Bosnia is facing its biggest crisis since the war ended with the Dayton Peace Agreement and the state is dysfunctional, corrupt, destroyed, looted and impoverished, journalist and political analyst Milovan Jovanovic told N1 on Sunday.
Many relevant data show that young and old are leaving the country on a daily basis, following dreams of a better life for themselves and their children, he said.
According to Jovanovic, Bosnia’s future depends on the American interest as one cannot expect very much from the European Union.
“Altogether, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats are, as miserable, cheated and disappointed as they are, leaving for countries in the European Union, Canada, North America, Scandinavian countries and Australia. Nobody is leaving for Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Iran, Russia, China, India, Pakistan or Uganda,” he said.
According to the analyst, Bosnia and Herzegovina could be a more functional and successful country and the role of the High Representative, the official who monitors the civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, is key for that.
Jovanovic said that it is important that the international administrator starts using the Bonn powers which allow him to annul or impose laws and fire officials who violate the peace agreement.
“Without that, things will more or less keep going as they are going now,” he said, stressing that while people like the current leaders of the three main nationalist parties, Bosnian Serb Milorad Dodik, Bosnian Croat Dragan Covic and Bosniak Bakir Izetbegovic are in power or close to it, “citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina have nothing good to hope for.”
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Citizens need to be aware of their actions and their consequences, he said about the election of the leaders.
“Dodik, Izetbegovic and Covic are winning the elections, people vote for them, support them. Why, how, and how much and in which way, that’s a different issue and requires a lot of time. All in all, citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina have to be aware of their decisions, choices and their consequences,” he said.
He noted that the Kosovo issue is linked to the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“An agreement between Belgrade and Pristina would relax and revitalize the entire region. An agreement between the Serbs and the Albanians would be positive for developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.
“An agreement and reconciliation with the Albanians is the most difficult and most complicated task of the political career of (Serbian) President Aleksandar Vucic,” Jovanovic explained.
“Unfortunately, he is completely alone in his mission to solve the Kosovo problem and reach a historic agreement with the Kosovo Albanians but also with the Bosniaks and Croats. That evident today,” Jovanovic said, adding that “a part of the government, part of the opposition, part of the Church, part of the Academy, part of the University are in a mean way promoting the thesis that Vucic is selling something, betraying something, giving something up.”
What the international community is doing in Bosnia is unknown, he said, emphasising that the US has its own interests and that Bosnia’s future depends on them.
“If the US finds an interest for the entire situation in Bosnia to change and if Bosnia is organised according to rule of law, secure, economically developed and functional, they will make it happen,” he said.
“On the other hand, nothing should be expected from the European Union as the EU is for years already facing numerous unsolvable problems. The crisis of European unity, the divisions between old and new members, the decision-making process through consensus, the migrant crisis, terrorism, corruption, populism, Brexit, the lack of a united foreign and security policy – those are only some of those problems,” he stressed.
The EU has, according to Jovanovic, become “completely powerless” against the Russian diversions in central and eastern Europe and it has become “paralysed with corruption and with China breaking into the joint European market and undermining fair trade.”
Bosnia and Herzegovina is meanwhile divided between the interests of Russia and Turkey, he said.
“The disinterest of Washington and the weakness of the EU have increased the influence of Moscow and Ankara in the Balkans and have shown the vulnerability of NATO and the EU,” he said, adding that the future of the Balkans depends on the big powers.
“We are now waiting for the US, UK and Russia to divide the interest zones and put together a new map of the world. Until then, I’m afraid, we have nothing good to hope for,” he said.
“The world order which was created after WWII does not exist anymore. It crumbled with the fall of the Berlin wall and the destruction of Yugoslavia,” Jovanovic concluded.
