2008 Press Releases

STATEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR ON THE RS PRESIDENT RAJKO KUZMANOVIC’S RSNA SPECIAL SESSION REQUEST

October 10, 2008

My government’s assessment is that Bosnia and Herzegovina is moving disturbingly in the wrong direction.  This assessment is not new.  Over the past year we have been publicly and privately urging local leaders to seriously address the reforms that are necessary to move this country along the path to NATO and EU membership.  They have failed to do so.

What we have witnessed instead is a sharp and dangerous rise in nationalist rhetoric designed to play on people’s fears, to focus them on the past, and to stir up anger and resentment.  We have seen state-level institutions, which are required for the country to make further progress towards NATO and the EU, attacked and undermined.  This includes open and deliberate attacks upon state-level institutions, such as the BiH Court, the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, SIPA, Institute for Missing Persons, BHRT, and the CRA.  Additionally, we have witnessed disturbing attempts to roll back the successful reforms of the last thirteen years, the very reforms that led the EU and NATO to open their doors to Bosnia.

Republika Srpska President Rajko Kuzmanovic’s recent request for a special session of the Republika Srpska National Assembly (RSNA) is accompanied by a lengthy discussion of the political problems that he believes plague Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Among other things, he expresses serious concern “about the radicalization of political and inter-ethnic relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina” and is strongly critical of the speeches delivered by President Silajdzic to the UN General Assembly and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

It is true that President Silajdzic’s recent speeches have further deepened Bosnia’s ethnic divisions, and they are irresponsible and detrimental to the country’s progress.  But President Silajdzic’s views are not shared by all Bosniaks, as President Kuzmanovic implies.  And what President Kuzmanovic fails to explain is that there is more than one person to blame for the current situation.  RS Prime Minister Dodik’s rhetoric has equally poisoned the atmosphere that plagues BiH politics today.  In fact, as the people of this country know far too well, all of the major political parties have focused on narrow ethnic agendas rather than the reforms required for Euro-Atlantic integration.

President Kuzmanovic has asked the RSNA to endorse or adopt several propositions when it meets on Monday.  Some of these are reasonable and consistent with views my government has expressed repeatedly.  We also reject the concept of collective guilt, but the country’s leadership, including the current Republika Srpska leadership, has the responsibility to honestly acknowledge the past and to take steps to address its awful legacy.  We also believe that none of the three constituent peoples has the right to impose constitutional changes.  Any changes must be developed by consensus among Bosnia’s three constituent peoples and adopted in accordance with the Dayton Constitution.

President Kuzmanovic calls on the RSNA to stress that “the RS accepts the European path,” which is welcome, but then he argues that the “RSNA should consider every request coming from BiH authorities or the international community to drastically decrease the authorities of the RS…as an act jeopardizing the sovereignty and constitutional position of the RS.”  The second assertion negates the first.  State-building reforms were not designed to punish Republika Srpska or the Serbs, as Kuzmanovic suggests.  Euro-Atlantic integration requires reforms, including reforms that strengthen and build the state.  It is not anti-Serb or anti-RS for the international community to call for reforms as part of the Euro-Atlantic integration process.

Finally, President Kuzmanovic asks that the RSNA express “its full readiness to use all legal and political means, including the right to a referendum of the citizens of the RS, to defend [the RS’s] legitimate interests and preserve the identity confirmed in the Dayton Accords.”  I suspect that President Kuzmanovic is being deliberately vague when he refers to a referendum, but let me be crystal clear.  Bosnia and Herzegovina is a sovereign state; the RS is not.  BiH’s territorial integrity is settled.  These are facts of international law and Bosnia’s constitution.  Bosnia was recognized as an independent, sovereign state by the United States in 1992.  In the same year, it was admitted to the United Nations as a sovereign state.  Its territorial integrity was again affirmed and guaranteed by the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995.  My government will not tolerate any challenges, whether they be internal or external, to Bosnia’s sovereignty or territorial integrity.