Escobar for CNN: Dodik strikes at the very heart of Dayton

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Gabriel Escobar, Special Envoy for the Western Balkans and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of the USA, spoke in a very extensive interview for CNN about the events in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Christiane Amanpour, who has been closely following events in our country for three decades, continued her series of interviews on recent developments after Christian Schmidt and Arminka Helić, through Haris Silajdžić, with Gabriel Escobar. Escobar, who has previously served as a diplomat in the Balkans, warns that SNSD leader Milorad Dodik is striking at the very heart of Dayton. Escobar also emphasizes that the US encourages others to consider sanctions, meaning to "consider the stick instead of the carrot.".

"To begin with, to understand the current crisis, it is important to understand some of the context in which it is happening. If you look at the story of former Yugoslavia, seven – out of seven countries, two are members of the European Union, four are members of NATO, and most of them enjoy enormous economic success. If you look at the Western Balkan countries, these are six Balkan countries that are not members of the European Union, four are progressing well towards EU membership. In all of this, Bosnia is a complete outlier. Its corruption is the worst in Europe, with the exception of Belarus and Azerbaijan. It has 10 times higher youth emigration than Serbia. It has such a negative balance in terms of foreign investment that its public sector makes up 70 percent of the economy. And all of this is driven by deep-rooted corruption. People are leaving the country not because they don't want to live in a multi-ethnic state, but because they cannot get a job without corrupt connections. This is the context in which the current crisis, masked as an ethnic crisis, is happening. There are some real threats to Dayton, and most of them come from Milorad Dodik. So, if our efforts in Bosnia fail, it will call into question all the success the region is currently enjoying," Escobar said at the beginning of the interview.

Amanpour was interested to know if Escobar's task was to ensure that a total catastrophe in our country is prevented.

"I must start by saying that we are completely united with our European partners on this issue. So, yes, there is a multi-faceted diplomatic effort. The first will, as you mentioned, involve getting Milorad Dodik to step back from attempts to dismantle central institutions, which is truly stabbing the heart, striking at the heart of Dayton. The second is to bring Serbs back into central institutions, but for those central institutions to work for all people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, whether they are Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs, or others, and for those institutions to function. From there, we would like to focus on electoral reform and limited constitutional reform so that the country can achieve political consensus," was Escobar's message.

Quoting the recently appointed German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and her call for sanctions, Amanpour was interested in the US stance on this issue.

"We encourage all our partners, namely the United Kingdom, the European Union, bilateral partners, to start looking at sticks as well as carrots. These are not just sanctions, but additional financial measures that will force people to step back from the brink and compel them to respect the Dayton Agreement," Escobar points out.

Escobar also rejected the view recently expressed by Haris Silajdžić in an interview with Amanpour, according to which a new war could occur in BiH if the international community does not react.

"I completely disagree with that. First of all, this is not 1991. There is now a UN Security Council mandate for peacekeeping. And we have a European force mission in the region. We have a High Representative with a range of tools that can prevent political actors from taking further de-escalation actions. There is an obligation on both Croatia and Serbia, as signatories, that there will be no war. So, on top of that, we do not see the capacity, to be honest, of any institution to wage war. I... in conversations with young people, there is no will to protect Milorad Dodik under these conditions," stated the American envoy.

The American official believes that there is sufficient international presence and force to prevent the worst from happening.

"There is European force. And the peacekeeping mandate extends to NATO. There is a NATO presence in Bosnia. And, also, Bosnia and Herzegovina is – we are a partner in Dayton. We will strive for it to continue to survive and progress. We will try to make it succeed. But there is absolute political will that this does not happen again. But I must return to my earlier point. The current crisis is a crisis of dysfunction and corruption masked by ethnic rhetoric. So, what Milorad Dodik wants to do is not actually the independence of Bosnian Serbs. What he is trying to do is to protect his corruption by eliminating all federal structures that would investigate it. He does not want federal regulators, federal courts, or the constitutional court to look into it, which is why he constantly says he supports the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. What he does not support is a federal structure that could prevent his corruption. Now, if you know Milorad Dodik, and I know you do, he was very pro-Dayton at the very beginning. He was very pro-US, pro-EU, pro-High Representative. And he was, in fact, one of the leaders who handed over more people suspected of war crimes to SFOR than anyone else in the region. What is different is that he is now deeply corrupt and is looking for a way to continue that," Escobar concluded.

Escobar's appearance on CNN occurred just a few hours before the US Senate, after months of blockade, confirmed on the last working day of the week and in this calendar year the arrival of Michael Murphy, the new US ambassador to Sarajevo.