Clinton urges reform in Bosnia

[October 12, 2010]  SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday challenged all sides in ethnically divided Bosnia to embrace political reform needed for European Union and NATO membership.

Speaking in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, Clinton told university students they should push their leaders to embrace a truly multiethnic society and pledged continued U.S. support toward that goal. Earlier, Clinton urged the country's leadership to make E.U. membership a priority and make the necessary constitutional reforms.

"These reforms are needed for their own sake," she said. "But they are also needed if your country is to fulfill the goal of becoming part of the European Union and NATO."

"Your neighbors have taken strides in that direction because they know that there is no better way to achieve sustained economic growth and long-term political stability than by integrating with Europe," Clinton said.

Clinton told the audience of several hundred students from various universities in Sarajevo, which was the epicenter of the country's bloody 1992-95 civil war, that "now is the time to strengthen democratic institutions, deepen peace between neighbors, and create the conditions for long-term political, economic, and social progress."

"You have come too far, you have too much to lose if you do not overcome these differences," she said.

U.S. officials say one key element of reform, is changing a provision in the constitution that prohibits anyone other than Bosniaks, Serbs or Croats from being president, a limitation that excludes Jews, Roma or other minorities from elected leadership positions.

"No one will create a stable and prosperous future for this country by stoking the animosities of the past," Clinton said. "The only way forward lies in working together toward shared aspirations."

Fifteen years after the U.S.-brokered Dayton Peace Accords ended that war, Bosnia's three main ethnic groups still disagree over the future of the country. Bosniaks, or Bosnian Muslims, and Croats want reforms to make the weak central government stronger, while Bosnia's Serb community fears that would rob them of their autonomy.

Clinton stressed that she was not trying to impose reform. "You have to do it for yourselves, but the United States will be with you every step of the way."

She noted that since the war, the U.S. had invested about $1.5 billion to help Bosnia recover and that since President Barack Obama took office a parade of senior American officials had visited, including Vice President Joe Biden last year.

Clinton spoke to the students at Bosnia's historic National Theater, to which she walked from the headquarters of the country's tripartite presidency, waving and greeting passers-by who crowded for a glimpse of her.

Several students questioned Washington's resolve.

"I came to see how the Americans are viewing us now," said Aleksandra Vejnovic, a 20-year-old law student. "They have started this project, they wrote our constitution and it doesn't work. Then they neglected us and left us alone. I came to see if they are willing to finish what they have started because we can't do it ourselves."

At the presidency -- shared by a Serb, a Croat and a Muslim -- Clinton said she had encouraged the country's leadership, one-third of which will change on the basis of recent elections, to come together for the sake of the country's prosperity.

"I was very clear that there have to be actions taken that move the country toward greater stability," she said.

Hopes for that are slim, though. While some faces changed in the Oct. 3 vote, most Bosnians again voted along ethnic lines, reinforcing deadlock over the country's future. Although most Bosniaks -- Bosnian Muslims -- and many Croats want a unified state, Bosnia's Serbs overwhelmingly support leaders who want to break their part of the country away from the rest of Bosnia.

Clinton's stop in Bosnia is the first by a sitting secretary of state since 2004 and her second visit to the country since she first came in 1996, when she traveled here as first lady shortly after the Dayton accords.

That first visit, during which she met locals and U.S. troops at a military base in Tuzla, became an issue in the 2008 Democratic primaries when Clinton said she had arrived at the base under sniper fire. That assertion was questioned by eyewitnesses and Clinton's campaign said later she misspoke when recalling a trip filled with security concerns.

But the incident was seized on by her former primary opponent, now-President Barack Obama, and may have damaged her candidacy.

From Bosnia, Clinton goes to the Serbian capital of Belgrade to push leaders there for a speedy start to talks with the world's newest nation of Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and is still not recognized by its former master and a number of European countries. Neither Serbia nor Kosovo are yet members of the EU.

Serbian President Boris Tadic has said he is ready to participate in the talks but will never recognize Kosovo's secession, a stance that does not auger well for the success of the negotiations. Clinton also hopes to tamp down calls in Serbia for Kosovo's borders to be challenged as the U.S. believes that would set a bad precedent.

[Associated Press; By MATTHEW LEE]

Associated Press writers Aida Cerkez and George Jahn in Vienna contributed to this report

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