[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 171 (Thursday, November 19, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8162-S8164]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. SHAHEEN (for herself and Mr. Wicker):
  S. 2307. A bill to promote the strengthening of the private sector in 
Bosnia and Herzegovina; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, on November 21, the world will mark the 
20th anniversary of the Dayton Agreement, which ended the conflict in 
Bosnia and Herzegovina that began in April 1992.
  Last July, the Senator from New Hampshire and I had the privilege and 
distinct honor of being part of a delegation of House and Senate 
Members to visit Srebrenica as part of the official U.S. delegation to 
remember the genocide in Srebrenica on its 20th anniversary. So a few 
months later in November, we commemorate a happy occasion, a positive 
development in the history of Europe and in international relations, 
the Dayton Accords.
  I commend a bipartisan duo for securing approval within the United 
States. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and Speaker Newt Gingrich, 
a Republican, were both instrumental--along with a host of others--in 
persuading on a nonpartisan basis Americans and American Congressmen to 
support this agreement, which involved a bit of risk for the United 
States. It involved troops of the United States going into this area 
and risking their safety in order to make this accord work. So I 
appreciate this, and on the 20th anniversary of that agreement and 
their leadership, I commend them.
  The Dayton Agreement was part of a response to a conflict that helped 
the international community transition from a world divided between 
East and West in order to meet post-Cold War challenges.
  I wish to mention three accomplishments of the Dayton Accords and 
then Senator Shaheen will speak for a few monuments about that aspect. 
Then we will talk about some legislation that she and I have had the 
honor and privilege of working on together as a result of this trip 
that she and I took, along with others, to commemorate this tragedy in 
Srebrenica.

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  Back to the Dayton Accords, among the accomplishments is a successful 
and robust peacekeeping force under NATO, which actually replaced the 
U.N. peacekeeping group with a NATO command group. It was deployed for 
the first time, and NATO also intervened out of area for the first time 
to make peace.
  Secondly, persons were held accountable for war crimes on an 
international basis--crimes against humanity and genocide. This is the 
first time this had happened since World War II.
  Third, international cooperation on demining and a concerted search 
for missing persons became essential parts of post-conflict recovery.
  Dayton also put the OSCE on center stage--the Organization for 
Security and Co-operation in Europe, of which I am a committee chair 
representing the United States of America. The Accord mandated that the 
OSCE oversee arms control efforts and develop confidence-building 
measures within Bosnia and regionally and make it possible for a 
country divided and almost destroyed by war to hold elections in a 
reasonably Democratic manner.
  So let's celebrate that accomplishment, and I am sure the Senator 
from New Hampshire will have some more important insights to offer at 
this point.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am very pleased to be on the floor 
with my friend and colleague from Mississippi to talk about Bosnia-
Herzegovina and about our trip to commemorate the horrible massacre in 
Srebrenica that occurred in 1995. As Senator Wicker has said, that was 
a very moving trip for us.
  One of the things that was very particular to New Hampshire that I 
found hopeful was listening to the very young mayor from Srebrenica, 
the current mayor, whose name is Camil Durakovic. He had actually spent 
a number of years in New Hampshire and had gone to Southern New 
Hampshire University. His family had fled after the massacre in Bosnia 
and came to New Hampshire. He went back in 2005 and was elected mayor. 
One of the things he talked about was the need to work with Serbia, to 
work across the ethnic and religious lines in Bosnia to achieve peace. 
It was, as Senator Wicker said, so heartening to think that we were 
actually able to get these Dayton Accords that ended that long conflict 
in Bosnia--very bitter and bloody--and see some real progress.
  One of the things we talked about on the flight back with President 
Clinton and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was what we 
could do to help Bosnia continue to progress and move forward, because 
one of their challenges is economic. This is a country that has a very 
high level of education, and it has a lot of young people who need 
opportunities for the future. So we talked about whether there was a 
way that we in Congress could look at trying to provide some economic 
help for Bosnia in the future.
  We came back and looked at how we could work together to come up with 
an idea that might be successful. What we came up with--and it was 
another tremendous bipartisan effort--was to look at the enterprise 
funds that were done after the fall of the Soviet Union and some of the 
Eastern European countries. Enterprise funds were funds passed by 
Congress with bipartisan support that helped those fledgling private 
sector economies begin to recover after the fall of the Soviet Union.
  So we took that model--a U.S. enterprise fund--and focused on Bosnia-
Herzegovina, and this is the legislation that we are going to be 
introducing. I don't know how Senator Wicker feels about it, but I 
think this offers real opportunity to Bosnia because we can leverage a 
very small amount of public resources through the private sector, 
through other local funds that might be available in Bosnia, and see 
real progress on the economic front that will help create jobs that 
will help those young people stay in the country and build a strong 
country.
  So for my friend from Mississippi, I think this is a very good way to 
provide some of the assistance they are going to need. Would the 
Senator agree?
  Mr. WICKER. I certainly agree with my colleague from New Hampshire, 
and I commend her for her leadership in getting this legislation 
drafted.
  It is an opportunity to provide a very meaningful chance for Bosnians 
and Herzegovinians to live the good life and remain in the area, but it 
is also in the absolute national security interests of the United 
States of America. We can't tend to everything, but we saw 20 years 
ago--25 years ago and forward--with the war in the Balkans what could 
happen and what almost happened to security in all of Europe. We know 
this has been a flash point down through the decades and even the 
centuries. To the extent that we can address some things that we didn't 
get done at Dayton, this will help people in the region and the former 
Yugoslavia and also help the United States of America.
  The Dayton Agreement was a crowning achievement, but it didn't 
provide Bosnia with a constitutional framework and political structures 
that could effectively govern on into the 21st century. And the Senator 
from New Hampshire and I certainly saw that. We were meeting with the 
tripartite head of the government after the ceremony we attended.

  Dan Serwer of Johns Hopkins University recently observed:

       We imposed the Dayton Accords, but we imposed what the 
     ethic nationalist warring parties told us they could live 
     with. It is therefore unsurprising that one way or another, 
     ethnic nationalists have dominated Bosnia almost 
     continuously, making it ungovernable, since 1995.

  So we are hoping the Bosnians and Herzegovinians can address this 
issue, and while they are doing that, our legislation would establish 
an enterprise fund directed by a board of American investment 
professionals capable of leveraging both public and private funding to 
provide entrepreneurs access to the same kinds of loans and investment 
opportunities afforded to small- and medium-sized businesses here in 
the United States.
  By strengthening the private sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this 
legislation would help create space to continue moving forward on the 
political reforms I just alluded to. As the Senator said, it would 
establish an enterprise fund modeled after U.S. programs that supported 
central and eastern European economies after the fall of the Berlin 
Wall, with approximately $10 billion of public and private funding.
  I would also point out that this legislation doesn't score as an 
expense. I think we are being very frugal with the authorization we are 
providing to the Congress to build on this, if our legislation passes.
  Per capita income in Bosnia and Herzegovina averages less than $5,000 
annually. And that is a shame 20 years after the Dayton Accords. 
Compare this $5,000-a-year per capita to $13,000 a year right across 
the border in neighboring Croatia. The unemployment rate stands at 40 
percent.
  Things are at a critical juncture in this country, and that is why I 
think our trip over there with former President Clinton and with former 
Secretary Albright and Members from the House of Representatives came 
at such an important time and prompted us to work together on 
legislation to help make the situation better for individuals over 
there but also help make our national security stronger and more 
reliable here in America.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, as my colleague from Mississippi points 
out, this really is critical not just to Bosnia and its future, but 
this is also about the national security of the United States.
  My colleague talked about the Balkans. We know World War I began in 
the Balkans. We know it has continued to be a part of Europe where 
Russian aggression and Russian efforts to subvert the governments there 
continue, they continue their activity. It is a place where we have a 
number of different ethnic groups and where different religions 
converge. So it is a place we need to keep supporting--Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. We need to look at how we can help them ensure their 
continued progress toward the West and Europe and also toward economic 
prosperity.
  I traveled there in 2010 with former Senator Voinovich from Ohio, who 
had done a lot of work on the Balkans when he was in the Senate. I will 
never forget a lunch we had with a number of young people there, mostly 
college students or recent graduates. We talked to them about what they 
saw for the future of the country, and there was so

[[Page S8164]]

much hopelessness in that conversation because they didn't see the 
kinds of opportunities we want young people to see as they are thinking 
about their futures and their children and what is going to happen in 
their country. So I think this is a partial answer to how we can help 
them provide that economic prosperity they are looking forward to.
  Finally, I think what has happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the 
Dayton Accords--for all of its flaws, it is a model we can look to as 
we are looking at the challenges we face in Syria. The Bosniaks, the 
Serbs, the Croatians, the Muslims, the Orthodox Christians, and the 
Roman Catholics all came together and they agreed to end the conflict 
in Bosnia. They agreed to try to build a successful democracy and a 
strong economy to create a successful multiethnic, multisectarian state 
under very difficult circumstances. And while we need to continue to 
look at how the Dayton Accords should change, it is still a milestone 
in what happened with that conflict and I think serves as a model for 
so many other regions in the world where there is conflict.
  Mr. WICKER. The Senator from New Hampshire makes two very salient 
points I do want to underscore. And it pains me that we have to be on 
the floor of the Senate this afternoon talking about an aggressive 
Russia. Russia was trying to help 20 years ago in the Dayton Accords. 
They were trying to be part of getting things done. This is no longer 
the case. Russia and some of the few countries aligned with their 
interests now seem to be trying more to block effective responses to 
the international problems.
  In addition, some of the aggression of Russia in Ukraine, for 
example, is eerily, troublingly reminiscent of some language in 
previous decades--talk of violating a neighbor's sovereignty, 
territory, and claiming they are doing nothing more than defending a 
threatened local ethnic population. That is troubling and familiar 
rhetoric from a very dangerous past time. So I would underscore the 
Senator's point there about Russia.
  Before I toss this back to her to close, I would simply say this 
about her comments about American leadership. No one could have made 
this work except the United States of America in the early 1990s and in 
the mid-1990s. There was one people on the face of the Earth, and that 
was the Americans. The world turned to us, and we stopped a 
conflagration in Europe that was about to get out of hand.
  With regard to Syria, I am so glad my friend mentioned this. The 
United States is being looked to internationally for leadership. No one 
else can provide that leadership. Again, it is incumbent on us to help 
people who are suffering in other locations, and we want to do that if 
we can, to the extent we can afford it. But we need to act with 
leadership on behalf of the United States of America, on behalf of our 
own citizens, on behalf of our own national defense interests and the 
interest of every American to live in the absence of fear from 
terrorism and the attacks and ill wishes of those who would cause us 
injury, if they possibly could.
  I very much appreciate her point about American leadership, and I 
know this will not be done unless we do it across the aisle. It is why 
it means so much to me to take the floor this afternoon in this 
colloquy, with a Democratic Senator from New Hampshire and I, a 
Republican Senator from Mississippi, pushing in the same direction and 
asking for American leadership.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. I thank my colleague. As you point out, we represent 
two very different parts of the country.
  Mr. WICKER. Although we both are Ole Miss graduates.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. We are. We share that. The fact is, this is a 
bipartisan issue. As my colleague points out, the United States 
brokered that historic agreement in Dayton. We were the only country 
that could really take that leadership, and we need to continue that 
role in the world.
  I look forward to working with Senator Wicker as we try to move this 
bipartisan bill to support Bosnia and Herzegovina and continuing to be 
vigilant on efforts to undermine democratic values wherever they exist 
in the world, and certainly this is one place where we can provide help 
in a way that is very important.
  I thank my colleague.
  Mr. WICKER. And I thank the Senator from New Hampshire.
                                 ______