Western Mediators See a Glimmer of Light in the Bosnia Tunnel

Like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that forever stumped its players, some of the most contentious elements in Bosnian peacemaking are starting to fall in place.

The seating of a new, apparently cooperative Bosnian Serb government and a move by international mediators to impose decisions when no one agrees have given new impetus to a 2-year-old peace process stalled frequently by separatist bickering.

On Wednesday, Western mediators unveiled a common currency that they have ordered Muslims, Serbs and Croats to accept; shared license plates and a flag are also on the horizon. These trappings are meant to unify the country but were vehemently resisted by a Bosnian Serb leadership dominated by supporters of war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

Western officials believe Karadzic and fellow hard-liners have been dealt a significant setback with the selection Sunday of a moderate prime minister for the Bosnian Serb half of this country. The new government under Prime Minister Milorad Dodik excludes Karadzic’s party for the first time.

Even as Karadzic supporters vowed Wednesday to set up a parallel regime, delighted U.S. officials asserted the success of their policy of promoting moderates in Bosnia-Herzegovina while forcing hard-liners to the margin.

Washington and its European allies have invested millions of dollars in the past six months to back Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic in her power struggle with Karadzic, the former president.

There is a downside, however: Several of the key Cabinet members in the Dodik government have shady wartime records that raise questions about their commitment to reconciliation and reform.

The new justice minister, Petko Cancar, for example, was the wartime mayor of Foca, a southern city violently emptied of its Muslims in 1992. Cancar has been accused by Muslim victims of helping to organize concentration camps. Justice is a critical portfolio because of the need to overhaul Bosnia’s heavily politicized judicial system.

Of more immediate concern to mediators, the new government is extremely fragile. It was elected only after the largest political party in the Bosnian Serb parliament, Karadzic’s Serbian Democratic Party, or SDS, and its ally, the Serbian Radical Party, stormed out of the session. That left a razor-thin majority made up of Plavsic’s party; the Socialist Party, made up of former Communists; and a coalition of Muslims and Croats representing expelled minorities.

Western officials are intensifying their efforts to shore up the shaky foundations of the government. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization dispatched extra patrols early in the week to prevent violence, and senior international officials took up residence in Plavsic’s headquarters city of Banja Luka.

“The entire focus now is on that one issue: keeping this government afloat,” said one Western official in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. “Just one angry Muslim, just one [disgruntled] Socialist, and it falls apart.”

The hard-liners contend that the Dodik government was elected illegally in a virtual coup. They refused to recognize its decisions, told their officials at the municipal level to do the same and said they would hold their own parliament session Saturday to compete with one planned by the faction loyal to Plavsic and Dodik.

Carlos Westendorp, the senior international peace broker in Bosnia, responded Wednesday by sending letters to SDS and Radical Party leaders threatening to dismiss any politicians who obstruct the new government. “We have to show we’re not afraid to take them on,” said Jacques Klein, a U.S. diplomat and Westendorp’s deputy. But Klein added that international officials must tread carefully so Dodik and his colleagues do not appear overly dependent on the West.

Western officials also are scrambling to collect foreign money so that the new government can pay its police, pensioners and civil servants.

These and other envoys said they were encouraged by new signs of cooperation from Bosnian Serb officials, including a willingness of some to accept uniform license plates that will be issued in the next few weeks. Until now, license plates were used to designate which ethnic enclave a motorist belonged to and often subjected the motorist to harassment.

A new currency was imposed by Westendorp because the Muslim, Serb and Croat members of Bosnia’s three-person presidency refused to agree on a design. Momcilo Krajisnik, the Bosnian Serb representative and a Karadzic ally, was seen as the main holdout.

The bills, printed in France, have pictures of Muslim, Serb and Croat writers, with Cyrillic letters on those to be used in the Bosnian Serb half of the country and both Cyrillic and Latin letters on those used in the other half.

Diplomats remain cautious about whether the new government will fulfill other crucial commitments, such as letting refugees return home and arresting war crimes suspects. Dodik undoubtedly stunned the hard-liners when he pledged to move the Bosnian Serb capital from Karadzic’s wartime redoubt, Pale, to Banja Luka.

“This man has a good record, and he’s saying the right things,” Robert Gelbard, the Clinton administration’s special envoy for the Balkans, said in a telephone interview from Washington. “We obviously will be watching [the Cabinet members’] behavior very closely.”

Gelbard also warned the Pale faction against attempts to split the Republika Srpska, or Bosnian Serb Republic.

Mediators also are waiting to see how the Bosnian Serb police force, divided by loyalties to Karadzic or Plavsic, will respond to the new government. One department, in the hard-line city of Doboj, appeared to be joining the Plavsic-Dodik camp after the commander there announced that he was stepping down, Western officials said. This would mark an advance of Plavsic forces eastward from Banja Luka.