American policy towards the Western Balkans supports ethno-nationalism. It is time to change such a policy, writes Christian Schwarz-Schilling for DW.
On May 18th, Derek Chollet, adviser to the United States (U.S.)State Department, and Gabriel Escobar, the U.S. special envoy for the Western Balkans, answered questions about U.S. policy in the Western Balkans before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (FRC).
I still remember very well how President Clinton, after three years of extremely brutal war and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), decided to support BiH.
And that’s why I don’t understand, what goal is the U.S.pursuing today with its policy in the Western Balkans?
A return to ethno-nationalism?
Several analyzes were published on the new course (direction) of American policy in the Balkans. I agree with some of those analyses. I can even understand that there are reasons, why the Americans are looking for a solution, which for them is supposedly pragmatic. Russia, China, Taiwan – all these countries are more in the focus of world politics than the Balkans. However, this is not a reason to support hegemonic policies in the Western Balkans region, in order to establish new power relations and at the same time sacrifice countries such as BiH, Montenegro or Kosovo.
Do they really plan to push BiH further into ethno-nationalism? Although it is claimed that it is exactly this ethno-nationalism that they are fighting against?
Indirect help to secessionism
Although the president of the smaller entity in BiH, Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik, is being tried to be kept in check with sanctions and warnings, he is indirectly being helped in implementing his secessionist plans. The U.S. has decided to fight corruption in the Western Balkans and sanctions, and yet it supports the most corrupt politicians.
Let’s recall how the current U.S. President Joe Biden in his former position as a senator before the same Committee in April 1993 with his report “To stand against the aggression: Milosevic, the Bosnian republic and the conscience of the West” called to help BiH to end the war.
No strategy and dangerous
Does President Biden approve of what the State Department is doing today? Does he know that the current American policy is precisely insulting the victims of the ethnic goals of the wars of the 1990s?
The day after the hearing, U.S. President Biden nominated James O’Brien as the new undersecretary for Europe and Eurasia in the Senate. In 1995, O’Brien participated in the drafting of the Dayton Peace Agreement and worked at the time when I was a high representative in BiH in the group of experts for the reform of the Constitution, which I founded. He is an experienced lawyer and former U.S. Special Envoy for the Western Balkans, who knows BiH and the region well.
I hope that with his appointment in Washington, they finallyunderstood that a change of course must be made, which will direct the current American policy towards the Western Balkans, which is harmful, without strategy, without results and dangerous, to a new path. But, as long as Derek Chollet, who co-shapes the policy towards the Western Balkans, is an advisor in the U.S. Department of State, I can unfortunately only be partially optimistic, DW reports.
E.Dz.
