Amazing Grace(lessness) in Bosnia

The long-expected day has come. Lo and behold; US Vice President Joe Biden and his US Air-Force 2 just arrived at Sarajevo's airport

I already feel exited and giddy. I can almost hear the sounds of the American national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner, and my favorite, Amazing Grace, played by some American brass band in my head. I feel like jumping to my feet right now. Yes, I admit that I am one of those Americanised Bosnians, who, like the rest of the world, mourned throughout the two mandates of George Bush.

But now, after almost five years of American political and military absence from the Balkans, Americans are coming back. Biden’s visit is expected to be the final proof that the new US administration is turning its binoculars back towards the troubled region, realising that its job is far from over.

I feel great being back in America's focus. Awareness that the world’s biggest power is once again seriously concentrating on my needs and problems, makes me feel warmer. I feel at least a bit more secure and last night I slept like a baby. (The fact that I worked until 3:00 a.m. probably helped as well)
Being European myself, I liked West Europeans. And I still like them, but they resemble Balkan people too much. They are divided and don’t know what to do with themselves, let alone with me, but pretend with more or less effect that they do.

And so, for the past five years, Bosnia’s belligerent politicians and EU’s clueless leaders have done everything in their (considerable) joint powers to tear this country apart and prove to Americans that there can be no long-lasting stability in the Balkans without their determined leadership and strong muscles.

I was eager to watch various American think-tanks and Congressional Committees, which for the past month raced to organise a conference or a hearing about the “Balkan problem,” with the single purpose of updating American institutional memory and understanding of complex Balkan issues.

I knew that this was to help American decision-makers in navigating their new-old courses through turbulent and rough Bosnian, Serbian and Kosovo waters.   

Results are already becoming obvious. A number of US and other western diplomats and documents (including the Resolution 171 adopted last week by the US Congress) have already come up with a list of issues, goals and targets which Bosnian and other Balkan leaders are to tackle momentarily.

But this is where I started to feel uncomfortable and cold sweat began to pour down my temples. The new American “to-do list” was almost exactly the same as the one with which the previous American President, George Bush, prepared for the region.

“You have to undertake a thorough constitutional reform!” read one item on the list.

“You have to extend the mandate of foreign judges and prosecutors, although they so far failed to secure a single high-level conviction!” said another.

“You have to end this God-damn separatism and get back to the brotherhood and unity, or whatever else your previous system was called, as long as it worked,” a renowned American human activist chipped in (in not so many words).

“Unlike in Bosnia, the key in both Kosovo and Serbia is to promote internal democratic processes and cooperation with international actors,” another distinguished American expert said in his article.

By now I was already feeling seriously queasy. Haven’t you already tried with constitutional reform and instead of democratisation of society it only added extra fuel and ammunition to local leaders’ radical pre-election rhetoric? Then what is the point trying it again, when you, me and everybody else knows that the constitution cannot be altered in such a tense environment. Instead of better constitutions, these attempts could easily increase tensions further and bring the country closer to its final fallout.

Haven’t you already tried with foreign judges and prosecutors, but all high-level trials so far ended up with rebuttals, mistrials and suspects walking off free? I understand that there still may a purpose for them in the Bosnian judicial system, if nothing else then to protect local judges from political pressures. Yet even if that is the case, wouldn’t it be better to apply normal, globally-accepted procedures for their hiring instead of previous non-transparent appointments of somebody’s school buddies and tennis partners?

I thought that by now the whole world has understood that instead of short-term fixes, Bosnian and other Balkan problems can be resolved only by supporting long-term inner-healing and democratisation processes. No matter how lame “democratisation” may sound to you and me, that’s what the Balkans needs.

The track-record of the international – be it American or EU – engagement in the Balkans shows success in bombing campaigns, ending wars, forcing warring parties to pull back and providing for basic security (so far). Yet just like in Bosnia after 2005 and in Kosovo now, both Americans and Europeans have been showing amazing gracelessness in helping the region to achieve changes.

American resolve and might so far proved to be indispensible on this path. Yet the long-expected, long-lasting results will come only if America, together with the EU, instead of old, wrong targets identifies new and proper directions and then applies all its still considerable muscle in achieving them.