A Flawed Peace The Bosnian peace agreement, initialed in Dayton, Ohio last November, has brought relative clam to the war -torn country. How realistic are hopes for a lasting peace?
John Mihaljevic |
When the Bosnian peace agreement was signed in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, Marko Vidovic, a Croat from the town of Sipovo in western Bosnia, could hardly believe the news. The idea that after four years of brutal aggression and ethnic cleansing peace would materialize with the stroke of a pen seemed unimaginable. Even more striking to Vidovic was the injustice and immorality of the deal. Not only were the Serbs permitted to keep most of the ethnically cleansed territory they occupied, they were also awarded large swaths of land in western Bosnia that had only a month before been liberated by the Bosnian and Croat armies. Western Bosnia had been populated by Muslims, Serbs, and Croats before the war, but the great majority of the non-Serb population was expelled from the area when the war in Bosnia began. For Mr. Vidovic, the Dayton peace agreement meant that he had to leave his hometown of Sipovo for the second time since the outbreak of the war. |
In 1992, Sipovo fell victim to Serb aggression against Bosnia. Unlike many of his relatives and friends, he managed to escape sure death at the hands of the invading Serb troops. When in October 1995 Sipovo was freed in a major Bosnian offensive, Vidovic looked forward to returning to his hometown. His hopes of living where his ancestors had settled generations ago were shattered by a provision in the Dayton accords awarding Sipovo to the Serbs. The main rationale underlying this provision was that giving territory to the Serbs would appease them, and help the peace process.
Redrawing Borders
Vidovic’s case illustrates the injustices ratified by the international community on November 21. Instead of insisting upon a free and democratic Bosnia, western leaders, including President Clinton, effectively recognized the policy of ethnic cleansing as a means of redrawing international borders. The Serbs, led by Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, received 49 percent of Bosnian territory. In addition, the Serb-occupied territory was given the status of an official entity within Bosnia, the "Serb Republic." The other entity became the Bosnian-Croat Federation which includes the vast majority of Bosnia’s multicultural population but only 51 percent of Bosnian territory. The Croatian and Bosnian presidents, Franjo Tudjman and Alija Izetbegovic, agreed to make concessions at Dayton in order to pave the way for lasting peace.
A Fragile Peace
Five months after the signing of the peace agreement, though, it is doubtful whether peace will last beyond December 1996 when international forces are scheduled to leave Bosnia. Despite the acquisition of 49 percent of Bosnian territory, the Bosnian Serbs have repeatedly failed to honor their treaty commitments in a timely manner. Moreover, the Serbs are still led by the same individuals who orchestrated the policies of ethnic cleansing and mass rape. Although Karadzic and Mladic have both been indicted as war criminals by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, little has been done to remove them from power, let alone arrest them. CNN reported on February 13 that Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic had apparently slipped through a NATO checkpoint. The incident occurred despite the fact that the Dayton peace agreement explicitly calls for the arrest of indicted war criminals. Although NATO troops may simply have failed to recognize a disguised Karadzic, the incident increased the sense of injustice that is already felt by many Bosnians and Croats.
The peace process has also been endangered by the reluctance of Serbs to transfer parts of Sarajevo to Bosnian government rule, as specified by the Dayton peace agreement. In the months before the final unification of the divided city on March 19, tens of thousands of Serbs left those parts of Sarajevo they had occupied during the war, burning entire neighborhoods. The Serbs abandoned the city despite assurances by the Bosnian government that no retaliatory action would be taken against those who stay. NATO commander Admiral Leighton Smith on January 16 also called on the Serb civilians to remain in the city, telling them they had "no reason to leave."1 But the extremist propaganda from Pale, the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb capital, worked efficiently to prevent a multiethnic Sarajevo from becoming reality. The same type of propaganda fueled ethnic hatred in 1992, when the Serbs launched their first assault against Bosnia.
Approximately two million refugees could soon become a destabilizing and potentially explosive factor. |
The roadblocks the Bosnian Serbs have thrown in the way of peace since the signing of the Dayton accords point to a more fundamental problem. The Bosnian Serbs lack a moderate constituency willing to seriously commit to lasting peace. Their political leaders are strongmen who have benefited most in times of war, and who have the most to lose should peace come to stay. |
Karadzic and Mladic, for example, would have to give up all political power, and stand trial for crimes against humanity. Their attempts to reverse the peace process have been strikingly similar to the attempts of Palestinian terrorists to torpedo peace in the Middle East. On January 10, a grenade was launched from the Serb-held suburb of Grbavica into the city of Sarajevo, killing one person and wounding 19 others. Only five days earlier, a sniper from the Serb-held suburb of Vogosca shot an Italian corporal of the NATO peacekeeping mission.
Ineffective Implementation
On December 1, the North Atlantic Council, a body of NATO, authorized the formation of a military force which has become known as the NATO Implementation Force (IFOR). It consists of 60,000 soldiers, including 20,000 Americans. IFOR has successfully prevented new fighting in Bosnia, and has provided the Bosnian people with hope that peace could indeed materialize. However, it has failed to live up to its full potential. IFOR’s impressive military equipment has successfully deterred any major attacks against its own soldiers and Bosnian cities, but has not otherwise stopped action in violation of the peace process. Recently, IFOR troops have passively watched Serbs burn down much of Sarajevo. When Italian soldiers arrested seven people for setting fires in mid-March, they failed to keep them in custody or turn them over to Bosnian authorities. Instead, IFOR handed the men to the Bosnian Serb police who immediately released them. The fires in several Sarajevo suburbs raged on.
IFOR troops have additionally failed to prevent the destruction of evidence of atrocities committed against civilians during the war. Several mass graves have been found in Bosnia since the signing of Dayton. All of them point to the horrific crimes carried out by the troops of Serb general Ratko Mladic. In late January, a mass grave was uncovered near Glogova, a village close to Srebrenica, where Serbs massacred as many as 7000 Bosnian civilians last July. The Glogova site is expected to hold the bodies of at least 2,000 people. According to a CNN report, 2,000 Bosnians were herded into a building, and subsequently killed by "Serbs firing rocket-propelled grenades." Instead of protecting the evidence of such war crimes, IFOR troops have usually left mass grave sites immediately after inspecting them, allowing Serb forces to destroy much of the evidence. Uncovering crimes against humanity is key to peace because it gives the relatives and friends of the victims a sense of justice, however imperfect. The destruction of evidence only serves to raise doubts that those responsible for the atrocities will indeed be punished.
Refugee Unrest
An even more problematic issue is the return of refugees to their homes. Almost half of Bosnia’s population has been uprooted as a result of the Serb takeover of one half of Bosnia. According to the Dayton peace agreement, all refugees have the right to return to their places of origin. But IFOR troops have not enforced that right. Non-Serbs have not been able to enter areas controlled by the Serbs. Also, many Serbs have feared returning to areas held by the Bosnian Muslims or Croats. The approximately two million refugees could soon become a destabilizing and potentially explosive factor. With little more to lose, they are unlikely to tolerate the current situation indefinitely. If the current peace does not enable the refugees to return to their homes, many of them could start favoring the military option again.
The problem of refugees points to another dangerous tendency. Instead of moving toward the goal of a unified Bosnia, recent events have served to cement the division of the country along ethnic lines. When the Bosnian peace agreement was signed in Paris on December 14, after being initialed in Dayton three weeks earlier, President Clinton expressed his hope that Bosnia would find a way to "go forward together." Instead, the country has been steadily drifting apart, much to the liking of those who have favored ethnically pure states over multicultural societies. The treaty provision of free movement within Bosnia has been replaced by tight border controls between the Serb-occupied territories and the areas controlled by the Bosnian government. Free movement also remains restricted within the Muslim-Croat Federation, especially in the southern city of Mostar which has been divided between Muslims and Croats since 1993. If Bosnia is to become a truly united country again, civilians must be able to move freely within its borders.
Prospects for a Lasting Peace
Observers have pointed to major flaws in the Dayton agreement, and it is increasingly evident that the deal may indeed contain the seeds of its own demise. All the problems which have threatened the peace so far have resulted directly or indirectly from the official creation of two separate entities within one country. The creation of a "Serb Republic" and the Bosnian-Croat Federation has crippled Bosnia’s political institutions. The "Serb Republic" serves as a hiding place for many individuals who have been indicted for war crimes. The mini-state has so far successfully blocked attempts by non-Serb residents to register to vote in the first post-war national elections to be held this fall. It has also maintained a large standing army, commanded by the infamous General Mladic who bears responsibility for taking more than 300 UN soldiers hostage, and the massacre of Bosnian civilians near Srebrenica in 1995.
The seemingly unresolvable constitutional problems Bosnia faces today could have been avoided by a more decisive approach of the international community in late 1995. After the NATO air campaign against the Bosnian Serbs last September had turned the tide of war against the aggressors, it appeared likely that the regime of Radovan Karadzic would crumble within weeks. The Dayton accords effectively saved Mr. Karadzic’s mini-state from becoming a matter of history. Had the Serbs been defeated militarily last fall, Bosnia’s precarious future would have looked much brighter. Democracy could have been established within months, and refugees would have been able to return to their homes.
Unfortunately for most Bosnians, reality has been much more sobering. The task faced by those committed to peace is to make the Dayton agreement work, despite its dire shortcomings. Only a multi-cultural Bosnia will facilitate reconciliation between the Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. Dividing Bosnia into ethnically pure areas would lead to the creation of hostile camps which would be likely to resume fighting once international troops leave the country. IFOR needs to use compelling force to turn up the pressure on those trying to sabotage the ongoing peace effort. If peace is to stay in Bosnia, after international forces leave at the end of this year, IFOR needs to ensure that civilians like Mr. Vidovic will finally be able to start anew in Sipovo and other cities they call home.
| Notes: 1. "Asking the Serbs to Stay." Time Daily. Online. Internet. 21 March 1996. |
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Mr. Mihaljevic, DC'99, is an economics major at Yale College.
