by Gary Dempsey and Aaron Lukas
Gary Dempsey is a foreign policy analyst and Aaron Lukas is a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. They spent two weeks in the former Yugoslavia observing the Bosnian elections.
October 7, 1998
ZAGREB, Croatia--Nearly three years after the Dayton Peace Agreement brought an end to the fighting in Bosnia, the international community found itself in a panic over the outcome of general elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina held Sept. 12-13. While U.N. High Representative Carlos Westendorp called the elections a "great day for democracy," behind those words were worries about the significant gains made by Serbian nationalist candidates.
Upset with that prospect, election organizers abruptly postponed releasing early results. What's worse, some Western officials had initially discussed disregarding the election results altogether.
Although organizers had to concede the victory of ultranationalist Nikola Poplasen as president of the Serb half of Bosnia, they still managed after polling to disqualify nine candidates from the SRS -- a Serbian nationalist party -- on seemingly petty election violations.
It would seem that Western-style democracy is only applicable when voters pick the "right" candidates. The nationalist victory is distressing, but less so than the West's willingness to abandon democratic principles at the first sign of trouble. Besides, the disappointing election results are hardly surprising: It was the Clinton administration's flawed Balkan policies that helped create them.
For example, despite complaints by the former president of the Serbian half of Bosnia, Biljana Plavsic, that nationalists were exploiting Serb fears of foreign manipulation -- "blam[ing] us for too much cooperation" with Washington -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to Bosnia two weeks before the elections to bribe Bosnian voters with Western aid. Highlighting the economic benefits they would receive if they voted the way Washington wanted, Albright explained that the election offered a "clear, consequential choice," by which Bosnians "can decide whether this country will be a country that prospers from trade and investment or a country that stagnates in isolation." Now it appears that Washington's votes-for-dollars scheme has backfired.
Washington's demand that Yugoslavia preemptively withdraw its forces from Kosovo -- or face NATO intervention -- has also alienated many Bosnian Serb voters who reject the prospect of a Kosovo controlled by Albanian nationalists. Most significantly, Washington has projected an image of insensitivity to Serb concerns. Many Serbs consider Kosovo the cradle of both Serbian history and their Christian Orthodox faith. Historically, Kosovo is where Serbia's medieval Nemanjic Dynasty fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1389 and is the home of the Pecka Patriarsija, one of Serbia's oldest and most cherished religious sites.
Many Bosnian Serb voters also consider the ongoing sanctions against Yugoslavia as unfair. They note that Turkey has repeatedly cracked down on Kurd secessionists in its southeastern region, -- Kurdish forces have been bombed and their villages razed -- but Turkey has not been subjected to sanctions. Just four days after Belgrade's first crackdown in Kosovo, Turkish security forces -- backed by combat helicopters -- killed 26 Kurdish Workers' Party separatists in the southeast province of Bingol. Washington's silence in the face of that crackdown was in marked contrast to the outcry over the Kosovo crackdown.
What's more, earlier sanctions impoverished Yugoslavia's general population, not Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who became enormously rich by dealing in the black market for smuggled imports. Seeing average Serbs indiscriminately punished by international sanctions, Bosnian Serb voters have come to reject candidates aligned with Washington.
Such a rejection could also be expressed by Serbian voters. With elections in Yugoslavia scheduled for next year, Washington more than ever must re-evaluate its policies towards Belgrade. Failure to do so could risk an electoral backlash, unintentionally strengthening Milosevic's hold on power.
The recent elections in Bosnia illustrate the problem with Washington's hubristic attempts to impose democracy from the top down. By brazenly meddling, the Clinton administration alienated voters and probably encouraged the outcome it most fears. Washington must now live with that outcome or betray the very principles it has spent three years trying to cultivate.
This article originally appeared in the Prague Post