Charlatan, psychopath, saint: who was the real Mother Teresa?

Anita Singh
Mon, May 9, 2022

Mother Teresa, pictured in 1993 - AP

Mother Teresa: For The Love of God? (Sky Documentaries) featured quite a spectrum of opinion. “She was a modern-day Jesus.” “She was a charlatan, pure and simple.” “The most admired woman in the world.” “A bit of a psychopath, to be honest with you.”

Documentary-makers often take a position against the prevailing orthodoxy. But that has already been done in the case of Mother Teresa. Christopher Hitchens performed a demolition job on her saintly reputation in the 1990s, both in writing and in a film, Hell’s Angel. Instead, For The Love of God? remains faithful to the question mark in its title. Over three parts, it features interviews with supporters and detractors, inviting the viewer to make up their own mind. The result is a comprehensive and balanced assessment of Mother Teresa’s life, portraying her as a complex figure.

She devoted herself to the poor and worked indefatigably into her eighties. She rescued the destitute from the streets of Kolkata, taking in orphaned children and opening a home for the dying. None of that is in doubt.

But her public image obscured some uncomfortable truths. Jack Preger, a British doctor who went to work in Kolkata, was appalled by the conditions he found at her institutions. Patients were not being provided with decent medical care or pain relief, because the sisters preferred simply to pray for the alleviation of pain. Much of the money donated by well-wishers did not find its way to the poor, but was instead handed over to the Vatican.

She ran the Missionaries of Charity almost as a cult, according to one former member, with sisters instructed to cease contact with their families. Perhaps most damningly of all, she appeared to turn a blind eye to sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. (The Missionaries of Charity told the programme that Mother Teresa had no knowledge of abuse.)

Her critics included Dr Aroup Chatterjee, who moved to London from Kolkata and was amazed by the extent to which her role had been mythologised in the West. “People kept telling me that Mother Teresa was feeding Kolkata, clothing Kolkata… I just couldn’t believe that this level of lies, misinformation and fantasy could pervade the world in such a way.”

But the Hitchens-level criticism felt as overdone as the blind loyalty displayed by some of her fiercest supporters. While Mother Teresa clearly had many faults, there was nothing here to back up the “charlatan” claim (made by the filmmaker and activist Tariq Ali). Most likely, she was neither saint nor sinner, but something in between.

Monica Ali on George Orwell, 'Anna Karenina,' and the Book She'd Pass on to Her Kid


Riza Cruz

Elle
Tue, May 10, 2022

Photo credit: ILLUSTRATION BY YOUSRA ATTIA

Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.

Monica Ali has been open about the loss of confidence and resulting depression that kept her from bookstores, new novels, literary festivals, speaking invitations and writing for years. A little more than 10 years have passed since her last novel and nearly 20 since her Booker Prize-shortlisted debut, Brick Lane. Love Marriage (Scribner), about two doctors from different cultures engaged to be married, marks her fifth book and as an instant Sunday Times bestseller, welcome return.

Born in Dhaka to a Bengali father and English mother, Ali fled with her brother and mother (who she remembers reading The Story of Ferdinand to them on the flight out) when civil war broke out. Her father would eventually reunite with his family in the UK, and she would earn a philosophy, politics, and economics degree at Oxford University.

The London-based author taught creative writing at Columbia University and was Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Surrey. She is a fellow at the Royal Society of Literature and patron of women and girls’ empowerment organization Hopscotch Women’s Centre.

She has two children; worked as a sales and marketing manager at small publishers including Verso and at a design and branding agency; spends time at her summer house in Portugal (where her second novel Alentejo Blue takes place); and is adapting Love Marriage for a BBC television series.

Practices: Transcendental Meditation. Listens to: Esther Perel’s “Where Should We Begin?” podcast. Intrigued by: Therapy as an alternate career and communal living. She shares her book picks below.
The book that:
…made me weep uncontrollably:

A Gesture Life by Chang Rae Lee. It tells the story of a Japanese-American man’s love for a Korean “comfort girl” during World War II when he was in the Japanese army stationed in Burma. “Comfort girls” were basically sex slaves, raped every day by numerous soldiers. It is a story that is simultaneously brutal and unbearably tender.
…I recommend over and over again:

A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul because it is the best tragi-comedy ever written. It’s also a sideways look at colonialism, race, and religion. And the story of one man’s struggle to carve out, against the odds, his own place in the world.

...shaped my worldview:

1984 by George Orwell. I first read it when I was 13, and it had a profound impact. I heard doublespeak all around me. Naturally, as a teenager, you’re inclined to think that adults are hypocritical. But it also made me think about the news in a different, more questioning, way.
...made me rethink a long-held belief:

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté. I read it as part of my research for Love Marriage, because Maté is a physician specializing in addiction, and one of my characters is a sex addict. I’d previously thought only an unfortunate small minority of people suffer from addictions. But Maté reveals how addiction actually runs on a continuum through our society. We can be addicted to so many things - social media, stress, power, shopping - in order to medicate and conceal our fears or pain.
…I swear I'll finish one day:

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It’s a searing record of Soviet terror and oppression, and it is a masterpiece. But I had to stop two-thirds of the way through because I couldn’t take it anymore.
...I read in one sitting, it was that good:

Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg, a fictionalized memoir of childhood in Italy in the 1920s and 30s, and fighting fascism when Mussolini comes to power. It’s life-changingly good. It’s a lesson in how to live.

…currently sits on my nightstand:

The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. I’m 600 pages in, and I really don’t want it to end.
…I’d pass on to my kid:

My daughter, who’s 21, has read all my books. My son, who is two years older, hasn’t read any of them. But I live in hope, so I’d pass on a copy of Love Marriage, and maybe he’ll check it out after I’m dead and gone.
...has the best opening line:

“In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together.” From The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. One mute is interesting, but two? That’s so intriguing, it pulls you in fast. What are they doing together? You immediately want to know.
…has a sex scene that will make you blush:

The Group by Mary McCarthy. I’d so often heard about the book (published in the 1960s) as an absolute must-read, but I’ve never got around to it until now. It’s a book about love and heartbreak, marriage and careers. And sex. McCarthy is superbly adroit at writing about real, painful, messy, complicated sex.
…should be on every college syllabus:

Natalia Ginzburg’s collection of essays, The Little Virtues. It contains everything you need to prepare yourself for adulthood and how to raise children. “As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one’s neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.”
...I’ve re-read the most:

Probably Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. Although it could equally well be any one of Jane Austen’s novels. I couldn’t imagine life without either Tolstoy or Austen.
...I consider literary comfort food:

The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard - five volumes of sprawling family saga spanning from the 1930s to 1950s. Howard is a sharp observer of human drama and psychology, and she writes about pain, loss and longing superbly well. Somehow - for me - this works like some kind of balm.

#METOO

Minnie Driver Almost Lost ‘Good Will Hunting’ After Being Told ‘Nobody Would Want to F— Her’

Zack Sharf
Mon, May 9, 2022


Minnie Driver was only 26 years old when she auditioned for the role of Skylar in Gus Van Sant’s “Good Will Hunting.” It’s a performance that would earn Driver an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress, but it’s one she recently told The Telegraph almost never happened because producer Harvey Weinstein believed “nobody would want to fuck her.” Driver said Weinstein sent a sexist note along to the film’s casting director.

“I remember feeling so devastated until I realized, ‘Hold on, just consider the source for a minute. That is an unutterable pig — why on earth are you worried about this fuck saying that you are not sexy?’” Driver said. “But there are ramifications of that: that maybe I am not going to be hired because people don’t think I have the sexual quality that is required.”

More from Variety
Harvey Weinstein Caught With Contraband Milk Duds in L.A. Jail

Driver added, “How awful to think that I was one of the lucky ones [who escaped him] because he didn’t think I was fuckable. And how amazing and wonderful that it has turned around and young men and women in my industry are not going to experience that.”

Weinstein claims he wanted to cast Ashley Judd in “Good Will Hunting,” hence overlooking Driver. A spokesperson for Weinstein added, “Harvey believes that Minnie Driver is an excellent actor, but it is true he had championed Judd for the role. He admits when he is wrong and Minnie was fantastic. He claimed to have never said anything regrettable about Ms. Driver and had hired her for several films. He wishes her luck and success on her memoir.”

Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence due to first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape. Judd is also suing Weinstein for blacklisting her after she rejected his sexual advances. Weinstein denies those allegations. It wasn’t only the disgraced film producer who took issue with Driver’s look during the “Good Will Hunting” casting search. The actor recently told The Cut that a producer on the film also didn’t think she was sexy enough for “Good Will Hunting,” which Driver found similarly “devastating.”

“To be told at 26 that you’re not sexy when you maybe just got over all your teenage angst, and started to think, you know, ‘Maybe in the right light and the right shoes and the right dress, I’m all right,'” Driver said. “When a producer — a man or woman or nonbinary person — distills an actor down to what they perceive as their sexiness, it’s so dismissive of that person.”

Driver has been making the press rounds in support of her new memoir “Managing Expectations,” which was published May 3.

David Cronenberg Expects ‘Crimes of the Future’ Walkouts at Cannes ‘Within the First Five Minutes’


Samantha Bergeson

IndieWire
Tue, May 10, 2022


David Cronenberg doesn’t want you to look away from the gruesome surgery scenes in “Crimes of the Future,” but the director certainly knows you will.

Cronenberg’s first feature in eight years brings him back to his body horror roots with Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux playing surgical performance artists who publicly showcase the metamorphosis of human organs in avant-garde performances. When their acts capture the attention of a National Organ Registry investigator (Kristen Stewart), the true government mission becomes clear: Organ transplants will lead to the next phase of human evolution. “Crimes of the Future” premieres at Cannes this month before Neon releases it stateside on June 3.

The trailer famously teased that “surgery is the new sex,” and showed — among other graphic moments — a man’s eyelids being sewn shut.

“I do expect walkouts in Cannes, and that’s a very special thing. There are some very strong scenes,” Cronenberg told Deadline. “I mean, I’m sure that we will have walkouts within the first five minutes of the movie. I’m sure of that.”

And the ending isn’t much better: “Some people who have seen the film have said that they think the last 20 minutes will be very hard on people, and that there’ll be a lot of walkouts. Some guy said that he almost had a panic attack,” the “Fly” filmmaker added. “People always walk out, and the seats notoriously clack as you get up, because the seats fold back and hit the back of the seat. So, you hear clack, clack, clack.”

Cronenberg penned the screenplay, originally titled “Painkillers,” over 20 years ago. The “History of Violence” director revisited the story during the COVID-19 lockdowns and found that the future is even more horrifying now than it was then. Cronenberg swapped the title, borrowing from his 63-minute film “Crimes of the Future” in 1970; however, the two works are not related.

“Crimes of the Future” has already made waves following the Neon presentation at 2022 CinemaCon, but Cronenberg hopes the Cannes audience goes into screenings… well, blind.

“It will be the first time I will have seen it with an audience that knows very little about the movie, and therefore I will get laughs where I think they should be or not,” Cronenberg explained, maintaining the graphic film will retain his signature humor. “Of course, there’s also the question of language and the subtitles and so on, but French viewers who have seen the film, certainly, they get the humor. A lot of the humor is derived from the dialogue, so you need to know what the dialogue is to get the humor. But, yes, like all my films, it’s funny. It’s a funny film. It’s not only funny, but it’s definitely funny.”

Just don’t expect the same reaction as when Cronenberg’s sex-fueled “Crash” premiered at the festival in 1996.

“For one thing, there’s really no sex in the movie. I mean, there’s eroticism and there’s sensuality, but of course, part of what the movie says — and one of the characters says it very straightforwardly — is that surgery is the new sex. If you accept that, then, yeah, there’s sex in the movie, because there’s surgery! So, people might be put off by that,” Cronenberg said.

He continued, “Whether they’ll be outraged the way they were with ‘Crash,’ I somehow don’t think so. They might be revulsed to the point that they want to leave, but that’s not the same as being outraged. However, I have no idea really what’s going to happen. I guess that is the description of this movie: It’s going to either attract or repel people.”

It’s all relative, as Cronenberg added.

“My understanding of what is extreme, what is too violent, what is too sexual, really has to do with what the tone of the movie is, within the world of the movie. That’s my purview. That’s where I’m operating,” he said. “Now, once you’ve done that, you can have distributors say, ‘I cannot distribute this movie in my country,’ because it’s too this, or it’s too that. And at that point, you say, ‘Well, OK, too bad. You don’t get to see it. That’s fine.'”

And Cronenberg isn’t going to “neuter” the film by worrying about how it will be received on the international scale in countries like Jordan, Hungary, France, or even the U.S.

“I mean, there are so many approaches to censorship around the world — subtle and not subtle — that you would drive yourself crazy,” Cronenberg said. “I mean, if you take all of the censorship possible to heart, you will not say a word. You can’t speak. The way that the #MeToo movement can be used as a tool of censorship, for example, is a new approach, a new little arabesque on censorship, and it is used politically that way or is resisted as a censorious movement rather than a movement of some kind of liberation. So, you get all of these complexities involved.”

He concluded, “Once again, you are best to ignore it, and then you take the hits, I mean, you’re out there. You are very vulnerable. You are exposing yourself as an artist. Part of what you do is to expose yourself, and you are therefore susceptible to all kinds of criticism and anger and outrage and everything else.”

Yes, that also means walkouts.

Ted Cruz and Fox News Are Desperate to Convince America That Conservatives Are the Real Victims in the War on Abortion


William Vaillancourt
Tue, May 10, 2022

Ted Cruz - Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Images

Fox News hosts and Republican politicians have spent the past year plus downplaying the attack on the Capitol last Jan. 6, a familiar refrain being that the breach of Congress that resulted in five deaths and dozens of injuries was a “peaceful protest.”

The same conservative hosts and politicians have responded to the actually peaceful protests following the leak of the Supreme Court’s drafted plan to overturn Roe v. Wade with outrage and disgust, part of an effort to convince Americans that they — not the nation’s women — are the real victims of the push to do away with reproductive rights.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was front and center Monday night, describing the riot at the Capitol last Jan. 6 as a “peaceful protest” while bashing Democrats for not calling off the “goons” protesting for reproductive rights.

Cruz in January called what happened last Jan. 6 a “violent terrorist attack,” getting himself eviscerated by Tucker Carlson. Cruz responded by going on Carlson’s show and begging for forgiveness, and now, just a few months later, he’s call the insurrection “peaceful” while labeling pro-choice protests “mob violence.”

Fox News displayed images of the “goons” as Cruz spoke. They were actually just a bunch of people standing around on a street outside the homes of conservative justices.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was determined not to be outdone when it came to making absurd comparisons between the attack on the Capitol and the protests since the Supreme Court draft leaked. Hannity later deflected blame for the violence on Jan. 6 away from former President Trump and onto those who supposedly “had the authority” to call up National Guard troops but “didn’t,” leading Graham to blurt out, “[Trump] said, ‘Leave.’ He told them to leave the Capitol.” (Trump waited about three hours after the attack until he posted a video telling his supporters, “Go home. We love you. You’re very special.”)

“Will Biden tell them to leave the judges alone at home?” Graham added. “Do what Trump did. Tell them to leave. He knew to tell them to leave.”


Tucker Carlson may have been more disgusted than either of them. “We hesitate to even bring you these pictures because they’re so awful, but it’s happening and you should see what it looks like,” he said alongside images of demonstrators standing still, holding signs and candles. “These are protesters, this is the mob, outside Justice Samuel Alito’s home in Virginia. They’re disgusting.”

Carlson brought on a guest to discuss the “disgusting” protesters, before one of them held up a middle finger. Carlson couldn’t bear to watch. “Let’s turn that off,” he said. “It’s too much.”


Jesse Watters and Laura Ingraham, the remaining two cogs of Fox News’ primetime propaganda machine, pushed a similar narrative. “This is what happens in third world countries,” Ingraham said.

The narrative pushed into Tuesday morning, with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) bashing Biden for not condemning the reproductive rights protests.


“He has been silent, he has encouraged it,” said Hawley, who cheered on Trump supporters as they prepared to storm the Capitol last Jan. 6.

UK's Morrisons clinches deal for convenience chain McColl's


Mon, May 9, 2022

FILE PHOTO: A view of a Morrisons supermarket in Birtley

(Reuters) -British supermarket group Morrisons has won a battle against the owners of rival Asda to buy collapsed convenience store chain McColl's.

In a deal structured through a so called pre-pack administration, Morrisons, which has a wholesale supply deal with McColl's, will take on all its 1,160 stores, including 270 Morrisons Daily format stores.

Morrisons will also take on all of McColl's workforce of 16,000 and its two pension schemes, which have over 2,000 members.

It said McColl's' secured lenders and preferential creditors would be paid in full with a distribution also expected to unsecured creditors.

McColl's went into administration with debt of just under 170 million pounds ($210 million).

EG Group, the petrol station and food retail business owned by brothers Zuber and Mohsin Issa and private equity group TDR Capital, was set to seize control of McColls after its lenders rejected a rescue deal from Morrisons on Friday. The brothers and TDR also own Asda.

However, over the weekend, Morrisons came back with a fresh proposal.

“Although we are disappointed that the business was put into administration, we believe this is a good outcome for McColl’s and all its stakeholders," said Morrisons CEO David Potts.

"This transaction offers stability and continuity for the McColl’s business and, in particular, a better outcome for its colleagues and pensioners."

Morrisons, which trails market leader Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda, has been owned since October by U.S. private equity group Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R).

McColl's had been in talks with its lenders for weeks to try to resolve its funding woes. Its shareholders had seen the value of their investment virtually wiped out over the last year.

The retailer's stock was suspended from trading on Friday.

The sale to Morrisons was conducted by administrator PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

($1 = 0.8103 pounds)

(Reporting by James Davey in London and Muhammed Husain in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Bernadette Baum)

SO IT'S TRUE

Ethiopia's Gondar University denies aiding grave destruction in west Tigray

Tue, May 10, 2022,

All sides in the 19-month civil war have been accused of war crimes

Ethiopia's Gondar University has denied reports that some of its experts helped Amhara militia destroy evidence of mass graves containing bodies of Tigrayans.

Witnesses told the BBC that they had seen the experts advise militia members.

In a letter to the BBC, the university described this as an "unsubstantiated accusation".

It also denied that there was any evidence that the bodies of Tigrayans had been found in mass graves.

If anything like that had been discovered then the "research team... would have been the first to acknowledge and provide the evidence", the university said.

"The university is one of the most respected research-based educational institutions in Ethiopia which is devoted to solving some of society's most pressing issues," it added.

As part of its research, Gondar University's experts have found mass grave sites in the area, but it has discovered that these were the result of the killing of thousands of ethnic Amharas carried out by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) since the mid-1990s.

The TPLF was once the dominant political party in Ethiopia, but that changed when Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018.

In November 2020, the political tension between the federal government and the TPLF, which controls most of the northern Tigray region, led to the outbreak of civil war.

All sides in the on-going conflict have been accused of carrying out mass killings.

Witnesses had described to the BBC how, in western Tigray, an area under the control of forces from the neighbouring Amhara region, the bodies of ethnic Tigrayans in freshly dug mass graves had been exhumed and destroyed. This came ahead of a possible visit by UN investigators looking into war crimes.

ONE HELL OF A HANGOVER

A Russian oil tycoon was found dead after reportedly being treated with toad venom to cure a hangover


Gabrielle Bienasz
Mon, May 9, 2022

A general view shows a natural and associated petroleum gas processing plant in the Yarakta Oil Field, owned by Irkutsk Oil Company (INK), in Irkutsk Region, Russia March 11, 2019.Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters

Former oil exec Alexander Subbotin was found dead over the weekend, according to Newsweek and Russian media outlets.

TASS, a state-owned news agency, said that he was discovered in a shaman's home in Mytishchi.

Subbotin is the latest in a grim trend: Russian business people who have died under strange circumstances.

Russian media outlets reported that an oil tycoon was found dead over the weekend at the house of a shaman, according to Newsweek.

TASS, a state-owned news agency, said that he was discovered in a shaman's home in Mytishchi, and authorities are investigating, Newsweek reported.

The Moscow Times, an independent Russian news site, also reported on the topic.

Per TASS, it seemed that he suffered from a heart attack, and a source told the Russian outlet that he was highly intoxicated when he showed up at the house, Newsweek noted.

Another source, telegram channel Mash—though this has not been verified by police, Newsweek noted—said that he was there to get a hangover cure in the form of toad venom, having been friendly with the shaman and his wife for some time, The Independent reported.

Alexander Subbotin used to be high up at Lukoil, Newsweek and others have reported.

Lukoil is the country's second-largest oil producer, according to Reuters. It employs over 110,000 people, according to the company's website.

Subbotin's brother, Valerie, who also worked in the upper reaches of Lukoil, owns the 184-foot Galvas yacht, and is worth an estimated $100 million, according to SuperYachtFan.

As Newsweek and other outlets noted, Subbotin is one of several Russian business people and members of their families who have died under weird circumstances in the last few months.

At least six have as of late April, Insider has reported, many of whom were linked to large Russian energy companies.

"In all cases, there are widespread suspicions that the deaths may have been staged as suicides, but who did this and why?" Grzegorz Kuczyński, director of the Warsaw Institute's Eurasia Program, told Fortune, Insider noted.

One was Sergey Protosenya, whose wife and daughter were found dead, too.

His son, Fedor, who is still alive, told MailOnline he does not believe local police's theory that it was a murder-suicide, Insider previously wrote.

Lukoil did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CLEAN ENERGY

India is snapping up discounted Russian natural gas as even Putin ally China shuns supplies


Phil Rosen
Mon, May 9, 2022

Flames are seen as excess natural gas is flared at the Cactus gas processing center, run by state oil company Pemex, near Colonia El Carmen, Chiapas, Mexico, October 19, 2021.

Edgard Garrido/Reuters

Major companies in India have purchased liquefied natural gas cargoes from Russia for bargain prices, sources told Bloomberg.

These discounted purchases are set to continue, so long as the prices remain lower than competing suppliers, according to the report.

Meanwhile, a top China energy giant said it wasn't seeking discounted cargoes.

Indian companies have accrued additional volumes of discounted liquefied natural gas from Russia while other customers avoid doing business with Moscow over its war on Ukraine.

Gujarat State Petroleum and GAIL India purchased several liquefied natural gas cargoes from Russia at bargain rates, sources told Bloomberg Monday. And these purchases could continue, the people said, as long as the prices remain lower than other suppliers.

Only a select number of liquefied natural gas importers outside of India have been taking Russia-origin cargoes amid the war. India's utility giants have been buying up additional shipments of the commodity because of global supply strains as well as ongoing blackouts and extreme heat, Bloomberg reported.

Many nations have turned away from business with Moscow since its invasion of Ukraine began at the end of February, despite the absence of direct sanctions on liquefied natural gas.

Japan and South Korea have stopped spot purchases, and even Chinese energy giant PetroChina said Friday it wasn't seeking discounted cargoes on the spot market.

While new orders and spot shipments have dwindled, most Russian deliveries are on long-term contracts, and those customers continue to accept them.

Meanwhile, India's oil refiners shipped out near-record volumes of gasoline and diesel, enjoying high margins in overseas trade. In March, refiners in India exported 3.37 million tons of diesel, the highest mark since April 2020, and gasoline exports reached 1.6 million tons, a five-year high, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

Separately, the European Union said Monday it would abandon plans to sanction EU-owned vessels that ship Russian oil to anywhere in the world. However, the bloc still intends to keep restrictions on insurers, according to the report.

Bosnia's political crisis called worst since 1992-1995 war


EDITH M. LEDERER
Tue, May 10, 2022

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The top international official in Bosnia called the escalating political crisis in the country the most serious since the 1992-1995 war that saw 100,000 people die and warned in a report circulated Tuesday that its potential “to become a security crisis is very real.”

Christian Schmidt, the high representative overseeing implementation of the 1995 peace agreement that ended the devastating war, said leaders of the country’s Bosnian Serb-dominated entity have systematically challenged its provisions and intensified their activities aimed at usurping powers granted to the federal government.

The U.S.-brokered Dayton peace agreement established two separate entities in Bosnia — one run by Bosnia’s Serbs and another dominated by the country’s Bosniaks, who are mostly Muslims, and Croats. The two entities are bound together by joint central institutions, and all important decisions must be backed by both.

Schmidt said in the report to the U.N. Security Council that the actions by the Bosnian Serb entity, known as Republika Srpska, “not only erode the fundamentals of the agreement, but directly threaten to undo more than 25 years of progress in building up Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state firmly on the path towards European Union integration.”

The report was issued ahead of a council meeting on Bosnia on Wednesday at which Schmidt is expected to present the report. Last July, the council rejected a resolution put forward by Russia, which has close ties to the Bosnian Serbs, and Moscow’s ally China that would have stripped the powers of the international high representative immediately and eliminated the position entirely in one year.

The high representative’s powers have come under criticism from Bosnian Serbs for not offering the possibility of appealing his decisions, which have immediate effect. The Office of the High Representative has dismissed dozens of officials, including judges, civil servants and members of parliament, since its inception, and overturned other actions.

Schmidt said Republika Srpska’s government and National Assembly have sought to chip away at state institutions by creating parallel bodies in the Bosnian Serb entity. At the same time, he said, representatives from Republika Srpska elected or appointed to the National Assembly and state institutions either don’t participate in decision-making or block decisions not in the interests of Bosnian Serbs.

“This has the effect of impeding the state’s ability to function and exercise its constitutional responsibilities,” Schmidt said.

He pointed to “non-existent” legislative output, stalled reforms required to advance toward EU membership, international agreements on hold, and the failure to adopt a state-level budget for the second year in a row.

On April 16, Schmidt suspended a law adopted by Republika Srpska that would have enabled the Bosnian Serbs to take over state-owned property on their territory, calling it unconstitutional. Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said in an interview that action by Schmidt couldn’t stop the law from taking effect.

Another contentious issue has been the lack of agreement between Bosniaks and Croats in the federation on electoral reforms, which Schmidt said “has prompted Croat parties to cast doubt on the holding of the 2022 general elections, including by withholding financing for the elections.”

Bosnian Croats have claimed discrimination and demanded that the voting system be changed to make sure that Bosnian Croats alone choose Croat representatives. Bosniak officials have denied the claims, and talks on the election reform have been stuck.

Schmidt said the absence of an agreement “does not call into question in any way the 2022 general elections which will be held in the first week of October under the same rules as in 2018.”

On May 4, after the report was drafted, state election authorities scheduled the vote for Oct. 2.

Some 3.3 million voters will choose the three members of Bosnia’s multi-ethnic presidency, the central Bosnian parliament, the parliaments of the two entities, and the president and vice president of Republika Srpska.

“The continuously escalating political crisis, the most serious in the post-war period, has undoubtedly raised tensions in the country and poisoned the atmosphere, as evidenced by the multitude of interethnic incidents that occurred around the Orthodox holidays celebrated in January,” Schmidt said.

The high representative said he talked to protesters in January who were calling for the international community to react “to the continued destructive behavior of the authorities of the Republika Srpska.”

“They know from history that in the current dynamic the potential for a political crisis to become a security crisis is very real and the international community must respond appropriately,” Schmidt said.