Bosnia-Herzegovina Defence and Security Report Q1 2011

Report Summary

Bosnia’s October 3 elections to national, entity and cantonal parliaments, to the three-member national presidency (one Bosniak, one Serb, one Croat) and the presidency of the RS gave a patchwork of results. Separatist Milorad Dodik and his SNSD party hung on to power in the RS and at national representative level, Croat parties supporting the creation of a third, Croat, entity, did well, while nationalist incumbent Haris Silajdzic lost the Bosniak place on the national presidency to the more moderate, but still Bosniaksupported and nationalist-leaning Alija Izetbegtovic. The results in Croat and Serb areas were in favour of parties supporting splitting the country further and moving it further away from the Western ideal of a united – if devolved – and pluralistic country, in which more powers would be vested at national level.

As of late 2010, it is hard to second-guess how Bosnia’s future will take shape over the coming years. The country is in a state of hiatus (even greater than the one that it is already in, some would say) while its economy stagnates and concerns of rising ethnic tensions are unalloyed. Analysts are divided over what they think the future holds. The most common view is that the country will remain divided into two entities and struggle slowly towards EU membership, which should bring some form of normalisation However, a new war can be regarded as an unlikely scenario at present, particularly after the elections showed a waning in support for hardline nationalism among Bosniaks. Reports of a rise in Isalmic extremism and even moderate political Islam in Bosnia, meanwhile, are greatly exaggerated, according to an October report by Balkan Insight, though other articles have suggested that foreign money may be helping indoctrinate young Bosniaks, and the authorities had a highly-publicised clampdown on a village supposedly infiltrated by Wahhabists in early 2010.

Furthermore, in the immediate aftermath of the elections, there were few signs of the protests promised by the RS opposition against Dodik and the SNSD’s allegedly authoritarian and corrupt rule. Party officials have gone on the record as saying that the regime could be changed ‘by the streets’, and some even suggest that armed conflict is possible between SNSD supporters and those of the opposition. For the time being, however, while popular dissatisfaction against Dodik has risen and is increasingly vocal, it is peaceful.

If two more likely and immediate threats to internal security can be identified, they are small-scale outbreaks of ethnic violence and reprisals thereafter; and the rise of violence linked to organised crime. An October 2010 report in Business New Europe reported Drew Sullivan, a Sarajevo-based journalist, as saying that Bosnia runs the serious risk of becoming a European Mexico if lawlessness spreads. The country is already believed to be a major conduit for smuggling heroin, people and cigarettes, with organised crime figures said to be linked to some politicians. With weak central rule and the security services easy to buy off, or complicit, this may indeed be as serious a risk for Bosnia, and Europe, as frozen conflict."