used without permission, for "fair use" only

Private State or the state of Private Citizens

by Senad Avdic

Slobodna Bosna, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, 3/22 1996

A day before the Bosnian Presidency president, Mr. Alija Izetbegovic, due to his heart problems, left for the hospital treatment, a member of the Bosnian Presidency, Dr. Ivo Komsic had submitted a resignation to the collective head of the state. Komsic listed seven reasons for his resignation. Basically, Komsic questions the general role of the presidency in the decision making process in Bosnia and the conditions for its functioning according to its constitutional rights. In that context he mentions the lack of any strategy regarding the international policy, the formal role of the Presidency in the decision making process, again brings up the indoctrination of the Army...

Pressure from Within and Without

However, there is no doubt that the direct cause and the key reason for Komsic's resignation the founding of the Agency for Informations and Documentation [Bosnian secret service], actually, to be more specific, the speed with which that agency had been established and the planned methods of its future work. It should be said that, only a month ago, Komsic, together with the other members of the Bosnian Presidency, expressed support for the founding of the Bosnian secret service and appointment of Bakir Alispahic as its director. However, strong reactions from within and without followed only a few days after the establishment of the agency. Federation President, Kresimir Zubak, openly stated in his public letter to the Presidency that he considered that the founding of the AID was against the Federal constitution and a violation of all agreements from Washington to Dayton. He called on the presidency to re-examine its decision and to disband the AID the same way it had been founded.

A second wave of attacks came from abroad; it was further intensified after the case in Dusina. American administration was embittered with Mr. Alispahic's (AID director) claims that there were no foreign citizens in Bosnia which he had given only a few days before the IFOR soldiers raided the training center in Dusina [near Fojnica]. Although there was not too much evidence that the training center in Dusina was linked to the AID, the momentum of American criticism picked up not only Alispahic but also the AID. Consequently the pressure on the Bosnian Presidency was doubled.

At first, the Presidency members did not intend to change their decision. Dr. Nijaz Durakovic in one TV show said that he had voted for the founding of the AID, justifying his decision by the fact that every sovereign state in this world has an institution which is in charge of its internal security; he added that the establishment of that kind of an Agency is within the constitutional rights of the Presidency. Dr. Ivo Komsic at that time believed that certain procedural lapses shouldn't bring in question the basic task of the agency.

Secret Service as a Destiny

What caused his about-turn? Why did the Presidency again raise the question of the AID on the last week's session which lasted the whole five days? Only because of the ever more stronger and frequent attacks? Those pressures couldn't have been avoided. However they were not crucial in the marathon session of the Presidency.

The sources consulted by Slobodna Bosna testify that the Presidency members, prodded by the Komsic's resignation, asked themselves what their rights actually were and whether the Presidency would be able to control the Agency's work. Specifically, if the Presidency is the formal founder of the Agency and has appointed its director, is that the end of its influence on this company? Why wasn't the Presidency consulted about the systematization of other positions in the AID? Certain Presidency members have only heard in the corridors that almost 1,500 people were supposed to be employed by the agency. In order to illustrate the size of that kind of a service, let us mention that the pre-war [communist] Bosnian secret service (roughly corresponding to the AID) employed approximately 600 persons. Or, when the Croatian president Tudman demanded to be told the number of employees in the [communist] Croatian secret service, he was shocked to find out that there were only 800 of them.

The presidency members were also denied the information about the financing of the AID and its future relation with the Bosnian police. There are reliable informations that only a few hours before the new federal Minister of Internal Affairs, Avdo Hebib started work at his new office, his predecessor had transferred the bulk of money, equipment, vehicles and all other "trifles" to the AID. This was one of the reasons because of which Hebib and Alispahic refused to communicate and why the government had to form a commission whose task was to establish which part of Bosnian police property belonged to whom. Presidency members also demanded equal access to all information obtained by the AID. They think that the members of the Presidency are not treated equally: while some of them regularly receive all, even top secret, informations from the AID, the others have to be satisfied with the informations they can read in the papers.

Christopher Cannot Forgive

When we mention the "Presidency members" we are referring to the remaining five members, besides the president and his deputy. That means that Durakovic, Ljuic, Kljuic and Pejanovic, absolutely agreed with the reasons with which Komsic had justified his resignation. In president's absence his deputy, Dr. Ejup Ganic, responded to their accusations, claims and warnings. As we already mentioned, the Presidency was in session, chaired by Ganic, for several days and the discussion was "heated and rough at times". On Wednesday, March 13, the media recorded that the president received the presidency members at the Sarajevo clinical center and that the members were inquiring about the president's health. However, as we found out from reliable sources, all five members (all except for Ganic) demanded from president Izetbegovic to concur with the replacement of Bakir Alispahic from the position of the AID director. The same source says that president Izetbegovic refused and that he was quite firm in that. It was agreed that this problem should be discussed at a new session which was supposed to take place on March 16 and be chaired by Izetbegovic. However, on Friday afternoon, March 15, a Presidency meeting was called. At that meeting the Presidency issued a statement in which it said that Alispahic was replaced by Kemal Ademovic, until then the commander of the Bosnian special police forces.

It is not a secret that, in the meantime (between the hospital visit and Alispahic's dismissal), the American pressure on the Presidency has significantly increased. State Department spokesperson, Nicholas Burns, stated in connection with Alispahic's dismissal that the American ambassador in Bosnia, John Menzes was the last one to demand that from the Bosnian leadership (Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole also demanded the same previously, in his letter!).

It could be said that intense pressure from the American administration which demanded Alispahic's dismissal and the actions of the five Presidency members with the same goal corresponded both in time and content; however their motives are not the same. The American establishment couldn't easily brush off Alispahic's attempt to deceive American state secretary Warren Christopher during his visit to Sarajevo, when Alispahic claimed that there were no more armed foreign citizens in Bosnia (Christopher stated on that occasion the following :"Mr. President, ours and your informations are not the same." In diplomatic relations this portents a concrete counterstrike). The five presidency members tried with their atypical activism regarding the AID to save what is left to save in their constitutional position and personal and collective dignity. Although it is hard to believe that a personnel change at the top of the secret service could change the transformation of this institution into what it was, it seems, supposed to be from the start: a party secret police given a degree of legal and constitutional legitimacy by the Bosnian Presidency, that activism testifies that the Presidency members did not surrender without a "fired bullet" to the SDA [Party of Democratic action, the largest Bosnian Muslim party and the ruling party in Bosnia-Hercegovina] intentions to use the collective head of the state as its own legal alibi.

The Presidency and the Private Initiative

Demonstration of the daring and "civic disobedience" of the five Presidency members who are not the members of the SDA during the last 15 days has brought about a change in the "action methods" of the SDA and its president [Izetbegovic] in the collective Bosnian head of the state. They have adopted a new tactic in which a small number of decisions which, during the last four years, have had to be formally adopted through the discussion in the Bosnian presidency are now more and more verified somewhere else or by the president himself. Izetbegovic's "private" letter to the TV Bosnia-Hercegovina [in which he criticized the New Year celebration in Sarajevo], then another "private" letter to the Mostar inhabitants regarding the division of this city which was agreed in Rome, than another "very private letter" to Minister [of Internal Affairs] Hebib in which Izetbegovic demands that he stop looting of Ilidza and other newly liberated Sarajevo suburbs, then resignations of the mayors from the two most important Federation cities, Sarajevo and Mostar, which were also addressed to the private president, demonstrate that the strongest stronghold of the private ownership is in the state leadership. Since, for example, if the Bosnian presidency had protested because of looting in Sarajevo suburbs, there is no doubt that the reply from the police minister and prime minister would have been even more insolent than their reply to the well meaning UN spokesperson, Aleksander Ivanko. However, after president Izetbegovic's private criticism, not only was it admitted that there had been looting, maltreatment and bullying but all of that was, within a short time, prevented and punished!

Of course, limited space doesn't allow us to discuss and analyze the behavior of the Presidency members during the war (the "non-SDA" members); it mostly followed that de Cubertain's joke "it is important to participate and not to make decisions". Maybe there is no need for that, since the general tendencies in the Bosnian society can hardly be discerned from the behavior of those who don't make decisions. Their behavior is, after all, the consequence, not a cause, of more than obvious Bosnian political charge towards the authoritarian and undemocratic society...

Translated on 4/3/96