SARAJEVO: Two decades after the Dayton agreement brought an end to more than three years of devastating war in Bosnia, the unstable country remains locked in ethnic divisions that were cemented by the peace deal.

Agreed on Nov 21, 1995, in the US military base in Dayton, Ohio, the accord formally split the former Yugoslav republic along ethnic lines, establishing a Serb-run entity, Republika Srpska, and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

It brought to an end an inter-ethnic conflict that left 100,000 people dead and another two million homeless, but 20 years on critics describe Dayton as a “straitjacket” that does not allow Bosnia to become a normal country.

“We live in the state of ‘unfinished war’ or ‘imperfect peace’,” said political analyst Gojko Beric.

The war broke out in 1992 pitting Bosnia’s Muslims and ethnic Croats, who wanted independence from Yugoslavia, against Bosnian Serbs, armed by the Belgrade-controlled federal Yugoslav army.

The two entities set up to end the bloodshed were given a large degree of autonomy and were linked by weak central institutions, which the international community tried to strengthen in the first decade after the conflict.

But efforts have waned since 2006 after the United States gave up active engagement in Bosnia, which remains one of Europe’s poorest nations and is still struggling to unite after its bloody past.

Like separate countries

Today, crossing from one Bosnian entity to another is like entering a separate country — even train locomotives are changed. Police on each side wear different uniforms and residents watch different public television networks.

Some services are divided into three to account separately for Croats: there are three postal systems, three academies of arts and science and three electricity companies in the tiny nation of 3.8 million people.

The unsurprisingly bloated administration weighs heavily on public finances, unemployment is at more than 40 per cent and political bickering has slowed the path to European Union accession.

“The peace agreement brought to an end an atrocious war, but the basic problems caused by that same conflict were not resolved,” said Beric, referring to “the collision of two irreconcilable concepts”.

On the one hand, he said, is the “separatist” concept defended by the firebrand Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik, who has threatened to hold an independence referendum in Republika Srpska.

The alternative is “based on the idea of a united Bosnia”, supported by Muslim politicians.

Some Bosnians who lived through the war, such as Muslim computer technician Amar Ramovic in Sarajevo, view the legacy of Dayton with ambivalence.

“I was happy that the killing would stop, but at the same time I had regret,” said the 37-year-old, recalling the announcement of the deal when he was a teenager.

“The agreement stopped our forces’ military progress and had it not been signed, Bosnia would not be a divided country today.”

‘Smell the danger’

Political science professor Djordje Vukovic, however, claims Dayton was not the source of the instability.

“The soldiers were disarmed, but consciences were not demilitarised. We would not be different with another constitution,” he said.

Earlier this year, legislators in Republika Srpska backed the holding of a referendum on whether to continue recognising Bosnia’s state court system — a move some fear is a stepping stone towards a vote on independence.

Analyst Srecko Latal said such a vote would undermine Bosnia’s “territorial integrity” and mean that “a new conflict could not be excluded”.

Croats have also called for greater autonomy.

British politician Paddy Ashdown, Bosnia’s top international envoy between 2002 and 2006, sounded alarm bells this month when he told the global community to “wake up and smell the danger” the country will disintegrate.

In the Serb capital of Banja Luka, less than 200 kilometres from Sarajevo, elderly resident Momcilo Vesovic said the Dayton agreement should be respected until a new generation emerges more willing to compromise.

Meanwhile, he said, politicians should focus on the economy.

“People agree more easily if they live well. If you do not have enough to eat, everyone can push you to do certain things ... you think only of how to survive,” he said.—AFP

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2015