Carlos Westendorp: Thank you very much for your attendance at this press
conference after the Steering Board meeting, which appears to be my last
one as High Rep. I came two years ago to Bosnia and I thought when I
accepted the job, and I said publicly, that it was an impossible, almost an
impossible task, and I said almost because I wanted to keep some margin of
manoeuver, and some optimism. Now I can say that this was not an impossible
job. It was a difficult one, it is still a very difficult one but it can be
done, and it can succeed, it has to succeed for the benefit of the whole
region. I still believe that even if the Kosovo problem has detracted some
attention from the International Community, Bosnia is the key for the
region, and together with Bosnia its neighbours are very important. A full
democratisation of the whole region, economic, free market, and the respect
of the existing borders are the three key issues for the whole region and I
think this is what rightly the Stability Pact is going to address. I really
believe that the future and the destiny of the South Eastern Europe region
is to re-join the European Institutions. This region has been a problem
until now, not a long history, because history shows that perhaps in the
western side of Europe we have had more problems than in this part of Europe
and the way to overcome these difficulties is by integrating into the
European Institutions, and I think that Bosnia has to make an effort to
join the Council of Europe first, and then to fulfil the obligations of the
Stability Pact. I have been making an assessment of these two years. I still
think that the bottle is half full but there is still some space of the
bottle to be filled and this is going to be the task of my successor who has
been nominated by the European Union, accepted and appointed by all the
members of the Steering Board unanimously today, Mr. Wolfgang Petritsch, who
is an Austrian Ambassador. He has been in the region for quite a while,
being the European Union Envoy to Kosovo, and at the same time my two
deputies are also leaving. Jacques Klein hopefully will succeed Elisabeth
Rehn as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN in
Sarajevo. Hanns Schumacher will go to the Mission of Germany to the UN. To
replace them Ralph Johnson from the US, Ambassador in Bratislava at present,
will be the principal deputy, and Matei Hoffmann, a German diplomat
currently in Rome as number two, will be replacing Hanns Schumacher. The
situation in Bosnia is encouraging, there is more reconciliation, people are
travelling across the IEBL, there is more freedom of movement, there are
many issues which are already in place but there are many issues that need
to be done as quickly as possible in order to be able to integrate the
country in a prosperous, democratic region. This is not going to happen
overnight. This is going to take some time but I think it will take less
time than we think. I leave the job with mixed feelings. I think I have, we
have all together, accomplished an important period of time. I feel sorry
for leaving now, because after two years of working in Bosnia you get to
love the people, to understand them better, and to try to help them and
whenever you leave something which is not 100 percent finished you have the
feeling that many more things could be done. I have been elected a member of
the European Parliament and I owe that to my family, a kind of quieter life
than the one I have been carrying on until now. This is in a nutshell the
substance of the meeting today and there will be hopefully a meeting in
Sarajevo of the Stability Pact. I will remain there until then and I hope to
see you there.
I am ready to answer your questions.
Simon Haselock: There is a statement from the Steering Board meeting itself
which you can pick up after the press conference, which paraphrases what the
High Representative said to you now. Questions please.
Question: I was wondering what will be the hardest task for your successor
now, and when you speak of the bottle being only half full, could you be
more specific perhaps on the issue of war criminals. We were talking about
this for the last two years. To what extent is the bottle only half full, or
even less than half full on that particular issue ?
Carlos Westendorp: As far as war criminals are concerned, talking about the
numbers, the bottle is more than half full as you know because more than
half are already in the Hague. The problem is that the most relevant ones,
at least the two most relevant ones, are still at large and this is of
course something that I regret deeply. I thought that this issue could be
solved during my tenure, unfortunately it has not been done. So I hope that
my successor will be luckier, I mean it is nothing that depends on the High
Representative as you know. It depends on individual nations and individual
forces of nations to do this action. I hope that that will be done during
his tenure, and this is why I say to you that I hope he will be luckier, but
it is not that I have not asked for that as a necessity for the total
reconciliation of the country and putting the blame on individuals and not
necessary a collective blame on the whole nation. This is something which
is necessary in ethical terms, it is necessary also in practical terms
because until such a time there will be no normal life in Bosnia and in
Yugoslavia, where there have been as you know new indictees which are also
very outstanding and important.
Question: As a consequence, if that is the case, do you think that this will
provoke real changes in the Republika Srpska? Is it important for internal
development?
Carlos Westendorp: I think so. I believe that the indictment of Slobodan
Milosevic has introduced a new dynamic in the Yugoslavia problem. Against
what some people thought at the beginning that this indictment was going to
put in jeopardy the actions of the international community was not the case.
The peace agreement, the cease-fire was signed a few days after Milosevic
was indicted, contrary what people believed at the beginning. This is just
the starting point now. The situation should be monitored and see how this
can be carried out. In Bosnia I tend to think that this will consolidate the
process of the normalisation of the country. I believe that the effect will
be a healthy one. I have always believed that, but of course it is something
that is not without risk and this is what I understand the situation of the
troops as have to carry out that operation. But in any case the situation in
the Republika Srpska is already improving. There is moderation in the
government, the SLOGA coalition is stronger than ever precisely because as a
consequence of the situation in the FRY. The people in the RS want to have a
normal life, want to cooperate with the international community. They know
and they are certain that this is the only way to overcome their very
serious economic problems nowadays, and I tend to believe that this is going
in the right direction. In the Federation the problems are still the lack of
trust between the two constituent peoples there, but I am also optimistic if
I consider the evolution in the neighbourhood. Evolution in FRY is
absolutely necessary but evolution also in Croatia towards a further
democratisation of the system, better economic results, further integration
into the European Institutions and possibly a change in the government, if
the elections in Croatia give the result that the opinion pools are telling
us. This will have a clear impact on the behaviour of the Bosnian Croats in
Bosnia and also indirectly on Bosniaks behaviour which is not one of
cooperation as it should be in the Federation. Two constituent peoples have
to be equally treated. I think the only way to solve the problems of the
Federation is by respecting equally the rights of the two constituent
peoples there and that everybody feels that their tradition, their language,
their culture are respected and there is no domination of one ethnic group
against the other. And this is only possible when there is a democratic
system in the whole region. You cannot have a democracy working surrounded
by totalitarian systems in one way or another.
Question: Could you perhaps give an assessment of the main problems that the
International Community encountered in its reconstruction efforts in BiH ?
Could you make a comparison between those efforts in BiH and Kosovo ?
Carlos Westendorp: The problems are still very big. Reconstruction of the
infrastructure has been done by the International Community, with the help
of the International Community, and I think that nowadays we have the same
level as BiH had before the war, in terms of roads, water supply,
electricity, this has been done. It took a long time, longer than in Kosovo
hopefully because the destruction was much bigger in Bosnia than in Kosovo.
Especially the last missions of the UN have found that the destruction is
not as great as we had all thought. I believe that in Kosovo the
reconstruction is going to be easier and faster. But reconstruction is not
enough for having an economy that works. Unfortunately and although we have
created the necessary macro economic activities and reforms in order to be
able to allow the businessmen to operate, the economy situation is very poor
in BiH. There is something like 35/40 % unemployment as an average, and in
some places 100 % unemployment, especially in eastern RS. Bureaucracy is all
over the place, to invest in Bosnia is a nightmare. Just ask for instance
Volkswagen problems that they are still having. As Jacques Klein likes to
say, something must be very wrong because BiH is the only place where
MacDonalds has not been able to establish. There is a lot of bureaucracy,
lot of obstacles, a lot of inheritance from communistic behaviours that make
business a nightmare in BiH and this has to be changed. The International
Community is there to help, little by little. We have now to address the
problems of the smaller and medium enterprises, to create a banking system,
a financial system for credit. This is something that has to be done but it
will take time. I tend to think that the economic recovery is going be the
most difficult task for the country because this is something that we cannot
substitute the locals. I can take a law, I can put a law into force, I can
dismiss a mayor or a president of an entity, but what we cannot do is to do
business on their behalf. This is something for the Bosnians to do. Some of
them are doing it, but some of them are doing it in their own way, that is
to say with corruption, not paying taxes, not paying custom duties etc. This
is something that also has to be addressed. We are doing that but we need
also to reinforce the judicial system, the prosecutors etc. This is a slow
task, it will take time. It doesn't depend only on the International
Community, it depends mainly on the local people to start to learn how to
work and how to compete in our modern world.
Question: That means that flow of foreign investment will not come to BiH
before all these problems are solved ?
Carlos Westendorp: Foreign investment and the domestic investment. Not only
foreign, it could be also domestic investment. But private investment,
private money is not going to come in big amounts if all these problems are
not solved. They are coming, they are heroes, they are taking risks but not
in the amount that the country will need. Nobody dares. You know the
capitalist is a very cowardly animal.
Question: The role of SFOR, how long SFOR will stay in Bosnia, for how many years, its future ?
Carlos Westendorp: They are planning now a gradual phasing down of their presence. They started with 60,000, up to 30,000 now and maybe further
reduction later in the year. If you ask me how many soldiers are necessary I
couldn't answer you because this is something that depends of what these
soldiers are going to do. I believe that you can reduce without putting in
jeopardy the secure environment and to cope with the two different armies
that may have the temptation of going back again to war. This is why SFOR
is necessary on the ground. I think that this has been achieved. At the same
time what we have to do is to build up a mutual trust between the two
armies, to cooperate together, make train and equipping together, reducing
their expenditure in defence and be prepared to have a common defence
policy, not one army because this is against Dayton but at least to have
common defence policy in the future and then the SFOR could withdraw
entirely from the country. How long this is going to take I don't know.
There is another type of presence which is necessary to secure environment
for the refugee return and there SFOR is very instrumental. If there is a
too sharp reduction of SFOR presence then it can put in jeopardy the
operation of refugee return. So what I will tell you is that maybe the
quantity of troops can be reduced but the quality of the troops should be
improved in terms of more specialised units to cope with riots,
demonstrations against refugee return, so in a nutshell to be more precise
more MSUs. Multi-national specialist units.
Question: At the end of your mandate what did you fail the most ?
Carlos Westendorp: If you ask me personally I would tend to say that it is
not a matter of failure it is a matter of frustration. I would have liked to
do more in refugee return mainly, into minority areas. I would have liked to
do many more things than that. We have done quite a lot but I mean the
bottle is still half full, half empty. I am not frustrated because I
couldn't fill the bottle in two years, I knew that that is not possible in
two years. I always said that Bosnia will take time. At least one
generation. But one thing that is very frustrating is the slow path of
refugee returns to minority areas. It is perhaps due to the model that we
have chosen in Dayton, that is to say a light presence of the International
Community, it is not a protectorate. We do not have a police, a judicial
system, our own army in order to protect refugees back but the model chosen
was a different one, is a kind of intrusive collaborator, a helping hand,
sometimes this hand that helps a little bit, but it is not a real
protectorate. This is why we could not speed up the process of refugee
return, to protect them not to force them to go back . We have to be very
explicit on that. If refugees do not want to go back I don't think that it
is moral to force them to go back to their homes but those who wish to go
and there are many who have already told us that they would like to be
helped shall have the right to go back to their homes. The figures are
rather high, more than 100,000 people who told us that they would like to go
back to their homes and for that what needs to be done is to encourage the
FRY on the one hand and Croatia on the other hand to take their own
refugees back, in great numbers as you know. Croatian government accepting
the Serbs who used to live in Croatia in big numbers will allow for a much
better situation for other people to go back to their homes which are now
occupied by these refugees. The operation is not limited to Bosnia, it has
also to be extended to the whole region, mainly to the FRY and to Croatia
and this is why in this communiquÈ you will see a mention of the need of the
neighbouring countries to fulfil their obligations in Dayton in particular
with refugee return. You can expect that the International Community
bilaterally and collectively in the Stability Pact is going to make very
strong conditions on this refugee return in Croatia.
Question: What are the main conclusions of the Steering Board today ?
Carlos Westendorp: We have revised the implementation. The assessment is
positive. They have endorsed the action of the High Representative. They
have appointed a new High Representative, with some dissatisfaction with the
inadequate functioning of the common institutions and joint Federation
Institutions, the performance of elected officials and the base of economic
reform. This is why the Steering Board has urged the leaders of Bosnia to
reach these objectives and deadlines set up in the Madrid Declaration. If
Madrid Declaration is fulfilled at the end of the year I tend to think that
we would have made a very substantial leap forward in the implementation of
the Dayton Agreement. So far there is still obstructionism, reluctance to
take decisions etc. So I tend to think that my successor is going to be
obliged to take also sometimes action when the local authorities fail to do
so. I know that some press reports said that he would prefer not to do that.
I can tell you that I would have preferred not to have to do that but I
think that this is inevitable.
Question: Could you give us your opinion on the aid to Yugoslavia ? Plan for
South Eastern Europe. Give the aid to Mr. Milosevic or not give it to him ?
Carlos Westendorp: That is the main problem. I think that the Serb people
deserve a better future. They are very good people but they have very bad
leadership. Yugoslavia is going to become one important country in the
European Institutions but for that the Serb people need to get rid of their
bad leaders. One of them is Slobodan Milosevic but it is not the only one.
This is a must, a condition for the International Community to give
financial, commercial and political support that the Yugoslav people
deserve. This is a condition that all countries have already announced but
they will repeat it in the next meeting.
Question: Everybody are saying that Serbs will have to get rid of Milosevic.
How, they tried several times, they went to demonstrations, there is an
opposition movement ?
Carlos Westendorp: I think that you are right. I think that the
International Community has not been coherent enough in their approach to
Mr. Milosevic. In many cases the International Community thought that with
Mr. Milosevic we could find out ways and means to solve the problems in the
region. Without realising that he was not a solution, but he was a part of
the problem if not the main problem. This is the virtue of this clear
indictment by the Hague Tribunal. There is no possibility of looking back
and falling into the temptation of making any deals with him anymore. This
is no longer possible. I think that we have reached the point of no return
in International Community relations with Milosevic. And at the same time
what we are seeing are clear signs of different origin within Serbia that he
should go. Not only the democratic forces but also the nationalistic forces
for different reasons because they believe these nationalistic forces that
he has not done a good job during this crisis. I think that he is more and
more isolated. I tend to believe that this movement this time is going to
lead to his withdrawal from the political scene.
Question: Are you talking about him losing the elections ? He can manipulate
the elections as well, he did it before.
Carlos Westendorp: You are right. I think that the media have to be
reformed, the democratic institutions have to be in place before elections
are considered as democratic and free. I think that one of the main mistakes
was that elections took place and everybody was very happy. OSCE monitored
these elections, but we all knew that these elections were flawed in
substance. I don't think elections in present circumstances are going to be
a remedy. If you carry out elections now you know that the result is not
going to be a democratic one. The only way is just to use all means of
pressure from the different political forces in Yugoslavia to convince him
that the best solution for him is to withdraw from politics. And then allow
the country a peaceful transition towards the democracy.
Question: Then we are back to square one ? Yugoslav people will be punished
again.
Carlos Westendorp: Yes. This is one of the sad elements of dealing with
these autocrats. When you apply sanctions it is the people who suffer. I
have never been too inclined to use sanctions against dictators because what
you do usually is to reinforce them and to punish their people. But you have
to also take into account the considerations of the International Community
that by helping somebody, people having a dictator in the leadership of the
country.
Question: In the Government in Bosnia, in the political elite in Bosnia,
there is still same problem of mentality. The Government, the most important
structure, in state and in finance. How to change it ?
Carlos Westendorp: Change of mentality is a slow process, especially after a
cruel war between citizens of the same country. It takes time to heal these
wounds and it takes time before people vote for ideological options and not
for nationalistic options. But we can see encouraging signs of people
diverting from voting nationalistic and voting more according to their
ideology, especially when the economic situation is very bad. Then you have
a problem of nationalism and you have a problem of communism, remnants of
communism, which usually accustom the people to vote as a liturgical act to
those who are in power. The two elements together prevent people from
realising that by exercising their right to vote they can change the
situation. What I am seeing in Bosnia every month that passes by is that
people are really telling their leaders that they are responsible for their
situation and that they have to change. And they are ready to change by
their vote. For instance when we are now discussing the electoral system,
the new electoral law, the interest of the population on this new law is
very, very high, much more than in any of our countries. Because in our
countries whenever you are going to change an electoral system and talking
about the single transferable vote, of proportional representation, of
alternative voting system, people don't care about that. This is mainly for
politicians. But now the population is participating very actively, and what
they want is to participate more in the election system, for instance there
is an overwhelming majority of the people consulted, normal people in the
street in favour of open lists. They want to choose directly the people and
not necessarily those who are proposed by the political parties. I see these
elements, that are not very concrete elements, of deep democratisation, of
deep willing to become a democratic country of Bosnia and that makes me
hopeful.
Question: In the last two years what was your worst and the best event,
situation, something that you really want to remember ?
Carlos Westendorp: My best experiences, in a few cases because unfortunately
our activity there doesn't allow us for too much spare time to talk to the
people, my best impressions are when you talk to the normal people on the
street , or you talk to the people in intellectual circles, and you listen
to something totally different from you are listening to from politicians.
My best experience is with the people, and my worst experience is with the
politicians. Not on a personal basis because after some time you become a
friend of those politicians but I do not hate them as persons but I don't
like them as politicians.
Question: Are you going to write a book ?
Carlos Westendorp: I will try. I have a lot of good memories. I wouldn't
like to write a boring book. I would like to do something more like a novel,
based upon reality. My memoirs but using the most appealing moments in my
time in Bosnia. If I succeed I will publish it.
Question: Could you tell us that all the time you have been just, balanced,
unbiased with all parties ?
Carlos Westendorp: In my official behaviour yes. I tried to be balanced. As
I told you I dislike equally the leadership of the different constituent
peoples. What I think is that they are different . They have different
agendas, different backgrounds, different feelings. We have to make an
effort to understand all of them. It is clear that the Bosniaks were the
victims at the beginning. It is clear that they are the majority now in BiH,
and the other two constituent peoples feel that they are in minority. We
have to understand the Croat feeling that they are a less numerous
constituent people and their interests need to be duly taken into account.
We have to understand also the Serb mentality because they have been
constantly receiving propaganda which is putting them as the damned ones of
the earth, the victims of the International Community, those who are not
liked by the entire world, except perhaps North Korea and some other
countries which is the quotation made by Mr. Poplasen. All of them are
different . We have to make an effort to understand their problems and we
have to treat them equally but in a different way because not all of them
are equal.
Thank you very much.
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