Crisis in Bosnia

While the Obama administration is plotting an exit strategy in Iraq and debating whether the war in Afghanistan can be won, Europe is trying to figure out how to close the book on its long-running mission in Bosnia.

But with politicians there once again openly talking about the possibility of partition, or even renewed violence, many fear that move may be dangerously premature.

On Oct. 9, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt swooped into Sarajevo for an emergency meeting with Bosnian political leaders. The duo will be back on Oct. 20 — by which time they want Bosnia’s leaders to agree on a package of constitutional reforms that will help the country move beyond the 1995 Dayton Agreement, which ended the country’s brutal 1992 to 1995 war.

But hammering out an agreement acceptable to all sides will be difficult.

The Dayton Agreement, widely considered one of former President Bill Clinton’s most important foreign policy achievements, created a weak central government and two largely autonomous entities, the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, and a Muslim-Croat federation.

Under the terms of the agreement, the international community still retains a prominent presence. A High Representative, appointed by the international community in Bosnia, still has wide powers to overturn government decisions and remove officials. About 2,000 European troops are still stationed in the country.

Now, 14-years after the end of the war, the international community — and especially members of the European Union — wants to close the Office of the High Representative (OHR). But political paralysis over the past three years, and a recent rise in nationalist talk, has stalled those efforts.

Bosnia has deep structural problems that most analysts believe will require major constitutional changes to address. But the climate is not ripe for compromise. On a recent trip to the country, many people, politicians and ordinary people alike, told me the current crisis was the worst since the war. For the first time in years, people are openly talking about the possibility of Bosnia breaking up — and the potential conflict that would cause. 

Bosnian Serbs are resisting any strengthening of Bosnia’s central government, saying it will undermine their autonomy, but Bosnian Muslim leaders, and some international diplomats, accuse them of deliberately paralyzing national structures in order to build a case for succession. Officially, Bosnian Serb leaders say they do not want independence — but they have threatened to hold a referendum on the issue. 

On the slide for the past three years, the political atmosphere has worsened dramatically in recent weeks. Last month, the Republika Srpska has challenged the legitimacy of the High Commissioner and threatened to withdraw from Bosnian institutions. A day after meeting with Steinberg and Bildt, the Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik told a Serbian radio station that the current crisis showed Bosnia was “unsustainable."

The current high-level intervention by U.S. and European diplomats is an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the crisis. But there are serious differences between the American and European approach to the situation. Many European countries believe the continued presence of the international community is contributing to the political deadlock by making Bosnia’s political leadership dependent, while the Americans want to see the country functioning better before the international community gives up its oversight powers. 

http://www.globalpost.com/notebook/europe/091013/bosnia-edge