Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am very pleased to be on the floor with my friend and colleague from Mississippi to talk about Bosnia-Herzegovina and about our trip to commemorate the horrible massacre in Srebrenica that occurred in 1995. As Senator Wicker has said, that was a very moving trip for us.

One of the things that was very particular to New Hampshire that I found hopeful was listening to the very young mayor from Srebrenica, the current mayor, whose name is Camil Durakovic. He had actually spent a number of years in New Hampshire and had gone to Southern New Hampshire University. His family had fled after the massacre in Bosnia and came to New Hampshire. He went back in 2005 and was elected mayor. One of the things he talked about was the need to work with Serbia, to work across the ethnic and religious lines in Bosnia to achieve peace. It was, as Senator Wicker said, so heartening to think that we were actually able to get these Dayton Accords that ended that long conflict in Bosnia--very bitter and bloody--and see some real progress.

One of the things we talked about on the flight back with President Clinton and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was what we could do to help Bosnia continue to progress and move forward, because one of their challenges is economic. This is a country that has a very high level of education, and it has a lot of young people who need opportunities for the future. So we talked about whether there was a way that we in Congress could look at trying to provide some economic help for Bosnia in the future.

We came back and looked at how we could work together to come up with an idea that might be successful. What we came up with--and it was another tremendous bipartisan effort--was to look at the enterprise funds that were done after the fall of the Soviet Union and some of the Eastern European countries. Enterprise funds were funds passed by Congress with bipartisan support that helped those fledgling private sector economies begin to recover after the fall of the Soviet Union.

So we took that model--a U.S. enterprise fund--and focused on Bosnia-Herzegovina, and this is the legislation that we are going to be introducing. I don't know how Senator Wicker feels about it, but I think this offers real opportunity to Bosnia because we can leverage a very small amount of public resources through the private sector, through other local funds that might be available in Bosnia, and see real progress on the economic front that will help create jobs that will help those young people stay in the country and build a strong country.

So for my friend from Mississippi, I think this is a very good way to provide some of the assistance they are going to need. Would the Senator agree?

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, as my colleague from Mississippi points out, this really is critical not just to Bosnia and its future, but this is also about the national security of the United States.

My colleague talked about the Balkans. We know World War I began in the Balkans. We know it has continued to be a part of Europe where Russian aggression and Russian efforts to subvert the governments there continue, they continue their activity. It is a place where we have a number of different ethnic groups and where different religions converge. So it is a place we need to keep supporting--Bosnia and Herzegovina. We need to look at how we can help them ensure their continued progress toward the West and Europe and also toward economic prosperity.

I traveled there in 2010 with former Senator Voinovich from Ohio, who had done a lot of work on the Balkans when he was in the Senate. I will never forget a lunch we had with a number of young people there, mostly college students or recent graduates. We talked to them about what they saw for the future of the country, and there was so much hopelessness in that conversation because they didn't see the kinds of opportunities we want young people to see as they are thinking about their futures and their children and what is going to happen in their country. So I think this is a partial answer to how we can help them provide that economic prosperity they are looking forward to.

Finally, I think what has happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Dayton Accords--for all of its flaws, it is a model we can look to as we are looking at the challenges we face in Syria. The Bosniaks, the Serbs, the Croatians, the Muslims, the Orthodox Christians, and the Roman Catholics all came together and they agreed to end the conflict in Bosnia. They agreed to try to build a successful democracy and a strong economy to create a successful multiethnic, multisectarian state under very difficult circumstances. And while we need to continue to look at how the Dayton Accords should change, it is still a milestone in what happened with that conflict and I think serves as a model for so many other regions in the world where there is conflict.

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. I thank my colleague. As you point out, we represent two very different parts of the country.

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. We are. We share that. The fact is, this is a bipartisan issue. As my colleague points out, the United States brokered that historic agreement in Dayton. We were the only country that could really take that leadership, and we need to continue that role in the world.

I look forward to working with Senator Wicker as we try to move this bipartisan bill to support Bosnia and Herzegovina and continuing to be vigilant on efforts to undermine democratic values wherever they exist in the world, and certainly this is one place where we can provide help in a way that is very important.

I thank my colleague.

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