Why Butmir failed

Franz-Lothar Altmann, a German academic, has a clear view why the negotiations on the future of Bosnia at Butmir failed:

European Union foreign policy chief Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister who himself was the UN High Representative in Bosnia in the 1990s, recognized the system wasn't working and called a set of constitutional reform talks this October.Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Bildt has not made the progress on Bosnia that he'd hoped for

It was a good sign, but according to Franz-Lothar Altmann, who studies the Wesrtern Balkans region at the Center for Applied Policy Research in Munich, Bildt made some big mistakes.

“Important people from parties in Bosnia had not been invited, others who were invited were amazed that they were on the list of invitees,” said Altmann.

The worst part, though, was that Bildt set up the talks without first bringing the present UN High Representative Valentin Inzko on board.

“It was certainly disgusting, I must say, because he's the one who had to bear the consequences and is on the forefront of this process,” Altmann said.

Bildt's diplomatic fauxs pas, and lack of a clear set of proposals before the meeting meant they ended in deadlock. Bosniaks and Croats are still after a stronger central government, and Serbs are still threatening to secede if anyone tries to force one on them.

Republika Srpska: After Independence

Matthew Parish, a formerly Chief Legal Adviser to the International Supervisor of Brcko who has written a book about his experience, wrote an article for Balkan Insight under the title Republika Srpska: After Independence.

It is a detailed analysis of the options that the international community had and has to influence the situation in Bosnia. His conclusion is that the international community can do very little to prevent a slow Montenegro-style independence for the Republika Srpska. He arrives also at the conclusion that the best thing that the international community can do to keep Bosnia together is to keep pushing for it. I have advocated something similar in a previous post.

How to make Russia democratic

I find it amazing that many Western publicists keep lamenting about a lack of democracy in Russia. Yet they keep praising Yeltsin as democratic. I think Yeltsin was the least democratic president of Russia in decades. Democracy means the rule of the people. The word doesn't imply anything about how the will of the people has effect. Under Yeltsin Russia's robber barons got rich while millions of people lost all they had. I think that calling Yeltsin democratic under such circumstances because there were elections is a travesty of democracy.

Unfortunately this travesty is going on. The main front in the Western struggle for democracy in Russia seems to be support for Khodorkovsky, one of Russia's robber barons. In the mean time state control over Russia's natural resources - a basic democratic desire - seems taboo in the West.

My conclusion is that the West is actively undermining real democracy in Russia - under the pretext of defending it.

Gerard Gallucci's Kosovo blog

I want to draw your attention to the blog of Gerard Gallucci. You may remember him as the UN Regional Representative in Mitrovica from 2005 to 2008, who came in the news because of his criticism of the way the evalucation of the court building in Northern Mitrovica on 17 march 2008 was handled.

At the moment is is living in Australia but his blog is still mainly about Kosovo. His blog is by far the most active blog that I know about Kosovo. Well informed and thoughtful.

Gallucci is critical of the international community's role in Kosovo and believes many of the policies chosen in Kosovo are partial in favor of the Albanians and potentially destabilizing.

It's the economy in Afghanistan too, stupid

Once Clinton won the presidential election with his understanding that "it's the economy, stupid". It might help when the US realizes that in Afghanistan too.

Yet the US is mostly committed to "institution building". It is vigorously expanding Afghanistan's army and police and investing in things as diverse as education, justice and agricultural education. The problem is that it looks like everything will bring down again once the US departs.

I would prefer a different development approach that builds on what our modern world has to offer:
- build roads and take care to have good connections between Afghanistan and its neighbors. Look also at Indian Ocean ports and connections to Russia.
- mobile phone is a big success in Afghanistan. Make sure it is everywhere available.
- extend the other modern media - television and radio - too. And use them also for education: alphabetization, a regular school curriculum, agricultural extension, etc.
- find industrial products in which Afghanistan might specialize for export and stimulate that people will actually produce them. One might even build model factories to get started. Make sure there are no barriers: no red tape in Afghanistan and no trade barriers in the US and other potential export markets.

This would also include a safety policy that gives priority to the cities and the roads connecting them while relying on local leaders and tribes to keep the villages safe. Unfortunately the US still equates all types of local militias with warlords (and is encouraged to do so by Karzai who likes to have a power monopoly). As a consequence the US is relying on the rather weak Afghan army and wasting its time in the province while leaving Kandahar to Karzai's mafia brother and the Taliban.

Why negotiating with the Taliban won't work

An article on Reuters sums up why negotiating with the Taliban is impossible. According the article Muslim extremism has changed: a few years ago it was about specific causes: the Indian "occupation" of Kashmir, the ignored elections in Algeria, etc. But now it is just about creating chaos all over the world in the hope that that will prepare the road for the Islamic Caliphate.

It reminds me of the anarchistic movement at the start of the 20th century in Europe.

I don't agree with the whole of the article. Having foreign fighters has several advantages that the article fails to name. It gives the organisation access to foreign political and financial support. And it gives the local fighters a sense of belonging: they are no longer fighters for a lost cause in a forgotten corner of the earth but people elsewhere care about them. But this does not mean that each such organization actually will take part in that global struggle.

How the US set Afghanistan on the road to election fraud

The Afghan elections were a pr disaster - but more so for the US than for the Afghan government. But it doesn't look like the US is very unhappy with the outcome. Sure, some in the US administration - like Holbrooke - were in favor of Abdullah. But there were also many who favored a continuation of the Karzai administration. They couldn't say it openly - that would have been interpreted as supporting election fraud - but warnings about the risks if someone from another tribe as the Pashtuns became president were clear enough.

Here we come at the curious US relation with the Pashtuns. They have a long history together that started in 1978 or so when the US started to support the Mujaheddin - a mainly Pashtun guerrilla against the leftist government at that time. The Taliban is the successor of the Mujaheddin and the the US was involved in its creation and until shortly before 9/11 tried to work with them to build a pipeline from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean.

When the US beat the Taliban in 2001 it did so with the Northern tribes. Yet when it came to ruling Afghanistan it immediately turned around and appointed a Pashtun - Karzai. On the surface this looked like a smart move to reconcile the Pashtun with the expulsion of "their" Taliban. It also was said to appeal to the pride of the Pashtun who have traditionally ruled Afghanistan and who have sometimes rebelled against government by other tribes. But the Pashtun are only 40% of the population and after their military victory the "others" certainly had the right to dominate the government for some time. By appointing Karzai the US gave the Pashtun a kind of guarantee that they will always rule Afghanistan. Karzai just cashed this promise with his election fraud.

This same partial approach also hinders the fight against the Taliban. The best way to keep the Taliban out from the non-Pashtun north would be to empower the tribes there. Similarly many Pashtun tribes would be happy to fight to keep the Taliban away with a little help. Yet the core of the US policy is to build the Afghan police and army - whose inefficiency and lack of motivation is proverbial - and it looks very critical to any effort to arm the population to defend their own region.

In the mean time we are told of the need for "institution building". On paper it sounds logical. If some foreign organisation builds something and leaves nobody will care about it. But if instead that money had been handed to an Afghan government official that will help build a ministry (for example of education) that wil stay around. The big question is whether the people in the Afghan government are really concerned about building the country or that they just want to have their part of the money flow. I get the impression that this policy is fuelling the corruption in the Afghan government and that it will be much better to go through local leaders.

The Pashtun

Barbarian China

The way China is suppressing Tibet and its culture is well known. Just as the way it is trying to assimilate its population by the way of promoting massive immigration from China. Unfortunately there are many other countries trying to assimilate minorities.

What makes China unique is that it is pressing for the annexation of Tawang under the pretext that it is Tibetan and Tibet is part of China. It means that China is pressing for the acquisition of more territory with the intent of erasing its culture and marginalizing its population. How barbarian can you get?

Ethnic traps in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan

I have recently reading a lot about Afghanistan and Iraq and what strikes me is the similarity between America’s problems there and in the Balkans. Americans keep making the same mistakes based on their misunderstanding of ethnic dynamics.

What strikes one in the Balkans first is that the Americans have no idea how compromises are made. As long as the US is supporting one faction one can be sure it won’t compromise, but somehow that doesn’t register in the US and they keep playing favorites. Even more amazing is that those favorites are largely historically determined and have little to do with present US interests. Yet they keep being promoted because somehow it is supposed to be humiliating for the US if a former ally suffered a defeat. Another US addiction is to borders. Partitioning of both Bosnia and Kosovo is taboo. Why? Because somewhere in the past the US committed itself to those borders. In the mean time it keep deceiving itself that within those borders the conditioned for a peaceful multi-ethnic society are present.

What brings me to Iraq. One of the hottest items it Kirkuk. Should it be controlled by the Arabs or the Kurds. Here too the taboos abound. Kirkuk is a province that should not be partitioned. Let alone that one should look for a comprehensive solution that concerns all the borders of Kurdistan. To make the discussion even more abstract the subject of ethnic cleansing by the Kurds is taboo. Just as in the Balkans the pretense must be maintained that no ethnic cleansing happens under US control. And so we see that the discussions about Kirkuk are about abstract voting rights instead of the real issues.

In Afghanistan the absurdity of US ethnic thinking becomes even more visible. Afghanistan is divided between the Pashtus who constitute some 43% of the population and have traditionally ruled Afghanistan and the other tribes who nearly all speak Dari, a Persian dialect. Afghanistan is relatively recent creation that comes from conquests by the Pashtu rulers. The other tribes have rather mixed feelings about Pashtu rule that has included ethnic cleansing and the Taliban.

The US conquered Afghanistan with the help of those other tribes, but then turned its back to them and offered the Pashtus the governance of Afghanistan. To add injury to insult they imposed a hugely centralized government system. This system was imposed by the American diplomat Khalilzad – himself of Pashtu descent. In its defense we are told that otherwise the Pasthus would become angry and not support us. But don’t expect the Pashtus to be grateful. Many of them sympathize with the Taliban and even president Karzai is pushing for negotiations with the Taliban. They know that Taliban rule means Pashtu rule.

A very basic strategy in Afghanistan would be to give the non-Pashtu provinces the tools to get rid of the Taliban. Many would jump at the chance. It would leave us with only the Pashtu provinces in the need of counterinsurgency. But it doesn’t fit in the US imposed system where only national institutions are reinforced. It looks like the US is incapable to discern its friends from its enemies. This reminds one of the dubious US friendships with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.