There’s a lot of legitimate criticisms to be made of Montenegro’s Đukanović but he’s the first WB6 head of state, as far as I know, to issue an unequivocally pro-LGBT message in this fashion. And that matters.
Croatia’s new president has also issued a statement re #IDAHOT. This is the kind of regional competition I’d like to see more of. Even if Croatia is already in EU & NATO, it’s still dealing w/ many of the same reactionary dynamics as it is WB6 neighbors.
Hashim Thaci of Kosovo. A number of colleagues have pointed out that Thaci has been these statements for much of the last decade. Thanks for the correction!
Some reflections re: a series of conversations w/ local & international officials in BiH during my recent stay viz. the (non)arrest of Bosnian Serb secessionist Dodik. 🧵
Overwhelming sentiment among both local & int officials is: he has gone too far, he must be arrested. But...
...prevailing debate is how/when his arrest will occur. My understanding is both SIPA (state police) & @euforbih have strongly indicated they are willing & able to take him into custody at any time. The key barriers to that, however, are political.
Namely, Hungary & Croatia have continued to aggressively lobby w/in Brussels to halt Dodik's arrest & their respective local proxies - both in Dodik's own SNSD & @Dragan_Covic's HDZ - have maintained a non-stop pressure campaign to dissuade or delay action vs. Dodik et al.
Extraordinary. We now have the txt of @OHR_BiH's Schmidt's address to the @ECHR_CEDH in which he (in explicit violation of his mandate as HR) argues that BiH is "not ready for...majority rule" [sic] (i.e. representative democracy). He then explicitly acknowledges a genuinely...
...democratic constitution in BiH would be to "the detriment of power-sharing mechanisms," but in a thinly veiled threat suggests the adoption of the same would "affect the fragile foundation of BiH".
@OHR_BiH's Schmidt literally using (Covic & Dodik's!) threats of violence...
...to argue the @ECHR_CEDH should continue to uphold an constitutional regime which denies basic civic and democratic rights to all citizens of BiH.
If there was any doubt left as to Schmidt's sectarian, anti-Bosnian sympathies, they are now gone. I say again: extraordinary.
The failure of 🇧🇦 to secure a €70m development package from 🇪🇺 is not only another major blow to the political fortunes of the Troika coalition, it’s another incident which illustrates how BXL (& US) have done everything possible to knee-cap rational governance in 🇧🇦.
Long 🧵.
So, what happened? 🇧🇦 req to agree a domestic development plan for the funds, which it failed to do. Why? Because in 2016 🇪🇺 forced 🇧🇦 to adopt something called a “coordination mechanism,” which gave sub-national administrative regions equal say in 🇪🇺 processes as state govt.
Thus what was already possibly the most decentralized country in the world had one of the last vestiges of rational governance sabotaged by Brussels. Suddenly, key foreign policy Qs would be shaped by cantons & even individual municipalities not the state govt.
This July 11 is the first anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide since the passage of the eponymous UN resolution earlier this year which established a global day of commemoration.
I will explain why this is a moment of opportunity but also enormous responsibility. 🧶
We now have another opportunity to ensure global awareness & scholarship of the Srebrenica Genocide. But we also have responsibility to speak truthfully & fully; the genocide in Srebrenica was only the culmination of a broader genocide against the Bosniak community of BiH.
The genocide in Srebrenica did not begin in July 1995 but in April 1992. And Srebrenica cannot be decontextualized from the broader campaign of extermination & expulsion vs the Bosniak community by the then Serb nationalist authorities in BiH & their masters in Belgrade.
As a person who just published a book on the centrality of the genocide in Bosnia & Herzegovina during the 1990s in the national consciousnesses of the contemporary Bosniak community, I'd like to offer some brief thoughts on the upcoming UNGA Srebrenica Genocide resolution.
First, let us be clear on the facts: the events in July 1995 in Srebrenica were the culmination of a nearly 4 yr long long systematic campaign of extermination, expulsion, sexual violence, detention, & torture directed at the Bosniak community by the then regime in Belgrade.
Srebrenica was a genocide but it was also only the final expression of a state-sponsored & directed program by the Milosevic regime & its Bosnian Serb proxies in the period btw 1992 and 1995, the appropriate term for which is the Bosnian Genocide or the genocide in Bosnia.
Those who do not follow Balkan politics will not grasp the full scope of this story.
It is two foreign govts covertly channeling $ to Trump in exchange for his (2nd) admin's support for potentially the wholesale redrawing of the map the southeast Europe.
First, recall Serb nationalists were from onset of Trump's 1st campaign all in on him. Like the Russians, they saw in Trump both a kindred ideological spirit but also a categorical transactionalist who was willing to put all of US foreign policy on sale. balkaninsight.com/2016/11/11/ser…
Once he took office, they began openly directing monies twd his cronies. Bosnian Serb secessionist Dodik - virtually whose entire regime is now under both US & UK sanctions - hired Trump's team to lobby for him in DC... motherjones.com/politics/2018/…