yugoslavias implosion

Banja Luka in December 2009, organized to reaffirm Republika Srpska’s
existence and oppose the international community’s efforts to
make Bosnia and Herzegovina a functional state, participants were
adamant that it has “to survive and therefore has to be defended by
all legal and legitimate means.” 543 Svetozar Stojanović, a close ally of
Dobrica Ćosić, emphasized that in the changed international context
“it is not possible to impose solutions and they have to be sought
through the dialogue and cooperation of two entities and three
nations of Bosnia.” 544
Given the strength of nationalist sentiment and power, hopes for
Serbia’s democratic transition depend on an active and broad-ranging
international presence as well as a major influx of foreign capital.
To be sure, Serbia needs external help in battling the problems of
rampant crime and corruption, which it shares with all states in the
region. Above all, however, it needs a determined international effort
to help it revise its system of political values and ethics and to finally
put an end to its destructive political instincts and activities.
Some steps are already being undertaken with this goal in mind.
The saa agreement with the eu requires each participating state to
meet certain criteria and abide by certain norms. For example, Serbia
had to undertake several steps in combating organized crime and
corruption before obtaining access to the eu’s Schengen visa system
in December 2009. The eu’s decision to speed up the process of integrating
Serbia has created new space for similar steps. But it was possible
only once Serbia realized that there was no other alternative,
a realization spurred by the global economic crisis, which has badly
affected the whole region.
True change can come only from within Serbian society itself.
But the agents of change need external assistance if they are to triumph
over an entrenched political class that since the 1980s, if not
543 Politika, 14 december 2009
544 Ibid.
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