This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood and Naz Modirzadeh talk to Balkans expert Marko Prelec about the twin crises facing Bosnia’s multi-ethnic state. They ask if Serbian secessionism and a Croat election boycott could lead to the country’s unravelling a quarter-century after its civil war.
Republika Srpska National Assembly passed controversial resolution in step toward secession, raising tensions and provoking international condemnation. Despite warnings from international community and opposition boycotts, 49 of 83 Republika Srpska (RS) National Assembly MPs 10 Dec approved resolution – backed by Bosnian Serb state-level presidency leader Milorad Dodik and RS President Željka Cvijanović – to withdraw from Bosnian army, security services, tax system and judiciary; decision entails transferring powers away from central institutions and leaves six-month period to draft new laws on armed forces, judiciary and tax system. In response, opposition Serb Democratic Party leader Mirko Sarovic described move as “direct threat to peace” that would lead RS “into the spiral of war”. Western govts – namely Germany, UK, U.S., France, Italy – and EU labelled resolution “a further escalatory step” and threatened new sanctions; German FM Annalena Baerbock 13 Dec called for EU to impose sanctions on Dodik, but Dodik showed indifference and said sanctions would lead them to their “true friends”. Bosnian NGO Žene žrtve rata and Institute for Research of Genocide Canada 14 Dec filed charge against Dodik at State Prosecutor’s Office for “undermining the constitutional order and jeopardising the country’s territorial integrity” as well as for mutiny and illegal formation of military forces.
While the physical scars of the 1992-1995 Bosnia war have healed, political agony and ethnic tension persist. Real peace requires a new constitution and bottom-up political change.
Occasional violence notwithstanding, Islamism poses little danger in Bosnia, whose real risk stems from clashing national ideologies, especially as Islamic religious leaders increasingly reply with Bosniak nationalism to renewed Croat and Serb challenges to the state’s territorial integrity.
Only thorough constitutional reform can resolve Bosnia and Herzegovina’s deep political crisis and implement a landmark European Court of Human Rights decision to put an end to ethnic discrimination.
The international community should start a process to close its supervision of Bosnia’s Brčko District at its meeting next week and develop a new strategy to better help domestic institutions address governance challenges and corruption, while retaining the ability to sanction any attempts to undermine security.
If the leaders of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS) continue driving every conflict with Sarajevo to the brink, they risk disaster for themselves, the country and the Western Balkans.
Bosnia faces its worst crisis since war ended in 1995. Violence is probably not imminent, but there is a real prospect of it in the near future unless all sides pull away from the downward cycle of their maximalist positions.
Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries or regions at risk of deadly conflict or escalation thereof in 2022. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could enhance prospects for peace and stability.
Political instability keeps growing in the Western Balkans amid geopolitical contests and increased tensions with Russia. In this excerpt from the Watch List 2017 – First Update early-warning report for European policy makers, Crisis Group urges the European Union and its member states to engage intensively to ensure the political space for avoiding more serious crisis does nto entirely vanish in the Western Balkans.
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