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DE RUEHVJ #0994/01 1280701
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O 080701Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3434
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUFOAOA/USNIC SARAJEVO IMMEDIATE
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SARAJEVO 000994 
 
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: 05/05/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL BK
SUBJECT: BOSNIA: CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: STRATEGY FOR THE 
COMING PERIOD 
 
REF: A. A) SARAJEVO 937 B) SARAJEVO 954 
     ¶B. C) SARAJEVO 966 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR DOUGLAS L. MCELHANEY. REASONS: 1.4 (B) (D) 
 
¶1. (C)  With the heat abating somewhat from last week's 
failure by the BiH parliament to pass constitutional 
amendments, we are looking ahead to next steps.  Bosnia's 
political parties are now in full electoral battle mode; 
yesterday the BiH Electoral Commission announced national 
elections will be held on October 1. (Note: This puts to rest 
rumored plans by the BHEC to delay the elections a further 
four weeks for technical reasons.)  Five months of frenzied 
campaigning now loom -- and there will be scores to be 
settled over the setback dealt by the motley anti-reform 
coalition in the BiH Parliament to Bosnia's first effort at 
amending the Dayton constitution. 
 
¶2.  (C)  The math we faced in the House of Representatives on 
April 27 -- 26 for, 16 against -- is unlikely to change in 
this heated electoral season, precisely because the "no" 
voters had a tight commonality of interest in using the 
constitutional amendment package as a vehicle to raise their 
individually insignificant profiles.  The Party for BiH 
(SBiH) and the right-wing breakaway element of HDZ, now known 
as the "HDZ 1990," reportedly used bribes, as well as the 
power of the Croat Catholic hierarchy, in a scorched-earth 
effort to defeat the amendments and buy themselves enormous 
press coverage.  They will continue to dine out on this 
"victory," and in so doing, will also continue to inundate 
the public with wartime-era rhetoric.  The message is 
unrelentingly negative and, unfortunately, does find some 
resonance with the frustrated, politically alienated 
electorate of Bosnia -- thus our concern in reftels not to 
inadvertently provide the anti-reform forces a platform by 
continuing to push forward the constitutional package at this 
sensitive moment. 
 
Maintaining Momentum Among the Pro-Reform Parties in the 
Election Period 
 
¶3.  (C)  We will be looking in this next period to 
substantially dilute the rejectionists' negative rhetoric via 
active public diplomacy, both through our own messages and in 
tandem with our European and international partners, who were 
as keenly disappointed as we (albeit less involved) at last 
week's setback.  Our theme will be straightforward:  Bosnia 
faces a clear choice, one road that leads towards Europe and 
NATO and one that leads nowhere.  The parties that rejected 
constitutional change are headed down the wrong path; more to 
the point, they offer no convincing alternative. 
 
¶4.  (C) Just as important, we will also look to re-energize 
the party leaders who had staked themselves on the issue of 
constitutional reform for most of the past year.  The 
personal and party relationships they developed through the 
process of negotiation and compromise on constititional 
reform are, in many ways, unnatural -- or at least not 
entirely a comfortable fit, given the past 15 years of this 
country's history.  However, both for the stability of BiH as 
well as for the more immediate prospect of re-introducing the 
constitutional amendments package into Parliament, it will be 
critical to use our good offices to keep these 
newly-developed relations in good repair.  The strains of 
this particular electoral season, and the harsh rhetoric that 
SBiH and HDZ 1990 have used to attack their Bosniak and Croat 
opposite numbers during the reform debate, have the potential 
to boomerang nastily by encouraging even the pro-reform 
parties to hew to the right, as they seek to prove to their 
voters that they have been "tough enough" on Bosnian Serbs -- 
the logical whipping boy in Federation political circles. 
 
¶5.  (C)  Ambassador plans to call the six party leaders 
together during the week of May 17, upon his return from 
Washington, to compare notes and encourage them to plan 
actively for resuming the effort at constitutional reform 
immediately after the elections.  Ambassador saw 
Tri-Presidency Chairman Tihic May 5 as preparation for that 
larger meeting.  Tihic has spent the past week ruminating on 
how he or we might resuscitate the package.  However, with 
the Election Commission's announcement of Oct. 1 elections, 
the legal window is closed for amendments that would take 
effect with this year's elections.  Of equal importance, the 
group that Tihic has openly pondered approaching -- the HDZ 
1990 crowd -- has proven clearly to us that its demands 
 
SARAJEVO 00000994  002 OF 002 
 
 
vis-a-vis "protection of Croat interests" in a future 
constitutional context cross our redlines, as well as the 
those of the Europeans.  The HDZ 1990 demands -- a full 
ethnic veto over all legislation -- are retrogressive even in 
terms of the present imperfections of the Dayton 
constitution.  Moreover, the HDZ 1990's leaders have pulled 
the Croat Catholic hierarchy overtly into the party's 
political fight with the main HDZ, using the constitutional 
reform package as a vehicle for their internecine battle. 
The Church's attacks on the reform effort, and on the U.S. 
for its leadership of the process, have become increasingly 
shrill (septel), and do not bode well for any prospects of 
moderating the HDZ 1990's stance. 
 
Institutionalizing the Constitutional Reform Process 
 
¶6.  (C) In the longer term, we need to begin to flesh out our 
plans for institutionalizing a constitutional reform effort 
that has both the necessary technical expertise and political 
horsepower.  We would envision a constitutional reform 
commission under U.S. leadership, akin to the highly 
successful defense reform commission, with a technical 
secretariat housed at OSCE or another organization with the 
 
SIPDIS 
credentials and resources to provide the needed logistical 
support.  European buy-in, both in the form of funding and 
symbolic participation, would help us maintain the goodwill 
we have thus far had from the local European missions and 
from Brussels.  This will take some diplomatic footwork, 
however, since the High Representative has demonstrated a 
newly discovered determination to usurp the constitutional 
reform process and give OHR a preeminent role -- a 
development that would only artificially prolong OHR's 
lifespan and launch, in our estimation, another "process" 
with no real start or endpoint. 
 
¶7.  (C) In short, we can use the months ahead of us to 
bolster the parties that proved willing to engage in 
meaningful discussion and compromise; to calm the political 
waters roiled by the shrill, rejectionist message of hardline 
Bosniaks and Croats throughout this debate; and to design a 
durable methodology for constitutional reform that can 
weather the vagaries of the Bosnian (and international) 
political scene.  The U.S. role in all this will be critical, 
given the drift among the Europeans and the trust that the 
Bosnians continue to show in our leadership. 
MCELHANEY