[Français]
[Welcome Page] [Main Menu] [About CSIS]
[Commentary Abstracts][Commentary Menu]
a CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE publication
December 1995
Unclassified
Editors Note:
While the Dayton Agreement may seem a milestone on the road to peace, and the initial reaction of the Bosnian factions a classic compromise, the journey is apt to be long. Is Dayton in fact merely a stop en route to a "Greater Serbia" and "Greater Croatia", with an undetermined fate for the Muslim sector? Or will it lead to a revival of the open, multi-ethnic society Bosnia once knew? These questions and some underlying "realities on the ground" are examined in this Commentary by Dr. Mihailo Crnobrnja.
Former Yugoslav Ambassador to the EU, Dr. Crnobrnja teaches at McGill University. He is the author of The Yugoslav Drama (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994). His first Commentary article was "The Tortuous Road to Peace in the Balkans" (March 1993).
Disclaimer: Publication of an article in the COMMENTARY series does not imply CSIS authentication of the information nor CSIS endorsement of the author's views.
For a second time this century, the rugged, mostly mountainous terrain known as Bosnia¹ has become a maelstrom of world politics. Although this time the consequences have not approached the tragic levels of WW I, the shock waves from Bosnia in recent years have vibrated far and wide.
Since 1991, Bosnia has served to frustrate the territorial ambitions of Serbia (or left-over "Yugoslavia") and Croatia, two adjoining states with open claims on their respective ethnic groups in Bosnia and, a little less conspicuously, on the territory and allegiance of the Bosnian Muslim population as well. The Bosnian crisis has severely tested the European Union's objective of a common foreign policy; it has reinforced tensions and prompted a shift of power in foreign policy matters between the President of the USA and Congress; it has led to mutual trans-Atlantic criticism between the EU and the USA over their respective approaches to the problem; it has energized NATO and involved the Alliance in real life military action for the first time in its existence; and it has contributed to a cooling of relations between the USA and Russia, sparked in particular by the NATO bombing of Bosnian Serb positions.
Quite a list of "accomplishments" for a country roughly the size of Nova Scotia and a pre-war population of 4.3 million. Within its borders, Bosnia has endured over a thousand days of war; close to 100,000 have been killed², 200,000 wounded, many disabled for life, and over 2.5 million Bosnians physically displaced from their homes.
For the first time in a long while we are faced with the real possibility of peace, although the reality is far from certain. The warring parties have not reached an agreement through efforts of their own. There is no perception that a strategic balance has been struck and that further fighting would be useless. The accord was accomplished because the Americans slowly but firmly converted mediation of the dispute into enforcement of a settlement.
The agreement is clearly a compromise reached under great pressure. It is an eclectic combination of international and moral principles which defends the integrity of the Bosnian state and the human rights of its citizens while accepting and endorsing the concepts of ethnic identities, ethnic partitioning and, by extension, the hideous "ethnic cleansing" that has become a legacy of this war.
The agreement decrees that there will be two entities called Bosnia and Herzegovina: the current republic known by that name will continue its legal and internationally recognized existence within its present borders, but incorporate within it the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as established by the 1994 Washington Agreement (bringing together Croats and whatever territory is currently held by the Bosnian government) and the Serb Republika Srpska.
Already this is leading to uncertainty and confusion. Certain responsibilities will be allocated to the central government, such as overseeing foreign relations and administering monetary policy. The question remains whether these will be sufficient to sustain the state in the long run. Similarly, the meaning is unclear (though not entirely unknown) of a statement like: "The United States will help establish a military balance in the region by arming the Bosnian side". Which Bosnian side? The Muslim-dominated part, the Bosnian-Croat Federation, or (highly unlikely) the whole of Bosnia? Or: "The international community will channel about US $6 billion into the economic reconstruction of Bosnia". Again, which Bosnia?
The parties have, after much arm-twisting, agreed on a 51:49 division (favouring the Muslim/Croat federation). The partition has, in effect, sanctioned the ethnically based model of state-building and, inevitably, "ethnic cleansing". The division has left a large finger of Serb land (containing Banja Luka) sticking into the west of Bosnia and a similar but smaller sliver of Muslim land (Gorazde) protruding deep into Serb-held territory. The question of Sarajevo has been "settled" in a way that has already raised many problems and will continue to do so during the implementation of the peace agreement.
All three sides profess to be happy with the agreement and each has claimed "victory" for a different reason: the Croats because it brings all of Croatia into one fold, with future options for Bosnian Croats unchallenged and ostensibly still open; the Muslims because it spells the end of the "Greater Serbia" project _ at least in the interpretation of the Muslim-led Bosnian government; and the Serbs because it recognizes a sovereign Republika Srpska while, in their own minds, preserving the hope that with time and patience the Serb-held territories will be able to link up with Serbia, thus realizing the goal of a Greater Serbia, albeit on a smaller scale than originally envisaged.
Consequently, although the immediate public reactions of the three sides might be seen as the happy outcome of a classic compromise, and the agreement itself heralded as an important milestone on the journey to lasting peace, that journey appears likely, on closer inspection, to be a lengthy one covering many miles and several years. Too much about the future is still unsettled, undecided and unclear for the people of Bosnia to pass definitive judgement on what the country will look like five years from now.
Now that the journey has begun, how can we ensure we are even on the right road? Does peace lie along the path of Henry Kissinger's principle that since Bosnia has never been a nation nor an ethnic group, nor has possessed a specific cultural identity, it cannot function as a modern state? If it does, then the current agreement would be only an interim, convenient half-way house on the way to a definite split and the creation of a "Greater Serbia" and "Greater Croatia", with an undetermined fate for the part controlled by Muslims. This could hardly pass without a new confrontation.
Or is peace to be found in restoring some integrity and substance to Bosnia, in reviving the multi-ethnic co-existence it once knew and gradually building a democratic, liberal and civil society to replace ethno-nationalistic exclusiveness? In this scenario also, it is possible to view the current agreement as serving only as a half-way house en route to a distant, but achievable, objective.
To perceive the choices clearly, one must understand what Bosnia is and is not, and thus the reasons for the war and the chances for peace.
Beginning in the 15th century, the plurality (but not majority) of Bosnians were Muslim. Owing to the multi-ethnic nature of Bosnia, and the perception of this multi-ethnicity as a permanent attribute of the territory, an attribute consolidated over centuries, Bosnia has, over the last 40 years or so, often been referred to as "Yugoslavia writ small".
For more than 400 years the Turks dominated this land, relying heavily during their governance on local Muslims of ethnic Slav origin. From 1919 to 1940 the Serbs dominated the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which meant they dominated Bosnia also. During WW II, Nazi Germany handed over most of Bosnia to the pro-Nazi Independent State of Croatia.
In each phase of its history, the dominant outside power favoured one of the ethnic groups within Bosnia; the others had to accommodate the "master group" or were persecuted. Such situations exacerbated communal differences and encouraged ethnic strife; from time to time, most notably immediately prior to the WW I and during WW II this resulted in confrontation and slaughter. However, these times were exceptions rather than the rule. For the most part, the three ethnic communities developed and nourished a pattern of ethnic and religious tolerance and co-existence, blending in a way which produced a specific Bosnian culture and way of life, even if it did not produce a homogenous nation.
The three ethnicities were distributed throughout Bosnia in such a manner that in over 30 of the 102 opstinas (a territorial unit roughly similar to a Canadian county), no single group had an absolute majority of the population. In centres with heavily mixed populations like Sarajevo, Tuzla, Mostar or Travnik, the different ethnic communities co-existed peacefully, with mixed marriages as common as mono-ethnic ones and with mosques, Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches found next to each other on the same street. Bosnians from all groups spoke, and still speak, one common language.
These few illustrations testify vividly to the average Bosnian's easy acceptance of multi-ethnic co-existence. This tolerance and blending of cultures most probably could have endured the country's conversion to democratic statehood, had it not been for the aggressive nationalism which spilled over into the new state, first from Serbia but soon after and with equal measure, from Croatia.
Bosnia thus became the target for the chauvinistic aspirations of outsiders intent on attaining a "Greater Serbia" or a "Greater Croatia". While the new state may also have been subjected ab initio to outside aggression, the essence of the problem lay in the fact that the ethnic communities within Bosnia were being made targets of deliberate nationalistic campaigns aimed at suppressing their collective Bosnian identity and glorifying their differences. This was accomplished through orchestrated campaigns which stressed those differences and fostered a "we versus they" mentality, encouraging hate instead of respect and tolerance.
Therefore, the war in Bosnia should not be viewed as the inevitable product of centuries of ethnic hatred, as is often (wrongly) stated in the West. It is rather the result of political ambition crystallizing in the vacuum of a non-democratic, post-communist environment of fear, and of the mismanagement of the crisis by both domestic and international players.
Were the popular contention that the war in Bosnia is a consequence of "millennia-old ethnic animosities" indeed true, it would have begun in Bosnia first, before breaking out in Slovenia and Croatia. Instead, it took a long time and a lot of concentrated effort by the nationalist zealots to exploit the ethnic differences of Bosnia.
After all, it was not easy to persuade the majority of ordinary people that Islam was on an aggressive, fundamentalist march, that all Serbs were cut-throat Chetniks, that all Croats were a reincarnation of the dreaded Ustashi. In a great part of Bosnia it meant "convincing" people that their trusted friends, good neighbours, even spouses were actually devilish foes. The propaganda onslaught was so intense, so demanding and so severe that many came to believe it. The comfort found in a collective, national identity helped to ease their consciences, permitting them to hate the other side and participate in an atrocious war.
Tragically, the campaigns were extremely effective and have produced a tense and seemingly irreversible polarization. At least up to the Dayton agreement, the political and military rulers made continuous efforts to accustom the people to believe there was no possibility of agreement because of the "other side". Faced with the impossibility of ending the conflict, the inevitable conclusion was that war must be fought, territories must be cleansed of the hated enemy and, it followed logically, the blame could conveniently always be placed on "the other side".
The current civil war in Bosnia is a struggle among peoples with a common Slavic background and a common language. Their primary differences are neither racial nor ethnic but religious. Still, the religions themselves were not the cause of war, but merely a powerful instrument of political manipulation. In the early 1990s, communism gave way to another ideology — one equally totalitarian but based on nationalism — propagated by leaders who were prepared to continue exploiting the peoples of Bosnia without giving them a real chance to express their will democratically.
As wars go, the Bosnian conflict is a peculiar one that defies easy definition, curiously combining the primitive brutality of medieval armed bands and a sophisticated diplomatic game, not unlike those played by 18th century monarchs and their courts over the balance of power in Europe. A good part of the conflict has been conducted by para-military forces striking predominantly civilian targets, rather than involving classical war action with formal armies pursuing defined military goals. The clear intention has been less to win battles than to provoke the upheaval and evacuation of segments of the population (the so-called "ethnic cleansing") so that territories might be claimed. War-like military action became the exception rather than the rule in this conflict.
The idea of partition, always in the minds of the campaign instigators, emerged as a self-fulfilling prophecy. To many, both inside and outside Bosnia, it now stands as the only available and realistic policy. The argument goes as follows: even if there was inter-ethnic tolerance in Bosnia before the conflict, the war itself has opened a host of wounds and inflicted so many new ones that the status quo ante is simply not feasible.
This buzz phrase has become an important buttress for the policies underlying the current peace agreement. While it would be foolish to ignore "realities on the ground" in this or comparable situations, it would be equally unwise to choose an arbitrary time to interpret such realities. Moreover, it could be dangerous.
A fundamental reality on the ground is that the three parties have conflicting territorial interests, which is why the negotiations on partitioning the territory were so tough. The territorial question could ultimately wreak havoc with the Dayton agreement and, in the process, undo the Muslim-Croat federation in Bosnia and provoke a new confrontation with the Serbs. The two slivers of land mentioned earlier offer ample opportunity for renewed fighting.
The idea that we are dealing with solid ethnic blocks and leaders who are thus fully representative of the three warring sides does not adequately reflect the reality on the ground. In all three ethnic groups there are some who will fight and kill for the final separation of "us" from "them". Until now, these individuals have occupied centre stage, dominating the governing ranks, perpetrating acts of war and wielding power over their respective ethnic groups.
But there are also large numbers of those for whom a return to a multi-ethnic Bosnia, organized as a civil and not an ethnic-religious society, would be welcome, not to mention the high numbers among the more than two million refugees whose ideology is based largely and simply on a desire to go back home.
From the perspective of the last three years, and looking ahead as far as the next three years, partition might indeed seem the only possible solution for Bosnia. Advocates of this view declare that the international community should not be wasting energy trying to put Humpty-Dumpty together again, as the task is impossible. Efforts should rather be channelled into completing "population replacement", this time by means of "orderly ethnic engineering" rather than "ethnic cleansing".
This, of course, is not the only viewpoint from which to address the Bosnian problem. From a longer historical perspective, and considering broader future implications, this method of resolving the current conflict would raise more new problems than it has thus far "solved".
The war has redrawn the demographic map of Bosnia. Chauvinism, xenophobia, armed combat, fear and terror have displaced over 2.5 million people. Territories have become ethnically homogenized. And all of this has happened with the international community condemning the war and its objectives, but doing far less than needed to counter it. With the notable exception of the provision of humanitarian aid, the international community has little to show for more than four years of mediation efforts, beginning in June 1991.
Local leaders (Milo-sevic, Tudjman, Izetbegovic, Karadjic) exploited the lack of international unity with great skill, pulling in their respective directions, making the settlement more elusive and dragging the international community deeper and deeper into the conflict. The war dragged on, inflicting untold suffering on the civilian population, because always one side or more in the three-way contest felt it (they) had more to gain from continued fighting than from a settlement.
Now that the warring parties have finally accepted the USA-brokered peace, one hears claims that all of this could have been accomplished more than three years ago. While this may be true theoretically, it was hardly likely to occur given the circumstances prevailing then. Indeed it sounds rather like Monday morning quarterbacking, benefiting from hindsight.
The current international (read USA-led) position, hardly rock-solid, needed time to mature. So did the situation on the ground. The international community, primarily the EU and the USA, were hardly in harmony on the questions of who should lead and what should be done to resolve the crisis. Later on, the Russians entered the fray with their own ideas, views and policy recommendations. But however long it took to put the act together, it is important that a solution now be delivered that will open up the possibility of lasting peace and stability.
By reasserting itself as the main diplomatic player and the inspiring force behind the stick used against the Bosnian Serbs, the United States has taken on a huge responsibility. European leaders, having first bungled their own efforts to resolve the crisis and then having grumbled about the lack of American leadership once they finally realized they were incapable of offering a solution themselves, can now hardly complain that the Americans are finally making their presence felt.
The USA has chosen to accept the reality on the ground, the reality of current ethnic division, and has come up with a plan which recognizes this. While the reality on the ground was previously ignored for the sake of moral indignation and accepted principles of international conduct, the danger now is that that reality threatens to overwhelm any vestiges of such indignation or principles.
The trick will be to avoid both extremes and strike a balance between the two. A unitary multi-ethnic Bosnian state, of the kind which existed before the war, has been ruled out of the question as a goal for the foreseeable future, perhaps wisely so, as it is clearly an impossibility, the pursuit of which would only prolong the war or start it all over again at a later date.
To preserve the peace in the region, the centrepiece of the new initiative must lie in providing a more durable substance for the Bosnian state and for Bosnians as a civil society to be based — of necessity, and for a time — on ethnic divisions. However, the notion of an integrated Bosnian state should not be abandoned. The territorial division must serve only as a starting compromise. The division is obviously purely arbitrary and imposed by international force. There is no pre-war or post-war ethnic or any other criterion which makes the 51:49 division meaningful and a guarantee of peace.
History suggests that the solution to the war in Bosnia is not to be found in "Balkanization", where this term denotes further ethnic fragmentation. Balkanization has always led to war, and will do so in the future also. Every effort should be made to re-establish and promote forms of ethnic co-operation and tolerance. Of course this will not be easy, nor quick. Events of the last four years have left deep scars and wounds on the fibre of all ethnic groups, and the required co-operation will be infinitely more difficult to achieve today than it was at the time of the political break-up of Yugoslavia.
The single-but-ethnically-divided-Bosnia compromise, given the pressures under which it was accomplished, should not be taken as the end, but only as a starting point for securing a relative peace and (precarious) stability in Bosnia. This peace and stability, supported, secured and financially aided by the world community, must serve as a basis for mending the ethnic community fabric which characterized Bosnia before this war, and for managing ethnic conflict through civil and democratic institutions, instead of violence and "ethnic cleansing".
In order for a real lasting peace and stability to emerge, the international community will have to maintain a strong presence in Bosnia for a long time. This will mean helping financially, in administration, in delivering justice and in policing the fragile security of a war-torn nation. While peace cannot be made by the international community, this involvement would go a long way to create the conditions in which Bosnian citizens would eventually overcome their internecine hatreds and divisions. This will undoubtedly be a long-term project. Agreeing on territorial divisions, in comparison, might be considered child's play. Furthermore, the pressures under which the territorial agreements were made mean they offer less security and certainty of remaining permanent.
It is a difficult objective to reach and there are many obstacles along the way. Space prevents a more detailed discussion of them here. What commends this option particularly is that all others are worse and in the long run more costly. They would lead either to perpetual fighting, a Lebanon or Ireland type of situation, or the continuation of "ethnic cleansing" and the ultimate creation of ethnically pure states, and not only in Bosnia. Once an ethnically pure Croatia and ethnically pure Serbia were created, the contest would become one of determining who owned the Muslims (and their territory), since the latter are, in both Serbian and Croatian eyes, not an ethnicity. This is a real possibility and a real danger, not clearly seen at the present time.
The main concerns in trying this long-haul approach is the ability of the USA to follow through, and its current commitment to no longer than a one-year presence on the ground in Bosnia. Washington has a recent history of muscular intervention in complex situations, followed by abrupt withdrawal when an early solution appears impossible. The fact that the USA is in an election year makes this concern all the more compelling. Limiting the military, and hence the political, presence to one year encourages stalling and other delaying tactics by the parties in Bosnia. A one-year solution is just not consistent with the timeframe of the problem at hand. Nonetheless, recent pronouncements by the Clinton Administration and early congressional signals give some grounds for optimism, at least in the short term.
Another concern is that United States' policies may be perceived as too one-sided, thus losing the support and full backing of the USA's allies and increasing still further the displeasure of the Russians about the way they were ignored as an international actor with a possible contribution in the Balkans. Such disharmony could quickly lead to a new round of exploitation of differences by the players on the ground, making execution of the peace plan more difficult, and thus, in turn, bringing back into play the above-mentioned primary concern.
The third concern relates to the substance of the peace plan and the way it evolves from a blueprint on paper to a binding, comprehensive and concrete reality. The preferred policy here should be to work patiently for tactical gains rather than a strategic breakthrough. It must be recalled that the military and security aspects are much more developed than are economic, human rights and other civilian areas of concern. In the coming months, determined action to separate the armies of the warring parties must be followed up with financial, political and administrative aid from the international community. Aid should be provided to the whole of Bosnia, not just the Croat-Muslim federation.
The endgame in Bosnia presents the outside powers with more agonizing choices. The consequences of allowing military force to be used as the final determinant of political settlements will probably be less dramatic today than it was in 18th and 19th centuries, and the two World Wars. But the consequences of such a departure from the recently accepted norms of international conduct (at least in Europe), would nevertheless be significant, not only for Europe but for the world at large.
First, there is always the physical risk of an extension of the war in the Balkans. Though this risk might be reduced by establishing a NATO presence in Macedonia, it will not go away. The de facto breakup of the Bosnian state because of military force will considerably increase the risk further in the south of former Yugoslavia.
Second, it will set a dangerous precedent for the Transcaucasus and other areas of ethnic dispute. The return of war and the logic of territorial divisions based on sheer military force at the heart of Europe could, and probably would, reawaken dangerous beliefs in nationalism and in the idea that national interest should be pursued in a unilateral, chauvinistic way.
Third, in a more insidious way, the acceptance of military solutions in general and the partitioning of Bosnia in particular will have a corrosive impact on the Western Alliance, on the move toward European unity, on individual and national self-respect and on respect for established values cherished by democratic societies.
All of these considerations, over and above the suffering of the largely innocent population of Bosnia, should make for pause and deep reflection in choosing the direction in which to advance the current peace initiative past its current half-way house status.
¹ In this text, "Bosnia" denotes the entity called "Bosnia and Herzegovina" which corresponds in territory to the former Yugoslav republic with that name.
² No precise figure is available at the present time. The figure of 200,000 has been kept in circulation, although last April the Bosnian government revised the numbers downward to 140,000.
The views expressed herein are those of the author, who may be contacted by writing to :
CSIS P.O.Box 9732 Postal Station T Ottawa, Ontario K1G 4G4 FAX: (613) 842-1312
ISSN 1192-277X
Catalogue JS73-1/64
[Welcome Page ] [Main Menu] [About CSIS]
[Commentary Abstracts][Commentary Menu]
Disclaimer: The Canadian Security Intelligence Service assumes no responsibility for the use of the information at this World Wide Web (WWW) site.
