From the DW:
“Opinion:
Bosnia-Herzegovina still needs help, 25 years after Dayton Accords”
The war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina ended a quarter century ago. Fixing the complicated state
that emerged from that conflict requires outside investment, particularly from
Europe, writes DW's Rüdiger Rossig. On Thursday, December 14, 1995, the Dayton
Accords were formally signed in Paris, ending the bloody war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. On that day, a US military officer entered the facilities
of the TV station for the UN peacekeeping forces, UNTV, in the Croatian
capital, Zagreb, where I was working at the time. He said he had a question
about his next deployment. Since 1992, the Blue Helmets had tried in vain to
stop the war in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina. Now, a NATO contingent to which
this officer belonged was meant to keep the peace there. "I have heard that there are proud
Muslims, Croats and Serbs there. But who are the Bosnians?" he asked. By
this time, my UNTV colleagues and I had been reporting about the Bosnian war
for 3 1/2 years. The republic, which had formed part of Yugoslavia until 1992,
was in the news every day all over Europe. So we all laughed heartily at the
American's naive question. Later, however, I realized that this US officer had
put his finger on precisely the dilemma in which Bosnia-Herzegovina remains
stuck to this day: Too many of its 3.5 million citizens are not just lacking
pride in their state, they don't even want to be Bosnians.
Legacy of
the war To this day, the word Bosnia brings to mind the time from April
1992 to December 1995, when armed forces from the country's three biggest
ethno-religious groups — Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs —
fought each other in the small Balkan state, with the support of neighboring
Croatia and Serbia. Some 100,000 people were killed and millions more
displaced. The Dayton Accords and the constitution that went with it
preserved Bosnia as a state, but one that is a complicated construction of ethnically
defined "entities" governed by nationalist parties that waged war
against one another 25 years ago.
Miserable
conditions Because the Dayton Accords also call for unanimity on many
decisions, politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina can only function to the satisfaction
of its citizens if politicians show great willingness to compromise. But this
willingness is exactly what is missing, as the ruling nationalists have
established themselves firmly in the existing system. And the conditions
in Bosnia-Herzegovina can only be described as miserable: the country is
largely deindustrialized, the official unemployment rate is 25% and some
two-thirds of people under 25 are without a job. The standard of living has
stagnated at around one-third of the EU average. Poverty, corruption and
pollution are the order of the day.
Voting with
their feet Despite all the elections, these conditions have not changed
since the end of the war. As a result, tens of thousands of Bosnians emigrate
every year, particularly those who are young and well-educated. That is bad for
the country, but good for the nationalists. They are afraid, and with good
reason, that the anger of the young at having their futures stolen from them
could explode at any time. Emigration stabilizes the power of the nationalists,
who continue to control the few jobs there are in the country, distributing
them among their loyal supporters.
Grbavica:
The Land of My Dreams In 2006, director Jasmila Zbanic received the Golden
Bear for Grbavica (Esma's Story) — a film that focused on systematic rape that
was used as a weapon of war in the Balkans. It tells the story of Esma, who was
raped and became pregnant during the war. She keeps it a secret for a long
time, until her teenage daughter demands the truth one day.
Democracy
needs prosperity All of this has made it clear for years what
Bosnia-Herzegovina needs: massive investment and reindustrialization to raise
the standard of living. It is
obvious why the nationalists do not want this to happen: It would mean an end
to their power. And the non-nationalist parties are not in a position to create
prosperity because they are never in power long enough. That means change will
not come from within Bosnia-Herzegovina. It will have to come from the outside,
in the same way the peace established by the Dayton Accords did. In
1995, it was the United States that played a leading role in peace
negotiations. After European countries had tried for years without success to
end the Bosnian war, President Bill Clinton used a mixture of threats and
offers of aid to persuade the conflicting parties to come to an agreement at
the Wright-Patterson US Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. But since
then, Europe's role in Bosnia-Herzegovina has become increasingly important.
Today, there are EU peacekeeping forces in the country instead of NATO troops.
That makes sense, as the region is in Europe. And now it is time for Europe to
take on more responsibility for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Difficult,
but not impossible After many years under European supervision,
Bosnia-Herzegovina is now to officially become an EU protectorate. This will be
for a limited time and with a clearly defined goal: to make the small Balkan
country ready for EU accession. And, at the same time, to at last give the
citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina good reasons to be happy that they are Bosnians.
This prospect seems an unlikely one in view of the present conditions in
the country and the current problems in the EU. But it is not impossible. And
it would be much better for both Bosnia-Herzegovina and Europe than to continue
with the present agonizing situation. In 1932, the German author Kurt
Tucholsky wrote: "A Jewish man once said: 'I am proud of being a Jew. If I
am not proud of it, I am still a Jew, so I may as well be proud of it!'"
This attitude would be a good one for many Bosnians to adopt. And for other Europeans,
too.
Rüdiger Rossig
is a journalist at DW. In December 1995, he was a reporter for UNTV, the TV
broadcaster for UN peacekeeping forces in the former Yugoslavia. His
documentary film (director: Zoran Solomun) "Bosnia and Kosovo: Europe's
forgotten protectorates" was shown on public broadcasters ZDF/Arte in
2017.
^ 25 years may
have passed since the end of the Wars in: Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia
and Bosnia & Herzegovina, but it seems the peace hasn’t been much better. I
went to Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina in December 2010 and
even though 14 years had passed since the war you could still see and feel the
war everywhere. I had hoped that 11 years later (25 years since the War ended)
things would have improved a lot so the people there could be prosperous and
have a good standard of living. ^
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