Can peace last in a divided Balkan state?

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Agreement. This peace

agreement officially ended the Bosnian War (1992-1995). It also created an unnecessarily

complex political system, disregarded war crimes and genocide, and left the region in tenuous circumstances.

The website of the National Museum of American Diplomacy, which runs under the United

States Department of State, contains an online exhibit with the title “Diplomacy Ends a War:

The Dayton Accords”. This brief exhibit discusses the efforts of “Secretary of State Warren

Christopher and then-Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke” in late 1995 to broker

a peace agreement with the Presidents of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia “to end more than three years of war that had already claimed over 200,000 lives and forced 2 million from their

homes”. Ironically, or rather controversially, the peace negotiations were held in the U.S.

military’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The controversy was not

limited to the setting of the accords, as it seeped into elements of the Dayton Agreement itself. This year also marked the death of Francis Boyle, an American human rights lawyer who served as counsel for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Boyle once stated in an interview that

“Bosnians, if they went along with Dayton, risked becoming the Palestinians of the Balkans”.

While the accuracy of this statement is far off considering the modern context, the sentiment

remains. Much of the risk involved for Bosnia in agreeing to Dayton was down to how its

political system and borders were to be organised.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is now comprised of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and

Republika Srpska, with the self-governing administrative unit Brčko District formally being

part of both entities. Possessing borders with Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro, the country is split into ten cantons. Religious divisions are where most of the country’s problems lie, with Bosnia being made up of mostly Bosniaks (Muslims), Bosnian Serbs (Orthodox Christian), and Croats (Catholic). This means that there is a tripartite Presidency made up of individuals from each of these groups. However, the individual candidates must fit one of these categories and cannot be simply, say, a Bosnian or a Jewish Croat. In trying to allow for fair representation, Dayton instead ostracised other groups and created an emphasis on dividing the country by religion and ethnicity.

This division was one of the main causes of the war, notably with the Bosnian Serbs of

Republika Srpska attacking the Bosniaks. This came to a head with the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 in which 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were massacred by Serb forces, and which is widely recognised as an act of genocide by the international community. While the U.S. itself recognises the Srebrenica massacre as genocide, Republika Srpska was a by-product of Bosnian Serbs ethnically cleansing Bosniaks. Established at the beginning of the war in 1992, it removed Bosniaks, as well as Croats, from annexed lands to replace them with Bosnian Serbs. Thus, in allowing for the official creation of Republika Srpska in the agreement as its own separate entity within Bosnia, American diplomacy ended a war but did not end its tragic effects.

In 2020, Dunja Mijatovic, the then Commissioner of the Council of Europe for Human Rights, wrote an opinion piece in which she notes some of the failures of Dayton. She explains how Bosnia’s constitution “provides for a complex and expensive administrative and political system, one that is clogged up by excessive protection of ethnic interests and mechanisms that have enabled nationalist politicians to veto important decisions that could help the country to move forward”. This is, of course, an implicit reference to Republika Srpska as an entity. It is also a nod to how Bosnia’s hopes of joining the European Union could be impeded by its political system. Likewise, Mijatovic notes in a 2020 piece on denial of the Srebrenica genocide that “In some cases, war criminals hold prominent public roles in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, run for public offices in Serbia or keep an active public life, during which they promote the same abhorrent views and lies that led to so much human suffering.” Daniel McLaughlin, reporting for the Irish Times in July on the thirty-year anniversary of Srebrinica, wrote that “Republika Srpska resists attempts to transfer any of its powers to the state, and its long-time leader, Milorad Dodik, frequently threatens to seek secession for the region rather than allow its deeper integration in the Bosniak-majority country”. Allegations of corruption against Dodik have also raised concerns for Bosnian membership in the E.U.

The Republika Srpska President, his two children, and various companies financing him,

have been placed on U.S. sanctions lists in recent years. With talks of Bosnian membership in the E.U growing, and the European Council opening accession negotiations in March 2024, these issues will only draw more controversy. In May, the Central European Times reported that “Last December, the RS national assembly instructed Serb officials to block all EU-related decisions in national institutions, drawing strong condemnation from the EU Delegation and embassies of the US, UK, Germany, France and Italy, who called the move a “serious threat” to BiH’s constitutional order”. As the E.U. continues to face border issues with Russia as well as issues of Kremlin influence on the likes of Viktor Orban’s Hungary, why would it open the doors to another potential security threat?

The Dayton Agreement faced the problem of resolving a violent conflict which, to its credit,

it did. However, it did not consider the future implications of the system it created. Diplomacy should not be merely about stopping a conflict but rather enabling it to never return. If Bosnia is ever to join the E.U, it will likely need to reform its constitution which poses the threat of the conflict returning. This is where the U.S and the wider international community must act as a watchdog and work towards Bosnia’s success. Diplomacy may end a war, but can it protect peace and promote progress?