VZCZCXRO3385
RR RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN
RUEHLZ RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHVJ #1260/01 2180833
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 050833Z AUG 08
FM AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8747
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEKJCS/USMCEB WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RUEKJCS/JCS WASHINGTON DC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 SARAJEVO 001260 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/SCE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: BK PGOV PHUM SCUL
SUBJECT: BITTER POLITICAL STANDOFF OVER STOLAC SECONDARY 
SCHOOL 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary:  With Bosnia-Herzegovina's local 
elections looming in October, the future of the Stolac 
Secondary School in Herzegovina-Neretva Canton remains the 
political hot button of choice for local and cantonal 
politicians looking to energize their electorate and mobilize 
voters.  The arrangement of separate Croat and Bosniak 
curricula within one school that had been in place for the 
last few years collapsed earlier in the year, with all sides 
decrying the use of students and teachers as pawns in their 
rivals' machinations.  The DCM an Poloff visited Stolac and 
met with various part officials to impress upon them the 
importance th embassy placed on a speedy resolution of the 
siuation and to hear how the different sides envisioed 
resolving the stalemate.  End summary. 
 
Stolac Secondary School -- Nationalist Battleground 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  The Stolac Secondary School was registered in 1995 
-- an exclusively Croat school functioning by statue 
according to the Croat curriculum.  The Bosniak secondary 
school in Stolac at the time functioned by statute as a 
branch of the Mostar gymnasium, but when the Bosniak and 
Croat elements of the Mostar gymnasium unified in 2003, the 
Stolac branch was left out of the system, and since that time 
has functioned in an unregulated status.  It developed an 
unofficial relationship with the Stolac Croatian school, 
whose director signed and stamped the graduation certificates 
of graduating Bosniak students so that they could apply to 
and be accepted by universities.  This unofficial system 
broke down in 2008 as a result of the convergence of two main 
factors:  growing pressure nationwide to adopt long-term, 
regulated solutions to the national education system that 
adequately addressed the rights and needs of students of all 
nationalities; and the approach of municipal elections in 
2008 that has encouraged political parties to find issues 
that will spark greater interest in their campaigns.  As the 
2007-2008 academic year wound down, the Herzegovina-Neretva 
Canton Minister of Culture, Education and Sports (and SDA 
member) Esad Dzelilovic moved to ban registration in the 
Stolac school (the Croat school) and payment of salaries to 
the teachers in an effort to force the adoption of a new 
statute for the school that would address both Croat and 
Bosniak students.  At the same time Zdenko Milanovic, the 
director of the school (and close friend of the HDZ-BiH party 
mayor of Stolac, Stjepan Boskovic) refused to sign and stamp 
the diplomas of the approximately 160 Bosniak students 
graduating. 
 
The Crisis Escalates 
-------------------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  The individuals affected by the situation thus far 
may have found ways to work around the legal standoff. 
Students, theoretically prevented from enrolling in 
universities without stamped diplomas, were taking 
Bosnia-Herzigovinan university entrance exams after the 
schools found alternate means of verifying graduation, and 
the students may ultimately be allowed to enroll.  However, 
it is possible their lack of certified diplomas could be 
problems for them down the road.  Teachers at the Stolac 
school continued to be paid as of July 2008.  At the same 
time, however, the political standoff continued to escalate. 
The Minister of Education, apparently cooperating on this 
issue with HDZ-1990, appointed a new director for the school, 
Miro Sutalo, as the previous director, Milanovic's mandate 
had expired.  Milanovic, however, disappeared with the keys 
to the school and the official stamps, and sent away on 
vacation all other employees with keys to the facility.  The 
Minister of Education and the Director-Designate Sutalo 
planned a meeting at the school Monday morning, 28 July 2008, 
and threatened to use police force to open the schools and 
make Milanovic surrender the keys.  Against this backdrop we 
traveled to Stolac to better understand each side's 
perspective on the issue, express the U.S. government's 
concern over the lingering standoff, and urge all sides to 
resolve the situation expeditiously and without using the 
students as political pawns in the October elections. 
 
SDA:  Moving Past Repatriation to Integration in Stolac 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU)   Zlatko Hadziomerovic -- SDA Stolac President and 
 
SARAJEVO 00001260  002 OF 004 
 
 
mayoral candidate:  Hadziomerovic observed that the problem 
with the Stolac school was only one example of the problems 
in Stolac returning Bosniaks face.  Despite the international 
community's efforts to encourage Bosniaks to return to the 
town, the Bosniak population remained well shy of its pre-war 
levels, and Croats remained in the majority, as they had been 
in Stolac before the war.  There had been extremely limited 
success re-integrating Bosniaks into civil society, for 
example giving them places on managing boards of municipal 
organizations or adopting street names that represented 
non-Croat peoples.  Even today there was no treatment for 
Bosniaks at the town's medical clinic, but Bosniaks had been 
forced to set up their own health center in a private 
residence.  Hadziomerovic also commented that what little 
success had been achieved came only through pressure from the 
U.S. embassy and the Office of the High Representative (OHR), 
and that respect of the latter's influence was diminishing 
among Croats as more people came to believe the High 
Representative would not exercise the office's power to 
remove or punish transgressors.  Hadziomerovic stated 
pressure from canton level offices on local officials 
produced no results at all, and that in fact one aspect of 
the current standoff over the school was a function of the 
struggle for power between local and regional governments. 
Hadziomerovic described SDA Stolac and HDZ-1990's efforts to 
come up with an acceptable compromise, but believed these 
efforts would be thwarted by HDZ-BiH without outside 
(international) intervention.  The DCM promised to follow up 
on this meeting with the OHR. 
 
A Frosty Reception:  How Soon Are You Leaving? 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  Mladen Boskovic:  Stolac HDZ-BiH President:  The 
mood in Boskovic's office was decidedly cooler.  After we 
introduced the purpose of the U.S. embassy visit to Stolac, 
one of Boskovic's initial observations was that the main 
factor contributing to the problem of the Stolac school was 
that people who do not reside in Stolac (apparently meaning 
the canton government) want to meddle in Stolac's affairs and 
use the school as a political issue.  He then offered his 
interpretation of the chronology and the facts of the 
situation, laying out an argument that he was simply 
enforcing the letter of the law and that Minister Dzelilovic 
had forced the current standoff by interfering in local 
politics.  He stressed that the whole affair began when 
Dzelilovic had refused to allow students finishing the eighth 
year of primary school to register for the ninth grade - the 
first year of secondary school.  Boskovic believes that the 
status quo supports him - there is currently only a legal 
statute for the Croat school.  While he may privately 
recognize that ultimately there will have to be two schools, 
he appears determined to hold as tightly as possible to the 
current situation to extract the most favorable outcome 
possible from any ultimate compromise.  He expressed strong 
doubts that any such long-term solution would be reached 
prior to the election, which may in fact be all he and/or his 
political bosses, are after.  In general terms Boskovic 
welcomed the embassy's support in forestalling efforts to 
transfer power - and especially control of revenues - from 
local to canton governmets.  He also made a statement 
embassy officials ave heard repeatedly from Croat 
politicians, tha Croatians are losing rights within 
Bosnia-Herzeovina at all levels except the local level. 
Whenasked specifically what he believed the future held for 
the Stolac Secondary School, Boskovic would only state that 
his government would follow the letter of the law. 
 
The Next Step Forward for Change at the Stolac School? 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Miro Sutalo - Stolac Secondary School 
Headmaster-Designate:  Sutalo is a HDZ-1990 supporter 
who apparently has a history of conflicts with Mayor 
Boskovic, going back at least to the Mayor's decision not to 
fund the town's mixed Bosniak-Croat basketball club which 
Sutalo coaches. Sutalo argued that the current conflict was 
begun by the Mayor after Minister Dzelilovic's late 2007 
intervention.  The Minister attempted to dismiss Headmaster 
Milanovic and seek the municipality's input in creating a 
board to meet and discuss ways to statutorily adjust the 
status of the Stolac Secondary School.  Sutalo claimed the 
previous headmaster and the mayor had worked actively to 
 
SARAJEVO 00001260  003 OF 004 
 
 
block these adjustments.  Sutalo ran down a litany of 
instances where he believed the mayor abused his position and 
influence to stack important municipal boards with friends, 
relatives, and fellow HDZ-BiH officials.  Sutalo also 
described how Mayor Boskovic steadfastly refused to support 
any assistance project if it included benefits for Bosniaks - 
even if it also benefited Croats.  He listed several examples 
totaling hundreds of thousands of Euros of foreign aid 
programs for the Stolac school which either the mayor had 
canceled because the program would be shared by the Bosniak 
students, or because the donors withdrew the project funding 
because the school's regulatory issues had not been resolved. 
 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  Sutalo declared his determination to stamp the 
diplomas of the graduating Bosniak students and to regulate 
the status of the Bosniak curriculum and teachers by adopting 
a new statue modeled on the &Mostar Gymnasium Model8 that 
would maintain the separate curricula but combine the two 
programs under a joint school administration.  He claimed to 
have the backing of the Canton Prime Minister as well as a 
fair bit of public support for this move.  However, first he 
had to get the former headmaster to turn over the keys and 
seals of the school.  He hoped to convince Milanovic to 
comply, but short of that would need to get the police to 
confiscate these items.  Fearing that police intervention 
would make Milanovic a martyr, he suggested a third option 
would be for OHR to officially &remove8 Milanovic from his 
office and oblige him to comply. 
 
Cooperation at the Canton Level 
------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  Srecko Boras - Herzegovina-Neretva Canton Prime 
Minister, HDZ-1990:  Despite disagreements with Minister 
Dzelilovic over issues relating to other parts of the 
minister's portfolio, Prime Minister Boras stated that he and 
minister Dzelilovic were in agreement on the necessity of 
working together on a solution to the situation in Stolac 
that would address both the needs of the students and faculty 
at the school, as well as fix the problem statutorily.  He 
expressed his belief that the situation in Stolac would be 
resolved, either by creating two schools with separate 
statutes and separate curricula using one building; or a 
single statutory school with a joint administration and 
separate curricula.  He did not elaborate on the means by 
which the situation would be resolved, but appeared to 
believe that the position of HDZ-1990 and SDA in Stolac had 
both popular support as well as the stronger legal basis, and 
that more importantly this was an issue which every other 
areas had already been forced to address and had in fact 
addressed one way or the other.  We stressed our hope that 
the solution would not lead to entrenchment of further 
divisions in BiH, noting in that vein the &two schools under 
one roof8 should be the least preferred option and again 
stressed that whatever the outcome the students must not be 
made the victims. 
 
Comments 
-------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  The Stolac Secondary School debate typifies many 
of the local issues in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with local 
officials struggling to minimize interference by higher 
levels of government--unless they need their support--and one 
ethnic group pitted against another unless there is an 
opportunity to collaborate against another party to score 
political points.  This trip also underscored how important 
local issues are to voters and politicians:  despite the 
recent arrest of Radovan Karadzic, not one official brought 
this up, but talked instead about the school or other 
strictly local problems.  HDZ-BiH appears to have be the 
group that first decided to politicize the school issue in an 
election year, perhaps due to concerns that HDZ 1990 is 
growing in popularity and out of a need to find some issue 
that will mobilize the Croat voting population in a year when 
there is not much else for the mayor and party president to 
point to in terms of achievements.  Experts expect Croat 
voting to be down throughout the country, so every vote will 
count.  As the new headmaster noted, there are twenty-six 
schools that had to deal with the question of adjusting their 
statutory mandates to address the issue of the two 
 
SARAJEVO 00001260  004 OF 004 
 
 
nationalities, and only the Stolac school had failed to do 
so, hence the pressure from the canton government to regulate 
the Stolac school.  Boskovic's observation that it will be 
extremely difficult to craft a long-term solution in an 
election year regrettably is accurate, making it likely that 
the students and faculty in Stolac will have to find a 
work-around for the coming months to make do until a formal 
resolution is reached. 
ENGLISH