Abstract
The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) ended in 1995, yet the state remains crippled by inertia, escalating political infighting, and domestic and regional rhetoric that undermines efforts at community, social, and political reconciliation. The author argues that BiH can be categorized as a frozen conflict, as the core issues at the heart of the violent conflict of the 1990s have not been resolved. BiH is an interesting case study as the nature of today’s frozen conflict was to a large extent shaped by the very peace agreement that ended the war, which effectively ended the war yet failed to either address the drivers of conflict, or to establish political and structural mechanisms that would help to mediate and govern the country. Following brief historical background, Ludvik and Smetana’s offered subtypes are applied, with various scenarios proposed to illustrate key characteristics. The conclusion argues that no conflict transformation has occurred over the past 20+ years, and the structure of the conflict itself has begun to change over a generation of destructive stasis.
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Notes
Slobodan Milosevic died while in custody and before the end of his own war crimes trial. A 2007 decision by the International Court of Justice found that while Serbia had failed in its duty to prevent genocide from occurring in BiH, that Belgrade did not bear direct responsibility. This has often been incorrectly interpreted as having absolved Belgrade of directly involved in all aspects of the war in BiH.
Alija Izetbegovic at the BiH Assembly on January 26, 1992 (ICTY 2005).
Bakir Izetbegovic’s 2014 election campaign (Video 2014).
Full quote: “The majorization of Croats in the Federation of BiH is continued, there is an increase of extremist groups. The International Community should not close its eyes to these problems. We will strongly and diplomatically act towards the IC with the aim of building up the Dayton agreement.” (Tanjug 2017a).
Sekulic-Preljevic 2017
Hina 2017
BiH, or in some cases, just “Bosnia” or “Bosnian,” will be used interchangeably for stylistic reasons, while always referring to the whole of the state of BiH.
The agreement is generally referred to as the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), though its formal title is the General Framework Agreement for Peace (GFAP).
There are ten cantons, with two being mixed, while the rest have a dominant majority of either Bosniaks or Croats. There is also a special administrative district in Brcko (in northeast BiH), which is held in condominium by both entities, but in theory should be controlled by neither; this was another compromise born of inability to resolve the status of this bit of territory in Dayton, with the status put off to arbitration later (Moore 2013).
Defense reform was a rare example of a reform that created a state level ministry (the Ministry of Defense) and at the same time eliminating the heretofore existing entity ministries (Azinovic et al. 2011).
In 2014, the ECtHR decided in the Zornic case, finding that Azra Zornic was denied rights by being unable to stand for certain offices due to her unwillingness to declare as anything other than as a citizen of BiH (Jukic 2014). In 2016, the Court found in favor of the plaintiff Ilijas Pilav finding that his inability to stand for the Serb position on the Presidency without declaring himself as a Serb was an infringement of his rights (Toe 2016; CCBH 2006).
Over a decade later, it is useful to remind that SNSD (Savez Nezavisnih Socijaldemokrata), led by Milorad Dodik, voted for these amendments. The HDZ (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica) split into two factions (HDZ BiH and HDZ 1990) during the talks, splitting their support. The Bosniak party Stranka za BiH rejected the package claiming it did not go far enough. A handful of minor players could have also changed the outcome through a vote shift (Sebastian 2014; Perry 2015b).
The Prud process did address the incorporation of the Brcko District under the jurisdiction of BiH state institutions and the Constitutional Court (COE 2010).
Poland had already substantially reformed its constitution to prepare for EU membership, so was not required to do so in accessions talks. Cyprus is another outlier—it did not have to make substantial reforms due to political imperatives related to strong support from Greece.
Two incidents in 2017 highlighted the continued struggled for Sarajevo’s present, but also past. A social movement aimed at naming a new sports hall in Grbavica after a mixed (Serb/Bosniak) handball player who was killed in the war protecting a Bosniak neighbor from Serb forces was rebuffed by the municipal council; critics claim that it is not in the interest of the ruling SDA to allow signs that might remind people of a more diverse past. In the Sarajevo settlement of Dobrosevici, an elementary school was recently named after a World War II Muslim leader who has been aligned with the Croatia fascist forces, a true shock in a city that has prided itself on its anti-fascist past (Kovacevic 2017; Spaic 2017b).
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Armina Mujanovic for research support. All errors are the author’s alone.
Funding
This study received funding from the Charles University Research Center program UNCE/HUM/028 (Peace Research Center Prague/Faculty of Social Sciences) and by the Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic, grant project VI20152019011.
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Perry, V. Frozen, stalled, stuck, or just muddling through: the post-Dayton frozen conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Asia Eur J 17, 107–127 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-018-0525-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-018-0525-6