BOSNIA - SCENESETTER FOR HIGHREP'S OCTOBER 20-21

C O N F I D E N T I A L SARAJEVO 001598 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/(JONES),EUR/SCE(FOOKS/STINCHCOMB); NSC FOR HELGERSON/WILSON; OSD FOR BEIN E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/01/2015 TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KAWC KDEM PHUM BK SUBJECT: BOSNIA - SCENESETTER FOR HIGHREP'S OCTOBER 20-21 VISIT TO WASHINGTON REF: A. SARAJEVO 1594 ¶B. SARAJEV0 1587 ¶C. SARAJEVO 1561 ¶D. SARAJEVO 1547 ¶E. SARAJEVO 1531 ¶F. SARAJEVO 1520 ¶G. SARAJEVO 1519 ¶H. SARAJEVO 1459 Classified By: Ambassador Charles English. Reason 1.4(b) and (d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: High Representative Miroslav Lajcak will visit Washington on October 20-21 as part of his consultations with Peace Implementation Council (PIC) capitals prior to the November 19-20 PIC. Lajcak's stop in Washington follows visits earlier this month to Quint capitals, Brussels, and Moscow. His visit coincides with growing concern about Bosnia's trajectory. We anticipate another confrontation between Republika Srpska (RS) PM Dodik and the international community over the RS's refusal to cooperate with state-level law enforcement and judicial institutions, and we will need a pro-active and engaged HighRep to manage this problem. Lajcak will need to hear from Washington that he has full U.S. support should the RS refuse to back down. Lajcak appears ready to engage on the PIC's 5-plus-2 agenda after letting things drift for so long. We should endorse what he calls his "robust facilitation" strategy on 5-plus-2, but we must also make clear that his notion that OHR can transition to EUSR even as the American-led supervisory regime remains in place in Brcko is a non-starter. Lajcak is still developing his thinking on OHR-EUSR transition, but he has told us privately that he supports retaining some form of residual Bonn Powers after OHR closes. There are myriad problems with this idea, an idea Schwarz-Schilling suggested almost 18 months ago, and we should be careful about endorsing it. Russia remains a problem in Bosnia, and we should underscore to Lajcak that we are prepared to confront Russia should its obstructionism undercut our strategic goals here. Finally, we should deliver a clear message that the U.S. is not prepared to support a new constitutional reform process until OHR's 5-plus-2 agenda is complete. END SUMMARY Bosnia - Where We Are -------------- ¶2. (C) Bosnia continues to move in the wrong direction. All major parties are focused on narrow ethnic agendas, not on the reforms required for the country's Euro-Atlantic integration. Over the last two years, we have witnessed 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. And, we have witnessed disturbing attempts to roll back the successful reform of the last thirteen years, the very reforms that led the EU and NATO to open their doors to Bosnia. Both Bosniak member of the Tri-Presidency Haris Silajdzic and RS PM Milorad Dodik are responsible for Bosnia's continuing deterioration, but it is Dodik who presents the most serious challenge to Bosnia's territorial integrity and sovereignty. In recent months, he has picked up the pace of his challenges to the state. If he is successful in his latest confrontation with state-level law enforcement and judicial authorities, he will have effectively nullified state-level authority in the RS and made good on his claim that his government is sovereign within the RS (Refs B, C, D, G). This is not an issue we can ignore (though our European partners may be inclined to do just that). Lajcak's Problems Are Our Problems -------------- ¶3. (C) Lajcak tells us privately that he recognizes the threat posed by Dodik, but that there is little he can do about it. He notes that OHR's credibility and authority have atrophied and that the Bonn Powers are, for all intents and purposes, dead. He blames these developments primarily on the lack of support he received from PIC capitals during the crisis over the October 2007 impositions. His assessment is partially correct, but it ignores how Lajcak's own actions, particularly his decision to negotiate with Dodik and his failure to consult adequately with Quint partners, contributed to his problems. Regardless, the consequence has been that Lajcak has been all too prepared to acquiesce or retreat in the face of Dodik's challenges, which has only further emboldened Dodik. Dodik now talks regularly about Bosnia's dissolution (Ref F),and has opened multiple fronts in his campaign against the state -- SIPA/State Prosecutor's Office, TRANSCO, Missing Persons Institute, to name those currently most prominent. (Refs E, G, H). While we are probably beyond the point where we can fully restore OHR's authority, we cannot manage the looming crises in Bosnia without a confident and committed HighRep. With this in mind, Lajcak must leave Washington with a clear understanding that a) we can no longer put off the inevitable confrontation with Dodik, and b) we have his back. OHR's 5-Plus-2 Agenda -------------- ¶4. (C) As we anticipated, it seems highly unlikely that the PIC will be able to report much progress on its 5-plus-2 agenda in November. State property, immoveable defense property, and Brcko are completely deadlocked, though it is possible that a draft national war crimes strategy will have been completed by November. Lajcak now appears to have recognized that his hands-off approach on 5-plus-2 will not produce agreement among the country's political leaders. At the October 9 Steering Board Ambassadors (SBA),Lajcak announced that he now plans "robust facilitation" in order to break the deadlock. He presented a draft strategy on state property and plans to table a similar strategy on Brcko. He will seek PIC endorsement of both strategies in November, and while in Washington, he will be seeking explicit backing for his "robust facilitation" approach. We welcome the HighRep's new found energy on 5-plus-2, and we believe Washington should offer its support, but Washington should also make clear that we will not accept a lowest common denominator definition of success. Implementation of 5-plus-2 must be consistent with our overall goal of entrenching reform and ensuring Bosnia can meet its commitments for Euro-Atlantic integration. Brcko: There Are No Shortcuts -------------- ¶5. (C) Earlier in the year, the prospects for securing agreement on constitutional amendments and a state-level law that would ensure adequate legal protections vis-a-vis Brcko's relationship with the state and entities seemed promising. Silajdzic's objections to the amendments were predictable given his ideological approach to constitutional reform (i.e., anything short of a new constitution legitimizes Republika Srpska),and there were sufficient votes in parliament to secure passage of both without the backing of Silajdzic's party. However, Dodik's decision this fall to reject the amendments, after his party had signaled in August that it was prepared to support them, presents a major problem. Dodik now argues, like Silajdzic, that a state-level law is sufficient. There are several problems with Dodik's assertions, not least the RS's increasing tendency to ignore state-level laws. Recognizing the challenge associated with shifting Dodik on Brcko, Lajcak has, in recent weeks, floated the idea of maintaining Brcko's supervisory regime even as OHR closes. We must make clear to him that this idea is untenable and unacceptable. Tension would inevitably develop between the EUSR and the American Supervisor, and it is unclear how the Supervisor would enforce his authority vis-a-vis the state and entities without some form of Bonn Powers. Transition: Lajcak's Vision -------------- ¶6. (C) Lajcak and many of our European counterparts (except perhaps for the British) are eager for a transition to EUSR, but their eagerness is matched by a growing anxiety about Bosnia's political trajectory, and in a few cases, growing wariness about the EU's ability to take over. EU Enlargement Commissioner Ollie Rehn was certainly shocked by the "circus-like" performance of the Tri-Presidency during his October 9-10 visit to Bosnia (Ref A). Lajcak's proposed solution to this problem is to retain the Bonn Powers after transition from OHR to EUSR even as responsibility for "most issues" are shifted to EUSR, an idea he has pitched in each of the capitals he has visited over the last several weeks. Lajcak argues that retaining some form of Bonn Powers would reassure Bosniaks and Croats concerned about the implications of OHR's closure and deter RS moves towards secession. Lajcak has suggested to us privately that any residual Bonn Powers would likely be more restrictive than the current Bonn Powers, and that keeping them would require some sort of residual OHR and PIC. Our impression is that Lajcak's thinking is not fully developed, and we have not been sold on its merits (his idea sounds strikingly similar to Schwarz-Schilling's proposal -- rejected by the U.S. -- during the 2007 PIC debate over with whether to extend OHR). Managing Russia -------------- ¶7. (C) Russia remains a problem in Bosnia, though we have heard conflicting reports about how much trouble Russia plans to cause at the November PIC. At recent SBAs, the Russian Ambassador has aggressively challenged Lajcak's actions, most notably his decision to criticize the RS government's conclusion that it and its administrative bodies were not obligated to cooperate with state-level law enforcement and judicial authorities. The Russian has also complained about Lajcak's failure to consider the views "of all PIC members" before taking decisions. Lajcak often presses for unity within the PIC even if it comes at the expense of advancing the PIC's agenda in Bosnia. He also claims that the Europeans have told him to avoid a confrontation with Russia. While we should not seek a confrontation with Russia, we should not allow Russian obstructionism to drive the PIC either. If only to balance the messages Lajcak claims he received in European capitals, he should hear a strong message from ashington that we are prepared to confront Russi if necessary. Constitutional Reform: The Time s Not Now -------------- ¶8. (C) With municipal elections behind us, osniak and Croat political leaders are likely to renew pressure on the international community to take up large scale constitutional reform. Given the competing visions among Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, reopening constitutional reform discussions would likely further tensions. We should make clear to Lajcak, who has been tempted in the past to dabble in constitutional reform, that we should require the Bosnians to demonstrate that they can achieve consensus on critical but less controversial issues, specifically by meeting OHR's 5-plus-2 requirements for closure, before we will support a new constitutional reform process. Furthermore, we should take changes of internal boundaries (i.e., abolishing or creating new entities) off the table for any international community-backed process and make clear that for the time begin we will only back incremental reforms targeted at advancing Bosnia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations. We should tell Lajcak that this message should be delivered in the November PIC communique. ENGLISH