To those working within the context of EU accession, Bosnia & Herzegovina is associated with the current stalemate over police and constitutional reform. But there are an infinite number of other facets to this complex and fascinating country, which is what 15 stagiaires from DG Enlargement set out to discover on a study trip to Sarajevo. After much preparation and organisation (including organizing the New Year party, selling tombola tickets and mixing drinks to raise money) its was finally time to harvest the fruits of our labour and travel to Sarajevo to experience the country first hand. What we found upon our arrival was that the bleak picture painted by the media fell well short in its characterisation of the country. Bosnia & Herzegovina is more than its current political situation. It is also burek for breakfast (a delightfully stodgy spiral pastry, stuffed with meat, cheese or potatoes), it is Ottoman-style coffee that's as thick and black as oil, it is liberal rules on smoking everywhere, it is a church next to a mosque next to a cathedral next to a synagogue, it is young people chatting in tiny cafés, and it is beautiful mountains and friendly and open people, despite the palpable recentness of the trauma.
European Integration
“The only thing we can agree on is that our future lies within Europe”. This statement echoes the feelings of many people we met during our trip. Despite this, there is little consensus among the political class on how to achieve this common goal, for there is an unwillingness to acknowledge that this goal is indeed common one. As the European perspective of Bosnia & Herzegovina was the main focus of our study trip, we visited the main actors in this area. The European Commission Delegation and the Directorate of European Integration provided us with interesting insights on the general picture, as well as on the issues surrounding conditionality. According to Ambassador Kourkulas, conditionality has been applied more strictly since the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the EU, and it still remains an important instrument in the process of stabilizing the countries of the Western Balkans. The Ambassador’s view was backed by Ms. Hodzick from DEI, who confirmed that the European perspective is one of the main driving forces behind the reform process of the country. However, she also highlighted the danger of focusing on one area only. She was weary of the current trend of focusing only on police reform, for in reality the reform process in many other areas has also come to a halt and these issues also need to be addressed.
The EU Police Mission’s General Coppola gave an interesting presentation on the civilian aspects of crisis management and the police mission specifically. He suggested that if a less stringent stance were taken regarding police reform, the political situation might be able to move forward. In the current situation, all political leaders have positioned themselves on this issue with only serves to highlight political cleavages. General Coppola argued that had the police reform not been a condition for the signing of the SAA it may in fact have been easier to implement it.
International presence vs. local ownership
The presence of the High Representative seems to be felt in two ways in Bosnia & Herzegovina. On the one hand it is felt as type of subordination: that Bosnia & Herzegovina is a sort of international protectorate and that Bosnians don't have true sovereignty over their own country. One representative from the student organisation ACIPS said that the OHR was “ruling the country like a king”. On the other hand others suggested that the OHR is seen as a neutral arbitrator and this impartiality is the only means of looking beyond ethnic division at this stage in the state's development. It was even suggested that a possible solution would be for the international community to impose a new constitution for the country, since all attempts to agree on the issue of reform so far have led to an impasse. This approach is unlikely to be the solution, as Frane Maroevic from the OHR emphasized. Reforms will have to come from within the state and be fostered by the leaders of the country themselves. It remains to be seen when the moment will finally come for the country to take up full ownership of its political and economic future.
State structure
The state structure and constitution of Bosnia & Herzegovina were defined by the Dayton Peace Agreement, which finally ended the war in 1995. It divided the country along ethnic lines and defined the people of Bosnia & Herzegovina as Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs. As such, there is no constitutional basis for the concept of individual citizenship, and one is forced to define oneself in ethnic terms or suffer the exclusion associated with labelling oneself as "other". In order to run for any elections or take part in public life it is necessary to position oneself along the ethnic spectrum. The contradictions of such a constitution were grounds for discussion in every meeting we had during our stay in Sarajevo. Everybody told us that the cleavages in the country can’t be overcome as long as they are cemented by the constitution. The country cannot even begin to address issues of human rights when basic concepts of equality are undermined by the very foundations of the state.
A meeting with representatives of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) of the University of Sarajevo and human rights defenders from the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (HCHR) in Bosnia & Herzegovina gave us insight in what such state structure mean in terms of human rights. Since the citizens of the country are defined collectively, there is no room for individual rights within the public sphere. One of the areas HCHR is working on is the right to education. Children are segregated between Bosniac, Croat and Serb schools, and this only serves to reinforce the feeling of difference amongst the communities and put in place prejudices that would not naturally be present among children. HCHR runs summer school schemes where pupils from different nationalities have the opportunity to spend time with each other in an informal context. The HRC, on the other hand, is an academic institution active in the broad field of human rights research and education, with the largest library in the region on the topic. In the discussion with Saša Madacki about different research projects they have undertaken in the area of human rights in Bosnia & Herzegovina, the same point kept coming back that when rights are defined collectively it is almost impossible to begin to address the problems of individual rights, such as women's rights, children rights, or sexual minority rights.
We left the library of the HRC feeling optimistic that there are nevertheless strong and dedicated human rights defenders working on these issues, and despite the constant setbacks and frustration, the culture of activism in Bosnia & Herzegovina is indeed alive and growing. We felt that it was important for us not only to meet with representatives from the international and governmental structures, but to gain insight from members of civil society, since this was one of the main areas of focus in DG Enlargement’s 2007 Progress Reports for the region.
The Members of Parliament we subsequently met gave us an honest and critical view of the work of the state parliament. They characterised the state level of governance in Bosnia & Herzegovina as intrinsically weak and described the everyday struggle of trying to push further reforms in their country. This sense of ineffectiveness was reinforced by the overall impression of the premises and running of the parliament, which 13 years after the end of the war is still lacking in effective administration and infrastructure. The only question the MPs could not answer to our satisfaction was why their party remains ethnically homogeneous, while according to the official party line, it is multi-ethnically oriented, and represents all citizens of Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Dealing with the past
After learning about the challenges Bosnia & Herzegovina faces in this time of political transition, we then turned to the question of how a country is to deal with the legacy of its violent past. Our first meeting on Friday took place in the library of the Research and Documentation Centre (RDC) with its director Mirsad Tokaca. In the warm atmosphere of the centre, Mirsad Tokaca gave us an honest and dedicated overview of the work of the centre which recently concluded a project on the human losses in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1991 and 1995. The project was aimed at countering the myths surrounding the events of the war, through researching and documenting facts on the number, circumstances and background of the victims of the war. The methodology for this research was centred on oral accounts and eye-witness accounts of events, and the centre has compiled an exhaustive database with a file on each and every individual accounted for. It was clear to us how important the work the RDC is with regard to transitional justice and reconciliation. By regularly cooperating with the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the War Crimes Chamber in Sarajevo, as well establishing a regional approach to truth-seeking and truth-telling with counterparts in Croatia and Serbia, the centre provides an additional approach for overcoming the traumatic past of the country.
The role of the War Crimes Chamber in Bosnia & Herzegovina is to address this very legacy in legal and justice terms, as well as contributing to the establishment of the rule of law in the country. Established in 2003, the War Crimes Chamber deals with violations of humanitarian law committed during the war. Representatives from the Chamber gave us a comprehensive presentation of the legal process, giving us examples of current cases being tried, as well as presenting us with some of the achievements and challenges it faces. With the support of international lawyers and judges the court prosecutes cases transferred from ICTY and will eventually take over all remaining cases when the ICTY is phased out in 2010.
Conclusion
Throughout our visit what we took home with us from the broad range of people we spoke to, was a realistic and pragmatic approach in the face of all the challenges ahead, which sometimes painted a somewhat bleak picture. But despite this, and although it is faint at times, there is still an optimism and a real sense of determination, to overcome these obstacles. This hope is rooted in the belief that accession to the EU is perhaps the only common project that has enough momentum to lift the country from its internal disagreements and place it within a wider international context. EU accession and conditionality in particular, provide a driving force for the reform process and a motivation for the political class to see past their own national agendas. The future of Bosnia & Herzegovina does not depend solely on the politicians and parliamentarians at the top, but also on the continued efforts of civil society groups and NGOs who work tirelessly to promote transformation at the local and grass roots level. Indeed a bottom-up approach is vital for Bosnians to take full ownership of their future, and to act as a strong influence for the leadership to truly represent the interests of all Bosnian citizens, regardless of ethnicity, religion or nationality. For civil society to evolve as a true actor in the political process there is a need for greater external people-to-people contacts among students and youth groups, and for this to take place, progress in visa facilitation will have to be made. From speaking to people of our age there is a real sense of wanting to experience the outside world but feeling trapped within their borders. Perhaps this is best summed up by a placard we saw on one of the bridges of the Miljacka river that crosses Sarajevo, which simply said "a river is freer than me: it crosses borders with no trouble".
