In a Twist, Serbs Serve as Model

The inauguration Saturday of a relatively moderate and apparently cooperative government here in the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia opens a new chapter in the West’s efforts to bring peace and stability to this war-wrecked region.

Yet even as progress-minded Bosnian Serbs are beginning to gain power under the guidance of international mediators, another complex task awaits the West: nurturing a similar alternative to the hard-line nationalism of Muslim and Croatian politicians who rule their enclaves virtually unchallenged.

Reform and democratic change on Bosnia’s Serb side--resisted tooth and nail until now--will inevitably put pressure on the Muslim and Croatian sides to follow suit.

It is a twist of unmistakable irony that Republika Srpska, for a long time an undemocratic, isolationist, veritable police state, should become the first of Bosnia’s entities to seat an opposition leader at the head of its government.

In a remarkable turn of events, the intransigent political party of war-crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic was jettisoned last month from the Bosnian Serb government for the first time since Bosnian Serbs declared their independence six years ago. In its place, a Cabinet led by moderate politician and businessman Milorad Dodik was sworn in Saturday.

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Dodik’s ascension to prime minister is being hailed by Western diplomats as a watershed in securing cooperation from the Bosnian Serbs, who have steadfastly resisted reforms outlined in U.S.-brokered peace accords that ended the war in Bosnia.

Dodik has already promised to allow refugee returns and to take politics out of the police force and the nationalistic Orthodox Church. These were unimaginable pledges from a Bosnian Serb leader just a few months ago--a “tectonic shift,” in the words of one diplomat.

If the Serbs do indeed start to cooperate, and their hard-line elements are successfully marginalized, Western envoys will undoubtedly have to redirect their energies toward Muslim and Croatian leaders in an effort to bring about a similar political opening.

“If this democratization process really continues, and if Dodik only delivers even a few of the promises he’s made, then very quickly the political emphasis will have to shift to the [Muslim-Croat] Federation,” said Hanns Schumacher, one of the principal Western officials in charge of executing the 1995 peace accords. “I don’t think they [Muslims and Croats] have grasped yet this dramatic change.”

A change, other analysts note, that threatens them.

When it careened into war in 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina was ruled by three nationalist, ethnic-based political parties: the Muslims’ Party of Democratic Action, or SDA; Karadzic’s Serbian Democratic Party, or SDS; and the Croats’ rightist Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ.

Only Karadzic’s party has begun to lose its fast grip on power despite U.S.-sponsored efforts to build alternative politics throughout the country.

Washington and some European capitals have generally regarded the Muslim and Croatian factions as closer allies than the Serbs and, in the opinion of some observers, have demanded less of those factions. Yet Muslim and Croat nationalists are as deeply entrenched in the societies they control as the Serbs have been, with their influence extending throughout all branches of the economy, the police and dominant media.

New pressure will come to bear, particularly on the Muslims, in the form of money. Authorities in Muslim-dominated Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital, will find themselves increasingly in competition with the emerging Bosnian Serb leaders for a share of economic aid.

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Until recent months, the Serbs received only a small portion of foreign aid because of their refusal to honor the peace accords. After Dodik’s appointment, the European Union immediately handed over $6.7 million to pay the new government’s bills for a month, and the head of the principal U.S. development agency said last week that he will consider an additional $5 million a month.

“For five years, the [Muslims] were the victims and the good guys,” said a European aid official based in Sarajevo. “They haven’t realized that things have changed. There are other ‘good guys.’ ”

Sarajevo also faces new pressure to repatriate refugees.

Despite a stated support for ethnic diversity, Sarajevo authorities have prevented many Bosnian Serb refugees from returning home, either through intimidation or shoddy laws. Many Serbs find their homes have been occupied by Muslim refugees, whom the government refuses to evict. Other homes have been taken by senior SDA officials.

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At a conference in Sarajevo on Tuesday, Clinton administration and other international officials will attempt to secure a pledge from President Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim representative to Bosnia’s three-member presidency, to make it easier for non-Muslims to regain their property.

None of the three nationalist parties that ruled Bosnia has allowed much in the way of opposition politics. The Muslims’ SDA, for example, retains a largely Communist-style political and economic structure in Bosnia, much as it had before the war.

And Dodik’s tiny opposition party held only two seats in the Bosnian Serbs’ 83-member parliament. His victory was the culmination of a power struggle triggered when Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic, with direct help from Washington, rebelled against the Karadzic clique.

Ultimately, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, patron of the Bosnian Serbs, threw his weight behind Dodik and his Cabinet, which includes many legislators from the Bosnian version of Milosevic’s own Socialist Party.

Dodik’s first important act Saturday night after he was sworn in was to push through the transfer of the Serbs’ seat of government from Karadzic’s headquarters of Pale to Banja Luka, the Serbs’ largest city and Plavsic’s center.

The hard-liners, who attended Saturday’s parliamentary session, stormed out during the oath-taking by Dodik and his Cabinet. And so did Muslim and Croatian legislators, who represent refugees.

The hard-liners objected to “atheists” taking an oath from a priest; the Muslims and Croats objected to the priest being there.

SDS legislator Aleksa Buha, former foreign minister in Karadzic’s regime, said he grudgingly accepted his role as an opposition force.

“Now we will work to topple this new government as quickly as possible,” he said. “Politically, of course. Normally.”