BiH’s Perfect Storm

Few months ago a good friend and esteemed colleague asked for my opinion about the current crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After a long rant about spreading political deadlocks, omnipresent corruption and fraud, disintegrating economy and collapsing health, education, pension and social systems I concluded that BiH is facing the deepest and most difficult crisis since the end of the war. Yet my colleague wasn’t buying it and reminded me of numerous other crises which BiH has been through over past two decades.

As a citizen, journalist and eventually political analyst  I have observed them all closely and still remember them all too well; February 1997 when a man was killed and over 20 injured in the attack of Bosnian Croat extremists on a group of Bosniaks visiting cemetery in Liska park in Mostar; a year later BiH again seemed on the verge of new violence as different fractions fought for power in Republika Srspka; in spring 2001 SFOR soldiers supported by tanks and armored vehicles took to the streets of Herzegovina to prevent establishment of a separate Croat entity; after several quieter years ethnic tensions run high again in 2006 after Milorad Dodik and Haris Silajdžic helped each other coming to power with their radical pre-election campaigns; Bosnia and Herzegovina appeared on the verge of breakup and possible new violence again in 2011 when Dodik threatened to call referendum on secession of Republika Srpska.    

Independently, each of these crises overshadowed any of numerous bigger or smaller ones which BiH has been through in the past few years, adding merit to the initial question: What makes the current crisis so deep, so dangerous and so different?

In the coming weeks and months I intend to use the opportunity of UNDP’s new public forum “New Pesrpective” to address this question and explore answers as well as possible solutions to some of the problems. But for the purpose of initiating the process, let me give you a short version of a possible answer;

While each of the abovementioned past crisis may have carried bigger potential threat for the country than most of the current problems, they were separate and independent occurrences happening at the time when administrative institutions were functioning on other levels, allowing BiH to limp along and overcome those “bumps in the road.” But even more importantly, at that time the international community still had strength, capacity, willingness and authority to control and mitigate crisis situation, while citizens of BiH – regardless of their ethnic, national, religious or political affiliation – were still fresh from the war, hopeful and determined to create better environment for themselves and their families in future.

Most of these elements which were helping BiH to survive past crises are sadly gone by now; the international community has significantly disengaged from BiH expecting it to move forward on its own volition. Western officials – US and EU alike – have lost most of the authority they once had over the local leaders, while local society became disenfranchised, divided, embittered, rigid and lethargic, unwilling or unable to find a path to a better future.

As a result of this new reality, over the past few years I saw emergence of BiH’s “Perfect Strom” – a combination of parallel, sometimes connected and sometimes completely unrelated crises which start feeding into each other, creating a whole new, much deeper and much more dangerous crisis then all those before.

In addition to the current situation, it is the trend that is equally worrisome. Unlike Kosovo – another Balkan trouble-spot which often gets compared with BiH - BiH seems to be locked into a downward spiral with no local or international actors willing to arrest the free fall and steer the ship towards calmer waters.

Can this be done and if yes how? Well I hope that this virtual debate will produce some ideas that would indicate BiH’s way out of this dire straits. By this I do not mean some new option for fixing Sejdic-.Finci or some other constitutional reform, It is because I believe that no constitutional reform alone will reform BiH. Instead we need a deeper change in the behavior of BiH peoples – politicians and ordinary citizens alike as well as all other segments of local society. We must come to peace with the fact  that we cannot change anyone but ourselves. We have to differentiate between causes and consequences of the current crisis and then accept those consequences as results of our own previous choices. Eventually, if we want better lives, we need to actively engage ourselves in creating that better life, and stop expecting others – international officials or local leaders – to do it for us. All this requires a deep and long-lasting process which certainly cannot (and should not) happen overnight. But in order to truly undertake such process we should start asking right questions and offering constructive and holistic answers, which I am sure we are still able to do.


Author: Srećko Latal