Bosnia and Herzegovina has cancelled the long-awaited signing of a protocol on war crimes cooperation between the State Prosecutor’s Office and its Serbian counterpart. Serbian and Western media are viewing the move as step backwards in the reconciliation process, but the protocol could never have been anything but a paper tiger.
The protocol, whose creation was supervised by the international community, was due to be signed in Brussels this week, but the Bosnian side backed out of the deal, saying its tripartite presidency had not yet consented to its signing.
It took nearly half of 2011 for the two countries’ legal experts to agree on the text of the special protocol, which was designed to regulate cooperation in the prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
It was not a major achievement, as the protocol failed to detail how war crimes cooperation would actually unfold and how this would succeed in the current political atmosphere. Ideally, the accord would have addressed the issue of parallel investigations and facilitated the mutual transfer of evidence. It would also have regulated trials of suspects in their home countries for war crimes committed in the other.
Serbia has already signed a similar accord with Croatia and Montenegro, but the success of the protocols remains hostage to political good will, which so far has not been forthcoming.
Indeed, Croatia and Serbia recently have entered a new phase in their diplomatic tit-for-tat, with Serbia indicting more than 40 Croatian military and political leaders for war crimes committed against Croatian Serbs. Those accused are viewed by the Croatian public as national heroes, both among citizens and politicians, and winning their extradition to Serbia to stand trial would require nothing short of divine intervention.
Shortly after the indictments, Croatian Parliament passed a law rendering invalid all charges raised in Serbia and relating to the 1990s. Where it concerns Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, no official reason has been given for Bosnia’s decision to postpone the signing of the protocol.
However, local media reports suggest that Bosnian legal experts advised the Bosnian Croat member of the presidency, Zeljko Komsic, to seek a postponement. Bosnian legal experts and human rights activists have questioned the efficiency of the protocol, mostly due to the fact that Serbia has issued arrest warrants for Bosnian citizens traveling abroad, refusing any cooperation with Bosnian institutions.
Bosnian wartime general Jovan Divjak spent five months in custody in the Austrian capital Vienna following the issuance of a Serbian arrest warrant for war crimes. Last year, Bosnia’s wartime vice-president Ejup Ganic also spent half a year in London on a Serbian warrant.
Serbian authorities demanded their extradition to Serbia to stand trial, rejecting Bosnia’s assurances that the cases would be investigated in Sarajevo, and despite the fact that The Hague tribunal failed to find any evidence to warrant war crimes charges against them.Courts in both London and Vienna released the Bosnian officials.
Related to these two cases, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have led parallel investigations due to the inability to extradite citizens. Even if all the complicated questions of war crimes cooperation were addressed in the protocol to the satisfaction of both sides, there would still be room for loopholes.
The two countries have already signed a number of cooperation agreements – all of which have been violated. Protocols attempt to simplify a highly complex situation that can only be adequately addressed by political good will and an overall improvement of regional relations. Such protocols will be ineffective if they precede rather than succeed advancements in regional cooperation.
Furthermore, economic cooperation must precede political cooperation. Only once the countries of the region are irrevocably intertwined economically will political cooperation on this level be possible.
by ISA Intel. Copyright 2011, ISA Intel. All rights reserved
