[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 8, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3261-S3262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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 SENATE RESOLUTION 131--RECOMMENDING THE DESIGNATION OF A PRESIDENTIAL 
SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE BALKANS TO EVALUATE THE SUCCESSES AND SHORTCOMINGS 
    OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DAYTON PEACE ACCORDS IN BOSNIA AND 
 HERZEGOVINA, TO PROVIDE POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS, AND TO REPORT BACK TO 
                        CONGRESS WITHIN ONE YEAR

  Mr. BEGICH submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 131

       Whereas, on December 14, 1995, the General Framework 
     Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (referred to in 
     this resolution as ``BiH''), known as the Dayton Peace 
     Accords, brought an end to the brutal conflict in that 
     country that was marked by aggression and ethnic cleansing, 
     including the commission of war crimes, crimes against 
     humanity, and genocide;
       Whereas the Dayton Peace Accords define BiH as a country 
     with three constituent peoples--Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs--
     to be comprised of two internal entities known as the 
     Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika 
     Srpska (RS), from which an extremely complex, fundamentally 
     flawed system of governance and administration has been 
     derived;
       Whereas the Dayton Peace Accords included many compromises 
     imposed by the need for quick action to preserve human life 
     and bring an end to the conflict in BiH, and as a result may 
     have hindered efforts to develop efficient and effective 
     political institutions capable of overcoming the challenges 
     required to become an integral member of the Euro-Atlantic 
     community of nation-states;
       Whereas, since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, the 
     Government and people of BiH have been working in partnership 
     with the international community to achieve progress in 
     building a peaceful and democratic society based on the rule 
     of law, respect for human rights, and a free market economy;
       Whereas BiH demonstrated its commitment to the shared 
     values of democracy, security, and stability by joining the 
     Partnership for Peace program of the North Atlantic Treaty 
     Organization (NATO) in December 2006;
       Whereas BiH received a conditional Membership Action Plan 
     status in NATO in April 2010 pending completion of specific 
     military and political reforms;
       Whereas the Government of BiH took the first important step 
     on the road toward European Union (EU) membership by signing 
     a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU 
     in June 2008;
       Whereas, despite these notable achievements, the Government 
     and people of BiH continue to face significant challenges in 
     their efforts at integrating into Euro-Atlantic institutions 
     and the country's economy continues to decline;
       Whereas the Council of Europe's Venice Commission concluded 
     that the current constitutional arrangements in BiH are not 
     conducive to the efficient or rational functioning of state 
     institutions, hindering the pace of the country's accession 
     to NATO and the EU;
       Whereas the Government of BiH has the obligation to 
     implement the ruling of the Grand Chamber of the European 
     Court of Human Rights in the case of Sejdic-Finci from 2009 
     with regard to the election to the Presidency and House of 
     Peoples of BiH of Others, who are defined as those Bosnian 
     citizens who are not primarily a member of the Dayton 
     Accords' stipulated three constitutive peoples-- the Serb 
     Bosnians, the Croat Bosnians, and the Muslim Bosnians or 
     Bosniaks;
       Whereas reform at any level, including that originating 
     from the implementation of the European Court of Human Rights 
     ruling on the Sejdic-Finci Case, should take into account the 
     protection of equal constitutional rights of all;
       Whereas the elections in BiH should reflect the right of 
     the constituent peoples and others to choose their legal 
     representatives, who would therefore represent those people 
     consistent with the founding provisions of the Dayton Peace 
     Accords, as opposed to the existing practice, which allows 
     for the representatives of one people to be elected by the 
     members of other constituent peoples, hindering the political 
     stability of BiH;
       Whereas only the full protection of equal political, 
     economic, legal, and religious rights of all the constituent 
     peoples and others throughout the territory of BiH, including 
     the inalienable right to return, will guarantee the future 
     stability, functionality, and effectiveness of the country;
       Whereas the number of Bosnian Croats has declined from 
     820,000 before the war to around 460,000 remaining in BiH 
     today, as reported by the Catholic Church in BiH which has 
     played an important role in protecting rights of Catholic 
     Bosnian Croats and reporting problems and cases of 
     destruction of personal and real property of both the 
     Catholic Church and Croat returnees;
       Whereas it is not acceptable that this negative demographic 
     trend is reflected in the reduction of constitutional rights 
     of Bosnian Croats, as that reduction directly causes 
     political and administrative dysfunctionality of the country;
       Whereas a functional BiH as a whole is not possible without 
     a fully functional FBiH, one of the two entities established 
     by the Dayton Peace Accords, both being ethnically and 
     administratively composite;
       Whereas FBiH's protracted poor functionality only 
     exacerbates the existing predominant separatist tendency in 
     the RS, the predominantly Serb entity of BiH, thus 
     threatening the very integrity of the country as a whole;
       Whereas continuous economic decline is a direct consequence 
     of the fact that most of BiH's gross domestic product (GDP) 
     is generated from the publicly owned companies, which are run 
     at the RS and FBiH entity levels by political parties with 
     enduring ethnocentric agendas reflecting their particular and 
     non-common interests, preventing the further creation of 
     much-needed free enterprise business development and closely 
     integrated national internal markets;
       Whereas the social fabric of BiH is the single most 
     important victim of the war and ensuing political conflict, 
     and the need for repair, strengthening, and further 
     development of civil society is fundamental to the country's 
     recovery and desired development;
       Whereas the Republic of Croatia has clearly demonstrated 
     that allegiance to democracy, market economy, rule of law, 
     and respect for human and citizen rights is conducive to full 
     integration into the Euro-Atlantic community, and the 
     Government of Croatia continues to play an active role in 
     contributing to BiH's political stability, internal 
     integrity, and international viability;
       Whereas all the other neighbors of BiH share the ambition 
     to join the European Union; and

[[Page S3262]]

       Whereas the future of BiH is in the European Union and 
     NATO: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) reiterates its support for the sovereignty, territorial 
     integrity, and legal continuity of BiH within its 
     internationally recognized borders, as well as the equality 
     of its three constituent peoples and others within an 
     integrated multiethnic country;
       (2) welcomes steps taken by the government of BiH towards 
     integration into the Euro-Atlantic community and reiterates 
     its position that this commitment is in the interests of the 
     further stabilization of the region of southeastern Europe;
       (3) emphasizes that it is urgent that BiH, as well as its 
     internal political entities, all work toward the creation of 
     an efficient and effective state able to meet its domestic 
     and international obligations with effective and functional 
     institutions, and that the national government of BiH--as 
     well as the institutions of the entities--are able to instill 
     necessary reforms in order to fulfill European Union and 
     North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership requirements;
       (4) reiterates its call that constitutional reform in BiH 
     take the Dayton Peace Accords as its basis, but advance the 
     principles of political, economic, legal, and religious 
     equality and tolerance in order to rectify provisions that 
     conflict with the European Charter of Human Rights and the 
     ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, and to rectify 
     the conditions to enable economic development and the 
     creation of a single economic space, including through the 
     fair and effective functioning of public companies so as to 
     be consistent with the goal of successful EU membership;
       (5) stresses the importance of privatization of the 
     publicly owned enterprises through fully transparent 
     international tenders prepared in close cooperation with the 
     EU and the Office of the High Representative (OHR) as a means 
     of avoiding the misplacement of political attention and 
     energy toward running companies rather than providing 
     effective service to the citizens of the country;
       (6) commends the present focus of the United States 
     Government in support of stronger civil society in BiH, and 
     urges the Department of State to further increase endeavors 
     in that regard;
       (7) believes that the Department of State and the President 
     must seek to address all these matters more emphatically in a 
     manner that provides for a just evaluation of the current 
     grievances of the three constituent peoples and the Others in 
     the two entities of the BiH;
       (8) believes that it is of paramount importance that the 
     United States Government work closely with the EU in 
     conceiving and implementing an accession process specifically 
     made for BiH, which would link in a causal and firmly 
     conditional way the internal integration of BiH with its 
     phased integration into the EU;
       (9) urges that it is substantially beneficial for the 
     process of building up the functional capacities of BiH to 
     the level of its full ability to enable membership in NATO 
     and the EU, that the United States Government work closely 
     with BiH's neighboring countries--especially those who are 
     signatories to the Dayton Peace Accords--ensuring consistency 
     along the lines of their own European ambitions so that they 
     actively contribute to BiH's internal integration and 
     political and administrative functionality conducive to BiH's 
     successful membership in NATO and the EU;
       (10) reiterates that a fully functional Federation of BiH 
     entity is essential for the future of BiH as a functional and 
     stable state and therefore any envisaged reform should take 
     into account protection of the constitutional rights of all, 
     including Bosnian Croats--demographically smallest of the 
     three Dayton Peace Accords recognized constituent peoples in 
     BiH--and prevent further weakening of their position;
       (11) believes that it is important that the United States 
     Government, together with other international actors, support 
     countries of the region in fulfilling their obligations as 
     agreed through the launching of the Sarajevo Process in 2005, 
     reaffirmed in the 2011 Belgrade Declaration, as well as 
     during the Donor Conference held in Sarajevo in April 2012, 
     aimed at ending the protracted refugee and internal-
     displacement situation in the region of Southeast Europe and 
     finding durable solutions for the refugees and internally 
     displaced persons through the implementation of the Balkans 
     Regional Housing Programme;
       (12) reiterates its call that the United States should 
     designate a Presidential Special Envoy to the Balkans who 
     should work in partnership with the OHR, the EU, NATO, and 
     the political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as 
     with neighboring countries, to facilitate much needed reforms 
     at all levels of government and society in BiH; and
       (13) urges the Presidential Special Envoy, not later than 
     one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, to 
     submit to the Committees on Foreign Relations and 
     Appropriations of the Senate and the Committees on Foreign 
     Affairs and Appropriations of the House of Representatives a 
     report with targeted evaluations and discoveries, including 
     to provide proposals on how to address any ongoing 
     difficulties outlined above, as well as ways to overcome any 
     remaining political, economic, legal, or religious 
     inequalities in BiH.

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