Give us more money more often
The entire war and the existing divisions in former Yugoslawia were created precisely because of corruption and possibility for some people to get rich. As many more countries you have, more states, more cantons, there are more governments to collect taxes, more cadres employed by local bureaucracies to charge various. More countries also mean more borders, and more borders translate to more customs and even more shadowy export-import firms.
Not unlike in better American corporations, intelligence and talent became a disadvantage for advancement in the late Yugoslav politocracy. They were looked upon with suspicion characteristic of medieval church. Chosen cadres performed ritual extraordinary meetings, which did not solve anything extraordinary, because they were designed not to solve anything extraordinary. Nothing had to be solved: everything was fine. Factories did not make products, yet people had jobs. Workers had jobs, yet they did not get paid (or they got paid miserably). They did not get paid, yet the consumer spending was on the rise. Numbers continued to add up, and politicians were talking one day of economic recovery, another of impending economic doom, almost like those are both some mild over-the-counter tranquilizers which effects pale quickly.
The only growth industry was in taking fees. Various service industries spawned: particularly in the export-import field. Everybody was exporting and importing something and making money (both on export and on import), but nobody really figured it out how. Government was charging taxes, sometimes 110% of income, which, of course, nobody paid, so all the inspectors lived well of bribes. In return, government printed more money. Country drifted further in debt, but only those who went along, got elected for higher positions of power. Miraculously, the Western banks generously bankrolled such economy for years. Yugoslav cadres spent most of their time bickering about the distribution of the money, that they grew to believe they were entitled to as Tito's heirs. Well, judging that the Western corporations are ruled by the same type of cadres that ruled late Yugoslavia, tendency to continue to underwrite those bad loans to the carcass of their old pal is quite understandable.
The situation, as we know, changed overnight. Unlike the U.S., Yugoslavia lost credit with its creditors. I guess, Yugoslavia was not in debt enough. Puny 20 billion dollars. That's nothing for a country of 20 million people. The U.S. debt, for example, is 400 trillion on 250 million people. Without further input of money from outside the system based on overseeing of disbursements rather than on production, collapsed as quickly as the credit went down. The economic habits of that old system, nevertheless, persisted in the emerging countries of former Yugoslavia. Indeed, those habits are one of the main obstacles today not only for implementation of Dayton agreement but also for the peace and stability in the region in general.
Biljana Plavsic cries corruption. As if this is something new and unique to the area. But the entire war and the existing divisions were created precisely because of corruption and possibility for some people to get rich. As many more countries you have, more states, more cantons, there are more governments to collect taxes, more cadres employed by local bureaucracies to charge various fees for licenses, passports, certificates, various documents which don't have (yet) equivalent in English language. More countries also mean more borders, and more borders translate to more customs and even more shadowy export-import firms.
25% of income in Croatia is made by export-import companies. Banja Luka buys things from Sarajevo that buys things from Mostar that buys things from Trebinje that buys things from Podgorica that imports things from Croatia's based non-profit which gets things for free from the West (this is an imaginary, yet quite possible chain - and at each point of this chain there is somebody who takes a percentage). Pompous governments of minuscule entities, which are sometimes called republics, treat their citizens as subjects in corrupt medieval kingdoms. Their sole job is to present themselves as victims to the Western creditors, extort some money and then oversee its disbursement to their supporters, who in turn keep them afloat by brain-washed TV programs and brute force. Note that all of them walk around flanked by murky characters with their right hand on the pistol.
Local communities rarely see much of the help, after many middlemen take their share. Ordinary people are told that the money was needed for defense and the reconstruction of the country. The Army was told the money is in the reconstruction. Yet not much is reconstructed. And the money is gone.
Return of refugees is generally undesirable event: not your own ones and certainly not those from the "other side." Refugees mean more mouth to feed, more bodies to house, i.e. less money to share among old pals. Since, they can't openly refuse refugees, they create a climate so that refugees FEAR returning. If they are of your own - you treat them as traitors, who run away when it was the most difficult for their holly nation and expect them to come back with money or not come at all, and if they are not of your own, than they are obviously an enemy who dared to return, so you leak the information of their return, to angry, hungry, often half-homeless "your own" refugees, and then sit back and watch what would happen: in Vogosca, a municipality that signed for a new project of local targeted help for those ("open") cities that allowed return of refugees, refugees from Srebrenica would probably disembowel those 20 Serbs that came back to check out their old apartments if they were not under a heavy police protection. Police protection is, of course, ritual on such occasions: the point is driven home well - "you won't be able to live here without police protection, so give it up."
Refugees are best left where they are, so they are somebody's else responsibility. It is plain to me that despite of five years of horrible war and despite that four new countries were admitted as sovereign nations to the U.N., Yugoslav polito-economic environment is still alive as if nothing happened. The economy is still based on the Western aid and loans. The distribution of that aid and loans is still tied to an oligarchy of cunning, insatiable, yet not really bright cadres and their sycophants and body-guards who double as "businessmen."
The biggest concern for all those "leaders" is to control the secret police. There are tales from the dark side of the Yugoslav intelligence war. Three days before Tudjman assumed his first presidency of Croatia, files from Croatia's Republic Secret Police headquarters miraculously disappeared: endless lists of snitches, informants and their targets - who knows who is who in Croatia today. In return Tudjman immediately gave oversight of Croatia's intelligence and counter-intelligence to his son. Sensitive things are best kept in the family. In Belgrade one of the most important things that Milosevic did is to have his Serbia's Republic Secret Police forces raid the building of the Federal Secret Police headquarters and take it over. This was the real end of Yugoslavia. Today, there is only one person in Serbia's intricate system of power who was there at the time Milosevic firstly ascended to power: Jovica Stanisic, a head of the Secret Police.
One of the main objections Croatian side has to signing the economic cooperation agreement with Bosnia is that Zagreb wants Sarajevo to give up AID (Agency for Information and Documentation - Izetbegovic's secret police). That is understandable. Since the 1974 Constitution, Secret Police activity fell into domain of Republic's political leaderships, instead of federal. The result was that we had one country with eight secret polices which spied and collected information on each other. The next step was to get five countries out of one, and a new generation of leaders who understand that the number of countries is irrelevant, as long as they have a single Secret Police under their personal control. None of them would give up his/hers secret police: they would rather give up more territory or people. They realize that their power rests mainly on a Gestapo-like control their secret polices enable them to exercise over the territory and people (regardless of how small) in their domain.
The ugliest punishment is not to give them money. IMF just blocked 40 millions dollars earmarked for Croatia for the second time. It must send shivers up the backs of Croatia's petty mafia and political bureaucracy. They might start doubt Tudjman's providence. They need that money to perpetuate their existence in power. In a matter of time they'd be ready to do anything necessary to get that money, like a heroin addict is ready to do anything to get his shot: sell his brother, cheat on his mother, betray the closest friend - even Tudjman might not be safe in such circumstances. 40 million, after all, that's a lot of money.
It is obviously a capricious conspiracy lead by the British. They claim that Croatia does not comply with Dayton and other agreements that cover return of refugees, giving up control of Herceg-Bosna and extradition of war criminals. Croatia claims that it does allow return of refugees, and it actually staged some phoney return attempts that ended up badly because of the "circumstances." As for war criminals and subpoenaed witnesses, Croatia can't find them, even that some of them are Croatia's government ministers or army generals. Government, however, is working on it. It is funny when you have a new country that tries to pull all those old tricks. British, who at some points in the last century, cruelly controlled about a 1/4 of the planet, however, know all those tricks from their own past very well. They lost their own empire. They just had to give up Hong Kong. Why would they have mercy to Croats who seem not to want to give up Mostar?
Not that Tudjman's demise would change the picture that much: we shall yet see would the ineptitude and the lack of compassion, prevalent among the Balkans leaders, spread like a contagious disease, aided by the dominant global inertia, to the apparently fertile grounds of the Western corpocracy.
An anecdote in reconciliation: the soccer team from Zagreb (Dinamo) played in Belgrade against Belgrade's team Partizan and lost 0:1 in fromt the Belgrade's public: NO CROATIAN FANS WERE ALLOWED TO SERBIA. A week later the game was repeated in Zagreb - this time NO SERBIAN FANS WERE ALLOWED IN CROATIA. Partizan lost to Dinamo 0:5 in Zagreb, which prompted Franjo Tudjman, former president of soccer club Partizan, now president of Croatia, to say that Croats are "superior nation." Croatian media failed to carry that intelligent remark, which may signal that his star is vaning. Dinamo's fans like to tease him for his former allegiance to the Partizan and particularly because he changed the name of Dinamo to CROATIA, which is the official name of tha soccer club today. VIP box at Zagreb stadium was shared by the two former directors of Zagreb Television - Vrdoljak, who is now president of Dinamo, and Knezevic who is today Serbian ambassador to Croatia. Dinamo appeared to be in much better shape. Then again, about the "superior nation": half of the team are Bosnians.