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| Postuar mė datėn: 2007-11-10 05:28:38 nga admin2 :: Kategoria: English |
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By Jan Sliva, Of ASSOCIATED PRESS
BRUSSELS (AP)--As the West tries to solve the future of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo, another related, and perhaps more dangerous threat to European security is lurking in the background - a possible disintegration of Bosnia, officials and analysts warn.
The ethnically divided country is in turmoil, with Bosnian Serbs protesting reforms proposed by the top international administrator to boost the power of central institutions.
The Serbs, who control half of Bosnia, are hinting they may try to split the former Yugoslav republic in two if Kosovo is allowed to secede from Serbia. It was a similar Serbian breakup bid in the 1990s that triggered the worst bloodshed in Europe since World War II.
Diplomats fear European Union support for Kosovo secession may add to Balkan instability, prodding the Bosnian Serb Republic's prime minister, Miroslav Dodik, to press for independence of the Serb-controlled mini state in Bosnia.
"As soon as Kosovo becomes independent, he, too, will start playing with the idea of independence. He could go for a referendum," said a top European diplomat with a detailed knowledge of Bosnia.
Sensing a possible loss of Kosovo, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and his nationalist followers have launched a campaign against Bosnia's international administrator and offered their support to the Bosnian Serbs in their efforts to destabilize Bosnia.
The Bosnian Serbs triggered the 1992-95 war, which left at least 100,000 people dead and millions homeless, by breaking away from Bosnia and seeking to unite with Serbia in a project that became known as Greater Serbia.
The southern province of Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia but has been run by the U.N. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since the end of the 1999 war between Serbian and ethnic Albanian forces.
Bosnia, for its part, has been overseen by an international administrator since the Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war and divided the country into two mini-states - the Serb Republic and a Bosnian-Croat Federation.
The current administrator, Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak, is seeking to create a stable central government for both Serb and Bosnian-Croat sides of Bosnia.
In the late 1990s, Bosnia was top of the table among the Western Balkans nations in efforts to join the E.U. But it slid to rock bottom in 2007 largely because of a Bosnian Serb boycott of the state's central government, preventing necessary reforms demanded by the E.U.
Bosnia remains the only former Yugoslav state without a pre-membership agreement with the E.U. and is struggling to reform its dysfunctional institutions.
Serbia has managed to initiate its pre-membership agreement despite failing to fulfill the main condition - delivering four fugitives from the Balkan wars to the U.N. court. Bosnia is still waiting because it hasn't carried out an E.U.- requested police reform.
Some blame the E.U. for Bosnia's problems, saying it has been too preoccupied with trying to steer Kosovo toward 'supervised sovereignty' despite opposition from Serbia and Russia.
A former U.S. State Department official involved in negotiating the 1995 peace deal in Bosnia said the E.U. wasn't "up to the job" of handling the situation in former Yugoslavia, which has disintegrated into six countries as a result of the war started by former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
The diplomat said the E.U. paid too much attention to Serbia and Kosovo while neglecting Bosnia. He warned against a bargain which would let Serbia influence the future of Bosnia in exchange for the loss of Kosovo.
E.U. Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn played down the possibility of a chain reaction if Kosovo unilaterally declares independence.
"The Kosovo status process...should not have any ramifications in other countries of the region," he said. "I don't see any reason why it should provoke any instability."
But officials and analysts say the E.U. has its hands tied in its dealings with Belgrade, which is bound to exploit the E.U.'s recent softer approach, such as turning a blind eye to its inability to apprehend the remaining indicted war criminals.
"The future is very rocky for Bosnia" if nationalists in Serbia get too much influence over it, said James Lyon, senior Balkan adviser at the International Crisis Group.
"Belgrade is not a guarantor of regional stability. It is the largest source of conflict in the region," he said. "In that sense, little has changed since 1992."
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