The 1999 action plan of the Reconstruction and Return Task Force (RRTF)^[fn]The RRTF was set up under the High Representative in 1997 to combine the task of co-ordinating the international effort on refugee return with a mechanism for applying political pressure to combat obstruction from host authorities.  In its three years of life it has grown progressively stronger, and for 1999 it has a much extended network of field offices.Hide Footnote  represents the most determined effort yet to implement a policy of mass minority return in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  But the signs at mid-season are that the results for 1999 will once again be disappointing.

The plan’s fatal weakness (of which its authors were well aware) was the proposition that returns could be agreed with Bosnian authorities, using a mix of bribes, threats and any other available leverage.  This in turn is based on the general theory that the role of the international community in BiH is to help the indigenous authorities implement the Dayton Peace Agreement. In fact few if any Bosnian authorities are prepared to promote inward minority returns (that is, return of alien minorities to their own area of control), and most are ready actively to resist.

This paper examines the motives driving the attitude of Bosnian authorities, ranging from simple racism to the genuine need to protect displaced people already occupying the property of potential returnees.  It then looks at the factors underlying the decision of the individual prospective returnee whether to go back or not.  It goes on to examine the record in several locations in Bosnia and suggests which factors have been at work in these cases.

The report concludes that many of the arguments used by Bosnian authorities to obstruct return appear reasonable to the authorities themselves but may conceal less reasonable arguments which are actually more important.  It would be better to remove these ‘justifiable’ reasons from the argument altogether.  Against this background the report examines the policy responses available to the international community, and advocates an approach based on treating return not as a separate problem but as an aspect of the more general question of rule of law throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The report suggests that, without sacrificing successful elements of the existing policy, this might change the terms of the debate, making opposition to return much more difficult to defend with reasonable-looking arguments, since rule of law is an ideal endorsed (in public) by all forces in BiH, and accepted as a necessary condition of entry into the Western family of nations and, in due course, the European Union.

Finally the report offers some policy measures along these lines.