Opportunity for Ruin

The third conference of donors for the reconstruction of Bosnia was held in Brussels on July 23-24 organized by the World Bank and European Commission. The conference participants included 48 countries and 30 international organizations. It’s hard to explain the hopes of the half-starved Bosnian Serbs who were waiting for reports from Brussels. Unfortunately, experience shows that the RS authorities are not interested in the survival of their own people. Things started changing when Biljana Plavsic spoke up. Because of the political crisis at home, Plavsic did not go to Brussels but sent her special envoy and economic advisor, professor of the Banja Luka university school of economics Rajko Tomas.

VREME: What is the cost to date of obstructions of donors’ conferences by RS officials?

TOMAS: "You know that the RS delegation did not take part in last year’s donors’ conference. The reason was the refusal of the condition set by the conference organizers that the RS delegation had to be part of the BiH delegation. This year there was no resistance and the RS delegation was part of the Bosnian delegation. Because we didn’t attend last year’s conference, the RS did not get financial aid. Remember that last year’s conference was successful and secured 1.9 billion dollars instead of the planned 1.6. One third of that was supposed to go to the RS. Over a billion dollars of that sum have been spent already which means about 300 million would have been invested in the RS. Unfortunately that did not happen. That money was invested in the Federation and our failure to participate at last year’s conference cost us money for development and indirectly helped develop the Federation. The results are evident already. Salaries and pensions in the Federation are almost three times higher than in the RS and the Federation is making greater investments in development. In the long term that could be a problem in adapting the interests of the entities. We have to hope that we won’t repeat that failure and that we’ll be able to get back at least some money. That won’t be easy and even if we manage it there’ll still be a lot of damage."

How much money has been planned for reconstruction after the Dayton agreement was signed and how much of it has come in already?

"A total of 5.1 billion dollars has been planned in the first four years of the implementation of the Dayton agreement, with 1.4 billion earmarked for the RS. To date, 1.1 billion has come in with just 3.2% coming into the RS according to the latest reports I saw."

Members of the RS government, headed by Prime Minister Gojko Klickovic, were in Brussels with you. How synchronized was your approach?

"I went to Brussels as the RS president’s special envoy. The RS government had its own delegation. I traveled in a UN plane from Banja Luka airport and the government delegation left from Belgrade. That had no bearing on our behavior and communication. Our goal was identical and we all fought for it. My mandate was to urge the equal treatment for the RS as for the Federation, that is aid under the same conditions with no special conditions. Also, part of my mandate was urging international aid although there is a political crisis underway in the RS which would mean the crisis would be treated as a temporary thing and conditions would be created for economic progress once it is over. In short, my mandate was to urge an outcome to the donors’ conference which would not deepen the crisis."

In economic terms, where is the RS now?

"The RS is currently at a great crossroads. It has to step out of war into civilian life. It has to break off with the party state and take the road to democratic political transformation. It has to reject communist inertia in the economy and start developing a market economy. It has to abandon self-isolation and open up to the world. It has to stop moaning over its poverty and restructure its resources. Those decisions aren’t easy to take and reach a consensus on but they are inevitable for the survival and progress of the RS. The current poverty of the population, disorder in the economic system, irrational use of resources, isolation from the world, gray economy and similar are impossible to resolve without international support and serious social and economic reform. If that does not come soon, poverty and despair will spread and the RS will be an unequal partner in inter-entity relations. No serious and responsible person can allow that."