Revealed: US Plans for Bosnian Constitution

· Crunch date looms over democracy ambitions
· Lure of EU entry is driving reconciliation process

The Americans have written a new constitution transforming Bosnia into a centrally governed parliamentary democracy for the first time, and are pushing strongly - with European backing - to have the blueprint agreed by Bosnia's rival nationalist leaders within the next fortnight.

The blueprint, obtained by the Guardian, has been developed during seven months of secret negotiations between US experts and officials and Bosnian politicians. The bold new draft is said to enjoy the full backing of the US state department. The crunch session of negotiations comes this weekend.

Leaders of the main eight governing and opposition parties in Bosnia are to travel to Brussels tomorrow for a weekend of negotiations on the draft which, for the first time since the war ended 10 years ago, would give Bosnia the "normal" trappings of an integrated, non-ethnic parliamentary democracy: a national parliament with full legislative powers, central government and cabinet enjoying full executive power, and a titular head of state.

The deal, if agreed, would it is hoped help to undo the bitter legacy of the war and the ethnic pogroms that were its main feature and steer the country towards multi-ethnic integration. If successful, it would be a rare triumph for western "nation-building" efforts in "failed states" and war-ravaged countries.

"This draft would mean the total transformation of this country," said a senior official in the office of Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader who is the paramount international authority in Bosnia. "This is very ambitious."

Bosnia currently has one of the most complicated and wasteful systems of government ever devised. It is split into two ethnic halves, a Bosnian Serb republic and a federation of Muslims and Croats, both with their parliaments and governments. There is then a national parliament, presidency, prime minister and government. Over the past 10 years, the ethnic entities have enjoyed strong powers, with central authority weak, albeit strengthened in recent years largely as a result of Lord Ashdown's initiatives.

The federation half, in turn, is split into 10 "cantons", also with their own parliaments and governments enjoying wide powers. The US blueprint makes no mention of the cantons. Both "entity" halves are retained, but crucially are stripped of most of their powers, which are vested in a strong central government sitting in Sarajevo and answerable to a national parliament whose main lower house is to double in size.

At the blueprint's centre is an emphasis on individual human and civil rights, supplanting the previous accent on the privileges of the rival ethnic collectives.

Donald Hays, a former US state department official who served for four years in Bosnia as deputy to Lord Ashdown and his predecessor, is the key architect and driver of the plan. "What they [the Bosnians] are looking at is to make the future government a parliamentary democracy," he said. "Until the Brussels meeting, we don't know what they are willing to achieve."

His colleague, Bruce Hitchner, a Boston professor, said the draft entailed scrapping more than half of the constitutional dispensation agreed exactly a decade ago at the three-week conference in Dayton, Ohio, that ended the 42-month Bosnian war. "This is Dayton-plus," said Mr Hitchner. "The changes are astonishing. A year ago there would have been no chance of them sitting together to discuss this."

Mr Hays said the new deal represented Bosnia's "fast track" to integration with and ultimate membership of the European Union. It was the attraction of the EU that was driving the movement towards a normal functioning democracy.

If Bosnian leaders agree in Brussels this weekend, they will travel to Washington where the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, will preside over a signing ceremony on the new constitution on November 22, the anniversary of Dayton. The constitution would then be adopted in Sarajevo by next March, leaving six months before general elections in October are conducted in a radically altered political landscape.

However, a senior Bosnian Serb government official warned that too much pressure for such a radical a shift could trigger "a collapse".

The blueprint abolishes the current tripartite presidency, with places reserved for a Muslim, a Croat, and a Serb. The head of state would be one person, elected by parliament rather than popular vote. The office would surrender its powers to the prime minister and the presidency would be largely symbolic.

When Yugoslavia dissolved into war in 1991, Bosnia became the main bloodbath. A country of 4.5 million Slav Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Bosnia became the target of a landgrab, first by Serbia to the east, then by Croatia to the west. "Ethnic cleansing" was the main tactic aimed at seizing land. More than half the population were forced from their homes and 150,000 were killed. The victims were mainly Muslims. Sarajevo and rebrenica became bywords for Serbian savagery. The US launched a bombing campaign in 1995 and forced a settlement 10 years ago at Dayton that gave the Serbs half the country and turned Bosnia into an international protectorate.

In his commentary, "Revealed: US plans for Bosnian Constitution," (10 Nov), Ian Taylor continues the myth that 150,000 people were killed during the Bosnian war, 100,000 fewer victims than the 250,000 that is usually published (and accepted) by most of the media.

However, even the statistic of 150,000 is false. A 2002 BBC report puts the number of dead in Bosnia at 40,000, on all sides. Furthermore, George Kenney, former State Department officer who was in charge of the Yugoslav desk in Washington, D.C., and David Binder, former New York Times journalist and an expert in Balkan affairs, put the number at between 20,000 to 70,000, a far cry from even 150,000.

It was the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Itzebegovic that exaggerated the number of victims, without verification nor documentation, but 250,000 was of far greater benefit in order to get the West to fight his war for them.

But the myth continues.

Let's also remember that this "bloodbath" need not have happened. In Lisbon, the three Bosnian leaders representing the Croats, Muslims and Serbs, endorsed a proposal, The Lisbon Agreement, that the republic be a confederation divided into three ethnic regions. However, it was Warren Zimmermann, Clinton's Ambassador to Yugoslavia, who went to Alija Itzebegovic and said that if he didn't like it, he didn't have to sign it.

It was then that Izetbegovic knew he had Uncle Sucker just where he wanted him - to fight his Muslim war against the Christian Serbs.

Itzebegovic wrote in his "Islamic Declaration," that "There can be no peace or coexistence between Islamic faith and non-Islamic faith political institution...The Islamic movement must and can take place as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough, not only to destroy the non-Islamic one, but to build up a new Islamic one."

Mission achieved.

"A country of 4.5 million Slav Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Bosnia became the target of a landgrab, first by Serbia to the east, then by Croatia to the west."

That's like saying that a "landgrab," for California, or for Florida, or for Arizona, was made by the US government even though those are already American states and belong to the American people. But who knows? The way we are going with illegal immigration from Mexico, those South West states may yet be claimed by Atzlan that makes no secret what their intentions are.

"The Serbs are not fighting to conquer new territory, but to hold on to what was already theirs." - General Charles G. Boyd, USAF (Ret.), Former Deputy Commander in Chief, European Command, from his article in Foreign Policy, September-October, 1995.

However, the big winners of the "landgrab," are the Bosnian Muslims and the Kosovo Albanians.

All won except the Serbs whose Yugoslavia was multi-culture, ulti-religion before Clinton.

Give it up, Doc. Clinton took office in 1993. Before then, Belgrade had already fought a war against Slovenia and lost, Macedonia had seceded, Kosovo had declared independence, and the Serbs were busily ethnic cleansing their way to a "Greater Serbia" in Bosnia and Croatia.

Mark, may I ask you a question? With all of your support for the muslim jihads being waged throughout the Balkans and is currently spreading to France then ooozing its way throughout the rest of Europe. You think for one second these same muslim greens would not lay waste and want to kill you? You are an infidal, just an infidal like the rest of us. The muslims will not assimilate into their adoptive countries culture, they allow that countries assimilate into theirs, selective assimilation. Think about that, you are just an infidel to them, in the end. No more, no less.

When you die and your grave reads, "I helped kill christians to further the muslim agenda of global domination for an Islamic Global Domination Nation, but, they killed me for being an infidel", will you be happy? Besides, they'd slice your families throat while they are at it. They don't care about how much help you have provided.

They are using you, they are using you, They are using you, they are using you, They are using you, they are using you, They are using you, They are using you, They are using you, They are using you, They are using you, They are using you.

Can you say and repeat that? This is what you championing your cause over?

The bodies of two Bosnian Serbs in eastern Bosnia. On the right, a charred body of Zdravo Eric, who was killed and his body burned. Before burning him, Muslims took out the heart of this Christian as a sign of Islamic piety.

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