{"id":1764,"date":"2020-08-23T10:36:02","date_gmt":"2020-08-23T09:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/?page_id=1764"},"modified":"2020-08-23T10:36:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-23T09:36:02","slug":"the-tyrant-of-bosnia-paddy-ashdown-goes-berserk-nebojsa-malic","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/the-tyrant-of-bosnia-paddy-ashdown-goes-berserk-nebojsa-malic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tyrant of Bosnia: Paddy Ashdown Goes Berserk – Nebojsa Malic"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 8, 2004\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Tyrant of Bosnia: Paddy Ashdown Goes Berserk<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Nebojsa Malic<\/p>\n

At the summit in Istanbul last week, NATO refused to invite\u00a0Bosnia-Herzegovina to join its satellite program “Partnership for\u00a0<\/span>Peace.”<\/p>\n

Even though NATO previously conditioned the invitation on the\u00a0<\/span>establishment of a joint military, defense ministry and intelligence service, all of\u00a0<\/span>which have been accomplished, the refusal was explained by Bosnia’s supposed\u00a0“failure to meet its international obligations” – i.e., arrest suspected warcriminals wanted by the Hague Inquisition.<\/p>\n

Using this excuse as a pretext, Bosnia’s viceroy Paddy Ashdown launched\u00a0<\/span>a massive purge in the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS), which he exclusively\u00a0<\/span>blamed for the perceived “failure”: 60 Serb officials were proscribed, sacked\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0 <\/span>banned from holding public office. Ashdown justified the purge by\u00a0<\/span>accusing the ruling Bosnian Serb party of corruption, incompetence and aiding\u00a0<\/span>“war criminals,” but did not provide any evidence aside from his own\u00a0<\/span>assertions.<\/p>\n

However, this latest exercise of the viceroy’s dictatorial powers\u00a0<\/span>threatens the very foundations of the peace agreement that has tenuously held\u00a0<\/span>Bosnia together since 1995.<\/p>\n

The Purge<\/p>\n

Not only did Ashdown fire 60 top RS officials, including Police\u00a0<\/span>Minister Zoran Djeric and Assembly Speaker (and SDS party leader) Dragan\u00a0<\/span>Kalinic, he also froze all SDS assets and actually expropriated a million Bosnian\u00a0<\/span>marks (about $600,000) and turned it over to the central government. He also\u00a0announced a reform of law enforcement, consolidating it under Bosnia’s\u00a0central government.<\/p>\n

This is but the last in a string of brutal attacks on the Bosnian Serb\u00a0Republic, dating back to when its elected President was sacked by\u00a0<\/span>Viceroy Westendorp on the eve of NATO’s attack on Serbia. Each purge, each\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>“reform” and each new program for “Euro-Atlantic integration” has transferred\u00a0<\/span>more power from Bosnia’s two entities to the central government, eroding the\u00a0arrangement that ended the war in 1995.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the purge was not a surprise to most outside observers.\u00a0<\/span>IWPR wrote about its possibility in mid-June, with barely concealed glee. So\u00a0<\/span>did the Swiss-based ISN, a propaganda organ of the Partnership for Peace.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Only its extent was a novelty.<\/p>\n

Like every other tyrant, Ashdown claimed his actions were for the\u00a0<\/span>greater good, even the good of the Serbs: “The Serb Republic has been in the\u00a0<\/span>grip of a small band of corrupt politicians and criminals for far too long,” he\u00a0<\/span>toldreporters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bogus Charges, Bogus Excuses<\/p>\n

If Ashdown truly wanted to root out corruption, incompetence and crime,\u00a0<\/span>he would have had to sack almost all public officials in Bosnia. Instead,\u00a0<\/span>Serbs are persecuted constantly, Croats occasionally, and Muslims get a free\u00a0<\/span>pass. It is glaringly obvious that all the talk of democracy, reforms, war\u00a0<\/span>crimes, corruption, etc., is but a bag of excuses, used to browbeat Bosnians\u00a0<\/span>into accepting further centralization.<\/p>\n

The “Partnership for Peace” case is a perfect example. Earlier this\u00a0<\/span>year, membership in the program was conditioned on establishing a single\u00a0<\/span>defense ministry and integrating the Serb and Muslim-Croat armies under joint\u00a0command. This was finally accomplished in March, and the new defense\u00a0minister was definitely to NATO’s liking. Then Ashdown moved the\u00a0<\/span>goalposts and bullied the RS into producing a confession of “genocide” in\u00a0<\/span>Srebrenica.<\/p>\n

When that, too, was done, the goalposts moved again. With Head\u00a0<\/span>Inquisitor Carla Del Ponte smugly promising she would get the head of Radovan\u00a0<\/span>Karadzic by St. Vitus Day, the issue became his arrest and extradition. Tasked\u00a0<\/span>with doing in two weeks what NATO has failed to do in nine years, often\u00a0spectacularly, the RS finally failed to appease the Great Dictator.<\/p>\n

It is not accidental that Ashdown and his backers chose to punish the\u00a0<\/span>Serbs over the perceived “setback” in Bosnia’s path to NATO. Membership in\u00a0<\/span>the Imperial Alliance and eventually the EU is considered an unquestionable\u00a0pinnacle of political achievement, and anyone who challenges it risks\u00a0<\/span>being branded “ultranationalist” and “obstacle to peace.”<\/p>\n

“Bosnia’s membership in the Partnership for Peace and later in NATO\u00a0<\/span>would be the best guarantee of long-term peace and stability for the country,”\u00a0Ashdown told the German press agency DPA. But the truth is nothing of\u00a0<\/span>the sort. Joining NATO, a Cold War leftover whose only purpose is to\u00a0<\/span>maintain U.S. military hegemony in Europe, is in no country’s interest. Bosnia,\u00a0<\/span>a makeshift country whose people can barely agree to coexist – and even\u00a0<\/span>that under severe duress – has nothing to offer NATO, nothing to gain from\u00a0becoming a member.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Backlash<\/p>\n

It was only a matter of time before even the browbeaten Bosnian Serbs\u00a0decided enough was enough. First reactions to the purge indicate it\u00a0<\/span>achieved the opposite effect of the one intended: the general population is more\u00a0resentful of the viceroy and the Hague Inquisition than ever, and the\u00a0parliamentary opposition, led by the onetime-darling of the West\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Milorad Dodik, has refused to exploit the political vacuum, vowing instead to\u00a0protect the institutions of the Serb Republic.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that the purge hurt the ruling SDS party, but it has\u00a0<\/span>also led to governmental gridlock. Speaker of the National Assembly, SDS\u00a0<\/span>chairman Dragan Kalinic, announced his dismissal by Ashdown from the chamber\u00a0<\/span>floor in an impassioned speech, vowing to return some day in triumph. He also\u00a0<\/span>warned that “this people will remain and this will once again be our\u00a0<\/span>country.” Then, protesting the purges, government delegates walked out of the\u00a0Assembly, leaving it without quorum and effectively blocking its work.<\/p>\n

Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz, a mouthpiece of the Muslim nationalists,\u00a0<\/span>claimed Monday that Karadzic and Mladic had been in secret talks with British\u00a0intelligence, offering to surrender to the ICTY, when the purge\u00a0<\/span>occurred. This caused the negotiations to fail. If true, this would mean\u00a0<\/span>Ashdown’s actions prevented the very thing they were supposed to accomplish.<\/p>\n

The Man Who Would Be King<\/p>\n

Appointment of Paddy Ashdown as Bosnia’s viceroy was ill-advised from\u00a0<\/span>the very beginning. According to a Washington intelligence newsletter, he\u00a0<\/span>was “widely known for his arrogance even before his failure as leader of\u00a0<\/span>the British Liberal Party caused him to be shunted to the OHR” [Office of\u00a0<\/span>High Representative, the official name of the post]. He was an outspoken\u00a0supporter of the Izetbegovic regime during the war, and his eulogy at\u00a0Izetbegovic’s funeral last October endorsed just about all of\u00a0<\/span>Izetbegovic’s policies. Given that Izetbegovic’s obsession with a centralized Bosnia\u00a0<\/span>was at the root of the bloody civil war, such an endorsement should have\u00a0<\/span>cost Ashdown his job. Instead, he grew even bolder in his exercise of\u00a0<\/span>dictatorial powers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even if the Empire isn’t concerned about their viceroy’s rampage\u00a0<\/span>ratcheting up ethnic resentment and threatening Bosnia’s fragile peace, it ought\u00a0<\/span>to at least consider that his private war against the Bosnian Serbs has\u00a0<\/span>already hurt efforts to combat Islamic terrorists – which, contrary to his\u00a0<\/span>repeated denials, do have a presence in Bosnia. His personal grudge against the\u00a0<\/span>Serbs blinds him to cold, hard facts, such as that an Izetbegovic confidant\u00a0<\/span>is charged with embezzling $4 million; that the Muslim-Croat Federation is\u00a0<\/span>a bloated bureaucratic monstrosity; that many shady Muslim charities are\u00a0fronts for funding terrorism; that the Federation army is mismanaged to\u00a0<\/span>such a degree that troops have nothing to eat, let alone fight with. All he\u00a0<\/span>sees, like a bull in the arena, is the red rag of the Serb Republic, whose\u00a0<\/span>very existence seems to offend him.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, whether he is promoting tourism, coercing confessions, or\u00a0conducting vicious purges, Paddy Ashdown behaves as if he fancies\u00a0<\/span>himself the king of Bosnia, like a Kipling character on the 19th century Indian\u00a0frontier. But his reign should be called what it is: tyranny.<\/p>\n

Destroying Dayton<\/p>\n

Setting aside the viceroy’s fervent dislike of Bosnian Serbs or his\u00a0<\/span>sympathy for Muslims, and even the numerous ethical, political and judicial\u00a0implications of his dictatorial demonstrations, one thing that he is\u00a0<\/span>doing more of and harder than any of his predecessors is dismantling the\u00a0<\/span>Dayton Peace Agreement.<\/p>\n

Ashdown told IWPR in mid-June that, “Republika Srpska is weakening its\u00a0legitimacy by failing to meet its international obligations, because\u00a0<\/span>the very existence of the RS is based on this.”<\/p>\n

This statement alone makes one wonder whether he is reading the same\u00a0<\/span>Dayton Agreement as the rest of the world. Nowhere therein is the existence ofeither the Serb Republic or the Muslim-Croat Federation conditioned on\u00a0anything, least of all submission to demands hiding behind the\u00a0<\/span>euphemism “meeting international obligations.” Yet Ashdown has already\u00a0<\/span>implemented a series of what IWPR describes as “constitutional changes that \u00a0<\/span>strengthen state institutions at the expense of the entities.”<\/p>\n

Whether Ashdown and his employers don’t have the intestinal fortitude\u00a0<\/span>to openly declare their desire to revise the Dayton Agreement by force, or\u00a0<\/span>they hold the Serbs in such contempt they simply do not consider it an\u00a0<\/span>obligation to respect the treaties made with such “murderous a**holes” (R.\u00a0<\/span>Holbroke,1995), they are shoving Bosnia-Herzegovina back to the situation that\u00a0ignited the war twelve years ago.<\/p>\n

The last time the Great Powers meddled around in the Balkans – and\u00a0specifically, Bosnia – it caused a backlash that started European\u00a0civilization’s collective suicide. Apparently, that necrosis has\u00a0<\/span>reached such a stage that meddling in the Balkans is again the flavor of the\u00a0<\/span>day. It is a measure of how far the West has fallen that two-bit, third-rate\u00a0political failures such as Paddy Ashdown now play god in the Balkans\u00a0<\/span>powder keg.<\/p>\n

If not for the sake of the Balkans – which God himself seems to have\u00a0forsaken – but of European civilization itself, this madman and his\u00a0<\/span>enablers must be stopped, before their insanity can unleash something the West\u00a0<\/span>will once again come to bitterly regret.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 8, 2004\u00a0 The Tyrant of Bosnia: Paddy Ashdown Goes Berserk by Nebojsa Malic At the summit in Istanbul last week, NATO refused to invite\u00a0Bosnia-Herzegovina to join its satellite program “Partnership for\u00a0Peace.” Even though NATO previously conditioned the invitation on the\u00a0establishment of a joint military, defense ministry and intelligence service, all of\u00a0which have been accomplished, … <\/p>\n

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