By Nick Saywell
Calls to reform Bosnia-Herzegovina’s fragile two-state constitution are growing louder, and international observers are warning that, if that nettle is not grasped, things could get ugly
Twelve years after the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was ended with the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995, feelings are still running high. In March this year a group of Bosniaks from Srebrenica, scene of the infamous 1995 massacre by the Bosnian Serb Army, demanded the right to break away from the Republika Srpska (RS), one of Bosnia’s two entities, which they say was “created by genocide”.
There was an increase in nationalistic rhetoric leading up to Bosnia’s national elections in October last year. Calls were made for the abolition of the RS, which prompted Serb threats of a referendum to declare independence. The two main politicians on either side of the feud went on to victory at the ballot box.
James Lyon, International Crisis Group’s special Balkans adviser, says: “We inherited a Bosnia and created a Bosnia at Dayton that was completely dysfunctional. We expected this dysfunctionality to disappear overnight and be replaced by love and harmony and normal politics.
“Well, none of the sides in Bosnia achieved their wartime goals, so Dayton became, to paraphrase von Clausewitz, war by other means. “Bosnia can’t function with two entities, and it can’t function with the cantonal system that is in place in the Federation. Dayton needs massive reforming, otherwise it’s going to be a problem child for the indefinite future.”
Lyon believes that the international community, which is now “increasingly disengaged”, must intervene more decisively. “We’re going to have a new war in Bosnia. That’s what’s going to happen if the current policy trajectories continue.”
No war
The prospects of another war in Bosnia were dismissed by Chris Bennett, director of communications for the EU Special Representative. “If 2,500 EU troops in an incredibly benign environment with today’s technology can’t deal with the situation here, I would be absolutely shocked,” he says. “If at any stage there was any possibility whatsoever of paramilitary formations, we would have the information incredibly fast, and be able to disseminate that information incredibly fast.”
Mladen Ivanic, leader of the RS’s Party of Democratic Progress, also denies the possibility of another war. “Fighting in all senses is not realistic ... I really don’t consider that seriously,” he tells Emerging Markets.
Ivanic also opposes calls for a referendum “at this stage”, and for the abolition of the RS. “Republika Srpska is supported by 95% of its citizens,” he points out, “and any attempt to abolish the RS will have a huge negative influence in the whole of Bosnia, and would be seen like a continuation of the war, of course by different means.”
“There is a need to have efficient state institutions,” says Ivanic, admitting room for improvement in Bosnia’s constitutional arrangements. “But artificial state institutions do not mean you have to abolish Republika Srpska. An inefficient Germany would not mean you have to abolish Bavaria.”
Davor Vuletic, international secretary of the Social Democratic Party, stated that his party supports a two-tier system of government, with no place for entities or cantons. However, he is opposed to calling for the RS to be abolished, because such rhetoric “just raises people’s feelings without any rational approach to the actual will of one part of the population of the country”.
The worst mistakes
Damir Arnaut, legal and constitutional affairs adviser to Haris Silajdzic, the Bosniak member of Bosnia’s three-member presidency, says that the two most glaring faults with the current constitution are first, the rules by which non-Serbs are disenfranchized from elections to the country’s presidency in the RS, as are Serbs in the Federation, Bosnia’s other entity; and second, the so-called entity voting issue, by which all legislation must be voted for by at least one-third of the delegates from each entity. This system gives disproportionate voting power to representatives from the smaller entity, the RS.
Arnaut wants the RS to be abolished, citing its name “Republic of the Serbs” as insulting to non-Serbs who have not yet returned to their pre-war homes. He also wants more active involvement from the international community in pushing reforms. “You cannot tell me that the international community can occasion the independence of Kosovo where they’re not advocating dialogue,” he points out. “They have a model in mind and they’re actively pushing it. The issue is, if the international community wants to make Bosnia into a functional democracy, it can do it; it’s just a question of political will.”
Chris Bennett rejects those who wish to see a more hands-on approach from the international community. “It was very easy to impose common licence plates, but it’s extremely difficult – basically impossible – to impose reforms that go to the heart of the way that society is actually governed,” he says.
“What’s important here is that we create processes leading to self-sustaining structures that balance the legitimate interests of different peoples sharing the same territory, and increase efficiency in government, so that Bosnia-Herzegovina is equipped to carry out the reforms it will have to carry out, in order to gradually integrate itself into the European Union.”
Vuletic believes that the sight of Bosnia’s neighbours progressing towards the EU will spur Bosnia along the same path. Besides, “I don’t believe in imposing things any more,” he says wearily. “It used to work but not any more, because we have actually been living in an imposed kind of country for the past 12 years.”