Almost every day, we read about some ethnically
divided country where a “fragile peace” keeps the contending
parties at arm’s length, often with the aid of foreign troops
stationed there.
A prime example of this state of affairs is
Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Balkan state that emerged from the
ruins of Yugoslavia. For some reason, the “international
community” considers its current borders sacrosanct.
Perhaps the term “fragile war” would be more
appropriate, since hatred simmers just below the surface, and can
blow up at any time. This is a country always at the point of
disintegration, held together only by the fact that it is
effectively a ward of the European Union.
It comprises two essentially de facto
independent entities, the ethnic Serbian Republika Srpska of 1.32
million people and the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
population 2.37 million. Each rules about half the total area of
the country.
The Federation is further subdivided into 10
cantons, five with a Bosnian Muslim, or Bosniak, majority, another
three ethnically Croat, and two “mixed.”
The 1995 Dayton Accord that put an end to a
three-year war between the three groups, one that resulted in at
least 100,000 people dead and about 1.8 million homeless due to
ethnic cleansing by all sides. It is monitored by the Peace
Implementation Council (PIC), an international body comprising 55
countries and agencies.
The country is under the control of a High
Representative, with authority to dismiss elected and non-elected
officials and enact legislation.
The post is currently held by Austrian diplomat
Valentin Inzko, whose authority is backed up by some 400 troops of
the European Force Althea.
As always, in this perpetually divided state
that contains within its borders three mutually hostile
constituent peoples, even symbolism becomes a point of contention.
On Sept. 25, the Republika Srpska held a
referendum to affirm Jan. 9 as a national holiday, despite a
ruling by the country’s constitutional court that the date
discriminates against non-Serbs.
Though Inzko warned that Bosnia’s criminal law
mandates jail terms for those who disobey the court, an
overwhelming 99.8 per cent of voters supported the “Statehood
Day.” Non-Serbs living in the region boycotted the vote.
The date, which is also a Serbian Orthodox
Christian holiday, was the day in 1992 when Bosnian Serb
legislators declared the creation of an independent Serb Republic
after Bosniaks and Croats voted for independence from
Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia.
Miloran Dodik, president of the Republika
Srpska, who has been accused of using the referendum to set the
stage for a secession vote, said it would go down in history as
the “day of Serb determination.”
Bosnian Muslims, who unlike the Croats and
Serbs do not have neighbouring homeland nations, support a more
centralized state and don’t want the country divided even further.
“Nobody is more ready to defend this country
all the way to the end,” declared the Bosnian Muslim member of
Bosnia-Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic.
In response, Serbia’s foreign minister, Ivica
Dacic, said that Serbia would not allow the destruction of the
Bosnian Serb Republic if it came under attack.
The PIC warned that there would be no redrawing
of borders and called on all sides “to refrain from reactive
measures and divisive rhetoric.”
But PIC member Russia, which supports its
fellow Orthodox Slav Serbs, called the vote an act of democracy.
Dodik visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in
advance of the vote.
Dayton merely produced a semi-permanent
cessation of hostilities and a freezing of the status quo, forcing
its warring ethnicities into a “shotgun marriage.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is a disaster, plagued by corruption and an
unemployment rate of about 27 per cent.
Why not let the Serb Republic join neighbouring
Serbia, and allow the remainder to become a more cohesive
Bosniak-Croat nation? It’s not perfect but perhaps the only viable
solution.
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