Bosnia and Herzegovina

-  A visitor-friendly place still hostage to political obstacles

By: Ardian Axhanela

With first summer sunshine, streets of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mostar, the “pearl of Herzegovina”, Banja Luka, and other cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina are visibly crowded with visitors, their number increasing every year to include those that are now convinced by their friends that the cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and much of the countryside too are perfectly safe for visitors. The same goes lately in the wintertime at Bosnian mountains, the Olympic Jahorina, Bjelašnica and Igman, Vlašić, Kupres and many other natural resorts.

More recently, Sarajevo, the venue of one of the most popular and reputable Film Festivals in Europe was nominated by the LONELY PLANET’S BEST IN TRAVEL 2010 as one of the Top 10 Cities to visit in 2010.[1] In addition, an increase in citizens of western countries buying real estate in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been visible too[2], although perhaps still not at a pace that the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina would be most happy with.

So, it seems that the war-related and problem-related connotations attached to the very word ‘Bosnia’, which have been preventing so many visitors from visiting and helping restore at least some of the Tourism here, is finally loosing its grip on the name and the image of this country.

However, the process of restoring the pre-war credibility to the name and image of ‘Bosnia’, or more specifically the process of finally detaching this name from the war-related and problem-related connotations is still not moving at a pace sufficient to provide a fast enough development of the country, even in the economic branches like Tourism, the one that  can be developed without having to wait for the country to join the EU first. Nevertheless, the number of visitors is still not so high to produce a fast development of Tourism. This in turn indicates, that many non-Bosnians still associate the word Bosnia with problems, be them war-related or post-conflict, transitional ones.

In fact, in spite of  the fact the Bosnia and Herzegovina is pretty much  visitor-safe and very visitor-friendly, there has been an increase in dissemination of that post-conflict problem-country rhetoric about Bosnia in the past year or so in some western media, obviously stemming from some of the initiatives of the International Community (specifically the great powers) to try and resolve some of the internal political problems of Bosnia and Herzegovina they consider an obstacle to the prosperity of this country.

 It would certainly be unfair and untrue to undermine the existence of political problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in spite of the fact that they in no way affect visitors. They certainly do affect the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, foreign investors, the country’s perspectives of joining the EU and its development in general.  The problems that hamper the development of Bosnia and Herzegovina are the result of the mutually opposing ideas of the political leaders of the three constituent peoples in regard to the existing state-arrangement, which stem from the mutually-opposing ethnic politics and corruption.[3] In turn, corruption and ethnic nationalism (declaratively legalized in the form of “vital national/ethnic interests”), are generally perceived as a result of the institutional/state architecture constructed under the Dayton –Paris Peace Agreement (hereinafter DPA).

Brief history of DPA

The 1990 parliamentary elections in former Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina led to a national assembly dominated by three ethnically based parties (Bosniak, Serb and Croat), which had formed a loose coalition to oust the communists from power. In a session on 14 and 15 October 1991 the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the "Memorandum on Sovereignty", following the example of Slovenia and Croatia, despite the fact that 73 Serb deputies opposed it. On 18 November 1991, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), of Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimed the existence of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, as a separate "political, cultural, economic and territorial whole," on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Croat Defense Council (HVO) as its military part. The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared Herceg-Bosna illegal, first on 14 September 1992 and again on 20 January 1994. On 24 October 1991, the Serb deputies formed the Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the highest representative and legislative body of the Serb population, by which they ended the tripartite coalition between the Bosniak, Serb and Croat political representatives.

On 9 January 1992, the assembly proclaimed the Republic of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Republika srpskog naroda Bosne i Hercegovine, a.k.a. Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, later renamed into Republika Srpska, its current name) declaring it part of Yugoslavia. Referendum for independence from Yugoslavia followed in February and March 1992. This referendum was boycotted by Bosnian Serbs. The turnout in the independence referendum was 63.4 per cent and 99.7 per cent of voters voted for independence.[4] Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in March 1992. Political tensions between the political leadership of Bosnian Serbs on one hand, and Bosniak and Croat political representatives on the other escalated.

The tensions culminated on 6 April 1992, when the army of the Republic of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, now the Republika Srpska) besieged the city of Sarajevo with a military force of 18,000 Bosnian Serb troops, in possession of all kinds of weapons surrounding the city, ranging from sniper rifles, anti-aircraft machineguns all the way to heavy artillery like tanks and howitzers.[5]

Those Sarajevo civilians who were lucky enough to somehow escape or survive sniper-bullets, rockets and shells thrown daily on Sarajevo citizens, on the other hand could by no means leave the blocked city, the city cutaway from the rest of the world, and they were inevitably exposed to large-scale deprivation and hunger. Estimates say more than 12.000 inhabitants of Sarajevo were killed and 50.000 were wounded during the siege – almost all of them civilians. By 1995, Sarajevo’s population had dropped by a third from pre-war levels, by death and migration, to just over a third of a million.[6]

The President of the Serb(ian) Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina at that time was radovan karadžić, currently on trial in the International United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on the basis of individual criminal responsibility (Article 7(1)) and superior criminal responsibility (Article 7(3)) with:

· Genocide, persecutions extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts (genocide, crime against humanity, Articles 4 and 5),

· Murder, unlawful attacks on civilians, acts of violence the primary purpose of which is to terror among the civilian population, taking of hostages (violations of the laws or customs of war, Article 3).[7]

Three officers commanded the unit of the Bosnian-Serb Army ("VRS") operating in the area of Sarajevo, the Sarajevo Romanija Corps ("SRK")[8] that besieged the city of Sarajevo, along with other nationalist Serb military and paramilitary forces. Two of them, stanislav galić and dragomir milošević, were sentenced by the ICTY to life imprisonment and to 33 years imprisonment, respectively. At the Galić Judgment the Prosecution concluded as follows:

"The siege of Sarajevo, as it came to be popularly known, was an episode of such notoriety in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia that one must go back to World War II to find a parallel in European history. Not since then had a professional army conducted a campaign of unrelenting violence against the inhabitants of a European city so as to reduce them to a state of medieval deprivation in which they were in constant fear of death. In the period covered in this Indictment, there was nowhere safe for a Sarajevan, not at home, at school, in a hospital, from deliberate attack".[9]

Disgracefully enough, so far only two persons have been convicted for one of the worst war crimes in the modern history of Europe, Stanislav Galić, sentenced to life imprisonment on 30 November 2006[10], and dragomir milošević, sentenced to 29 years' imprisonment on 12 November 2009.[11]

The international community just stood and watched the siege of Sarajevo, but also the sieges and concentration camps throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina for years. Needless to say, the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina did receive humanitarian aid in food, but the side effects of that food, some of it over a decade old when it was delivered to Bosnian civilians, might have “something” to do with rumors of an unusually high rate of cancer, leukemia and other terminal diseases very evident among Bosnians and Herzegovinians. You never know, the say goes. [12]

In nutshell, as far as the war-period of the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina is concerned (1992 to 1995), the passivity of then-international community (i.e. great powers) makes not only every Bosnian victim, but also any decent-minded and objective person point the finger at the then-international community (and particularly the then-European top politicians) and call for their share of responsibility too for the bloodshed, for they did not prevent or stopped it at the outset, and there is no reason to believe they did not have enough power to do that. 

On the other hand, no story of wartime Bosnia and Herzegovina can go without the mentioning of some individuals that came to Bosnia and Herzegovina from abroad amidst the siege of Sarajevo and other Bosnian places, in support of Bosnian civilians and raised their voice against the destruction of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some of these figures include Roy Gutman, the journalist and a publicist that discovered the concentration camps in Bosnia and raised public awareness  about them throughout the world, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II. and a special U.N. emissary to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, who stepped down in 1995 to protest the world powers' lack of response to the atrocities committed during the Bosnian war, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Joan Baez, just to name a few of many. Unlike the abovementioned western European politicians of the time, these individuals are mentioned and remembered in a positive and admiring way by Bosnians that survived the sieges, expulsions and all other means of terror directed and carried out by the war-crime perpetrators.

 Before the Dayton agreement the army of Serbian Republic in Bosnia and Herzegovina controlled about 46% of Bosnia and Herzegovina (23,687 km²), while Bosniaks were reduced to 28% (14,505 km²) and Bosnian Croats  to 25% (12,937 km²). This should come as no surprise given that the army of the Serb(ian) Republic in BiH was in fact the huge and powerful Yugoslav People’s Army reinforced volunteers and various paramilitary forces from Serbia, and receiving extensive humanitarian, logistical and financial support from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, headed by slobodan milošević.[13] The forces of the Serbian Republic first attacked the non-Serb civilian population in Eastern Bosnia. Once towns and villages were securely in their hands, the forces of then-Serbian Republic – military, police, the paramilitaries and, sometimes, even the villagers – applied the same pattern: Bosniak houses and apartments were systematically ransacked or burnt down, Bosniak civilians were rounded up or captured, and sometimes beaten or killed in the process. 2.2 million refugees were displaced by the end of the war (of all three nationalities).[14] After years of military suppression and dominance of Serbian Republic forces over the poorly armed forces of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina and unarmed non-Serb civilians, the great powers made a maneuver to enable the non-Serb people to defend themselves from the huge army of the  then-Serb(ian) Republic. In March 1994, the great powers made the leaders of the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina sign an agreement with the leaders of the Croat controlled Herceg-Bosna. This was the Washington Accords, which led to the creation of a joint Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Reinforced politically and militarily, non-Serbs were finally enabled to defend themselves. In August 1995, the forces of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina launched a military offensive together with Croatian and Croat forces aided by  NATO's Operation Deliberate Force to liberate some of the territory  previously occupied through the military campaign and the policy of ethnic cleansing and killing of non-Serb civilians by the forces of the Serb Republic (now Republika Srpska). Russia condemned the joint military campaign of Bosniak, Croat and NATO forces, as this campaign endangered the lives of many Serb civilians. This led to the gathering of the Contact Group, and subsequently the pressure on the leaders of the three sides to attend the negotiations in Dayton, Ohio, in order to stop the war. Finally, the leaders of the three sides were brought to the negotiation table and the peace agreement was reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in November 1995, and formally signed in Paris on December 14, 1995.

Bosnian Serbs got large tracts of mountainous territories back (4% of Bosnian Croats and some small amounts from Bosniaks), but they were pressured to surrender Sarajevo and some vital Eastern Bosnian/Herzegovian positions. All in all by changing quantity to quality their percentage grew to 49% (48 if excluding the Brčko District, 24,526 km²) from a little bit more than 46% prior to Dayton. Bosniaks got most of Sarajevo, and some important positions in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina while they lost only a few locations on mount Ozren and in western Bosnia. Their percentage grew from 28% prior to Dayton to 30% and they greatly upheld quality of the gotten land. Large tracts of prewar Bosniak (and Bosnian Croat) inhabited lands remained under Bosnian Serb Control. Bosnian Croats gave most (4% of BiH territories) back to the Bosnian Serbs (9% of today's Republika Srpska), and also retreated from Una-Sana canton as well Donji Vakuf (in Central Bosnia canton) municipality afterward. Small enlargement of Posavina canton (Odžak and parts of Domaljevac municipality) hasn't changed the fact that after Dayton Bosnian Croats controlled just 21% of Bosnia and Herzegovina (10,640 km²) especially when compared to more than 25% prior to Dayton. It is important to note that one of the most important Bosnian Croat territories (Posavina with Bosanski Brod, Šamac, Derventa and Modriča) was still left out of Bosnian Croat control.

 The DPA also brought a Constitution to Newly created state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is contained in the DPA itself.

The Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Dayton-Paris Peace Agreement put an end to the 1992-1995 war and brought peace and stability to Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is contained in Annex IV to the DPA, established a complex institutional architecture, as indicated in the latest Bosnia and Herzegovina Progress Report presented by the Commission of the European Communities to the European Parliament and the Council.[15] It is precisely this DPA-constructed institutional architecture of Bosnia and Herzegovina that is generally blamed for most of the obstacles to the country’s development, including those generally perceived as major ones, corruption and ethnic nationalism. Corruption and ethnic nationalism are certainly well known to all other countries of former Yugoslavia, with degree of nationalism and corruption varying in level and context, but in Bosnia and Herzegovina they seem to present a much greater obstacle to country’s prosperity and development than in the neighboring ones, most likely due to the institutional architecture of Bosnia and Herzegovina created under the DPA.

In fact, the Dayton-made state setup of Bosnia and Herzegovina is most often quoted by American politicians and diplomats themselves as an obstacle to the prosperity of this country. Simply speaking, the Dayton-made state setup of Bosnia is usually blamed for creating a country with a constitution that prioritizes ethnic identities over that of citizens, a complex state administration apparatus with unclear areas of jurisdictions among them (two entities, dozens of cantons and even more city councils and municipalities), very few state-level (joint) institutions (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade, Taxation and army), etc..

The state set-up makes ordinary decent citizens the hostage not only to ethnically-oriented politics but also to all kinds of corruption that stem from it, often hidden behind the alleged  protection of (vital) ethnic interests (Bosniak, Serb, Croat) or patriotism. More specifically, corruption is being very successfully hidden behind the rhetoric pertaining to vital ethnic interests or patriotism of some politicians that shift people’s attention from corruption in this way. It really doesn’t take much of the effort to identify the cases of personal connections, nepotism, cronyism, favoritism and corruption in general in state institutions. It is sufficient to check the profiles of ministers and employees in some of the most vital state ministries to see that some of the employees come from the same place of origin as a minister, for example, and they may not even be entirely qualified for the post they have.

According to the latest research of Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina presented in September 2009, entitled Promoting anti-corruption reforms, a great majority of citizens emphasize the problem of corruption in employment procedures, and the alarming fact that more than half of those questioned (57%) personally know a person of which they are certain that they were employed through connections or nepotism in some municipal, cantonal, entity or state institutions, organizations or public companies.[16] 

The only three legal mechanisms at the disposal of citizens to report cases of personal connections, nepotism, favoritism, cronyism, bribery and corruption in general are the Law on Conflict of Interest[17], Law on freedom of access to information[18] and toll –free numbers to report the cases of corruption such as that of Transparency International BiH (hereinafter TI BiH)[19] or at the Police. The majority of citizens included in the 2009 TI BiH survey[20] think that the Law on conflict of interests is inefficient, while only half of them heard of the Law on freedom of access to information, of which the overwhelming majority had never referred to and never asked for information from the authorities. As for the toll-free numbers available to citizens for reporting the corruption cases, it is to be expected that with such perception, very few citizens would dare reporting corruption over the phone.

According to the study of TI BiH conducted in 2007[21], the second quarterly survey on citizens’ perception of corruption says that 45% of BiH citizens do not believe at all that the authorities in BiH want to sincerely, fairly and decisively cope with the fight against corruption in BiH. Assessing the efficiency of individual institutions in BiH in fighting against bribery and corruption during the past years, respondents were of the opinion that the media are most efficient and the Parliament and the executive authority the least efficient institutions in fighting corruption. In the view of citizens, the level of corruption in the executive authority of the state and entities is quite high, the Government of the Federation BiH was assessed with 3.93, the RS Government 3.91, the Council of Ministers of BiH, 3.89, and the Government of Brčko District 3.83 - estimating on a scale from 1 (very low level of corruption) to 5 (very high).

So, yes, the Superpower baby, the Dayton-Paris Agreement (hereinafter DPA) did stop the war and that is the most important thing. However, this Dayton-made state arrangement does not seem to allow Bosnia and Herzegovina to move rapidly ahead in development in order to catch up with all that it missed while it was left to the mercy of war created by destructive hard-core nationalist and anti-Bosnian politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia.

In general, the current political representatives of Bosnian Serb people prefer no changes to the Constitution and the DPA in general, while  the political representatives of the Bosniak and Croat people respectively are not content with it, or at least, with some parts of it, as it does not satisfy the vital ethnic interest of their respective peoples. 

The international community still does not seem to have taken a clearly identified model of state-arrangement of Bosnia and Herzegovina under which this country would prosper. For the most part, the international community shows the tendency to believe that the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a part of the DPA is something that creates animosities among the political representatives of three constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniak, Serbs and Croats, and thus may require some changes. In nutshell, it seems that the DPA obviously did not satisfy all three political ethnic groups in the same way. The DPA did not produce an ideal compromising state-power share among three ethnic groups. What’s more, the DPA certainly has connotations of being an unjust way to arrange the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina for several reasons. Specifically, the DPA rewarded the side that was undoubtedly militarily the most powerful in the country - the army of the Serb(ian) Republic lead by radovan karadžić and his followers during the war-time. The DPA practically not only failed to challenge the ethical basis of this territory carved out by the use of military might and expullsion and the killing of civilians in particular, but it made it an integral and legitimate part of the Constitution created under its auspices.

Another ethically challenging aspect of the DPA was that it made late slobodan milošević, the infamous president of the former Yugoslavia and later Serbia one of the guarantors of peace in former Yugoslavia at the negotiation table. As a reminder, slobodan milošević was charged before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia with war crimes in Bosnia, Kosovo and Croatia,  on the basis of individual criminal responsibility (Article 7(1) of the Statute of the Tribunal), and on the basis of superior criminal responsibility (Article 7(3) of the Statute) [22], and  generally identified as the greatest  ideological, political, and particularly logistic and military supporter of the war-crime policy of radovan karadžić and his followers.[23]

 The only unanimous stance that the political representatives of the International Community have taken in regards to the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina is that the best solution to resolve all of the abovementioned problems and secure a stable and prosperous future to this country is the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union (EU). For this reason a whole package of EU requirements as a part of the EU enlargement strategy was put on the table in front of the BiH politicians as a condition to the country’s joining the EU. The Commission of the European Communities (a.k.a. the European Commission) has reported regularly to the European Council and Parliament on progress made by the countries of the Western Balkans region since March 2002. The European Commission Progress Report describes relations between the potential candidate country ( in this case Bosnia and Herzegovina) and the Union, analyses the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina in terms of the political criteria for membership, analyses the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the basis of the economic criteria for membership, reviews Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capacity to implement European standards, i.e. to gradually approximate its legislation and policies with the acquis, in line with the Stabilization and Association Agreement that Bosnia and Herzegovina signed on 16.6.2008, and  in line with the European Partnership priorities.

No doubt, addressing the key obstacles to Bosnia and Herzegovina mentioned above, the ethnically-oriented politics on the one hand, and corruption on the other are some of the priorities of the EU Accession requirements/criteria for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The conclusions of the Bosnia and Herzegovina 2009 Progress Report that the European Commission filed to the European Parliament and the Council, pertaining to ethnic nationalism and corruption are as follows:

“The Parliamentary Assembly’s legislative work has continued to be adversely affected by intransigent and ethnically oriented positions taken by the country’s political leaders…The work of the various Parliamentary committees has been affected by inter-ethnic divergences…This complex organization encourages diverging ethnic interests and makes it particularly difficult to achieve smooth governance…The Mostar City Council has failed to elect a new mayor in accordance with the requirement of the statute of the City of Mostar, due to a power struggle between ethnic groups…Lack of coordination, ethnic tensions and lack of resources continue to delay reform…Little progress has been made in preventing political interference and limiting the role played by ethnic identity and party membership in public administration, as demonstrated during the harsh and lengthy processes to appoint new directors in a number of key institutions (Directorate for European Integration, Indirect Taxation Authority, Communications Regulatory Authority, etc).”.[24]

“Ethnic orientation of media is increasing”.[25]

 “Divisions in the education system through continuous development of mono-ethnic schools in both entities are still a matter of concern and result in de facto segregation of pupils from the very beginning of their schooling”.[26]

As for the currently most pressing obstacle to the country’s prosperity, the corruption, the the Bosnia and Herzegovina 2009 Progress Report of the European Commission concludes:

“Overall, corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina is prevalent in many areas and continues to be a serious problem, especially within government and other State and Entity structures, linked to public procurement, business licensing, in the health, energy, transportation infrastructure and education sectors. Private sector corruption is also prevalent. The establishment of an anti-corruption body, the implementation of the updated Strategy and Action Plan, as well as consequent investigation and prosecution of corruption cases, need to be ensured”.[27]

Rethinking Dayton-Paris Peace Agreement

Aware of the many pitfalls of the DPA, the top European and US officials met with politicians of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Butmir near Sarajevo on 8 October 2009, initiating a process of negotiations aimed at making the Dayton-made political set-up of Bosnia and Herzegovina work better for its citizens (including possible changes to it) and helping Bosnia and Herzegovina move closer to European Union.

At the Butmir negotiations, the political representative of the Bosniak people called for a Supreme Court to be incorporated into the Constitution, which was unacceptable to the Republic of Srpska. The representative of the Bosnian Serb people requested the incorporation of the right to a referendum in the Constitution and a procedure for possible peaceful separation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Embittered as they are, and disappointed again with their post-war politicians and the international community, Pro-Bosnian citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not expect any miracles to happen and resolve the main problems during the talks in Butmir either. Nevertheless, this meeting was at least formally reflecting on the fact the international community recognized that it is about time they took some further steps in moving this country from a standstill they left it in since the end of the war. What seems to hurt Bosnians and Herzegovinians in particular is a tendency of the members of international community to blame “Bosnia and Herzegovina” for any political problem in this country,  instead of  identifying and openly naming the real impeders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and clearly explaining to the public how these impeders are affecting this country and its citizens. It’s obviously time that the international community decided how and if at all it intends to help the scapegoat (the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina) move ahead, as a make up exam for the past failures of international community (specifically the EU) in this country since 1992.  

In Conclusion

The name of Bosnia and Herzegovina - the victim to the ineffective international community policies in Dayton-made Bosnia and Herzegovina

Following the announcement of the European Commission in July 2009 that Bosnia and Herzegovina was excluded from visa-free travel to EU countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina received another low blow and yet another disappointment from the International Community, specifically the EU, in which the majority of its citizens see their future. Just as a quick reminder, unlike Bosnia and Herzegovina some countries were granted the visa-free regime in spite of their obvious failures to meet some of the EU- set visa liberalization requirements. The most obvious example is the fact that Serbia did not hand over the indicted war-criminal ratko mladić (one of so many war criminals walking freely around), by which it failed to fulfill one important criterion set by the EU, and most importantly an important ethical criterion – cooperation with the ICTY. Well, politics works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it?

On the other hand, it would be unrealistic and unfair to blame it all on international community in charge of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Pro-Bosnian citizens certainly can’t do much to reduce, let alone sanction anti-Bosnian nationalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina but they certainly can do more to fight corruption. As mentioned earlier, a  lot of corruption evident among those declaratively Pro-Bosnian politicians is being tolerated by the people as those corrupt politicians often successfully hide the corruption behind the excuse of portraying anti-Bosnian nationalism as the most immediate threat to pro-Bosnians (mainly Bosniaks) that requires immediate attention and represents a far greater priority than anti-corruption actions. Such rhetoric and behavior seems to have successfully prevented the passive civil society of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the people in general from reacting and taking the role of social checks and balances mechanism.  No doubt that a creation of a strong and genuine civil society is one of the prerequisites for a functional state, and this is what seems to be for the most part in the hands of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina themselves.

On the other hand, it now becomes apparent that the international help that Bosnians and Herzegovinians received since the end of the war in order to develop the necessary civil society, as a society’s checks and balances mechanism wasn’t successful in the end. The question that poses itself in this respect is: “Is the international community (the great powers) genuinely interested in at least helping Bosnia and Herzegovina by empowering its civil society?” Needless to say, this question inevitably invokes some other questions, like the question of identifying the best way to measure that genuine will of (international) community to help in this respect.

For many Bosnians and the international community members involved in analyzing the situation in Bosnia, the only way out of the squeezing grasp of DPA is the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the EU.

Luckily, there are some decent-minded politicians “out there in the West”, aware of the injustices and omissions done to Bosnians and Herzegovinians, as well as being aware of the fact that placing Bosnia and Herzegovina into EU would do more good then harm to everyone. One such individual seems to be Mr. Tanja Fajon, Slovenian member of the European Parliament, whose recent strive to enable visa-free travel to Bosnian citizens certainly did not go unnoticed or without gratitude from ordinary people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Biometric passports are on their way, at least officially announced, and that’s the encouraging news, but it’s only a tiny little drop in the sea of troubles that befall this country, and much of those troubles must have “something” to do with the Dayton Peace Agreement.

 After all, the recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights clearly proved that the Bosnian Constitution discriminates against non-constituent citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina (in this particular case one  Jewish and one Roma  person) by allowing only the representatives of the constituent peoples (Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats) to apply for Bosnia's highest state offices. This discrimination against  some of the Human Rights ironically contained in that very same Constitution is in itself sufficient evidence that some parts of the Dayton-made Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina require urgent changes if  this Constitution is to follow the example of developed (modern) states and their legal and cultural practices. In this respect, a reference may also be made to the Preamble, which read:

 “Bosniacs, Croats, and Serbs, as constituent peoples (along with Others), and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina hereby determine that the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina…”  

 Such wording is evidently contrary to the preambles of developed democratic states, where the equality of all their citizens is guaranteed by the use of precisely this word –“citizens”, and no “constituent peoples”, “others” or “minorities” are even mentioned, let alone superior to the category of citizen. This goes too for those multiethnic western societies like Belgium, whose citizens are referred to in their Constitution as Belgians (which implies German, Flemish and French communities, but not Germans, Flemish and French as “constituent peoples”)[28]. The same applies to Switzerland, where again all of its citizens, German-speaking, French-speaking, Italian-speaking, those of Asian or African origin are made equal by being referred to by a common denominator – the Swiss people[29] .

What’s even more ironic is that the abovementioned part of the Preamble of the Dayton-made Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the one pertaining to its citizens is contrary to all those Human Rights Conventions contained in that very same Constitution[30].  

 On the other hand, it is quite possible that the current wording of Bosnian constitution made at Dayton was the only acceptable compromise of the warring parties at the time. The irony though is that it seems that some political leaders behave today, 14 years after the end of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina as if there’s still war going on in here, given that no demand ever came from them to change the wording in the preamble by replacing words “constituent”, “Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats”, “Others” and “minorities” with simple “citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina” or simple “Bosnians and Herzegovinians”. Furthermore, very few reasonable demands of such kind came from the representatives of the civil society, which might lead to one of two possible conclusions: a.) both pro-Bosnian politicians and  pro-Bosnian civil society sector have been waiting for the appropriate moment to change the contradictory preamble part (depending on  political agenda they may represent), or b) romanticism of “national awakening/revival” of Bosnian Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats is prevalent in the society to the extent that the majority of people  prefer their ethnic identity (Bosniak, Serb or Croat) in the first place,  instead of identifying themselves primarily  as “citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina” or “Bosnians”. The exception to this rule are the so called “Others”, meaning all those Bosnian citizens who are not ethnically Bosniak, Serb or Croat but lived for generations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and logically feel much closer to this country than to the countries of their distant origins, or those who come from interethnic (inter-constitutional) marriages and identify themselves by default too as “citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina” or “Bosnians”.

However, the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, resulting from two citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina (one of Jewish and the other of Roma  ethnicity)  suing the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina for they were not legally allowed to apply for highest state offices because only representatives of  constituent peoples may legally do so, does represents certain landmark in terms of  international community providing some remedy to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it might initiate the beginning of the empowerment of the most  marginalized and discriminated political category of  post-war Bosnian society –  those that are “just” citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, without any ethnic labels (the so called “ Others”), as opposed to constituent citizens (Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats). Again, the wording of the Preamble to reflect equality of all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina is just a tiny little drop in the sea of political problems that need to be addressed.

In the meantime, the least that international community might do, while “waiting” for local politicians to meet those most important requirements set out by the European Commission, if they really wish to provide some interim remedy for the past failures and negligence is to stop the dissemination of negative connotations and negative stereotypes attached to the name of Bosnia and Herzegovina since the times of war. Repeating phrases like “Bosnia and Herzegovina didn’t meet the requirements”, “Bosnia and Herzegovina has problems…” “Bosnia and Herzegovina  this  or Bosnia and Herzegovina that…”, or even saying that  Bosnia is a risky place to visit in some western government  sites  only defames the name of Bosnia and Herzegovina, disseminates an untrue negative stereotype about the whole country and sends a wrong, distorted message about this country, completely ignoring the fact that this “problem” country is in fact a country visited every year by thousands of visitors those who know that Bosnia and Herzegovina is these days in many ways more visitor-friendly and safer than many western, developed countries, for the most part.

The representatives of international community might as well disseminate positive sides of Bosnia and Herzegovina, nut just the one related to the war and transitional issues, such as the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina is visitor friendlier and visitor safer than many developed states, according to personal accounts of visitors. By doing that, the representatives of the international community (the great powers) might at least help revive some of the tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina which more than certainly has potential the restore some to the country’s economy. They might inform the non-Bosnian public that  Bosnia and Herzegovina had the sewage system installed decades before Western Europe, that the first Tram in the world was put in function precisely in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a place that gave several Nobel price winners to the world, hosted the magnificent 14th Winter Olympic games, a place with the still-standing material and cultural remains of the Ottoman and the Austria-Hungarian empires respectively, favored  by many visitors and the one  among the “Top 10 Cities to visit in 2010” according to Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2010, one of the world leaders in the Tourism industry, etc. etc.  They might as well mention that Bosnia and Herzegovina was renown before the war for its visitor-friendly tradition, a unique sense humor renown throughout  the entire former Yugoslavia, and certainly a rich and famous cuisine, most of which its people reinstated immediately after the war very successfully.  

Perhaps it is of utmost importance to say here that there has been not one single politics-based incident involving a visitor reported since the end of war in 1995. Equally important is the fact that there has been no case reported of a person who lost a close family member revenging/taking vengeance to any person belonging to the “other side”.

So, it’s about time that some representative of international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and all other officially claimed friends of Bosnia and Herzegovina for that matter use their power and influence and pass the message to the world that “the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina” stopped 14 years ago, and at least the tourism in this country, does not have to wait until it joins the EU, for that would be a waste of time. In other words, if they want to do real good to Bosnia and Herzegovina, some of those representative  of international community that just criticize instead of taking real actions, might  at least help if they stopped disseminating some of the unjustified negative connotations by portraying the real situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

What is close to being a description of the real situation is that in spite of many of its internal political problems, which so far never affected one single tourist/visitor to this country, Bosnia and Herzegovina is now, 15 years after the end of war for the most part visitor safe and visitor friendly again, and it has so much to show and offer to its global fellow-citizens, at least in the field of Tourism. So why not use what we can?

So, why not fix what can be fixed without having to wait for local politicians to do something for their own country and their own people, or wait until the country joins the EU? Why not at least prevent the corrupt politicians to impede the improvements that can be achieved even at this stage? After all, Bosnia and Herzegovina by no means should be confused with its politicians, for Bosnia and Herzegovina, as old as it is, certainly has a much better record then it’s post-war (Dayton-time)  politicians, and it will certainly outlive them, and continue to offer its natural and cultural richness to visitors from all over the world in years and decades to come. Unlike its politicians, Bosnia and Herzegovina deserves a truly helping hand, for its people obviously still need it.