UN CASE STUDY: BOSNIA failure

tbc

SEE ALSO: post on BANNING BOSNIA GENOCIDE DENIAL

Dec 2020

Bosnian/Croat split blocked Mostar election for 12 years until a case went to European Court of Human Rights for denying the right to vote. The EU, US and UK ambassadors subsequently brokered a deal for elections held this week. Guardian.

Like the GFA, the Daytona Agreement fudged some conflict points.

Concerns over new conflict potential, Guardian. Nov 2021 update: threat of war recedes as Bosnian Serbs withdraw threat to create their own army - but still intend to have a separate tax and legal system, which basically means seceding from Bosnia Herzegovina:

'[High Representative, 'international community envoy'] Schmidt’s position is under diplomatic pressure. Moscow opposed his appointment and does not recognise his authority. Russia and China both insisted that every mention of the high representative was stripped from a recent UN security council resolution on Bosnia. [Bosnian Serb premier] Dodik has refused to meet him, questioning his legitimacy.'

The story continues... 'In an interview with the Guardian, Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the tripartite leadership of Bosnia-Herzegovina, said he would not be deterred by the outcry from London, Washington, Berlin and Brussels.' He's signalled he expects Russia and China (who both blocked any mention of the High Representative from a recent UN report) to make up any finance lost from Western sanctions. Dodik is the Serb part of the 3-member Bosnian leadership:

'Dodik has been widely condemned in recent weeks over his stated intention to withdraw the Serbian part of Bosnia-Herzegovina from state-level institutions, such as the tax administration, judiciary, intelligence agency and even the national army, in order to create a Serb force.

The proposal has been described in a report to the UN as tantamount to “secession”, and a dangerous risk to the 1995 Dayton peace accord, which ended the civil war that cost about 100,000 lives after the breakup of Yugoslavia.

That peace deal established a state, Bosnia-Herzegovina, made up of two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, consisting predominantly of Bosniak Muslims and Croats, and the Serbian Republika Srpska. Bosnia’s three-member presidency is held by representatives of those three main ethnic groups.

Under the so-called Bonn powers of 1997, substantial powers of law-making were also granted to the office of the high representative (OHR) in charge of implementing the deal. Those powers were used extensively by the former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, during his time as high representative, to centralise the administration of the country.

Most recently, Valentin Inzko, who left the post this summer, used the office to outlaw the denial of genocide, in response to attempts by some people to play down the scope of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. This led Dodik in July to pull Republika Srpska representatives out of central institutions, and in October to propose taking back powers and transferring land owned by the central state.'

Dodik paints both the High Representative and the 3 judges appointed by the EU court of human rights as undemocratic and outside interference, and refuses to accept that the Serbs committed genocide in Sbrenica, and:

'Since 2017 Dodik has been banned from travelling to the US, or accessing to assets under its jurisdiction, after he defied Bosnia’s constitutional court by staging a referendum on celebrating Republika Srpska Day, marking the date in 1992 when Bosnian Serbs declared their own state in Bosnia.'

He says he still wants EU membership but that everyone knows enlargement is basically off the table, with France/Holland repeatedly blocking Bosnia's application to join Croatia inside the EU (he's almost certainly correct in that, which boosts his willingness to turn to Russia/China for backing)