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Debate Continues Over ‘Flawed’ Bosnian Elections
Dayton Architect Richard Holbrooke says Proceed,
Final election date to be set Tuesday.
By Robert Evans
But another key international official involved in the peace process, Michael Steiner of Germany, warned that Bosnia could never be truly democratised until "totalitarian systems" in neighbouring Serbia and Croatia were changed.
"Flawed or not, it is vitally important that the elections proceed," Holbrooke, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state, told the Crans-Montana Forum for international political and business leaders. "The elections are not going to be perfect... but they are an essential part of the (peace) process. We have to do the best we can," he said. If they were not held before the NATO-led IFOR peace force withdrew in December, "they will never be held."
An announcement on whether the poll should go ahead on September 14, as proposed in last November's Dayton peace accords largely driven by Holbrooke, is due to be made on Tuesday by Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti. Cotti is current chairman of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which will have the task of organising the voting in the Muslim-Croat federation of Bosnia and the Bosnian Serb Republic.
The Muslim-led government in Sarajevo has argued that the poll cannot be fair while the Serbs refuse to allow freedom of movement and remain under the control of accused war criminals "president" Radovan Karadzic and army chief Ratko Mladic.
Sarajevo's ambassador-at-large, Mohammed Sacirbey, told the Forum that unless the two were arrested and handed over to the international war crimes tribunal the poll would only "legitimise extremism and the division of Bosnia. Holbrooke, backed by Steiner and Max van der Stoel, OSCE high commissioner for minorities and a former Dutch foreign minister, said he shared Sacirbey's concerns but disagreed with his conclusions.
Even with the problems, elections "provide a path for reconciliation and peace," said Holbrooke, who retired from U.S. government service earlier this year but is widely tipped for a new post in a future administration. Steiner, a German diplomat and deputy to the international community's civilian representative in Bosnia Carl Bildt, said the only real solution would be installation of democracy across the war-torn and divided state.
"And we will only get a democratisation of this country in the long term if you also have a democratisation of these mighty neighbours, that is Croatia and that is Serbia," he declared. "Both are totalitarian systems. So what we need to have at the same time is a more regional approach in such a way that we have a change in all these systems. Only then will we achieve a democratisation that really stabilises this country."
Steiner, involved in efforts by the European Union and the United Nations to bring a peace in Bosnia for two years before the United States stepped in last summer, said it was a "nazi theory" that Balkan peoples could not live together. "These people are Europeans.... Separation means war. And separation is not a remedy for the situation in Bosnia. The problem is not that the people are different. The problem is those who are in power and those who are
misusing extreme ethnic problems for staying in power," Steiner said.
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CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland, June 23 (Reuters) - The main architect of the Bosnia peace pact, Richard Holbrooke of the United States, said on Sunday that elections should go ahead as planned in the Balkan state even though they may be flawed.
Berserkistan, June 21 · 48 Parties, 33 Independents Register for Bosnia’s Elections
Berserkistan, June 21 · September 14 Elections Move Closer to Reality
Berserkistan, June 14 · Some 60 Political Parties Register for September Vote
June 8 · Special Report: In Bosnia, Skepticism over Fair Elections
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