the political earthquake caused by the formation of the new
government in the Republic of Srpska was at Pale; however, this time Sarajevo
wasn't only geographically close to the until yesterday unconquered bastion of
Serb nationalist regime. The election of Dodik for a new prime minister has
blown SDS off the political scene, but the position of the ruling and
opposition parties in the Federation is not the same as before his election.
As a spring snow, the initial advantage which had been enjoyed for years by
the Bosniak side has disappeared; the Bosniak side used to like to compare
itself to the Pale regime: and indeed, whichever parameter of civilization one
used, the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action [SDA] has for eight years been
undoubtebly ahead of the SDS. This fact was used to shut the mouths of well
meaning whistle blowers who have been drawing attention to the ways by which
the ruling Bosniak party with its policy totally discredited the attribute
"democratic" from its name. No matter how much they complained when being
compared to the SDS, the leaders of the SDA actually took pleasure from it.
Of course, only because in that comparison they always ended up with the
brighter part of the Bosnian "black-and-white" reality.New Developments in Srpska Don't Make it Easy for the Opposition Either
Inasmuch as he may seem like a natural ally of the opposition parties in the
Federation, the election of Dodik will cause similar problems for both the
ruling structures and the opposition parties in the Federation, and above all
the two social-democratic parties. True, consistent civic, anti-nationalist
and democratic policy has been adopted by both Lagumdzija's
and Beslagic's socialists, but without significant results at the forthcoming
elections it will become somewhat tiresome, even boring. Unavoidable comparison
with the events in the neighboring entity only strengthens these feelings.
Before Dodik, as little as 30 percent of votes for the democratic opposition
would have been a satisfactory result. But, after his election, only a victory
can be a satisfactory reply to the miracle in Srpska in which no one would
have believed only a year ago.
Translated on 2/25/98