The issue of national identity is taken seriously by Balkan people – including the least serious among them.
Eliot Ness Runs Amok in Bosnia
Sarajevo | 05 May 2009 | By Srecko Latal
Srecko Latal
There is a secret plan being prepared in Bosnia and Herzegovina reportedly. According to this plan, the Office of the State Prosecutor is preparing the arrest of the three top national leaders, the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) Bakir Izetbegovic, Bosnian Serb Milorad Dodik and Bosnian Croat Dragan Covic.
The Croatian daily Vecernji List reported about this plan over the weekend, while Covic confirmed at a press conference on Monday that he had received unofficial information about it.
According to media, the plan is aimed at removing Dodik, whose radical views and repeated threats to separate the Serb-dominated Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska have contributed to Bosnia’s worst post-war political crisis.
Another target for removal of Bakir Izetbegovic, currently vice president and one of the strongest candidates for the future presidency of the strongest Bosniak Party, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA.
According to media, international officials fear Izetbegovic’s take-over of the SDA would further radicalize an already tense political situation, and they are eager to prevent this by any means possible.
In this reported plan, Dragan Covic seems to be collateral damage. His arrest is needed to balance out Bosnia’s ethnic “key” system, by which all three main national groups have to be equally represented either in good or bad. After all, Covic has been tried for possible misuse of office for years, so he seems as a natural choice for such a plot.
The media have implied that the main force behind this so “secret” plan is the US. According to another version of this story, the plot is being launched by the media itself as a sort of a kite, or balloon, in order to test public reaction (or the lack of one), and gauge whether it would be safe to undertake similar actions in future or not.
If true, this entire charade would prove that Bosnia’s very own Eliot Ness, the legendary, incorruptible crime-fighter, has definitively lost his mind and now runs amok in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Eliot Ness was the leader of a legendary team of American law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables, who were charged with enforcing prohibition and bringing down top American gangsters in 1930s.
In Bosnia’s case, Eliot Ness is the State Investigation and Protection Agency and the Office of the State Prosecutor, which are strongly influenced – if not run – by international experts who have so far failed to secure one single conviction in any higher-level case.
If the media reports of a plot are true, this equal-handed triple arrest would be outrageous for several reasons.
Firstly, such arrests could easily fuel tensions to the point where they lead to the final dissolution of the country.
Secondly, this process would not stand up in court and the three arrested men would sooner or later be released, reinforcing their positions on the political scene.
Thirdly, it would definitively annihilate any possibility of undertaking any serious criminal probes into the three men in the future. It would also destroy any authority that Bosnia’s state judiciary institutions still hold.
To make the situation even more absurd, the reported arrest of the three ethnic leaders is being discussed irrelevant of their eventual true crimes. This is despite the fact that all three – like many other Bosnian politicians – either have been or are being tried, investigated or at least suspected of some offence or the other.
Therefore such move would also send a completely wrong message to Bosnian society; namely that the law can be twisted, turned, disregarded, used or misused by the strong.
Dodik himself is a man who has been increasingly displaying such attitudes.
He has recently drew public criticism during a Republika Srpska parliament debate, when he showed complete ignorance of the fact that crediting his closest family members from the funds of the Republika Srpska Development Bank represented a conflict of interest if not a more serious criminal offence.
Therefore, any arrest of local leaders because of political and not judicial reasons would only prove that Dodik and those other Bosnian politicians who ignore judicial and other due processes are right to do so. And that they are safe, as long as they play ball and stay on the right side of the international community.
Eventually, this planned arrest would also violate some of the core principles according to which the real Eliot Ness and his team reportedly lived and worked by.
Instead of engineering political plots or testing public opinion and patience with dangerous games, they stuck to the letter of law and worked hard to obtain evidence. Their approach eventually brought down even the mighty Al Capone, and taught Americans a lesson about what the law is and how to respect it. Or is that only the Hollywood version of history?
2009-05-06 05:26:41