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