OHR Removes RS Police Officers

The new High Represenative to Bosnia; Miroslav Lajcak, removed the Deputy Director of Police from the RS as well as 35 RS police officers.

Divides and Reforms

As we no longer get a home subscription, I haven't read the Chicago Tribune in a long time. What would you know, there just happened to be extra copies of yesterday's Tribune in the lobby, and there was a front page article on Bosnia, titled "Old Divides Plauge Bosnia." The article focused on the "dangerous backsliding" as nationalist politicians and leaders have "allowed ethnic and bureaucratic divisions to again undercut the nation's prospects."
Meanwhile, the WSJ recently published this article about some Bosniak entrepreneurs moving to the RS part of Bosnia for better business opportunities. And while I don't agree with Dodik on political matters, or with his lack of cooperation with the international community and the Federation when it comes to unifying the Bosnian police force; this isn't the first article I've read about how his economic reforms are leading to more investments and business opportunities in the RS.

Both of these articles (particularly the WSJ article) made mention of what they portrayed as being a major issue when it came to the lack of economic and other reforms: the large amount of bureaucracies, particularly in the Federation.
According the Chicago Tribune article, there are 170 different ministries in the Federation. There seems to be almost just as many problems with having too many bureaucracies and organizations as with having to few. Case in point, according to the Tribune article two years ago, travel was very difficult in Sarajevo due to heavy snow. The problem wasn't a lack of road crews to plow the streets; but rather so many road crews no one really knew who should plow. The WSJ article also made mention of the issues of a large number of bureaucracies in the Federation; according to Hazim Stikovac, who moved to Zepa along with his father to set up a plant, "is too complicated. All the different governments --canton, Federation, municipalities. It's too much." Of course, it wouldn't be fair when discussing the high number of bureacratic organizations in the Federation without also making mention of how the Federation's struction that was created at the Washington Agreement lends itself by its very nature to more levels of government; as opposed to a more centralized structure.

The IJC ruling and the RS

Initially relieved that Serbia had been acquitted of genocide, Republika Srpska worries about the judgment's implications for its future.

Read the full article here.

Article: Bosnia's Messy Politics

From the Economist. A short, but rather sobering article.