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,
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