BOSNIA: CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: STRATEGY FOR THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SARAJEVO 000994

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR D (SMITH),P (BAME),EUR (DICARLO),EUR/SCE
(ENGLISH, SAINZ, FOOKS),NSC FOR BRAUN, USNIC FOR WEBER,
GREGORIAN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/05/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL BK
SUBJECT: BOSNIA: CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: STRATEGY FOR THE
COMING PERIOD

REF: A. A) SARAJEVO 937 B) SARAJEVO 954

B. C) SARAJEVO 966

Classified By: AMBASSADOR DOUGLAS L. MCELHANEY. REASONS: 1.4 (B) (D)


1. (C) With the heat abating somewhat from last week's
failure by the BiH parliament to pass constitutional
amendments, we are looking ahead to next steps. Bosnia's
political parties are now in full electoral battle mode;
yesterday the BiH Electoral Commission announced national
elections will be held on October 1. (Note: This puts to rest
rumored plans by the BHEC to delay the elections a further
four weeks for technical reasons.) Five months of frenzied
campaigning now loom -- and there will be scores to be
settled over the setback dealt by the motley anti-reform
coalition in the BiH Parliament to Bosnia's first effort at
amending the Dayton constitution.


2. (C) The math we faced in the House of Representatives on
April 27 -- 26 for, 16 against -- is unlikely to change in
this heated electoral season, precisely because the "no"
voters had a tight commonality of interest in using the
constitutional amendment package as a vehicle to raise their
individually insignificant profiles. The Party for BiH
(SBiH) and the right-wing breakaway element of HDZ, now known
as the "HDZ 1990," reportedly used bribes, as well as the
power of the Croat Catholic hierarchy, in a scorched-earth
effort to defeat the amendments and buy themselves enormous
press coverage. They will continue to dine out on this
"victory," and in so doing, will also continue to inundate
the public with wartime-era rhetoric. The message is
unrelentingly negative and, unfortunately, does find some
resonance with the frustrated, politically alienated
electorate of Bosnia -- thus our concern in reftels not to
inadvertently provide the anti-reform forces a platform by
continuing to push forward the constitutional package at this
sensitive moment.

Maintaining Momentum Among the Pro-Reform Parties in the
Election Period


3. (C) We will be looking in this next period to
substantially dilute the rejectionists' negative rhetoric via
active public diplomacy, both through our own messages and in
tandem with our European and international partners, who were
as keenly disappointed as we (albeit less involved) at last
week's setback. Our theme will be straightforward: Bosnia
faces a clear choice, one road that leads towards Europe and
NATO and one that leads nowhere. The parties that rejected
constitutional change are headed down the wrong path; more to
the point, they offer no convincing alternative.


4. (C) Just as important, we will also look to re-energize
the party leaders who had staked themselves on the issue of
constitutional reform for most of the past year. The
personal and party relationships they developed through the
process of negotiation and compromise on constititional
reform are, in many ways, unnatural -- or at least not
entirely a comfortable fit, given the past 15 years of this
country's history. However, both for the stability of BiH as
well as for the more immediate prospect of re-introducing the
constitutional amendments package into Parliament, it will be
critical to use our good offices to keep these
newly-developed relations in good repair. The strains of
this particular electoral season, and the harsh rhetoric that
SBiH and HDZ 1990 have used to attack their Bosniak and Croat
opposite numbers during the reform debate, have the potential
to boomerang nastily by encouraging even the pro-reform
parties to hew to the right, as they seek to prove to their
voters that they have been "tough enough" on Bosnian Serbs --
the logical whipping boy in Federation political circles.


5. (C) Ambassador plans to call the six party leaders
together during the week of May 17, upon his return from
Washington, to compare notes and encourage them to plan
actively for resuming the effort at constitutional reform
immediately after the elections. Ambassador saw
Tri-Presidency Chairman Tihic May 5 as preparation for that
larger meeting. Tihic has spent the past week ruminating on
how he or we might resuscitate the package. However, with
the Election Commission's announcement of Oct. 1 elections,
the legal window is closed for amendments that would take
effect with this year's elections. Of equal importance, the
group that Tihic has openly pondered approaching -- the HDZ
1990 crowd -- has proven clearly to us that its demands

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vis-a-vis "protection of Croat interests" in a future
constitutional context cross our redlines, as well as the
those of the Europeans. The HDZ 1990 demands -- a full
ethnic veto over all legislation -- are retrogressive even in
terms of the present imperfections of the Dayton
constitution. Moreover, the HDZ 1990's leaders have pulled
the Croat Catholic hierarchy overtly into the party's
political fight with the main HDZ, using the constitutional
reform package as a vehicle for their internecine battle.
The Church's attacks on the reform effort, and on the U.S.
for its leadership of the process, have become increasingly
shrill (septel),and do not bode well for any prospects of
moderating the HDZ 1990's stance.

Institutionalizing the Constitutional Reform Process


6. (C) In the longer term, we need to begin to flesh out our
plans for institutionalizing a constitutional reform effort
that has both the necessary technical expertise and political
horsepower. We would envision a constitutional reform
commission under U.S. leadership, akin to the highly
successful defense reform commission, with a technical
secretariat housed at OSCE or another organization with the

SIPDIS
credentials and resources to provide the needed logistical
support. European buy-in, both in the form of funding and
symbolic participation, would help us maintain the goodwill
we have thus far had from the local European missions and
from Brussels. This will take some diplomatic footwork,
however, since the High Representative has demonstrated a
newly discovered determination to usurp the constitutional
reform process and give OHR a preeminent role -- a
development that would only artificially prolong OHR's
lifespan and launch, in our estimation, another "process"
with no real start or endpoint.


7. (C) In short, we can use the months ahead of us to
bolster the parties that proved willing to engage in
meaningful discussion and compromise; to calm the political
waters roiled by the shrill, rejectionist message of hardline
Bosniaks and Croats throughout this debate; and to design a
durable methodology for constitutional reform that can
weather the vagaries of the Bosnian (and international)
political scene. The U.S. role in all this will be critical,
given the drift among the Europeans and the trust that the
Bosnians continue to show in our leadership.
MCELHANEY