BOSNIAN POLICE REFORM: A TROUBLED PROCESS COMES

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 SARAJEVO 002999 SIPDIS NOFORN SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/23/2016 TAGS: BK KCRM KJUS PGOV PREL EUN SUBJECT: BOSNIAN POLICE REFORM: A TROUBLED PROCESS COMES DOWN TO THE WIRE, AGREEMENT NOT LIKELY SOON Classified By: Ambassador Douglas McElhaney. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: The Office of the High Representative (OHR) has proposed a third initiative, in as many months, to salvage the stalled police reform process by facilitating political talks in Banja Luka and on the margins of the December PIC in Brussels. The new OHR strategy seeks to simultaneously remove emphasis on the deadlocked Police Reform Directorate and to overcome the objections of RS Prime Minister and SNSD President Milorad Dodik. Ratification and implementation of police reform are a requirement for signing an Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) and it therefore appears that, even if a political agreement is reached by December, Bosnia will not meet SAA criteria until mid-2007 at the earliest. The Embassy has actively supported OHR efforts and urged political leaders at the highest levels to enact police reform compromise and not hold Bosnia's SAA accession hostage to parochial interests. Throughout the process our Bosnian interlocutors involved in police reform complain regularly that EU mixed messages on SAA conditionality and shifting OHR approaches have hindered the conclusion of a police reform package, and have made it more difficult for us to follow a constantly changing EU lead. End Summary Latest Plan for Political Talks -------------- ¶2. (C) On November 21 OHR floated a compromise police reform proposal to several political parties in the hopes of facilitating political talks on police reform. As part of its new strategy to overcome Serb opposition, OHR has attempted to reconcile a final police settlement with Republika Srpska (RS) PM Milorad Dodik,s objections while maintaining conformity with the three EC principles. OHR has presented this police reform Terms Document to Dodik and to Croat leaders Bozo Ljubic (HDZ-BiH) and Martin Raguz (HDZ-1990). Dodik has reportedly agreed to host talks among all parties in Banja Luka on November 30 and OHR hopes talks will be resumed in Brussels on the margins of the December PIC. However, the European Commission has indicated it will not sponsor negotiations that will go nowhere. ¶3. (C) Serb reaction to the Terms Document is not yet clear. Dodik has not yet acknowledged receiving the Terms Document, �A;but both Dodik and PDP President Mladen Ivanic have agreed to participate in any Brussels meeting. Croat parties have also agreed in principle to discuss the Terms Document in political talks but have voiced continued objections to any agreement which preserves a single RS police zone. On the Bosniak side, SDA President Tihic has been unwilling to engage on the issue, mindful of the public consequences of being perceived as cutting a deal with Dodik. Haris Silajdzic seems similarly reluctant to address the issue in the near term. When the Ambassador raised the issue with both Tihic and Silajdzic, reactions were nonchalant, suggesting that neither was fully engaged on the issue. Silajdzic as much as said that he knew nothing about it. During a recent meeting Haris Silajdzic told EC Ambassador Dimitris Kourkoulas that police reform was not on the platform of the SBiH-SNSD coalitions agreement and asked Kourkoulas about the SAA implications of stalled police reform and whether the SAA could be "initialed" with a commitment to return to the issue in the future. Kourkoulas replied such an arrangement was out of the question. The SAA and the Police Reform Directorate -------------- ¶4. (C) The latest push for political negotiations based on the Terms Document takes the police reform spotlight away from the Police Reform Directorate (PRD). In response to an EU precondition that police reform negotiations take place before SAA talks could begin, the entities directed the Council of Ministers to establish the PRD in December 2005 (05 Sarajevo 2956). Consisting of 9 representatives from state, entity, and cantonal level police bodies and one from the European Union Police Mission (EUPM),the Council of Ministers gave the PRD the mandate to prepare and approve a comprehensive report containing technical recommendations unified State-level police structure by September 30, 2006. In accordance with the agreement with the EU, the resulting police reform package was required to meet three EU Principles on Policing: --1. Legislative and budgetary powers over police matters be vested at the state level; --2. Police must be technically efficient; and --3. There could be no political interference in the operational work of the police. The RS National Assembly initially rejected police reform SARAJEVO 00002999 002 OF 004 but acquiesced to the "principles" agreement on October 5, 2005 following intense U.S. and OHR pressure (05 Sarajevo 2374). Troubled History of the PRD -------------- ¶5. (C) The PRD began its work at the end of January 2006 but already faced difficulties by mid-February due to obstructionist tactics of then RS Minister of the Interior Matijasevic and RS Chief of Police Dragomir Andan (Sarajevo 339). All Serb representatives on the board resigned following a February PRD decision (carried 8-1) to take the 2004 Martens Police Reform Commission Final Report as the basis for the PRD,s work. (Sarajevo 471) (NOTE: The Martins Commission Report had called for a single unified structure of police with entity interior ministries merged into a state level ministry and for regional police zones crossing the Inter-Entity Boundary Line). RS participation resumed briefly after Dodik became RS Prime Minister. However, in May after a PRD vote in favor of eliminating entity and canton roles in policing (Sarajevo 1148),Dodik incorrectly claimed that PRD decisions required consensus and in protest directed the RS PRD representative to downgrade his participation to observer status (Sarajevo 1235). ¶6. (C) The PRD has since deadlocked over institutional jurisdictions and the competencies of various state-level police bodies including the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA),the State Border Service (SBS),and the state police. The PRD has not completed its final recommendation on the configuration of State-level police structures nor has it begun discussing the crucial issue of local police districts. After the PRD failed to meet its September 30 deadline, OHR and EUPM subsequently twice extended the deadline first until November 20 and again until December 20. Privately, several members of the PRD have expressed doubts that the PRD will be able to produce any meaningful results beyond a rudimentary police basic structure. OHR Tactical Shifts -------------- ¶7. (C) During the course of PRD deliberations, OHR strategy for achieving a political endorsement of PRD recommendations has undergone several iterations. For most of 2006 stated OHR policy was to condition the opening of political talks on police reform on the successful completion of a PRD report (Sarajevo 1980). By mid-September, faced with PRD deadlock, High Representative Christian Schwarz-Schilling changed course and called for police reform talks immediately following October 1 national elections (Sarajevo 2140). On September 21 OHR proposed gathering Bosnian party leaders for pre-election political talks in Brussels with the participation of Secretary General of the Council of the European Union Javier Solana to demonstrate EU resolve on SAA conditionality (Sarajevo 2236). On October 24 OHR acknowledged these plans had failed but again proposed Solana-hosted talks in Brussels. However, this meeting never took place, reportedly due to Solana's unwillingness to engage in fruitless talks with an intransigent Dodik. ¶8. (C) OHR and EUPM have repeatedly suggested their willingness to make concessions in order bring Dodik to the table. OHR met unsuccessfully on several occasions with Dodik in October and early November in an attempt to force him to define a final bargaining position. Concessions included preserving the RS Ministry of Interior in an advisory capacity to the Ministry of Security, reducing the minimum number of cross-IEBL zones, first to one, and subsequently then to zero, as well as considering a limited RS role in the implementation of police budgets. OHR has publicly confirmed these changes in an effort to bring Dodik to the table. During a November 13 meeting between OHR, Dodik and RS Minister of Interior Cadjo, a conciliatory Dodik said he agreed, in principle, to the transfer of legislative competencies for policing to the state level. However, in subsequent meetings Cadjo actively undercut the PM's commitments and insisted that under a reformed police structure, the RS Police must retain its current operational setup. OHR remains unclear whether this indicates a split in RS leadership over police reform or was part of a Dodik "good cop, bad cop" strategy. EU on SAA Conditionality -------------- SARAJEVO 00002999 003 OF 004 ¶9. (C) Bosnian interlocutors in the law enforcement community have complained to us that a changing EU stance on SAA conditionality has hampered the police reform process and that OHR policy shifts suggest that international community is caving in even before political talks. In July even Dodik asserted that EC Brussels and EC delegation were sending mixed signals police reform complaining that EU Enlargement Director for Western Balkans Reinhard Priebe told him that three EU principles allowed for broad interpretation, while EC Sarajevo had been much less flexible. (Sarajevo 1747) On November 13, new Western Balkans Department Enlargement Director Dirk Lang announced publicly that the EC would only make general recommendations and would refrain from specific interpretations of the 3 EU principles. In response SIPA Assistant Director Sead Lisak told the Embassy that differing messages from Brussels, EC Sarajevo and OHR on SAA conditionality have encouraged certain parties to increase demands on police reform. During a recent visit Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt offered no objections to a proposed RS referendum on police reform, despite pleas from OHR toe the line from Brussels. (NOTE: Working-level contacts at OHR privately lament the divergent positions of EU member states and collective unwillingness to maintain policy unity on police reform. END NOTE) ¶10. (S/NF) EU views on SAA conditionality have also shifted considerably over this past year. Former EC Ambassador Michael Humphreys told us in May that Bosnia would not face an SEE delay because the EC was concerned about SAA prospects for Serbia and Montenegro and hoped to avoid political crises in two countries at that time (Sarajevo 1148). However, according to OHR contacts, Olli Rehn,s office recently made clear to OHR that legislative ratification and implementation of police reform are a non-negotiable precondition for an SAA agreement. Given the current slow pace of the coalition building process, ratification will be impossible until mid 2007 at the earliest. Dodik Political Calculation's -------------- 11 (C) Milorad Dodik has publicly expressed his willingness to block an SAA if RS demands are not met. He has also tacitly backed calls in the RS National Assembly to hold a referendum on police reform. Dodik also recently threatened to withdraw RS support from the October 2005 agreement establishing the PRD. RS public opinion is overwhelmingly negative on police reform and, as a result, Dodik enjoys overwhelming constituent support on this issue. RS public opinion polls show that more than 80 percent of respondents believe that the RS Police and RS Ministry of Interior should be preserved with only 15 percent believing a unified state-level police is better than the status quo. Despite his November 13 statements to OHR suggesting he is considering concessions on legislative competencies, Dodik continues to prevaricate on the equally important issue of the police budget and does not show any signs of abandoning his previous, unworkable, proposals. OHR has pointed out that the fundamental question of whether Dodik is prepared to strike a deal with the international community remains unanswered. OHR leadership have told us that they believe Dodik continues to play for time and is attempting to maneuver into a position where he can blame OHR for rejecting his proposal and the international community for SAA failure. Dodik's calculus is supported by widespread public disinterest in EU accession due to the protracted negotiation process. US Tries to Lend a Strong Hand -------------- ¶12. (C) The Embassy is has played an active role in the police reform process since helping to broker the October, 2005 agreement. Members of the political section have observed almost every session of the PRD and related police reform working groups the Rule of Law Project Management Working Group and the EU Police Reform Steering Board. The Ambassador has regularly urged political leaders at the highest levels, including Tihic, Dodik, and Silajdzic to make progress on police reform in order to avoid complicating the SAA process. Most recently the Ambassador issued a prominent message on the urgency of completing police reform to Bosnia's political leaders assembled for the November 21 events commemorating the eleventh anniversary of Dayton. Too, we have urged the OHR to take a harder line with Dodik, and to engage him directly in negotiation as previous High Representative Ashdown did back in October. Unfortunately, the current leadership in the EU believes that Bosnians SARAJEVO 00002999 004 OF 004 "should do this themselves" without too much pressure from the international community. Comment -------------- ¶13. (C) Despite significant concessions from OHR, it is still not clear if Dodik has any intention, or incentive, to compromise on police reform. Dodik will face few, if any, domestic political consequences within the RS for blocking an SAA. In his willingness to host talks in Banja Luka and participate in a Brussels meeting, Dodik is likely seeking to shift the blame for the failure of police reform to the Bosniaks and Croats. Little has changed since our assessment of last year (05 Sarajevo 2956) that the PRD is politically isolated and its recommendations, if ever completed, will be either irrelevant or nearly identical to the failed Vlasic plan. Throughout the process, political pressure on OHR from Brussels, and an unwillingness to engage in early political talks, has resulted in an increasingly formalistic police reform policy that now bears little resemblance to the principles agreed to in October, 2005. The outcome of the planned November 30 political talks will show whether a post-PIC meeting will be viable or possible. Since October, 2005 the Embassy has actively supported the shifting OHR and EU messages on police reform. Although EU dithering makes it hard for us to play a decisive role, we are committed to continue to press for police reform in line with the three principles at every opportunity. END COMMENT MCELHANEY