Five Years After Dayton: Mixed Balance of the OSCE
Marcel Stoessel*
The Dayton Agreement assigned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe an important role in pacifying Bosnia, including preparation for elections, promoting democratic reconstruction and human rights, and military stabilization. After five years, the balance is mixed.
More than five years after the signing of the "General Framework Agreement on Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina" in December 1995, which brought the three-and-a-half-year Bosnian war to an end, that country still lacks many of the attributes of a sovereign state. While de jure it was left intact within its internationally recognized borders, de facto its territory - as well as ruling power - is divided up among the three major ethnic groups: Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Serbs and Croats.
Elections as a Credibility Test
There are still three separate armed forces; each ethnic group has the right of veto in joint governmental institutions, and so far all elections have resulted in a strengthening of the monolithic nationalist parties. The old wartime objective of partitioning Bosnia has by no means been abandoned by Serb and Croat nationalists. But the international community is trying to counteract that centrifugal tendency.
Marcel Stoessel*
The Dayton Agreement assigned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe an important role in pacifying Bosnia, including preparation for elections, promoting democratic reconstruction and human rights, and military stabilization. After five years, the balance is mixed.
More than five years after the signing of the "General Framework Agreement on Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina" in December 1995, which brought the three-and-a-half-year Bosnian war to an end, that country still lacks many of the attributes of a sovereign state. While de jure it was left intact within its internationally recognized borders, de facto its territory - as well as ruling power - is divided up among the three major ethnic groups: Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Serbs and Croats.
Elections as a Credibility Test
There are still three separate armed forces; each ethnic group has the right of veto in joint governmental institutions, and so far all elections have resulted in a strengthening of the monolithic nationalist parties. The old wartime objective of partitioning Bosnia has by no means been abandoned by Serb and Croat nationalists. But the international community is trying to counteract that centrifugal tendency.
