In his inaugural , Trump offered many promises to satisfy constituencies expecting their slice of the American pie. It’s no wonder his proclaimed “to-do” list includes contradictory proposals.

It was reassuring to hear that Trump’s administration would affirm freedom of speech in the US. This is both good and necessary, since people have long been persecuted for “heretical” or “politically incorrect” statements, whatever that may imply. For years, those with “radical” views — such as questioning official policies or protesting genocides — have been oppressed, fired or accused of “harassment,” “intimidation,” “creating unsafe environments” (the is only a drop in the ocean) or worse.

However, how will freedom of speech be reintroduced when, in the same speech, Trump announced disciplining educational institutions for teaching children “to hate our country”? He promised this “will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.” He pledged to “completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals.” If he were honest, he would clarify that working-class people have constantly been betrayed by the elite and the super-wealthy corporate sector aligned with political power.

For another example, Trump said: “We have a public health system that does not deliver in times of disaster, yet more money is spent on it than any country.” This is a gross understatement. The US “health system” is an international scandal — by far the most dysfunctional in the world when comparing treatment costs, total spending and outcomes. In America, if you are poor, any system (of “justice,” “health” or “education”) fails you and becomes a problem, not a solution.

Does Trump’s speech offer any assurance that this will change? Does the presence of leading corporate representatives next to the new/old president suggest a reversal of these trends? Quite the opposite. It signals that nothing significant will change, and these injustices may even worsen.

Let’s not mince words: America is not a democracy; it has never been one. It is a Liberal establishment, dominated by one big-business party with two factions — “Republicans” and “Democrats.” Though they differ on immigration or the number of genders, both agree on the essentials: the business sector should keep running the show, in the US and, if possible, worldwide. They also agree that no real democracy should ever be allowed, as it would strip the wealthiest and most privileged of their fortunes and perks. Both endorse American suprematism and are proud of American nationalism, which they call “patriotism.” Both are capitalist fundamentalists, though one side dresses it in “Liberal” form (burning “witches” for any heresy that diverges from the established [Neo]Liberal party line), while the other side cloaks it in religious language (calling itself “Christian,” though it is farther from any meaningful Christianity than traditional atheism or even old-fashioned Satanism).

Take Forbes’s of the world’s richest people. In a sane, humane, or democratic society, this would be impossible; there would be no billionaires or even millionaires. Democratic means would align wealth and success with one’s contribution to society, not its destruction. Privately owned wealth should never be excessive, as it harms society. The richest should not have more than ten times the wealth of the poorest, with a goal of lowering that gap further. Today, they hold hundreds or even thousands of times more than the average. A society’s success is measured by the quality of life of its poorest and most vulnerable.

What we live through is a serious pathology. Corporate, political and much of the intellectual elite work to perpetuate this pathological system. Most people help sustain it, allowing themselves to be victims of massive propaganda and an “entertainment industry” that treats them as consumers or commodities — or both. Trump is not a solution, just as Biden, Barack Obama, or Bill Clinton never were. It’s not only “Liberals” or “Right-Wingers” making your life miserable; it’s the capitalist system. Capitalism kills. Let’s kill it before it kills everything and everyone else.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Similarly to the situation that emerged in 2021 when then High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Valentin Inzko imposed amendments to the criminal code, the present crisis is due to the decisions of the current High Representative in this Balkan country.

Why we should care what happens in Bosnia

There are at least two reasons why we should pay attention to this crisis. First, it can potentially escalate, with unpredictable consequences for the region and the continent.

Second, it confirms that the proclaimed commitment of many Western governments to democracy, human rights and the rule of law is nothing but propaganda. This propaganda campaign hides the adherence to non-democratic procedures whenever these better serve imperial interests and political-economic goals.

On July 1, 2023, High Representative Christian Schmidt issued a series of legally binding decisions. Schmidt amendments to the criminal code and declared that everyone who does not “apply, implement, enforce or otherwise comply with a decision of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or who prevents or otherwise obstructs its application, implementation or enforcement, shall be punished by imprisonment for a term between six months and five years.”

In addition, Schmidt issued aimed at nullifying the previously approved laws by the parliament of Republika Srpska, one of the constitutive entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The parliament had determined not to implement the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the territory of Republika Srpska until the federal parliament approves new legislation regarding the constitutional court. This would prevent foreigners from illegitimately serving as constitutional court justices in the country—which has been the practice since the end of the war in 1995.

The perception of the parliament majority and the leadership of Republika Srpska is that the constitutional court lacks legitimacy. They believe that this court has been making unconstitutional decisions that merely reflect the interests of Western political elites, disregarding the vital interests of the Bosnian constitutive entity.

A corrupt system without supervision

The Western press is rightfully reporting on authoritarian leadership in countries like Russia. However, there is a lack of coverage on Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the High Representative, who holds no democratic legitimacy, can overrule decisions made by the parliament, whose members are democratically elected. This power structure is the sad reality of the Western-backed neocolonial rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The complicated institutional arrangement of today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina is primarily the result of theDayton Peace , which ended the war in the former Yugoslav Republic. Annex 10 of this agreement calls for the establishment of the office of the high representative. As designated by Annex 10, the high representative coordinates organizations involved in the civilian aspects of a peace settlement, monitoring and resolving difficulties. The high representative also participates in donor meetings for rehabilitation and reconstruction.

However, the procedure for appointing the high representative was never clearly defined and lacked transparency from the beginning. The Peace Implementation held in London in December 1995 only  “approved the designation of Mr. Carl Bildt as High Representative,” inviting “the United Nations Security Council to agree to Mr. Bildt’s designation as High Representative.” 

The Conference established the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), where the US-led coalition was the decisive voice that would appoint future high representatives and influence peace implementations. Originally, the steering board of the PIC was supposed to give political guidance on peace implementation to the high representative. There was an initial attempt to provide newly appointed high representatives a semblance of legitimacy by submitting the decision to the UN Security Council for approval. However, even this procedure has gone by the wayside.

Significant problems started with the “Bonn Powers,” referring to the process of PIC more authority to the high representative. In December 1997, at the PIC in Bonn, the High Representative was authorized to make binding decisions on implementing the peace agreement, including measures against officials who “are absent from meetings without good cause” or who are “found by the High Representative to be in violation of legal commitments made under the Peace Agreement or the terms for its implementation.”

This vague formula allows for virtually unlimited powers over institutions and procedures in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The high representative became the supreme legislator and the judge, responsible only to his imperial masters and financiers. The rest of the institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina are supposed to serve as obedient executors and do whatever the neocolonial governor tells them.

Based on these extraordinary powers, High Representatives started to overrule the decisions of elected representatives. They also began to annul and change state legislation and decisions made by local authorities, remove democratically elected officials and change state legislation as they found fit.

Success or failure is a matter of perspective

The power of unelected governors, without any democratic legitimacy, undermines the authority of the law approved by legitimate, elected state authorities. Western democracies, of course, do not see a problem, and the mainstream Western media do not report on such abominations within a political system of a European country. Authoritarianism is fine, as long as the autocrats are “our” guys.

Some call Bosnia and Herzegovina an epic failure of the West and the US-led coalition to build a sustainable and democratic country after the bloody of the 1990s. Others see it as a successful case of preventing democratic development, reasoning that the policies and post-war design of Bosnia and Herzegovina were intended to prevent the country from being a functioning state and a meaningful democracy. 

The territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina remains unstable and is a stage for implementing neo-liberal policies in agreement with corrupt local elites. When there is a crisis initiated or enhanced by imperial policies, the Western empire will act as if they are rescuing people from their tribal leaders who lack sophisticated democratic culture. The lesson that the native population in every colony is supposed to learn is that only (neo)colonial masters can set you free.

[ edited this piece.]

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Is Dissolution a Solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina?

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The same conclusions also require the government to propose adequate legislation within six months, which would enable normal functioning in view of the transfer of authority and competencies, formerly given to the federal level, back to the Republic of Srpska. The opposition parties criticized this move as a risky one, which can potentially bring more harm than good.

Postwar Design

This news provoked outrage in the centers of Western political power as well as in many mainstream Western media. The European Union and the governments of the US, UK, Germany and France have condemned these conclusions, calling for the respect of the Bosnian state institutions and the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in the former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and established the state in its postwar design.

This may seem a somewhat paradoxical situation given that the Western governments that criticize the leadership of the Republic of Srpska affirm the Dayton Accords, while the leadership in Banja Luka and especially Milorad Dodik — the Serb member of the collective presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by far the strongest political figure in the Republic of Srpska — likewise express their unreserved support Dayton. Dodik has repeatedly claimed that the only way for Bosnia and Herzegovina to continue to exist as a state is the return to the Dayton Agreement and stick to all its articles.

The problem, however, is not simply a formal one. It is deeply political. The current crisis was triggered by the former high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Valentin Inzko, who outlawed the denial of the Srebrenica massacre as well as any questioning of the qualification of this crime as genocide.

This was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were, leading the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs immediately to declare that if this legislation — perceived as anti-Serb — is not annulled, they would take steps toward protecting Bosnian Serbs and their entity from illegitimate and oppressive measures coming from the Office of the High Representative. The high representative is best described as the foreign governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina — acting, in reality, as an exponent of the most influential Western governments — with enormous powers and no democratic legitimacy. 

The Dayton Agreement may have put an end to the war back in 1995, but it created a state which, in one sense, was stillborn. The Bosnian–Herzegovinian Serbs obtained the Republic of Srpska, with which they have primarily identified ever since. Bosnian–Herzegovinian Croats, as the third major ethnic/national community in Bosnia and Herzegovina — although much smaller than the Muslim/Bosniak and Serb ethnic/national groups — ended up without their own entity within the newly established Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Instead, they were included into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the other constitutive part of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in addition to the Republic of Srpska. This is what is still provoking dissatisfaction among many Bosnian Croats and the reason why many, if not the majority of them, perceive Croatia, not Bosnia and Herzegovina, as their “home” country.

Small Yugoslavia

This means that only among Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks one can find an overwhelming commitment to Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this political dynamic lies the reason why many Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak politicians advocate for a unitary state — and the eventual dissolution of the Republic of Srpska by taking away its key competencies — and for the abandoning of any ethnic/national principles in the election of political representatives under the pretext that this is in accordance with liberal-democratic principles.

However, this is precisely what is perceived as a threat among many Bosnian Serbs and Croats, since the Muslim/Bosniak ethnic group is the largest one, which means that in practice it would be able to impose its will unto the other two major ethnicities and the institutions that were initially designed to prevent such discrimination.

This means that the “small Yugoslavia,” as Bosnia and Herzegovina used to be called because of its diverse religious and ethnic landscape reminiscent of Yugoslavia as a whole, is facing similar problems that former (big) Yugoslavia failed to resolve. The position of Muslims/Bosniaks (and their leadership) in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be seen in parallel to the position of Serbs in Yugoslavia.

As the Serbs were the biggest ethnic group present in significant numbers in most Yugoslav republics, the overwhelming majority of Serbs were in support of Yugoslavia as a state. This, however, was perceived by many other ethnic communities as potential oppressiveness. The Serbs thus ended up being the only ones trying to save Yugoslavia from dissolution.

Similarly, Muslims/Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, being the biggest ethnic/national community, perceive Bosnia and Herzegovina as their country and are trying to centralize and preserve it at all costs, even though this is perceived as oppression by the members of other ethnicities. For many Bosnian Serbs, the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also a question of principle. They often posit the question that if former Yugoslavia could collapse and new states be established from its constitutive parts, why can’t the same happen in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Here we come to another major piece of the complicated Bosnian puzzle: the international factor. It was the Western governments — and primarily the US — under whose auspices postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina was created, with its highly inefficient structures and with the Office of the High Representative who, over time, obtained pharaonic powers. Naturally, the governments of the countries that have sponsored this arrangement are unwilling to admit that the whole experiment was a tremendous failure and that their interventions have actively prevented the development of democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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In addition, Bosnia and Herzegovina, just as the Balkans as a whole, is also the terrain for bigger games and powerplay between the US-led alliance (which, in reality, is much less coherent than it is claimed), Russia and Turkey. Western politicians and the media are trying to explain the situation to the Western audience by blaming the local politicians, especially the Bosnian Serb leadership, as pro-Russian. What they are selling to their citizens is the story that everything will be fine as soon as the old politicians go and new ones, loyal to the West, take over.

However, blaming everything on corrupt and irresponsible political elites will not resolve the structural problems that are, to a large extent, created by generous Western support. Yes, political elites — and not only in the Balkans — tend to be corrupt, irresponsible and ready to exploit people’s misery and nationalistic sentiments to their own advantage. This is, however, only one dimension to the complex story that tends to be grossly oversimplified in the mainstream Western media. The real problems are deeper, and the policies of influential Western governments are still only adding fuel to the fire.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Complicated Puzzle appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The article also states that “whoever gives a recognition, award, memorial, any kind of memento, or any privilege or similar” to a person sentenced for genocide, crimes against humanity or a war crime will be punished by imprisonment for a term “not less than three years.” Decisions made by the high representative have the power of state laws.

In Republika Srpska, one of the constitutive parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this move is perceived as a direct attack on the leadership in Banja Luka. The reason is the disputed qualification of the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where, according to some estimates, more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men were killed by the Bosnian Serb forces. In a number of rulings, the ICTY qualified the massacre as a genocide. While Republika Srpska does not deny the existence of the crime, it contests the genocide designation.  

25 Years On, The Dayton Peace Agreement Is a Ticking Time Bomb

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Many scholars have questioned the validity of such a in view of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the way this term has been used in legal practice prior to the ICTY ruling. The 2020 by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Suffering of All People in the Srebrenica Region Between 1992 and 1995, produced by a group of 10 international scholars from countries like Israel, US, Nigeria, Germany and Japan, among others, was the latest to raise concerns around the use of this terminology.

In response to the decision of the high representative, Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, called for a meeting of the parliament of Republika Srpska in order to come up with a legal response to Inzko’s decision, which would render this, as well as any future decisions by the high representative, ineffective in its territory. Dodik also threatened, not for the first time, to proclaim the independence of Republika Srpska if the pressures and attacks from the office of the high representative, together with those coming from the federation, continue.

An Impossible Situation

Bosnia and Herzegovina, once a constitutive part of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, was as an independent state by the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, known as the Dayton Peace Agreement, concluded in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, 1995, and signed in Paris on December 14 that year.

The Dayton Accords put an end to the armed conflict that followed the disintegration of Yugoslavia, in which about 100,000 people lost their lives. It created a complicated and highly inefficient state consisting of two entities, each with its own government: Republika Srpska, with Serbs as the ethnic and majority, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Muslims/Bosniaks — since the 1990s, many (former) Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina identify ethnically as Bosniaks — as the majority and Bosnian Croats as a constitutive ethnic group, yet in reality an ethnic minority.

Later on, the federation was further split into 10 cantons, each with its own government. In addition to the two parliaments, there is a parliamentary assembly at the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which consists of the House of Peoples and the House of Representatives. In theory, the country’s highest executive body is the collective presidency that consists of three members from each of the major ethnic groups and decides by consensus, which, in practice, means that its work is often blocked. However, the real sovereign in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not its people, the parliament or the presidency, but the high representative.

Annex 10 of the Dayton Accords instituted the Office of the High Representative. Initially envisioned as an international chair with the mandate to oversee the implementation of the agreement, the office was radically transformed in 1997 with the so-called Bonn Authority, when the Peace Implementation Council gave the Office of the High Representative almost limitless powers in Bosnia and Herzegovina without any democratic legitimacy. Using the power granted to them by the Bonn agreement, many representatives have behaved as colonial governors, vetoing and overruling decisions made by local authorities at all levels of government, removing democratically elected officials, and arbitrarily changing state legislation.

Bosnia and Herzegovina found itself in an impossible situation. Its highly dysfunctional political system is often criticized in the West for the lack of democracy, transparency and accountability, and yet the Western powers fully support the Office of the High Representative that, itself undemocratic, only prevents the development of democratic institutions in the country.

Conflicting Visions

In addition to this already complicated institutional setup, it is clear that visions for the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina sharply differ between its two constitutive entities. In Bosnia and Herzegovina — especially among the Muslim/Bosniak majority — there is strong support for a unitary state, the prerequisite of which would be the disintegration of the two entities mandated by the Dayton Accords.

On the other hand, the leaders of Republika Srpska, enjoying strong popular support, see its existence, with all of the competencies initially bestowed upon it, as the prerequisite for the existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as established in Dayton. Every attempt to diminish Republika Srpska can only lead to the disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina. If done violently, it can lead to a new war.

In this highly charged atmosphere, the question of how to describe the Srebrenica massacre is extremely important. Republika Srpska has often been called a “creature of genocide” by many local Bosniak politicians and journalists. In Banja Luka, this is perceived as a way of delegitimizing Republika Srpska. For this reason, there is a fear that popularizing the term “genocide” as a way of describing the massacre — and now outlawing any questioning of this qualification — may be used as a political instrument against Republika Srpska with the intent to create a unified Bosnian state in which the Serbs would be marginalized and oppressed.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, no doubt, represents an epic failure of Western policies toward the region. It is a dysfunctional state, in which local nationalist elites on all sides don’t need a political program to be reelected; the mere existence of nationalist elites in one entity has been sufficient to keep them in the position of power in the other. A significant number of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s citizens do not perceive this state as their country. With two fundamentally conflicting visions for the future, the only way to keep a pretense of a functioning state is through the existence of the undemocratically appointed foreign governor.

In such a situation, one cannot but wonder why Western powers consistently obstruct any discussion of alternative options for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Is it because opening that question would expose decades of their ineffective and highly destructive policies toward both the country and the region? Or is this instability in the interest of both those Western centers of political and economic power as well as local political elites?

Given the deadlock and the level of tension generated and perpetuated by the mainstream media, it seems that a peaceful dissolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina along the lines of its constitutive entities would be a much better long-term solution. It may even be the only viable solution that could prevent further suffering of the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its rapid depopulation, which has been unfolding as a result of economic depression and the lack of faith that the situation will improve in the foreseeable future. A peaceful dissolution could lead to more stability in the region and to better functioning of democratic institutions without (neo)colonial governors. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Is Dissolution a Solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina? appeared first on 51�Թ�.