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OO RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHVJ #0841/01 1081832
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 181832Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3272
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JCS WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUFOAOA/USNIC SARAJEVO PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SARAJEVO 000841 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR D (SMITH), P (BAME), EUR (DICARLO), EUR/SCE 
(ENGLISH, SAINZ, FOOKS), NSC FOR BRAUN, USNIC FOR WEBER, 
GREGORIAN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/18/2016 
TAGS: PREL PGOV BK
SUBJECT: BOSNIA:  CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM AMENDMENTS GET 
HOSTILE RECEPTION IN COMMITTEE; VOTE DELAYED UNTIL APRIL 
19; NO MAJORITY IN SIGHT 
 
REF: SARAJEVO 813 B) SARAJEVO 814 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR DOUGLAS MCELHANEY.  REASON:  1.4 (B) AND (D). 
 
¶1.  (C)  SUMMARY:  The U.S.-brokered constitutional reforms 
faced their first crucial parliamentary hurdle on April 18 
when the House Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee 
(CLAC) considered the package in a marathon day-long session. 
 The result:  a temporary stalemate, with the CLAC postponing 
its vote until April 19.  Difficulties in the CLAC are 
primarily due to its composition, with four of the nine reps 
from parties that have been overtly hostile to the package 
(including one from breakaway Croat HDZ 1990).  The situation 
was complicated by proposals for fresh changes by Bosnian 
Serbs.  The opponents in the committee (two of whom have 
long-standing strong relationships with the U.S. and European 
officials), however, faced with an up-or-down vote on the 
principles of the package, dodged the bullet by supporting a 
motion by a delegate from a minor Serb party who suggested a 
24-hour delay to reflect further.  It is still narrowly 
possible that the package will get the crucial 5 of 9 votes 
tomorrow needed to forward it with a positive recommendation 
to the full House on April 24. 
 
¶2.  (C)  Our current strategy remains to keep the pressure up 
on the nay-sayers in the committee to allow it to move to the 
full House; a negative vote in committee will doom it 
procedurally, and the critics well know that.  Pressure from 
the international community on two key players (Raguz and 
Belkic) has had no visible effect -- although, faced with 
voting "no" on the principles, and therefore killing the 
package altogether may call their bluff.  Statements of 
support from European leaders (Blair and most recently, from 
Solana -- with a Barroso statement reportedly in the works) 
have been helpful in the public domain; the Embassy has 
pressed the German Ambassador to solicit similar input. 
Meanwhile, the Embassy continues its intensive outreach to 
the Croat media.  The Ambassdor addressed a televised 
roundtable of Croats in Mostar today, and -- given the 
negative comments by (Catholic) Cardinal Puljic over the 
weekend -- will meet with the Papal Nuncio.  Ambassador will 
also meet with party leaders April 19 to strategize prior to 
the CLAC session.  END SUMMARY. 
 
HOSTILITY IN THE COMMITTEE, DECISION DUCKED FOR 24 HOURS 
 
¶3.  (C)  Given the makeup of the BiH House of Representatives 
Constitutional Committee (2 members of SBiH, the party of 
Haris Silajdzic, 2 anti-Covic Croat delegates, one radical 
anti-reform Serb member), we face an uphill fight for weeks 
to get the constitutional amendments package out of the 
9-member committee into the full House.  Procedurally, the 
committee must forward the package with a "positive" 
recommendation (via a simple majority), or the House will 
simply return it for further discussion.  Given the tightness 
of the remaining calendar -- the Electoral Commission 
must/must be in a position to announce the upcoming national 
elections on May 4, with the amendments and electoral law 
revisions safely passed -- there is simply no time left for a 
"negative" report out of the committee. For hours, the 
critics of the package -- two Bosniaks from (Silajdzic's 
Bosniak) SBiH, two Croat break-aways from the Croat HDZ, and 
two Serbs from minor parties, went round and round in 
circles.  Tellingly, none of the critics could find 
sufficient votes for their own proposed amendments, as became 
clear in the discussion.  Thus, by day's end it was clear 
that even the critics could not find sufficient common cause 
to get the package amended in a way they could all live with, 
because each side was seeking changes (cancelling the entity 
vote; taking competencies away from the state; reinserting 
ethnic blocking mechanisms) which the others found repugnant. 
 When the chair directed them to the unavoidable -- an up or 
down vote on the principles, which could only then be 
followed by votes on individual amendments -- a look of some 
panic spread on at least several of the opponents' faces. 
Confronted with the politically distasteful prospect of being 
tagged responsible for killing the package -- and BiH's hopes 
for constitutional change for the near term -- several of the 
opponents immediately jumped onto a proposal to delay a vote 
for 24 hours. 
 
¶4.  (C)  Intervention with two key representatives -- SBiH's 
Beriz Belkic and breakaway HDZ 1990 rep Martin Raguz (though 
pressed by calls from the Department April 17 and constantly 
 
SARAJEVO 00000841  002 OF 002 
 
 
lobbied by the Ambassador) --  has had little visible effect 
on their negative stance.  Despite further calls from 
European representatives, neither to date is giving any 
indication that he will support the package or even abstain 
when the vote is taken.  Tomorrow will tell whether this is 
indeed a bluff.  We, and European interlocutors, have made 
very clear to Belkic and Raguz that neither their reputations 
nor their relations with us will recover if they, by a "no" 
vote in committee, kill the amendments package.  Tellingly, 
Raguz has not even circulated for the committee's 
consideration the rumored 7-8 amendments his party has 
prepared.  Belkic and his fellow SBiH traveler know well that 
their only amendment -- to abolish entity-voting -- has no 
chance of mustering sufficient support in committee, let 
alone on the floor of the House.  Their stance is purely 
driven by the overwheening ambitions of their party's 
ex-leader, Haris Silajdzic, some-time resident of BiH, to be 
president in October. 
 
WHAT WE EXPECT APRIL 19 
 
¶5.  (C)  Ambassador has convoked all party leaders supportive 
of the constitutional reform package to Sarajevo for a 
strategy meeting April 19.  Parties have spent more time 
fighting among themselves over last minute efforts to 
renegotiate the package, and despite constant demarches from 
us and others, have failed to focus on the parliament.   A 
24-hour delay will only increase the pressure on those who 
have tried to pretend, in conversations with us, European 
officials, and in public, that their vote "doesn't count." 
Nothing could be further from the truth at this time.  It is 
altogether possible that if the package musters the requisite 
5 of 9 votes, it will be with the support of an anti-reform 
Serb, who has opposed all of the major state-building reforms 
in BiH to date.  He has aligned himself with a Serb member 
from the Socialist Party who is leaning our way, but requires 
a push, which he will get tonight from us, as well as other 
political party leaders who negotiated the agreement.  Raguz 
and Belkic, in particular, will then be faced with the kind 
of responsibility that they have tried to evade for weeks -- 
accepting that they cannot, this time around, get the support 
they want for their way and join the majority to support this 
critical first step in constitutional reform.  Unfortunately, 
as is often the case in Bosnian politics, it is not at all 
clear that they will show the requisite political courage. 
 
EMBASSY, EUROPEAN OUTREACH CONTINUES 
 
¶5.  (C)  Embassy continues pressing the international 
community here to ramp up vocal support for the 
constitutional reform package, particularly with the Bosnian 
Croat community.  Prior to his departure for New York, High 
Rep Schwarz-Schilling asked former Belgian PM and head of the 
European People's Party Martens to intervene with breakaway 
HDZ 1990 leader Bozo Ljubic (who, like Raguz, remains 
opposed).  OHR staff also reached out to members of the 
committee over the weekend, as have key members of the 
Steering Board Ambassadors.  Today, EU High Rep for the CFSP 
Solana sent a letter of support for the package to party 
leaders, which arrived in time to be read aloud at the April 
18 CLAC.  (It was covered widely in the press April 18.)  We 
understand a similar statement from Barrosso is in the works. 
 
 
¶6.  (C)  Parallel to Embassy Zagreb's outreach to the HDZ 
leadership, the UK is also intervening with Sanader via its 
Ambassador in Zagreb.  Cardinal Puljic's negative comments on 
constitutional reform (directly criticizing the U.S. for 
"driving remaining Croats out of BiH") in the weekend press 
has received wide coverage here.  The Ambassador used a 
televised April 18 roundtable with prominent Croat 
politicians and intellectuals to counter effectively a number 
of arguments being used primarily by breakaway HDZ 1990 to 
bolster its slim electoral chances.  In addition, the 
Ambassador will brief the papal nuncio here in Sarajevo on 
Thursday; we believe outreach by our Embassy to the Vatican 
would be extremely helpful in this regard.  The UK Ambassador 
has assured us that his government will also be reaching out 
to the Church via its Vatican emissary. 
 
MCELHANEY