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
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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

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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