BOSNIA - MESIC AND DODIK GO AT IT AGAIN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SARAJEVO 001868 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR (JONES),EUR/SCE (HYLAND, FOOKS, STINCHCOMB) E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/12/2018 TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL PHUM KDEM KISL IR BK SUBJECT: BOSNIA - MESIC AND DODIK GO AT IT AGAIN REF: ZAGREB 413 Classified By: Ambassador Charles English for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Croatian President Stjepan Mesic's strong criticisms of Republika Srpska (RS) Prime Minister Dodik in a December 8 speech in New York provoked a sharp reaction from Dodik and an even fiercer counterattack from Dodik's political allies and the RS media. Mesic referred to Dodik as the greatest danger to peace in the Balkan region and compared him with former Yugoslav President Milosevic. On December 9 Dodik responded by saying that Mesic's attacks were an attempt to hide from his responsibility for crimes committed against Serbs in Croatia during the 1991-1995 war there. On the same day Republika Srpska Radio and Television (RTRS),the RS's public broadcasting network, aired an inflammatory story claiming that Mesic had made a secret agreement with Iran as part of a broader plot to overthrow Dodik and abolish the RS. Citing "terrorism experts" the RTRS report also claimed Dodik was the object of a "synchronized attack by Zagreb and Sarajevo." Senior officials in Dodik's Alliance for Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) have echoed these themes over the last several days, deliberately stoking fears among Bosnian Serbs that Serb "enemies" are seeking to eliminate them. It disturbing that the RS's ostensibly independent public media outlet was so quick to lend a patina of respectability to these claims via a story that was both a silly conspiracy theory and a sinister echo of Bosnian Serb wartime nationalist rhetoric. END SUMMARY Mesic Warns that Dodik Aims to Destroy Bosnia -------------- ¶2. (U) In a speech on December 8 at the World Policy Institute in New York Croatian President Stjepan Mesic sharply criticized RS PM Dodik, accusing him of seeking to "destroy Bosnia and Herzegovina" by opposing the RS's integration in Bosnia and seeking to prevent the country's integration into the European Union. Mesic urged "the new U.S. administration and the EU leadership to stop" Dodik, and compared him to Slobodan Milosevic. "The Republika Srpska leadership believes that Europe and the rest of world will get tired, and that Republika Srpska will eventually integrate with Serbia...The world today is failing to identify Dodik's policy just as it failed to identify Milosevic's," Mesic said. Finally, Mesic raised the specter that the RS would secede, the Bosnian Croats would agitate to join with Croatia, and a small Bosniak state surrounded by enemies would remain that could become a terrorist refuge in the middle of Europe. Dodik Responds; Radmanovic Elaborates -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Dodik responded on December 9 by saying that the Croatian president is trying to divert attention from the ethnic cleansing that occurred in Croatia during the 1991-1995 war there, and the fact that Serbs had not returned and their property was destroyed. He claimed that his government was not a danger to peace and has only defended the right of the RS to exist and to develop. Dodik also tweaked Mesic, stressing that he plans to continue working for the RS's development in order to "keep Mesic nervous." On December 10, the ethnic Serb member of the Bosnian Tri-presidency, Nebojsa Radmanovic, carried the attack one step further by claiming in a press conference that strong statements by Mesic in the past had been followed by an increase in activities by terrorist elements in Bosnia. He alleged that Mesic is trying to destabilize Bosnia, and argued that Mesic's comments were insulting to Bosniaks because they implied that they are not capable of governing their own country. RS Media Alleges a Croatian-Iranian-Bosniak Conspiracy -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) On December 9, RTRS -- the RS's public broadcasting outlet -- ran a story claiming that Mesic was involved in a plot to abolish the RS. Citing "experts" from the Center for Fighting Terrorism in Southeast Europe, the RTRS broadcast alleged that Mesic has reached a secret deal with Iran. RTRS claimed that in exchange for Iranian financial help, Croatia SARAJEVO 00001868 002 OF 002 had promised to launch a diplomatic initiative against the RS, share intelligence with the Iranians, and provide Iran with use of an unnamed Adriatic port (Note: Though left unsaid, the implication was that the Iranians would use the port to import weapons. End Note). RTRS also asserted that Iran was working simultaneously with its "pawn" Bosniak member of the Tri-Presidency Haris Silajdzic to abolish the RS. (Comment: The RS media has harped on the Islamic threat in one form or another for much of the past year, often deploying it to discredit Bosniaks and paint Sarajevo and the Federation as alien as well as to imply that sinister intent lurks behind state-building policies. End Comment) Vasic Takes it a Step Further -------------- ¶5. (SBU) In its December 11 web-based edition, Fokus, an RS-based, nationalist daily, carried an op-ed by Rajko Vasic, the SNSD Secretary General, which also accused Mesic and Silajdzic of conspiring against the RS. Vasic asserted that the "ultimate goal" was "the abolition of the RS and the disappearance of Serbs from BiH." He also accused several international figures of supporting "this project," including former U.S. President Clinton, former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, former German FM Hans-Dietrich Genscher, and the Pope. Vasic presented Dodik as the defender of Bosnian Serbs and an obstacle to Mesic's plans to carry the "tribal Croatian checkerboard coat of arms towards the Drina" (i.e., annex Bosnia). Comment: Conspiracy Theory and Echoes of Wartime Rhetoric -------------- -------------- ¶6. (C) This was not the first time Mesic and Dodik have locked horns. Last June, at a conference in Zagreb, Dodik invited Croatian Serbs to come live in Republika Srpska because of discrimination against them in Croatia, and Mesic, in turn, called Dodik a rude representative of an entity founded on the basis of ethnic cleansing (reftel). The response by Dodik, his political allies and the RS media to Mesic's latest criticisms was both silly and sinister. Although conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen in Bosnia, in an RS where Dodik is in almost complete control of the media they can quickly gain currency among the RS public as "fact." In seeking to discredit his critics in this case, Dodik and his allies deployed the kind of nationalist rhetoric we heard from Serbs during the Wars of Yugoslav Secession. Vasic's op-ed was an unsubtle attempt to draw parallels between Mesic and the World War II Ustashe and to present the RS as the target of a Croatian expansionist program aimed at destroying the Bosnian Serb nation. The RTRS broadcast implied that Bosniaks' Muslim identity concealed a broader Islamic conspiracy aimed at the RS -- in this case with Iran -- and that this made Bosniaks and the policies they advocate somehow inherently dangerous to Bosnian Serbs. Though the furor over Mesic's remarks has died down, it is disturbing that Dodik and his allies were willingness to resort to the type of nationalist rhetoric that had once been routine before, during, and immediately after the 1992-1995 war to attack his critics. ENGLISH