Balkan Lessons from Bolivia - The Gamarra Report

Controversy again emerged between Bolivia and the United States this past week following President Obama’s naming of Philip Goldberg to the post of Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. While Goldberg is an unfamiliar name in the US, it is a household name in Bolivia. Mr. Goldberg served briefly as US Ambassador to Bolivia between 2007 and 2008. In late 2008, President Evo Morales expelled him from the country for allegedly conspiring with regional opposition forces. The charges were never proven and, in my view, were simply part of the government’s efforts to consolidate power through the intimidation of the opposition. Clearly, if the government could expel the US Ambassador, it could certainly deal with the upstart opposition. That Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez also expelled US Ambassador Patrick Duddy in solidarity with Morales, helped make the case that Goldberg was simply a conspirator with “separatist” forces from the eastern lowland department of Santa Cruz. Duddy returned to Caracas following a thaw in US-Venezuelan relations. Goldberg remained “persona non grata” in La Paz.

Why was Goldberg Controversial?

Goldberg’s short lived tenure as Ambassador to Bolivia was tinged with controversy. Before arriving in La Paz, Mr. Goldberg had had a very distinguished career as Foreign Service Officer having served as Special Assistant and then Executive Assistant to Scott Talbot, then Assistant Secretary of State. He also served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who in 1995 urged NATO to drop "bombs for peace" in Bosnia to pressure the Bosnian Serbs and their protector Slobodan Milosevic to come to the bargaining table. Holbrooke's success in the negotiations led the Clinton Administration to call upon him again in Kosovo. In 1998, Holbrooke concluded the October Agreement with Milosevic, allowing roughly 250,000 Kosovar Albanians to return home and establishing a short-lived cease-fire monitoring regime. In the final days before the war, NATO turned to Holbrooke once again for an unsuccessful effort to negotiate with Milosevic. Holbrooke went on to serve as United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

Goldberg’s proximity to Talbott and Holbrooke resulted in his naming to the American negotiating team at the Daytona Peace Conference that ultimately crafted the Dayton Peace Accords (http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/bosnia/bosagree.html ). In brief the Accords established that

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia agreed to fully respect the sovereign equality of one another and to settle disputes by peaceful means.

The FRY and Bosnia and Herzegovina recognized each other, and agreed to discuss further aspects of their mutual recognition.

The parties agreed to fully respect and promote fulfillment of the commitments made in the various Annexes, and they obligated themselves to respect human rights and the rights of refugees and displaced persons.

The parties agreed to cooperate fully with all entities, including those authorized by the United Nations Security Council, in implementing the peace settlement and investigating and prosecuting war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law.

The Dayton Accords ended four years of ineffective diplomatic efforts by the European Union, the United Nations, and the United States. Richard Holbrooke -- then Assistant

Secretary of State for Canadian and European Affairs – was tasked by President Clinton to lead an "all out negotiating effort" to end the war in Bosnia. Holbrooke and his team, which included Golberg, mediated between the three forces in conflict ( the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina) to end what Holbrooke called the "greatest collective failure of the West since the 1930s." A decade later it is very instructive to re read Holbrooke’s account in To End a War (New York: Random House, 1998) to understand the role played by the Clinton Administration and the team that ended the conflict.

As a reward for his role in the peace process that led to the end of the war, Goldberg was named chief of mission to Kosovo, a role he performed with distinction. His final mission before arriving in La Paz was as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Santiago, Chile.

Rather than pointing to Goldberg’s key role in ending one of the most horrendous conflicts of the 20^th Century where human atrocities were committed by all sides, the Bolivian government and many of its US NGO advisors painted the incoming ambassador as the Machiavellian agent of US Imperialism who specialized in breaking countries apart. While analysts of the Dayton Accords still argue today, most conclude that their significance lies in more in what would have happened if they had not been negotiated. Goldberg played an important role as a member of a team that was forced to accept the realities of the war to negotiate an immediate end to the atrocities that had raged throughout the 1990s.

Instead, the Bolivian government accepted the unfair and inaccurate caricature of Goldberg painted by activists. For example, one blogger wrote with great uninformed authority,

In the Bolivian diplomatic world, as an expert pusher of separatism, Philip Goldberg’s nickname is “the Ambassador of Ethnic Cleansing.” Between 1994 and 1996 he was Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, one of the strategists behind Yugoslavian disintegration. He also promoted Serbia’s and Montenegro’s separation and was in Kosovo, where he fomented conflict between Serbian and Albanian forces. (http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/the-ambassador-of-ethnic-cleansing )

Goldberg’s Career after La Paz

President Morales and advisers incorrectly assumed that Goldberg was simply a functionary of the departing Bush. Few understood the respect and esteem that the ousted ambassador help in Washington and elsewhere. As one member of the US Congress who generally favored a conciliatory role with Morales told me during an interview earlier this year, Goldberg’s expulsion ended his support for the Bolivian president.

Upon his return to Washington, Goldberg did not simply sit around waiting for Morales to take him back. As a sign of how his stature, he was named in May 2009 as coordinator of the United Nations Security Resolution 1874, which imposed sanctions on North Korea for detonating a nuclear device. And, last week in naming Goldberg to his new post as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence, President Obama noted:

“My Administration is well served by individuals like these, who have shown themselves to be professional, knowledgeable and dedicated throughout their careers.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts-102309 )

Bolivia’s predictable reaction

Not surprisingly, the Bolivian government expressed outrage over Goldberg’s nomination to such a high post. This posture is not surprising for a government that is convinced of its importance in world affairs and which ludicrously believes that the Obama Administration should consult with President Morales before naming Goldberg to any post. Cesar Navarro, one of the ruling party’s congressional members noted,

the naming was a signal to Bolivia that the imperialistic structures of the United States are intact and Obama has not changed the structures and for that reason is more a symbol than a leader of the transformation of that country. (http://www.la-razon.com/versiones/20091026_006892/nota_262_900156.htm)

Assistant Secretary Goldberg must still be confirmed by Congress, and it is likely that the Bolivian government’s activist friends in Washington will attempt to throw mud on this well deserved nomination. In the end Goldberg will be sworn in and will have little time to dedicate to Morales and Bolivia given the importance of other real threats to the United States from around the world.

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