Nearly a year after Vice President Joe Biden flew here to reassure Bosnians that the U.S. was back and would try to help overhaul their dysfunctional made-in-U.S.A. political system, ethnic tensions are rising again, morale has fallen and people are wondering: Whatever happened to Biden? For Bosnians, whose country was largely destroyed by the ethnic warfare in the 1990s that marked the breakup of Yugoslavia, with Christian Orthodox Serbs killing as many as 100,000 Muslim and Croat civilians, it's been a year of disappointment as the U.S. has become more disengaged and distant."I was encouraged by his coming here. Biden was always a man of principle," an exasperated Haris Silajdzic, the Muslim chairman of the collective presidency that presides over this fractious, stagnating multi-ethnic state, told McClatchy. "I do not know what his responsibilities are now."
Biden himself doesn't know what his responsibilities are, for heaven's sake.
| Mr. Biden is the vice president of the United States of America. He therefore has no responsibilities, although he may choose to take on such tasks as the president of the United States may ask him to do. President Obama is smart enough not to ask him to do very much. |
Having high expectations of Obama and Biden may be part of the problem.
Biden didn't respond to requests from McClatchy for comment. Aides said he was busy overseeing U.S. policy in Iraq and other issues
oh brother!
and wasn't following Balkan affairs closely.
| For which all involved should be profoundly grateful. Except the Iraqis, who are doubtless quite envious. |
The biggest worry in Sarajevo, the historic melting-pot capital in a country renowned for
Bosnian political leaders warn of bloodshed if Dodik carries out his threat. "It is not possible to divide this country in a peaceful way," Tihic said. "Any real attempt like that will definitely lead us towards a new conflict." He also said that the Muslim-Croat entity that Dayton created is "much stronger" than Dodik's forces in the Republika Srpska are. Stipe Mesic, a former president of Croatia, warned recently that Croatia would intervene if Dodik carries out his threats.
A top State Department official on a recent visit here described the situation as "deteriorating but not a crisis." He offered no plan to prevent the breakup of the Bosnian state, but said that if Srpska seceded, it would be "an independent statelet without a friend," similar to Abkhazia, a state that broke away from the former Soviet republic of Georgia after Russia's 2008 military intervention. The official spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Russia is the principal supporter of Abkhaz independence, and the Kremlin also backs Dodik, who's visited Moscow several times.
Last October, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and European Union envoy Carl Bildt attempted to launch a diplomatic initiative at Sarajevo's Butmir airport. Its contents were tailored to Dodik's demands, but he rejected them outright and scurried off to Belgrade, the Serbian capital, for talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
In fact, Dodik later derided the U.S.-European plan as a "total failure, unnecessary adventure," and even many of his critics have dismissed the Butmir talks as an ill-prepared fiasco. Steinberg has visited Sarajevo four times but come up empty-handed, and with presidential and parliamentary elections looming here in October, no one expects progress anytime soon.
As a result of the rejection by Dodik, Silajdzic and other Bosnian politicians, the U.S. and Europe withdrew a series of inducements. Tihic said the two parties had promised an invitation to join NATO, a lifting of visa restrictions for travel to EU countries and candidate status for membership in the EU if all parties agreed to the U.S.-European plan. Meanwhile, Serbia was moving faster, gaining a lifting of visa restrictions and an invitation to take the first steps to join the EU -- a boon to Bosnian Serbs, many of whom have Serbian passports, and a punishment to Bosnian Muslims, who have no country other than Bosnia.
There was a respite in the gloom Thursday, when NATO foreign ministers who were meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, agreed, with conditions, to invite Bosnia to prepare for membership. The invitation, however, didn't address how a frail state whose constitution promotes ethnic rights over citizens' rights can gain the full sovereignty and stability needed to join the European Union, especially when Srpska can veto actions that would be necessary to fulfill NATO's conditions.