Bosnia And Herzegovina: A Politically Stable Future Still Hangs In The Balance

Thirty years ago, Bosnia and Herzegovina were among the top causes of the Muslims; up there with Palestine, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, and other parts of the Islamic world under attack. Nowadays, many Muslims in America and elsewhere in the West are under the impression that Bosnia’s troubles are behind it.

This is, to say the least, not wholly accurate. While the brutal war that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslim Bosniaks did come to an end in 1995, Bosnia has been more or less a failed state for years, and now, following increasingly provocative and secessionist moves by anti-Muslim Serb nationalists and harmful Western policies, is teetering on the brink of collapse. 

The Bosnian War began in 1992, after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Serb-dominated, Communist Yugoslavia along with Slovenia and Croatia. Serb nationalist leaders, who wished to see the creation of a “Greater Serbia,” attempted to secede from the newly established Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and subsequently went on a campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide to carve out an ethnically and religiously pure Serbian Orthodox part of Bosnia. This campaign culminated in the July 1995 genocide at Srebrenica, during which Bosnian Serb forces killed over 8,300 Bosniak men and boys. Bosnian Croat nationalists, in pursuit of a similar “Greater Croatian” irredentist project, attempted to secede as well and engaged in a similar campaign of crimes against humanity against the Muslim Bosniaks. 

The Dayton Peace Accords

After NATO intervention against the Serbs in 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords were signed by the presidents of Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia, ending the war and effectively freezing Bosnia along its frontlines into a joint Bosniak-Croat and Serb entity.

The Serb entity, called the Republika Srpska or RS, has not abandoned its secessionist, irredentist ambitions. And recently, it has been taking steps to realize those ambitions.  

On July 5, Bosnian Serb lawmakers declared that they would no longer be applying the rules of Bosnia’s Constitutional Court within the entity. This new law means that anyone who does not carry out the decisions of the Constitutional Court will be legally protected in the RS. Given that the entity has its own armed police force, this could be opening the door to a renewed armed conflict. 

Shortly thereafter, the RS passed another law effectively allowing its officials to bypass or ignore decisions made by Bosnia’s UN High Representative, a position created to oversee the implementation of the civic aspects of the Dayton Accords. The High Representative holds important executive powers, notably to sack elected officials and impose laws.

Bosnia’s current High Representative, German diplomat Christian Schmidt, ‘annulled’ the laws shortly after their passing and was subsequently praised by the US Embassy in Sarajevo. In theory, this means that the laws will not be able to be enforced by RS authorities. The question is, however, what will stop them from doing so? 

During a Congressional hearing on July 18, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Esbobar was asked by Rep. Ann Wagner, a Republican representing Missouri’s second district, home to a large number of Bosniak refugees, what measures the State Department would take to ensure the provocative, secessionist actions of the RS are not able to further destabilize Bosnia’s delicate security. 

Escobar expressed that he supported the High Representative’s use of the so-called “Bonn Powers,” the set of legislative abilities invested in the office by the Dayton Agreement that allows for the voiding of laws. 

However, if the RS is successfully prevented from implementing these laws, and if Rep. Wagner’s recently-introduced bipartisan bill that would sanction secessionist politicians like the RS’ firebrand leader Milorad Dodik is passed, it would do little to fix the situation in Bosnia. It would merely maintain the already unbearable status quo. 

The Dayton Agreement essentially froze Bosnia in 1995, dividing the country along its wartime frontlines. The Serb secessionists were rewarded with nearly half the country, much of which they acquired through genocide and ethnic cleansing. The agreement established a confusing, Kafkaesque governmental structure that is dysfunctional by design, with three presidents, two legislatures, and two judicial systems, all of which seem to be in perpetual conflict with one another. 

The Dayton Agreement was imposed when Bosnia was making progress in defeating the Serb secessionists and resulted in Bosnia even having to give some of the hard-won territories it had liberated back to the genocidal nationalists who had cleansed it of its Bosniak and Croat populations. 

This is in contrast to how the United States and NATO dealt with the Serb nationalist secessionists in Croatia. They allowed the Croatian Army to defeat them entirely, and now Croatia, a Catholic, traditionally Western-orientated nation, is a NATO and EU member with a comparatively prosperous economy. Bosnia, on the other hand, straddling as it does the fault lines between the Islamic, Orthodox, and Western worlds, had to be divided in such a way as to maintain a delicate geopolitical balance – and, it would seem, prevent a rooted, indigenous Islamic foothold in Europe from becoming powerful – at the expense of its native population. In effect, it had to be paralyzed.

1:10 

Presiding over this broken system is the High Representative, an unelected official from Western Europe who has almost unchecked authority over the country – essentially a colonial viceroy. And while the current HR Mr. Schmidt may try to prevent Serb separatists from imposing their latest legislative attempts to rip the country apart, he certainly has helped them and their Croat nationalist counterparts at the expense of the Bosniaks. 

Last year, while the votes in Bosnia’s election were still being counted, Mr. Schmidt enacted changes to the election law that essentially made the vote of one Serb or Croat citizen of the country equal to ten votes of a member of the Muslim, Bosniak majority. The changes were met with mass protests in the country. He also maintains a close relationship with the nationalist Bosnian Croat politician Dragan Covic, whose HDZ party oversaw the ethnic cleansing and mass slaughter of Bosniaks in Herzegovina and central Bosnia during the war.

A Future That Hangs In The Balance

The recent actions of Bosnian Serb nationalists have left many Bosniaks deeply worried about the future of their country. Let’s not forget who these people are. On July 11, as newly discovered bodies of victims of the Srebrenica genocide were being buried, a concert was held by nationalists at the Serbian Orthodox Church in the town. Serb nationalist songs, including one urging the Serb people to “celebrate,” blared through the town just hours after the funerals were held.

American Muslims must be aware of the seriousness of this threat. We must urge our lawmakers and lawmakers in the West broadly to change their policy on Bosnia and Herzegovina to stop emboldening anti-Muslim nationalists bent on finishing their project of ethnic cleansing. Rep. Wagner’s act is a good start, but more serious changes to our policy are necessary to disempower those who would tear Bosnia apart and potentially plunge it into another genocidal nightmare.

Related:

 – Srebrenica 2023: Political Instability And Rampant Genocide Denial

 – Oped: The Treachery Of Spreading Bosnia Genocide Denial In The Muslim Community