by Senad PECANIN
The most obvious example is Holbrooke's demand for a ban of the SDS, whose fiasco motivated some voters who otherwise would not have voted for the Karadzic's followers to vote for the SDS. The unquestionable authority that America has so far enjoyed among all the political factors in Bosnia-Hercegovina (BH) has thereby been seriously shaken and it will be very difficult to reestablish it, especially if Wolfgang Petritsch becomes a scapegoat. The total confusion of American diplomats (Holbrooke, Barry) was used by Ante Jelavic, who would have never implemented his idea regarding the referendum if he did not realize "that the Americans cannot even ban the SDS any more". The extremely timid, indecisive and mild response to the "referendum of the Croat people on Bosnia-Hercegovina" organized by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), indicates that he was right.
Company at the table: Besides destroying the legitimacy of the whole elections by its action, the HDZ achieved two goals. The first one is more obvious and short-term. Thanks to the referendum and the support of Puljic's church, Jelavic and his criminals kept their primacy among the Croats who voted. However, the second goal is far ranging and therefore much more important. The HDZ legitimized the unconstitutional mode of expression of the citizens' will through a referendum. Regardless of how much the BH public dismisses the significance of thereby organized "expression of the will", in the democratic world a referendum is considered to be among the most legitimate methods for the demonstration of the citizens' will about the most important questions, including the changes of borders. An old, well-organized, decentralized and stable state such as Canada, owes the preservation of its territorial integrity only to the fact that the Quebec separatists lacked only two percent of votes in a recent independence referendum to proclaim secession from Canada. If the ethnic French received in the referendum 51% instead of 49% of votes in support of an independent Quebec, the central Canadian authorities would have had no other recourse but to accept the results with regret, as they had previously announced.
In Dayton one only needed to be sufficiently rude and listen in to the confidential conversations between Jelavic's clones Martin Raguz, Miroslav Prce and Drazenko Primorac and their partners from the Republic of Srpska (RS), to end up being totally horrified. I heard such a conversation. Sitting at the same tables where five years before Milosevic and Tudman developed the strategy for the continuation of the division of Bosnia-Hercegovina in different circumstances, their heirs developed the strategy for the final division of the country. Serbs did not hide their admiration for the Croat courage and daring with which they had conducted the referendum. Martin Raguz consoled them that they would have a much easier time to secede, adding that Croats would have a much harder time to do the same with their territories. However, they agreed in one thing. With already organized referendum and ludicrously symbolic punishment for the HDZ by the ambassador Barry's mission, they have inaugurated in the big way the method that will eventually be used to produce the result that escaped both Milosevic and Tudman and their power, tanks, srebrenicas, manjacas, dreteljs and heliodroms [Serb and Croat run detention camps].
Moreover, one need not analyze too much the mutual influence of the three factors deciding the fate of Bosnia-Hercegovina (the current situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina, circumstances in the former Yugoslavia and the attitude of the international community) to come to the same conclusion as Mirza Hajric: "For the first time in the last ten years, I am a pessimist as far as the survival of Bosnia is concerned." A very likely definite solution of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia on which the Serb-Croatian company at the table of a restaurant in Dayton was obviously counting gives them more than good reasons for optimism regarding the accomplishment of their desired goal.
New geopolitical reality: Not even trying to be too diplomatic, Richard Holbrooke was more than clear presenting the attitude of the American administration about the future administrative status of Kosovo: "Unlike my Russian and Chinese colleagues in the Security Council, I do not read the Resolution 1244 in the way that indicates that Kosovo would forever remain a part of Yugoslavia." One does not have to be prescient to predict the reaction of the parliament of the Republic of Srpska: a referendum on the annexation to Yugoslavia. If already today Mladen Ivanic as a leader adopting a moderate nationalist position openly admits that the temptation would be to much even for him (see the interview in this issue of Dani) then there is no place for doubt that not a single political party from the RS with representation in the RS parliament would oppose a proposal of the Serb Democratic Party (that will by then probably change its name) regarding the holding of a referendum, just as there is no doubt regarding the result of such a referendum.
In such a scenario, it would be naïve to expect too much from a Bosniak cry that such a referendum was conducted on the part of the territory of Bosnia-Hercegovina that has previously been systematically and systematically with genocide cleansed of Bosniaks. Just as the most courageous political daring and subversion of the elections and the Constitution by Ante Jelavic was greeted by a ridiculous suspension of several elected representatives, thus the new political reality created by the recognized or unrecognized Serb referendum, will find a good reception in the "new geopolitical reality". It will be created by the widespread conviction that Serbia must be somehow compensated for the loss of Montenegro and Kosovo. Unanimous distaste with which all, but literally all western governments react to Silajdzic's warnings (which by the way are presented in a very harsh and not very tactful manner) already indicates that the West is tired of both Bosnia and Bosniaks.
One should not expect much difference in the attitude of a new American administration. If the son of the former president George Bush and his collaborators Dick Cheney and Colin Powel, known because of the political "subtlety" as far as the understanding of a complex Bosnian problem is concerned, come to power, their interpretation of the situation in Bosnia after five years of American intensive political, military and financial involvement will fit in one sentence: "Bosniak, Serb, and Croat peoples still stubbornly support parties that took the country to the war for the division of the country; the country is still divided into two entities, three armies, ruled by equally corrupt authorities; war criminals are still free; state institutions do not function; privatization has not been successful; the parliament does not function and instead of it the High Representative has to impose all the laws; the economy is not able to provide a minimum of social functions for the most endangered categories of the population; there is no rule of the law that would guarantee security of foreign investment."
On the other hand, one should not expect too much even from the new American administration in which Richard Holbrooke would be on the present or an even more important position. If Bosnia were even remotely high on the list of American priorities, as until recently, the most recent visit of the creator of the peace agreement would not depend on the empty slots in his calendar; Holbooke would never come out with an unprepared demand for a ban of the SDS, a non-starter from the beginning, and fatal in its consequences. Although his support for the territorial integrity of Bosnia-Hercegovina seems firm, it, after all, leaves enough space to accept fait accompli under certain circumstances.
Bosniaks are, then, left to with 24% of their small Bosnia explain to the world why the Serbs in one of the two states defined in Dayton, named after all the Republic of Srpska [the Serb Republic], do not have the rights given to the Albanians in Kosovo or the French in Quebec. Then they will have enough time to, besides collective trance with the sky blue eyes of their leader, contemplate whether the final division of Bosnia-Hercegovina was the desired final result of his policies or their unavoidable consequence.