Reconstituting Sovereignty: Post-Dayton Bosnia Uncovered by Rory Keane

Author:Rory Keane [Keane, Rory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781351751612
Google: YepGDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 38641403
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Life after Dayton

The Dayton Peace Accord may have ended the war, but did not necessarily create peace. The Serbs in Republika Srpska felt aggrieved, as they had lost Sarajevo, and in its place had gained large spans of destitute land. Added to that, Serbs were continually fleeing the federation, in fear of both Muslim/Croat and Serb aggression. Muslims and Croats felt they had lost the war as well, as RS had gained 49% of the territory and received entity status. Certainly many Serbs wanted to remain or return to Sarajevo. However, they found it difficult to accept Muslim rule. For example, the RS vice-president Biljana Plavsic, on meeting Carl Bildt for the first time in 1995, urged him to facilitate Serbs in Sarajevo, as it was important that Serbs maintain links with Sarajevo. Added to that, on a practical note, Banja Luka, the RS capital was unable to take care of any more Serb refugees fleeing the federation.35 However, the creation of a multi-ethnic Sarajevo, as a symbol of the future for the whole of Bosnian was an enormous task. Initial endeavours proved fruitless, as the degree of hostility was palpable.36 The creation of common institutions, even on a symbolic level, would be a necessary prerequisite, in order to create a multi-ethnic character and sense of trust between the communities. Multi-ethnic common institutions residing in Sarajevo would have the effect of linking the RS with Sarajevo and the Federation, thus affording Serbs living in the Federation some form of representation. On another level, it would help reduce the significance of the entity status ascribed to RS, and in this manner would reduce the significance of the Inter Entity Boundary Line. However, common institutions could not be created until elections had been held. All parties had agreed at Dayton to hold the elections early. “For the Serbs, elections were a way to sanction status quo [to legitimise the serbianisation of RS], while for the Muslims they were a way to roll everything back to the pre-war status [through “out of country voting” and ability to vote in pre-war constituencies].”37

Because of technical, logistical and blatant attempts by nationalist political parties to influence the results of election, local elections were postponed until spring 1997. National elections went ahead on 14 September 1996. In RS the main political parties were the SDS, formerly chaired by Radovan Karadzic and excessively nationalist. The SMP, the Union for Peace and Progress, was a sister party of Milosevic’s Socialist party in Serbia. It was evident that they were not going to enjoy much success, as many Bosnian Serbs regarded Milosevic as a traitor, after the Dayton talks. In the Federation, the campaign was more intense in the Muslim controlled areas as there were several parties challenging the dominant Muslim SDA political party. Hasis Silajdzic and his Pro-Bosnia party had decided to directly challenge the SDA and Izetbegovic. In addition, there were also the moderate Social Democratic Party, headed by Zlatko Lagumdzija, and the attempt to create a more explicitly multi-ethnic Joint List electoral system.

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