Brcko Via Rome

Something serious must be happening to the people in the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS) when they hear Radoslav Brdjanin accuse Aleksa Buha of selling out Brcko and betraying the Serb cause. They know Brdjanin is a fierce fighter for the right thing but they also know that the one-time Sarajevo university professor (who taught classical German idealism) Aleksa Buha is no less a hawk than Brdjanin and that he has been one of the hard-line leaders of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) since it was formed.

The people believe that Brdjanin, as an SDS dissident and loser has every right to be angry, but they are worried that the RS Radical Party is saying the same thing as Brdjanin’s National Party. Both are warning that the RS authorities went to Rome for the arbitration on Brcko that is willing to sell out everything: the corridor, river port, the town itself, territorial continuity along with Serb graves, honor and history.

The two RS opposition parties are right in one thing and Buha himself gave them their arguments. From December 1 to the Orthodox Christmas, the Pale authorities have been saying arbitration on Brcko is out of the question, that the Serb representative in the commission won’t take part, that their decision is backed up by the Dayton agreement, that the paper signed by Slobodan Milosevic and Momcilo Krajisnik does not mention Brcko but just a disputed part of the inter-entity boundary line in the Brcko area, that the only thing that can be discussed is expanding the corridor.

They voiced those arguments to scare their population more than the Moslem-Croat Federation or international community, the more so since Sarajevo gave back as good as it got. Alija Izetbegovic even gave up his newly acquired peaceful image to threaten "chaos" unless Brcko is given to the Moslems.

The Bosnian Serb strategy seemed smart in the short term especially after a State Department statement that the Brcko issue will be resolved without the Bosnian Serbs, after an early December decision to postpone a decision on Brcko (an initiative of Roberts Owen, the US member of the arbitration commission) till February 14 instead of the Dayton agreement deadline on December 14.

Then, on Christmas day, the Pale authorities agreed to Owen’s arbitration and sent a delegation to Rome. That delegation was headed by Aleksa Buha and included outgoing arbitration commission member Vitomir Popovic.

The Bosnian Serbs were never told what caused Buha and company to leave for Rome.

This is what they didn’t dare say: In informal meetings with Owen (Holbrooke’s aide in Dayton, who helped draft the Moslem-Croat Federation constitution) the Bosnian Serbs were more or less promised that Brcko won’t change sides, that they won’t loose the corridor linking the east and west of the RS. They were asked to attend the arbitration commission meeting, voice their arguments (that’s what’s being resolved in Brcko for over a week now and why the RS sent only demographic, legal and economic experts to Rome), and Owen even indicated that the arbitration commission could go along with Bosnian Serb claims that Brcko itself can’t be the subject of the arbitration.

They could not say in public that the Serbs got indications of what solution Owen was considering in December. Of the three allegedly equal members of the arbitration commission (Serb Vitomir Popovic, Moslem Cazim Sadikovic and international Roberts Owen), the American is the one who really holds the key to a solution. VREME sources in the State Department said Owen is close to suggesting that Brcko should stay where it is in the RS but under an international administration. It would have an administrative council which would include one representative each from the RS, Federation and international community (the US most probably). The council might not have the wide ranging powers General Klein has in Eastern Slavonia which means it would have no legislative power but could ban the implementation of laws that run counter to the Bosnia-Herzegovina constitution. But a far more important thing is who would guarantee the council’s powers and who would be in charge of implementing the will of the international community. Brcko would have local authorities like the ones in the RS but it would also have Special International Police Forces For the Corridor. That police force would be under SFOR command and would answer to the US member of the council. Most importantly, that police would have the powers to implement all aspects of the Dayton agreement which includes the return and safety of refugees. Those authorities would exist in Brcko for three years. The Bosnian Serbs fear that would be enough for the international forces to fill Brcko with Moslem refugees and provide them with adequate protection which means the balance of forces in the town and the area would be upset. The Federation would get access to the Brcko river port and transit rights through the corridor.

Roberts Owen also has other solutions at his disposal, all much more unfavorable to the RS and the Pale authorities don’t like them. From an American point of view this solution has some advantages compared to other solutions which would favor only one side and could perhaps cause another Serb-Moslem war. This neutral solution would keep Serb and Moslem hopes alive alongside the idea of a united Bosnia.