Nation-building bureaucrats continue their quixotic quest to transform Bosnia-Herzegovina into a viable country. That effort truly symbolizes the triumph of hope over experience. It has been more than 15 years since NATO imposed the Dayton Accords on the three fractious ethnic groups and ended the civil war that had claimed 102,000 lives. Yet Bosnia is not significantly closer to economic and political viability now than it was when the accords were signed. Indeed, recent signs suggest that the situation may be deteriorating rather than improving.
The chief colonial official is certainly worried. Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, the latest in a series of UN-authorized “high representatives” in Bosnia, presented an alarming report to the Security Council on May 9. Inzko was especially agitated because the parliament of the Bosnian Serb Republic (one of the two subnational entities that make up the cobbled together Bosnian state) had authorized a June referendum to challenge the legitimacy of the national court as well as Inzko’s authority to overturn laws and fire appointed and elected officials.
The virtually dictatorial power that Inzko and his predecessors have exercised has been a source of anger, especially among Serbs, since Dayton, and it makes a farce of Western claims to be promoting democracy. Showing how much he respected this latest attempt at democratic impertinence, Inzko stated that if the Bosnian Serb parliament did not drop the referendum plan, “I will have no choice but to repeal the referendum decision.”
But according to Inzko, the referendum was merely the tip of a very large and dangerous political iceberg. He told the Council that the international community faced “the most serious and most direct challenges to (Dayton) since it was signed.” The Serb Republic, especially its president Milorad Dodik, the high representative fumed, has “continued openly to question the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia.” As a result, Bosnia’s bid to join the European Union and NATO had “come to a complete halt.”
A skeptic might ask why any rational NATO or EU official would want to invite a bitterly divided state that is nothing more than an international political and economic ward to become a member of their organizations. Inzko conceded that there was no sign that the ethnic divisions were going to ease. Seven months after general elections, formation of a central government had become “almost impossible.” The ethnic-based political parties “have continued to play zero-sum politics,” he lamented.
Given such a depressing report, one might think that Western officials would be ready to toss in the towel and admit the obvious—that Bosnia is an inherently dysfunctional, artificial state. The reality is that absent NATO’s intervention—and ongoing military occupation—Bosnia would have fragmented more than a decade ago. Two of the country’s three ethnic groups, the Serbs and the Croats, want no part of membership in the Western-designed Frankenstein’s monster. Since they make up over half of the country’s population, prospects for Bosnia’s viability are, and will remain, dismal.
The West should give up its stubborn, futile nation-building project. Instead, the objective should be to facilitate a peaceful partition of this pretend country. But don’t hold your breath waiting for some rational thought to penetrate NATO policy circles. Western officials said they would back Inzko in any action he decided to take. More ominously, U.S. envoy Rosemary DiCarlo stated that Washington “was in the process of considering our own measures in support of Dayton and Bosnian state institutions.” The United States and its allies seem to be flirting with the notion of wading even deeper into the bubbling Bosnian bog.
Comments
I'm tired of people commenting on Bosnia with complete ignorance. It is a state that has been in existence for a very long time. It can't be broken up just because there are people trying to disable it. It has worked forever and now the nationalists are tearing it apart. What should've been allowed was for the civil war to play its course and those nationalists to be wiped off the map. What happened instead was the international community looked for a quick fix. There is absolutely ZERO chance that Bosnia will let Republika Srpska split from the country peacefully. Why? Because that isn't their land, it doesn't matter if the Croats and Serbs together outnumber the Bosniaks by a little. Bosniaks do not deserve to have their land taken away because of Nationalists. A war will solve this and it is imminent... After it people who so badly want to be Serbian, like Milorad Dodik, can move across the Drina and live in Serbia and those who so badly want to be Croatian can move across the mountains and into Croatia. Those who want to be Bosnians (notice I didn't say Bosniaks) will stay in Bosnia and make it back into the state that it once was with everyone working together to prosper.
Impartial Observer, the attitudes you display in your comment - threatening war and suggesting that Bosnian Serbs and Croats who don't support a centralized Bosniak-dominated Bosnian state leave the country - is probably the very reason why Bosnian Serbs and Croats don't want a centralized Bosnian state run by Sarajevo.
You are not getting the point, I do not want a Bosniak-dominated Bosnian state, I want a BOSNIAN dominated Bosnian state. How is a country supposed to run if there is an entire entity trying to bring on it's demise? I do not want there to be ethnic tensions, I want a State that can be how it once was, with everyone intertwined and working towards progress. I wasn't threatening war, I was saying it is imminent. There is no other way the problem can be solved. Give me some other reasonable method to achieve a functional government in Bosnia? I'm tired of the politicians claiming to want what is best for Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs blah blah blah, give me what is best for Bosnia and raising it's 40% unemployment rate. The only people that I want to leave are ultranationalists and corrupt politicians and I don't see a problem with that, they work against the progression of the country. Also, they tend to go hand in hand. In response to your other post, the international community needs to not interfere with a conflict this time around and let Bosnia sort it out on its own. The very people in the international community who messed up Bosnia with the Dayton Accords are the ones who are now trying to change its government. Meanwhile, in Bosnia, the 2nd wave of nationalist politicans are apparently good to go because they didn't have any direct relations with the war like Karadzic did. Give me a break. I want Bosnia to clean house and vote in competent people who have the countries best interest in mind, not their nationalities. Again, I do not want a Bosniak dominated anything. I want one competent leader who is qualified leading the country, I do not care what his ethnic background is because it shouldn't matter. Some of the Serbs living in Bosnia seem to forget that they are BOSNIAN-Serbs for a reason...
Bosnia worked as a multinational state when it was part of Yugoslavia. When the Bosnian Muslims (and Croats) forced a referendum for independence against the wishes of the Bosnian Serbs (sound familiar) the multiethnic contract was perhaps already breaking, but this was the definitive break-up of Bosnia. Bosnia cannot be a democratic state if it forces a majority of the population of be part of that state against their wish. It is very similar to the situation between Kosovo and Serbia - the latter could never be a democratic state if it forced the Kosovar Albanians to remain part of the Serbian state. You may wish that the Bosnian Serbs (and Croats) would be part of Bosnia, however, they don't. That is not going to change and forcing them will only serve to continue to make Bosnia a dysfunctional undemocratic state. Painful as it is to break up a marriage, sometimes it's the only way to end the bickering and give both parties a chance to start new, productive, lives.
You bring up some great points and I agree that under Jugoslavia it was different but that shows that it can function. I don't agree with the Kosovo situation. Kosovo in some respects is one of the oldest parts of Serbia, it has some of the oldest Serbian Orthodox Churches and memorials in it. I didn't agree with them being allowed to seperate and I was against their recognition. Just because Tito allowed a bunch of Albanians to immigrate to Jugoslavia and live there, doesn't mean that they had a right to force out a lot of the Serbian population living there. This is the same way I feel about Republika Srpska. They forced out Bosnian Muslims off their land and tried to wipe them off the face of the earth by killing men/boys and destroying Mosques. You now want to reward them for that by giving them their own country? Why did they recieve the land they got? Bosniaks were a part of that land as much as Serbs were. Like I said earlier, war is the only way to solve this because Bosnia will not allow a giant part of it to just break off. I hope it doesn't come to that but it is the only solution I see.
The Bosnian Serbs definitely should try to live in a Bosnia shared with the Bosnian Muslims and and Croats, just as the Kosovar Albanians could have had a better future in a post-Milosevic and more pragmatic Serbia. However, what's right and wrong and what would have been best if everyone was sensible is one thing. Reality is, unfortunately, different.In recognition of the reality on the ground, the democratic and free will of the peoples involved - Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, Croats and Kosovar Albanians - and the treasure and, in the case of Bosnia, more than 15 years of administration, which the international community has expended I think it is time to replace what's right but doesn't work to be replaced by what's might not be right but will work. Yes, partitioning Bosnia could be construed as 'rewarding' the Bosnian Serbs who committed the majority of war crimes. However, that is the reality just as the international community's tacit acceptance of the expulsion of the Krajina Serbs or Kosovo Serbs has created working solutions for those countries.As for 'rewarding' the Bosnian Serbs I think you need to differentiate between the perpetrators of the war crimes you mention, who have been prosecuted by the ICTY, and the Bosnian Serb people, who are not responsible and thus cannot be 'rewarded' nor, for that manner, 'punished' through any political solution. An independent Bosnian Serb state would, just as any other European state, have to provide securities for minorities (as would a Bosnian Muslim state).
It's not just the Bosnia's politicians who can't let go of the war and nationalism and move on (exemplified by Impartial Observer's comment above on 16 May 7:37pm) - it's Western politicians as well.What hope for Bosnia's politicians to grow up and move forward through realistic, pragmatic and peaceful decisions if politicians in the US and Europe won't do the same? Most likely the generation of political leaders in the US and Europe who tied themselves to the Bosnian mast (e.g. Mrs. Clinton) will have to retire before new generation of leaders, untainted by the Bosnian War, take over.