It has been 14 years since the Dayton Peace Accords, brokered at an Ohio Air Force base, ended the brutal civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. That war, which raged from 1992 to 1995, killed an estimated 100,000 people, uprooted millions and taught the world the term “ethnic cleansing”.
The Dayton Accords brought a swift response [...]
It has been 14 years since the Dayton Peace Accords, brokered at an Ohio Air Force base, ended the brutal civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. That war, which raged from 1992 to 1995, killed an estimated 100,000 people, uprooted millions and taught the world the term “ethnic cleansing”.
The Dayton Accords brought a swift response by the international community. Led by 50,000 NATO troops, the intervention’s first phase of post-war emergency assistance soon transformed into a major, long-term effort at nation building. The Office of the High Representative was created, an international body empowered with a significant ability to make and shape the laws and institutions of the country.
The country was also split into two ethnically-based entities, the Republika Srpksa, a Serb-majority region, and the Federation of Muslims, called Bosniaks, and predominantly Catholic Croats. Both entities have their own governments, as well as representatives in a third, national layer of leadership. There are even three presidents, one from each ethnicity, who serve the country on a rotating basis.
In the last 14 years, great progress has been made in Bosnia; the army, taxation systems, utility grids and other functions of daily life have been successfully integrated. People of all ethnicities have returned to their pre-war homes – not as many as had been hoped for, and often without a great deal of economic security, but enough to suggest that Bosnia was on its way towards a permanent stability.
But then, three years ago, nationalist politicians returned to power, stoking ethnic tensions and exploiting the Dayton Accords’ partitioning of the country. Now, the country is in political crisis, unable to move forward towards its dream of successful integration with the European Union, and ultimate sovereignty with the departure of the Office of the High Representative.
This report examines this new political instability and explores whether Bosnia and Herzegovina could be at risk of returning to violent conflict.
This reporting is a joint initiative of the Pulitzer Center, the Bureau for International Reporting and NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.
Reporting coming soon
It is unfortunate that even after the intervention by U.N. forces and all of this work that Bosnia has returned to being in the category of a “fragile state”. This seems like a situation where the EU should be able to step in an police its own backyard before something resembling the events of 14 years ago happens again.