after day

AFTER DAYTON:Lessons of the

Bosnian Peace Process

A Council Symposium

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

AFTER DAYTON:Lessons of the

Bosnian Peace Process

A Council Symposium

Ruth Wedgwood, Editor

The Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., a nonprofit, nonpartisan national organization and think tank founded in1921, is dedicated to promoting understanding of international affairs through free and civil exchange of ideas. The Council's members are dedicated to the belief that America's peace and prosperity are firmly linked to that ofthe world. From this flows the Council's mission: to foster America's understanding of other nations—their peo-ples, cultures, histories, hopes, quarrels, and ambitions—and thus to serve our nation through study and debate,private and public.

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CONTENTS

Preface 1Lawrence J. Korb

Introduction 3Ruth Wedgwood

Has Dayton Worked? 25Kofi A. Annan

The Path to Dayton 29James Gow 29Laura Silber 31David Harland 34Susan Woodward 37Colloquy 42

Nationalism and the Liberal State 48Julie Mertus 48Douglas Rae 51Paul Szasz 53Stojan Cerović 56Yael Tamir 58Bruce Ackerman 61Colloquy 62

War Crimes and the Political Future of Bosnia and Herzegovina 67

Antonio Cassese 67Theodor Meron 70Ruti Teitel 73W. Michael Reisman 76Colloquy 77

Refugees, Peacekeeping, and Economic Reconstruction 84

Soren Jessen-Petersen 84Alan G. Stolberg 86Christine Wallich 90James Schear 93Colloquy 95

Nationalism and Dayton 99Misha Glenny

Diplomatic Roundtable: The Future of the Balkans 106

Robert Frowick 106Muhamed Sacirbey 108Ivan Šimonović 111Vladislav Jovanović 114Colloquy 116

Notes 128

About the Authors and Participants 129

Glossary of Places and Terms 136

Glossary of Names 140

1

Preface

he Yugoslav wars seem to con-tinue. Conflicts in Bosnia, Croa-tia, and Slovenia ravaged the

early 1990s and ultimate defeat did not deterBelgrade from lashing out again in 1999against the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo. Thebombing campaign by the North AtlanticTreaty Organization (NATO) against theMilosevic regime succeeded and the ethnicAlbanian community of Kosovo has begunthe process of return. But military victoryhas been followed by a difficult peace thatpresents a crisis of nation-building. How canKosovars, with help from the West, con-struct a civil society in the wreckage of abitter war, with a ruined infrastructure andeconomy, an absence of government institu-tions, and a deadly antagonism among theethnic communities of Serbs, Roma, and Al-banians? The international organizations as-signed to help in the task face great difficul-ties—how to jump-start economic projects,quell continuing ethnic skirmishes on theground, democratize a repressive communistsociety, and deal with a muddle of sover-eignty and autonomy. Kosovo is to have ef-fective autonomy yet remain part of the Bel-grade regime; its problems are of intenseinternational interest yet it lacks any separateinternational voice.

Many of these problems were worked onin Bosnia as well, and applying the lessonslearned there may help those who have toconfront the challenges of Kosovo. For thatreason, the Council on Foreign Relations hasdecided to make available the record of adetailed assessment of the Bosnian peaceprocess conducted by the Council and YaleUniversity. It is a snapshot from Bosnia,which is still an ongoing effort, taken ap-proximately one year into the process. Thecoincidence of timing gives a useful analogyto Kosovo, where the same splintering ofcommunities has taken place.

Some lessons emerge from the Bosnianexperience: it is naive to expect antagonistic

communities to reintegrate immediately afterthe conflict; it is extremely difficult to reviveeconomies that have not privatized and re-main controlled by nationalist political par-ties; the arrest of war criminals early in theprocess is necessary to give confidence tomore liberal political elements; and buildingethnicity into the transitional structure ofgovernment may be a necessary derogationfrom classical liberalism.

In particular, the Bosnian process shouldinoculate the international communityagainst believing its own rhetoric. The ide-alistic goals and aspirations of a peace proc-ess and the sometimes fatuous promises ofcooperation from the former antagonistsshould not be confused with what is reallyachievable. The practice of “second-best”—or third or fourth best—should guide us onthe ground in these raw circumstances. Bos-nia teaches that international agencies oftenfind it hard to act in a timely way, with suf-ficient force and police, and with attention tothe real levers of power in the societies theyare trying to reconstruct.

The explosive chain letter of the Bal-kans—in which one conflict melds into an-other—may not yet be completed. The refu-gees from one war are often displaced intoareas overtaken by yet another crisis, andfew of the uprooted families of the formerYugoslavia have been able to go home. TheWest’s determination to reverse ethniccleansing in Kosovo represents a new com-mitment by NATO and the Organization forSecurity and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)and the European Union (EU), as well as bythe United Nations. Looking at the lessonsof the past, we may be able to avoid detoursin the future.

Lawrence J. KorbMaurice R. Greenberg Chair

Director of StudiesCouncil on Foreign Relations

T

3

IntroductionRuth Wedgwood

he war in Bosnia flattened thefizz in the West’s post–Cold Warchampagne. After winning the

Cold War and ending the division of theEuropean continent, the West could be for-given a moment’s heady delusion that his-tory was over, forgetting that societies mightfracture in other ways. Ironically, it was themost liberal of the central European com-munist regimes that was to shatter apart. TheYugoslavia of Marshal Tito, champion ofdecentralized workers’ self-management,founder of the Non-Aligned Movement,darling of the West as the only central Euro-pean leader to survive a confrontation withStalin, proved the most delicate in the mo-ment of transition from the hegemony ofcommunism. Testament to Tito’s great po-litical skill, or an unmasking of his authori-tarianism, or perhaps evidence of the inabil-ity of any communist regime to fully as-similate the angers left from the raw civilconflict between fascist Ustashi, royalists,and communist Partisans in the SecondWorld War, Tito’s death in 1980 left Yugo-slavia without a center of gravity. Ethnicitybecame a new divide in postcommunistYugoslavia and a warning about how othersocieties might rupture. Leaders of eachcultural community exploited nationalism asa political principle, manipulating the coreof worthy feeling on which it may draw.Serbian intellectuals called for a revival ofSerb nationalism in the mid-1980s, Muslimleaders talked of the future of Bosnia as anIslamic state, Croatian politicians lookedback to a period of wartime independencethat was violent and illiberal, and Slovenianentrepreneurs openly preferred the economiccompany of neighbors in Italy and Austriaand wondered why they were roped to less-developed regions. Each dissented from thecosmopolitan ideal that there might be amultiethnic “Yugoslav” identity. Old-school

political leaders wanted a string to pluck, toretain power after communism’s fall, and toannounce their importance as new men. Theeasiest way to mobilize the demos was thesiren song of nationalism.

Nationalism is not always illiberal. In-deed, in the nineteenth century, the nation-alism of the Italians, the Greeks, and otherold or created peoples helped to overthrowempires; nationalism was a subversive prin-ciple that countered imperial power. Thiswas certainly true in the dissolution of theAustro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires inthe early twentieth century, and it will re-main for historians to estimate how impor-tant nationalist resistance was in undermin-ing communism’s empire in the Soviet Un-ion and central Europe. Stripped of an impe-rial opponent, though, resurgent nationalismis often less attractive.

The fabric of Yugoslavia began to un-ravel in the mid 1980s. The land of the“southern Slavs”—with its two alphabets,three religions, four languages, five rivers,and six republics—had a constitutionalframework that delicately balanced the inter-ests of its several “constituent peoples.”Since the Second World War, Croats, Slo-venes, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Mus-lims, and Serbs had co-existed in a politicalstructure that decentralized power to the sixrepublics and checked the weight of Serbiaby carving out the autonomous provinces ofVojvodina and Kosovo, with their largeHungarian and Albanian populations, withinthe Serb state. Tito’s 1974 constitution wasread by some to preserve a legal right of na-tional secession as well. After Tito’s pass-ing, an ominous rise of Serb nationalism un-dermined Belgrade’s claim to represent aninternational Yugoslav personality. The po-litical devices of a conglomerate state—a“consociational structure,” as political sci-entists put it—no longer served its constitu-

T

After Dayton: Lessons of the Bosnian Peace Process

4

ents well. The collective rotating presidencyand consensus decision-making of Yugosla-via became unworkable as it was increas-ingly Serb-dominated. Belgrade’s precipi-tous action in 1989 in stripping Kosovo andVojvodina of autonomy, taking over three ofthe eight votes in the Yugoslav collectivepresidency, stunned the other republics. Justas the Russian empire would soon dissolveinto independent states, with grave suspicionof Moscow entertained by the Baltics, Geor-gia, the Ukraine, and the Turkic republics ofcentral Asia, so too independence move-ments gained momentum in the Yugoslavrepublics of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia,and Bosnia. Post-Tito Yugoslavia was calleda Serb empire, and independence becameseen as a necessity. After Germany’s dra-matic reunification in 1989, Bonn and otherEuropean capitals also found it hard to denythe right to self-determination claimed bythe constituent Yugoslav republics—even atthe cost of splitting apart a country that hadworked successfully for 40 years. A new na-tionalist sensibility and celebration of na-tional cultures was seen from abroad almostin a harmless literary light, as a new spring-time in Zagreb and Ljubljana.

But after formal declarations of politicalindependence by the breakaway republics,words quickly turned to violence. Fightingbroke out in 1991 in Slovenia, in a confron-tation between federal Yugoslav borderguards and the local militia. Slovenia had noSerb minority, and this may have helpedtruncate the conflict. But violence escalatedin Croatia, in the traditionally Serb prov-inces of Western Slavonia and Eastern Sla-vonia, after Zagreb also declared independ-ence from Belgrade. The Yugoslav People’sArmy and the Serb militia attempted to gaincontrol of these Serb areas of Croatia andweld them to the Serb republic, and the in-tense fighting with Croat militia broughtback the battle scenes of World War II. The

siege and bombardment of Vukovar, a oncegraceful river port on the Danube, left ascene of destruction that is still astonishing.And on the idyllic Adriatic coast, the Yugo-slav army and navy shelled the historic for-tress town of Dubrovnik, dismaying allEuropeans who had enjoyed the area as aseaside resort.

A new Europe, distracted by Maastrichtpolitical ambitions for a common foreignand security policy, resisted the idea thatacting as midwife to four new republics inYugoslavia might destabilize rather than im-prove matters. In particular, the 15 membersof the European Community gave little heedto the urgent plea made by international ne-gotiators and UN Secretary-General JavierPerez de Cuellar that international recogni-tion of the breakaway republics should bedeferred, to allow negotiations for a looserYugoslav federation. The European Com-munity belittled the warning that diplomaticrecognition of the secessionist republicswould shatter negotiations and block anyrecasting of republic boundaries, as well asforestall international guarantees to reassurenational minorities “trapped” within thenewly self-determining states. The macabreYugoslav joke—that you should be a minor-ity within my republic, instead of the otherway around—played out in the rapid descentinto violence. Claims for the legitimacy ofself-determination have no natural limit.Although the script was more innocent inSlovenia, the declarations of independencein Croatia and Bosnia precipitated the pan-icked counter-declarations of resistance andself-determination by Serb minorities. InBosnia, the Croat minority also broke awayfrom the Sarajevo government, preferring tocast its fate with the new Republic of Croa-tia. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman omi-nously announced that Croatia had the rightto protect the interests of Bosnian Croatcommunities.

Introduction

5

The breakup of Yugoslavia threw Bos-nia’s future into the air, for Bosnia was a“mini-Yugoslavia” in its own right. The re-public’s ethnic mélange was stable so longas each ethnic community in Bosnia couldally with its siblings in other republics—Bosnian Croats with Croatia, Bosnian Serbswith Serbia. But Bosnia on its own had nostabilizing keel.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has existed, forcenturies, as a complicated patchwork ofSerb, Muslim, and Croat communities, liv-ing cheek by jowl in country villages andurbane cities such as Banja Luka and Sara-jevo, with a relatively high rate of intermar-riage among communities. Mountain terrainand a limited road network forced Bosniantravelers to pass through varying ethniccommunities to reach market towns, high-ways, railheads, and the commerce of theSava and Drina Rivers and the Adriatic Sea.The complicated scatter of nationalities inprewar Bosnia forbade any practical claimsto separation or territorial autonomy. Eachsmall opstina, or county, might have an eth-nic plurality or majority but no contiguousswathe of territory could be labeled Serb,Croat, or Muslim.

After the fighting in Slovenia and Croa-tia, the Sarajevo government of Bosnia an-nounced a referendum on independence inearly 1992. A majority of voters favored asplit from Belgrade, but Bosnian Serb com-munities protested the referendum and boy-cotted the vote. They argued that Bosnia’sconstitution required a decision by consen-sus, that in a profound choice such as inde-pendence, each national group had the rightto withhold its consent. Independence wouldnot be legitimate unless a majority of theBosnian Serb community also favored it. Ata minimum, said Serb representatives in theopstinas near Banja Luka and Pale, the areaswith majority Serb populations must bepermitted their own version of self-

determination and the right to affiliate withBelgrade.

European leaders did not press the pointwith Sarajevo’s independence-minded lead-ership. Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovićremains famous in diplomatic circles for acomedic question and answer:

Question: “President Izetbe-gović, there are 100,000 soldiersfrom the Yugoslav People’sArmy stationed in Bosnia. Whenyou declare independence, howwill you control these troops?”

Answer: “I will order themout.”

Needless to say, the Yugoslav forcesdidn’t leave. A doe-eyed Europe seems tohave confused juridical theory with militaryfacts on the ground. In a mood of Europeansolidarity, the Bosnian Muslims also enter-tained the illusion that after the internationalcommunity recognized Bosnia and Herzego-vina as an independent republic, Europewould guarantee their territory. The rest, un-happily, is history. After Bosnia’s declara-tion of independence, additional Serb troopscame over the border and the Yugoslavtroops present in Bosnia were redesignatedas members of the armed forces of “Repub-lika Srpska”—the newly self-proclaimedautonomous Bosnian Serb republic. A Serbcampaign to consolidate territory wasmounted with barbarous bloodletting andethnic cleansing by military and paramilitarygroups such as Arkan’s Tigers. Any under-standing of the Serb constitutional claim waslost in the sea of blood that washed overBosnia, although in the course of recon-struction after the conflict it may be wise topay some heed to the nature of the originalcomplaint.

The puzzle of the old Yugoslavia wasthat, although national identities remainedan important part of the culture, the scatter-ing of people on the ground was intricateand workable. Populations were sometimes


6

intermingled by deliberate strategic choice.For example, Serb fighters were recruited inthe old Austro-Hungarian empire to live inthe border area of the Krajina as a bufferagainst the Ottomans, in what is now Croa-tia. Economic migration was also at work:Muslims lived in the cities and towns astraders and merchants, Serbs farmed in thecountryside, and Croats worked as farmersand tradespeople in Herzegovina and CentralBosnia. In peacetime, this complementarypattern of settlement was mutually conven-ient. But in civil war, the interminglingbrought brutality. Ethnicity was equatedwith loyalty, and once in conflict, all sidesentertained the strategic worry that a neigh-bor living nearby might pose a threat. Thesecessionist desire of the Serb and Croatcommunities to consolidate mono-ethnicterritory lit the tinderbox for a war of car-nage.

After fighting began in Bosnia in March1992, every conciliatory effort failed. TheSerb terror tactics of the war had a dismay-ing logic—winning territory for an “ethni-cally pure” state by forcing out neighbors ofany different descent. And the role of theUnited States in Europe was brought homeagain in stark terms. The new Europe of theMaastricht Treaty might hope for a commonforeign and security policy, but it could notagree on any means to suppress the conflict.

The Bosnian war went on for more thanthree years, bringing shocking events: thebombardment of cities, the sniper attacksagainst civilians, the slow strangling of ci-vilian centers reached only by occasionalUN relief columns, the gross mistreatmentof prisoners of war, and barbarity towardcivilians on all sides. The role of the Serbsin beginning the fighting and their ruthlessattempts to consolidate territory throughoutthe war should not preclude attention to thehumanitarian violations (albeit of a substan-

tially lesser scale) that occurred in otherquarters of the war.

The delivery of aid to civilians caught inthe conflict was the main objective of thepeacekeeping missions of the United Na-tions and the European Union. Persistentattempts were made at a diplomatic solution,bringing the combatants together in themidst of the bitter fighting, mulling overproposals such as the Cutileiro Plan, theVance-Owen Plan, the Invincible Plan, andthe Contact Group Map, in the several yearsbefore the principals got to Dayton. Thesediplomatic proposals were frustrated by par-ties who quite shamelessly lied about theirintentions, disputed known facts, and gamedtheir agreement so that there would alwaysbe a spoiler. Often the parties thought theycould do better if only they staged one morespring offensive, or sought foreign help inthe fight, and international voices encour-aged them in the belief. The slough of thewar also reflected the West’s indecision. Theunwillingness of the international commu-nity to threaten obstinate parties with mili-tary force left negotiators little to work with.A distinguished diplomat has remarked ofthe peace process that diplomacy withoutforce is like baseball without a bat. Sweetreason alone doesn’t carry far in the Bal-kans.

The parties’ appetite for war was alsosustained by outside backers. The BosnianSerbs were supported with money and mate-riel from Belgrade and points farther East.The Croats obtained arms from westernEurope—supplies and men crossed regularlyfrom Croatia into Bosnia to bolster the rumpBosnian Croat community of “Herceg-Bosna.” The Bosnian Muslims were rein-forced by arms delivered from friends in theMiddle East when AWACs went on holiday,sometimes splitting the booty with Croatintermediaries. The Bosnian Muslims hadmisplaced expectations that the world would

Introduction

7

finally intervene to enforce their territorialclaims on behalf of a “multiethnic society,”perhaps not understanding that ground com-bat in difficult terrain is a great deal to askof democracies that value the lives of theirsoldiers.

The United Nations’ humanitarian ef-forts are celebrated and controversial. Thepeacekeepers of the UN Protection Force(UNPROFOR) saved thousands of lives bydelivering aid to stranded areas in conditionsof winter siege. But the limited mission andvulnerability on the ground of the lightlyarmed UNPROFOR also meant that theUnited Nations was seen as a hobbled Sa-maritan. At the beginning, UNPROFOR hada limited mandate from the UN SecurityCouncil—merely to escort relief convoys.Even that purpose could be frustrated, how-ever: food for civilians was often hijackedby the partisan fighting forces. Seeking toavoid the provocation of any side,UNPROFOR too often was forced to retreatand sometimes even took measures thatcompromised individual civilian lives, suchas the decision to jacklight the Sarajevo air-port landing strip—a measure deemed nec-essary to obtain Serb permission to land re-lief planes even though it exposed Sarajevancitizens trying to escape.

UNPROFOR was later given a broadermandate to protect several Bosnian cities.This was a disastrous failure, because of in-adequate forces. To protect civilians facingbombardment from Serb artillery in the sur-rounding hills, the UN Security Council de-clared five Bosnian cities to be “safe areas.”UNPROFOR lacked the troops, in number,readiness, and armaments, to protect residentcivilians from Serb attacks. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali warned theSecurity Council that safe areas made senseonly if an international force of 34,000 sol-diers was deployed to defend them; UNmembers were willing to provide only 7,000.

A diffident attitude toward the use of forcewas also at work. Most troop-providingcountries were unwilling to use counterbat-tery to suppress Serb artillery bombardmentsfor fear of provoking the Serbs against them.It is a poorly kept secret in UN military op-erations that the national defense ministriesof troop-donating countries control theircontingents’ actions on the ground. A UNforce commander has limited discretion inthe disposition of forces because of nationalveto power. A “dual key” arrangement be-tween the force commander and the UN po-litical representative also stymied realisticmethods to suppress Serb bombardments,and UN officials discouraged the equipmentof peacekeepers with the caliber of weaponsnecessary to counter serious threats. The fallof Srebrenica in July 1995, transforming a“safe area” into a scene of slaughter wherethousands of executions were carried out bySerb forces, will stir the pot of moral re-sponsibility for a long time to come.

In addition, the United Nations did notstop Bosnian military forces from misusingthe safe areas as springboards for attacksagainst the Serbs and siting military targetswithin the civilian enclaves. Goradze, forexample, contained a large armaments fac-tory. The United Nations refused the requestof UNPROFOR commanders to have thesafe areas demarcated, so that it would beclear where fighting was permissible andwhere it was forbidden. Rather than admitthe safe areas were unworkable, the UnitedNations maintained the fiction that the lawalone would protect civilian lives.

The conflict might have been nipped inthe bud if NATO or the United Nations hadresponded with a robust show of force earlyin the war, when the Yugoslav army bom-barded Vukovar and Dubrovnik, or when theSerbs began their ethnic cleansing campaignin Bosnia. At the time, Yugoslavia was stillseen as a European problem. The Security


8

Council was only beginning to try out itsgreater post–Cold War powers and was lim-ited by the varying sympathies of its mem-bers. Even the political views of NATOmembers were in tension, though the patternwas more complicated than the historicalassociation of Germany with Croatia andFrance and the United Kingdom with Serbia.The right of the United Nations to authorizethe collective use of force to end the fightingin a civil conflict—without the consent ofthe parties—was also at the time unprece-dented. It has recently been proposed thatrecognizing such a power in the SecurityCouncil, for use on extraordinary occasions,is one of the necessary lessons of the Bos-nian war.

After three years of conflict, NATO didintervene in the summer of 1995 andchanged the immediate course of events.NATO air power and the Croatian groundoffensive in western Bosnia and WesternSlavonia persuaded the Serbs to come backto the bargaining table, agree to a cease-firein September and October 1995, and thentake part in peace negotiations in Dayton,Ohio, in November 1995. Proximity diplo-macy was conducted, with no symbolic sub-tlety, at a major American air force base.The Dayton Accord was a mixture of beltand suspenders: crafted to win the consent ofthe parties, with Slobodan Milošević andFranjo Tudjman signing on behalf of theirBosnian protégés, but also held in place by aSecurity Council resolution with mandatoryauthority. Resuming the war became illegal.NATO troops, together with contingentsfrom Russia and other cooperating states,ferried into Bosnia and separated the com-batants, cantoning troops and warehousingweapons.

Bosnia’s challenge is to transform acease-fire into a real peace and rebuild anintegrated state. Some argue that the bestchance for stability and peace is to recognize

that the eggs are broken and allow the threeethnic communities of Bosnian Serbs,Croats, and Muslims to live separately, evenin a formal partition—at least until Bosnia’straditional economic integration restoressome working relations. Others argue withgreater hope—though hope outrunning facthas proved dangerous in the Balkans—thatthe whole genius of Bosnia was its multieth-nic existence, its complicated cosmopolitanadmixture of peoples, religions, and em-pires. Partition would perpetuate the war’sethnic cleansing and legitimize aggression.And from a realist’s point of view, a plan forformal partition would not yield a stablepeace. The map agreed to at Dayton did notleave viable independent territories, andMuslims, Croats, and Serbs alike wouldwant widened corridors, defensive buffers,and territorial gains.

The Dayton Accord is a document ofchameleon colors, an exercise in the art ofthe possible, giving some leeway to each ofthe warring parties and humoring all thequarreling schools of international physi-cians. Bosnia’s political future and govern-ment will depend on the execution of Day-ton on the ground—whether Dayton’s cen-tripetal or centrifugal tendencies havegreater play. Hence the worry that the Westmay grow impatient and inattentive.

At Dayton, the Bosnian Serbs won rec-ognition of Republika Srpska as a BosnianSerb “entity” within the larger state of Bos-nia and Herzegovina. New legal categoriescame tumbling onto the Dayton runway. Asan “entity,” Republika Srpska is not an in-dependent country; it is not entitled to a seatat the United Nations and can’t deal directlywith the International Monetary Fund or theWorld Bank. But it is given the power mostoften associated with sovereignty—the rightto maintain its own army and police force,governing the Bosnian opstinas borderingSerbia within a contiguous territory and a

Introduction

9

Serb political structure. Along with self-governance as an “entity,” the Dayton Ac-cord permits Republika Srpska to have a“special parallel relationship” with Yugosla-via—now consisting of the republics of Ser-bia and Montenegro—and in a first defiantact, the Bosnian Serbs and Belgrade enteredan ultra vires mutual defense pact.

Republika Srpska includes most of theareas under the control of the Bosnian Serbsat the time of the September 1995 cease-fire,just under 49 percent of the territory. TheBosnian Serb entity is shaped like a pair ofsaddlebags, with the university town ofBanja Luka in the west near Croatia, andstrategic towns such as Srebrenica and Zepain the eastern Drina Valley bordering Serbia.The brutal tactics of ethnic cleansing en-sured the flight of Muslims from these DrinaValley towns with historically large Muslimpopulations, and few dare move back. Theski resort Pale in the Sarajevo suburbs ini-tially served as the Bosnian Serb capital,later moved to Banja Luka. The two halvesof Republika Srpska are linked by a narrowcorridor in the north, along the Sava Riverand the border with Croatia, passing throughthe disputed choke-point town of Brčko. Re-publika Srpska is probably not viable as anindependent state, but the local autonomy ofthe “entity” affords the Bosnian Serbs self-governance (and domination) in crucialfunctions such as education, media, and thelocal economy, as well as control of thearmy and the police. The Bosnian Serbs ex-ercise a day-to-day veto over refugee returnsthrough their control of the police, whosemembers have not been purged since theirwartime frontline work of ethnic cleansing.

A theoretical Muslim-Croat coalition isthe backbone of Bosnia’s second “entity”—a“federation” that governs the southern andcentral parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.The early wartime alliance between Muslimsand Croats in fighting the Serbs was the

supposed political basis for a federation, butMuslims and Croats quickly lapsed intofighting each other in 1993. Each ally at-tempted to ethnically cleanse central Bosniato exclude the other. In 1994, the federationwas organized on paper with American dip-lomats as the midwives, but it was a still-born product. Bosnian Croats allow littleinterference with their control of tradition-ally Croat areas, which they dignify as “Her-ceg-Bosna.” The continuing tension and defacto partition between Muslims and Croatsin the city of Mostar (which the BosnianCroats consider the capital of Herceg-Bosna)shows the federation’s deep-rooted prob-lems. The Muslim-Croat Federation can en-ter a “special parallel relationship” withCroatia, although there is no treaty provisionfor a special parallel relationship with anyforeign Muslim states.

The Bosnian Muslims and other “Bosni-acs” who sided with the Sarajevo govern-ment during the war gained two major thingsat Dayton. The first is international recogni-tion of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an inde-pendent state within its old boundaries. Theterritory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at leastas a formal matter, consists of the two enti-ties. The national government sits as “a thinroof” over the entities, with some importanttheoretical functions—acting on behalf ofRepublika Srpska and the Muslim-CroatFederation in foreign affairs, foreign eco-nomic policy, central banking, and repre-sentation in international institutions. Inter-national financial institutions such as theWorld Bank and the International MonetaryFund must channel all assistance through thenational government in Sarajevo. The na-tional government could also act, if the threeethnic communities were in consensus, on aseries of integrative measures, includingproposals for common license plates, acommon currency, common travel docu-ments, integration of telephone systems and


10

power grids, and even an interethnic policeforce and other direct means of knitting backtogether the fractured parts.

The Bosnian Muslims still brandish theideal of a multiethnic state, or at least agrudging logroll between ethnic communi-ties, but the structure of the national gov-ernment largely yields paralysis. A collectivepresidency of Bosniac, Croat, and Serbpresidents, a House of Representatives, andan aptly-named House of Peoples are tomake decisions on national questions, al-though in practice they cannot. The interna-tional community enjoys an unusual role asobserver and guarantor, with internationalmembers appointed to domestic bodies suchas the Constitutional Court, the HumanRights Chamber, the Commission for Dis-placed Persons and Refugees, and the Cen-tral Bank. Whether the national governmentwill ever become truly functional is anothermatter. Any important decision requires theagreement of all three ethnic communities.Each of the three presidents can veto a deci-sion that prejudices the “vital interests” ofone community. The Bosniac, Croat, or Serbdelegations in the House of Peoples can alsoveto decisions that conflict with a nationalcommunity’s vital interests, subject only to alimited power of review by Bosnia’s consti-tutional court. There is no majoritarianism—and Bosnia’s rule by consensus would beparalyzing even in an amicable society. In itsfirst phase, the national government func-tioned only on paper. At the end of 1997, anew “High Representative” of the interna-tional community—responsible for over-seeing the Bosnian national government—began to impose by force majeure a series of“interim arrangements” when the three-hatted presidency was in stalemate on cru-cial issues, introducing, for example, safe-travel auto license plates that omit a trav-eler’s place of origin, common internationaltravel documents, a common currency, and a

common telephone area code. To makethings work at the national level will requirea much greater degree of cooperation amongthe nationalist political leaders, or the con-tinuation of mandatory “gauleiter” powersby the international community. There is asign of hope in the pledge made on Novem-ber 14, 1999, before the UN Security Coun-cil by the three members of the Bosnianpresidency to create a multiethnic borderpatrol, a joint peacekeeping unit, and a sec-retariat for the presidency. But promiseshave been more often broken than kept inBosnia.

The deep skepticism of the Bosnian Serband Croat communities toward the new na-tional government can be seen in one keypiece of stage business at Dayton. The Serbsand Croats gained a change in the name ofBosnian state, from the “Republic of Bosniaand Herzegovina” to the unadorned “Bosniaand Herzegovina”—as if to say the state isonly a geographical area rather than a politi-cal community.

National elections were held in Bosniaunder international supervision in September1996. Many think this was a mistake. Thewartime parties still controlled the policeand the media and denied opposition groupsany media access or the safety to campaignin local towns. Even with these obstacles,opposition leaders managed a surprisinglystrong showing in Serb and Muslim areas.Regional loyalties have crosscut the powerof sheer nationalism. Many voters in theBanja Luka area opposed the eastern PaleSerb nationalists. Local elections have pro-vided some cheer, at least on paper: dis-placed Muslim and Croat minorities havechosen officials in Republika Srpska by ab-sentee ballot, and some minority winnershave begun to carry out symbolic publicacts, even though they cannot safely residein their own electoral districts in the Serbentity. Elections for a new Bosnian Serb

Introduction

11

parliament displaced the nationalist Serbparty—the Serb Democratic Party, or SDS—from control of a parliamentary majority forthe first time, with the selection of PrimeMinister Milorad Dodik, a far more coop-erative figure apparently interested in endingRepublika Srpska’s international isolation.But Momcilo Krajišnik and his successor,Nikola Poplašen, both SDS candidates,served as the Serb members of the nationalpresidency and posed a challenge to any co-operative decision-making, only recentlyreplaced by @ivko Radišić.

Bosnia’s economy shows some signs oflife, at least in the federation, with the re-construction of schools and hospitals, theopening of small businesses, and earningssent home by Bosnian refugees abroad. Buta key mark of failure is the absence of pri-vate-sector activity. Almost no foreign in-vestment in industry has been made in themachine tools, automobile assembly, orelectronics industries that had an importantplace before the war. (The reopening of aVolkswagen assembly plant, at the urging ofthe German government, is a rare excep-tion.) The continued control of the economyby a party-dominated government is a largepart of the problem; international investorshave many other choices and are not at-tracted to an area where party permission isnecessary to make a profit, especially whenthe renewal of civil conflict still looms. TheBosnian economy closely resembles whatwas often called in the 1960s “false devel-opment”—boosted by the stimulus of for-eign aid that is not sustainable over time. Aneconomy that has lost a highly skilled andeducated industrial workforce will take dec-ades to recover, even if the peace is stabi-lized.

The economy is also lopsided. Interna-tional aid has been granted preferentially tothe Muslim-Croat Federation. Internationaland American officials argue that the Serb

failure to cooperate in the return of minorityrefugees has been disqualifying, and thatthere was no point in strengthening the Paleregime. With the election of Biljana Plavšićas president, a selective program of aid wasbegun for the few Serb towns that mightpermit the return of refugees. The desire ofinternational policymakers to have leverageon the decisions of Serb opstinas is under-standable. Like that of the federation, theRepublika Srpska economy has not beenprivatized, and the economic and politicalinfluence of local government remainsdominant. Acts that bolster the Serb econ-omy may strengthen an illiberal government.At the same time, without any economicstimulus, the area’s prewar industrial andagricultural enterprises and even small busi-nesses cannot recover, and demobilizedcombatants as well as the public in Repub-lika Srpska are likely to remain bellicose.

A second problem is corruption. Black-market enterprises dealing in cigarettes andstolen cars festoon Bosnian towns with theCapone-like presence of black Mercedeses.Both entities’ governments also lack trans-parency. “Official” corruption thrives: forexample, the Bosniac government insistedfor over a year on levying a 90 percent “so-cial tax” on any monies paid to local em-ployees, even in humanitarian operations forthe removal of anti-personnel land mines.Millions of dollars appropriated by the in-ternational community to remove land minesleft from the war could not be spent becauseof this standoff. “Unofficial” corruption alsoexists. One international aid official recalls adismaying dinner with a federation officialin charge of the reconstruction of housing.The dinner companion tried earnestly to per-suade the aid official to cancel the purchaseof roof tiles from Bosnian plants, eventhough local purchasing stimulates the econ-omy. The aid official was dumbfounded—against a familiar background of corruptionin developing economies—when the


12

developing economies—when the federationofficial dragged him from the dinner table tocome out to the parking lot, opened the trunkof his car, and held forth on the quality ofthe roof tiles his own company could importfrom Italy and Austria.

The other major disappointment is refu-gee return. The soldiers of NATO and coop-erating countries who were deployed in theImplementation Force (IFOR) and the Sta-bilisation Force (SFOR) deserve the highestpraise for serving in difficult conditions, of-ten without the ability to communicate withthe local population. They have faithfullypatrolled the Inter-Entity Boundary Line toward off confrontations and have supervisedthe build-down of arms. They have providedsecurity for international relief workers andthe United Nations’ unarmed police moni-tors (the International Police Task Force, orIPTF) and made it possible for them to oper-ate without a paralyzing fear of intimidationfrom the vigilante forces and illegally armedpolice of both entities. A typical example: aSpanish armored personnel carrier, lumber-ing down the highway, came to the assis-tance of a UN police monitor from Minnea-polis, Minnesota, who was trying to protectthe safety of a prisoner jailed in a local eth-nic vendetta. Even though the IPTF monitorlacked communications equipment interop-erable with the NATO forces and had to ex-plain the problem to the Spanish commanderby sign language, the support was effective.Still, refugee return is a wholesale project.How to protect the safety of the thousands ofminority refugees who might wish to returnto their villages in the scattered valleys of amountainous landscape, where vigilanteforces operate off the roads and homes areblown up at night, is a much more difficult,if not impossible, task. An effective appara-tus of informants and surveillance to permitthe apprehension and exemplary punishmentof hooligans is hard to put together in a for-

eign environment, as any former colonialpower knows. The creation of positive eco-nomic incentives for villages and opstinasthat choose to be welcoming is a more prac-tical route to follow.

Bosnia is still rife with stories of frustra-tion and, occasionally, a passivity that re-calls the early days of UNPROFOR. Astriking example lies in the Croat village ofStolac, where the UN high commissioner forrefugees funded the reconstruction of homesof former Muslim residents. Each day theMuslim refugees were bused in to work ontheir homes. Local police attempted to way-lay the buses on the highway but were re-buffed by the IPTF monitors. At night, therestored Muslim homes were demolishedagain. The IPTF asked to have an office inStolac so that they could keep an eye onthings; permission was refused by the locaCroat authorities, and the reconstructionproject was derailed.

One lesson of the Bosnia effort is thedifficulty of gaining a fast start on the civil-ian side, with disparate agencies, and theability of the nationalist parties to play oneagency off against another. Simple coordi-nation of strategy is difficult to achieveamong international organizations with nocommon boss or reporting system. And theinternational organizations leading the efforthave demonstrated only a gradual willing-ness to assume the “gauleiter” powers oftennecessary to sidestep local nationalist lead-ers. Although the Security Council andNATO subordinated the local military tointernational control, acting under Chapter 7of the UN Charter, the international imple-mentation of civilian measures has lackedmuscle. The confusing array of internationalcivilian officials on the ground—the highrepresentative, the chairman of the OSCEMission, and the UN secretary-general’sspecial representative—sought cooperationfrom Serb, Croat, and Bosniac officials. But

Introduction

13

where cooperation was withheld, few inter-national officials were willing to remove thedisruptive local officials or to bypass theirnominal authority. Generalizations are over-broad, of course. Police chiefs have beenbooted from office for failure to cooperatewith police monitors. In late 1997, severaltelevision stations were seized to allow apolitical voice to the more moderate Serbfaction of Mrs. Plavšić. And the second highrepresentative, Spanish diplomat CarlosWestendorp, in 1999 removed the Serbmember of the national presidency for fail-ure to cooperate. But for the most part, in-ternational representatives faced with obsti-nate noncompliance by entity officials havefound it hard to move forward. They had nooccupation government in Bosnia, or eventhe direct ability to cut out the obstructiveportions of the existing nationalist govern-ments. Ironically, the early use of democraticelections made it harder to displace nation-alist officials, since they could claim apopular mandate.

The Council on Foreign Relations andYale University believed it would be pro-ductive to convene an international confer-ence to examine the Bosnian peace process,to examine what worked well or not so well,and to see if broader lessons could be drawnfor international reconstruction. Participantscame from Europe and the United States,and from many vocations: scholars, nongov-ernmental and relief organizations, the ad-ministration and Congress, the UN diplo-matic community, and intergovernmentalorganizations. Ruth Wedgwood, professor oflaw at Yale Law School and director of theProject on International Organizations andLaw at the Council on Foreign Relations,chaired the conference, with the collabora-tion of Paul Dubinsky, associate director ofthe Schell Center for Human Rights.

The conference brought together partici-pants including Kofi Annan, shortly before

his election as the seventh secretary-generalof the United Nations, then serving as un-dersecretary-general for peacekeeping op-erations; Judge Antonio Cassese, presidentof the International Criminal Tribunal forthe former Yugoslavia; Ambassador RobertFrowick, the head of mission in Bosnia forthe OSCE and chairman of the ProvisionalElection Commission for Bosnia; ChristineWallich, the World Bank’s director for Bos-nia and Herzegovina; Soren Jessen-Petersen,head of mission in Bosnia for the UN highcommissioner for refugees; Stojan Cerović,co-founder of the Belgrade oppositionmagazine Vreme and nephew of famedYugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas; MishaGlenny, author of The Fall of Yugoslavia:The Third Balkan War; Muhamed Sacirbey,Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ambassador to theUN; Vladislav Jovanović, the Federal Re-public of Yugoslavia’s ambassador to theUnited Nations; and Ivan Šimonović, deputyforeign minister of Croatia.

Brookings Institution political scientistSusan Woodward, author of Balkan Trag-edy; Tel Aviv University political theoristYael Tamir, author of Liberal Nationalism;Sarajevo-based UN political analyst DavidHarland; legal adviser to the InternationalConference on Yugoslavia Paul Szasz; NewYork University professor Theodor Meron,adviser to the war crimes tribunal and authorof Human Rights in Internal Strife: TheirInternational Protection; Colonel AlanStolberg of the Naval War College, whospent part of the war in Sarajevo; JamesSchear of the Carnegie Endowment for In-ternational Peace and former adviser to thespecial representative of the secretary-general in the former Yugoslavia; KingsCollege lecturer James Gow, author of Le-gitimacy and the Military: The YugoslavCrisis; Julie Mertus, co-editor of The Suit-case: Refugees’ Voices from Bosnia andCroatia; Balkans correspondent Laura Silber


14

of the Financial Times, who is also co-author of Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation;Schell Center for Human Rights SeniorFellow Ruti Teitel; and Yale professorsBruce Ackerman, Douglas Rae, and W. Mi-chael Reisman also took part.

The purpose of the conference was not toassign responsibility for the outbreak of thewar, either among the Serb, Muslim, andCroat leaders, or in the default of interna-tional actors. Nor did we wish to endlesslydebate the question of whether the interna-tional community should have intervenedforcibly at an earlier stage to quell thefighting. The purpose was to look forwardfrom the Dayton Accord, to ask what thedifficulties of the peace process were andhow they might be cured. Our intention wasnot to provide a beggared technocratic fix;no one can act effectively in Bosnia withoutsome understanding of the parties’ motiva-tion and points of view, even where thesewere formed by the war. Our aim was to seewhat the international community should bedoing differently in politically complex en-vironments such as Bosnia. As such, ourglimpse of Bosnia may be salient as well fornew reconstruction tasks such as Kosovo.

Among the questions discussed were thefollowing:

• Should ethnicity ever serve as abasis for representation in na-tional institutions in a postcon-flict situation?

• Does conducting elections in theaftermath of a conflict help trans-form national politics?

• Do strategies exist for safe refu-gee return into cleansed areaswhen policing is still in the handsof local nationalist leaders?

• Can economic aid be targeted toavoid corruption and politicalmisuse, and to induce compli-

ance with international stan-dards?

• Was the halting use of force bythe United Nations during theconflict the result of a morallywitting view—that an interna-tional organization cannot takeresponsibility for the collateralconsequences of force?

• Has the international war crimestribunal operated effectively andhad a positive effect on events onthe ground? Was a criminal tri-bunal the best approach, ratherthan a truth commission? Shouldarrests of war criminals be car-ried out early in the process, evenif it appears to require risky secu-rity operations?

The first panel of the conference set thehistorical background of the Dayton peaceaccord. James Gow pointed to the long-standing conflict between two state-buildingconceptions of Yugoslavia—pan-Serb ver-sus pan-Slav. Yugoslavia was heralded bysome as a state in which all Serbs would livetogether, and by others as a loose union forall southern Slavs, including Croats, Mus-lims, and Macedonians, sharing a commonlanguage, with latitude for mutual self-determination. The competing projects ofstate-building meant a constant tension be-tween centralism and decentralization. InTito’s Yugoslavia, despite the federal struc-ture of the six republics, strong central con-trol was maintained through the communistparties of the republics; after Tito’s death,that hidden device fell away. When Yugo-slavia dissolved, the international commu-nity had three objectives of its own: stem-ming the flow of refugees, limiting the ex-pansive ambitions of Croatia and Serbia, anddefending existing borders in the belief thatterritorial stability quells conflict. FinancialTimes correspondent Laura Silber, who cov-

Introduction

15

ered the war on the ground, joined Gow inthe judgment that the Dayton Accord repre-sents stalemate—not an abandonment of thewarring parties’ conflicting goals, just anacceptance that this is all they can get fornow. Limited progress on refugee returnsand the halting progress in economic recon-struction, including limited Western influ-ence over Republika Srpska because littleaid is given to its economy, are two of thelooming problems.

UN analyst David Harland, who livedthrough the war in Sarajevo, argued thatDayton “more or less ratified the situationon the ground” at the end of the war,awarding each party the territory and auton-omy it already enjoyed. The internationalcommunity, said Harland, decided plainlyagainst any “forced implementation” of thepolicies of refugee return or freedom ofmovement across the Inter-Entity BoundaryLine. Dayton saw several early difficulties:failing to provide NATO protection forSerbs living in the Sarajevo suburbs whencontrol of the area was transferred to theBosnian government, thus allowing ethnicpurges to continue in the immediate after-math of the new peace accord; the high rep-resentative’s unwillingness to establish anyindependent television media to counter na-tionalist propaganda before the first elec-tions; and no attempt at refugee returns inminority areas, including nonstrategic pock-ets of territory where returns might havebeen less fiercely resisted. In addition, theOSCE failed to anticipate that the electionrule allowing “future residency” votingwould permit the Serbs to attempt to stackthe polls by coercing Serb refugees to regis-ter in contested towns, and thus was unableto maintain an accurate vote count in earlyelections.

Susan Woodward argued that NATO’sactivity on the ground has been limited bywhat is practical. The international commu-

nity has a solid history of success at interpo-sitional peacekeeping but doesn’t know howto legitimate new governments or change thepsychology of local residents. Furthermore,a gap exists between resources and author-ity: the international organizations with aidand assets are not those in charge of a politi-cal strategy. Relying on Bosnia’s state insti-tutions for the distribution of economic aidwas a questionable avenue; a “bottom-up”implementation, distributing monies throughnongovernmental organizations, wouldavoid bolstering the apparatus of nationalistgovernments. Each side continues to seek itswartime goals, albeit by political means, Su-san Woodward noted. In the Muslim-CroatFederation, political power is strongest at thecantonal level where nationalist politicalparties have great influence. And there is noregional strategy for refugee return, so dis-placement of one group continues to blockanother’s return.

The second set of speakers looked at aquestion of legitimacy, in political principleand in popular perception. Dayton estab-lished a constitution for Bosnia and Herze-govina but did not propose its ratification byany local political process or referendum.The Dayton constitution uses ethnicity as anorganizing principle for national institutions,providing seats in the Bosnian presidency,the House of Peoples, and the House of Rep-resentatives based on the representative’sethnicity. Is it ever permissible for a demo-cratic society, much less an internationallysanctioned constitution, to build its institu-tions on ethnic principles of representation?

Julie Mertus argued that the idea of aconstituent nation—narod in Serbo-Croatian—has been at the center of Yugo-slav constitutional theory. The “nations” ofSerbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians,Montenegrins, and Muslims were the foun-dation stones of the Yugoslav federation,including the right of any national republic


16

to block collective action. “Nationalities,” ornarodski, the members of other minority na-tions whose homelands are elsewhere, werealso recognized in the 1974 constitution. Butin the new Bosnian constitution set out byDayton, only Bosniacs, Croats, and Serbs arerecognized as constituent peoples. The 1994Muslim-Croat Federation agreement recog-nized only two constituent nations, Muslimsand Croats, demoting Bosnian Serbs wholived in the area before the war to “others.”Political theorist Douglas Rae noted that theDayton constitution excludes pluralism by“hardwir[ing] the alliances which are tocompose the system, in the very definition ofthe institutions.” No multiple identity ofvoters is expressed through interest groupsas farmers, businesspeople, or parents.Rather, ethnic identity governs the politicalstructure, which “in advance rules out mostof the substance of democratic activity.” Theother difficulty of governing under the Day-ton constitution is the ethnic veto, permittinga “passive tyranny” in which governmentfails to act. UN legal expert Paul Szasz, aformer adviser to the International Confer-ence on Yugoslavia, noted that the Westernlegal experts assigned to help draft constitu-tions for the parties throughout the peaceprocess were initially shocked by the idea ofdrawing a constitution along ethnic lines.“We could not see how that could be recon-ciled with modern human rights principles.”But, Szasz noted, “We found out that all theparties, including the Muslims, Serbs, andCroats, expected us to draw up a constitutionalong those lines. That point was not in de-bate.” Still, there are no palatable rules todetermine who belongs to an ethnic group,and insufficient accommodation of voterswho choose to identify themselves in non-ethnic terms.

Israeli political philosopher Yael Tamirtook a less grudging view of nationalism,arguing that liberal states should be allowed

to take ethnic identity and nationality intoaccount in structuring representation in orderto remain relevant to the way people seethemselves. National identity is not just an-other taste or preference, like being an op-era-lover, argued Tamir; nationality is im-portant in a more constitutive way, part of“the ability to be the person one wants to be,or to belong to the group one feels affiliatedwith.” The identity of a representative mayalso be important, Tamir pointed out, tobring to bear the shared experiences of a na-tional group, as well as for a group’s sym-bolic presence and a sense of inclusion andself-government.

Belgrade opposition journalist StojanCerović, editor of Vreme magazine andnephew of Yugoslav dissident Milovan Dji-las, added a claim about transition. TheDayton constitution should be seen as“something very temporary,” arguedCerović. To stop the war, it “was absolutelynecessary to make an arrangement that eve-rybody on all sides would sign,” and eachside was dominated by nationalists. “I’mafraid that we cannot wait to get liberal,really the best kind of liberal people inpower in that part of the world,” Cerovićquipped. At the same time, a Bosnian iden-tity did exist before the war, and if the peo-ple of Bosnia are given enough time, cohe-sional forces might prevail. Before the war,you could not tell the difference betweenSerbs and Croats, even if you knew a per-son’s name. It was not a clash of civiliza-tions, Cerović said, but what Freud mightcall “the narcissism of minor differences.”

Finally, American political theoristBruce Ackerman issued a warning about thecasual use of terms. “Ethnicity” as a termarrived after the Second World War, dis-placing an older vocabulary in which politi-cal theorists spoke of “races,” including sucharchaic phrases as the “Italic race.” The ideaof a “nation,” however, is rooted in the

Introduction

17

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and con-veys three liberal and worthy ideas—popularsovereignty, equality, and secularism. In thecontext of Bosnia, the idea of “nation” isrefracted, since the identified differences arein part religious, not linguistic or territorial.

The historical role of cultural and politi-cal nationalism was also the subject of aconference keynote address by British authorMisha Glenny. Political nationalism has notalways been a potent force in the Balkans,argued Glenny, though there are examples ofethnic expulsions within memory. A millionMuslims were expelled from Russia in themid-nineteenth century after the CrimeanWar. The Treaty of Lausanne ended theGreco-Turkish war in 1923 with the forcibleexpulsion of a million Greeks from Turkeyand 380,000 Turks from Greece. This man-dated movement of populations left manyindividual Greeks and Turks economicallybereft and isolated, since they had lived alltheir lives in the other country. The self-determination celebrated by Woodrow Wil-son at the Versailles peace conference forgotto take account of the problem of minoritiesliving within majority areas. In Yugoslavia,the mixture of Muslim, Croat, and Serbpopulations in Bosnia and the balance of Al-banians and Slavs in Macedonia were sus-tainable because those republics wereequilibrated by the larger balance of powerwithin Yugoslavia. But the end of Yugosla-via put these smaller political balances injeopardy. The collapse of Yugoslavia from1989 to 1991 must also be viewed throughthe lens of great powers’ sympathies andinterests, Glenny argued. The presence ofthe United Nations should not distract usfrom the play of national interest. “The greatpowers have not gone away,” Glenny said.“It’s just that now they’ve created a very ex-pensive and nice mechanism called theUnited Nations, and they do everythingthrough there. But who decides UN policy?”

Even if nationalist feelings are accom-modated in a postwar constitution, thememory of ethnic violence from the war isunerased. The effective prosecution of warcrimes is a key concern in the reconstructionof Bosnia and Herzegovina—what to doabout leaders and followers who engaged innotorious crimes of ethnic violence, violat-ing the laws of war and international hu-manitarian law. The question of war crimeswas addressed by another distinguishedpanel. Can the trial of war crimes be used asa way of stabilizing the peace, rather thanprovoking antipathy? One cannot assumethat invoking a history of atrocities will nec-essarily strengthen a postwar modus vivendi;for example, in the September 1996 elec-tions, Serb television broadcast vivid photo-graphs of the suffering of some Serb civil-ians as a way of rallying nationalist opinionfor the ballot box. In the transition of East-ern Slavonia to Croat control from UN ad-ministration, Croat authorities misused thethreat of war crimes arrests to cause theflight of most Serb males. In the Romeagreement of the Dayton ImplementationConference, it was agreed that local arrestsshould not be made for war crimes unlessthe matter was first approved by the Interna-tional Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. Aninternational war crimes tribunal has a fargreater credibility, able to prevent the mis-use of war crimes trials as a politicalweapon. Even so, the importance of estab-lishing an effective public presence anddemonstrating neutrality should not be ne-glected in an international tribunal.

The International Criminal Tribunal forthe former Yugoslavia was created by theSecurity Council in 1993, long before theDayton peace negotiations, and has con-ducted business in the Hague ever since. Thetribunal’s legal work and the peace processwere importantly linked, argued AntonioCassese, the tribunal’s first president. The


18

Hague indictments and arrest warrants is-sued against Serb nationalist leaders Rado-van Karadžić and General Ratko Mladić al-lowed their exclusion from the Dayton ne-gotiating process. Dayton provided in turnthat persons under indictment could not holdpublic office, thus excluding Karadžić andMladić from future political leadership inBosnia. No amnesty was given at Dayton,even though many observers had speculatedthat a peace agreement could not be reachedwithout it. The Dayton accord “restated andeven spelled out” the obligation of the par-ties to cooperate with the tribunal, andYugoslavia and Croatia agreed to act asguarantors of their protégés’ compliance.The Muslim-Croat Federation and Repub-lika Srpska are bound directly by the DaytonAccord, something that even Security Coun-cil resolutions may not accomplish, arguesCassese.

The Hague is the appropriate place todeal with “system criminalities,” Cassesesuggested, when war crimes are committedon the order of leaders or with their acquies-cence. Theodor Meron argued that an im-portant purpose of the tribunal is to “decol-lectivize guilt” and advance reconciliation.The tribunal has developed a code of inter-national criminal procedure and has used itto brand offenders as outlaws. But, Meronnoted with a greater skepticism thanCassese, “the tribunal has had no major im-pact either positive or negative on peace-making” because of the international reluc-tance to enforce its decisions.

Professor Ruti Teitel argued that becausethe Hague tribunal has not arrested the mostimportant defendants from the Bosnian war,its major achievement is the impact of theindictments. But the narrow lens of a crimi-nal trial is not necessarily the best way ofsetting out what happened; truth commis-sions have their own virtues. Professor Mi-chael Reisman argued that a pragmatic po-

litical model of international law will takeaccount of the limited ability of the greatdemocracies to mobilize their populationsfor risky enforcement actions, and that un-pleasant compromises may be necessary.The Hague tribunal was set up to advancepeace on the ground, even though its juridi-cal personnel demand a rule-bound en-forcement of its orders.

Another extraordinary quartet of panel-ists addressed the problems of refugees,peacekeeping, and economic reconstruction.Soren Jessen-Petersen, the first Sarajevomission head for the UN high commissionerfor refugees (UNHCR), noted that very fewrefugees have been able to resettle in theplaces from which they were purged; theInter-Entity Boundary Line “has become awall that is blocking people.” But a gradualprocess of confidence-building may help,Jessen-Petersen argued, with inter-entityvisits, inter-entity bus service, economiccommon areas such as the famous cross-roads market on Route Arizona near Brčko,and refugee returns in nonstrategic areas andin the zone of separation patrolled byNATO. A regionwide strategy for refugeereturn will also be necessary, since onegroup of refugees has often displaced an-other.

Colonel Alan Stolberg of the U.S. NavalWar College, who was stationed in Sarajevoin 1995, noted the dilemma of military forcein peacekeeping operations. When the pur-pose of intervention is humanitarian ratherthan strategic, participating countries shrinkfrom firepower that might cause “collateraldamage” to civilians. In the Bosnian war,Serb artillery bombardments savaged Sara-jevo—yet were not suppressed by UN forcesfor fear of harming Serb civilians. Westernforces were even reluctant to use aircraft torespond to tank fire directed at their troops,and Dutch troops in Srebrenica lacked thestandard issue 20 mm guns on armored per-

Introduction

19

sonnel carriers, leaving them underequippedas well as undermanned in the face of a Serbassault. Refugee return and the arrest of warcriminals are missions that can be performedeffectively, Colonel Stolberg argued, but onemust be willing to accept the chance of ci-vilian and military deaths, as well as achance of expanding the conflict throughretaliatory actions. The delicacy of the use offorce was well illustrated in one heated con-ference exchange. “[A]re we willing,” Stol-berg asked, “to accept the possibility thatpeople who are resisting the return of refu-gees will have to be killed?” Or that “civil-ians in the area—because these are built-upareas, this is occurring in towns—will haveto be killed or their homes destroyed unin-tentionally?” The chief of mission for theUNHCR immediately replied, “I don’t thinkany of us would ever ask the military to goin there and kill so that we can move for-ward, or go in there and kill so that we canreturn people. We are talking about a flexi-ble, pragmatic use of what is there—anoverwhelming presence.” Whether there is areal difference between military bluff andmilitary force, whether deterrence can beused to carry out enforcement without anunacceptable cost to civilian lives, remains acrucial question for Bosnia and similar mis-sions. Since the conference, of course, well-planned raids by allied troops have suc-ceeded in arresting a significant number offugitive war criminals. Limited violence hasresulted; for example, one defendant waskilled while violently resisting arrest andanother was wounded; one British peace-keeper was slightly wounded; and retaliatorygrenades were thrown into Dutch headquar-ters, wounding two soldiers. But the captureof Karadžić and Mladić on war crimescharges has been deferred for fear that theirarrests will be accompanied by costly fire-fights unless the right circumstances are pre-sent.

World Bank Bosnia director ChristineWallich looked at the bank’s programs torestore economic growth in Bosnia. Unem-ployment has been reduced from 90 to 50–60 percent or less. The wartime loss inBosnia was enormous, with 70 percent ofbridges, 60 percent of schools, and 40percent of the housing stock destroyed.Water, power, and schools have beenrestored. Five billion dollars was targeted forreconstruction over 3 to 4 years, althoughthat is only a portion of what rebuilding willrequire. The Marshall Plan kept Europe alivein the immediate aftermath of the SecondWorld War, but the bulk of investmentcapital that rebuilt Europe was generatedfrom internal sources. In Bosnia, too,domestic sources of capital will be crucial.Privatization and methods of internal costrecovery are key to a sustainable recovery.Wallich also focused on how to combat theproblems of corruption in the distribution ofaid, providing credit arrangements ratherthan give-aways, supplying capital goods forreconstruction rather than consumercommodities, and opening up the biddingprocess to competitors to prevent local bidinflation. On the question of aid toRepublika Srpska (RS), Wallich noted thatthere was an embargo on the RS until March1996, and the World Bank was not activeuntil after the embargo was lifted. Theimbalance “in part” is accounted for by do-nor preferences—the Japanese, Russians,French, and British have “targeted” theirsupport of RS, and “other donors less so.”The lopsidedness of economic aid has beenquestioned by some Bosnia veterans, in-cluding the former deputy supreme alliedcommander in Europe, General CharlesBoyd, who undertook a research trip to Bos-nia in 1997 on behalf of Secretary of De-fense William Cohen and the Speaker of theHouse. The imbalance has also been ques-tioned by a Paris military studies center


20

headed by a former French commander,General Michel Cot.

James Schear, a former adviser to theUN Special Representative in Bosnia, tack-led interim policing—how to provide localsecurity in a postconflict situation. A re-newed police force is needed to prevent thereign of hooligans and criminals and to pro-tect returning refugees from retaliatory ac-tion. Reforming the police structure in Bos-nia is especially difficult, because the policehave been the enforcement arm of national-ist political structures and were often theshock troops of ethnic cleansing during thewar. In some other postconflict situations,the problem has not been as difficult, Schearnoted. In Somalia the police were a reveredinstitution, and in Haiti the police cooper-ated with UN forces to avoid local retribu-tion. In Bosnia, the local police forces havelittle incentive for good behavior becausethe creation of mono-ethnic communities isfavored by their political bosses.

The attempt of the international commu-nity to monitor Bosnian police operations—through the unarmed multinationalpersonnel of the International Police TaskForce—has been earnest but oftenunavailing. The IPTF can ask questions,report lack of cooperation, and seek backupfrom NATO forces. The IPTF has securedthe agreement of the federation to downsizeits police force, has instructed both sides inprinciples of democratic policing, and isvetting force members for misconduct in thewar. The IPTF and NATO have dismantledmost of the mobile “checkpoints” that policein Herceg-Bosna and in Republika Srpskaused as a method of extortion and deterringfree movement. But Republika Srpska hasbeen relatively uncooperative in policereform, and the police forces on both sidesare still bankrolled by the local politicalstructures. The parties have been unable toform an inter-entity police that might enjoythe confidence of all communities, except

communities, except for a frustrating at-tempt by the European Union in the city ofMostar, where Croat-Muslim patrols workedvery poorly.

An obvious mid-level security gap hasopened between NATO forces and the IPTF.How to fill the gap with a muscular policepresence is the question—NATO troops arenot trained for police work, and the advisoryfunctions of the IPTF are well intentionedbut flaccid. Monitoring the local police alsorequires a greater intrusiveness than otherparts of peacekeeping; an internationalmonitor must ask police chiefs to reveal andalter police rosters, patrol plans, and theprogress made on investigations, and mustbe able to enforce demands. The IPTF doesnot have the legal authority, language ca-pacity, or force on the ground to take overpolicing functions and is deployed in vulner-able and isolated offices throughout Bosnia.

Finally, in a diplomatic roundtable, thehead of the OSCE mission in Bosnia and theUN ambassadors of Bosnia, Croatia, andYugoslavia discussed the future of the Bal-kans. Ambassador Robert Frowick, the firsthead of the OSCE mission, argued that theDayton process worked “better than antici-pated, although the parties have a long wayto go” on freedom of movement, expression,and a politically neutral environment. Thefirst elections suffered “imperfections andstress and strain” that would “unfortunately,but likely be the case in elections . . . heldonly a matter of months after the formal endof the horrific inter-ethnic warfare.” The de-sign of the balloting allowed refugees tovote where they would like to reside in thefuture, a type of electoral “freedom ofmovement,” even though state authoritiestried to manipulate the registration. The ex-clusion of Karadžić from the election was a“boost to the integrity” of the process. Apartfrom elections, OSCE is tasked to work ondemocratization, human rights, arms limita-

Introduction

21

tion, and confidence-building measures. Infuture crises in Europe, NATO should meetthe military threat, together with Russianand central European troops, while allowingthe OSCE to take the lead “in peace-buildingwith respect to the civil sector” under Secu-rity Council authorization, engaging theUnited States, western Europe, centralEurope, and Russia. OSCE’s span from westto east makes it an ideal structure, ifequipped for this level of responsibility.

Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey of Bos-nia argued that the Dayton Accord wasdeemed acceptable by the Sarajevo govern-ment largely as a way to stop the war andend the tremendous toll on the Bosnianpopulation. Sarajevo assumed that the aimsof a multiethnic society would be pursued bythe West in a peaceful environment. “Whilethe international community failed to inter-vene to stop the war, we thought they wouldat least intervene resolutely in peace to sup-port human rights and pluralism,” Sacirbeyobserved. But the Inter-Entity BoundaryLine “has become sort of a demarcationline.” “NATO has succumbed to the beliefthat separation prevents explosive mix-tures.” The long-term prospects for peaceare “mixed at best,” claimed Sacirbey, be-cause the peace agreement as implementedon the ground has “further cemented thestatus quo, the consequences of ethniccleansing,” and this situation encouragesradicalism. The common institutions of thenational government are a “very thin roof”over two separate communities, and “thiscommon roof is being used as a way toavoid any action at the bottom” in the “realreintegration of the country.” In addition,Sacirbey complained, Serb obstruction in thecommon institutions in Sarajevo is “margi-nalizing” the ability of Sarajevo to empha-size punishment of war crimes, refugee re-turn, and arms limitation. Bosnia’s future inEurope will depend on adhering to European

standards of pluralism, human rights, anddemocracy. Questioned on the flight ofSerbs from the Sarajevo suburbs after Day-ton was signed, Sacirbey argued that theSerb policy of ethnic cleansing to create amono-ethnic state had to be distinguishedfrom “other acts where minorities may havebeen harassed or even worse,” for these werenot part of Bosniac policy. Sacirbey notedthat Muslim refugees from places like Sre-brenica “feel no inclination to accord theSerbs any particular rights because they feellike they are so deprived themselves.” Thereal question is at the local level, and here,Sacirbey seemed to admit, the national Bos-niac authorities have no direct control.“What can the government in Sarajevo do?Frankly there is very little they can do be-yond what they have done.”

Ambassador Ivan Šimonović of Croatiacomplained that the label “Balkans” was amisnomer, since Croatia “is a central Euro-pean and Mediterranean state,” and the wordmight be used to connote a “belligerent, per-haps barbaric” frame of mind. The Croatianground offensive led to Dayton by changingthe balance of power on the ground. Daytoncould be considered “an extremely interest-ing social, political, and legal experiment” ifthere was “not so much blood and tears inBosnia and Croatia.” Šimonović wondered ifit is ever “possible . . . as an act of interestedparties, to have a resurrection of a collapsedstate under some sort of international tutor-ship.” The interest of Bosniacs in a unifiedstate had to accommodate “the legitimateinterest” of Croats and Serbs in “the protec-tion of a national group.” Indeed, even afterDayton, Šimonović argued, the separatestructures of Herceg-Bosna are necessary toBosnian Croats because the Sarajevo gov-ernment “was almost entirely under the con-trol of Bosniacs.” Implicit in Šimonović’sargument, as in the earlier analysis of eth-


22

nicity and liberal government, was the claimthat “Croat” interests are distinct.

Dayton is not a final outcome, Šimono-vić argued. “[W]e all knew that the institu-tions being built in Dayton would not lastforever.” There is “a permanent need to ex-ert pressure from outside and to pour in re-sources, to prevent the federation from fal-ling apart or to prevent the central state fal-ling apart and to enable it to function.” Thefreedom of movement proclaimed at Daytonis thwarted by a territorial map that forbadeethnically cohesive territory. Still, the insti-tutional growth since Dayton is positive.Šimonović pointed to a problem of “someatrocities” in Operation Storm, the Croatoffensive on the Krajina and Western Sla-vonia in 1995, but argued that 12,000 Serbrefugees had returned to the area.

Ambassador Vladislav Jovanović ofYugoslavia noted that the success of Daytondepended on a “balanced” implementation inall its elements, both “unitarist” and “sepa-ratist.” Yugoslavia normalized relations withCroatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herze-govina, but normalization also requires“equal treatment of all local players withinBosnia.” The lack of economic aid to Re-publika Srpska by the international commu-nity may “feed the discontentment or reser-vation among a large portion of the popula-tion.” Yugoslavia also wished to be free ofthe “outer wall of sanctions” that prevents itsparticipation in international financial insti-tutions. The stabilization of Bosnia dependson the outside environment and regionaleconomic cooperation throughout the Bal-kans, including Bulgaria, Romania, and Al-bania. In addition, the Balkan countriesshould be able to link themselves with theVisegrad group in a “wider space ofEurope.” When asked about Yugoslav bank-rolling of Bosnian Serb military forces, andwhether Yugoslavia could have strengthenedthe attempt of Republika Srpska’s president,

Biljana Plavšić, to maintain civilian controlof the army, Jovanović said he didn’t knowthat RS military officers “were or are paid”by Yugoslavia, but affirmed that “the ele-ment of a state which was too much presentduring the war should be reduced in size andimportance.”

Since the Yale convocation, the war inKosovo has reminded us that the destructivegenie of ethnic nationalism is still afoot, andthat the Belgrade regime has been unde-terred by the defeat of Serb forces in threeprevious wars. In Bosnia itself, the extensionof the NATO commitment, trading “enddates” for “end states,” has been an impor-tant development—apprising the parties theycannot easily outwait the demands of Day-ton. Bosnia is still assessed by most observ-ers on the ground to be in a fragile state. Ifonly to prevent the war from flaring upagain, NATO troops need to remain on theInter-Entity Boundary Line. Neither side inthe war was pleased by the territorial mapdrawn at Dayton: the boundary line comestoo close to Sarajevo for Bosniac tastes, theSava River corridor between the two halvesof Republika Srpska is too narrow for Serbtastes, and the consignment of the choke-point town of Brčko to international admini-stration has left both sides unhappy. No oneis confident in the present atmosphere thatthe situation will remain peaceful withoutthe mindful presence of a NATO force. Thewar in Kosovo only drives the point home,since the ambitions of Belgrade remain un-satisfied.

By anyone’s measure, Bosnia is muchbetter off now than it was in 1995. Prevent-ing the war from restarting is a simplermilitary mission than trying to end a secondround of fighting. And having chosen Bos-nia as a venture worth its honor, NATO andthe West would look fickle and foolish inabandoning a continuing deployment ofmarginal size. No war or political event ever

Introduction

23

goes quite as planned. The U.S. militaryneeds to retain the flexibility and strength totriage its efforts appropriately. But that onlyargues for evaluating a peacekeeping mis-sion on a step-by-step basis, without an-nouncing one’s strategy to adversaries.

An inevitable tension arises between theintensity and the duration of a mission. IfNATO has avoided the countryside missionsof patrol and reconnaissance that might benecessary to protect returning refugees in ahostile environment, it also has avoided al-lied casualties and made it easier to sustainpolitical support for a longer-term deploy-ment. That may be a wise judgment. Thehope is that a growing economy and the pas-sage of time will begin to take Bosnians’minds off the war. Just as street criminalsbegin to let go at a certain age, realizing thatthey have only so much time in their lives, insome civil conflicts weariness may set in,leaving the parties willing to work thingsout. This happened in Mozambique, in Cen-tral America, and even in Somalia. Perdur-ance on the part of NATO may allow theparties to get on with things. At the sametime, with its mission of separating the war-time combatants well in hand, NATO shouldbe able to remix its force structure for moreactive support of the civilian missions ofrefugee return, police reform, and the arrestof war criminals.

In addition, lately a more active posturehas been demonstrated by the civilian repre-sentatives of the international community.UN High Representative Carlos Westendorpimposed solutions when the political partieswould not agree. This is closer to the“gauleiter” model used with success in theUN transitional administration in EasternSlavonia by Jacques-Paul Klein, and in theadministration of the town of Brčko by Rob-ert Farrand. The shift from an advisorymodel to a more imperative authority isoverdue and prevents the parties from stall-

ing for advantage. The model for civilianadministration in Kosovo and other conflicttransitions must take a lesson from this. Anexcessive deference to the quarreling fac-tions does not build real democracy and failsto provide enough sinew to knit the bodypolitic back together.

For critics of the Dayton Accord who ar-gue that partition is inevitable and that par-tition should be undertaken sooner ratherthan later, the simple answer is that this so-lution prejudges the conclusion in a mostunnecessary way. As Cerović observed, acommon Bosnian identity was shared beforethe war. Though the Balkans are not inhab-ited by classical liberals, we don’t know towhat extent tempers in the opposing com-munities may moderate in the interest ofeconomic revival. Partition is not acceptableto the Muslim and Bosniac community,which would sooner reopen the war. Even ifnew boundaries could be negotiated for anill-advised partition, NATO peacekeeperswould still be required to separate the fac-tions.

Dayton allows the evolution of a struc-ture that is more separate or less, dependingon what the traffic will bear. The Bosniannational government may be made to work;or the “special parallel relationships” per-mitted under Dayton with Zagreb and Bel-grade may remain the stronger force. Bothcould evolve at the same time—a reformedZagreb and Belgrade might see an advantagein cajoling their Bosnian protégés into actingresponsibly within a Bosnian national gov-ernment. In an economically shattered,landlocked country, it makes sense to dis-play the chance of restoration and joiningEurope economically as the powerful elixirit can be. In Greece, the leadership of PrimeMinister Costas Simitis dampened Greeknationalist sentiments toward Macedonia,ending the disastrous embargo that washurting northern Greece as much as Mace-


24

donia; Greece came to prefer economicgrowth and closer integration into Europeover the atavistic pleasures of an imaginedterritorial dispute. It would be mistaken toprejudge Bosnia as well. Nationalism andseparatism is only one of the elements atplay in the Balkans. Memory also recalls thelong history of balance, and the pleasures ofa prosperous economy.

25

Has Dayton Worked?Kofi A. Annan

wo decades ago, near the end ofhis long life, Chairman Maogranted an interview to an eager

young journalist who asked him a number ofquestions. The last of these was “What, inyour view, was the result of the FrenchRevolution?” The chairman leaned back fora moment, reflected, gazed intently at theyoung man, and said, “It is too early to tell.”

Now, after Dayton, we ask ourselves,has the peace process worked? I think that ithas been working, but whether it has actu-ally worked is too early to tell. While much,perhaps more than we could have expected,has been achieved, the most crucial phase ofimplementation of the Dayton provisions hasonly just begun. However, the population,terrorized by four years of fighting, hasslowly begun to pick up the pieces of itsshattered life, to gradually cover the scars ofwar, and, with increasing pace, fill the cra-ters in the roads.

Dayton has succeeded in stopping thewar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By andlarge, the cease-fire has held. The over-whelming military presence and power ofIFOR [Dayton’s multinational military Im-plementation Force] has, so far, prevented alarge-scale resumption of hostilities.

But has the threat of war disappeared? Ibelieve not.

The deliberate and organized destructionof houses, the continued though reducedethnic cleansing, and the persistent obstruc-tions to freedom of movement all provide apotential trigger for renewed violence. Ifthese and other political problems are stillfestering when NATO forces withdraw, theywould almost certainly become militaryflashpoints in a short time. And even IFORmay prove insufficient to prevent a return tothe battlefield over the emotionally charged

arbitration of Brčko. The absence, in theDayton Agreement, of a solution to thisproblem has not made matters easier. Al-ready, both the Bosniacs and the BosnianSerbs have reiterated their willingness towage war to retain control of this criticalarea. For the Bosnian Serbs, the Posavinacorridor in Brčko provides for the contiguityof the territory of the Republika Srpska. Forthe Bosniacs, Brčko represents a strategicimperative of the [Muslim-Croat] Federationto have access to the Sava River, and Europebeyond. Both sides have attempted to alterthe region’s ethnic composition prior to ar-bitration: the Bosnian Serbs have settled alarge number of their displaced persons inthe area, and the Bosniacs have actively en-couraged the return of refugees to strategicplaces, although adequate conditions of se-curity and safety remain outstanding. Fi-nally, it cannot be ruled out that the contin-ued flow of weapons into the area willprompt one or another of the parties to seekto recover lost territory or to exact, once andfor all, a resounding defeat on the other side.

Despite these threats, there is, with iso-lated exceptions, no fighting today. Yet, thepurpose of Dayton was not merely to stopthe war. The purpose was, and remains, toassist the parties in restoring a stable, demo-cratic, and unified state in Bosnia and Her-zegovina.

Reconciliation and restoration will re-quire that leaders at the national and at theentity-levels devote themselves to a processof healing the divisions that led to so muchsuffering in the war. Unfortunately, despitethe three parties’ numerous declarations reit-erating their commitment to the concept ofthe unified country envisaged by Dayton,compliance by the parties is often onlyachieved through international appeals and

T


26

concerted pressure. At least two of the par-ties, either openly or by their actions, dem-onstrate an intention to govern themselvesindependently. In addition, the intoleranceshown and the intimidation tactics used bythe nationalist political parties of all sideshave reinforced the impression that theyhave not yet achieved a common vision ofwhat Dayton represents and have not yet de-veloped the common will to see joint insti-tutions develop.

Human Rights: The Stumbling BlockPart of the elections envisaged in the

Dayton Agreement were held in September1996. The atmosphere in which the electionprocess occurred was not ideal. But theelections were, in the words of Ambassador[Robert] Frowick [the OSCE head of mis-sion in Bosnia], “what our historical and po-litical context has allowed us.”

The federal elections represented a sig-nificant milestone in the world’s efforts torestore stability to Bosnia and Herzegovina.They provided the parties with an opportu-nity to establish democratic institutions thatwill be responsive to the needs of the popu-lation. Municipal elections will be one indi-cation of whether this democratic processcan take hold. These elections will pose agreat challenge, since the issues of freedomof movement and the right of return of refu-gees will once again have to be confronted.Currently, only some 250,000 out of ap-proximately 1.5 million displaced personsand refugees have returned to Bosnia spon-taneously. Most of these have returned not totheir former homes, but rather to areas oftheir ethnic majority in which they feel safe.Displaced persons and refugees have on thewhole been unable, or unwilling, to cross theInter-Entity Boundary Line [IEBL]. This hascemented ethnic and political separationalong the IEBL and also within the federa-tion. If, under these conditions, European

countries start the forcible return of refu-gees, the situation can only worsen.

Given these circumstances, the Bosniangovernment will be hard pressed to accom-plish the overwhelming tasks of reviving theeconomy, repairing destroyed infrastructure,resuming economic production, and provid-ing jobs for a largely unemployed popula-tion. Donors will remain reluctant to commitfunds for reconstruction until they are as-sured that stability has truly returned to Bos-nia and Herzegovina. Private investmentwill not be forthcoming. At the same time,unless the international community providesresources to rebuild community projects andinfrastructure that cut across ethnic lines, thetrend toward separation will accelerate.

The United Nations International PoliceTask Force [UNIPTF], in cooperation withIFOR, has been helpful in stabilizing thesituation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.UNIPTF has been working with both entitiesto persuade them of the necessity for the po-lice to accept principles of democratic po-licing and respect for the human rights ofcitizens, regardless of their ethnicity. Thishas not been an easy task, as police in manyparts of the country have been directly in-volved in abuses of power and human rights.Under present arrangements, UNIPTF isobliged to bring such abuses to the attentionof those who, in many cases, are the perpe-trators or instigators of the actions, and askthem to investigate themselves. Obviously,many such investigations do not go very far.We are currently examining ways to addressthis situation.

To achieve fully the goals of the DaytonAgreement, a major objective of the interna-tional community must be to promote, understrong international supervision, respect forhuman rights among the various authoritiesin Bosnia and Herzegovina. Concurrently,every effort should be made to consolidateand strengthen national institutions to up-

Has Dayton Worked?

27

hold human rights, particularly minorityrights, when the international supervisionterminates. Unless this central problem isaddressed, there will not be a firm founda-tion on which to build a sustainable peace inBosnia. While Dayton has dealt extensivelywith the issue of human rights, it did not as-sign a lead agency or organization this re-sponsibility. Thus, there has not been a uni-fied and coherent approach in dealing withthe complex human rights questions in thecountry. This must become a priority.

Toward a Durable PeaceDespite these challenges, I remain hope-

ful that, given time, a sustainable momen-tum toward reconciliation and peace can beachieved in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A signof progress has been that, despite the successof the nationalist parties in the federal andcantonal elections, a significant minority ofthe population of both entities voted for op-position parties. We cannot and should notbecome impatient that only patchy progresshas been achieved. We must remain con-stantly involved and encourage the parties,by incentives and disincentives, to work to-ward creating democratic and unified insti-tutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Peacewill not be durable unless it is accompaniedby justice. Those individuals who have beenindicted by the International Criminal Tri-bunal must be brought to trial. Significantly,the Paris Conference has established a linkbetween the availability of international fi-nancial assistance and the degree to whichall the authorities of Bosnia and Herzego-vina fully implement the peace agreement,including cooperation with the InternationalCriminal Tribunal.

The stabilization period agreed upon inParis in November 1996 offers an opportu-nity to redouble efforts to ensure the full im-plementation of the Dayton agreement. It hasunderlined to the authorities of Bosnia andHerzegovina that the extent of international

support for the peace process (including fi-nancial assistance) depends upon thestrength of their own efforts.

The Paris Conference provides us withthe chance to show the Bosnian people byour continued presence that the world hasnot forgotten them. It will help enable us toinstill confidence in the population that, ifthey wish to return to their original homes,their leaders will be held accountable fortheir safety and security. It should allow theopposition parties the necessary space tobroaden their political base and becomecredible voices in determining the future oftheir country.

Progress in these areas, along with en-hanced activity in the area of human rightsand security that only a continued militarypresence can provide, may create a climatemore conducive to reconciliation than any-thing that we have been able to achieve sofar. But it will be able to do so only if a re-sponsive and representative political struc-ture comes into place and if the internationalcommunity, the Bosnian people, and theirgovernment work to bring about that recon-ciliation.

There are some people who will wonderif the effort required to bring Bosnia back tolife is worth it. The only answer I can offeris, what are our options? If we allow parti-tion to become inevitable, would we bewilling to face the consequences? Would webe willing to see Bosnia become anotherGaza? Would we really prefer to bear thecosts—political, financial, and moral—ofour own inaction?

Our ImperativesWe must move forward to establish the

municipal governments on which so muchdepends. We must ensure that all levels ofgovernment are elected and activated, thatthe Council of Ministers and the ministriesthey will run are mounted and prepared toface the huge challenges before them. That


28

the Constitutional Court, once fully consti-tuted, will develop its own rules and proce-dures and have the capacity to deal with thecaseload confronting it. That the Interna-tional Criminal Tribunal, so spurned by theparties, is accorded the measure of respect,support, and cooperation it merits. That thefederation’s future, the cornerstone to Day-ton, is not allowed to disintegrate.

But what is first needed is that we put ahalt to the house-burnings that have scarredPrijedor and other areas. Secondly, we mustensure far greater freedom of movementthan has been granted thus far. Thirdly, wemust create the more conducive climatewhich I have described. The first two ofthese, clearly, depend on the strength, size,and the mandate that is given to the IFORfollow-on force. The third will take, amongother things, time. We must hope that theclimate will offer a hospitable environmentfor free and fair municipal elections. But wemust also realize, once and for all, thatrushing this vital process will only pushpeople into majority areas, solidify separa-tion, ratify ethnic cleansing, and reinforcethe IEBL as a de facto border.

It is important that we realize that we arenot in the midst of a hostile takeover. Wecannot just walk in and cut a quick profit.And we cannot just walk out after a badquarter, cut our losses, and throw all to thewind. We cannot downsize this problem outof existence. It must be solved, and only wecan solve it. And that will take time.

We might not need a Marshall Plan forthe Balkans, and it seems unlikely that onewould be forthcoming if we did. But a mi-cro–Marshall Plan—comprehensive andflexible, if far smaller—is what we shouldbe moving toward. It is, in my view, what isneeded. The Economist carried an interestingcomparison to the question at hand: a surveyof Germany eight years after the fall of theBerlin Wall. It spoke of the euphoria of 1989

and the rougher reality of 1996. It said that,despite optimism, energy, effort, and thebest will, “Germany may be unified, but it isnot yet one. To make it truly so will take alot more time and money.” We can onlyimagine what will be needed for Bosnia.

I do not believe that what we are aimingto do is beyond our resources, our reach, oreven our grasp. I believe that we should notlose faith, or hope. We will need both pa-tience and realism as we persevere—thoughnot, I hope, as much of either as ChairmanMao might have implied.

29

The Path to Dayton

Panelists:James Gow, Reader in War Studies,

Kings College, LondonDavid Harland, Senior Political Officer,

United Nations Mission for Bosnia-Herzegovina

Laura Silber, Former correspondent, Fi-nancial Times

Susan Woodward, Moderator, SeniorResearch Fellow, Centre for DefenceStudies, King's College, Universityof London, and author of BalkanTragedy

James Gow:I will try to give a sense of the back-

ground to the Yugoslav war of dissolution.There is a lot of doubt in people’s mindsabout what Dayton was, and whether or notit can be judged a success. One shouldn’tthink of Dayton as being a 15-minute solu-tion. Dayton is a long-term process.

I will look at what Yugoslavia was, theprocess of dissolution, the onslaught of war,and the reasons for the engagement of theinternational community. Experts on Yugo-slavia will be offended because there isnever an audience that can agree on the de-tails of what went on.

Yugoslavia was an amalgam of twoideas created at the end of the First WorldWar. One idea, arising from the independ-ence of Serbia from the Ottoman Empire inthe nineteenth century, was a state in whichall Serbs would live together. The secondidea, emerging primarily among Croatianintellectuals and other south Slav intellectu-als in the Habsburg Empire, was a state inwhich all south Slavs, sharing largely com-mon features and often speaking the samelanguage, would be able to live together.Yugoslavia would be a framework for their

mutual self-determination. When Yugosla-via was formed it was of course not impos-sible that it could fully meet both of theserequirements.

The initial Yugoslav kingdom—theKingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes—was formed in 1918 largely as an extensionof the existing Serbian monarchy. It madeothers, particularly Croats inside thatcountry, unhappy.

The rest of the history is one of tensionbetween centralism and decentralization—trying to strike a balance which wouldachieve what both communities wanted—i.e., a state in which all the Serbs would livetogether, but one in which the others wouldfeel comfortable.

When Yugoslavia came to a point of dis-solution in 1991, for the Serbs it was theending of a state in which they all lived to-gether. For the others it was a continuedmovement of self-determination. Tito’sYugoslavia, communist Yugoslavia, was acompound of peoples and of territories. Theterritories derived from historic territoriesincorporated in the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. The communists, as away of putting Yugoslavia back together af-ter the Second World War, sold the mean-ingless idea of nation-state formations.These were intended as a marketing deviceand never intended to have any real content.

In Tito’s Yugoslavia, by a process ofeconomic and political exchange, power wasdevolved from the center to communist par-ties in the six nation-states—the republics ofSerbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Ma-cedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Eventu-ally, ten years after Tito’s death, there wasno possibility of achieving the necessaryconsensus between the leaderships of thoseparties and states on the way ahead for the


30

Yugoslav federation. Through the 1980sthere were tensions, led primarily by Slove-nia and Serbia, about the future. Variousother states lined up on one side or the otherof the argument, or fell in between. The eco-nomic, social, and political crisis began togenerate or resurrect localized tensions insome ethnic communities, particularly at thepoint of elections in 1990, where the resultslargely went in favor of nationalist parties.Lots of people became afraid.

That is the essential background for whatYugoslavia was and how it came into a pro-cess of dissolution. There is, however, a dif-ference between dissolution and war. Wehave to understand certain key featuresabout the conflict as a war of dissolution. Ithas been a clash of state projects. On the oneside, there have been embryonic states fromthe Yugoslav federation seeking to achievetheir independence: Slovenia, Croatia, Bos-nia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia. Againstthat is a project initiated by the Serbian gov-ernment in Belgrade with assistance fromelements of the Yugoslav People’s Army toachieve a new set of borders which wouldincorporate territories from Croatia and fromBosnia-Herzegovina in which Serb popula-tions resided. There is an essential clash ofstate projects—between a state in which allthe Serbs will live together with or withoutothers (I think essentially without others),and the other states arising from territorieswhich composed Tito’s Socialist FederalRepublic of Yugoslavia [SFRY].

Long before the actual starting date ofJune 25, 1991, preparations for war werealready underway. In January 1991 SerbianPresident Slobodan Milošević warned Euro-pean Community ambassadors what wouldhappen if Yugoslavia went into the phase ofdissolution. Serbia’s intentions were wellunderstood from the very beginning, al-though the extent and scope of the likelyconflict were misjudged.

The war in Bosnia has been the focalpoint of the war of dissolution. It has been awar between the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina on the one hand, to preservethe whole territory which was their statewithin the Socialist Federal Republic ofYugoslavia—and Serb forces working inassociation with and under the aegis of Bel-grade to create the new borders of the newSerb entity. An essential part of this strategyhas been ethnic cleansing—the idea that, ifyou are to create a new set of territorieswhich have a core loyal population, youneed to remove those who would be disloyaleither through guerrilla or terrorist activityor even simple political opposition. The warwas in essence a project to create a new setof borders in which there would only bethose who would be described as loyal. Theessence of ethnic cleansing is not to kill eve-rybody but to kill and mutilate enough tomake others realize that they should goaway.

There is a subtext to the war in Bosniaand this is the ambition of Croatia. Croatiahas always had an ambiguous role—tryingto establish its own state borders and its ownsovereignty within the situation and keep onthe right side of the international commu-nity, while seeking to carry out the samekind of project as the Serbs within Bosnia-Herzegovina, particularly in the area knownas Herceg-Bosna in western Herzegovina.

The position of the Bosnian governmentwas ostensibly to protect the multiculturaltraditions of the whole state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Whatever it was to begin with,it clearly evolved into a mission to preserveand protect the Muslim community withinBosnia-Herzegovina. There are many indi-cations that the trend was even to supportthe creation of a Muslim entity rather thanthe genuine preservation of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole.

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Into this context, I’d like to insert theinternational community, to correct somemisunderstandings. The international com-munity’s presence in the Yugoslav territorieshas been almost entirely for security policy.We look at the question of humanitarian in-tervention, the essence of the UN engage-ment with UNPROFOR, the United NationsProtection Force, without realizing that a lotof the time the humanitarian label was amarketing device. As a marketing device,humanitarian aid went down very well. Youcould explain to families why soldiers werebeing sent off. You could explain to the gen-eral public why a certain activity was takingplace. In fact there was a series of importantsecurity policy questions facing the memberstates of the European Community, theUnited Nations, and NATO, all of whichexercise elements of their own security pol-icy through those multilateral organizations.It is important that these should be under-stood.

First, having taken an initial step it wasimportant not to fail. States value credibilityfor their own well-being.

Second, there was an immediate outflowof refugees from the former Yugoslavia tocountries of the European Community.There was a need to take the sting out of thewar, to stanch the flow of refugees out of theregion.

Third was the question of containment.The conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina coun-tered the state border-changing projects ofSerbia and then Croatia without necessarilyinvolving others in the war. This was an ex-tremely difficult and complicated situationwhere the resources were not going to beavailable to achieve a clear outcome. It wasalso important to contain the conflict to theregion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ratherthan allowing the conflict to move into thesouthern tier of the Yugoslav territories atthe end of 1992.

Finally—and I think this is the crucialquestion for anybody trying to grapple withissues of Dayton—the international commu-nity had an interest in preserving the bordersof a state once it had been accepted into thefamily of nations. It is a cardinal principle ofinternational society that borders will not bechanged as a result of the use of force. Theinternational community spent a lot of timein 1992 and 1993 trying to think of a wayaround this problem. If they could have rec-ognized the dissolution of Bosnia-Herzegovina at that stage, I think they wouldhave done so, but every time they came upagainst the same stumbling block.

To understand the framework for Daytonis to understand that the security policy in-terests that initiated involvement have onlyintensified. This remains the framework forlooking at the legacy of the war, the con-tinuing problems associated with the peaceimplementation process, and any idea ofDayton, Dayton II, or consolidation.

The war ended because there was astalemate. There was a balance of interestsboth within the international community andon the ground in Bosnia. There is little thathas changed since Dayton. There is no pros-pect of immediate return to armed hostilitieson a widespread scale, but there is everyprospect of a series of localized incidents.The real question is not what is going tohappen tomorrow but for five years ahead.

Laura Silber:In 1995 we were all sitting in Dayton,

Ohio, and wondering whether the partieswould get a peace agreement. We sat in aroom at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,full of junk food, and thinking, “what’s go-ing to come of it?” We thought it wouldfail—the parties were threatening it wouldfail. Then, finally, as you know, it didn’tfail.

Dayton was an argument behind thescenes between a European and an American


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concept. Dayton tries to be everything to allthree parties. That is the essential problem ofDayton. On one hand, you have the Croatsand Muslims, who are together in a formalfederation but have different goals. On theother hand, the Serbs in Republika Srpskahave other aims. In long-term visions thereis very little overlap, little to allow oneunited goal.

When you go to Bosnia, clearly it’s verydifferent than it was in the war. When welook at what Dayton has achieved, it’s obvi-ous that there is very little fighting. We havehad some bad incidents, but the war is over.People can move relatively freely. I wastalking about this with a member of theIPTF, the International Police Task Force.He said that freedom of movement is muchbetter. “Now we can go anywhere.” Whatwe’re talking about actually is that the inter-nationals can move much more freely. Buttravel of local citizens from entity to entity isstill very difficult. This is going to be one ofthe major issues in the so-called consolida-tion period.

What else has Dayton achieved? Youhave the presidency, the three co-presidents,with Alija Izetbegović at the head of it. Buteach time the presidency even meets, it’s apolitical tug-of-war. You only get a result ifthe international community is there in theperson of either the high representative[formerly Carl Bildt and Carlos Westendorp,now Wolfgang Petritsch] or people from theOffice of the High Representative or theAmericans who will knock a few heads to-gether. This is how every single thing isachieved.

Dayton did not represent a change ofpolitical will amongst the parties. It was anacceptance of what was, that there was astalemate. It’s a calculated statement that“This is what we want for now.” There’s nosense that the leaders are actually ready tosay, “We will abide by Dayton,” and if they

say it, they all disagree on what Dayton is.When there’s less fighting, we’ll see thisclash of political wills. We see it in the formof impasse in the presidency, which for nowis the only institution which has even met,and it’s not even functioning.

On November 14, 1996, I was in Paris atthe meeting of the Peace ImplementationCouncil. We were no longer wonderingwhether Dayton would fail, but we werewondering what we were doing there; eventhe participants were wondering. In a sensethis was a restatement of what hadn’t beendone in Dayton. The only thing that was newwas perhaps a greater stress on economicconditionality for aid. There was no sense ofa new vision because everyone is waiting tolearn what the extent of military engagementwill be.

The September 1996 elections were sup-posed to give legitimacy to the parties. Infact they didn’t do anything but confirm inpower the very same leaders who had wagedthe war, with the exception of RadovanKaradžić, who under Dayton couldn’t standin the elections. But Radovan Karadžić stillwields power behind the scenes. You haveindicted war criminals behind the scenes notonly amongst the Bosnian Serbs, but alsoamongst the Bosnian Croats. That is some-thing else that hasn’t been achieved withDayton.

We will see a greater attempt to call at-tention to what hasn’t been achieved inDayton particularly on the part of the Mus-lims. There’s very little sign that there willbe any compliance from either the Serbs orthe Croats on arresting war criminals. Youhave some symbolic gestures but certainlyno real indication that they intend to comply.

More significantly there has been almostno progress on the right of return for refu-gees. This is going to be the single most im-portant issue. There will be clashes—I don’tmean a return to war—on the borders be-

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tween the entities. We’ve seen this since thefirst attempts by the refugees to return. It’sin the interest of the Bosnian Muslim leader-ship to call attention to these clashes, whilethe Serbs will say these are provocations.For the international community it’s obvi-ously in their political interest to say, “We’rehaving these refugees go back,” and then seewhat happens. The Serbs will always re-spond. So we’ll see more and more conflictswith the attempts by the refugees to returnacross the Inter-Entity Boundary Line to Re-publika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb republic.

This will be a real flashpoint. We’ll seeit grow and then wane, as a result of politicalpressure. We saw in the Paris Implementa-tion Conference an attempt by the Europeanand American representatives to say, “Oh,it’s more and more the parties’ responsibil-ity.” In fact, it’s not nearly at a point wherethe parties are going to say, “OK. We agree.Let’s just abide by Dayton.” So as the mili-tary phases out—obviously, we will have asmaller force—there will be a greater needfor political and economic engagement.

As the interest of Western governmentsdecreases, in fact the need for their involve-ment will remain as great, because there isno political resolution in sight yet. This rep-resents a grave danger.

There has been little progress in eco-nomic reconstruction. Aid has been effec-tively stopped because the West does notwant to give it to the Bosnian government,which is now the caretaker government untila central government is formed. Also, onlyone percent of the total aid pledged has beengiven to Republika Srpska. In the eyes of theWest, that’s the stick for the Bosnian Mus-lims and for the Serbs. But as we look atRepublika Srpska, it’s not a very effectivestick. They say, “Well we’ve only got onepercent of the aid. So cut it off. If we don’tget a million dollars, it doesn’t make muchof a difference to us.” It’s a difficult card toplay. The Bosnian government, or the Mus-

lims, whatever that political entity, can saywith some real justice, “Well, if you stop theaid, then there will be no progress. Thewhole political momentum which you werehoping to gain will be stalled.”

Those are some of the dilemmas that aregoing to be posed to the international com-munity in the post-Dayton period. It’s veryunrealistic to expect anything from the mu-nicipal elections. There is a very big prob-lem. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe still has not straightenedout what the rules are. The P2 election formin controversy allowed refugees to go backand vote anywhere they wanted to live in thefuture. It also gave the Serb authorities thelicense to manipulate within the letter of theagreement, trying to tip the scales in dis-puted towns such as Brčko and Srebrenica,which were predominantly Muslim beforethe war, so that with the election they wouldbecome predominantly Serb. If the OSCEmandate is extended, which it is likely to be,the OSCE obviously will abolish the P2form.

But there’s still the question of freedomof movement. How will the Muslims travelto Srebrenica to vote? How will they go andcast their ballots? And even if the election isviolence-free in the way that the elections ofSeptember 1996 were, how will successfulminority candidates take office? We’ll befaced with a series of local governments inexile. That’s going to be another big issue.

Until there is some sort of vision, we canexpect a muddle-through. There is a realneed for effort and sustained attention by theinternational community. One of my fears isthat, as there are other crises throughout theworld, particularly now in Africa, there willbe less and less of an appetite to give therequired attention to Bosnia. This will playto the hands of the various leaders on theground who see that they can wait out a year,and then wait out another year and then say,“OK. Now we can finish up what we


34

started.” If not by war, then by politicalmeans. Until there is some reconciliation ofthe various visions of Bosnia and of formerYugoslavia, there is no reason to expect anysort of lasting peace in the region.

Susan Woodward:One of the elements of the story that

Laura Silber has been telling is how the in-ternational community is trying to enforcean agreement that is only partially of interestto those who actually signed it, namely thethree parties of Bosnia. How do you get apresidency of three persons to work togetherwhen they don’t have the same interests?The initial problem was how to get threepersons to sit around a round table. Thinkabout the difficulty of that. It took a verylong time—eight hours of simply movingaround.

David Harland is an extraordinary re-source. What has been reported publicly isoften very different from what’s happeningon-the-ground. This is particularly true inNorth America and the United States, evenmore so than in Europe. There are oftenvery, very different stories.

David Harland has worked under threeentirely different United Nations regimes aspolitical adviser in Sarajevo. He has a longexperience of what it means to be living inthat situation. First he was political adviserto Victor Andreas, the head of United Na-tions Civil Affairs in the Sarajevo office,then political adviser to Assistant Secretary-General Hedi Annabi and General RupertSmith, in the follow-on period, a differentperiod in 1995 than it was in 1993 and 1994,and now he serves as political adviser to theSecretary-General’s special representative inBosnia-Herzegovina, Iqbal Riza, underUNMIBH [UN Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina], the UN operation that accom-panies the IFOR deployment.

David Harland:While I do work for the UN, what I will

present is a personal view. The UN’s per-spective is that Dayton is a fine thing andthat “We are actively seized of the matter.”

My view is that Dayton has failed toachieve its full potential—for reasons whichhave partly to do with the non-actions of theinternational community.

When I was a student 15 years ago inNew Zealand, advertisers were trying topromote a nonalcoholic whiskey calledClayton’s. The advertisement for Clayton’sfeatured a man at a bar saying, “I’ll have aClayton’s. It’s the drink I have when I’m nothaving a drink.” In my view, Dayton is thepeace agreement you have when you’re nothaving a peace agreement.

I will speak a little bit about the chronol-ogy of the events that led to the DaytonAgreement and how that shaped expecta-tions. The final process to end the war and toget to Dayton began on August 28, 1995,when a shell landed in a Sarajevo market-place, killing many dozens of people. Thefamous “keys” were turned that initiated airstrikes. That contributed to a loss of territoryby the Serbs, taking them to Dayton whenthey were at a military disadvantage for thefirst time. The last battle of the war wasfought on October 11, 1995.

During the weeks that followed thebombing campaign at the end of August andthrough early September 1995, the Serbs losta lot of ground. Instead of controlling three-quarters of the country, by October 11, 1995,they controlled only 49 percent of the coun-try. That was convenient because the inter-national community had said that in anypeace agreement the Serbs would get 49percent of the country. That was not a coin-cidence.

The day the war ended on the battlefield,the Croats had 21 percent of the territory,somewhat more than the 17.5 percent envis-

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aged under an earlier peace proposal. TheBosniacs had 31 percent, not far from the 33percent earlier envisaged.

When hostilities closed, none of thesides had achieved their basic war aims. Thebasic war aim of the Bosnian Serbs, as statedby Radovan Karadžić when the war began,was to create a single territory of Serbs,contiguous with the mother state, Serbia,and recognized as the Republika Srpska withits own army. When the war ended the Serbshad accomplished part of that. What theywere offered at Dayton was almost a freez-ing of the status quo. The Bosnian Serbs hadextraordinary autonomy and were de factoindependent, but their independence was notto be recognized as such. The DaytonAgreement did not let Republika Srpska beofficially recognized as an independent statebut gave it almost everything else, includingthe right to raise its own army. Mutatis mu-tandis, the Bosnian Croats also wished asingle territory contiguous with Croatia. TheSerbs and Croats each had as minimum waraims the establishment of living areas fortheir people, detached from Bosnia-Herzegovina, to be attached to their motherstates in some form of association.

The Bosniac war aim, of course, was tokeep a united Bosnia-Herzegovina, which,of course, the Bosniacs would dominate asthe most numerous community. The moreunitary and centralized the political system,the greater the extent to which the Bosniacswould dominate it. The Bosniacs were frus-trated as they went into Dayton, being farfrom meeting those basic goals.

Thus, in a way, Dayton ratified thesituation on the ground. Everybody got,more or less, the territory they held on theground. Everybody got, more or less, thedegree of autonomy they already enjoyed.The arrangements were just formalized. Butthis is not a solution.

The international community decidedfairly early on that it was not going to push

for any forced implementation of the morehortatory aspects of Dayton. Dayton speaksof laudable things, like refugees returning totheir homes and freedom of movementacross the Inter-Entity Boundary Line be-tween Republika Srpska and the Bosniac-Croat Federation. But I am concerned thatthere never really was an intention to enforceand uphold these things. The internationalcommunity in effect blessed the partition ofthe country without sprinkling the holy wa-ter of international recognition on it, perhapsbecause that would have been perceived as arecognition of ethnic cleansing. The com-promise was to have high-sounding lan-guage in the constitution—which languagemight not be implemented.

There was no good faith at all among theparties. They never intended to implementanything and even now, much of our workfocuses around what are the three sides do-ing to prepare for the next round of conflict,including the next round of armed conflict.

The international community has beenfaced with five specific areas in which Day-ton has not been implemented. Implementa-tion of these five parts of Dayton could havebrought about a somewhat changed envi-ronment.

First was the transfer of Serb Sarajevo,the one-third of Sarajevo that was controlledby the Serbs throughout the war. When theseterritories were transferred at Dayton toBosniac control, the Serb population left—itbecame almost 100 percent non-Serb at thatstage, thanks to ethnic cleansing. Before theconflict these Sarajevo suburbs always had aslight Serb majority or at least a Serb plural-ity. When the actual day of transfer came,the Bosnian Serbs left.

My impression is that most people didnot leave for the reasons that the nationalistpoliticians on both sides want to say. Theydid not leave because they didn’t want tolive with “dirty, stinking Bosniacs.” Theyleft because of fear. They left because they


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were afraid of the Pale authorities who wereburning the houses of people who refused toleave. Pale was terrorizing them, closing allthe schools and all of the hospitals, and tak-ing away all of the factory equipment. Theywere also afraid of what the Bosniacs weregoing to do when they arrived.

The international community did little tosupport the Serb population. The land forcesof IFOR’s headquarters are in Ilid`a, whichis one of the Serb suburbs. An extraordinaryconcentration of firepower was availableclose at hand, which the international com-munity chose not to deploy.

It was the policy, not simply the lack ofresources, but the policy of the internationalcommunity, not to stop this exodus createdby the terror of Serb extremists. The corol-lary, of course, is that Bosniac nationalistsalso wanted these people to leave. The inter-national community was not putting suffi-cient pressure on the Bosniacs to issue anamnesty for men of military age, and so on.That was February 1996.

A second area of inaction was the pro-posal to establish independent television.The principal fuel to the fire of the wars ofnationalist succession in Yugoslavia was themass media. The high representative, CarlBildt, had a mandate to establish an inde-pendent, open broadcast network, includingsetting up his own transmitters and allocat-ing frequencies to them. Due to the objec-tions of the three incumbent national sides,in February 1996, this project was dilutedand postponed.

The third area of inaction is freedom ofmovement and return of refugees. This is aproblem of resources. I agree that you can’thave, and you could never have had, a situa-tion in which IFOR would have protectedthe full return of refugees or everybodymoving across the Inter-Entity BoundaryLine. But there are, in fact, areas close to theIEBL which are very suitable for return.

For instance, the town of Trnovo, 20kilometers south of Sarajevo, is in the zoneof separation, a zone 2 kilometers on eitherside of the IEBL, patrolled by the NATO-ledforces. Trnovo is surrounded on three sidesby the Bosniac-Croat Federation. The onlymain road from it leads into the federation,and yet Trnovo was allocated to the Repub-lika Srpska. The town had been largely de-stroyed, so few Serbs had moved into it. Theoriginal Bosniac inhabitants wanted to moveback, but this was not aggressively sup-ported by the international community.Similarly, a number of Serbs decided thatthey wanted to return to the town of Drvar,which had been 98 percent Serb before thewar. Drvar was entirely uninhabited whenthe war ended, as the Croats who captured itdid not immediately resettle the town, and itwas eminently suitable for reoccupation byits original inhabitants. Even these pilotprojects were stalled.

A fourth problem is the election rules.On April 22, 1996, the Provisional ElectionCommission read the line in Annex 3 of theDayton Agreement which says that “A citi-zen who no longer lives in the municipalityin which he or she resided in 1991 shall, as ageneral rule, be expected to vote in person orby absentee ballot, in that municipality . . . ,”and then created an election rule which saysyou can vote more or less anywhere youwant to irrespective of where you used tolive.

This election rule meant that the Serbswere able to create a Serb electoral majorityin the twelve municipalities in the RepublikaSrpska that had Bosniac majorities beforethe war, by assigning Serbs from the Bos-niac-Croat Federation to vote in thoseplaces.

One of the principles implicit in Annex 3was that one should start to unravel ethniccleansing by recreating in the legislativestructures the demographic makeup of Bos-

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nia prior to ethnic cleansing. The unfortu-nate effect of this rule was that exactly theopposite happened. As a result, 500,000Serbs from the federation, instead of havingto vote for the non-nationalist parties in thefederation, were able to vote for Krajišnik inSrebrenica.

A fifth area of concern has been the con-duct of the elections. The Provisional Elec-tion Commission [PEC] established an ap-peals subcommission to hear any com-plaints. An independent organization, theInternational Crisis Group (ICG), a nongov-ernmental organization, filed an official le-gal complaint saying that the number ofvotes cast on election day was suspiciouslyhigh. The complaint was found to be valid,but the OSCE and the PEC rejected the rul-ing nevertheless and destroyed the evidenceby burning the ballots.

Given that the Provisional ElectionCommission was meant to produce an elec-tion list, it is hard to credit the claim thatthey didn’t know within 300,000 people,which is 10 to 15 percent of the electorate,how many people were eligible to vote.

This raises the possibility of fraud. TheICG noted that there were several opstinasin which more than 100 percent of thepopulation voted. When we went to a seniorofficial of the Bosniacs' Party of DemocraticAction (SDA) and said, “This looks suspi-ciously high,” he replied, “Yes, yes, wecheated, but probably less than the otherparties.” This was a laudably honest answer,for the Balkans.

Dayton cemented in place an inherentlyunstable status quo. Dayton’s full potentialhas not been reached partly because the in-ternational community has failed fully toimplement even the weak provisions it con-tained.

Woodward:The scenario David Harland ended with

is probably the most likely scenario for the

future, if you’re thinking in terms of 5 to 25years.

Very few people now think that we’regoing to recreate, reintegrate, or knit to-gether Bosnia and Herzegovina, despitewhat Dayton says and the spirit of Dayton.That isn’t to say that it couldn’t be done. Butwe’re talking about probabilities.

The worst-case scenario is a resumptionof war. This is something that people thinkis unlikely. The efforts by the Bosnian gov-ernment to send back Muslims to homes inareas which are strategically important—torecapture territory—could cause war. It’s notthe only cause possible, but that one is clear.One begins to see in these current develop-ments a scenario for a resumption of war.An explosion of violence in Kosovo alsocould then reverberate, with a reverse spill-over. Resumption of the war is unlikely,though, because the large amount of moneyand political risk invested by outsiders intrying to end the war and prevent it from re-suming will keep people engaged in the longrun.

That leads to the current scenario: limp-ing along with a kind of unstable, fragilepeace, with an international presence on-the-ground. This shows not only in what we didat Dayton, but in what we have done overthe last year.

Let me turn to what we are trying to ac-complish and the way we are going about it.There are three hypotheses about what’shappening on the ground.

The first one you can hear most explic-itly from General [John] Shalikashvili, thechairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: thatthis is an agreement of the parties, and it’sup to them to make their own peace. “It’stheir country,” as the current language inWashington says. It’s now being appliedeverywhere. “It’s their problem. We have tolet them own it.” In other words, what’s go-ing on on the ground is what the partieswant. Indeed, the three political party lead-


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ers, as they did in October through Decem-ber 1990, are collaborating in their efforts toachieve this.

The second possibility is that the UnitedStates, and to a certain extent the interna-tional community, wanted this outcome.There was an effective agreement to parti-tion Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in a waythat was face-saving for the internationalcommunity with suitable rhetoric.

The third possible hypothesis, which Itend toward, is that we only know how topartition. This has nothing to do with theintentions of any of the parties or the inter-national community. But at this stage—thismight have been different three or four yearsago—the institutional capacity that we haveto solve these kinds of problems only leadsto further territorial partition.

Let me go through the elements of whatwe are trying to do on the ground and wherewe are. Dayton is not just a political agree-ment, but more importantly, as operationaltypes like David Harland like to say, it is aGFAP, a general framework agreement forpeace. Notice they don’t say Dayton Accordor political agreement, they say a “generalframework.”

What does the GFAP contain? It’s basi-cally four elements. The first is to consoli-date the cease-fire. We’re very good at sepa-rating forces. It’s also true, of course, thatthe parties themselves wanted a cease-fire atthat time, as David Harland has said. Theymay have wanted it because they want timeto reconnoiter, to reorganize armies, to pre-pare themselves for the next stage. There iscertainly evidence that that is taking place.Nonetheless, the separation of forces by theNATO-led IFOR was very successful. Thereis continuing destruction of weapons whichare illegal. There is continuing monitoring ofcantonment. There is an effort to move notonly from Annex 1A, a very carefullyworked-out arrangement of the tasks for

separation of forces and demobilization ofthe army, to Annex 1B, called “military sta-bilization,” an attempt to implement bymonitoring, the arms control agreements ne-gotiated in January and February 1996 inVienna and Stockholm. This is somewhatproblematic given the “train and equip,” oras the Bosnians prefer to say it, the “equipand train” program mandated by the Con-gress of the United States. That will causesome serious troubles for the stabilizationforce that follows IFOR, in what role theyare to play. Is it to implement the arms con-trol agreements? Or is it to “train andequip,” to solidify and improve the qualityof one of the two armies? There are, in fact,three armies, but we say that there is onefederation army and one Serb army. Is it thetask of the international force to improve thequality of the federation army within Bos-nia?

In this first category of cease-fire, mili-tary commanders in the IFOR operation willtell you that they believe the cooperationamong the military leaders of all three sideshas been very good. This is particularly truein the confidence-building measures—basedon the Helsinki Accords and the Conven-tional Forces in Europe negotiations—whereyou get people together, share information,and visit sites together. One could ask whatthat means when you see disagreementsbetween military and political leaders con-tinue within political camps. This is mostblatant in the Serb case, in the negotiationsto get rid of General Mladić, but it is notlimited to the Serbs.

The second element of the GFAP is po-litical institutions. We haven’t yet told youmuch about the Dayton Accord’s constitu-tional arrangements. The Muslim-CroatFederation was created in 1994 by theWashington Agreement. The WashingtonAgreement was negotiated by the UnitedStates with assistance from Germany, on the

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basis of proposals coming largely fromCroatian intellectuals from Central Bosnia,and it created a federation agreement be-tween what we called Muslims—now calledBosniacs—and Croats. The hope was to stopthe war in central Bosnia at the time. Thatagreement created a federation based on theright of two nations to self-determinationwithin joint structures. The Dayton Accordis basically an attempt to extend the Wash-ington Agreement to include the Serbs—notunder the terms of the original BosnianCroat proposal, but, nonetheless, it is simplyextending it.

So what do we have? We have a country,at least in the sense of legal recognition—asDavid Harland said, in terms of reality,maybe two or three countries—but one in-ternationally recognized country within theborders of the former Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that has two entities. One ofthose two entities, however, is a federationbetween two nations. The other entity is onenation. The Bosniac-Croat Federation has aparliament. It is divided into cantons, whatwe might call “counties,” and below thecantons are municipal governments. Theother entity, Republika Srpska, the Serb Re-public, does not have cantons. It did notchoose to introduce that middle level ofauthority. It has an entity parliament, andunder that it has municipal governments.The municipal units in both entities are nolonger administratively aligned with whatwere municipal governments before the warbut are a continuation of an administrativeand political tradition in which the opstinaswere the key units of political power. Thetwo entities are joined by what the Serbs liketo call a “thin roof” or what the Office of theHigh Representative Carl Bildt calls “thecommon institutions.” The task, since theelection of September 14, 1996, has been tocreate the political means by which thesethree parties, representatives of the three na-

tions of Bosnia and Herzegovina—Croats,Muslims, and Serbs—can work together.

The common government is a “thinroof” not because the Serbs call it that, butbecause the architects of Dayton wrote itthat way. It was said by the Americans atDayton that the only way that you could getthese people to stay in one country, given therealities at the time, was to have a very de-centralized state. The common institutionsare basically to handle relations with theoutside world. It’s not at all surprising thatthe first meetings, even before the elections,but certainly afterwards, saw fights over whowould get which ambassadorial position. Itmatters. There is also a central bank whichwill, according to the Dayton Agreement,operate as a currency board for six years.The chairman of the central bank is ap-pointed by the International Monetary Fund[IMF]. Any of you who know about cur-rency boards know that means no monetarypolicy. It will simply be controlled by thestrength of the dominant currency, whichwill either be, as it is currently, the Croatiankuna, which is used in one-third of thecountry, or the deutsche mark. The centralbank and the customs authority are the onlybasic economic authority of this thin roof.They are all international operations other-wise. Not even defense functions are at thiscommon level. Defense and all of the eco-nomic functions key to operating a govern-ment are at the entity level.

Then you come up from below. In theformer Yugoslavia, local self-managementwas dominant. It was even more decentral-ized than what I have described, althoughthe federal government was trying to recap-ture some powers in the course of the 1980sto make it more effective at managing thedebt crisis in foreign trade. The formerYugoslavia had no capacity for economicmanagement because it was overly decen-tralized. In fact, it was the World Bank andthe IMF that were requiring recentralization


40

in the ’80s to compensate for problems thatwere real. The World Bank representativesat Dayton decided that overcentralizationmust have been the problem, so let’s struc-ture Bosnia to compensate for that problem.The wrong lesson learned. Centralization isstill true of Republika Srpska, but in the fed-eration of Bosniacs and Croats, most of thepowers that matter—schools, roads, and po-lice—are at the cantonal level. The cantonsare where the rural vote dominates over theurban vote, where the nationalist politicalparties on both the Bosniac and the Croatsides have their strength.

We will see, when the municipal elec-tions are held, what that does to the forma-tion of these institutions. Who will be ruling,who would win in the September 1996 na-tional election, was predetermined by theDayton Agreement, because all of the con-stitutional and electoral provisions whichDavid Harland was citing create what wewould call an “ethnically” defined politicalsystem, or what they would call a “nation-ally” defined system.

The presidency consists of three repre-sentatives, one for each nation. You can votefor your national candidate only in the entityrepresenting that nation. If you’re a Serb inthe federation, and there are up to 250,000Serbs in the federation, you cannot vote forthe Serb representative of the presidency;you have to be living in Republika Srpska todo that. If you’re a Bosniac who is living inRepublika Srpska, you can’t vote for a Bos-niac or Muslim representative, and so forth.It is not surprising, therefore, that most Bos-niacs did not cross over into RepublikaSrpska to vote in September 1996 becausethat would have denied them the most im-portant vote. They will cross over when itdoes matter, at the local level.

Even in institutions like the central bank,Croats and Bosniacs, each representing na-tional interests rather than individual busi-

ness or alternative interests, share one vote.The Serbs have one vote. Dayton definedevery institution with an ethnic or nationalvote “representation.”

Finally, as was true in the WashingtonAgreement, Dayton has a long list of con-stitutional principles including universal andEuropean conventions concerning humanrights, to which this state must conform.This includes an ombudsman for humanrights. There are other commissions, such ason property and transportation, with details Iwon’t go into.

Let me then turn to the two other ele-ments of the Dayton Agreement. Laura Sil-ber has mentioned how the economic recon-struction program has not really gone far.Economic reconstruction is absolutely criti-cal to the success of the Dayton Agreement,as well as to the classic forms ofpeacekeeping at the end of a civil war. Eco-nomic revival turns people away from wartoward peace. The assumption is that youwon’t get peace if the economy doesn’t re-vive and reconstruction doesn’t take place. Ifdemobilized soldiers don’t have jobs, if youcan’t bring the urban, professional, skilledrefugees back home, if there’s nothing tobring them back home for, if there is 90 per-cent unemployment, and hyperinflationthreatens, once humanitarian aid ends andthe budget has to take over responsibility forsalaries and safety nets, you return to theconditions in Yugoslavia of the 1980s thatJames Gow has just described—conditionswhich led to war in the first place. Economicreconstruction is the task of the outsiders.

It’s very slow, because of institutionalcapacity. We do not know how to workother than through state institutions. Wegive aid to people whom we trust becausethey are sovereign—I hope you hear theirony in that sentence—and who will be ableto repay the money we give them. Most ofthe people who are working in the field, or

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who are trying to advise on how to end thewar in Bosnia, say that what we need is abottom-up strategy. Let’s give lots of moneyto nongovernmental organizations and createthem. Let’s create civil society. Let’s getcitizens going at the local level. Let’s forgetabout Sarajevo, Mostar, or Pale. A bottom-up strategy will wean these people awayfrom war. We’ll wean the war criminals andthe regular criminals away from their profits,and so forth.

It’s not working. We don’t know how todo that. So by the middle of the summer1996, when funds from the World Bank,which is really where most of the money hascome from, were not flowing in fast enoughto get people employed so they would votethe way we wanted them to vote in Septem-ber 1996, countries began to shift to bilater-alism. Now you have every country givingaid through their own aid agencies—a won-derful opportunity for the parties on theground to play off one against the other andput a little extra money in their pockets.There are still fundamental disagreementsamong the major powers who provide theresources—the donors—about what the re-construction policy should be. Should wegive money to Bosnia at all because it is notstable yet? Hans Van den Broeck isn’t sosure and he controls a good deal of money.Should we give money to the Serbs or just tothe federation as the World Bank has doneso far? In the last year 98.7 percent of allresources from the World Bank and othermultilaterals has gone to the federationwhile 1.3 percent went to the RepublikaSrpska.

Should we, in fact, have a regional strat-egy? There’s a second level of disagreementover regional strategy. What does it mean tobe regional? The UN high commissioner forrefugees says that there is no way they candeal with population returns and amelioratethe continuing possibility for further dis-placement unless we have a regional strat-

egy. The Serbs who will leave Eastern Sla-vonia and Croatia will probably go mainlytoward Bosnia. They are not in Bosnia, butare critical for the Bosnian story. What aboutthe exodus of Albanians out of Kosovo? Westill don’t have a unified regional view.UNHCR has one strategy. The Italian gov-ernment has another strategy under theirpresidency in the EU [European Union]. TheCommission of the European Union has an-other strategy. We do not have agreement.

Most importantly, the organizations thathave the assets are not the organizations incharge of political strategy. The Office ofthe High Representative under Carl Bildt hasa very well developed Bosnian Task Forcefor the Economy and very well developedprograms in the regional areas. They don’thave the money. The World Bank hasmoney. It has a very different approach. Oneof its approaches, the approach of most do-nors, is to give priority to projects whichwill transform this country into a marketeconomy. So we have to create a centralbank first, even though we can’t do it be-cause of the political disagreements thatLaura Silber has talked about. Until we havea central bank we can’t have commercialbanks. We can’t have investment into regu-lar industries, let alone the hope of foreigndirect investment, which will be the essen-tial key to reviving this economy, until wehave a commercial banking system and wedon’t have a commercial banking system. Inother words: if we choose to put money intoemployment or first to reform the economy,economic reform always seems to take pri-ority.

Let me turn to the fourth and final ele-ment of the next period and that is internalsecurity. Members of the NATO-led forcesay it’s not their job to police. It’s not theirjob to protect human rights. It’s not their jobto help develop civil rights. If this is onecountry, it is the internal security apparatus,in a positive sense, that has to be developed


42

to protect individual rights, including politi-cal and civil rights, and human rights.

The international police task force run bythe UN has as its main task not only tomonitor these internal security forces, butalso to reform the police. By tradition, theinternational police task force is not armedand cannot perform traditional police func-tions.

If, as Laura Silber and David Harlandhave described, the three parties are stillfighting the war, though so far not in mili-tary terms, and none of them have achievedtheir political goals, that they are still at astalemate, the police are going to continue tobe instruments of state-building projects.The police cannot be community servants, aswe insist on training them. We may trainthem, as we did in Germany in September1996 and in Washington in November 1996.We may insist on police downsizing. But thepolice at the moment are reserves for themilitaries. We cannot change what they dountil we decide what is the political outcomein Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We are moving, in fact, toward two ele-ments. The military side is called “stabiliza-tion.” The civilian side is much less ambi-tious. I wish Ruth Wedgwood were rightthat it’s Dayton II. Everyone says we need aDayton II, but no one is willing to do it. Wehave a program called the consolidationplan, on the assumption that in the first 12months we’ve basically done what was nec-essary and now we need just to give it sometime. What I think you’ve heard from allfour of us in different ways is that is simplynot the case. So while we may not be headedfor a serious breakdown, it’s not at all clearwhere we are headed—it’s just guessing oneveryone’s part.

The fact that President Clinton decidedon November 14, 1996, that we would stay18 months has not allowed enough time todefine a new mandate for this period—al-

though 18 months is much better than 12because we really could decide how to learnfrom the lessons of the first year and makesome improvements. As I’ve just heard uponreturn from European capitals, the main mo-tive of this implementation is hope that timeand economic reconstruction and resourceswill bring peace and reintegration to Bosniaand Herzegovina. In the meantime, we willnot change what we’re doing, but how we’redoing it. We will increasingly use “condi-tionality”—stopping the progress of eco-nomic reconstruction when we want to get apolitical outcome, not really contributing toeconomic revival, and strengthening the co-ordinating power and resources of the Officeof the High Representative. But the latter isnot something the Americans have signed onto. In other words, we have created a situa-tion that will continue to be highly unstable,in which monies will probably decline ratherthan increase, and in which there will be noparties on the international side willing tomake the hard choices about what politicalanimal they have created in the Balkans.This will certainly not allow the refugees tocome home.

What we’ve seen since Dayton is evenmore displacements than there are returns.The net return to homes is almost zero. Notonly will the refugees not be able to comehome and, therefore, Germany will becomean increasingly important actor not only withits combat troops of 5,000 on the ground—anew development—but in its pressures toget refugees home. We’re likely to see an-other wave of returning refugees. This couldwell revive quarrels within the NATO alli-ance, one of the few successes of the DaytonAccord. And everyone, as they have over thelast years, will look to Washington.

Question:Mr. Harland, was it possible to find a

solution which the international community

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would support and implement that wouldhave brought about something other the“apartheid” system which now exists inBosnia and would have led to greater inte-gration of Bosnians? Also in the summer of1995, in your view, would Republika Srpskahave been defeated and Bosnia reintegratedif the military offensive of the Bosnian armyhad not been stopped?

Harland:I’m not a great military expert, and like

all nonmilitary experts I have strong opin-ions on military matters. My understandingis that it was all over for the Serbs on Octo-ber 11, 1995. There was a feeling that BanjaLuka, the largest city in the RepublikaSrpska, might have been exposed to directattack, perhaps within about 72 hours. It wasall over. The Serbs had to stop the Croatianarmy as it moved up the narrow Vrbas can-yon, and they had failed to do so. The Croatshad established armored artillery on the highground in the area known as Manjaća, im-mediately south of Banja Luka. The Serbarmy was largely diverted further west fac-ing the Bosniacs in the Prijedor area, not re-alizing that the Bosniacs were not about toattack. They also had some units wasted upon the northern border with Croatia, wherethe Croats were sending probing attacks onthe river.

So, yes, as a nonmilitary expert withstrong views, I believe that the Serbs were indeep trouble. I think that the fall of BanjaLuka would have led to an Operation Stormsituation with a mass exodus of the Serbs.The really interesting strategic question iswhether Milošević could have afforded that,and whether he would have been obliged tosend his divisions over the Drina. But that,of course, is speculation. I don’t know.

The first question is one that interestsme. Under the Dayton Agreement there are alot of things the international communitycould have done which would not have rein-

forced ethnic cleansing, and which wouldnot have supported the nationalistic agendasof the parties. Somebody said that there hadbeen very few returns of refugees. It’s worsethan that. The three areas of control are moreethnically pure now than they were when thepeace agreement was signed.

As I mentioned, the international com-munity is partly implicated in the failure toestablish some structures of multiethnic liv-ing. They failed to get a grip on the media.Instead of creating a security environment inSarajevo, where several more tens of thou-sands of Serbs might have wanted to stay asa multiethnic city, they preferred not to in-tervene decisively. Instead of running theimmediate risk of an election which wouldhave created a Bosniac mayor of a town inthe Republika Srpska, with all the logisticaldifficulties that would imply, initial electionrules were established which guaranteed thatthe results of ethnic cleansing would be ef-fectively endorsed.

Even though Dayton didn’t offer a lot, itoffered a number of small steps whichwould have created a useful core for the re-establishment of a multiethnic state. I don’tsee in Bosnia any options other than a multi-ethnic state further integrated than the onewe have at the moment, or a military conclu-sion in which one party is ethnicallycleansed. The latter option is a real possibil-ity.

Silber:If the offensive had not been stopped, it

would have meant an end to any sort of Serbpresence in Bosnia and Herzegovina. So, ifwe talk about wanting a multiethnic Bosnia,clearly that offensive should have beenstopped. If the idea was to have Muslim andCroat domination over Bosnia and Herzego-vina, then it could have gone on. I thinkthat’s a central point of what the goals wereat the time. It was retaining a Serb presence.


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Gow:This is extremely pertinent to discus-

sions about what’s going to happen in thefuture. In any discussion about a return tomajor armed hostilities, there has to be a ba-sic understanding of a series of essentialmilitary factors.

The answer to the question you posed is“no.” The Bosnian army could not havegone on and accomplished the kind of thingsyou’re talking about. It accomplished what itdid achieve largely because it had backingfrom the United States and from Croatia.Croatia, with assistance from the UnitedStates, had been able to put together an armycapable of strategic-level as well as opera-tional-level missions. The Bosnian army todate is still not capable of managing a seriesof coordinated operational-level missions,and is not going to be able to do so for somelong time ahead, irrespective of equipmentor training. This is especially true becausethe Bosnian army continues to put the focuson, as Susan Woodward said, equip first,rather than train. So, we’re looking at a pe-riod of a few years before there is going tobe that kind of capability.

I believe that the decision had alreadybeen taken by the Croats with a lot of en-couragement from the United States, and inface of a series of mutinies in the ranks asthey were moving up past Glamoć, to calloff the operation on Banja Luka, and thiswas planned well ahead. That decision wastaken by the end of August, by the time theNATO air strikes began. So, when we’relooking at October 11, 1995, the decisionwas already taken before the end of August1995 not to support the move toward BanjaLuka. Milošević at that stage and any timeafterward would not have been able to resistgiving support to any operations which wereEast of the Brčko line. The Yugoslav armywould have been deployed in that instance, Ithink.

Question:I have one question for David Harland

which I won’t ask him according to hiswishes, and that is, “Who did fire the shellin the Sarajevo marketplace? And was theshell fired or thrown?” I won’t ask thatquestion. The question I would like to ask isabout the equip-and-train program. Do yousee the equip-and-train program as dividingthe federation even more than it’s supposedto be bringing it back together? Especiallyseeing how there are squabbles between theCroats and Muslims on how they’re going todivide up the equipment, how the equipmentis going to be controlled, who is going toshare the training, who’s going to hold thetanks, and who’s going to hold the muni-tions—which is a really interesting question.If one side has the tanks and the other sidehas the munitions, who has control? Isequip[ment] and training actually helpingthe federation?

Harland:Who fired the famous shell on August

28, 1995? And is the equip-and-train pro-gram, EAT, for short, going to strengthenthe federation or weaken it?

There is substantial evidence that theSerbs fired the shell.

To answer the second question: No,equip[ment] and train[ing] certainly does notstrengthen the federation. Given that one ofthe goals of the American equip-and-trainpolicy is to strengthen the federation, it’sironic that it has increased the divisionsbetween the Croats and Bosniacs. As for thepractical question, will one side get the mu-nitions and the other the training, or will oneside get the equipment and the other side getthe ammunition for it? No, that’s not goingto be a problem. In fact, the allocation ofweapons and ammunition between them has

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already been largely decided. Most of it isgoing to go to the Bosniacs.

Question:Why are there not more resignations or

protests? George Kenney is the main personwe know who did that. What is the main ef-fect of that? Some very sensible people haveincredibly bad faith toward the thing and yetthere is very little resignation or protest.

Harland:I arrived in Sarajevo near the beginning

of the siege and while I have not alwaysagreed with UN policy, I have stayed be-cause it is, for me, the most interesting, im-portant thing I’ve ever done with my life. Ithas completely changed my life.

Question:Would Laura Silber and David Harland

comment on the proposition that it was notthe electoral law that was flawed, rather itwas the way the reforms were manipulatedto reinforce ethnic separation. Is it not thecase that there really wasn’t anything practi-cally or morally wrong with offering therefugees the choice of voting either wherethey were or where they would like to live?

Silber:I agree completely. The question was,

was it just because of manipulation, and wasthere anything inherently wrong with al-lowing refugees the right to vote where theywant to live? I think you’re completely right.The problem was there was no politicalfreedom to hold elections, but the interna-tional community had decided that theywanted to hold elections regardless of whatthe climate was like, regardless of whetherthe conditions were there. The conditionssimply weren’t there.

Everyone knew that the elections wouldbe manipulated. I talked about it with themediators and various European and Ameri-

cans three months before the elections, andeveryone was aware the elections would bemanipulated. Yet, I think they were hopingthat somehow it wouldn’t become public orwouldn’t be too gross. The fact of the matteris that the Serb authorities were particularlygood at it. They calculated exactly howmuch would be needed to weight the localelections in their favor.

Personally, I don’t see anything wrongwith offering people the right to live wherethey wish. I do not think that the idea inDayton was to hold people prisoner wherethey had lived before. If they simply didn’twant to live there, they shouldn’t have to.But the fact is, they never had the choice.People were handed forms and told that ifthey didn’t register to vote in Brčko, theywouldn’t be getting food. The refugees weremanipulated. The refugees had no access toother information. It wasn’t as if refugeesliving in Serbia said, “Well, I don’t know,how is it if I went back into Zenica?” whichis in the federation. That wasn’t even achoice in their mind. There were refugeeswho wanted to go back to Drvar, and theyweren’t allowed to. Drvar is now under ba-sically Croat control, but nobody lives there,although the Croats continue to burn thehouses there just so no one ever returns. Wehave a situation where the refugees don’teven know what is available. I think that iswhat the Serb authorities exploited.

I do agree that there is nothing wrongwith being offered that choice.

Harland:I would add that there is fault at both

levels. First, the rules created by the Provi-sional Election Commission to elaboratewhat was said at Dayton turned the Daytonstandard upside-down. Instead of recon-structing the prewar ethnic matrix in the newlegislatures, they rewrote the rules. Second,the rules were then grossly manipulated bythe Serbs.


46

For example, we discovered that thetown council of Doboj had passed a lawwhich said nobody could get humanitarianaid unless they filled out a P2 election formsaying they wanted to vote where they weretold to vote. When they were caught, theSerbs then said, “Oh, yeah. Sorry. We’veretracted that.”

On election day, my boss and I went outto eastern Bosnia, to Foća, which has beenrenamed Srbinje—really, “Serbville.” Theelection rules said that if you were a refugeein Serbia, you could vote where you wantedto. Foća used to be almost exactly dividedbetween Bosniacs and Serbs, so the Serbsregistered thousands and thousands of peo-ple. There were, true to form, lots of buseswith Serbs on them. We stopped these busesand the riders were all speaking in broadEkavski, Serbian accents, which is an accentnot used in Bosnia. They all had forms say-ing, “We want to vote in these places.” Weasked them whether they intended to livethere in the future, and they all laughed.They said, “No, no, no. We’ve been paid todo this. Or told to do this by the SDS.” Itwas an error on our part, followed by grossmanipulation on the Serb part.

Woodward:What we saw in the last 12 months is

that the Dayton Accord did provide the par-ties themselves with some elements to con-tinue to fight the war. Each side is using po-litical means to continue seeking the goalsthat they fought for during the war. I see noreason to expect any change in the coming12 months or 18 months in the new Clintonplan, or 24 months in the French plan, or in10 to 20 years as most Europeans expect.The parties are doing it in nonmilitary ways.Maybe we think that is a success, given thecircumstances.

While we have lots of examples of ma-nipulation of the election process, in fact, all

three sides, all three victorious parties—theCroat HDZ, the Muslim SDA, and the SerbSDS—used the election rules to increasetheir political control, homogeneous control,where they wanted. Consider a small butnonetheless important example. PresidentIzetbegović, worried that he would loseSarajevo, used that P2 election form veryskillfully to guarantee a victory.

Much more important in terms of thefate of the federation, was the ability of theCroat party to use the P2 form to shift thebalance in one of the two mixed cantons. Inthe federation there are either Croat cantonsor Bosniac cantons, except for two, Neretvaand Middle Bosnia. The Neretva canton,which includes Mostar, is very important tothe Croat concept of a Croat state, Herceg-Bosna. The Croats used the P2 form to shiftthe balance from an evenly mixed to anoverwhelmingly Croat canton. This is one ofa number of examples of how at every pointof the Dayton Agreement—we can talkabout whether that’s in the nature of theagreement itself or the way it’s being im-plemented—but in every element from theway displaced persons and refugees can re-turn, to the use of economic aid and politicalinstitutional form, each party is selecting outthat which they can use to maximize wherethey are going. Therefore, we see increasingpartition and stalemate on the ground.

Silber:There’s one issue that none of us brought

up, I guess because it’s one of the things thatDayton decided it couldn’t resolve and thatis Brčko. The arbitration on the status ofBrčko is going to be coming up, and is goingto be key. Again, no one knows how to re-solve it.

Woodward:I would tell you to watch and see

whether we do try to resolve it or whether

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we find, yet again, another delay mecha-nism—the consequence of which will be tokeep us on the ground much longer.

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Nationalism and the Liberal State

Panelists:Stojan Cerović, Editor, Vreme (Belgrade

opposition newspaper)Julie Mertus, Assistant Professor of Law,

Ohio Northern University PettitCollege of Law

Douglas Rae, Professor, Department ofPolitical Science and School ofManagement, Yale University

Paul Szasz, Adjunct Professor, NewYork University School of Law, andformer Legal Adviser, InternationalConference on the Former Yugosla-via

Yael Tamir, Lecturer, Department ofPhilosophy, Tel Aviv University

Bruce Ackerman, Moderator, SterlingProfessor, Yale Law School

Julie Mertus:We’ve come a long way since the 1920s

rallying cry of the “Kingdom of Serbs,Croats and Slovenes.” If there had beenbumper stickers at that time, they wouldhave read “Three tribes, one nation.”Whether all people in the region believed ordesired the implications of the slogan is an-other story, but the strategic and politicalrallying cry at the time was clearly “Threetribes, one nation.” That is very differentfrom what we have today. Now we haveseveral nations, splintered and divided morethan ever before. One of the slogans in theregion today, on the streets in Belgrade—again not believed by all people andcertainly not followed by all people—is verydifferent. The slogan is “The people havebecome the nation.” Or “The people hashappened.” Or, depending on yourtranslation, “The nation has happened.”

It’s a little tricky. Those of you who arefrom the region might be very comfortablewith this, and translators might be uncom-

fortable because the same word is often in-volved both for nation and for people,narod. For those who are not familiar withthis concept, when I speak of nation here, Ispeak of narod, meaning a people united byreal and imaginary commonalities such asculture; I do not speak of a state. I’m nottalking about the American idea of nation asstate. The land we once called Yugoslaviahas moved progressively toward institution-alized ethnonational absolutism.

Dayton is best understood not as a staticdocument but as a process that hopefullywill lead to something else. We’ve not heardvery much hope here, and I’m afraid that I’mnot going to provide very much hope. But Iwill raise some additional questions. I’llsketch the development of ethnonationalidentity over three time periods: first, con-stitutional development in the period from1946 to 1974; second, the period of collapsein the 1980s, though it’s very difficult to putdates on it; and, third, the impact of war.

First, constitutional development. Yugo-slavia had three major constitutional mo-ments in the period after the Second WorldWar, and before what we could call the col-lapse: 1946, 1963, and 1974. I’ll note theofficial classification in these time periods,though it did not necessarily reflect howpeople were identifying themselves. Theclassifications were also trying to spur anidentity. To begin to understand how peoplebehave and, in particular, their resistance toconcepts viewed as foreign or otherwise “il-legitimate,” it is important to look at officialidentity through time and compare it toDayton, which is very different indeed.

Let’s start with the 1946 constitution ofYugoslavia. Sovereignty under the 1946constitution clearly rested with the people.The federal constitution did not actuallyname the constituent nations of Yugoslavia;


49

that was left to the consensus at the time, therepublics’ constitutions, and other laws. Butat the time of the 1946 constitution, therewere five “nations.” They were popularlycalled “nations” or narod: Serbs, Croats,Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins.Other groups were deemed to be “nationalminorities,” not “nations.” As Zoran Pajicexplains, there were “hosts” and there werethe “historical guests.”

It was a little bit different in the 1963constitution. Minorities were redesignated asnationalities—narodnosti—because nationalminority was seen as demeaning. The wordnarodnosti doesn’t quite translate into Eng-lish. It means, more or less, nationalities. Itinvokes a concept of someone who has anational homeland someplace else—so, Al-banians, Hungarians, Turks, Slovaks,Czechs, and Russians, groups which have anational homeland someplace else. In Yugo-slavia at that time, it was very common tohear the two terms used together: narod andnarodnosti. Another important point,through the 1963 constitution, is that Mus-lims were added as a constituent nation.

The 1974 constitution was a turningpoint as national differences became “con-stitutionally enshrined.” The division by na-tion became extremely important. Article 1of the constitution defined Yugoslavia as “afederal state having the form of a statecommunity of voluntarily united nations andtheir Socialist Republics.” Note the posses-sive. In this new constitution the republicsbelong to the nations. Of course, there was abig problem: many people lived in thewrong place—they lived outside their sup-posed nations. Sovereignty under the 1974constitution changed a bit, too. It now rested“in the rights that the nations and nationali-ties exercised in the socialist republics andin the socialist autonomous provinces.” Anew character springs into action under the1974 constitution, and that is the “workingpeople.” Article 244 says that “nations, na-

tionalities, working people, and citizensshall realize and ensure [their] sovereignty.”

Power under the 1974 constitution be-came further decentralized, at least on theface of things. Each of Yugoslavia’s six re-publics had a central bank, separate police,educational, and judicial systems. So didSerbia’s two autonomous provinces, Kosovoand Vojvodina. But in reality, because of thetight control of the centralized CommunistParty, Yugoslavia operated as a unitary stateto a great degree even after this 1974 con-stitution. This would portend and shape pos-sibilities for “liberal” and “democratic” so-cial change in the future. There was littlesense of “civic identity” or any sense of“civic pride” because there simply was notmuch a citizen could do to change his or herfate through the formal political and socialprocess. The party was appointing the politi-cians. You could go and check off the ballotbut few people could fool themselves thatthey were really voting—the attitude wasthat the party would take care of everything.At the same time, although there was a cen-tralized unitary state, economic and politicalperks were distributed by the CommunistParty based on nation. The division of bene-fits and burdens based largely on “nation”would also prove extremely important in thefuture.

Four other important attributes of the1974 constitutional system: First, there wereethnic quotas, popularly known as “nationalkeys.” This was a proportional representa-tional system. Second, there were ethnicrights—for example, people could use theirown language in public places and in allstages of education. Third, there was astrange system of consensus—if you’vestudied Dayton, this might sound familiar.This complicated system effectively pre-vented any decision from being adopted ifopposed by any single federal unit (and fed-eral units, remember, were largely definedby national status). After a while, this sys-


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tem of consensus became a bit of a joke. Thereal authority lay in the hands of the partyand the sham of consensus actually de-creased political thought, discussion, anddeliberation. Finally, under the constitutionthere were prohibitions against “propagatingor practicing” national inequality and in-citement of national, racial, or religious ha-tred or intolerance. This might sound like ahate-speech rule but as implemented it led tovery repressive measures, not in line withthe notion of a liberal state.

Despite the many ways in which the1974 constitution directly or indirectly in-volved the concept of nation and nationality,people at this time did not identify them-selves primarily through these terms, butinstead held to a “Yugoslav identity.” Yes,some people did identify themselves as be-ing part of nations. And amid their ambigu-ity, the national system of 1974 was ex-tremely important in distributing politicaland economic perquisites.

At the point of the collapse we see asorting-out process according to nation.First, sovereignty was used as a rhetoricaldevice. Each side, each group was said tohave its own sovereignty. Nationality wasalso used as a rhetorical device. The mostbrilliant master of this is Milošević himself.In 1987, he went to Kosovo and said, “Noone shall ever beat you again. No one shallbeat Serbs.” Milošević and his supporterscreated and successfully manipulated asituation that defined the years to come:Serbs were entitled to see themselves as thevictim against the “other.” Not surprisingly,in the first real elections, nationalism be-came the mechanism for political differen-tiation.

Nationalism was certainly not the onlyforce pushing Yugoslavia toward illiberalrepression. There was also economic col-lapse, tremendous insecurity, and a lack ofinstitutions and mechanisms to fill the po-

litical and social void. At the time of col-lapse, the actions and reactions of interna-tional monetary institutions fostered nation-alist bureaucratic competition, and, I wouldadd, intense corruption.

The aggression that began in 1991 and1992 led to the demonization of the other,not just through propaganda, but throughwhat people saw and what they experienced.War led to a further closing of the ranks.People had to decide what they were: Serb,Croat, or Muslim. If you chose somethingelse, you had no power, and, frequently youhad no choice but to exit. This scenario leftmany people in a bind: the many children ofmixed marriages; people of other ethnona-tional groups (such as Albanians, Hungari-ans, or Roma); people who wanted to chooseanother identity (say, European or Yugo-slav); and those who were against thechoosing process altogether.

War also accomplished physical ethnicsegregation. The diaspora played an in-creasingly important role in the closing ofthe ranks. There was a backlash againstanything different and potentially challeng-ing to the nation, such as feminists, minori-ties, draft dodgers, pacifists, Yugoslavnos-tics, and the vast number of “others.”

In Dayton, there’s been a change in ter-minology. Dayton does not mention nationsand nationalities except in referring to inter-national treaty documents in the refugeechapter. Rather, the preamble of the consti-tution of Bosnia and Herzegovina talksabout Bosniacs, Croats, Serbs, as constituentpeoples, along with “others.” So the nationalminorities, or the narodnosti, the nationali-ties, have been demoted to “others.” Theconstitution of the Muslim-Croat entity, theFederation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,makes clear that there are only two constitu-ent nations, Muslims and Croats. Serbs are“others.” They’ve definitely been demoted.Not surprisingly, given the past use of the


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terms narod and narodnosti, all groups de-moted to lesser status under Dayton are waryof their future under the agreement.

Although not using all of the language ofthe past, Dayton cements the national divideby structuring and dividing the governmentclearly by the signifiers: Serb, Croat, andMuslim. The role of consensus and “ethnicveto” is seen throughout Dayton. While con-sensus didn’t work very well before in theperiod of breakdown, consensus was ac-cepted in Dayton as a political maneuverthat benefits Serbs. Had the Dayton presi-dency operated by a majority rule, Muslimsand Croats could always outvote Serbs, Serbnegotiators reasoned, refusing to sign theagreement without preservation of the ill-fated “consensus” scheme of old. The Day-ton Accord could not have been negotiatedby the parties at the bargaining table withoutincluding the division of government by thethree groups—Serb, Croat, and Muslim—and preserving the notion of consensus. How-ever, these very attributes that put Daytontogether may likely pull it apart.

Dayton is not just a static document buta process that is being implemented. WillDayton lead to strict segregation based onethnic or national principles? Could Daytonpossibly open a path to citizenship rightsregardless of ethnicity or nation? Can Day-ton be implemented in a way that promotescivic egalitarianism or will it inevitably leadto a further closing of the ranks? If Daytoncodifies the results of a war that has debasedand dehumanized the other, as I believe itdoes, how can it possibly lead to respect forlaw and a culture of human rights? Will thetransnational mechanisms created by Daytonand the international and regional mecha-nisms triggered by Dayton establish a justpeace and promote the enforcement of legalnorms? Some people in the region think andsay that the conflict in Yugoslavia was theend of World War II, because that war neverreally ended in Yugoslavia; its issues were

still on the table. Dayton does not settle allthe issues or promote reconciliation, but itonly further cements national separation. Socan there be Kant’s vision of “perpetualpeace”?

Douglas Rae:I’ve been struggling the last five years

with a manuscript on a single city in which Ihave lived for nearly 30 years, so this topicis a great relief to me. It’s a place I’ve neverseen and I’m therefore able to think about itwith great conceptual clarity and simplicity.

The Bosnia and Herzegovina constitu-tion is a wondrous and strange document. Iwant to ask two questions: First, what man-ner of constitutional democracy is this to be,and where does it fit in the larger genus ofsuch systems? Second, is it credible to sup-pose that it will achieve its chosen andnearly impossible task? That task is to allowthree groups, after all they’ve been through,to live in a democratic space without work-ing tyranny one upon the others, or two uponone.

Where does it fit? The constitution an-nounces in Article I, Section 2, that this isindeed to be a democratic state, replete withelectoral accountability and the rule of law.It is a strange instance of both. We learnimmediately that it is to have three parts,namely a national republic known as Bosniaand Herzegovina, a subordinate federationknown as the Federation of Bosnia and Her-zegovina, and, not least, an included Serbrepublic. The federation and Serb republicare known in the English text as “entities.”The national parliament is to be bicameral,with a House of Peoples and a House ofRepresentatives. The House of Peoples is toconsist of three blocs of five representatives,five Croats, five Bosniacs, and five Serbs.The House of Representatives is also electedin three blocs, not strictly by identity but in away which is obviously designed to producethree blocs of 14 persons. The presidency is


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plural. It’s a wonderful thought for anAmerican to consider. The three members ofthe presidency—one dare not say ‘presi-dents’—each hold veto power against theothers. The presidency is urged to act byconsensus but no mechanism for accom-plishing consensus is provided. A constitu-tional court, standing above the presidencyand the national assembly, is composed oftwo persons from each of the blocs and threeforeigners. The introduction of foreigners isan interesting effort, it seems to me, to pro-duce uncertainty about alliances. The centralbank is structured in much the same way asthe constitutional court.

What sort of constitutional democracy isthis to be? The most obvious feature seenfrom this distance is that this constitutionhardwires the alliances which are to com-pose the system, in the very definition of theinstitutions. People are to be represented asSerbian Orthodox, Catholic Croat, or Mus-lim, and not as farmers, businesspeople, par-ents, and children. The choice of an associa-tive structure in advance rules out most ofthe substance of democratic activity. Thereal substance of constitutional democracyconsists of defining and redefining alliancesover time as issues shift and leadership doesits work. One must treat this as a fairly spe-cial case. Not without relatives—one thinksof Cyprus, Nigeria, South Africa, for exam-ple. It is remarkable in its hardwiring of alli-ances and still more remarkable in its crea-tion of consensual conditions, that is, vetopoints among and within all the institutionsso that explicit coercion of one bloc againstthe other is filtered out.

Will this document work to achieve itsremarkable and difficult task, which is toallow these ethnic and religious communi-ties to live in a democratic space withouttyrannizing one another? The brief answer,I’m afraid, is no. It cannot accomplish that.The longer answer requires that we distin-

guish between two types of tyranny: one isactive, the other passive. Active tyrannywould consist, for example, of the govern-ment captured by Serbian impulse, throwingMuslims in the river. Passive tyranny wouldoccur where a Serbian citizen had fallen intothe river and the government decided, afterlengthy discourse, to leave him there. Actingto wrongly harm, on the one hand, failing toundo harm on the other. This constitution isa masterpiece of protection against activetyranny. It is of course for the same reason anear invitation to disaster where passive tyr-anny is in question.

Let us look at the constitutional mine-field which faces legislative action underthis document. I’ll read from Article IV,Section 3, Clause e of the constitution.Those of you who think about more standardparliamentary institutions will find this re-markable.

A proposed decision of the Parlia-mentary Assembly may be declared to bedestructive of a vital interest of the Bos-niac, Croat or Serb people by a majorityof, as appropriate, the Bosniac, Croat, orSerbian Delegates selected in accordancewith paragraph 1(a) above. Such a pro-posed decision shall require for approvalin the House of Peoples a majority of theBosniac, of the Croat, and of the SerbDelegates present and voting.It is a system of absolute, mutual veto

among the blocs. That arrangement is repro-duced in each portion of the institutionalstructure. The presidency also has a systemof mutual vetoes and one imagines thatdeadlock will be commonplace. The consti-tutional court will therefore become a veryimportant institution.

Well, the question is when is it okay tohave an automobile with three brake pedals?When is it okay to have a governmentalsystem organized that way? I would suggestthat there are two conditions, each separatelysufficient, which make such a system work-


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able. One is that all relevant parties must bemore or less satisfied with the status quo, sothat none is seized by an urgent need to usegovernment as a mechanism of change. Wemay guess that this condition is not satisfied.Or second, the environment is stable so thatno external shocks demand the attention ofgovernment as a steering mechanism. Forexample, no economic instability, no novelcultural conflict. Neither of these conditionsare met. The system’s performance to datesuggests that neither condition is likely to bemet.

There are remarkable accomplishments.I did some research on the recent electionsand discovered that in some parts of Bosniaand Herzegovina they have solved the turn-out problem which plagues American elec-tions of recent years. Our turnout rate in thelast presidential election was just about 50percent. There are sections of Bosnia andHerzegovina where the turnout rate is re-corded at 103 percent. I’ll leave it at that.

This constitution is a symbolic documentwhich concludes a conflict and ushers in anew phase of change. It almost surely cannotbe a working document for governance.

Paul Szasz:Recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme

Court have held that legislation or othergovernmental actions may generally not takerace into account—for example, in drawingthe boundaries of congressional districts,even to ensure that citizens of various racialor ethnic groups are equitably represented.Although not everyone agrees with theserecent constitutional decisions, there isprobably agreement that in a democraticstate the constitution and other laws and thegovernment itself should be substantiallyblind to racial, ethnic, and religious distinc-tions. As Douglas Rae mentioned, if youtake account of these distinctions in allocat-ing political power or other advantages, youmust necessarily disregard other ones, such

as economic status, occupation or profes-sion, gender, or sexual orientation. Whateverdistinctions you embody into legislation,these may be considered unimportant, evenridiculous, by others and it is for that reasonthat the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted bythe Supreme Court, has forbidden legislationthat is so constructed.

Let me now read to you some provisionsof the constitution of Bosnia and Herzego-vina [BH] and of the Federation of Bosniaand Herzegovina, which is one of the twoconstituent entities of the BH state. Inciden-tally, the term “entities” was one that re-quired a good deal of negotiation, with manyalternatives, in English and in Serbo-Croatian, proposed and rejected during al-most four years of negotiations. I will firstread from the federation constitution, whichwas completed in March 1994, some 18months before Dayton. Article I(1) states,

Bosniacs and Croats, as constituentpeoples [along with Others] and citizensof the Republic of Bosnia and Herzego-vina . . . transform the internal structureof the territories with a majority of Bos-niac and Croat population in the Repub-lic of Bosnia and Herzegovina into aFederation . . . .

“Bosniacs,” incidentally, is the euphemismfor Muslims, a term first introduced in thisfederation constitution to suggest that thatparty is broader than just one sectariangroup. Then we get to federation constitu-tion Article IV, Section A, Clause 6:

There shall be a House of Peoples,comprising 30 Bosniac and 30 CroatDelegates, as well as Other Delegates,whose number shall be in the same ratioto 60 as the number of Cantonal legisla-tors not identified as Bosniac or Croat isin relation to the number of legislatorswho are so identified.The mathematicians among you will

recognize that as the number of “Others”increases in the cantonal legislatures theycan start to predominate in the House of


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Peoples of the federation. If more and moreof these others are elected at the cantonallevel, eventually there could 120, 150, or200 others in that House, while the numberof Bosniacs and Croats is limited to 30 each.

Turning now to Dayton, the question isto what extent these ethnic categories arehardwired into the constitution for Bosniaand Herzegovina. The preamble states,

Bosniacs, Croats, and Serbs, asconstituent peoples (along with Oth-ers), and citizens of Bosnia and Her-zegovina hereby determine the Con-stitution of Bosnia and Herzegovinais as follows . . . .There is, of course, no truth in that

statement. These peoples did not do any de-termining. The Dayton Accord is a treatybetween the Bosnian, the Croat and theYugoslav governments—not an agreementamong the three Bosnian peoples. It waslargely imposed on them and on the threegovernments by the United States and by theother Contact Group members. It was notsubject to any referendum or any popularapproval in any organ of Bosnia and Herze-govina.

Article IV of the Dayton constitutionstates,

The Parliamentary Assemblyshall have two chambers: the Houseof Peoples and the House of Repre-sentatives . . . . The House of Peoplesshall comprise 15 Delegates, two-thirds from the Federation (includingfive Croats and five Bosniacs) andone-third from the Republika Srpska(five Serbs).It seems that it was not enough to say

that the last five are from the RepublikaSrpska—it was emphasized that these mustbe Serbs. Article IV continues:

The House of Representativesshall comprise 42 Members, two-thirdselected from the territory of the Fed-eration, one-third from the territory ofthe Republika Srpska.

It should also be noted that this equalpartition of seats in both houses of the Par-liamentary Assembly in no way reflects thedistribution of the population, which beforethe war was 44 percent Muslim, 33 percentSerb, 17 percent Croat, and 6 percent other.

As you see, these two constitutions aredefinitely not blind to ethnicity. In a sensethe constitution of the Bosnian state is lessblatantly ethnic than the federation constitu-tion, but it at least implicitly relies on theethnic character of its two constituent enti-ties. In other words, to some extent it takesinto account that the Republika Srpska isalmost 100 percent Serb and that the federa-tion is Muslim and Croat. However, in an-other sense the Dayton constitution is moreethnically exclusive. Except in the preamble,the Dayton constitution takes no functionalaccount of the “others,” while the federationconstitution does so for several purposes—such as the composition of the House of Peo-ples.

Some of us from Western states whowere assigned to assist the Bosnians indrafting a constitution—starting in March1992 before the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina had even become independentand the war had started, and continuingthrough the Vance-Owen Plan negotiationsfrom October 1992 to May 1993, the Invin-cible Plan in the summer of 1993, the fed-eration constitution in March 1994 and fi-nally the Dayton constitution in November1995—were initially shocked by the idea ofa state structured along ethnic lines. Wecould not see how such a concept could bereconciled with the modern human rightsprinciples that have been articulated sincethe end of the Second World War. However,we found that all the parties, including theMuslims but especially the Serbs and theCroats, expected us to structure the consti-tution along those lines. That point was notreally in debate. There was a lot of debate


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about how power should be distributedamong these peoples, and especially on howto determine in which geographic areas eachwould have majorities. But it was never dis-puted that the constitution would have totake into account the special place of each ofthose peoples.

The immediate objection we raised was,“How does one establish the ethnic characterof a given person—whether as a voter or asa candidate? How does one know whethersomeone is Muslim, or Serb, or Croat?” Wesaw three possibilities: First, the classifica-tion could be entirely subjective. One is aSerb if one chooses to be a Serb. Presuma-bly—but not necessarily—this would meanthat the next day the same person could callhimself Muslim. Just like in the UnitedStates, one can at any time switch betweenbeing a Democrat or a Republican. It did notseem advisable to us to base constitutionaldistinctions on so uncertain a basis.

The second ground for classificationcould be objective criteria. One could saythat a person is a Serb who has a Serb par-ent, perhaps the father. Or whose language isSerb—though the distinction between thelanguages used in Bosnia is minimal, exceptthat Serbs use the Cyrillic script. A person’sname may be suggestive. Religion, ofcourse, is the really distinctive characteristic:Serbs are Orthodox, Croats Roman Catho-lics, and Muslims are followers of Islam.But, if any or all of these criteria are to beused, it would be necessary to establishcourts or boards to determine into whichcategory any disputed individual belongs.That was done for many decades in SouthAfrica as part of the apartheid system, andthat country was much criticized for it. Itseemed impossible to install such a systemin Europe at the end of the twentieth cen-tury.

The third possibility is to let each groupdecide. Let the Serbs decide who is Serb,and the Muslims who is Muslim. However,

this too is not unproblematic. In the firstplace, does the group have power to includeand/or to exclude? Can a representative ofthe Serbs go out into the street, questionsomeone and then say, “You are a Serb. Youbelong in the Serb army and must pay Serbtaxes.” To which the accosted individualmight reply, “I’m not a Serb. My mother wasa Muslim, and my wife is a Croat. I don’tconsider myself Serb!” “Too bad, but by ourstandards you are a Serb. So, come along!”Or, should a group merely have a power toexclude—to say to someone: “We appreciateyour application, but you are not Serbenough for us.”

These are the technical difficulties in de-ciding to what group a voter or a candidatebelongs. But, to decide whom an officialrepresents, it may not be enough to deter-mine that he is a Serb. Rather, the questionmight have to be: “Was he elected bySerbs?” That would make it necessary toestablish separate electorates, every memberof each having been properly classified. Inmost primaries in the United States, a Re-publican can only vote in her own primary,and crossovers are not permitted. In someplaces the Dayton constitution seems to as-sume that anyone elected from the Repub-lika Srpska represents Serbs, though—as Ihave pointed out—in some provisions it isspecified that he must himself be a Serb.

These conceptual difficulties are part ofthe reason that the election rules, which arefirst sketched in Annex 3 to the Dayton Ac-cord, were—as David Harland said—thendistorted in the rules elaborated by OSCEand even further in their actual implementa-tion. It was very hard to determine intowhich group each voter should be classifiedand to make a system work that is based onethnicity without having a legal structure todetermine ethnicity.

The third problem I will mention is thatof the “others.” These really are of threequite different kinds. First, there are persons


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who belong to minorities, such as Jews orHungarians or Italians—and thus clearly donot belong to any of the specified constituentpeoples. Second there are the persons ofmixed heritage, who cannot easily be classi-fied unless one arbitrarily follows either theethnicity of the father, or possibly of themother. Third, there are the people whosimply want to opt out. They say: “A plagueon all your houses. I don’t want to be aMuslim, or a Serb, or a Croat!” In the 1991census, some people identified themselvesas Bosnians, or Yugoslavs, or even as Eski-mos, to indicate that they did not wish toplay this classification game.

The size of the first two kinds of othersis essentially fixed. If someone is of mixedparentage, that cannot be changed. But thethird group—those who wish to opt out—isentirely variable in size. Right now, undercurrent tensions, it is small; but it couldgrow large in more relaxed times, and that iswhy some of the formulae built into the fed-eration—but not into the Dayton constitu-tion—could lead to a government dominatedby the others.

The people we were talking to, the offi-cial representatives of the three ethnicgroups, were never interested in the positionof the others. It was the international com-munity (largely the United States) which in-sisted on introducing into the federationconstitution the various provisions for rec-ognizing the others and for having them rep-resented. At Dayton there was no such in-sistence; the emphasis was on getting anagreement fast, and recognizing the otherswould have been a complication, potentiallywith all the local parties. Consequently thereis no protection for the others in the Daytonconstitution.

These are some of the technical and legalproblems that arise out of giving seriousplace to ethnicity or nationality in a modernconstitutional system. There are other diffi-

culties too, but this should give you a senseof the issues we faced as we tried to designacceptable constitutions for Bosnia.

Stojan Cerović:I will try to defend Dayton a bit. I’ve

heard in my country and here many kinds ofcriticisms of the Dayton arrangement. Iagree that Dayton is a legalization of a po-litical reality. In Dayton it’s not clearly saidhow Bosnia can survive and even whetherBosnia will survive. It’s not clear, looking atDayton and the Bosnian constitution, howBosnia might survive at all. But I do believethat this arrangement was an absolutely nec-essary step.

To illustrate the situation at Dayton, I’mgoing to tell you an anecdote I heard aboutwhat happened a long time ago when theAustro-Hungarian empire occupied Bosniaafter the Berlin Congress in 1878. Theyfound the country in considerable disorder.They were especially impressed by theamount of corruption and bribery of stateofficials. The Austro-Hungarian authoritiesimmediately decided to ban any type of cor-ruption. But people resisted because it was adeeply rooted custom to corrupt and to bribeofficials. So they continued. The situationbecame even worse, because, aside fromcorruption, the whole legal system becamediscredited. So, the Austro-Hungarian gov-ernment decided to do something else. Theylegalized bribery, passing a regulation thatspecified precisely the denomination ofbribes that could be received by any officialfor any sort of service. I believe the idea wasto revoke this legislation after the people gotused to the new law and learned to respect it.

What is the point here? Evidently, na-tionalism in Bosnia now, just as briberythen, cannot be simply banned. It was abso-lutely necessary to make an arrangement thateverybody on all sides could respect. Afterthe kind of war which we had in Bosnia, if


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you remember the situation in 1995, it wasalmost unbelievable that representatives ofall three sides would agree to sign the sameblank sheet of paper. I believe that it was anecessary step for something that is comingafter. The Dayton arrangement and Bosnianconstitution should not be compared to theAmerican constitution. It should be seen assomething very temporary. Something witha function that’s really just to stop the war—to freeze reality for a moment and create asituation in which that reality might bechanged. The process has to be a long oneand it will be a long one, of course. It’s amatter of patience and whether that processwill get enough support in the internationalcommunity.

I have heard two types of criticism ofDayton, a liberal criticism and a more con-servative or realistic one. One set of criticssays the Dayton arrangement basically ac-cepted and legalized the division of Bosnia,the partition of Bosnia. In the Bosnian elec-tions, the nationalist parties have won. Thatmeans that the Dayton process was, eventu-ally, inefficient. It was morally unacceptableand wrong to negotiate with those nasty na-tionalists, the representatives of RepublikaSrpska, Croats and Muslims.

I find this criticism a bit romantic andreally missing the point. In that part of theworld, nationalism will be around for awhile. Actually, in the foreseeable future,there is no hope that much better people willcome into power anywhere in Bosnia, orSerbia, or Croatia. We have all sorts of na-tionalists—militant ones or less militantones, more conservative, traditional, or moremodern, pro-Western or anti-Western, anysort of nationalist—not only in power, butalso in the opposition. We cannot expect toget perfectly liberal people in power rightafter such a terrible war. I am afraid that theprocess of reconciliation cannot wait for anew breed of leaders and for the decline ofnationalistic feelings. On the contrary, rec-

onciliation will have to create this new breedof leaders at the end.

So, the international community had todeal with these nationalists. In the case ofMr. Milošević, it looks as if somehow Mr.Holbrooke or somebody else found a way todeal with this type of person. Milošević be-came a bit more cooperative. I don’t say thathe is trustworthy, but apparently he’s deliv-ering some things that he was asked to de-liver. Still, I believe, that his type of personresponds to pressure in the first place. In thelack of convincing threats, he would cer-tainly cease to cooperate.

On the other hand, we have conservativecritics saying, “In Bosnia a new reality hasbeen created, which is basically a division.That process is going on. Let’s give up thewhole idea of keeping Bosnia together. Itlooks easier and more realistic to say thatthese people don’t want to live together. So,let’s divide Bosnia.” I can admit that it is toolate for multiethnic Bosnia to be recreated.The last opportunity to save multiethnicBosnia was a couple of years ago. However,I believe that now, after Dayton, it is alsotoo late to separate Bosnia completely. In theDayton agreement the maps and borders ofethnic entities are drawn in a way that, atleast for Republika Srpska but also for theother entity, it’s hard to imagine how theycan survive separately. There are some verynarrow corridors. It’s difficult for RepublikaSrpska to communicate between the BanjaLuka region and the eastern parts near theDrina River. There are two corridors basi-cally cutting Republika Srpska in three parts.There’s also a corridor which is supposed togive Bosnia access to the sea, but basicallythat corridor is cutting the territory of Croa-tia. To think about division, to give up theBosnian idea, and to accept partition wouldbe an even more expensive project than toinsist on the Dayton arrangement as it is.Widening one’s own corridors and cuttingoff the other entities would become the am-


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bition of each side and inevitably lead tonew animosities, if Bosnia was to be fullydivided.

There is a hope that after a while cohe-sional forces might prevail. There is a realhope for that. I don’t think that it’s romanticto dream about that even after this sort ofwar, because Bosnian identity still exists in away. Serbs, Croats, and Muslims really be-long to the same civilization pattern. Al-though some people say that Bosnia neverreally existed, we all know that what isreally artificial and never existed is Repub-lika Srpska, Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia,and the borders drawn in Dayton. Let’snever forget that in this war a new realitywas created by very strong and brutal forces.It took an enormous amount of violence todivide that country. We might hope that ifthe people in Bosnia get the chance with in-ternational support, and enough time, theymight eventually accept living togetheragain.

Yael Tamir:I’m not an expert on Yugoslavia, nor a

law professor or a UN official. As the onlyphilosopher in this hall, I am in a minority. Ian also in a minority as I am going to defendthe idea of establishing “ethnic seats” in lib-eral democracies.

It is commonly assumed that liberal con-stitutions ought to be ethnically blind. Theconstitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina de-viates from this principle, and it is criticizedon this account. I will present here an argu-ment in support of taking ethnic representa-tion into account. My argument is not par-ticular to the Yugoslav case. It bears on awhole range of different cases including theAmerican one. Moreover, it is not restrictedto the ethnic case; it applies to a range ofcases including women’s rights, minorityrights, indigenous peoples’ rights, and blackrights.

If my argument is a sound one it is likelyto gain legitimacy in the future. Regardlessof what many political theorists think, theworld is not adopting the American modelaccording to which every constitution mustbe ethnically blind. Rather it moves in theopposite direction. More and more liberalstates are encountering ethnic revival andwill be forced to take national and ethnicconsiderations into account. One way ofprotecting the relevance of liberal values in aworld in which ethnicity is playing a majorrole is to find ways of weaving ethnic de-mands into liberal constitutions.

One such demand is a demand for fairrepresentation. Should this demand trans-form the traditional liberal approach to mat-ters of representation? In order to answerthis question one must first examine thebearings of liberalism on theories of repre-sentation: does liberalism entail a particulartheory of representation or, at least, does itexclude some options?

It is interesting to note that liberalismdoes not demand any particular type of rep-resentation. It makes a very general demandthat individuals should be treated as free andequal political agents entitled to equal con-cern and respect, but it does not specify thepolitical institutions, the representativestructures or the electoral systems entailedby this equality.

The liberal-democratic ideal of “one per-son, one vote” fails to determine crucial is-sues which are central to our ability toevaluate the constitution of Bosnia and Her-zegovina. To begin with, it leaves undeter-mined the following question: on which endof the democratic process should equality bemeasured, that of the input or that of theoutput? Namely, must liberalism secureequality of voting rights or is it also com-mitted to assure equality of influence overoutcomes?


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There is no general answer to this ques-tion; our evaluation differs depending on thenature of the outcomes. Commonly liberal-democracy seeks to ensure equality of in-puts. It argues that conflicts over particularinterests should be solved by allowing indi-viduals equal participation rights in a fairdecision-making process. As long as indi-viduals have an equal opportunity to presenttheir views in the public sphere and casttheir vote, the fact that their preferences areoutvoted may be unfortunate but not unfair.

And yet the inability to protect nationalcultural interests—even if that inability re-sults from a fair political procedure—is seenas unjust. Think, for example, about the Ca-nadian case. The kind of discrimination theQuébecois suffer from is not grounded in adeprivation of equal political rights, or theability to participate in the political processas equals. Rather, it has to do with the in-ability to influence the outcome of the proc-ess—with the failure to imprint Canadianpolitical institutions with French culture, afailure that carries with it feelings of culturalinsecurity or even cultural destruction.

The difference between cases that con-cern preferences regarding the preservationof identity and other kinds of preferenceshas to do in part with the fact that national-cultural interests are, by their very nature,restricted in their scope. That is, they are re-stricted to members of a particular group(though in some cases nonmembers mayalso have an interest in the protection of aset of national preferences). If this groupconstitutes a minority, such interests are un-likely to gain support in a fair democraticprocess. This is also true of the interests ofsome other groups such as opera lovers orvegetarians, who are likely to remain a mi-nority. The crux of the matter then cannotmerely be the size of group, nor the fact thata certain interest is likely to be permanentlyoutvoted, but the nature of that interest.

National interests ought to acquire spe-cial protection because they reflect one’sinterests in preserving one’s identity. Theirfrustration is seen as a threat not only to thepossibility of pursuing one’s preferences andgoals but most importantly to the ability tobe the kind of person one wants to be, tobelong to the groups one feels attached to. Itis this special feature that makes nationalinterests (like other identity-related interests)particularly worthy of respect and explainsthe need to reconstruct political institutionsin a way which will secure these interests.

It thus seems that when national-culturalissues are at stake, liberal equality demandsextending equality not only to inputs butalso to outputs. When national issues arediscussed, individuals are to be allowed tohave equal (or more precisely, proportional)influence on the outcomes. The fact that in-dividuals ought to have equal influence onthe outcomes of the political process leavesopen the question of how these interestsought to be defended.

The issue that concerns us here derivesfrom this general question. In examiningjustifications for ethnic representation weare in fact asking who can represent whomand under what circumstances. This is aquestion liberalism tends to ignore. Untilrecently liberal theories of representationembraced a rationalist, individualistic under-standing of politics according to which rep-resentation was a matter of expressing theagent’s opinions, preferences, and interests.Consequently, they tend to emphasize thereasonableness, personal honesty, and politi-cal accountability of representatives ratherthan their membership in particular groups.In recent years the communitarian-nationalbent in liberal theory marked a change ofemphasis from “the politics of ideas or inter-ests” to “the politics of presence,” or “thepolitics of identity.”1 This change has notcome from Yugoslavia. It was motivated bydiscussion of the Canadian case by Taylor


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and Kymlicka and the feminist case byYoung and Phillips, and has been discussedwidely in the United States with regards tominority rights, indigenous people’s rights,etc.

According to this view the role of repre-sentatives is not only to express preferencesand ideas but also to give members of eachgroup a public voice. It assumes that such avoice could be proclaimed only by membersof the group, for four reasons.

The first reason is grounded in the roleof shared experiences. It suggests that sharedexperience takes precedence over sharedideas, as “no amount of thought, no matterhow careful or honest, could jump the barri-ers of experience.”2 It is thus assumed that“interests are better protected when we arerepresented by those who share our experi-ences and interests.”3 As nonmembers donot share these experiences, they cannotproperly express our needs and preferences.

The second reason is grounded in theimportance of symbolic presence. Even ifshared experiences are not necessary for de-fining and defending the particular interestsand needs of members of a particular na-tional group, it is still of immense impor-tance that these needs and interests will bepresented by members of that group. Theargument in this case is rooted in the beliefthat an important aspect of having a voice ishaving a visible public presence. Having thegroup’s interests represented by nonmem-bers will defy this purpose.

The third reason has to do with socialand political inclusion. Once difference isconceived in relation to particular groupidentities, it is impossible to meet demandsfor political inclusion without also includingmembers of these groups in the political in-stitutions.4 In this case, like in the case ofsymbolic presence, allowing members torepresent themselves is an integral part ofachieving the desired end.

The fourth and last reason concerns theissue of self-government and self-determination. Political participation is oneway of assuring self-rule and self-determination. For liberals, individualsought concern themselves not only with endresults—achieving their goals and protectingtheir interests—but also with the ways suchresults are achieved. If these goals and inter-ests are achieved due to the action of exter-nal paternalistic forces, the status of indi-viduals as autonomous and self-governing isundermined. Autonomous individuals mustgovern themselves.

For these four reasons, it is of immenseimportance that not only national interestswill be taken into account but that the mem-bers of each national group will representtheir own group. I do not wish to ignore thedifficulty of defining the relevant groups,nor of constructing political institutionsalong these lines. If I had more time I wouldhave said more about it. Yet, whatever thedifficulties may be, we cannot ignore theimportance of the need for recognition. Thisis especially true in the case of Bosnia andHerzegovina. We ought not, and cannot, im-pose on Yugoslavia an ethnic-blind or re-ligious-blind constitution. We must take intoaccount the importance of national and re-ligious affiliations in the Balkans, as well asin other parts of the world and try to con-struct liberal constitutions that give assur-ances to members of national and religiousgroups, whether they constitute a minority ora majority, that their interests will be intro-duced into the political system.

If we will be attuned to the lessons thatemerge from the Yugoslav case we will be-come more attuned to the limitations of thetraditional liberal approach. Taking nation-alism into account will not undermine liberaltheory but enrich it, as it will make the po-litical solutions it offers more applicable tothe Yugoslav case as well as to many others.


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There is of course no assurance that even ajust arrangement, which takes national de-mands into account, will not be abused. Noconstitution can protect individuals fromhuman cruelty and injustice. This is whystates are measured not only by their consti-tutions but also by their political culture,civic education, and the level of civilityamong their members. It is certainly easierto draft a constitution than to achieve thelatter goals. Hence, it will not be an exag-geration to claim that once a constitution isdrafted, the work has just began.

Bruce Ackerman:I have a couple of remarks that expand

on what Yael Tamir presented.First a caution: There are a lot of words

that we don’t understand, that are beingcasually deployed. For example, the idea ofan ethnic group, the very word, is a creationof the Second World War. If you look beforethat time, you will not find the vocabulary ofethnic groups. You will find a very elaborateracial vocabulary—the Italic race, the Aryanrace, the Teutonic race. We can say in largemeasure that the word “ethnic group” isfunctioning the way old-fashioned racialcategories were used.

I asked my class to identify their ethnicgroup. I suggest that you try this exercise.There was a good deal of bewilderment inthe room. Is everybody a member of an eth-nic group? A large amount of anxiety. Thena student with a sense of triumph wrotedown that his ethnic group was “suburban.”

My question is especially appropriate forYugoslavia because Yugoslavia is a refuta-tion of a lot of what we think about ethnicgroups. This is part of Paul Szasz’s diffi-culty on the technical front. Inhabitants ofthe former Yugoslavia speak the same lan-guage. Certainly the difference betweendialects is less than the difference betweensouthern Mississippi and Maine. So what isthe difference between Serb and Croat? The

thing that Paul Szasz was suggesting: “Weknow it if we identify your religion.” Weird.Religion as an indicator of ethnic group.Well, this is puzzling. So that’s one word,ethnicity, that we don’t understand at all. It’sjust a place holder for our ignorance.

Then there is the idea of the nation. Nowthat word does have a rich history, and it’s aliberal history. The nation as a concept, asLiah Greenfeld has established in a wonder-ful book, has its roots in England, thenFrance, then Russia and then Germany.5 OrGermany and then Russia—it depends onhow you want to count Peter the Great. Iwould say Russia and then Germany.

The nation is associated with three basicliberal ideas. Popular sovereignty, that’swhat the nation is about. There is a peoplewhich has a will. The nation is associatedwith equality. It’s against divisions by class,race, sex, gender, or anything like that. Asmembers of a nation, we’re all equal. Andit’s associated with secularism. The idea isthat the fate of the nation, in the here andnow, is the crucial matter of political under-standing.

These are modern ideas—liberal ideas—which are all bundled up with the idea ofnation. How these liberal ideas are appliedto particular geographic entities is a deeppuzzle, and, generally speaking, has a politi-cal explanation often of an illiberal kind. InEastern Europe, for example, the transitionfrom the premodern Ottoman empire and theAustro-Hungarian empire to the present waslargely supervised by the communists. Ofcourse, the Nazis helped.

Do we know what we’re talking aboutthen, in talking about national identity orgroup identity in Yugoslavia? Are Serbs andCroats, for example, two peoples merely be-cause they worship God in different ways?How this idea of a nation, this liberal idea ofa nation, how it applies to this case is verypuzzling indeed.


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Question:As Paul Szasz pointed out, there is the

concept of nationality and “others.” I wouldlike to point out in that reference two para-doxes. One is that we’re come full circle.The Jews have been the archetypic minority,one which all other minorities are strugglingto define, as well as Hebrew scholars. Butwe find that Jews in Vojvodina in the con-text of this constitutionalization become nota minority, but “other”—those who happento live there and remain. Jews are not de-fined as a minority. When we come to thenation of Israel, where if anywhere Jews areat home, still the defining elements are race,national origin, cultural and educationalbackground. In other words we come fullcircle in terms of the definition of this mi-nority. This really makes one wonder what isthe defining element.

Now Paul Szasz mentioned a kind ofconstitutional moment of self-identification.One of the criteria for defining ethnic groupand nationality is to have the group awarethat it is so. In other words, at the momentthat you are aware that you are something oranother, you accept that minority or group.This is very important, because individualsare increasingly, particularly in the very in-terconnected global village in which we live,multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual.What I’m trying to say is that, on the onehand, we are developing definitions in orderto institutionalize and administer all theseinstruments. But, on the other hand, we’recreating new types of paradoxes.

Szasz:When I mentioned self-identification, I

meant merely one of three alternative de-vices for determining the classification of agiven individual. This, the subjective one, isone of the possibilities. Each person is askedwhat he is. As a matter of fact, it was thisdevice—explicitly specified in the 1991 Car-

rington Constitutional Principles—that hasso far been actually applied in implementingboth the federation and the Dayton constitu-tions. However, there are some difficultieswith this device. For example, one of theSerb members of the original presidency ofthe Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina latercalled himself a Muslim. He had two na-tures: he was a Serb with Islamic religion.So he could switch. It evidently isn’t possi-ble to build a stable constitutional system onclassifications that can be altered that easily.

There have been other constitutional ex-ercises in which ethnic classifications werean option. In creating Zimbabwe out ofSouthern Rhodesia, the decision was to ac-cept such a classification for the purpose ofprotecting the whites; this worked for awhile, but not very well. Namibia, whoseconstitution I helped draft, absolutely re-jected any ethnic classification and reliedinstead on assuring all citizens of a highlevel of human rights, and this has workedwell so far. Incidentally, we found that intalking to any of the Bosnian parties theywere mightily offended if we used the Na-mibian example. While continuing toslaughter each other, they loudly protested:“We are not Africans, but Europeans with1,500 years of civilization! We forbid suchcomparisons.”

Without making the overt comparison,we tried in Bosnia too to assure everyone ofthe highest level of international humanrights, as exemplified in the entire canon ofpost–Second World War human rights, fromthe Universal Declaration and the two cove-nants to the many other universal and Euro-pean instruments. All these were incorpo-rated by reference into both the federationand the Dayton constitutions. But the Bosni-ans were not satisfied with this assurance,and insisted also on including provisions toensure that each of the three constituent


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peoples has the political power to protectthemselves against the two others.

Mertus:The term “ethnic group” means some-

thing different in the context of the formerYugoslavia than you suggested. There arethree types of groups: nation, nationalities,and ethnic groups. I want to give an exam-ple. Nation would be Serb, Croat, Muslim.Nationality would be Albanian, somebodywho has a nation someplace else. Ethnicgroup is a group without a nation some-where else, such as Roma (or gypsy). Theterm “Yugoslav” also appeared in some ofthe counting mechanisms. That points outhow muddled and confused things are.

Tamir:I want to say something in favor of con-

ceptual ambiguity. There are lots of prob-lems in defining nations and people and mi-norities, and what have you. But just thinkabout the fact that we give religious rights toindividuals despite the fact that if we wouldtry to define what religion is, we’d find our-selves in great difficulty. The same is truefor other problems. We speak about af-firmative action to encourage blacks in po-sitions of government. If we have to definewhat it is to be a black person we might getinto a debate. All these concepts are alwayscontested. The fact that you can’t give aclear definition is not a reason to say, “Youknow, it’s so complicated we should go backto individuals. We know what individualsare. That’s a simple solution.” I think that inspite of the ambiguity embedded in all thoseconcepts, we should still take them seriouslyand try to struggle with them, but not to giveup that easily.

Ackerman:But there’s a difference between two

sorts of concepts. In one sort, we have atleast paradigm cases. The idea of religion,for example, is a concept of this kind. Butdo we have a paradigm case, a single para-digm case, of an ethnic group? Maybe wedo, but I’m not so sure.

Question:In his book The Clash of Civilizations

and the Remaking of World Order, SamuelHuntington describes how there are going tobe clashes between different cultures, as op-posed to say clashes between different na-tions.6 Looking at this constitution, through-out all the criticism, it seems it is attemptingto solve this exact problem. We’ve got dif-ferent cultures trying to live together in onenation with a whole history of conflict—trying to keep their own intercultural conflictin check. I see what you’re trying to do and Ithink it’s a valiant effort. I don’t know howelse you could create a nation in a place likethis where there is such cultural conflict.

Cerović:I read Samuel Huntington’s article “The

Clash of Civilization” a couple of yearsago.7 I met him at Harvard and I asked himabout Bosnia. He said in Bosnia we have aclash of three civilizations. I think it’s morethe case of what Sigmund Freud called thenarcissism of minor differences. It’s true thatwe have three religions, but before this waryou could not tell the difference, not even ifyou knew the name, especially betweenSerbs and Croats. Sometimes even Muslimshad names that sounded perfectly Slavic,and they are really Slavic. The language isexactly the same. They have the same cus-toms. Even on Sunday morning you couldnot tell the difference because they didn’tvisit churches too much before the war. Ifyou use Bosnia as an example, I believeHuntington’s theory is very questionable.


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Ackerman:I want to emphasize how puzzling this

war is. This place is not the site of a struggleof civilizations. The Muslims, after all, weresecular, urban, sophisticated people. Tothink of this as a war of civilizations fromthe Islamic side or from the Christian, giventhe limited cultural difference between theOrthodox Church and the Roman CatholicChurch, rings peculiar. It is true that there’sbeen this bloody war. It has to be explained,but I’m not convinced that the explanation isto be found through appeal toward like“civilization” or “ethnic group.”

Question:Some of you have a different notion of

leadership. Yael Tamir brought it up nicelywhen she asked who can represent whom,under what circumstances, with what andplays which role with regard to the outsideworld? One of the many lessons theYugoslav conflict taught the internationalcommunity was the enormous dilemma—with whom to deal under whichcircumstances for which purposes.Obviously for those who were on the turfand were actually engaged in the act, theylearned one lesson very quickly: Provide fora fait accompli, sue for a peace, and makeyourself indispensable to deliver that peace.The international community managed tocreate the factors, and some who tried it arestill in power. We have, in effect, createdMilošević and Tudjman. How do you dealwith this?

Cerović:You know it’s an even more complicated

question than you put. It’s not quite clearwho’s on the other side, on the side of theinternational community. It’s a very vagueconcept. Where is international community?I do believe that it’s essential to have a clearinternational authority and to make sure allsides in the region respect it. It’s not only

Bosnia. For Bosnia it’s very important tohave in mind and watch all the time Serbiaand Croatia as well, because they are stillpart of the game to a large extent. So, in thefirst place, we need strong internationalauthority. I believe that the best representa-tion of the so-called international commu-nity would be the United States.

It would be also very important not tohave any sort of dispute about what shouldbe done, because all sides in the conflict arevery skillful in exploiting the differences onthe part of the international community. It’salso very important for them to know, to besure, to get the clear message that there willbe no reconsideration of the Dayton ar-rangement or whatever arrangement is onthe table. It is what it is. Because they mayhope to get some different options in a yearor two.

To answer your question directly, I amafraid that it’s a bit too late now. It’s reallytrue that the international community, what-ever it is, had to deal with these guys. Theyare already created, you just cannot replacethem. During the elections in Serbia, a lot ofpeople in the opposition blamed you in thiscountry and the other Western countries forsupporting Milošević, for actually hopingthat the party of Milošević will win. I be-lieve that this is not true. AcceptingMilošević as a partner in negotiations shouldnot mean accepting him as a long-term part-ner. The international community should notgive up the search for more credible partnersand it should always try to support the lib-eral opposition in Serbia.

Mertus:I think the regionalization of internal af-

fairs in the new Bosnia is very important.There are elements in the Dayton Peace Ac-cord that call for the Council of Europe, theOSCE, even UNESCO [the UN Educational,Scientific, and Cultural Organization] to


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play some role in the constitutional accord.For example, Dayton creates the Office ofHuman Rights Ombudsman and, in its nas-cent stages, the ombudsman is to be an out-sider. That could be one part of the answerto your question. Based on my own obser-vations, within the area these kinds of re-gional interventions are seen as legitimate.One of the better features of Dayton appearsto be some of the involvement by regionaland international bodies in the internal af-fairs of Bosnia.

Question:I am delighted to have the opportunity to

ask a question that people on the ground inBosnia have asked me when I travel. Theylook at all these UN Protection Force sol-diers and they look at the international ac-cord soldiers and they ask me, “What are allthese foreigners doing here? Who broughtthem here? Under what international orother authority?” If I may add, in trying toanswer the question, what are the differencesin this kind of heavily armed interventionfrom what the Soviets did in Hungary, Af-ghanistan, and Czechoslovakia in 1968,which we all condemned?

Szasz:As a career UN lawyer—even though no

longer in service—I suppose I should answerthis. The UN force, UNPROFOR, was thereby decision of the Security Council, origi-nally under Chapter VI and later underChapter VII of the UN Charter. The SecurityCouncil is the organ created by the worldcommunity to deploy the force of that com-munity. That is set out in the UN Charter, atreaty to which almost all states are parties.So, the distinction between UN forces inBosnia, and Soviet intervention in Hungaryor U.S. intervention in Panama, is that theformer happened by decisions of the inter-national community and the latter oftenagainst its opposition. It is by no means easy

to achieve a decision for the UN to deployforces, because each of the five permanentmembers of the Security Council can cast aveto. This means that a minimum of 60 per-cent of the Council members must agree andno permanent member disagree that interna-tional intervention is necessary. Incidentally,UNPROFOR was originally sent to Bosniaas part of an altruistic effort, to make it pos-sible for UN agencies and others to deliverhumanitarian aid at a time when Sarajevoairport and most roads throughout the coun-try were closed. The UN troops did achievethat, most of the time; sufficient aid movedso as to prevent starvation or deaths due toexposure or illness.

As for IFOR, that is a NATO force. TheDayton Accord, to which all the Bosnianfactions are also parties, specified that ifsuch an international force were establishedit would have a right to operate in Bosnia.All the Bosnian leaders agreed to that, andthis constituted entirely adequate legalauthority.

As to the moral authority of the interna-tional community to do what they did inBosnia, it is clear that there were difficulties.But for the most part these were ones of in-action—when sometimes UNPROFOR orlater IFOR did not intervene, perhaps be-cause there was no mandate or, more often,because their actual strength did not permitit.

Ackerman:I do want to suggest the relevance of a

strategic point of view. Yugoslavia is theclassic case of a local, regional power con-trolled by the Serbs who are surrounded by alarge number of lesser powers. But if theAlbanians, Slovenes, and Croatians hadgotten together, they would have had inter-nal balance that would have checked theSerbs. So rather than talk about ethnicgroups, what we have here is an effort by theSerbs to pick off the smaller powers one at a


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time. This is an absolutely standard scenario.For the Serbs to succeed, each of the smallerunits had to be picked off one at a time. Andso the justification, insofar as there is oneand it’s very different from Hungary, is thatbecause of the clever exploitation by theSerb entity of the “beggar thy neighbor” ten-dencies of the surrounding minor powers,there was a fundamental military imbalancewhich required a third-party intervention.So, I don’t think that the analogy to Hungaryis apt although the moral problem of whythese local powers didn’t get together is oneof the unasked questions here.

Mertus:I want to make a brief comment about

why the smaller entities didn’t get together.We could talk about that for a long time. Butthere was a crucial moment when Miloševićand his supporters caused the revocation ofthe autonomous constitutional status of Vo-jvodina and Kosovo, and, at the same time,Vojvodina and Kosovo maintained their seaton the rotating presidency. Through thismove, Belgrade effectively gained controlover two additional seats in the presidency.That was one crucial moment we must re-member in considering why smaller entitiesdid not get together.

Question:If I could just add something to what

Paul Szasz said without being, I hope, in anyway presumptuous, not being either a lawyeror especially a UN lawyer, but with theamateur eye of a policy specialist. There area couple of important things to add. The firstis that the mechanism of IFOR was coinedunder a Security Council resolution underChapter VII of the UN Charter, with en-forcement powers. In the case ofUNPROFOR and IFOR, the decision wastaken by the Security Council acting withinits power in the face of what it determined to

be a threat to international peace and secu-rity. And under Chapter VII of the UNCharter, whenever the Security Council de-termines there is a threat to internationalpeace and security, effectively it can make alaw, at least from the perspective of a policyspecialist rather than a lawyer. But what youget, both in the case of the former Yugosla-via and in a series of other cases, such asSomalia and Liberia in the course of the1990s, is a situation in which the old princi-ple of what constituted a threat to interna-tional peace and security—as what one statemight do to another—shifted to a situationwhere there’s a perceived responsibility toact based on what may be largely or partiallyinternal situations. It was the decision of theSecurity Council’s heads of state and gov-ernments at the January 1992 summit to re-interpret what constituted a threat to international peace and security. This providesboth the political and, crucially, the legalbasis for the steps of Security Council reso-lutions dealing with the former Yugoslaviaand a number of other interventions.

Ackerman:Well said for a lay person.

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War Crimes andthe Political Future of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Panelists:Antonio Cassese, Former president, In-

ternational Criminal Tribunal for theFormer Yugoslavia

Theodor Meron, Professor, New YorkUniversity School of Law

Ruti Teitel, Professor, New York LawSchool

W. Michael Reisman, Moderator, MyresS. McDougal Professor, Yale LawSchool

W. Michael Reisman:Our panel is entitled “War Crimes and

the Political Future of Bosnia and Herzego-vina.” This poses a rather heavy obligationon the war crimes tribunal. Ordinarily, weexpect courts simply to do justice. Here,manifestly, an explicit political objective hasbeen imposed as well—that is, the relation-ship between this exercise in internationalcriminal justice and the political future ofBosnia and Herzegovina. In this respect, thedesigners of this conference have picked outone of the critical questions that interna-tional lawyers and students of diplomacyhave been asking themselves about the fas-cinating experiment in The Hague.

Antonio Cassese:My comments will be divided into two

parts. First, the Dayton Agreement and theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the for-mer Yugoslavia—a short and sketchy as-sessment of the Dayton Agreement. Second,some modest reflections on the future of thetribunal and its possible role in Bosnia andHerzegovina.

It may surprise you but, at least as far asthe International Criminal Tribunal for theformer Yugoslavia is concerned, the DaytonAgreement was a major turning point, a realbreakthrough, quite a positive event for us.Before the agreement was made, I remem-

ber, we at The Hague feared some sort ofdeal might be struck by the negotiating par-ties which would thwart our job, in particu-lar by providing some sort of amnesty foralleged war criminals. In other words wefeared that realpolitik might prevail over theinterests and demands of justice. Quite thecontrary is true.

Let me list seven points which, to mymind, show that the Dayton Agreement wasvery important to us.

First, even before the agreement was ne-gotiated, something important happened. OnAugust 28, 1995, an agreement was signedby Milošević, Karadžić, Mladić, and othersto the effect that the delegation going toDayton should consist of six people; threeappointed by Belgrade and three by Pale—ajoint delegation of Bosnian Serbs and Serbs.The delegation would be chaired byMilošević. The three men going there onbehalf of Pale, the Bosnian Serbs, wereKaradžić, Mladić, and Krajišnik. A few daysafter this agreement was made and signed byall the people concerned it became clear thatit could not be implemented. Why? Becauseof the arrest warrants. Because we immedi-ately sent arrest warrants from The Hague toWashington, D.C., to Paris, to Geneva, toBern, and to London. The message we sentwas very clear to all the authorities con-cerned: if two members of the delegation,Karadžić and Mladić, set foot on your terri-tory they must be arrested. So the first im-portant achievement was the exclusion ofthose two indictees, Karadžić and Mladić,from the negotiating process. I would callthis an extrajudicial effect of our activity.They were not arrested but at least they wereexcluded from any involvement in the nego-tiations in Dayton.

Second, and I move on now to the actualtext of the Dayton Agreement, no amnesty


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was provided for people charged with warcrimes or crimes against humanity.

Third, the obligation to cooperate withour tribunal, an obligation laid down in vari-ous Security Council resolutions taken underChapter VII of the UN Charter and thereforebinding upon all states, was restated andeven spelled out in the Dayton Agreement.

Fourth, this obligation was extended totwo entities that previously were not directlybound by it, namely the Federation of Bos-nia and Herzegovina and the RepublikaSrpska. One might argue that, formallyspeaking, the two entities cannot be boundby Security Council resolutions, which canonly address states, whether members ornonmembers of the UN. However, a betterview is that the Security Council does havethe power to address decisions to nonstateentities.

Fifth, in the Dayton Agreement, Croatiaundertook to ensure respect for all obliga-tions by the Bosnian Croats. In other words,the Republic of Croatia became a guarantorof compliance with the Dayton Agreementby Bosnian Croats. The Federal Republic ofYugoslavia did the same with regard to theRepublika Srpska. Therefore, two sovereignstates undertook to ensure respect by the twoentities for international obligations. If youlook at the Dayton Agreement, you will findclear letters signed by Foreign MinisterGranić of Croatia and Slobodan Miloševićof the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia—let-ters sent by each of them to the various for-eign ministers of the Contact Group states—in which they formally undertake to makesure that these two entities will comply withtheir international obligations. Any breach ofthose international obligations by the fed-eration or Republika Srpska also entails abreach of an international obligation byCroatia or the Federal Republic of Yugosla-via. This is quite new.

Sixth, a novel feature of the DaytonAgreement is in Annex 4—the constitutionof Bosnia and Herzegovina. Article 9 of theconstitution provides for the removal frompublic office of people who have been in-dicted by the tribunal, who have failed tocomply with an order to appear before thetribunal, or who are serving a sentence im-posed by the tribunal. This applies in par-ticular to Karadžić and Mladić. This is, as Isay, quite new. This is a crucial provisionintended to strengthen, to bolster, the Secu-rity Council resolution establishing the tri-bunal.

Seventh, probably the most crucial char-acteristic of the Dayton Agreement is thatfor the first time all these obligations wereaccompanied, and beefed up, by an impor-tant enforcement mechanism that was quitenew. The commander of IFOR, as well asthe high representative, Carl Bildt, weregiven the exceptional power to trigger thereimposition of sanctions against Belgradeand Pale in case of breach of the DaytonAgreement—the sanctions which had beensuspended by the Security Council. Oneparagraph of the preamble to Security Coun-cil resolution 1022, which gave this extraor-dinary power, specified that the obligation tocooperate with the tribunal was one of themajor undertakings of the parties. It wasclear when the Security Council passedResolution 1022 that they regarded coopera-tion with our tribunal as a crucial feature ofthe Dayton Agreement. As a consequence, aclear message was sent to Admiral LeightonSmith, who was then commander of IFOR,as well as to Carl Bildt, that they were freeto trigger sanctions. To the best of myknowledge, this was the first time in thehistory of the Security Council that sanctionswere not subject to veto because they couldbe triggered by those two people within fivedays of the submission of a letter.

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A wonderful agreement. One flaw: wewere critical before and after the DaytonAgreement of the fact that no police dutieswere granted to IFOR. IFOR, as you know,has decided that they should not act as, I usethe French expression, police judiciare, as ajudicial police, as an enforcement agency forour tribunal. This was a major flaw. But ifyou look at the whole Dayton Agreement,you conclude that it really was quite an im-portant piece of international legislation.

What happened after that? Well, most ofthe provisions I have just mentioned havenot been implemented. Because of my judi-cial duties I will refrain here from speculat-ing on why Dayton was so meritorious andsupportive of the tribunal. Why realpolitikwas set aside in the interest of justice andwhy then afterwards the Dayton Agreementwas never implemented. Why this cleavagebetween a promise, a wonderful promise andthe failure to keep this promise. I will leavethese questions open and move on to thesecond part of my presentation.

The title could be “history repeats itself.”Faced with the inaction of IFOR and of thevarious countries involved, and, in particu-lar, the failure of the three states and the twoentities of the former Yugoslavia to executearrest warrants, we thought that I, as presi-dent of the tribunal, should contact the vari-ous countries and leading personalities ofthe former Yugoslavia. I went to Zagreb, toSarajevo, and to Belgrade to contact foreignministers, ministers of justice, and so on.

In Croatia and in the Federal Republic ofYugoslavia, I said, “Why don’t you arrest allthese indictees? These people have been in-dicted by our tribunal. You should arrestthem and hand them over to us.” They said,“No, we can’t. You must understand our po-sition. These people are regarded by ourpopulation as national heroes. How can wearrest our heroes? There would be rebellionif we tried to arrest and surrender them toyou.”

Then I responded, “What you are sayingreminds me of what happened in 1919–1920in Germany. The Treaty of Versailles pro-vided explicitly for the surrender by Ger-many to the Allies of all those charged withserious crimes against humanity or warcrimes. When the Allies asked the Germansto arrest and surrender those people so thatthey could be brought to trial, the Germansreplied, ‘This is impossible, because all thenames on your list’—a list prepared by theBritish, the Americans, and the French—‘arenational heroes to the German public. Wecan’t give them to you, we can only try tobring them to trial here in Germany.’”

As you know, eventually they were triedby the Supreme Court of Germany sitting inLeipzig—the Leipzig Court. What was theresult? The Allies had established a list of890 people allegedly responsible for appall-ing war crimes. Faced with German opposi-tion and German refusal to deliver thosepeople, the Allies reduced their list to 46.Only 11 of 46 were brought to trial. Six wereconvicted and five were acquitted. Amongthose convicted, only two got the highestpenalty, which was four years’ imprison-ment. It was a travesty of justice.

Whenever you are faced with the argu-ment, “We can’t arrest our people and givethem to you. We should try them ourselves.Give us your evidence and we will try tobring them to trial,” it’s clear that this is away of circumventing the demands of inter-national justice. I don’t claim that statesshould not try people indicted before theirown national courts. The international courtdoes not have exclusive jurisdiction. Unlikethe Nuremberg tribunal, we have concurrentjurisdiction with the national courts. Warcrimes or crimes against humanity can betried both by us and by courts, say, inZagreb, in Sarajevo, or in Belgrade. How-ever, we in The Hague should try the leadersand in particular, deal with what we call“system criminalities.” Systematic war


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crimes are large-scale war crimes where thecrime is not the result of the propensity forcrime or the viciousness of a particular indi-vidual, but is the result of a whole policy:for example, where mass rapes are perpe-trated with the acquiescence of the policy-makers or where the policymakers, the lead-ers, issue orders to the effect that suchcrimes should be committed.

What is the proper role of the tribunal inthe future? First, I think that we would liketo act as a moral compass and indicate howpeople taking part in armed hostilities, incivil wars or international conflicts, shouldbehave, with the result that if they misbe-have they can be brought to justice. This iswhat we are trying to do at The Hague. Inthis respect let me quote a few lines from ajudgment delivered after World War II by aDutch court against a Nazi war criminal, thefamous Rauter case.8 The court said that thetask of the Dutch court is not confined to thepunishment of infringements of Netherlandsjustice but is rather to give expression to thesense of justice of the community of nationswhich has been most deeply shocked bysuch crimes. I hope it’s not an illusion “togive expression to the sense of justice of thecommunity of nations.” I think this is a cru-cial goal because it is a message to the inter-national community that there will be noimpunity for future leaders.

Second, our tribunal can play a usefulpedagogical role. It is my impression talkingto people in the former Yugoslavia thatmany civilians and even military people areeither ignorant of what happened or refuse toadmit that those atrocities were committed.Therefore the tribunal can play a pedagogi-cal role in educating people, trying to openthe minds of people, showing the people ofthe former Yugoslavia, the whole civilianpopulation, that crimes were committed notby groups but by individuals. We can try todo what was done in Germany. It was called

de-Nazification. You know that in Germanythis happened slowly. Young people weretaken to Auschwitz and other concentrationcamps. They were shown films. They weretaught what happened at school. The tribunalcould be the first step in this direction, ineducating people, trying to explain to peoplewhat happened.

Theodor Meron:In the fall of 1997 the judges of the

Hague criminal tribunal will have completedtheir four-year terms and another panel ofjudges will be elected. Our most distin-guished president of the tribunal, AntonioCassese, recently stated that if by September1997, top and middle-level persons whohave been indicted are not arrested and de-livered up, the Hague tribunal might have topropose to the Security Council to terminateits mandate.

To hear such words from the most dis-tinguished advocate of the tribunal is, ofcourse, a very sad occasion. But I feel thathis frank statement was also needed. Perhapswe need some kind of a shock treatment todetermine where we all stand on the wholematter of the international criminal tribunal.We know that the tribunal was establishedby the Security Council to deal with deliber-ate and almost unprecedented violations ofinternational human rights and humanitarianlaw. Of the 74 persons indicted for atrocitiesin the former Yugoslavia, one is currentlybeing tried, and six are awaiting trial. Nonein custody, however, belongs to the categoryof top military officers or political officialswho gave the key orders.

What were the objectives for which thetribunal was established? The first was toassign guilt to individual responsible per-sons, to decollectivize guilt and thus servethe process of peacemaking. Second, wehoped to establish some kind of deterrenceagainst violations in the former Yugoslavia


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and elsewhere. The tribunal was establishedwhile the conflict was going on. In contrastto Nuremberg, there was still a prospect ofhaving an impact in Yugoslavia itself. Thethird goal was a normative one, to preventthe perception that even the gravest viola-tions of international humanitarian law cango unpunished.

From its inception, the tribunal has beenplagued by lack of cooperation from Bel-grade, Pale, and Zagreb. Access to siteswhere atrocities were committed has beenobstructed, hindering collection of perish-able evidence. Witnesses, even some vic-tims, have withheld their testimony from theinvestigators and the tribunal. The fact thatnot a single witness for the prosecution inthe current Tadic case still lives in territoryunder the control of either Pale or Zagrebspeaks to the ever-present fear of reprisal. Iagree here with my friend Nino Cassese thatthe Dayton Agreement contains fairly robustlanguage concerning compliance with ordersof the tribunal, including the duty to surren-der to the tribunal those under indictment.

Enforcement is quite a different matter,however. Two possibilities were considered:One was diplomatic, the other was military.Let us take the diplomatic first. SecurityCouncil Resolution 1022 of November 22,1995, suspended sanctions against Belgradeand Pale but provided conditions for auto-matic reinstitution of sanctions within fivedays of the submission of a report of non-compliance, including in this case, noncoop-eration with the orders of the tribunal. Sucha report could have been submitted either byCarl Bildt or by the commander of IFOR. Aspowerful a tool as this could have been, thefact is that very recently the Security Coun-cil rescinded the possibility of automaticreinstitution of sanctions. We do not havethis tool any longer.

The other option was military. IFOR wasgranted, at least on paper, sufficient powersto arrest the principal indicted persons.

Given the military muscle that IFOR nowhas in Bosnia, it is a disgrace that the princi-pal indictees have not been detained byIFOR, let alone delivered up to the Haguetribunal. Instead, they thumb their noses atthe international community by continuingto appear in public places. I believe that theycould have been captured without seriouscasualties, especially with the help of theintelligence community. I believe that therisk was well worth taking because Daytonhas reversed neither the effective partition ofBosnia and Herzegovina nor Serb controlover territory held at the end of the war. TheBosnian Serb leaders Mladić and Karadžićcontinue to be sheltered by Pale and I do notsee any change on that.

A realistic assessment of the tribunal’sfuture work can only be based on the trial ofTadic and the others in custody. Now, what-ever their ethnicity, the number of personsbeing tried is not conclusive evidence ofsuccess or failure. But numbers, along withthe seniority and responsibility of individualoffenders, can produce a critical mass, onewhich I believe the tribunal has not yetreached. If IFOR could not carry out arrestswith the firepower of 60,000 soldiers on theground in the former Yugoslavia, surely noarrests will be attempted as IFOR dwindlesand ultimately withdraws.

But there also have been some achieve-ments. We hoped that the tribunal, by de-collectivizing guilt and individualizing re-sponsibility, would aid the peace process.The tribunal’s critics argued that the tribunalwould in fact obstruct peace negotiations.How could one expect the leading actors inthe peace-making process to agree to a for-mula which would compel them to leavetheir positions of responsibility and perhapsbe targets of indictments and prosecutions?Others argued that this process is necessaryto decollectivize guilt.

The irony is that both sides provedwrong. Because of the international commu-


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nity’s reluctance to implement its decisions,the tribunal has had no major impact eitherpositive or negative on peace-making. I ac-cept this as a general statement. But I agreewith Nino Cassese, that the process hadsome positive effects on peace-making.There’s no question that Karadžić’s exclu-sion from Dayton allowed Milošević to ac-cept aspects of the agreement, including theabsence of an amnesty clause, that Karadžićhimself would likely have rejected. There issome anecdotal evidence or suggestion thatindictments against the Krajina Serbs mayhave put an end to continuation of rocketattacks on Zagreb. Yet the gravest atrocitiesof Srebrenica happened in July 1995 whenthe tribunal was fully operational and afterthe indictments of Mladić and Karadžić.

Paradoxically, while the main Yugoslav-related goals have not been achieved, thenon-Yugoslav-related underlying goals, thenormative goals, have seen some most sig-nificant achievements.

First, on the normative plane, withoutthe establishment of the tribunal, the per-ception of impunity would have been con-firmed.

Second, the tribunal has greatly ad-vanced the state of international humanitar-ian and criminal law, in the Tadic case andelsewhere. The appeals chamber decision onjurisdictional issues is of tremendous im-portance for the development of interna-tional humanitarian law for both interna-tional and internal armed conflict.9 The tri-bunal confirmed the criminalization of rapeon the international plane.

Third, the persons indicted by the tribu-nal are now branded with the mark of Cain,which serves as a measure of retribution. Itinstills in them a fear of travel abroad, forexample, and the possibility that one daythey may be arrested by either the interna-tional community or by adversary parties.

Fourth, without the developments on theformer Yugoslavia, the Rwanda tribunalwould not have been established.

Fifth, the tribunal triggered an unprece-dented interest in the establishment of astanding international criminal court.

Six, it brought about the revival of inter-national humanitarian law and encouragedmany states to adopt national statutes grant-ing competence to their national courts overviolations of international humanitarian lawand to negotiate agreements, for the firsttime ever in history, allowing for extraditionof indicted persons not to another state butto the international tribunal.

Seventh, the evidence collected can oneday be used by a national jurisdiction.

Eighth, the international investigationand prosecution of war crimes has provedfeasible and credible.

And ninth, the tribunal prepared a com-prehensive set of rules of evidence andpractice which, in the words of the tribunal,are the first code of international criminalprocedure.

Perhaps the realization that the tribunal’sdays may be numbered unless indicted lead-ers and perpetrators are arrested and deliv-ered up to The Hague will shock the inter-national community into action. Ending thetribunal before it has tried a substantialnumber of major culprits would be im-mensely embarrassing both to the interna-tional community and to the United States. Itis this embarrassment more than anythingelse that can lend the tribunal a longer leaseon its life. The tribunal should not be termi-nated before concluding the existing cases,any additional cases, and, where possible,more expeditiously issuing indictments ofmajor, I emphasize, major culprits.

Unless custody over major persons israpidly obtained, serious thought must begiven to how best to insure that, through anappropriate mechanism, indicted persons


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arrested in the future will in fact stand trial.One option is to devise a way of reconven-ing the tribunal. Another option is to en-courage prosecutions by national courtssince all states already have the competenceto prosecute grave breaches of the GenevaConventions. To facilitate both options, theprosecutors should organize the material insuch a way as to facilitate access of nationalprosecutions to that material. Of course it ispossible that in a few years Belgrade,Zagreb, or Pale might themselves have moreresponsible leaders, more credible systemsof criminal justice, and might be ready toprosecute some of those indicted by the tri-bunal before their own courts. The prosecu-tion could aid such efforts by also preparinga report of the historical record which wouldbe analogous to a report of a truth commis-sion.

Despite the difficulties encountered, itmight be necessary to follow models similarto that of the Hague tribunal in the future.But from now on, we must more effectivelysupport our international criminal tribunalswith the necessary muscle, with the neces-sary police power. Just as there can be nonational justice without police, there can beno effective international justice without ar-rests, subpoenas, investigations, and a reli-able system of enforcement. Our inability tocreate such mechanisms, whether for othercriminal tribunals or for the proposed per-manent international criminal court, threat-ens all efforts to establish a system of inter-national criminal justice. But we must notgive up in despair.

Ruti Teitel:I had the opportunity to attend the con-

firmation of the indictments of the BosnianSerb leaders Radovan Karadžić and GeneralMladić. An image of the courtroom in TheHague seemed to define the nature of justicepropounded there, as well as the tribunal’shopes and political circumstances. This

courtroom was entirely covered, wrapped, inbulletproof glass. There was only one court-room at The Hague and even with the veryfew suspects in custody it had to interrupt itsproceedings when they had the confirmationof the indictments. They had to interrupt theTadic trial, because there was only onecourtroom wrapped in bulletproof glass.

This is justice in a vacuum. It’s really therule of law in a vacuum, law in a bubble. It’snot the first time that perpetrators have beenprotected by bulletproof glass. The case ofAdolf Eichmann was notorious because ofthe concern that the victims would takesome form of vengeance. Here, the entirecourt proceedings are vulnerable. The settingreminds us of the fact that these proceedingsbegan in very unusual circumstances andsuggests that the rule of law, the nature ofjustice here is extraordinary, transitional,and entirely different from what we’ve seen.

Despite similarities to Nuremberg andthe World War II trials, there are signal dif-ferences. The purpose of the project was forjustice to bring about peace. From the verybeginning at the Hague tribunal, the powersinvoked were Security Council powers,powers to preserve the peace, Chapter VIIpowers. After evidence of widespread perse-cution was exposed by the media, and threeyears of warnings of violations of humani-tarian law, the Security Council establisheda commission of experts to investigate. Thecommission concluded that there was suchevidence of ethnic persecution that a court oflaw was likely to find this to be genocide.We know about the massacres, torture, rape,destruction of civilian property, and terror-izing of people. But the idea that a courtwould be used to establish peace was ex-traordinary. It doesn’t follow our intuitions.It was the first time that the Security Councilhas done something of this sort.

How does adjudication bring about in-ternational peace and security? This is a dif-ferent order than that pursued at Nuremberg,


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where first there was peace and then therewas justice. It is entirely different from thepostwar trials. How was the tribunal to dothis? Pursuing justice before peace meantthat the tribunal lacked the power that comeswith traditional victors’ justice. It doesn’tnecessarily have custody over the accused. Itdoesn’t have access to the evidence. Thoughthe Dayton Accord, as the president of thetribunal noted, obligates signatories to sup-port the tribunal and to hand over suspectedwar criminals, in fact very little support hasbeen given. The arrest powers are not ex-plicitly stated. As we saw, despite repeatedcalls for the arrest of Serbian leaders, evenwhen they were in proximity, NATO did itsbest to avoid confrontation.

So the inaction and the growing gap onlyserve to underscore that this was rule of lawin a bubble. As tribunal president Cassesenoted in a speech to the General Assembly,“the tribunal was a giant without arms orlegs and the artificial limbs had to be thestate authorities.” The tribunal couldn’t op-erate without their help. But how was that tohappen? What was the expected relationbetween justice and the peace?

The central purpose, as Theodor Meronnoted, was deterrence. This is a traditionalpurpose of criminal law and certainly hasbeen a traditional purpose of war crimes tri-als. But massacres committed well after thetribunal’s establishment certainly cast somedoubt as to its effectiveness regarding deter-rence. Beyond deterrence there was a muchmore ambitious hope of bringing on peace,the possibility that the tribunal, by individu-alizing responsibility, could break the cycleof ethnic retribution, or ethnic collectivizedresponsibility, collective guilt. Absolvingnations of collective guilt through the attri-bution of individual responsibility couldbreak the cycle.

War crimes trials allow this transition topeace and reconciliation from what was said

to be perpetual ethnic conflict. The tribunalhas focused on ethnic cleansing. This termdefines the Yugoslav conflict and certainlythe tribunal has indicted on this basis. Theindictments of Serb leaders for the massa-cres in Srebrenica say that there is evidenceof genocidal intent to destroy ethnic and re-ligious groups—ethnic persecution.

Ethnic persecution is being prosecuted asan international war crime, and this is part ofa new normative understanding of account-ability. Having an international tribunalprosecuting internal ethnic persecution is amove away from the traditional paradigmand signals an expansive and ambitious ef-fort of international humanitarian law. Astate’s persecution of its own citizens is acrime in the international sphere. This am-bitious humanitarian project is being frus-trated by the cold peace. Most of those re-sponsible for war crimes remain at large.The trial at The Hague is far away from thescene of the crime. What has ended up hap-pening is that the processes of the tribunalhave been largely limited to the processes ofindictment.

At Nuremberg there was the possibilityof trial in absentia. This is forbidden by therules at The Hague. When the indictees arenot present, the Tribunal cannot go forwardother than to confirm and reconfirm indict-ments, as it has done. These public confir-mation and reconfirmation proceedings dosubstitute in some small way for trials—theyoffer some form of public condemnation.Their main purpose is to express condemna-tion and to establish wrongdoing. The tribu-nal has certainly done this. These indict-ments may end up being the tribunal’s onlysanction because of the lack of political sup-port.

By pursuing the truth about atrocities inthe region, the tribunal has said that it iscontributing to the effort to move towardpeace. The Clinton administration has also


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underscored, as Assistant Secretary of StateJohn Shattuck has said, that establishing thetruth about what happened in Bosnia andCroatia is essential not just to justice but topeace. Whether truth can in fact bring onpeace is a debatable question. Despite theanalogies made to the tribunal functioning asa truth commission, truth commissionsthroughout Latin America and South Africafollowed after peace negotiations. Theywere critical features of successful transi-tions, but they, alone, did not bring about thepeace. The traditional pattern is reversed.Just as war crimes trials have traditionallyfollowed peace, it was not truth that broughtabout peace but rather peace that enabled thesearch for the truth.

Proceedings under these circumstancesdo not bring about the most expansive truth-seeking. Criminal proceedings are not aimedat establishing the truth of a contested event,but rather ascribe individual responsibilityand pass judgment. Individuals should neverbe prosecuted simply as a means to establishthe truth. An indictment is not a conviction,and justice demands a presumption of inno-cence. Historical inquiry in the region re-quires a broader lens than that of the indi-vidual trial. If truth were the UN’s goal, thebetter course might well have been to con-tinue the mission of the commission of ex-perts in 1993.

I want to address a profound concernabout the story being told by the tribunal ofethnic persecution. The story of an ancientand intractable enmity that can only be bro-ken by individual trials offers the West arationale for non-intervention. Traditionallywar crimes trials have told a story that ra-tionalized the victors’ military policy andjustified the victors’ military intervention.The Hague tribunal makes the case for an-other sort of military policy: non-intervention.

Justice is seemingly pulled out of thepolitical. The lesson of this tribunal is of

eternal atrocities, of justice without victorsand without heroes. Instead there is a cycleof ethnic persecution, of essential perpetra-tors and victims. To the extent that the tri-bunal advances the normative function ofcondemning ethnic persecution, it appears todo so from a perspective detached from thestruggle, that of an international tribunalpresided over by nonvictors and neutrals.Within the international human rights com-munity, this neutrality is thought to renderThe Hague superior to former war crimestrials.

Though the tribunal may appear imper-vious to the challenges traditionally leveledat victors’ justice, this does not absolve theUN of grave questions of moral responsibil-ity. Non-intervention does not leave the UNinnocent. Rather, it is the failure to intervenewhich leaves the UN in moral question. Thistribunal and these trials were convened dur-ing times of conflict and ongoing persecu-tion. It was the UN’s own creation of thesafe havens that drew Muslims and Croatsinto concentrated enclaves, and these en-claves appear to have facilitated a significantpart of the genocide that the tribunal nowadjudicates.

This is a crime of omission, and, afterNuremberg, raises important questions ofinternational criminal responsibility. Afterthe Srebrenica safe haven massacres, there isa deep interest in holding public indictmentproceedings to ascribe responsibility to Ser-bian leaders. Their continued absence fromthe courtroom, as well the lack of concernabout their arrest, seems only to confirm acraven international neutrality.

Consider on a more positive note, theliberal hope that rule of law will somehowtriumph despite the political vacuum. Thatdespite the lack of intervention by the inter-national community, somehow these norma-tive constructions by an international law ofuniversality, of crimes against humanity,would somehow rise above the political. But


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what is the aim? Can we accept the morelimited nature of the tribunal’s justice?

I want to suggest that the aim is transi-tional. Extraordinary transitional contextswhere national responses are impossible—such as in the former Yugoslavia and inRwanda—justify an international tribunal ofthis sort. When the rule of law is restored, Ipropose that the indictments should beturned over to the effective states. The mes-sage of ethnic reconciliation is best enforcedby pluralistic states committed to the liberalprinciples of dignity and equality under thelaw. In the meantime, a central aim of inter-national criminal jurisdiction should be toaid in that transition.

Within the international human rightscommunity, as Theodor Meron noted, thereare those who believe that the tribunal canbring us closer to a permanent internationalcriminal court. Even those opposing a per-manent court might very well support an in-ternational criminal tribunal along the linesof the Hague tribunal—a court that wouldprosecute only the gravest offenses andwould fill in only where the national systemsof justice have failed. An international tribu-nal that is explicitly transitional, that willadjudicate justice only under those circum-stances. Understood that way, the tribunal’scarefully drawn indictments should be un-derstood as bound and contingent within thispolitical context and supported as a sort ofglobal law that transcends the brutality oflocal power, to shore up the rule of law onan extraordinary basis.

W. Michael Reisman:This is a very painful panel to listen to. It

is hardly a celebration of the Hague tribunal,despite the fact that two of the three speak-ers have made a major investment in and aredeeply committed to it. It’s doubly ironicbecause this difficult appraisal is takingplace in the Yale Law School, which was the

cradle for the concept of the Genocide Con-vention and of much of the modern law ofarmed conflict. Raphael Lemkin was a lec-turer here when he was lobbying the UnitedNations to create the crime of genocide andto have it transformed into an internationaldelict in the Genocide Convention.

The three speakers present a conflict oftwo fundamental conceptions, betweenwhich the tribunal has become the casualty.One of the conceptions is a pragmatic ap-proach to international politics, which ac-knowledges that there will be much violenceand that the great democratic states, whichlike to imagine that they provide the con-science or the platform for conscience in theworld, have a limited capacity to mobilizetheir populations to bring about changes. Asa result, the pragmatic approach seeks to se-cure management of conflict, a reordering ofsystems that have been broken up, and isquite willing to make deals that would beviewed as morally unpleasant. The prag-matic approach would look with satisfactionon the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand would overlook the fact that Yasir Ara-fat has been raised from potential war crimi-nal to international statesman. These are theprices of securing peace in this vision.

The other conception of internationalpolitics is one which is juridical, and be-lieves that the fundamental values of law asprescribed by the international legal processcan be effectively applied. If they are effec-tively applied they will transform the inter-national system from the savagery of its cur-rent status to something approximating adeveloped and orderly domestic system.From the standpoint of the juridical ap-proach, a war crimes tribunal with arms andlegs that would make it effective, is indis-pensable.

Now it is quite clear that the Yugoslavtribunal was a product of the first concep-tion, the more political conception. It was


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designed, as Ruti Teitel and Judge Cassesepointed out, by the Security Council, oper-ating under Chapter VII. It was viewed assomething that would be a tool toward fa-cilitating a peace. There was no long-termconsideration of a larger purpose. At thesame time, it recruited outstanding jurists,like Judge Cassese, who committed them-selves to making it effective and operatedwithin the legal approach to internationalpolitics.

The two approaches continue to conflict,with resulting curious compromises. Wecelebrate Dayton because Dayton excludedRadovan Karadžić and seemed to delegiti-mize him. We overlook the fact that whilethe puppet has been delegitimized, the pup-peteer, Mr. Milošević, goes to Dayton and islegitimized. We view this as an achieve-ment.

IFOR’s unwillingness to play the rolethat would make the tribunal effective is nota result of a lack of will or some knavery,but is simply a response of the makers ofIFOR who operate with a different concep-tion than jurists apply.

Ruti Teitel concludes on a theme that Idetect in all three of our speakers, should webe using this technique in the future and un-der what circumstances? Theodor Meronbrings in the issue of truth commissions.Ruti Teitel expressed some doubts aboutthem.

We jurists have to ask whether we aresecuring enough of an advance of humani-tarian law, the law of armed conflict and thereduction of the savagery of internal conflict,to warrant continuing these experiments. Isthe application of this particular model un-der these circumstances actually damaginginternational law, or not advancing thepeace? If so, we might better address ourattention toward other options. This questionrequires us to think through the fundamentalobjectives of the re-establishment of peacein the international political context and the

actual ingredients that are necessary. Inevi-tably it will require us to design programsthat take account of political realities in-cluding the limited generosity and limitedmobilization capacities of the great democ-racies on whom the system of human dignityin the world will ultimately depend.

The choices that our speakers haveposed to us as well as their very candid andself-searching appraisal provide us with avery good basis for opening the floor to thequestions.

Question:All three speakers finish up with the

problem of the pedagogical impact and theneeds for the future. In that connection, is itnot time perhaps that we stop comparing thetribunals in The Hague and Rwanda to Nur-emberg? The jurisdiction is different, it’swider. Nuremberg was set up for specificallynamed criminals. It was adequately funded. Ithink one is stretching too far by lookingback. Instead, let us look at this as a newinnovation, particularly in the manner inwhich the tribunals were created. That leadsme to a much more serious issue.

Despite the decision of the AppealsChamber in the Tadic case, there is contro-versy over the question of war crimes innon-international conflict. Most of the of-fenses with which both tribunals are bur-dened are what might be called more seriouswar crimes. But the crimes that we’re talkingabout are also much nearer to genocide andcrimes against humanity. The commission ofinquiry extended the definition of crimesagainst humanity much along the lines that Ithink Ted Meron would have approved of,away from Nuremberg into a wider concept.

Is it not time, perhaps, in both interna-tional and non-international conflicts, thatwe drop the phrase “war crime” with itstechnical meaning and merely refer tocrimes against humanity? This would makethe whole issue of national and international


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jurisdiction much easier and less controver-sial than it now is.

Cassese:I agree that the two tribunals, the tribu-

nals for the former Yugoslavia and forRwanda, are totally different from Nurem-berg. However, we constantly have to referto Nuremberg because of the wealth of expe-rience which was built up there. It’s an im-portant source of inspiration for us in manyrespects. Therefore, although we are abso-lutely aware of the novelty of our two tribu-nals, I think that the reference to Nurembergis important if only because it was the firstinternational tribunal which applied interna-tional law to leaders, prosecuted leaders andbrought them to trial for war crimes, crimesagainst humanity and crimes against peace.

I also agree with you that “war crimes”is an obsolete expression. Actually we in theAppeals Chamber tried to drop a hint that itwould be proper to refer to “serious viola-tions of international humanitarian law.” It’sa bit long. War crimes is more concise andpunchy. But if we refer to “serious violationsof international humanitarian law” we wouldcover those categories which are normallydefined as “war crimes.” This would applyto both internal and international conflicts. Idon’t agree with you that, in regard to civilwars, we should always speak about crimesagainst humanity. I don’t agree, becauseeven for civil wars we should have two cate-gories: serious violations of internationalhumanitarian law and crimes against hu-manity.

Let me give you an example. You mayhave rape committed by a soldier or a rebelagainst a civilian—or say pillage, torture, orserious ill-treatment of civilians by one ofthe conflicting parties, either by the centralarmy or by the rebels: these I would regardas serious violations of international hu-manitarian law. If, however, you have mass

rape, extensive use of prohibited weaponssuch as chemical weapons, carpet bombing,or what we now call ethnic cleansing, by oneof the contending parties, then I would referto crimes against humanity.

Meron:On drawing too much on a comparison

to Nuremberg, I largely agree. I usually pre-fer to refer to the Hague tribunal as the firsttruly international tribunal. Not the secondtribunal or the first tribunal since Nurem-berg. We must make those distinctions clearwhile, as Nino Cassese said, fully drawingon the normative heritage of Nuremberg onwhich we greatly depend.

Non-international armed conflicts, asyou have pointed out, are the most numerousconflicts and also the most brutal, bloody,and cruel. I would hesitate accepting yoursuggestion that we should proceed exclu-sively, if I understood you correctly, alongthe prong of crimes against humanity. First,because crimes against humanity, as NinoCassese hinted, require proof of systematicand large numbers of violations. Second,because in grave breaches of the GenevaConventions, we already have not only theright of universal jurisdiction, in fact, wehave a duty of third-party states to prosecuteviolations. So I would strongly urge, as Ihave been trying to do in my academicwritings, expanding to non-internationalarmed conflict, the fundamental norms ofinternational humanitarian law which in thepast have been considered as limited to in-ternational war. I think that the importanceof crimes against humanity in that contextwill greatly be enhanced in the future.

Teitel:The central distinction with Nuremberg

is the political one. On the normative level,the statute of the Hague tribunal incorpo-rates almost verbatim the definitions of war


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crimes and crimes against humanity as foundin the Nuremberg Charter. It lists them thatway because the tribunal is not creatingthese now. Half a century later, we’re nothaving the Nuremberg problem of codifyingcrimes against humanity for the first time.We have a statute where these have beenpreviously defined. That is part of what thetribunal is saying: these are established un-derstandings of humanitarian law. What isentirely different though, is the politicalcontext.

Reisman:The process of making international hu-

manitarian law necessarily involves a largenational input. Since states have adapted,and are already applying, this notion of warcrimes, it very important to keep that and tokeep a category that has some degree ofelasticity so that when tribunals are estab-lished they can adapt it to contemporary cir-cumstances.

Question:Judge Cassese, you mentioned that you

felt that realpolitik was set aside in that therewas no deal granting amnesty to war crimi-nals. But there is a sense on the ground thatthere has been, indeed, a de facto amnesty.My question has three parts: Was realpolitikreally set aside? Without a law-enforcementcomponent, isn’t criminal legislation merelyinspirational at best? Second, isn’t it a dan-gerous and troubling message to the playershere and to the world community whencriminal legislation has no law-enforcementcomponent? And third, should the tribunalcontinue if no law-enforcement componentis mandated?

Cassese:Realpolitik was set aside at the norma-

tive level. This is crucial because it is veryimportant that we have some legal com-mands or guidelines. We lawyers, progres-

sive lawyers, think it is important to at leasthave legal standards. Think of the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights. I rememberwhen it was adopted, many a statesman andrealpolitiker said, “Well, this is just a scrapof paper, a list of wonderful provisions thatwill never be legally binding.” Still it was ofcrucial importance. Why? Because of thenormative value, because of the impact, andbecause it set in motion a whole legislativeprocess leading then to the Covenant onCivil and Political Rights. And so, too, theestablishment of international bodies whichare designed to scrutinize, to some extent,compliance with international human rightsstandards, although with limited powers. Itwas a great achievement that in Dayton,states undertook clear commitments in re-gard to the prosecution and punishment ofwar criminals.

We, as lawyers and judges and peopleinterested in international justice, should al-ways remind diplomats and statesman andpoliticians, “You undertook those commit-ments, you must live up to them.” I think it’scrucial to have these important undertakingsbecause it’s a reminder to those people thatif they fail to comply with those undertak-ings, they’re breaching international law. Wehave been talking about the states of theformer Yugoslavia, but let us remember, theUnited States, Great Britain, France, Ger-many, and Russia are all contracting partiesto the Dayton Agreement, at least to theframework agreement, and they are all alsoduty bound to ensure respect for those com-mitments. So we should also remind thesecountries that they have a legal and moralobligation to take some action, some robustaction.

Now the dangerous message. I agreewith your second point. If no enforcementmeasures are implemented this is a danger-ous message to the international community,of course; it’s a very bad message to the in-ternational community, a signal of impunity.


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Karadžić, Mladić, and others who have beenaccused of horrendous crimes without arrest,all those people laugh at the tribunal. Themessage they receive is, “Well we can go onenjoying impunity.” I know that. But I thinkthat we should draw the following conclu-sion from this message: let us put more pres-sure on states so that they take some action.Tell them that if they go on with their iner-tia, with their inaction, not only will we endin failure, the Rwanda tribunal will also be afiasco—Rwanda has even more problemsthan our tribunal—and, what is even worse,the permanent criminal court will never beestablished.

Faced with all these problems, whatshould we do? Let us try for one or twomore years. We can’t afford the luxury ofgiving in because it would be such a hugesetback for the whole international commu-nity. For 20 years we would have no inter-national criminal court, no criminal justice.That’s why we all have to work together andfight so that in spite of the huge problemswe are facing every day, in spite of the lackof cooperation of some states of the formerYugoslavia, we achieve something. The al-ternative is so dramatic, I would say tragic,that we have to carry on and do something.

I’m terribly frustrated every day in TheHague, and any small achievement to me iswonderful. I am fully aware that it is a moralduty for us to set aside our frustration and dowhatever we can. It would be a real tragedyfor the international community to say,“Yes, we have to acknowledge that we havebeen defeated, that realpolitik is getting theupper hand, and that these cold monsters, thesovereign states, will carry on with full im-punity—the various military or politicaldictators will go on torturing, maiming, andmassacring people without being punished.”That would be too bad. We can’t afford tosay this.

Question:I am a former Nuremberg prosecutor and

I have been waiting for 50 years to listen tothis kind of a discussion. But aren’t we toopessimistic? Aren’t we putting the blameperhaps in the wrong place?

From a long-range perspective, Nurem-berg was a stepping stone in a process whichbegan, in fact, after World War I. We triedto establish an international criminal courtwhen the King of Yugoslavia was assassi-nated. That failed completely, despite effortsby the League of Nations. The only real stepforward was after the atrocities of WorldWar II, where public outrage at what hadhappened inspired the political leaders toestablish the Nuremberg court. The ColdWar meant that for 50 years nothing hap-pened and the outrages continued. Peopletalked and talked at the United Nations andelsewhere, and did nothing. Even when Iraqcommitted acts of aggression and everycrime in the book—killing their own mi-norities, poison gas, everything else—weresponded by imposing sanctions on theIraqi people, who are mainly innocent, andletting the guilty go free.

What I see here is the absence of politi-cal leadership and political courage whichreally depends upon the people. When thepeople themselves are outraged sufficientlyto prevent these crimes, there will be lessneed for the courts. Until the people them-selves begin to influence the political lead-ers, and insist upon support for the interna-tional tribunal in Yugoslavia and for a per-manent court, these crimes will continue.The fault will lie not only with the politicalleaders but also those who put them andkeep them in power.


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Question:It’s clear from the discussion today that

enforcement represents the Achilles’ heel.My question is, How do you exert personaljurisdiction over these criminal defendants?Has it been reduced to placing a bounty ontheir heads? In a previous statement, JudgeCassese mentioned education and exposure.Is that enough? Theodor Meron also lookedto IFOR. Is that in the scope of their man-date? How do we get our hands on thesepeople?

Meron:How to secure custody, and how to ad-

vance enforcement, are the most difficultquestions. I wish I had an answer. Had we ananswer, perhaps things would have beenbetter. We need a combination of strategies.We have on the ground a force as powerfulas IFOR with terms and mandates which doallow the arrest of indicted persons and thesestrange, bizarre rules of engagement—sug-gesting that they can only be arrested whenencountered, when met. It is very difficultfor the international community, and for usin this country, to accept this as persuasive. Ibelieve that we could have done more.

We have, over the years, a record ofsending federal marshals to quite a few LatinAmerican states, grabbing people very suc-cessfully, and bringing them to justice in theUnited States without major internationalrepercussions. Couldn’t we do it in Bosniawith 60,000 people, with the pride of theCIA, and our intelligence agencies there.Now grabbing people or bringing them tojustice through IFOR would be just one suchstrategy. Another would be a more effectiveuse of international sanctions and interna-tional economic aid.

The problem is that the parties to theconflict in Yugoslavia no longer believe thatwe will be ready to use this threat of eco-nomic aid to enforce the decisions of the tri-bunal. We must have a renewed credibility.

We don’t have that. It’s a question of leader-ship, it’s a question of media. We need somekind of a coordinated strategy without givingup in despair, but without being too opti-mistic and rosy, should the present contextcontinue.

Teitel:With respect to the bounty proposal, it’s

not so far-fetched. Under American lawthere are all sorts of ways that people arrivein the courtroom. The closest internationalanalogy is the Eichmann case. Eichmannwas kidnapped in Buenos Aires. There was ahuge debate in the UN, and at the end GoldaMeir apologized to the representative of Ar-gentina. Nevertheless, justice took itscourse. The idea was that the invasion ofsovereignty was trivial compared to thecrimes that had been committed. That’s oneillustration, a historical illustration.

Further, there is the question of thepower of the indictment and whether the tri-bunal should continue to issue its indict-ments no matter what’s going on on theground. Then the matter is up to the statesabout what sanctions could relate to thoseindictments. We have a watch-list in ourown country. Chief Prosecutor RichardGoldstone has referred to the indictees as“living in an open-air prison.” We shouldn’tbe too attached to traditional understandingsof the stigmatization, condemnation, andsanction possibilities that would apply inordinary circumstances. We have to think ofthis as extraordinary and that states shouldshow their cooperation with the tribunal andcondition as many sanctions, whether eco-nomic or personal, to the defendant con-cerning their indicted status.


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Question:We have talked about the role of justice,

peace, and reconciliation. Judge Cassesementioned that the tribunal has concurrentjurisdiction. What is the role for domesticcourts in the prosecution of war crimes,since the tribunal, even if we gather a lot ofindictees, will never be able to try them all?And more generally, what is the role thatnational legal systems will play in recon-struction and reconciliation in the region?

Cassese:The domestic courts might play a huge

role, not only in the former Yugoslavia. MayI remind you that the Geneva Conventionsof 1949 contain crucial provisions for so-called universal jurisdiction, and also im-pose a duty upon all contracting parties tosearch for and bring to justice or extraditepeople responsible for serious breaches ofthe Geneva Conventions, what we wouldcall “war crimes.” The provisions granting acrucial role to domestic courts had not beenapplied until 1994. For the first time, as theresult of the establishment of our tribunal, aDanish court decided to apply those provi-sions. Since then it has been applied bySwiss, Austrian, and German courts.They’ve become aware of the huge role theymight fulfill by applying the Geneva Con-ventions. These cases are against peoplewho have allegedly committed war crimes orcrimes against humanity in the formerYugoslavia.

An even more crucial role could beplayed by the domestic courts of states of theformer Yugoslavia. However, I’m afraidthey’re fairly reluctant to take on such a rolebecause of what I said before about nationalheroes. After we issued international arrestwarrants against three leading military peo-ple from Serbia-Montenegro who allegedlycommitted a massacre in Vukovar, EasternSlavonia, by killing 200 people in a hospital,

I went to Belgrade to discuss various issuesand I raised with the authorities there thequestion of executing those arrest warrants.

They said, “Oh no, we can’t execute thewarrants. We can’t arrest them because theyare our nationals, but we could ask yourprosecutor to provide us the evidence.”

I said, “Good, good, excellent idea.What are you going to do with the evi-dence?”

They said, “Then we can decide whetheror not to start proceedings in our courtsagainst those three people.”

I said, “You don’t need this evidence be-cause you have international arrest warrants.You are duty bound to start proceedingswithout even getting the evidence. Also youalready have your own evidence.”

They never started any criminal pro-ceedings against those three people. Whiledomestic courts have been granted a hugerole by international law, and their role hasbeen acknowledged in our own statutewhich provides for concurrent jurisdiction,for political reasons they refrain from takingany action or instituting proceedings againstthese internationally indicted people.

As for Croatia, when the question ofCroatia’s admission to the Council ofEurope was discussed, we in The Haguewere requested by the Council of Europe tosend a memo on the cooperation of Croatiawith our tribunal. We insisted that Croatiashould start criminal proceedings againstpeople who allegedly, I say allegedly, com-mitted war crimes or atrocities in Croatiaduring Operation Storm in Krajina, or otherwar crimes. We should insist that domesticcourts cooperate with the international tribu-nal and take some action in this area.

Meron:I regard the role of national prosecutions

as absolutely vital. Even if internationalcriminal courts become a tremendous suc-


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cess, we will never be able to prosecute be-fore international jurisdictions a large num-ber of people who have committed atroci-ties.

One of the main problems is to have inplace statutes that enable us to do so. In theUnited States we do not have in place ade-quate tools for prosecuting people commit-ting atrocities abroad. There is a new law,the 1996 War Crimes Act.10 The State De-partment took a very positive role in sug-gesting that the bill be expanded to encom-pass, for example, violations of internationalhumanitarian law committed in non-international armed conflicts, but this is notwhat Congress has adopted.

Turning to the relationship between truthcommissions and criminal prosecutions, itseems to me that this is an important addi-tion that must be supported. In South Africa,for example, prosecutions are now underway against people for apartheid-relatedatrocities where they have not fully cooper-ated with the Truth and ReconciliationCommission by coming forward, statingopenly their involvement and the involve-ment of others, and asking for pardon. Inthose cases, they have been prosecuted. Weneed some kind of workable, efficient rela-tionship in the future between truth commis-sions and national prosecutions.

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Refugees, Peacekeeping, and Economic Reconstruction

Panelists:Soren Jessen-Petersen, Former director,

UN High Commissioner for Refu-gees, Liaison Office to the UnitedNations, New York

James Schear, Deputy Assistant Secre-tary of Defense for Peacekeepingand Humanitarian Assistance

Alan Stolberg, Colonel, U.S. Army, andChief of the Europe/NATO Divi-sion Plans and Policy Directorate,U.S. European Command

Christine Wallich, Director for Bosniaand Herzegovina, World Bank

Paul Dubinsky, Moderator, AssistantProfessor of Law, New York LawSchool

Paul Dubinsky:We have looked at the problems in ad-

ministering criminal justice at the tribunal atThe Hague with respect to the former Yugo-slavia. Even the strongest supporters of thetribunal would say that administering crimi-nal justice is at most a necessary, but not asufficient condition for allowing reconstruc-tion in the former Yugoslavia and the returnof civil society to that area. That is the sub-ject of this panel. There are as many as twomillion displaced persons. Very few havehad the opportunity to return home. Theyface the complete interruption of normaleconomic life and infrastructure, dangerousand intolerable levels of unemployment, anda constant fear and danger that even thepeace will be disrupted.

Let’s begin with the problem of almosttwo million displaced persons and refugeesand the strains that were placed on Dayton.What can we expect to achieve out of Day-ton?

Soren Jessen-Petersen:For the majority of more than two mil-

lion refugees and displaced persons, returnto their homes is a promise but not yet a re-ality. In this war, refugees were not a by-product of the war. Forcible displacementwas the very goal of the war. Another goalof the war was to dehumanize relations, andmake sure that people could never live to-gether again. For some, the goal of the peaceis to prevent voluntary return, and for othersto force return. Caught in the middle, as al-ways, are innocent refugees and displacedpersons—men, women, and children.

Those who started and waged the warare still in power. They still pursue theirgoals of separation and forcible displace-ment. Those who started the war have notbeen brought before the war crimes tribunalin The Hague; they still run around freely;most of them are still in power; if they’re notin power, they are certainly pulling thestrings, sending very important messages tothose who are holding office that they havethe blessing, the authority, to conduct inpeace what the war was all about.

Separation is still the goal pursued evenafter Dayton. Dayton talks about integration.The leaders are involved in separation.Dayton also talks about reconstruction.While the World Bank and others are tryingto mobilize support for reconstruction,which is absolutely vital if we are to haveany hope of seeing millions of refugees anddisplaced persons rebuild their lives, thosein power are busy continuing the destructionthat they didn’t complete before Dayton wassigned. We talk about threatening to with-hold reconstruction aid. Those on the groundare not worried, because they are busy de-


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stroying the places, the homes of those whostill want and hope to go back.

The UN high commissioner for refugeeswas given the task in Annex VII of theDayton Peace Agreement to bring back peo-ple and thereby reverse the goals of war.While Dayton has achieved a lot, the funda-mental causes behind this war have not beenresolved in the peace agreement.

What then is the result? What is the bal-ance sheet of return after Dayton? In num-bers and figures it was modest and disap-pointing. During the first 12 months afterDayton only 250,000 people returned toBosnia. In any other circumstance this wouldbe an impressive figure. Even in Bosnia,where everything is done to obstruct return,and reconstruction has still not picked up ina significant way, that a quarter of a millionpeople have gone back is in many ways en-couraging. However, they have all comeback to majority areas. We have seen virtu-ally no return to minority areas.

A second reasonably encouraging resultis that in the first year, through UNHCR’sand other shelter-repair programs, close to100,000 people had their homes repaired.We managed to repair more than 20,000houses in UNHCR’s program alone.

We identified 22 priority areas for re-turn—to promote return to areas where re-turn is possible. Working very closely withthe World Bank, the European Commission,and others, we mobilized a lot of additionalresources for those priority areas. Most ofthe quarter million people have been able toreturn as a result of the additional resources.These were significant and encouraging de-velopments.

We have also worked in the transitionfrom war to peace to build up the necessaryconfidence that must be the basis for anyreturn. After a war and these kinds of atroci-ties, a war whose goal was to dehumanizerelations, you cannot just have a peaceagreement and say “you can go back.” Con-

fidence-building becomes an essential partof any strategy. Through confidence-building measures we have been trying topunch holes in the wall that is runningthrough Bosnia and Herzegovina. Unfortu-nately the Inter-Entity Boundary Line hasbecome a wall that is blocking people.

Confidence-building measures includevisits. We have tried to organize visits ofdisplaced persons to their old homes. Wehave been blocked and obstructed in eachand every initiative. But we have been ableto bring a lot of people back to visit theirplaces. We see that as an important first stepin confidence-building.

We’ve have established some bus linesrunning across the Inter-Entity BoundaryLine. This should not be UNHCR’s busi-ness, but should belong to the authorities onthe ground. It should be a right of people togo wherever they want. They should be ableto get on a bus and just cross the boundaryline. That has not been possible and we havehad to go in and substitute. We have run upto 50 Inter-Entity Boundary Line crossings.Everyday we are bringing one to two thou-sand people back home, to look at theirhomes. Unfortunately they then return towhere they are still displaced.

It is very important that these measuresare not seen as an end in themselves. Visitsare a beginning. Buses are a first step towardreturn. But for some of the parties, I wouldsay these measures are seen as an end inthemselves.

Where do we go from here? Our strategyis three-fold. First, we will continue to pro-mote return to majority areas. Another500,000 may be able to go back, once recon-struction picks up. Once the absorption ca-pacity is there on the ground, return wouldbe, relatively speaking, the easy part of ourjob.

Second, the heart and soul of Dayton isreturn of minorities, return to areas wherepeople would now be a minority—hopefully


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not forever, by the way. We will push returnto minority areas. We see three ways of do-ing it, and are deeply engaged in this.

A. We want to push return to minorityareas which have less strategic importancethan other areas. We have seen a lot of vio-lence in returns to areas of deep strategicimportance. There are other areas controlledby the Serbs where we have been able tobring Bosniacs back, for instance in the An-vil, near Mrkonjić Grad. In those areas I seea hope, a chance of promoting return. It mustbe tried, and might work.

B. There are a number of places where,whether the authorities on the ground like itor not, people will have to come togetherbecause they will be driven by economicimperatives. I would call these crossroads.For example, Brčko is a crossroad. Despiteall that is happening, on the ground the threeparties are working together because eco-nomic imperatives are driving their collabo-ration. That would be our second strategy,identifying places where we will promotereturns around the convergence of interests.

C. The most difficult and the most chal-lenging is return near the zones of separationbetween the two entities. Why? Becausepeople can literally see their houses. Theyhave not moved more than 500 meters orso—maybe a couple of kilometers—and itshould not be logistically difficult. Unfortu-nately the zone of separation has become aborder. We have to push these returns in anorderly way, so that these zones of separa-tion become zones of integration for the re-turnees.

The third part of our strategy is to lookbeyond Bosnia. Dayton focused on Bosnia,but in solving displacement you cannot limitit to Bosnia. In the region of the formerYugoslavia all the problems and all the so-lutions are linked. Unless we can promotethe return of the Serbs to the Krajina inCroatia there will be no space for the return

of Bosniacs to Knol, or Banja Luka. Wher-ever you look on the map, all the problemsare linked, and all the solutions are linked.We’ve been having discussions with all theleaders of the region, suggesting a regionalplan. We want to broaden the scope ofDayton and broaden the geographic area.That is the only way to solve the problem ofdisplacement in the entire region.

Finally, in Bosnia we have a unique op-portunity in having authorities on theground, whether one likes them or not. Thisis not the case in the Great Lakes region ofAfrica. In Bosnia, there is a local setup andthere is an international setup. The interna-tional structure exists, and the players arecoming together. A very strong internationalarrangement has developed. We have aunique opportunity while the military will bethere to keep the peace, to create space andtime for the civilian part of Dayton to be im-plemented. We hope that the continued pres-ence of the military will not only keep thepeace—it clearly will if they are there—butalso that the military can be more forth-coming in assisting us with our tasks.

Dayton only talks about helping withfreedom of movement and preventing inter-ference with the freedom of movement. Wewould like to see a much more active in-volvement. If we don’t get that support,there will be no return.

Building up alternative structures, alter-native forces in civil society must be thegoal. If that can happen, then elections mightbe for the people of Bosnia and not in favorof the leaders who took that country to war.

Alan Stolberg:In March 1995 I was standing in a com-

mand post which UNPROFOR had in itsresidence in Sarajevo, during a relativelytypical border attack by the Serbs. The Serbshad fired about five or six 120 mm mortarsinto the center of the old town of Sarajevo


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about 800 meters from our post. GeneralRupert Smith’s aide requested that we targetand take out the mortars. He was in contactwith the special representative of the secre-tary-general, Yasushi Akashi, who was inZagreb at that time and he asked Mr. Akashifor his approval. Mr. Akashi came back andsaid, “It’s fine as long as you can guaranteethat no collateral damage will be a part.”

Well, the problem was that the Serbswere firing these mortars from about fourkilometers away. They were on the otherside of a range of hills from Sarajevo. Theywould aim their mortars from a good old120 mm mortar tube in a backyard of ahouse. One tube. They would fire about fiveor six rounds and then they would movetheir tube underneath some cover in thehouse. The house was not a detached struc-ture. So, for us, if we were incredibly fortu-nate enough to locate the specific mortarwhich was doing that firing, it would havemeant that we had to take out the wholeblock to get the mortar because it was on theother side of the engagement line.

I cite that because it is a typical problemwhich peacekeepers, and, more importantly,peace enforcers, have faced in the last fewyears.

My subject will be the military in peaceoperations, and the associated problems. Thereason the military comes into an operationsuch as this is because there was a failure ofthe peace. We are there as a sort of “policingforce.” The most important question that Iwant to raise about the military, when itcomes in to do something like this is, Howmuch force can or should the military em-ploy? Are the military, the contributorystates, the international institutions (whichare sponsoring the operation), and the worldcommunity at large—are we prepared to ac-cept the potential consequences that the em-ployment of the military will bring about?Does the will exist?

There is a spectrum of peace operationsmissions. At the low end is humanitarianassistance, such as American forces re-sponding to Hurricane Andrew, the forces ofOperation Sea Angel responding to hu-manitarian disaster in Bangladesh, and theforces of Provide Comfort in Turkey, whereAmerican and international forces went tothe aid of the Kurdish community in north-ern Iraq and southeastern Turkey. Then thereis traditional peacekeeping, a middle groundthat the international community has donebest in the military realm. For example, theseparation of forces in Cyprus; the militaryobserver missions in the Middle East; andnation-building in Haiti. Then we go to theupper end of the scale known as peace en-forcement, such as Somalia and Bosnia, andmissions of the same kind. The military hascome in and employed force—the employ-ment of force where triggers have to bepulled, where people have to be killed andcasualties have to be taken.

I personally believe, as do many militarypeople, in the employment of military forcein operations of peace enforcement. This isvery complex on the ground. Let me giveyou some examples.

In the late spring of 1995, a Serbian T-55tank fired on a British outpost in the north-ern part of Bosnia around the Maglaj pocket.This T-55 tank was out in the open. It firedthree rounds and injured six British soldiers,one of them critically. The issue was, “Howdo we respond?” Well, the first suggestion,which I made, was to bring in an airplane tosimply take out the tank. This tank was notlocated near any civilian facilities; it was outin the open, in the clear. The UN commandfelt that it would appear to be too strong aresponse, but it would be all right to bring inan anti-tank team on the ground. There wasa tremendous argument in the commandpost. I used to command anti-tank forceswhen I was an infantry platoon leader. Theproblem we had that night, at about nine


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o’clock that night, was that not only was itdark, but also the Serb tank was 2,800 me-ters away and 1,000 meters higher in eleva-tion, and it was dug in. So the likelihood ofbeing able to take it out with an anti-tankmissile was virtually nil. Of course, that’swhat happened and the tank remained. Thenthe UN forces and the British specificallysaid, “Next time we’ll bring aircraft.” TheBritish could have used Lynx helicopterswith TOW anti-tank missiles mounted onthem. However, the British Ministry of De-fense would not permit the mounting of theTOWs on the Lynx helicopters in Bosnia forthe same reasons.

Example: The Dutch infantry battalionwhich went into Srebrenica was normally a650-man, mechanized infantry battalionequipped with armored personnel carriersnormally mounted with 20 mm guns—a verypowerful weapon. The Dutch Ministry ofDefense would not permit them to mountthose 20 mm guns and bring them into theenclave. So the Dutch battalion in Sre-brenica did not have the most importantweapon, which they normally train with, toengage. When July 1995 came about, theyhad only hand-held weapons to resist theheavy weapons of the Serbs. I make no ex-planations here. I merely cite that consciousdecisions are being made that demonstratethe will or lack of will to engage—whichtranslates into the military ability to supporta mission.

Example: The French in Sector Sarajevowere constantly being sniped at. During thetime I was there, they would lose about onesoldier every ten days to a sniper. TheFrench felt that they could not go back withexceeding force. So instead of the probableAmerican response, to use major weapons totake out a part of an area where we saw asniper, they would fire one or two counter-sniper rounds, where the sniper had already

been gone for five minutes, and that was theend of the story. Not a very good deterrent.

Example: In May 1995, Serbian T-55tanks and 20 mm equipped armored person-nel carriers actually came into the suburbs ofSarajevo and fired directly at Muslim posi-tions and at French positions. Easy to takemilitarily. A decision was made not to em-ploy air attacks and not to employ theFrench 90 mm tanks, but to respond in avery similar “one for one” manner. One ar-mored personnel carrier against one armoredpersonnel carrier. The result was a standoff,and the Serbs were able to continue the em-ployment of their heavy weapons.

Example: The blockade of Sarajevoblocked the primary logistics route used byUNHCR, a 13 km road between Kiseljac, aMuslim-held area, and Sarajevo proper. TheSerbs blockaded that road with threewooden shacks manned by two Serbian po-licemen at each shack, along with someparamilitary and military teams that ran inbetween. The UNHCR convoys consisted of10–15 trucks with Canadian or French ar-mored personnel carriers protecting them.Obviously, if one desired, we could haveconfronted and gone through these road-blocks. The decision was made not to dothat. The French and the Dutch chief of stafffor Sector Sarajevo felt that would haveworsened the situation and increased theproblem. So the convoys would come in andthe Serbs would pillage the convoys. Theywould steal vehicles. They would stealclothes. They would steal military equip-ment and the like. A fair amount of the as-sistance which the mandate required failedto reach the people in Sarajevo for those rea-sons.

Now the problems I just cited to youwere not UN-caused problems. They wereproblems caused by the contributory states.At the same time, part of the responsibility


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lies with the UN and part with the worldcommunity, including NATO.

I spoke of the shelling of Sarajevo andthe potential of collateral damage. Anotherexample came about in May 1995 when thefighting really intensified, and we had theopportunity to call in air strikes. Mr. Akashistipulated that the only way we could call inair strikes would be if we had troops on theground that had eyes on a specific target. Wecouldn’t do it simply with intelligence col-lection from a standoff. We had to have acertain type of soldier on the ground whowas designated a “target identification” per-son for aircraft. We obviously didn’t havethose everywhere, and we didn’t have a lotof them. That clearly restricted the employ-ment of force.

Now these are problems exhibiting alack of will. When the will is there, themilitary has the capability of changing andaffecting the situation.

After President Jacques Chirac waselected in mid-May 1995, there was a clearchange on the part of the French forces. Inlate May there was a very famous incidentwhere the French decided to fight back forthe first time. On a bridge in downtownSarajevo were two French bunkers. Onenight, in the middle of the night, a Serbianspecial forces unit dressed in French uni-forms captured the bridge, and they captured12 of the 13 French soldiers on the bridge.This was the first time they had actually con-fronted the UN forces like that. One Frenchsoldier escaped. He jumped in the river andswam back to his battalion. The French wereincensed, and got permission from the min-istry of defense to fight back. At six a.m.that morning a French infantry platoon and atank platoon attacked that bridge. Theykilled four to six Serbian soldiers; they cap-tured four, including one of the most-wantedwar criminals in Bosnia at that time; andthey captured the northern part of the bridge.They told the Serbs that if the prisoners held

in the southern part of the bridge were notreleased, they would attack and kill the re-mainder of the Serb soldiers there. That af-ternoon the Serbs released all the prisoners,withdrew from the bridge, and never at-tacked the French again. Sniping neverkilled another French soldier. This doesn’tmean that a robust response works all thetime, but clearly sometimes it does.

Another example would be the air strikeswhich NATO employed during the latterpart of the summer of 1995. Air strikes alonedidn’t do the job, but the air strikes took outthe heavy-weapon advantage which theSerbs had maintained. Military force can beemployed, though it’s complex.

Let’s look at the problem now. ShouldIFOR go out and arrest the indictees? IFORhas the capability to do that. But is NATO,is the international community willing toaccept maybe going in and killing 30 Ser-bian soldiers and taking 10 NATO casual-ties, and potentially expanding the conflictwhere you have other Serbs going out else-where in Bosnia and killing Muslim civil-ians and taking other hostages? Is that anacceptable risk? That question must be an-swered in detail before the military is em-ployed.

Question: Should the military be em-ployed today to protect the refugees as theytry to return to their homes? The military hasthe capability to do that, but we may have totake out a hundred Serbs. We may have todestroy two city blocks as we do that andfight in urban terrain. We may have to takeour own casualties. All of these things aredoable. Is the will there? Has the decisionbeen made to support such an action?

Hard problems must be addressed, notinsurmountable problems, but very complexproblems. Decisions are required and planshave to be made before the execution takesplace. So I’ll leave you with this: it’s a verycomplex problem but it’s one that the mili-tary can accept—not simply the American


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military but the military in general. But thereare consequences. Are we willing to acceptthose consequences?

Christine Wallich:Close to 40 years ago, Hannah Arendt

spoke in this room to an absolutely packedaudience about another war and its after-math. There were people sitting on the win-dow sills and everywhere, talking about thequestion of crimes against humanity. So it isvery fitting that the Yale Law School ishosting this conference and that we talkabout Bosnia in this place.

I’m going to start by giving a provoca-tive answer to the question “Has the peaceprocess worked?” Perhaps it is the answeryou’d expect me to give, but it’s also theright answer to the question on economicreconstruction. “Has the Bosnian peace pro-cess worked?” The answer is “yes,” al-though there have been a lot of ups anddowns. The people working on economicreconstruction, whether donors, governmentauthorities at any level, the NGOs, or thepeople of Bosnia working on the ground,have been doing so in a set of very difficult,complex political and economic circum-stances. Clearly, progress in reconstruction,progress on the civilian front, has been a lotslower than on the military. But by any in-ternational standard—whether we look atVietnam, Cambodia, or problem cases inCentral America—what has happened on theground in Bosnia in terms of reconstructionsince the signing of the Dayton Accords hasbeen quite extraordinary.

I don’t want to suggest that one be com-placent. There is a lot more to be done. Toparaphrase Winston Churchill’s famous re-mark of 1942, we’re not at the end. We’renot even at the beginning of the end. We areprobably barely at the end of the beginning. Ithink it is important for all of us who think

about Bosnia and what still needs to bedone, what lies ahead, to recognize this.

While the international community cando a lot—the international military commu-nity, the donor community, the human rightscommunity, the many international actorswho have poured their hearts, their money,and their energies into Bosnia—in the end itis the efforts of the Bosnians themselves thatwill make a difference, that will reconstructthe country. In the World Bank’s view, andcertainly from my own personal perspective,we’re there to help them to do that, but wecan’t make it happen alone.

Let me talk about progress on theground, and some of the challenges that lieahead. The progress since the signing of theDayton Agreement is visible to the nakedeye of anyone who has been to Sarajevo.Clearly any one snapshot will show a verydifficult picture. Bosnia was destroyed. Halfa million livestock were destroyed. Industryproduction plummeted to close to zero.Practically 70 percent of the bridges weretaken out; 60 percent of the schools weretaken out; 40 percent of the housing stockwas totally destroyed. Clearly one is not go-ing to see a country that looks all back to-gether again. As an example, economicgrowth rose from a very, very low level to40 percent in 1996, quite a striking number.Unemployment is 50 to 60 percent, a horrifi-cally high number, but down from 90 per-cent in 1995. There is heat. There is water.There is power back on a limited scale,sometimes just for a few hours, but it’s backin almost every community. As Soren Jes-sen-Petersen said, housing repairs are un-derway, and schools opened in September1996, many of them with repaired roofs,many of them now with textbooks. Healthclinics are open and banks are workingagain, providing credit lines so that small-scale businesses can work. This is the be-ginning, the transition from a humanitarian


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response by the donor community after war-time to reconstruction. Donors have tried tochange the nature of their assistance. It’s theold adage of “Don’t give somebody a fish,give somebody a fishing line”—to changethe nature of assistance to something that’smore sustainable.

There is also progress on institution-building. This isn’t as visible, or, to many,even sexy. It doesn’t make a loud bang. Butthe central bank is on the way to being re-stored. Bank supervision is starting to beback in place. A tax administration is beingreconstructed. The customs system is begin-ning to work. These are all small things, butvital if this country is to have a chance. In-stitution-building is key to this process andshouldn’t be neglected by those who take alook at what’s happening on the ground.

In terms of other challenges, Bosnia wasa socialist economy before the war. The leg-acy was far less malign than in parts of theformer Soviet Union. Bosnia was open tothe outside world, and was a fairly market-oriented socialist economy. But the fact re-mains that there also is a lot of work to bedone to create a transition in Bosnia to amarket economy and small-scale privatiza-tion. A small-scale private sector is startingto spring up, largely financed with resourcesfrom remittances that many of the refugeesabroad are sending home.

On what the donors have done: Hereagain there’s been a good start. An aggregateof $1.8 billion has been committed by 40 to50 countries, and another 15 multilateral or-ganizations like UNHCR and UNDP [theUN Development Program] and many of theNGOs active on the ground. The WorldBank and the European Commission put to-gether a $5.1 billion reconstruction program.We targeted $1.8 billion as being the amountthat should be front-loaded to jump start theeconomy in the first year. Of that $1.8 bil-lion, about $700 million has already beendisbursed in a range of sectors from de-

mining, demobilization support, education,reconstruction, transport, and energy—all ofthe bread-and-butter reconstruction sectorswhich are important if we are to avoid mort-gaging Bosnia’s future.

When one looks at how much has beendone, it’s very important to compare this tothe damage and the overall scale of whatneeds to be done. The estimates of damagein Bosnia vary widely, but people say be-tween $20 billion and $40 billion of damagewas done over the four years of war. If welook at the $5 billion of external financingthat might be available, that will only, underthe best of circumstances, repair a quarter ofthe damage. As I said, half a million head oflivestock were killed during the war. In thefirst year, there have been resources to im-port only 5,000 head. If we reconstruct theentire housing stock of Bosnia to its prewarlevels so that refugees could come back, thiswould be a $4 billion to $5 billion effort.But overall, the scale of the housing programthat foreigners will finance is only about$600 million because other needs are alsourgent. So there is no way that the externaleffort, unless complemented by domesticresources, will rebuild Bosnia to its prewarstandard. This is something we all need tokeep in mind when we ask ourselves, “Hasenough been done? Is it happening quicklyenough?” The needs are vast, and they haveto be met not only over time, but by a com-bination of foreign resources and domesticeffort.

We’re working closely with the Bosniangovernment to set up mechanisms by whichdomestic effort can contribute. If we thinkback to Germany 50 years ago and the Mar-shall Plan, the nations of Europe got lessthan $200 per capita. The bulk of the re-sources came from the domestic efforts ofthe European countries themselves. Think ofhow long it took to reconstruct Europe: evenin the less damaged parts of Europe, it waswell into the 1950s before things were back


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to, I don’t want to say normal, but to some-thing that looked less bad than it had. So Ithink that scale is important, and a time per-spective is important.

I don’t want to sound complacent, andwe’re not—not the World Bank, and not thedonor community. We are working to focusthe donor effort on sustainability. The donoreffort is going to be limited. Just as we had areality check from the military side, we alsoneed to have a reality check from the eco-nomic side. The world will not support Bos-nia forever, and that’s why it’s absolutelycritical to make the best possible use of thelimited resources, the $5 billion that wehope will be available over 3 to 4 years.

We are working very hard to define waysto make economic programs sustainable: thisis a broad theme. One focus is on infra-structure. Clearly in the first two years, do-nors do most of the reconstruction. But inthe medium term one needs to have somecost recovery. One needs to have appropriatepricing in the power sector. People need topay for their water and gas, so that the oper-ating companies can make a contribution toinvestments, because donors will not bethere forever. We’re working on pricingstrategies, billing strategies, on all sorts ofthings that, again, don’t make a big splash,don’t even sound very interesting, but arecritical if people’s lives are to be improvedfor the longer term.

The same is true for the banking sector.Bosnia’s banks were absolutely devastatedby the war. But foreigners can’t financeBosnia’s industries forever. So to strengthenthe banks, to get them back on their feet, isanother key objective.

A third major objective for the donorcommunity is to revitalize Bosnia’s war-damaged industries, and here privatization isa number one objective. The government,with its devastated fiscal position, justdoesn’t have the resources to put into indus-

try—even if it were a good idea to have thegovernment support industry, which, as theexperience of Eastern Europe has told us, itisn’t.

The sustainability theme is a broad one.It covers everything from cost recovery toinstitution-building to privatization. It’sreally toward sustainable policies and insti-tutions that one has to be headed and not justtoward physical reconstruction alone, be-cause reconstruction is the beginning. If it isto be sustainable we have to put mechanismsand policies in place in Bosnia that can keepthe effort going when we donors are allgone.

Bosnians at all levels of government andcivil society hold the future in their ownhands. They need to make Dayton work.They need to put together government insti-tutions at the entity level and the municipallevel, so that donor resources can bear fruit.Again, we’re working very closely with thegovernments, with the local communities,with civil society, and throughout the donorcommunity to make this happen.

A great deal of the success will dependon the Bosnians themselves, and what hap-pens to give donors the confidence that thisis an effort worth supporting. The world is avery fickle place. Donor money can leaveBosnia as easily as it came. Actually that is amisstatement, it didn’t come easily. Thereare so many demands on world resources, onhumanitarian resources, that this window ofopportunity is a critical one. We hope thatwhat happens on the ground will give donorsthe confidence that Bosnia can absorb theresources transferred, and that they’ll bearfruit. If that confidence is not there, then do-nors will surely shift their attention else-where. As I said, we are working in closecollaboration with all of the NGOs, the hu-manitarian organizations, the EuropeanCommission, and over 60 other governmentsto try and make this happen. It’s a world-


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wide effort of cooperation. There are a lot oflessons to draw from our experience on howto make future efforts like this work. And,when we look back on what 50 years ofpeace have meant for the economic prosper-ity of Europe, we must recognize how im-portant it is to make the peace process, andreconstruction, succeed in Bosnia.

James Schear:I will comment on the nettlesome prob-

lem of public security in Bosnia’s postcon-flict transition. All of us who support theDayton Agreement are now fighting off de-spair and a sense of pessimism. Many meta-phors have been used to describe the Daytonprocess. I liken it to a big, lumbering, jumbojet which has started to roll down the run-way. The pilots have the throttle on full.They’re admiring how fast they are goingbut haven’t reached the takeoff velocity.Some of the passengers are saying, “Well,perhaps we had better offload some baggagequickly”—free and fair elections, large scalerepatriation of refugees. The pilots havedone that, and now they’re trying to veeronto a longer runway. This ungainly aircraftmay take flight. It may not. I think you canmake a good case that the plane was over-loaded to begin with. No peace agreement,even one brokered in Dayton, Ohio, will de-liver a quick settlement after four years ofbitter fighting and warfare. The problem isthat Dayton sets a high standard. Eventhough Bosnia is in many respects better offnow than it was before, the peace process islagging badly.

The optimist could argue, “Well, the bestyou can ever get is partial implementation.”Peace agreements are always messy—lookat Cambodia, look at El Salvador. Partialpeace is probably the best we can do. Theproblem in Bosnia, I would submit, is that ina partial implementation you can’t givesomething to everyone. You can’t apportionthe benefits of the peace to all the three par-

ties and say, “Well, we’ve done reasonablywell.” Partial implementation in Bosniameans that the separatists win. That’s a veryserious problem and it’s going to dog ourefforts.

Public security is one of the most im-portant and difficult problems we face.Transitional law enforcement is always a bigproblem in any post-conflict situation, andBosnia is not unique in this regard. As ar-mies disengage, as we saw in the Bosnianfederation in 1994, their constabulary func-tions atrophy. That creates a vacuum whichbandits and criminals are very quick to fill.You have large numbers of unemployed sol-diers hitting the streets who have weapons,cascading into the civil population. All ofthat makes for a very difficult law-enforcement problem.

Law enforcement institutions are not in agood position to pick up the slack. They tendto be dysfunctional in various ways. In So-malia law enforcement was a revered insti-tution; it was not a political instrument forpublic control under Siad Barre, though ithad no resources. In Haiti it was a predatoryand reviled institution. Bosnia doesn’t quitefit these traditional models. But in any casethe dysfunction is such that you cannotcount on local law enforcement for the de-livery of public security services.

Outside intervenors are not in a muchbetter position to provide law enforcement.Peacekeepers don’t like to be policemen.They see it as a “slippery slope” into be-coming embroiled in the conflict. There wasa lot of truth in Alan Stolberg’s commentsabout the constraints upon the use of force incivil strife. It’s a serious problem, magnifiedby the fact that most UN operations inflictmore casualties acting in self-defense thanthey sustain in those attacks. Certainly thatwas true in Cambodia, and very true in So-malia. It was true even in Bosnia during the1992–1995 time frame. Sharp restrictions onthe use of force constrain the ability of


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peacekeepers to act as policemen. However,police monitors don’t like to do policing ei-ther. Bosnia has all these problems, evenbefore we factor in the separatist characterof the conflict.

Humanitarian displacement has createdgridlock around the country. The displacedcommunities of each side are preventing thereturn of the other. Displaced Croats livingin Stolac prevent Muslims from comingback. Displaced Krajina Serbs in Banja Lukaprevent Bosniacs and Croats from returningthere. Srebrenica Muslims in greater Sara-jevo create difficulties for local Serbs whochoose to remain. You almost wish that youcould blow a whistle and people would justmove home all at one time like “musicalchairs.” Of course it’s not that easy.

Another point about public security isthat the three main actors in this drama inBosnia don’t match up very well. The threeactors are IFOR, the International PoliceTask Force (IPTF), and the local police in-stitutions. It’s very difficult to match themup, to latch them together in a coherent way.IFOR and IPTF have had troubles in coordi-nating on public security. But the hardestrelationship is between IPTF and the locallaw-enforcement agencies. Policing, evenpolice monitoring, is much harder than tra-ditional peacekeeping. It requires a degree ofintrusiveness that really one doesn’t see inother aspects of peacekeeping. If you’re apolice monitor, to do your job correctly youhave to go into a police station and say,“Where are your duty rosters? Where areyour patrol plans? What is the status of thesefive investigations?” You’re trying to cajoleand develop good rapport with your inter-locutor and also have to be demanding andinsistent. It creates a very difficult problemin how we do the policing work in Bosnia.

At the end of the day, we also have toask, “What are the incentives for the localparties to cooperate?” In Somalia there were

enormous incentives because the Somalipolice had no resources. In Haiti, local po-lice worried for their own survival. Theywere happy to invite in the local UN civilpolice, or the U.S. military police, becausethey needed protection. In Bosnia it’s quite adifferent situation. Most of the local policeare tolerated, if not respected, by the majori-ties in their areas. The problem is with therights and protection of the minority. Also,the separatist police forces generally do nothave a strong incentive to cooperate as aquid pro quo for the cooperation of otherpolice. If the Bosniac police abuse Croatsand Serbs in the federation, it just meansmore Serbs will go to Republika Srpska.This accentuates the tendency toward sepa-ration.

What’s ahead? I would divide the chal-lenges in public security into operational andinstitutional problems. On the operationalside, municipal elections are very difficult tomanage. Especially in divided municipalitiessuch as Mostar and Brčko, if there is aforced repatriation or some outcome of thearbitration, that creates instability. You lookat all these operational issues and they areforbidding indeed.

The institutional issues may be evenharder: the restructuring of local police in-stitutions. There’s an effort to downsizeBosnia’s 54,000 or so police corps in bothentities. This will be hard to do in a postwarsituation. There is an ongoing effort to vetpersonnel, to expose indicted war criminalsand bad apples, and to remove them fromthe ranks of the police. This will be a verydifficult task. The outcome is uncertain.

The critical element that we are lackingat present in the Bosnia restructuring effortis a sense of public accountability. You wantto build this into a restructured police force.It was not actually a bad police force beforethe war. It worked well; its senior officerswere university educated. The local popu-


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lace generally respected the police and thecrime rate was low. But the police becamepoliticized during the war, and there is notradition of accountability in the Bosnianpolice forces except, perhaps, accountabilityto party officials. The direct link betweenpolicing and party control has to be brokenfor any public security reform to take root inthe garrison state which still defines postwarBosnia.

Question:Colonel Stolberg mentioned the lack of

will of the international community. In May1993 the international community set up sixsafe havens for the Muslims which were un-der threat of being overrun by the BosnianSerbs. In September 1993 when the BosnianMuslims overran Bosnian Croat towns incentral Bosnia, the Croats were all kickedout by the same token. In August 1995, Bos-nian Serbs were ethnically cleansed fromvery large swathes of territory in westernBosnia that were close to 96 percent BosnianSerb. The UN did not set up safe havens forthem. I would just like to know if this was amere coincidence or if this was an attempt atpolicy.

Stolberg:That’s a very important question, be-

cause when the international communityemploys force, it has got to be a balancedemployment of force if it’s going to be suc-cessful. As you do know, the Bihac enclaveexisted in the northwestern part of Bosnia,but that encompassed primarily Muslimelements in the area. I really can’t commenton what you said. I have no personal insightinto this case; my involvement was in 1995.From my standpoint there has to be a bal-ance in order for the use of force to be suc-cessful.

Question:What do you do about corruption on the

ground, and the hammerlock that traditionalpolitical parties have on the distribution ofeconomic benefits as a way of enforcingcontrol? And as a corollary to that, how doyou get aid directly on the ground to the lo-cal communities to set up countervailingpower?

Jessen-Petersen:Christine Wallich will take care of the

corruption, and I’ll take care of whether wecan give aid directly to the beneficiaries.During the war there was a major problem.It was our policy then—and it will always beour policy—that if we are stopped on theroad by any of the fighting forces, demand-ing that a certain part of aid be handed overbefore we can move on, the instructions toour people on the ground are clear: You turnaround and you don’t give in. Realities al-ways make that difficult. That was duringwartime. It is extremely important thatwhatever we do now is aimed at building uplocal economies and local capacities. Ourhousing repair program is based on localprocurement, local workforces, and thereforeit is worked through local authorities. Byworking through NGOs, who actuallymonitor distribution, the aid reaches thebeneficiaries. But we have to strike a bal-ance, we have to work with the localauthorities because the very goal that wehave is to re-energize local capacities.

Wallich:Corruption is on everyone’s mind—with

$1.8 billion worth of aid flowing throughBosnia in a single year, and with institutionsas weak as they are. At one level we aretrying to ensure that aid resources are deliv-ered directly to people. For example, tractorsimported for enterprises should be sold, orprovided through in-kind credit arrange-ments, not given away, because if you pay


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for something, you’re likely not to then re-sell it. If you have to pay back the money—e.g., the price of a cow over ten years—chances are you won’t export it or sell it tosomebody else. It will probably stay in itsfinal destination if there is an in-kind creditarrangement or if there are actually somesales.

We have sometimes been accused by thehumanitarian community of being undulyharsh in not giving away things to very vul-nerable populations. But it’s been showntime and time again that donated materialends up getting re-exported. You’ll find do-nated food in the shops. If you sell some-thing, even for a notional price, or if youhave a small subsidized interest rate at-tached, it tends less often to be used forprofiteering. We try not to finance too manyfree imports: things that can be resoldstraight away. We focus on reconstruction:gas meters that get installed, or heaters thatget installed, or water pipes that have to belaid; you’re not going to sell a lot of waterpipes to Croatia or to Hungary.

Another typical problem is bid infla-tion—it’s not so much corruption, but inef-ficient resource use. We do a lot of workthrough local contractors using local labor.As Soren Jessen-Petersen said, this is anobjective. Only if you get money circulatingagain will you get the economy jump-started, and then donors can pull backsooner rather than later. But if you don’thave a sufficiently competitive process do-mestically, you’re likely to get bid inflation.One of the things we emphasize in our ownprocurement, whether it’s civil works orgoods, is international competitive bidding.Even if we think the goods will be procuredlocally, or if a local contractor will build abridge, we open it to a Slovene contractor,we open it to a Hungarian, we open it to theSlovaks. The Macedonians are quite activein this. So you get groups competing who

are not part of the local clique of “I’llscratch your back, you scratch mine—it’smy turn now.” Sometimes just the fact ofinternational competitive bidding will bringdown prices. There is open competition, in-kind credit arrangements, and a focus on re-construction as distinct from free imports.Lastly we have worked with governments toset up a procurement monitoring and auditunit. Again it sounds prosaic but this is likethe General Accounting Office in the UnitedStates. It’s currently staffed by a number ofDutch professional auditors to beef up thelocal government capacity. We see this as acritical beginning, building up a local ca-pacity that any government would want—toensure that scarce resources are used wiselybecause “there’s only this much” and ifthey’re used unwisely there won’t be more.

Question:In an ideal world, what would you like

the international implementation force to doto aid the return of refugees to Bosnia? Whattypes of tasks, and for how long would theyneed to perform them? And as a postscript tomy question, the successor force will have arewritten mandate. Is it politically feasible toinclude some of those duties in the newmandate? The situation with refugees is ob-viously not a success story, as you said your-self, and several actors have vital interests inhaving those powers written into the man-date.

Jessen-Petersen:IFOR is not there on a humanitarian mis-

sion. Ironically UNPROFOR was there inthe middle of war. We and UNPROFORalone had to provide humanitarian assis-tance. Now we are in peacetime and youhave a military force for whom humanitarianassistance is only a secondary priority. It isclear under Dayton that, upon request andprovided that other responsibilities would


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allow, IFOR can assist us. They can assist uswith preventing interference with freedom ofmovement. I would like to see a muchstronger focus on directly supporting the ci-vilian task. One of the biggest challenges iscreating conditions that allow for return.Return is a matter of reconstruction, partieson the ground, and getting rid of the leaderswho are blocking it. It is also a matter ofusing this overwhelming presence to showthat we are serious.

I agree that this is dangerous stuff; weknow it, we were there in the middle of thewar. It is dangerous but we have to be pre-pared to take some risks. So I would like tosee a much more direct supporting task, notjust as a secondary mission and upon re-quest.

Stolberg:From a military perspective, given the

military forces that are available, this mis-sion can be done. The issue that has to beaddressed prior to giving the go-ahead is (1)are we willing to accept the possibility thatpeople who are resisting the return of refu-gees will have to be killed; (2) are we ad-dressing the possibility that civilians in thearea—because these are built-up areas, thisis occurring in towns—will have to be killedor their homes destroyed unintentionally; (3)are we willing to accept soldiers being killedor being injured; obviously that’s a respon-sibility that goes along with the professionof arms. All of those consequences have tobe considered before the military is chargedwith doing something like this. If we don’tconsider the consequences, if we don’t planfor what the deaths might bring—includingthe potential expansion of conflict, hostili-ties, and renewed conflicts in other parts ofthe country—if we do not plan for that, itcan blow up in our faces. It’s a doable prob-lem but it’s complex.

Jessen-Petersen:I don’t think any of us would ever ask

the military to go in there and kill so that wecan move forward, or go in there and kill sothat we can return people. We are talkingabout a flexible, pragmatic use of what isthere—an overwhelming presence.

Stolberg:Ideally that would be a wonderful way to

see it happen, but that is not necessarilywhat will happen on the ground if we aregoing to make it work. People may have tobe killed, buildings may have to be de-stroyed. That may be the only way toachieve some of this. If it is, we first have todecide if we can accept the consequences.We may endanger ourselves and the agree-ment. Most importantly, if we begin an op-eration and don’t execute it fully because ofthe danger of casualties and destruction, wejeopardize our credibility.

Just before the conference, I had achance to read the annual report for theWorld Bank and I was struck by one impor-tant clause which said that the bank’s loanpolicies are not politicized, that they arebased purely on economic and not politicalgrounds. Of more than $700 million of aiddelivered to Bosnia, only about 1 percentreached the Bosnian Serb republic. And inthe annual report, one of the key peacemak-ers according to the Dayton Accord—theFederal Republic of Yugoslavia—is noteven listed and presumably received zeroloans. I wonder if you can comment aboutthe reasons for that and then reconcile thatwith to the allegedly nonpolitical statementin the annual report.

Wallich:The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

[FRY], with all of its constituent republics,was in fact one of the Bank’s largest bor-rowers before the war. We had activities inall of the republics, especially in the poorer


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ones including Bosnia and Macedonia. Oneof the many results of the embargo on theFederal Republic of Yugoslavia has beenthat it has been unable to pay its debt serviceon World Bank loans, on InternationalMonetary Fund loans, and on EuropeanBank for Reconstruction and Developmentloans as well. All of these institutions have apolicy of not lending into a situation of ar-rears, as we call it in financial terms. Theoutstanding arrears of FRY to the WorldBank are now somewhere on the order of$1.1 to $1.4 billion. That amount of arrearshas to be cleared, probably by some veryimaginative means, before we, or the IMF,can begin to support them again. It’s a com-plicated financial challenge. Some donorshave been very targeted in their support ofRepublika Srpska, as you can imagine: theJapanese, the Russians, and several others,the French, the U.K. as well, and other do-nors less so. This accounts for the imbalancein part. There are also sectoral preferences.Some donors, like the Nordics, prefer to dothe social sectors, while others see exportopportunities for their own companies asbeing an impetus for their financial supportfor aid.

Getting back to Republika Srpska: Therewas an embargo until March 1996 on Re-publika Srpska, and most of the nonhu-manitarian, non-NGO donor community wasnot active until the embargo lifted. Donorsthen took different tacks on how quicklythey would mobilize support for RepublikaSrpska. In our own case, we were not activeuntil after the embargo ended, but fieldedseveral missions there immediately after theembargo was lifted. All of our projects havecomponents for Republika Srpska in them.But clearly, as you say, there is a catch-upissue here, and there is an imbalance. By theway, there is also a geographic imbalancewithin the federation, with the Croat cantons

having received less than the Bosniac can-tons, since they’re less damaged.

Question:Are funds going to Bosnia under the

auspices of the World Bank as grants or asloans? And to the extent that they are loans,who are the debtors? Finally, what are theanticipated mechanisms for repayment ofthese loans?

Wallich:There are some grants, and some loans.

We have committed credits from our softloan window called the International Devel-opment Association (IDA). We also have abankable window—the World Bank. WorldBank money comes on market terms for 20years, while IDA money comes for 35 to 40years depending on the country’s per capitaincome, and carries an interest rate of 1/2 of1 percent with a ten-year grace period. If Imay use jargon here, the concessionality inthe credits that are going to Bosnia is veryhigh, precisely because Bosnia’s per capitaincome is so low—it’s on the order of $500to $600 per capita. It was at one point beforethe war as high as $2,400 per capita. So yousee the devastation there.

Question:Who signs the note?

Wallich:Formally, all of our credits—and we

have no choice here through our articles ofagreement—must be signed by the sovereignstate. There can be loans from the state tothe entities, which in fact is typically thecase for our own loans. There could also beloans to the power company, the gas com-pany, to a municipality, or to a canton. Butthey enter or transit through the sovereignstate, and then are typically on final loan tothe beneficiary.

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Nationalism and DaytonMisha Glenny

n 1990, I published a book calledThe Rebirth of History (Penguin).And in it, I wrote, “There is no po-

litical or social force that can match thepower of nationalism in eastern Europe.”Frankly, it was a fair thing to say at the time.

Many liberal commentators, both in theWest and the East, were mapping out ratherdifferent visions of Europe at the time—uto-pian contours. I, and a few other people,started talking about how dreadful national-ism was and how it was going to do very badthings in eastern Europe. I was working forthe BBC at the time, and I had a reputationfor being quite mad, hence the epithet,Misha Bloomy. That’s what I was calledwhen I was at the BBC.

When Yugoslavia broke up, everyonesaid, “He was right. He was right all along.”In fact, I wasn’t basing my remark on Yugo-slavia, and in particular, Kosovo and Croa-tia, which were the two hot spots at the time.I was basing it on the revival in Bulgaria ofpopulism at the expense of the poor,blighted Turkish minority, the murderousRomanian mob in Tirgu Mures that killedfour Hungarians in a spree, the cracking upof the Czechoslovak Federation, the nastylittle spats between the Poles and the Ger-man minority in Silesia, not to mention theone which we all do not really think about,and that was Crimea. I thought that I wastalking quite sensibly, and that other liberalcommentators—though I’m a liberal my-self—who were much more optimistic andstill bathed in the euphoria of 1989 werewrong.

I have to admit that at the time I wrotethere could be no political or social forcethat could match the power of nationalism ineastern Europe, I was talking nonsense. Na-tionalism is not the most powerful political

or social force in eastern Europe, although Ido not concede to the other liberal com-mentators that they were correct in being sooptimistic.

It is my contention that political nation-alism in eastern Europe—I draw a very care-ful distinction here between political nation-alism and cultural nationalism—is, in fact,an extremely weak force, historically, in theBalkans. On certain occasions, when a cer-tain political, economic, and constitutionalconstellation occurs, then you can get abunch of unscrupulous people who are ableto draw from the reservoir of cultural na-tionalism. All those rather nasty elementsfloating around in it can then be, through adelicate sort of chemical process, moldedinto rather toxic heavy water, political na-tionalism. Most of the time, historically, thathas been impossible, and political national-ism has been a very weak force indeed.During large parts of modern Balkan history,the state has had to put enormous resourcesinto creating a national identity because themasses, the peasantry in particular, showedvery little interest in following nationalistideologies.

I have to go back into history. In 1954,the great British historian A. J. P. Taylorwrote, “Macedonia and Bosnia, the twogreat achievements of the Congress of Ber-lin, both contain the seeds of future disaster.The Macedonian question haunted Europeandiplomacy for a generation, and then causedthe Balkan War of 1912. Bosnia first pro-voked the crisis of 1908, and then explodedinto war in 1914, a war which brought downthe Habsburg monarchy.”

Before we go into the implications ofthat for Yugoslavia today, let me mentionjust a little thing that happened in the fewdecades prior to the great eastern crisis of

I


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1875–1878, which culminated in the Con-gress of Berlin. In 1856, the Treaty of Parisended the Crimean War, bringing two dec-ades of relative peace in the Ottoman em-pire. The Russians were extremely angry athaving been humiliated in the Crimean War,and consolidating their position in the Cau-casus and in southern Russia, embarkedupon the largest example of nineteenth-century ethnic cleansing. They expelled onemillion Muslims from southern Russia andthe Caucasus. These included people calledthe Circassians.

Many people have never heard of theCircassians and will probably never hear ofthem again, but they did have a very impor-tant role in these two decades from 1850 to1870. Because they were Muslims, wheredid they go? They went to the Ottoman em-pire, a very sensible thing to do, the only Is-lamic empire with a foothold in Europe. Imust say in defense of the Ottoman empirethat it was the greatest haven for refugees inall of Europe. Not just in the modern period,but before the Enlightenment. They took in alot of Christians, as well. On this occasionhowever, all the refugees were Muslims whohad been run out of town by the rather un-pleasant, but thankfully transient, ideologiesof pan-Orthodoxism and pan-Slavism inRussia. They were very much traumatized.

They did not as a whole go to Anatoliaand become poor peasants. Instead, theywent to Bulgaria, Thrace, Bosnia, and Ma-cedonia. They found that Bulgaria andThrace in particular was quite a fruitful area.There were a number of peasants who wereSlav and who were Orthodox. Because itwas the Ottoman empire, it was possible toslap them about a little, and take their landand take their wheat. This is where the trans-formation comes from. The whole Circas-sian question is, in my estimation, the trans-formation of the normal peripheral strugglesin the Ottoman empire—which involved

fights here and there between people of dif-ferent confessions, different nationalities,speaking different languages—into what be-came a program, an accepted practice, ofethnic cleansing and transfer of populations.The Circassian example is enormously im-portant here.

At the same time as the Ottoman empirestarts to break up, a principle is establishingitself of large-scale cleansing and land ap-propriation between people who identify notso much with national identities, althoughlanguage was important on occasion, butwith confessional identities. When all thisblew up in 1875 to 1878, the Bosnians—theSerbian Orthodox peasantry and the Bul-garian Orthodox peasantry—did not revoltbecause they wanted to bring down the Ot-toman empire. They were sick of the factthat they had no food to eat. They showed anextreme disinclination to respond to the ur-ban enlightened ideologies of the national-ists. For the next 30 to 40 years, both theBulgarians and the Serbs had to put anenormous amount of effort into trying to getpeople interested in the idea that they wereSerbs or Bulgarians. It simply was not there.It does happen when the Turks withdrewfrom Macedonia in 1912–1913. And then,you get Sarajevo and the great power con-flict in 1914.

Now, at all stages of the collapse of theOttoman empire and the Habsburg empire,the great powers have had a very sticky, longfinger in the pie. They bear considerablehistorical responsibility for what went on inthe Balkans. Not only that, I will argue thatthey bear considerable historical and politi-cal responsibility for what happened in theBalkans from 1990 onward. The crux of thematter is nationalism.

The Yugoslav wars are not yet com-pleted. We do not know which way it willgo. We are not beginning a new chaotic,postcommunist era of nationalist conflict.

Nationalism and Dayton

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Remember all the potential conflicts that Imentioned, the Bulgarians and the Turks, theRomanians and the Hungarians, the Rus-sians and the Crimeans: Have any of thoseblown up? They have not blown up, becausethe political leadership of those communitiesand countries decided that it was not in theirstrategic political interests to stir things up.Hungary, for example, has made a historicdecision to let go of its political right to be arepresentative of the Transylvanian-Hungarians and the Slovak-Hungarians. Thisis the beginning of a process—it’s extremelypainful for the Hungarians to do—but theyare doing it nonetheless. Russia did not useCrimea, although it had an opportunity to doso, and some of the Russian nationalist lead-ers in the Crimea did their level best to try toforce Yeltsin to get involved in Crimea.

In Yugoslavia, however, the leadershipsdid decide to mobilize nationalism. Why?They did it for the following reason: we hadcome to the zenith of the problem that A. J.P. Taylor identified in the Congress of Ber-lin. It is no coincidence—with the slight ex-ception of Czechoslovakia, which really is adifferent issue—that in 1918, 1919, and1920, the only country in eastern Europe andthe Balkans that did not buy into the Wilso-nian principle of self-determination wasYugoslavia. There were two reasons for that:Bosnia and Macedonia. Bosnia and Mace-donia could not survive the struggle—whichwas born of the specifics of demographicand historical conflict between Serbs andCroats—if Yugoslavia did not exist. Thatwas the case after the Second World War, aswell.

At the time, everyone thought that self-determination was basically a good thing.Self-determination, of course, does not takeinto account the difficulties of minorities.The great powers came up with some novelways of sorting this problem out. In the 1923Treaty of Lausanne, Lloyd George, in one ofhis more mischievous moves, encouraged

the Greeks to take a bit of Anatolia. TheGreeks thought they could get Istanbul andrecreate the Byzantine empire. Being told bythe British to go and do it, the Greeksthought, “If we lose, the British will come inand save us.”

They go in. Naturally, they get whippedby the Turks, an absolute disaster. They turnaround to the British, “So where are the warships? Where’s the army?”

The British said, “Sorry. It was your de-cision to go in, you know. You lost! Getused to the idea.”

“But how are we going to sort this allout?”

The British and other great powers said,“Let’s move over one million Greeks toGreece from Turkey and 380,000 Turks toTurkey from Greece.” This brilliant idea wascarried out on a confessional basis, inciden-tally. So there were hundreds of thousandsof Muslims in Greece, who only spokeGreek and could not speak a word of Turk-ish, suddenly dropped in the middle ofAnatolia. Anyone who has ever been in themiddle of Anatolia would realize how dis-tressing this was. And there were all theseincredibly educated Orthodox Greeks, Pon-tic Greeks, a really extraordinary 2,000-year-old culture, suddenly being given somethinglike an eighth of an acre of barren farmlandaround Thessalonika. These are doctors,lawyers, dragomans—people who had beenrunning the Ottoman empire—who weretold to farm a few chickens. This had a fero-cious impact on the social structure ofGreece—which, if you go to Thessalonikatoday, you can still detect.

What the great powers said is, “Look,you’re not going to go to war again.” WithGreece and Turkey this is always a mootpoint, but it certainly did cut out a lot of theproblems. The minority problem betweenGreece and Turkey is not nearly as bad nowas it would have been if they all stayed in thesame country. Because by now, the idea is


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that self-determination is terrific and if youcan move populations, all well and good.

So, we start doing this all over Europe.It’s not just the Balkans. Ask a Pole whatthey think about transfer of populations andabout how the great powers have been usedto cutting up their country. As SusanWoodward rightfully pointed out, it is notthat we want partition—because obviouslywe don’t want a partition in Bosnia—but wedon’t know how to do anything else. Wehave been saying self-determination is agood thing. Yugoslavia was the one countrywhich held out against this, and, for all ofTito’s craziness, held out majestically, andgave people a pride and an identity whichwas very different from what happened tothe people who had to muddle through underHungarian or Czechoslovak neo-Stalinism.

The one country which survived every-thing couldn’t survive 1989. I am known asa critic on this. I think the great powers wereinvolved by sins of omission, but in somecases there was active encouragement bygreat powers and, indeed, the internationalcommunity. The international community isthe great powers. They may have differentstrategic, economic, and political interests inYugoslavia, but they have not gone away.

It’s just that, now, they’ve created a veryexpensive and nice mechanism called theUnited Nations, and they do everythingthrough it. But who decides UN policy?Who does such scandalous things as settingup safe areas and then refusing to give therequisite amount of troops to defend thosesafe areas? Five members of the SecurityCouncil. In this case, China has to be ex-cepted, because it didn’t do anything onYugoslav issues on the whole, but the fourother permanent members of the SecurityCouncil have a great deal to answer for, asdoes Germany.

We have now come to the end of theprocess of self-determination. Those who

wanted the Serb and Croat states have gotthe Serb and Croat states. Good luck tothem. But you still have the problem of Bos-nia and Herzegovina, and you still have theproblem of Macedonia. You haven’t solvedit, because the only mechanism you knewfor solving it, Yugoslavia, has gone. It is nomore, and regrettably, it cannot be recon-structed. So what happens? We get theDayton Agreement.

I’m going to finish up with some ex-tremely critical remarks about the DaytonAgreement.

In the Dayton Agreement is the constitu-tion for Bosnia and Herzegovina. You’ve allread the constitution. What a wonderfuldocument—civil rights, human rights, liber-ties all over. I’d be delighted if they intro-duced that constitution into my country, theUnited Kingdom. However, look closely atthat document and what’s missing? Not onemention of the army. That’s very strange,isn’t it? A nation-state is based on an army.That’s the basic security guarantee of statesin Europe. So we have to look elsewhere inthe Dayton Agreement.

The only place in the Dayton Agreementwhere you’ll find mention of the army is inthe regionalization program that legitimizestwo armies in the territory of Bosnia andHerzegovina. Two armies for Bosnia andHerzegovina. We know, of course, thatwe’re really talking about three armies, butwe have to pretend that the federation isworking, so they are called two. But threearmies really, each one identified with a na-tional group, each one fundamentally hostiletoward the others.

At the same time the Dayton Agreementsays that all the refugees can go home. Sooff go the refugees, and who do they meet,Yoram who killed their mother or whatever.It’s obvious what is going to happen here.They’re not going back unless they are de-


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fended by IFOR. And why won’t IFOR doit?

IFOR is doing a terrific job, in my opin-ion. They are following their mandate. Theyinsisted, because they knew what happensfrom the UN experience, that you don’t po-lice someone with a bad mandate. They saidwe want a mandate that is totally straight:We police the Inter-Entity Boundary Line, orzone of separation. If we come across warcriminals, we pick them up. We’re not goingin anywhere.

They wouldn’t like to do it, but theywould be perfectly prepared to go in andtake Karadžić. They would be perfectly pre-pared to go and put people back into theirhomes as refugees, if the commander inchief of the American army stood up, a pri-ori, and said that he was going to take thepolitical wrath for any consequences. Presi-dent Clinton is not going to do that. So,don’t blame IFOR and don’t blame the Pen-tagon. Blame the political instances that cre-ated this policy. The Pentagon, in this case,is really just following orders, which is whatan army should do.

I think it’s time that the internationalcommunity—the great powers—gets honest,and says, “Look, all that stuff about the re-turn of refugees, that is just a bit of talk,really. You aren’t going home.” Then thesepoor people, who actually believe, and havea document to prove, that they have the rightto go home, will be able to say, “Well, allright, they’ve partitioned the country. Whatare we going to be able to do about that?”And work from that premise. Otherwise yougo in there and you settle it by force, whichwould be a very difficult thing to do. That’sfor the politicians to work out.

Someone was honest the other day. It’svery rare that political leadership is honest inthe Yugoslav business. Klaus Kinkel, of allpeople. Could you imagine it? Klaus Kinkelcame to the Paris follow-up conference andsaid, “One year. The troops are out in one

year. Don’t want to hear anything else aboutit. One year.” Now, far be it from me to sug-gest, and I never would, that this may havesomething to do with the coalition crisis cur-rently going on in Germany or the fact thatthere are a lot of refugees that certain peoplewant out of the country and back in Bosnia.It could have to do with the fact that theGermans have had enough and they say,“Let’s get on with the partition and stop allthis pretending that we’re going to sendpeople back home.”

One person whose job I do not envy isAmbassador Frowick, who is to organize themunicipal elections. I think that we shouldall be straight about it and say, either parti-tion and you’re not going home, or we’regoing to make an enormous military effortand we’re going to do it. State your choice,but don’t say, “You’re going home,” whenyou know that you are lying.

My final point is Macedonia. In Mace-donia, the Serbs have been gutted in the east.The greatest Serbian project is finished.They know that. Milošević knows that.Milošević also knows that there is one re-maining question of irredentism in the Bal-kans which threatens a lot of violence, andthat is the Albanian question. Milošević willget rid of Kosovo. He’s certainly workingtoward it already. “What?” I hear everybodysay, “Milošević get rid of Kosovo? Butsurely he loves the cradle of Serbian civili-zation.” Well, he certainly didn’t mind be-traying a 300-year-old Serb community inthe Krajina, did he? He let the Serbs be shotlike rabbits by the Croats there. That wasfine. He didn’t mind about giving up terri-tory in Bosnia and Herzegovina. SlobodanMilošević is not, of course, a nationalist.

So, what is Slobodan going to do? Hehas started doing it already. He signed adocument with Ibrahim Rugova inKosovo—a devil incarnate. Who mediatedthe Albanian-Serb agreement on the returnof Albanians back to schools in Kosovo?


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The Vatican. They did it. Milošević will getrid of Kosovo, but he’s going to ensure thatSerbia protects its interests through Mace-donia. He will come to a deal with Macedo-nia, whereby the Albanians in Macedoniawill have to stay in Macedonia, but Kosovowill be allowed to go to Albania. Inasmuchas Milošević and the Albanian leadership arebeginning to try to sort this out withoutarmed conflict, it is a good thing. It will, ofcourse, mean changing borders. It will meanmore transfer of population, and that is prin-cipally a bad thing, but we have bad choicesleft in the Balkans and not good choices.

Once that is sorted out—if the Albanianquestion ever is sorted out—then you willsee, at the end of this century, the final tri-umph of a principle which began life in ear-nest at the beginning of this century and hasled to a lot of misery for a lot of people. Idon’t think political nationalism in certainforms is over in Europe. We have a lot ofproblems in Europe which are not related toeastern Europe and the Balkans. But I dothink that finally a process which began inthe middle of the nineteenth century, basedon a thoroughly disgraceful principle, whichsees people as wanting to live apart, as op-posed to wanting to live together—andwhich was not begun in 1989—that processhas finally won, although the Bosnian situa-tion remains an open wound. It is up to all ofus to do something about it. If we look at ourrecord over the past five years, we can’t betoo optimistic.

Question:Regarding current affairs in Republika

Srpska, the RS, how would you evaluate theposition of Professor Plavšić, the presidentof the RS? Do you think that she’s becomeindependent enough not to rely on Dr.Karadžić? Or do you think that, in fact, Dr.Karadžić still commands, pulls the stringsfrom behind the scenes?

Glenny:It’s a great shame that our good friend,

Jovan Zametica, could not be here becausehe would have known what was going onthere. I am not as closely involved with Paleleadership as Zametica, to be able to giveyou any real idea about that.

My own feeling is that Karadžić is po-litically dead and that the person who reallypulls the strings in the RS is Momcilo Kra-jišnik. Plavšić is a useful person for him toput up and see whether he is able, at themoment, to irritate Mladić enough to get ridof him. Plavšić is not a politician of anygreat power, to my mind. The jury’s still outon this, but I think that he’s dead.

Question:What is wrong with taking apart internal

boundaries of one sovereign state? WhenYugoslavia was taken apart, when those in-ternational frontiers weren’t respectedthrough the policy of recognition, what iswrong with, say, redrawing the internalboundaries of Croatia, Bosnia, and possiblySerbia?

There are two precedents here. One isthe case of Ireland. When Ireland secededfrom Great Britain, Northern Ireland wasseparated from Ireland. When India waspartitioned, the two large provinces calledPunjab and Bengal—majority Muslimstates—were also partitioned. Why was thisoption never considered? I don’t think inter-nal boundaries have the same sanctity as in-ternational borders.

Glenny:In the case of Yugoslavia, borders made

from the administrative boundaries of therepublics seemed as good as any. But franklyhere, members of the international commu-nity and the leaderships particularly of Ser-bia and Croatia were entirely cavalier withany principle. Germany’s argument for rec-


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ognition was that Germany itself had justgained self-determination—i.e., unifica-tion—and everyone else in Europe shouldhave that right as well. Now this is simplynot a relevant political parallel, the unifica-tion of Germany and the breakup of a federalmultiethnic state in the Balkans. But it was aparallel which the Germans used.

Similarly, Tudjman and Milošević andthe nationalist leaders inside Yugoslaviawould use, simultaneously, historical,demographic, and strategic arguments tojustify the redrawing of boundaries in theformer Yugoslavia. There was no actualprinciple for how you go about doing this.Milošević wanted all Serbs in one state,which he now denies ever having said. I al-ways wanted to ask him, at the time, “Doesthat mean that you’re going to go in and pickup some of the Serbs in Hungary and Roma-nia? What do you mean by all Serbs in onestate?” What he was arguing was, all Serbsin Yugoslavia in one state. He wanted largeparts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whichwere not naturally Serbian lands, for strate-gic purposes. He would use strategic andhistorical arguments. No one was discussingthis in a principled fashion either insideYugoslavia or outside Yugoslavia.

Everyone went berserk when the JNA,the Yugoslav army, moved into Slovenia. Infact the JNA did have a constitutional dutyto secure the integrity of that state. What doyou do when the state is failing and both in-ternal and external factors are using disin-genuous arguments to advance their politicalprograms? It is very difficult to come upwith a principled response.

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Diplomatic Roundtable: The Future of the Balkans

Panelists:Ambassador Robert Frowick, Former

Head of Mission in Bosnia and Her-zegovina, Organization for Securityand Cooperation in Europe

Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey, Per-manent Representative of Bosnia andHerzegovina to the United Nations

Ambassador Ivan Šimonović, PermanentRepresentative of the Republic ofCroatia to the United Nations, andformer Deputy Foreign Minister, Re-public of Croatia

Ambassador Vladislav Jovanović, Per-manent Representative of the Re-public of Yugoslavia to the UnitedNations

Ruth Wedgwood, Moderator, Professor,Yale Law School, and Senior Fellow,Council on Foreign Relations

Ruth Wedgwood:It’s fine for academics and aid workers

to make predictions, but it’s quite a differentmatter to be a party on the ground and haveto figure out how to maneuver your waythrough the thicket. So we thought it mightbe interesting to close with what we havestyled a diplomatic roundtable—it happensthat everybody here is a diplomat, of onesort and another—to talk about the progno-sis for the region and in particular for Bosniaand Herzegovina.

I am going to ask each of the panelists togive a short statement of how they seeevents evolving, then I’m going to put oneimpolite question to each of my indulgentpanelists, and then we’ll open it to the floorfor questions. We’ll begin with AmbassadorFrowick.

Robert Frowick:I have been hearing so many criticisms

of OSCE that I will start by recalling astatement by Joseph Luns, when he was sec-retary-general of NATO and NATO wasconstantly under attack. What he said aboutNATO applies to OSCE—OSCE is likeWagner’s music: it’s not as bad as it sounds.

I am asked to review the events of thishistoric year in Bosnia and Herzegovina andlook ahead at a vision of the future of theBalkans, as far as the OSCE perspective isconcerned. Let me say at the outset, in an-swer to the central question of the seminar—“After Dayton: Has the Bosnian Peace Proc-ess Worked?”—I believe the process hasgenerally worked, better than anticipated,although the parties have a long way to go tocreate the freedom of association, expres-sion, and movement as well as the politicallyneutral environment that was envisaged inthe Dayton Agreement.

OSCE was requested to take responsi-bility for three key tasks in Bosnia: (1) tosupervise the preparation and conduct of theelections, (2) to contribute to democratiza-tion and a strengthening of respect for hu-man rights, and (3) to extend OSCE auspicesto negotiations on confidence- and security-building measures and arms limitations. Inmy opinion, considerable progress has beenachieved on all three of these objectives. Butin each case we are at an early stage of aprocess that will take a great deal of time.Any hope of eventual success will dependmainly on the stamina and will of the inter-national community to stay the course inboth military and civil peace-building ef-forts.

I’m told that there was sharp criticism ofthe process that resulted in the September1996 elections, in particular the voting


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regulations for refugees. I would like to pre-sent our perspective on that question in theOSCE mission and the Provisional ElectionCommission which OSCE established inSarajevo early in 1996.

The peace agreement indicated that as ageneral rule the refugees and displaced per-sons would be expected to vote in person orby absentee ballot where they resided in1991, that is, before the war. The displacedpersons are the refugees that remainedwithin the country. The commission pre-served this right in its regulations for the800,000 to 900,000 refugees and hundredsof thousands of displaced persons who wereeligible to vote. But the agreement alsostated that such citizens might apply to thecommission to cast their votes elsewhere.Thus our regulations had to ensure this rightas well. I took the position, as chairman ofthe commission, that we should emphasizethe right of the individual voter to decide forhimself or herself where to reside and thusto vote. Unfortunately, in too many casesstate authorities arrogated to themselves theright to decide where the voters should casttheir ballots. The electoral process thus suf-fered the imperfections and stress and strainthat I, for one, had consistently indicatedwould unfortunately, but likely, be the casein elections that were being held only amatter of months after the formal end of thehorrific interethnic warfare.

The essential facts in the country are thatIFOR moved into Bosnia in the winter of1995–96 with overwhelming strength, sepa-rated the combatants and their weaponry,generally stabilized the situation on theground, and gave OSCE, UN agencies, theEuropean Union, and others the chance tobegin building a structure of peace. Of piv-otal importance was the election of commoninstitutions of government as the principalmeans of bringing the respective peoplesback together again. That is, of overcomingthe centrifugal political forces that had been

unleashed during the war in the militarysense and that were continuing in a politicalsense. The electoral process created a col-lective presidency, a House of Representa-tives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a presi-dency of Republika Srpska, a national as-sembly of Republika Srpska, a House ofRepresentatives of the Federation of Bosniaand Herzegovina, and governing bodies forten cantons—the ten cantons that are in thefederation. The high representative is cur-rently in a position to install the winningcandidates into office and he is movingalong that tortuous path slowly but steadily.

Early in the summer 1996, I determinedthat the integrity of the electoral process re-quired that no one indicted for war crimes bythe International Tribunal for the formerYugoslavia in The Hague and refusing tocomply with an order to appear before thattribunal, should be able to participate in thecampaign. On June 14, 1996, as the OSCEhead of mission, it was my responsibilityunder the rules of the game to decidewhether to recommend that the electionstake place within the nine months specifiedin the treaty time frame or not, and I madethat recommendation. I remember talkingwith my good friend Muhamed Sacirbey atthat time about my crise de conscience indealing with the issue, and about the factthat we had Radovan Karadžić holding theoffice of the presidency of the leading partyof Republika Srpska. I said I didn’t knowwhat might be done about that but staytuned, because I was going to do something.

I decided that Karadžić must either leavethe presidency of the Serb Democratic Un-ion, the SDS, or the SDS would not be ableto participate in the elections. After someintensive efforts by myself and the lightning,decisive, highly publicized visit to Belgradeof Richard Holbrooke and his team, Karad-žić in fact was removed from his public of-fice both as the head of the party and the lin-gering position that he held as president of


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Republika Srpska even after having trans-ferred his powers to Mrs. Plavšić. This oc-curred on July 18, 1996.

Holbrooke and company were keepingme up all night on the telephone when theywere in Belgrade working out that agree-ment. I had just come back from talking withForeign Minister Primakov of the RussianFederation and the next morning we had theagreement—in the early hours of July 19,1996, which was the day the campaign wasto begin. It seemed to me the effect was togive a boost to the integrity of a process thatreally needed some boosts.

As the process unfolded, there were somany difficulties in the municipalities that inAugust 1996 I decided it would be necessaryto postpone the local elections for a while.Planning for these has continued, even up totoday, but agreement on their taking placehas been effectively held up by RepublikaSrpska. At present, we are trying to gainagreement on an extension of the mandate topermit OSCE supervision of these criticallyimportant elections—in some ways the heartof the entire peace process.

Once the municipal elections are held,the OSCE mission to Bosnia and Herzego-vina will be restructured to carry its workforward on two pillars of policy. First, de-mocratization, which will represent the mostimportant single mission activity in the yearsahead, and I do expect OSCE to be involvedin Bosnia and Herzegovina for quite sometime. Democratization and human rights onone side, and secondly, regional stabilizationquestions on the other. That is, confidence-and security-building measures and armslimitations.

Looking well into the future I would likefinally to offer some food for thought. Ithink that OSCE should be considered for agreater leadership role in dealing with futurecrises in Europe like that of Bosnia and Her-zegovina. I believe the remarkably success-

ful 1967 concept of former Belgian ForeignMinister Pierre Harmel, that the Atlantic al-liance should develop military forces capa-ble of meeting any level of threat, throughflexible response, and then on the basis ofthe stability thus established, should pursuediplomatic efforts to resolve underlying po-litical problems—that this approach shouldbe emulated in ways that suit the evolutionof events in Europe. Specifically, IFOR-likemilitary forces that include strong UnitedStates and allied, as well as Russian andeastern European units, should be responsi-ble for military aspects of peacemaking.OSCE, under the aegis of the United NationsSecurity Council, with similarly strongUnited States, western Europe, Russian, andeastern Europe participation might be con-sidered to take the lead in the future inpeace-building with respect to the civil sec-tor. At present, OSCE is not geared to takeon this level of responsibility. But I thinkthis is a concept that should be carefullyconsidered during this period of transitionfrom collapse of the bipolar post–WorldWar II era to the shaping of whatever newand viable order may prove possible inEurope in the years ahead.

Muhamed Sacirbey:What were the objectives behind the

Bosnian government signing the Daytonpeace agreement? What did we hope toachieve? First, of course, to stop the war.The war had taken a tremendous toll on thepopulation. The death and suffering was at apoint where the people of the country werethinking it was better to give up forever onthe concept of a unified country, a multieth-nic society, rather than continuing to try topersevere. There was a second objective, amuch broader objective, and that is what Isimply call winning the war through peace.No, it didn’t mean that you dig in for five orten years and restart the war. What it really


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meant is that there were certain objectivesthat we thought the Western communityfully supported, and we thought it would beeasier for the Western community, the inter-national community as Misha Glenny callsit, to implement these objectives in an envi-ronment of peace. While the internationalcommunity failed to intervene to stop thewar, we thought they would at least inter-vene resolutely in peace to see those par-ticular principles and objectives imple-mented. In particular we thought that theconcepts of democratization, full respect forhuman rights, and frankly, the superiority ofan open, democratic, pluralistic societywould be not only tolerated, but in fact sup-ported by these very forces.

What are the results? First, the war hasended, and thankfully much of the sufferingthat the population has experienced. Obvi-ously some of the population still feels thatthe struggle continues, particularly thosewho are deprived of their homes, those whostill don’t know the fate of missing relatives,and those who feel they have been deprivedof justice. Nonetheless the physical sufferinghas been significantly reduced.

The rebuilding process has in fact beenstarted. We could see more being done. But Ithink to a large extent the World Bank andother organizations have shown themselvesin a very energetic fashion in Bosnia andHerzegovina—unprecedentedly so for theWorld Bank. Despite the fact that therearen’t enough resources to rebuild the coun-try to the point where we believe it needs tobe, we can say that there has been at least agood start.

The problem with this process of re-building, with this process of reintegration,is that the process of reconciliation reallyhas not taken place. It has not even started,and that’s not just by accident. It’s not be-cause people somehow just can’t stretch outand shake someone’s hand. It’s becausethere are clear objectives on the part of those

who are opposed to reconciliation. Thosewho started this war and who fought it forthe purpose of ethnic separation are creatingobstructions to reconciliation for the simplereason that, in an environment of reconcilia-tion, they would go from being nationalistheroes to war criminals.

The greatest problem that we have seenas a result of the implementation of theDayton Agreement is the selective applica-tion of the various elements of the DaytonAgreement itself. This, in many ways, is theselective vision of those who are responsi-ble, from the outside, for implementing theDayton Agreement. Their selective vision isbased upon the following principles. First,that the people in this region are not capableof achieving the objectives of democracy,human rights, and a multiethnic society.That’s why we hear all these stories about600 years of ethnic strife and religious ha-tred. This effectively becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many of the internation-als have convinced themselves that it’s eas-ier to keep these different communitiesapart, because once you get them togetherit’s explosive. So when we look at the Inter-Entity Boundary Line, established by theDayton Agreement, it has become sort of ademarcation line [that] even the IFOR forcesseem too anxious to enforce, because theyfear that people who cross the line might infact cause difficulty for their mission. This isa politically expedient, convenient approach.

A few months ago, I had the opportunityto sit in a meeting with President Alija Izet-begović and Admiral Joseph Lopez, thecommander of the IFOR/NATO troops inBosnia at that time. Admiral Lopez had justcome in to take over the mission from Ad-miral [Leighton] Smith. In a very firm, con-fident voice, he said, “By the way, we’regoing to do more about making sure that warcriminals are captured.” He said, “If wecome across them, we’re going to make surethat we arrest them and take them in and de-


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liver them to the tribunal. And we’re goingto increase our patrols and make sure thatwe’re ever more vigilant and ever more ac-tive about making sure that we run intothem.” Maybe, but—and this is what I saidto Admiral Lopez at this time—I said,“Please don’t understand this as an insultingcomment, but even a blind chicken gets agrain of rice every once in a while.”

What are the long-term perspectives forpeace? They are mixed at best. In manyways, the present situation has encouragedradicalism, because while on the one handsecuring a lack of war, the peace agreementas it is implemented has also further ce-mented the status quo, the consequences ofethnic cleansing. Reconciliation and reinte-gration have not been given an opportunityto move forward. There seems to be a sig-nificant emphasis by those who are imple-menting the peace agreement, particularlythe high representative, Carl Bildt, on cre-ating the following picture: that you have onone hand the Republika Srpska, on the otherhand the federation, and those two commu-nities remain separated. There are two sepa-rate glasses, where the water does not spillover from one into the other. There is acommon very thin roof. That roof is calledthe common institutions of Bosnia and Her-zegovina.

Now maybe it isn’t such a bad idea tobuild that common roof, but two things arehappening. First, this common roof is beingused as a way to avoid any action at thebottom, in terms of the reintegration of thetwo areas—the return of refugees. In effectit’s being used as a substitute for the realreintegration of the country. On the otherhand, at the level of the common institu-tions, the Pale Serb leadership is cominginto various positions of authority in Sara-jevo, and through these positions of author-ity, they in fact are mitigating, marginaliz-ing, the ability of the Sarajevo government

to emphasize those aspects of the Daytonpeace agreement which relate to things likethe war crimes tribunal, return of refugees,and arms limitations. Therefore what’s hap-pening, is that this roof is being used nowalso as a way to minimize the support thatour government can give to the war crimestribunal. For instance, one of the questionsthat we’ll have to ask ourselves, as part ofthis process of creating common institutions,[is] will the Pale leadership try to blockBosnia and Herzegovina from further com-plying with the war crimes tribunal’s re-quests and demands? We already have in-corporated in our laws, provisions to fullycooperate with the war crimes tribunal, andwe are doing that on the ground. Will in factthis particular provision of our law either beeradicated, that is legally reversed, or will itbe made null and void by nonapplication?

I want to give you one final vision. Ithink it’s a very important vision here, and itcorresponds to what Misha Glenny wasspeaking about. I don’t always find myself inagreement with Misha Glenny, but his his-torical perspective is very interesting andrather accurate. The problem that I find withMisha’s perspective is that in fact it is look-ing backward. We need to look forward.Maybe a hundred years ago, Europe couldafford to think of itself in terms of small na-tion-states, that is mono-ethnic states. Butwith the modern era, obviously populationsare moving around voluntarily and not justthrough the concept of ethnic displacementor ethnic cleansing. Therefore, in manyEuropean societies now you find largepopulations of non-Europeans, certainlypeople who were not born into the predomi-nant population of that European state. If infact the consequences of Bosnia mean thatEurope prefers a mono-ethnic state, a purelymono-ethnic state, then one really needs toask another question, and that is: what visiondoes Europe have of itself with, for one ex-


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ample, six million Muslims living in France,or millions of Hindus living in the UnitedKingdom?

Clearly, we cannot base the future ofBosnia on historical factors of over a hun-dred years ago. But Europe still has not de-fined itself in terms of the Bosnian conflict.It seems to treat the entire area of southeast-ern Europe as a separate world. It almostseems enthusiastic about dealing with thispart of Europe as a separate world, becausefrankly the European Union is a rather well-to-do economic club, and it doesn’t wish toshare this benefit, this prosperity with oth-ers. It can’t say so because it just sounds,frankly, too crude and rude in today’s soci-ety. So we hear arguments about how we’vebeen fighting in Bosnia and the region for600 years, we hear about our ethnic and re-ligious differences, and it seems that some-how we are genetically defective. The ra-tionalization being that is why our progressinto the Western community and the Euro-pean Community will be slowed down.

I don’t accept that argument. But there’snot much future that we can expect for peacein Bosnia unless Europe does develop a vi-sion of itself and a vision of where Bosniabelongs in this Europe. Frankly we are toosmall of a country to dictate our own posi-tion in Europe without the input of the re-mainder of Europe and the Western commu-nity.

As a consequence, the real future forpeace in the region, for peace in Bosnia andHerzegovina, is based upon our ability, thatis the Bosnians’ ability, to adhere to thestandards of human rights and democracyevident in most western European countriesand Western countries. On the other hand,Europe must see us as a part of them, and wemust be very persistent in making sure thatthe principles they would apply to their owncountries and their own populations are infact also applied to Bosnia and Herzegovina.It’s as simple as that. If not, then we’ve cre-

ated just another wall in the middle ofEurope, and of course that wall eventuallywould also have to come down. At that timethe costs may be even higher than they aretoday—for all of us.

Ivan Šimonović:Let me start with the title of our panel:

“The Future of the Balkans.” I would like toask, what does “Balkans” in this contextreally designate? If we use a geographicalinterpretation, then we would speak lessabout Croatia, which is bordering the Bal-kans, but is a central European and Mediter-ranean state, and we would be speakingabout Bulgaria, maybe Romania, but cer-tainly about Macedonia, Albania, Greece,and Turkey. The alternative is that the or-ganizer is using the word “Balkans” forsomething else, possibly for the state ofmind of the participants in the conflict informer Yugoslavia, designating them as bel-ligerent, perhaps barbaric. Or that “Balkans”describes a situation of economic backward-ness and permanent political instability. Al-though I do not agree with the use of theword “Balkans” as a negative stereotype, Iwant to put it clear: “Balkans” is not whereCroatia belongs: neither geographically norpolitically. Since I do not know what are theintentions of the organizers, I’ll briefly ad-dress both the issue of the Dayton peaceprocess, and the issue of the future of theBalkans.

Mark Twain once said that there is asimple solution for every complex problem,but it is usually a wrong one. This warning isvery useful when applied to the problem ofthe conflict in former Yugoslavia and to theDayton process. Dayton was a meeting notonly of politicians, but of tendencies thatwere tearing apart, but also uniting Bosniaand Herzegovina for hundreds of years.Dayton has a lot of different dimensions, alot of meanings. If there was not so muchblood and tears in Bosnia and Croatia, we


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could consider Dayton as an extremely in-teresting social, political, and legal experi-ment. Is it possible, not as an act of God, butas an act of interested parties, to have a res-urrection of a collapsed state under somesort of international tutorship? Is it possibleto replace a legal system with a new one cre-ated with the help of the international com-munity, and to protect human rights by thethreat of imported military power?

There has been a question raised whetherDayton has been moral, or whether it hasbeen entirely a pragmatic solution. AlthoughDayton was basically pragmatic, there wasalso a moral element: it was not only buyingtime, it was buying human lives. It certainlydid stop the war. But prerequisites for thatsuccess were not only peace negotiations,but the joint operations between the Bosnianarmy, including Croat and Bosniac compo-nents, and the Croatian army, which changedthe balance of power on the ground. We allin Dayton knew that the institutions we werecreating would not last forever. What wasimportant was to have some sort of transi-tional solutions which would give Bosniatime and a fair chance. What would be theoutcome was not known at the time, and isstill unclear.

To make our estimation of the perspec-tives more reliable, I believe that we shouldanalyze the hidden agenda of Dayton—theissue of interests involved. I would distin-guish among three main circles of interestswhich met in Dayton. First, the most narrowcircle, comprises interests of the three par-ties in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniacs(or Muslims), Croats, and Serbs. Some ob-viously legitimate interests were publiclydeclared and defined, while there were somemutual allegations about a hidden agenda.The legitimate interest of the Bosniacs wasthe unity of the country within internation-ally recognized borders. Allegations havebeen made that the hidden interest is in a

unitarian state where the Muslim elementwould prevail and finally would lead to aMuslim state. On the other hand, concerningthe Croats and especially the Serbs, the le-gitimate interest was the protection ofequality of rights of national groups, whilethe allegations concerning a hidden agendawere that the institutional protection wasbeing misused as a coverup and preparationfor the carving up of Bosnia and Herzego-vina.

The second circle consists of the inter-ests of the neighboring states—the FederalRepublic of Yugoslavia and Croatia. Cer-tainly, their legitimate interest was to protectthe Serbian and Croatian populations inBosnia and Herzegovina and to ensure theirown security and the security of the wholearea. However, there were allegations abouthidden ambitions to enlarge their territoriesinto a “greater Serbia” or a “greater Croatia”at the expense of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Finally, there was a third circle of inter-ests, the interests of Contact Group memberspresent in Dayton. Those interests were alsorather different. There was the obvious andvery legitimate interest in stopping the waveof refugees and to ensure peace and stabilityin the area. But there were also some otherinterests: for example to prove that there isstill a great difference between the UnitedStates and emerging new Europe in theirleadership capability when real problems areto be solved. Within the European Unionthere were different interests as well, basedon traditional ambitions and competitionover influence of individual states in thearea. There was also the important interestof Russia to prove that it remains an un-avoidable factor in international relations.

If we want to make our estimation of theperspectives reliable, we should keep inmind all the three mentioned circles of inter-ests and observe the trends. First, concerningthe sides in Bosnia and Herzegovina: the


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process going on is encouraging. The reali-zation of the military aspect of Dayton hasbeen a full success. There is a steady prog-ress of institution-building. But the chronicproblem is a permanent need to exert pres-sure from outside and to pour in resources,in order to prevent structures from fallingapart. The roots of instability are in the con-tradictory elements inbuilt in the constitutionof Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the wholeDayton arrangement. In Dayton we haveproclaimed the protection of human and na-tional rights of every citizen of Bosnia andHerzegovina on the whole territory, and thefreedom of movement. On the other hand,we were drawing corridors which enabledthe direct communications of ethnic groupswithout a need to trespass through the terri-tory of the other ethnic group. Another ex-ample: The decentralization and equal repre-sentation in central institutions provided forin the Dayton Agreement should preventunitarian tendencies and domination of thelargest ethnic group. On the other hand, thecentral institutions should keep the countryfrom falling apart, taking into account strongsecessionist tendencies, especially in Re-publika Srpska. Tension arising from suchinherent contradictions is still present andthe final outcome is still unpredictable.

Concerning the second round of inter-ests, those of the neighboring states: the im-portant ongoing process is normalization ofrelations. An agreement on normalizationhas been signed between the Federal Repub-lic of Yugoslavia and Croatia.11 Similaragreement is being negotiated betweenYugoslavia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.Relations between Croatia and Bosnia andHerzegovina are good. The Joint Council forCooperation has been created, facilitatingstrategic consultations on the level of thetwo countries. It is a composite structure be-cause there are three parties included: Croa-tia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the federa-tion.

Now, what is going on with the third cir-cle of interests: those of the “big interna-tional players?” The European Union hasformulated the conditions for countries inthe region to cooperate with it. The condi-tions are that the countries fully respect allprovisions of the Dayton Agreement and thatthere is close cooperation among countriesin the region. There are different reactions tosuch a notion. Croatia emphasizes that wedo not reject regional cooperation, but, onthe other hand, that we want to cooperatealso with our natural economic environ-ment—over 60 percent of Croatia’s foreigntrade is with the European Union. TheUnited States is very present in Bosnia andits presence will necessarily continue; as amatter of fact, the present administrationdoes not really have a free choice anymore—Bosnia and Herzegovina and Daytonhave grown into a test of efficiency andcredibility of its foreign policy. Russia hasits own difficulties and does not influencemuch. However, it seems its traditional sup-port of the Serbs is not unconditional any-more.

If we would like to summarize, the de-velopments are positive. The area of insta-bility is slowly shifting eastward. After thedissolution of former Yugoslavia, Sloveniagot off the hook first and is now successfullycooperating with the European Union. Nowis Croatia’s turn. I believe that there is a fairchance that Bosnia and Yugoslavia will fol-low, though there are many problems re-maining. Although reappearance of armedconflicts in Bosnia is unlikely, the countrystill depends on support from outside and itsfuture is uncertain. In Yugoslavia, the prob-lem of the Kosovo Albanians and theirstatus is still wide open and, if not handledfairly and carefully, might lead to an explo-sion.

That brings me back to the issue of thefuture of the Balkans. I do believe that therewill be some problems. It is not only an Al-


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banian problem, the whole area is still—likeit traditionally was—a powder keg. Theremight be some tensions between Greece,Albania, Macedonia, Yugoslavia, and Tur-key. In addition to the postconflict settle-ment in the “Dayton countries” the situationin the broader area seems to require the in-ternational community’s preventive diplo-macy effort.

Vladislav Jovanović:I will try to express some elements of

Yugoslav policy vis-à-vis the existing prob-lems and the future which we are all pre-pared to embrace one day.

In this conference, we listened to muchabout Dayton. It was very tempting to inter-pret Dayton and to waste our energy in thatkind of business. In our view, Dayton hadtwo main objectives to achieve. It still has.One is to bring peace to Bosnia, and to allowthat country to maintain its coherency. Thesecond is to bring stability to the whole re-gion. So Dayton and Paris, in spirit and inletter, mean a commitment by all of us to ridourselves of the problems of the recent pastand to restart a new life. In that respect, wethink that the first and most important thingis to implement all provisions of the Daytonand Paris documents without any revision orany selectivity. The agreement is well bal-anced, and its implementation on the groundshould be balanced as well. There are twomain tendencies in its implementation, sepa-ratist and unitarist. Neither should be al-lowed. If either of them starts to prevail, thevery delicate and fragile balance will be up-set and many problems will arise.

Yugoslavia has a vital interest in seeingthe peace in Bosnia being consolidated andlasting stability rooted. In that respect we’vedone much in order to facilitate the imple-mentation agreement. We consider the nor-malization of our relations with the formerYugoslav republics as one of the major ele-

ments, and we have made a lot of progressin that respect. We have full and normalizedrelations with Macedonia, Bosnia and Her-zegovina, and Croatia. We have no secondthoughts with those three countries, and weare absolutely ready to resume not onlynormal voluntary relations with them but toaccept any kind, any form of cooperationthose countries are prepared for. Of course,implementation of the Dayton Agreement aswell as normalization of processes aroundBosnia requires one precondition, which isequal treatment of all local players withinBosnia and in the region of the formerYugoslavia. Equal treatment is indispensa-ble. Without that, we risk seeing discrimina-tion toward one side or another and the deli-cate balance to be upset.

Unfortunately, there is still room forfurther improvement in that respect. Repub-lika Srpska is not equally treated in the re-construction program. You have heard fig-ures about that. It is not good, not only forSerbs in Republika Srpska but for Bosnia asa whole. You cannot build one country ifyou neglect part of the country, if you feedthe discontentment or reservation among alarge portion of the population. On the otherside, Yugoslavia is one of the major con-tributors to the peace process, and is stilldiscriminated against in some ways. Sanc-tions were lifted, but the so-called outer wallof sanctions is still maintained by one of thearchitects of Dayton. That country is ex-pected to do away with the discrimination inorder to allow Yugoslavia to play an evenmore positive role in the peace process.

Yugoslavia is still outside the activity ofthe United Nations and many other interna-tional organizations. The normalization offoreign relations with former Yugoslav re-publics was based on the principle that weare going to respect each other and refrainfrom any legal or political act which couldbe detrimental to the interests of the other


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side. We haven’t reached that point. Theformer Yugoslav republics, now independ-ent states, are fully aware of that fact, andthe agreements signed with us in the lastcouple months represent one form of prog-ress.

The end of war in Bosnia, or the absenceof war, is not sufficient for getting a stable,consolidating, and lasting peace. Togetherwith the end of military war, other forms ofwar should be ended immediately. Propa-ganda war, mutual accusations or suspicions,and insinuations should be ended by all threesides and by other countries which arearound Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We have also the fact that Bosnia con-sists of two entities and three constituentpeoples. That fact should be respected to theend and in its entirety. If one or another ele-ment is underestimated, then we risk that theimplementation of other provisions will bevictim of a lack of respect for full equality.Reconstruction is one of the pillars of peacein Bosnia and Herzegovina. All reservationsvis-à-vis Republika Srpska in that respectshould be removed, for the sake of peaceand prospects of full implementation of allprovisions of Dayton. Once reconstructed,all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina wouldstart thinking differently than if they are inruins and haunted by various ideas of con-frontation.

But even if all sides in Bosnia and Her-zegovina implement Dayton fully and unre-servedly, there is still one limit. The prob-lems of Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot besolved without taking into account what isgoing on around Bosnia and Herzegovina. Avital environment and positive developmentswould be conducive to the healthy develop-ment of the process of peace in Bosnia andHerzegovina itself. Our colleague fromCroatia mentioned one initiative about re-gional cooperation. The Balkans are a fertileground for other initiatives as well. We havethe revival of the old idea of Balkan coop-

eration. There was an important conferencein Sofia. There is another initiative of theEuropean Union dealing with stability andgood-neighborly relationship between allBalkan states. And there is an American ini-tiative on south European cooperation.Yugoslavia has a positive approach on allthose initiatives, and takes active part inconferences which were organized in rela-tion to those initiatives.

We believe that only if we turn our eyesto the future, if we open ourselves unreserv-edly to regional cooperation, can we deserveto be a good candidate for entering one dayinto the European Union. This is a kind ofapprenticeship. We used to live in one statewhich was Yugoslavia, for many reasons aneconomically complementary country. Othercountries in the region are also complemen-tary: Bulgaria, Romania, Albania. Weshould do more than we have done recentlyto encourage regional cooperation and toallow by such cooperation that local con-flicts be more easily solved by their relativi-zation or even marginalization.

There is another point which is a bitdistant in the future, but also should benoted: Europe is organized in one part in theEuropean Union and in other parts in somekinds of gray zones. The idea of regionalcooperation is pushed, but even in a regionlike the Balkans, it is not enough to solve allproblems. Cooperation between regionsshould be in store as well. If the Balkans as awhole, not only the former Yugoslav repub-lics plus Yugoslavia, but all other Balkancountries, reach a high degree of coopera-tion, they could link themselves with theVisegrad group and promote stability in awider space of Europe. In that respect theEuropean Union could have a junior partnerin building security and prosperity in Europeas a whole. But this is a matter which re-quires more time to discuss and probably isnot of immediate urgency for us.


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Wedgwood:Let me ask Ambassador Jovanović two

questions that are close to home, rather thana larger vision of a southern Balkan union.We’ve been reading lately that Mrs. Plavšić,the president of Republika Srpska, is en-gaged in a power struggle with Mladić—thatshe is attempting to force General Mladić toresign. There are also reports that much ofthe payroll of the army of General Mladićstill depends on economic aid or other typesof assistance from the Federal Republic ofYugoslavia. Is there something more that theFederal Republic of Yugoslavia could do tostrengthen the attempt of Mrs. Plavšić totake civilian control of the army? We’vealso heard of the difficulties in providingsecure policing in Republika Srpska forrefugees who might want to return. TheSerbs have so far not agreed to downsizetheir police force, or to purge it of peoplewho were known war criminals during com-bat. Is there any way that the Federal Re-public could be helpful in persuading theRepublika Srpska to be more forthcoming?

Jovanović:Those are very delicate questions. I will

try to answer, although Yugoslavia is notpart of Republika Srpska, and RepublikaSrpska is not part of Yugoslavia. The leader-ship of Republika Srpska doesn’t have thebest mutual relationship. Madame Plavšić isa strong-willed person who is proud for be-ing a cold and an iron lady. Recently shemade a statement that after the elections,after she was elected the president of Re-publika Srpska, the need for frequent con-sultation ceased to exist and that only occa-sionally contact would be necessary. Nev-ertheless, we continue to have regular, nor-mal contact. The deputy prime minister ofthe federal government of Yugoslavia vis-ited Pale twice recently. Once was before thedecision on demoting Mladić and a group of

generals. The second time our press gavewide publicity to the decision of Mrs.Plavšić to change that group of generals. Wedon’t have any formal confirmation that itwas supported by us, but my judgment isthat we are not opposed, at least to that ac-tion. We don’t want to meddle into their in-ternal affairs.

Whether the higher officers of the armyof Republika Srpska were or are paid byYugoslavia, I’m not in a position to tell youbecause I don’t know. But irrespective ofthat, this is a time of peace, and militaryfactors should cede to the civilian factor. IfBosnia and Herzegovina in both of its enti-ties are to be governed by law, then normallythe element of a state which was too muchpresent during the war should be reduced insize and importance. This is our view, and Ihope that it is the view of all other players inour region.

Wedgwood:Peter Fitzgerald, who is the head of the

UN International Police Task Force, hasbeen trying to persuade both the federationand the Republika Srpska to downsize theirpolice and purge any known violators of thelaw of war during the combat. The federa-tion has agreed to downsize and to vet theirpolice. So far the Republika Srpska has notagreed to do so. I thought perhaps the Fed-eral Republic, which you represent, could bemore helpful in persuading the RepublikaSrpska that this is indeed in their interest incivilianizing the situation.

Jovanović:I am not informed, so I cannot tell you

anything concrete. But one thing is certain,we do everything that is possible to convincethe leadership in Pale to be consistent withDayton, and to avoid creating any problemsin its relations with the other entity. Wecontinue to make that kind of gentle pres-


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sure. Whether we will be successful I don’tknow.

Wedgwood:My next question is for Ambassador Ši-

monović of the Republic of Croatia. I worryabout the competition between the Croat-Muslim Federation within Bosnia and Her-zegovina and the lingering vestigial Croatentity called Herceg-Bosna. Herceg-Bosnawielded power during the war, and has onlygradually been ceding its authority to thefederation. Croatian President Franjo Tud-jman has suggested to the press that Herceg-Bosna would linger on until the federation isfully functional. Don’t you have a chicken-egg problem: the federation will not get upand running so long as real power on theground is exercised by Herceg-Bosnathrough border guards or police.

As a second question, in the 1995 Croa-tian offensive in the Krajina and in WesternSlavonia, which in a sense helped end thewar, there was wholesale flight by Serbsfrom those areas. Call it ethnic cleansing.Call it flight. There were many refugeesgenerated. What is Croatia doing to give as-surances to those Serbs that they can safelyreturn home?

Šimonović:On the first question, it’s not only a

matter of the relationship between Herceg-Bosna and the federation. The problem isrelated to the triangular relationship betweenHerceg-Bosna, the federation, and the cen-tral state. The position of Croatia is that it isnecessary to protect the interests of BosnianCroats—and prior to developing structuresof a new central state which will reflect theDayton Agreement, including constituentstatus and equal rights of all three peoples—they can be protected through emphasis onthe federation. The following is the under-lying idea. By the end of the war and prior toDayton, we had the Republic of Bosnia and

Herzegovina as a central state, almost en-tirely under the control of the Bosniacs and alegally undefined structure called Herceg-Bosna protecting interests of Croats. Theidea was that the federation should bestrengthened because through the federationwe will have representation not only of theBosniacs, but of the Croats as well. Cer-tainly, the ultimate solution is to finalize theprocess of institutional building of Bosniaand Herzegovina according to Dayton, withthe composition of central organs on a paritybasis.

Now let me come to the second questionconcerning the “Operation Storm.” Yes,there have been some atrocities committedafter the operation. There is a tendency forpeople to follow the principle of an eye foran eye rather than the principle of love andforgiveness. The position of the Croatiangovernment is that those atrocities must bepunished. It is certainly the role of a state toprevent such behavior, but if it occurs, thenperpetrators should be punished.

Concerning the process of return, it isnot an easy task. In some parts of Croatiathat have been liberated during the “Opera-tion Storm,” notably in the so-called Kra-jina, we have a problem that no one is anx-ious to return there. Neither Serbs norCroats. It was quite a poor area, and theCroats who were displaced in 1991 havefound that living in Zagreb or at the Adriaticcoast is much easier and more comfortablethan in Krajina. The data indicate that nomore than 10 percent of Croats have re-turned to Krajina, although it’s now underfull Croatian control. I’m afraid that it’s go-ing to be the case with the Serbs as well. Icertainly expect that there will be some re-turns. After “Operation Storm” we havesome 12,000 cases of return. It’s a smallnumber, but I do believe the number willincrease.

The most important is that all refugeesand displaced persons have a right to return


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and that they are put in a position to freelydecide, as their individual choice, whetherthey want to stay, or they want to leave. Ifthey want to leave, they must have the pos-sibility of disposing of their property.

Wedgwood:And in Western Slavonia, which is not

so poor an area?

Šimonović:In Western Slavonia, I would say, the

rate of return will be considerably higher incomparison to other formerly occupied ar-eas. But the highest rate of those who decideto stay in Croatia will be in Eastern Sla-vonia. I expect a real success there. With thehelp of the international community, and dueto the existence of a credible threat, I believethat Eastern Slavonia will be successfullyreintegrated in Croatia without the need toexercise force. I believe that the majority ofSerbs from Eastern Slavonia will stay, pre-pared to equally share rights and burdenswith all other citizens of Croatia. May I re-mind you: a considerable number of theCroatian Serbs sided with Croatia during theaggression and shared the destiny of the restof its citizens.

Wedgwood:This is a reference, I take it, to UN Tran-

sitional Administrator Jacques-Paul Klein,and the attempt to have Serbs stay in EasternSlavonia when it has passed over to fullCroatian control in a short while.

I have two questions for AmbassadorSacirbey. One is similar to the question Iasked Ambassador Ivan Šimonović: Therewas cleansing in Bosnia during the war byall sides. Even after the war, one of the con-cerns was that Serbs in the Sarajevo suburbsdid not feel secure, in part because the PaleSerbs frightened them and induced them toleave, and in part because they were not pro-

vided adequate police protection by the Bos-niac authorities in Sarajevo. What is theBosnia government doing now to assureSerbs that they could safely return to theirold homes? You have some very strikinginterlocking problems. For example inBrčko, which is of strategic and economicinterest to the Muslims, many of the refu-gees in fact are Serbs from the Sarajevo sub-urbs.

Sacirbey:The term “ethnic cleansing” actually was

invented by the Pale leadership at the begin-ning of the war to describe their policy ofcreating an ethnically pure state. Therefore Idistinguish the attempt to achieve that policyfrom other acts where minorities may havebeen harassed or even worse. Obviously allminorities have suffered to some extent, butI always wish to emphasize that the policy ofethnic cleansing, really an act of genocide,was perpetrated by one set of authorities.

What is being done on that point rightnow? One of the issues that is not well un-derstood is that in the Sarajevo region, evenaccording to the International Police TaskForce, the problem isn’t the local police, theproblem actually is the other refugees.Maybe Bob Frowick can confirm this. Mus-lim refugees, who come from places likeSrebrenica, feel no inclination to accord theSerbs any particular rights because they feellike they are so deprived themselves. Ac-cording to Mr. Fitzgerald, whom I’ve spokento about this extensively, the local policeactually act very properly. So clearly thereis, if I can use a term here, a psychologicalfactor that needs to be addressed, to reinstillin the society the idea of a multiethnic inte-grated society. That frankly is a constantstruggle, because we have two philosophiesthat are right now at odds in Bosnia. Not twoor three ethnic groups, but two philosophies.One is the philosophy of a pluralistic soci-


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ety, a multiethnic society, and the otherphilosophy is of ethnic separation, or mono-ethnicity. Unfortunately, the multiethnicphilosophy seems to be running againstoverwhelming odds, in part because theother philosophy has been legitimized tosome extent in the peace process. I don’t justmean Dayton, but in the peace process.Frankly it is very convenient for some tosupport the status quo, which means to sup-port the mono-ethnic policies.

Wedgwood:If we could take it down from philoso-

phy to practicality for a moment.

Sacirbey:Well, practically, it’s very easy because

we now have a state that will consist of apresidency that will be representing threedifferent communities. In all areas ofauthority those powers, those authorities willbe represented. But remember that the realissue is at the local level. Will the localleaderships in fact view Bosnia once againas a multiethnic society or a mono-ethnicsociety? That’s why the local elections areso critical to instill the process of return tothe multiethnic philosophy. If you talk aboutthe official level: What can the governmentin Sarajevo do? Frankly there is very littlethey can do beyond what they have done.What was always asked of President Izetbe-gović during the first year of the DaytonAgreement was not so much change thispolicy or that policy, but try to issue state-ments that reassure the Serb population. Ob-viously, you can only do so much of that orit starts even looking silly if it’s a one-sidedconversation.

WedgwoodOne last repartee before I turn to Bob

Frowick. From the point of view of the Serbon the ground, a statement by President Izet-begović may not be reassuring if he’s facing

local brigands and hooligans. One thoughtthat has been offered is some kind of inter-entity police patrol. Serbs who might wantto move back would have the assurance ofSerbian participation in a mixed police pres-ence, just as Muslims moving back to theRS might appreciate some kind of mixedpolice presence. One striking part of Daytonis that it leaves the police solely in the handsof the entities.

Sacirbey:Anything that encourages inter-ethnic

exchanges, whether it be at the level of theofficial powers or whether it be at the levelof ordinary people, we would certainly ac-cept. What you have just proposed, not onlywould we fully support, but we have in factproposed. Unfortunately, as I said, there aretwo visions of Bosnia. One is as two sepa-rate glasses, the other one is as a big pitcherwith basically two sides to that pitcher. I’mafraid that the way the peace agreement isnow being enforced is as two separateglasses. We’ve really got to move towardcreating a vision of greater integration.

Regarding the issue of crimes againstSerbs, and it’s important to note, especiallysince we’ve had Judge Cassese and othersspeaking, we’ve really tried to address thatproblem. Muslims who had been indictedfor crimes against Serbs have been arrestedand handed over to the international warcrimes tribunal. That is an essential elementof reconciliation and re-establishing the ruleof law. Again, if it only works one way—if ahandful of Muslims who as individuals mayhave been responsible for crimes are handedover, but none of the Serbs or for that matternone of the bigger parties responsible in theCroat community, then it creates a visionthat this is just a one-sided game.

Wedgwood:Now questions for Ambassador Frowick:

Holding the municipal elections was a very


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difficult problem because of the question ofwhat to do with refugees who can’t or don’twant to return where they formerly lived. Doyou let them vote where they now live orwhere they want to be in the future, the so-called P2 ballots? I take it you have decidedto abolish the P2 ballots through the Provi-sional Election Commission. The conse-quence of all of this has been a delay in themunicipal elections. I’ve heard some criti-cism that this delay simply consolidates thepower of the nationalist political parties overthe city administrations and the opstina. Notholding elections confirms nationalistpower.

Second, we hear from the Americangovernment that we should look towardNATO as the main security architecture forthe future of Europe, even central Europeand southward. NATO is the device to use totake care of minority problems. Yet theNorth Atlantic Council doesn’t have anyethnic mediation or conciliation mechanism.Since you are one of the few Americans whohas a long-time involvement in the OSCE,and in that office, as you say, you’re onlyone-fifty-fourth American, do you see OSCEin fact filling a larger role than some peoplewould currently paint for it?

Frowick:Let’s turn first to the question of the mu-

nicipal elections. Yes, to some extent it istrue that as long as we do not hold these lo-cal elections the authorities that emergefrom the war remain in place. The longerthis is the case, the less helpful it is to thepeace process. We need to have local elec-tions to see if we can induce some kind ofmovement forward toward greater pluralism.If you look at what happened in the Septem-ber 1996 elections in Republika Srpska,which were so questionable, in the electionsto the National Assembly out of 83 membersthere are some 18 Muslim and Croat depu-

ties. I was in Banja Luka when that bodywas inaugurated on October 19, 1996, andwas quite struck by the fact that those Mus-lims were there. I think that there was alsoone Bosnian Croat elected. They didn’t stayfor all the activities, for example they got upand walked out when the oath was beingtaken to Republika Srpska. This was in re-action to Mr. Krajišnik’s earlier disinclina-tion to take the oath to the highest level ofauthority in Bosnia and Herzegovina.Nonetheless they were there for most of theceremony. It was quite remarkable to seeMr. Sejfudin Tokić, a leading Bosniac Mus-lim representing the opposition Joint ListParty, go to the podium and make quite anelegant speech. So it seems to me that’ssymptomatic of a certain advance in the po-litical process over what we had sometimeback. Now we need to try to stimulatemovement in the same direction through themunicipal elections.

One of the reasons why I tried after theSeptember 1996 elections to go back and putthe municipal voting on track again, to holdthose elections before the end of November1996, was precisely to keep up the momen-tum of the electoral process. To take advan-tage of the strategic presence in the countryof IFOR troops, so that we would have somestability on the ground to hold those elec-tions, and do that before there’s a greatdownsizing of the whole international mili-tary presence in the country. We do appearto be headed toward another substantial al-though reduced military presence, probablyon the order of 25,000 to 30,000. I think it’sbeen stated rather officially at 30,000 troops.We need to get on with this as soon as wecan, and I can tell you that in our mission inSarajevo, the number one priority at themoment is working out an extension of theOSCE election mandate with RepublikaSrpska to achieve this.


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Regarding NATO, I do think NATO isthe nexus of a European security structure.That has to be the situation perforce in crisissituations like Bosnia and Herzegovina.NATO is the nexus, but reaching out tosome kind of a cooperative role also by Rus-sian forces and by others in Europe, aroundIFOR-like military establishments. I gatherin the follow-on force that is being envis-aged, we’re looking at forces from some 30countries, 14 beyond the 16 member statesof NATO.

Wedgwood:Does OSCE have to be part of the brew

because NATO doesn’t have any developedmechanisms for conciliation or mediationamong its members when they have minorityproblems.

Frowick:Well, let me be clear on what I was try-

ing to say, rather implicitly, in my final re-marks. In the June 1991 CSCE [Council onSecurity and Cooperation in Europe] foreignministers meeting, just as the Yugoslavsituation was erupting, CSCE gave a man-date to the European Community to take thelead for Europe in dealing with the crisis.Secretary of State James Baker took theview that this was a European problem andshould be handled by the European Com-munity. On the basis of that mandate, wehad Lord Carrington, then Lord Owen, andothers working the issue. At the same time,it was understood that the United Nationsshould have a major role, so we basicallyhad a UN-EC approach to deal with thediplomatic side of the problem. The Vance-Owen collaboration, for example.

Now I don’t think that worked very wellfrom 1991 to 1995, for many reasons. Assomeone who has spent many years inNATO, it seemed to me that unless theUnited States takes a leading role on thetough questions, we don’t get from A to B.

The combination of reliance on the Euro-pean Community and the United Nationswas unable to end the war. Now it is truethat it was only after French President Chi-rac issued his clarion call for the interna-tional community to become more vigorousin bringing an end to the war that the UnitedStates finally began stepping up to the mark.We had the Dayton negotiations. Webrought peace to the country—at least theabsence of war—and a chance to begin tostrengthen the structure of peace in thecountry.

If we were to go into the future withIFOR-like military forces, dealing with crisissituations like Bosnia, we should considerstrengthening OSCE to give it the lead.OSCE after all automatically has the UnitedStates heavily involved, as well as the Euro-pean Union and the Russians and everybodyelse. Some people say you need a structurethat has something like the Contact Groupstill operating as a steering board for actionin Bosnia. All the members of the ContactGroup are in OSCE. What I’m offering hereis simply a theoretical vision of what mightbe useful in crises like this in the future: thecombination of NATO at the center ofIFOR-like military power and OSCE takingthe lead diplomatically.

Question:Would Ambassadors Frowick and Sacir-

bey comment on the citizenship provisionsof the Dayton constitution? In addition to theprovision for dual armies, this is potentiallyvery problematic for the future. First, bothentities are allowed to issue passports whichare nominally the passports of Bosnia andHerzegovina; this seems to undermine thecreation of a unified multiethnic identity.Second is the issue of dual citizenship. Un-der the constitutional provisions, subject tobilateral agreements, citizens of Bosnia andHerzegovina can also be citizens of anotherstate. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to fig-


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ure out if you’re a Croat in Bosnia or a Serbin Bosnia which states those might be. Doyou think in the long term these provisionscan actually undermine the creation of themultiethnic unified identity that seems soimportant for a unified Bosnia in the future?

Sacirbey:Regarding the passport issue you are in-

terpreting it in a way that I wouldn’t agreewith. In fact, only the central governmentcan issue passports. You are a citizen ofBosnia and Herzegovina, although as in theUnited States you can be a citizen of Ohioand the United States, you can be a citizen ofthe federation and Bosnia and Herzegovina,or a citizen of Republika Srpska and Bosniaand Herzegovina. I don’t see that as a prob-lem in the Dayton Agreement. Maybe we’llsee it as a problem in the way that it’s inter-preted.

Regarding the issue of dual citizenship,I’m a dual citizen actually of the UnitedStates and Bosnia and Herzegovina, so in-herently I do not see that as a problem. Un-fortunately, in the circumstances of oursituation, it can project itself as a problem,because some may believe that their primaryexpression is through citizenship in thecountry in which they do not live—i.e., inthe Federal Republic of Yugoslavia orCroatia, rather than Bosnia and Herzego-vina. We’ve accepted the concept of dualcitizenship in the context of Dayton, so I’mnot about to say we should get rid of it. But Ithink we have to be very careful about howit is applied. In particular, to what extentneighboring states may take advantage of it.It would be wise to limit the flexibility of theconcept of dual citizenship so as not to cre-ate tension within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Idon’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to dothat.

Frowick:I would agree with what was just said.

The focus of OSCE concern with citizenshiprelated to use of the census of 1991 as thepoint of departure for preparing the elec-tions. In my view this has been the mostcomplex election process in all of history, inpart because we have dual citizenship andwe have three major political entities, thefederation, Republika Srpska, and Bosniaand Herzegovina, at what might be called arepublic level. We have all that divided bythe Inter-Entity Boundary Line which sepa-rated 49 municipalities that existed beforethe war. We have different civilizationscoming together from East, West, and de-riving from the Levant. of these questions ofdual citizenship do exacerbate this issue.

I’d like to make a comment about recon-ciliation. My friend Mo Sacirbey has made astatement that there really hasn’t been aneffective start to reconciliation. I think thatOSCE along with many other internationalorganizations has started that process. InOSCE, we’ve started at two levels. Theelections and the opportunity to create jointinstitutions is one way of trying to overcomethe centrifugal political forces and pull peo-ple back together again. We also havelaunched a number of initiatives at variousstrata of society. At the outset, I went to callon the religious leaders of the country to askthem if they couldn’t work together to createa dialogue and try to see what they could dowith their respective followers by preachingthe sermon of reconciliation and peace. Weat OSCE have taken many initiatives to tryto bring religious leaders together and fosterincreased contact and the commencement ofdialogue at successively lower levelsthrough the faiths. We’ve done the samekind of thing with intellectuals, with women,with youth, with veterans’ groups, with peo-ple in the arts. I think that cumulatively, al-though this is just a start, our work, on the


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part of the OSCE, together with similarcomplementary activities by NGOs acrossthe country and international organizations,have at least made a start toward reconcilia-tion on a long-term process. But it’s only astart, and this is why beyond the elections,OSCE’s prime responsibility will be in thefield of deepening this policy of reconcilia-tion.

Question:Could Ambassador Jovanović comment

on Misha Glenny’s remarks about the futureof Kosovo and Macedonia? Do you think theDayton peace accord has any impact on thesituation there?

Jovanović:This is the first time that I have seen Mr.

Misha Glenny, although I know him byname, by reputation, and by his books. Ihave read two of his books. He is an ex-traordinary analyst, but I’m afraid that in thecase of Kosovo, and partly of Macedonia, hehas played with his own imagination morethan with reality. The suggestion thatKosovo could be abandoned is the pureproduct of his fantasy. For Macedonia, I amnot as much familiar. It is a different prob-lem than between Kosovo and Yugoslavia,because of the different proportions ofpopulation, and different interests which Al-bania has in one or another republic or state.Those two questions are certainly complexand important enough that they should bekept in mind whenever we envisage thesituation in the region. I agree with him thatsome other minority issues in the region arepotentially dangerous. He mentioned someof them, and omitted others, but even thosehe mentioned illustrate the potential for cri-sis in the Balkans.

On the possible spillover of the crisisfrom Bosnia to Kosovo and Macedonia, Ithink that it is too late to speculate aboutthat. First, in Kosovo we have a clear-cut

case of separatism and not of the refusal ofthe state to grant rights to the Albanian na-tional minority or to prevent that minorityfrom enjoying those rights. The problem isthat the population, under pressure from theseparatist leadership, avoids exercising therights, which are not small. But now, moreand more, both sides are becoming realistic.We already have some types of dialogue.There is one agreement which was cited byMr. Glenny, between Milošević and Ru-gova—its implementation is underway. Myimpression is that we are going toward theresolution of the problem through dialogueand not toward a confrontation with suchapocalyptic consequences as were suggested.

Question:My question is for Ambassador Sacir-

bey. There’s been a lot of discussion in thisforum on the international military presencein Bosnia, first in the form of UNPROFOR,and then IFOR. There’s been relatively littlediscussion of the international civilian pres-ence. In Bosnia, we have a very unusual mixof players, and a greater number than inmost recent conflict areas: the high repre-sentative’s office, the UN in the name ofUNMIBH, IPTF. UNHCR, OSCE, and eventhe EU administrator in Mostar. Do youthink that the number and intermix of inter-national civilian bodies has facilitated prog-ress on the civilian side or not? What wouldbe your prescription if you could have yourhand at it, for future international civilianparticipation?

Sacirbey:The UN has been mauled in Bosnia and

Herzegovina. Both in the context of what’shappened on the ground, but also its reputa-tion. Unfortunately, I sometimes think thatI’m a part of that as well as other officialsfrom Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I’m alittle bit saddened by it. Therefore I feel it’sappropriate to speak up and talk about what


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really is the right score so far as the UN isconcerned. First, Bosnians were facing a warof extinction, we all know; I don’t need toexpand upon what was going on. The onlyway to address that problem was to confrontthose who were trying to promote that geno-cide, not only in places like Srebrenica, butin small towns and villages all throughoutBosnia and Herzegovina. When there was afailure to confront by the Western militaryforces, there was an outcry focused onUNPROFOR. In many ways UNPROFORwas more successful than it is given credit,because it managed to provide some relief, ifnot a real remedy. But both UNPROFORand particularly the UN’s civilian forces onthe ground were really the tools of avoid-ance. They were there so that more resoluteaction need not be taken. UNPROFOR wasthere as an excuse so more resolute actionneed not be taken.

It’s very tough, therefore, to give an ap-propriate judgment upon the UN civilianforce except to say that, by and large, theywere a very effective force, not only in doingthe job given to them directly, in terms ofhumanitarian work or other similar types ofwork, but also in speaking out about the in-justices and about what needed to be done.Many of them felt muffled by their officialpositions. In the future they shouldn’t feel somuffled, because even under internationallaw, you are supposed to speak out about theabuses going on. Many of you did.

When everything is said and done, his-tory will judge the UN operation, includingUNPROFOR, more positively than we havenow. It will judge IFOR less positively, lesssuccessfully, because IFOR’s job in sepa-rating the so-called warring sides has been arelatively easy one once NATO showedteeth. It was a rather simple job, especiallysince at least one of the parties was verymuch interested in seeing the country effec-tively separated and divided. The real trick

will be in what can be done to promote re-integration—that is, freedom of movement,arresting war criminals, and ensuring thesafety of refugees as they come back. I’mafraid that IFOR/NATO seems to be avoid-ing that task and responsibility both on theground as well as on paper. I’m not sure thatis in anyone’s interest, including IFOR andNATO, because ultimately the peace processwill prove itself to be very hollow and with-out substance. Therefore we now need tohave some more substance added to the pro-cess. Once again, while the UN and otherNGOs can do quite a bit there, a lot needs tobe done by the military forces on the ground,because in many ways and in many instancesthis is a military issue or police issue and notjust an issue of humanitarian application.

Wedgwood:Ambassador Sacirbey, isn’t there a point

of view that the current campaign of havingorganized Muslim expeditions crossing theInter-Entity Boundary Line, the zone ofseparation, oftentimes armed in violation ofDayton, is going to be counterproductive torefugee return? It would be better to havereturns be organized, orderly, done in a waywhere you can anticipate possible violence,instead of having what I take it are titularexercises of sovereignty, but which in factmay be provocative.

Sacirbey:Bob Frowick said that reconciliation had

started, and I agree with some of the areas hepointed to. For instance, right after the peaceagreement was signed in Dayton, peoplewere starting to move back and forth ratherfreely, some going to jobs across the line,some going to visit friends. But then, onceIFOR had shown itself not to be such an ag-gressive or resolute force, many, particularlyin Pale, took the view that “it’s not so goodto have this level of interaction, this level of


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reintegration. Let’s put a stop to it.” Theproblem is that many of those that are op-posed to this level of reintegration are nowthe very same people who are being electedand appointed to the central institutions.Therefore, you can’t say that the central in-stitutions are an example of reconciliation orreintegration, when the very people whowish to stop this process are using the posi-tions in these central institutions as a way tostop it.

We fully agree that it is counterproduc-tive to have these types of actions by Bos-nian refugees trying to get back to theirhomes. Not that they are not entitled. But wedo believe that it has provoked a very unfa-vorable response not only from the interna-tional community but from IFOR on theground. Therefore, I think you will under-stand when I tell you these so-called incur-sions, as you put it, are not being sponsoredby our government. Maybe there’s some lo-cal-level official who has either been sup-portive or who has in some way facilitated,but the central government definitely takesthe view that the return of refugees shouldbe done in accordance with the UNHCRrules as they are established: You registerthat you want to return, UNHCR and IFORhelp you return, and you don’t go there withweapons. But if this is the way it is supposedto work then I think the refugees can right-fully demand a greater level of security. Ifthey’re not going to have weapons, they’renot going to have their own police, and theycan’t trust the Republika Srpska police, formany good reasons as you know, then theyhave to demand of IFOR and other appropri-ate authorities that they be more robust indefending them. IFOR says that’s not ourjob. Well when IFOR says it’s our job tokeep you from crossing the line, but it’s notour job to help your security once you’vecrossed the line in accordance with the pro-tocol that’s been established, I think there issomething wrong with that mechanism.

Question:What about the role of the UN in Eastern

Slavonia?

Šimonović:The UN has been present in Croatia

since 1992. It was first UNPROFOR, then itwas UNCRO, and finally UNTAES. Theproblem with United Nations activity andwith peacekeeping was that the mandate wasnot clear and that there was no real supportfor its implementation. Croatia was pushingfor a clearer and active mandate, because wewanted to protect the non-Serb populationfrom ethnic cleansing and share reintegra-tion of occupied territories. A part of theUNPROFOR mandate was demilitarization,return of refugees, protection of humanrights, and so on. Unfortunately,UNPROFOR was hopelessly inefficient.During its presence, we had 600 peoplemurdered in the United Nations protectedarea in Croatia and the ethnic cleansing wascompleted. On the other hand, after “Opera-tion Storm,” when it was clear that Croatiais capable of using military means to achieveliberation and reintegration of the remainingoccupied territory, UNTAES has provedvery efficient. Now UNTAES has an activemandate—it is clear that Eastern Slavoniawill be reintegrated, there has even been anagreement signed between the local Serbsand the central authorities on that issue.12

The UNTAES mandate has been acceptedby both the local Serbs and the Croatiangovernment and supported by the interna-tional community, especially the UnitedStates. It seems that the United Nationsforces can be efficient only if their mandateis clear, and if they have adequate support.

Question:I would appreciate if Ambassador Ši-

monović and Ambassador Jovanović willgive me an answer whether the issue of warreparations was addressed in the process of


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mutual recognition between Croatia and theFederal Republic of Yugoslavia, and if Am-bassador Šimonović could give me a com-ment on what currency is in official use inHerceg-Bosna.

Jovanović:There is no room for speaking about

reparations. From many legal points of view,when the Croatian parliament declared inde-pendence, it was then unilaterally in contro-versy with the federal constitution. Later on,when Croatian resistance to federal authoritytook the form of open rebellion, the role ofthe former Yugoslav People’s Army was notthat of an aggressor or occupying army.Only after Croatia was admitted as an inde-pendent state, recognized by the United Na-tions, could we talk about that. The war inCroatia ended in late 1991 with the adoptionof the well-known Vance plan. So, legallyspeaking, we cannot speak about reparationsin any respect. It was a war between para-military units in Croatia and the legal armedforce of the only recognized state at thattime, which was the federal People’s Army.That army ceased to exist. We have had areconfiguration of that space since that time.We have fully independent states plus onereconstructed entity, Yugoslavia.

Šimonović:It is the deliberation of the Badinter

Commission for arbitration, whose compe-tence has been accepted by all successorstates, including the Federal Republic ofYugoslavia, that the end of the SocialistFederal Republic of Yugoslavia was notbrought about by secession, but rather bydissolution. This decision has been sup-ported and acted upon by the internationalcommunity and international organizationsincluding the United Nations. The UnitedNations General Assembly even passed theresolution entitled “Situation in occupied

territories of Croatia,” clearly identifying theact of aggression against Croatia and the ag-gressors.13 Therefore, from the perspectiveof international law, claims for reparationsare well grounded.

Concerning the bilateral relations be-tween Croatia and Federal Republic ofYugoslavia, in the Agreement on the Nor-malization of Relations, in Article 7, theprinciple of reparation is implicitly included.It is stated that everybody will be compen-sated for the damages or lost property, andsince the same article, point 3, mentions ac-tive hostilities, compensations for the dam-ages should be interpreted as war repara-tions. What will be the outcome in the senseof practical implementation remains uncer-tain and represents not only a legal, but alsoa political issue. Its resolution will dependon the work of a Joint Commission, pro-vided for by the same article of the agree-ment, which is just being established. Thecommission will try to work out how peoplewho got hurt during the war will be compen-sated.

Wedgwood:What is the currency of Herceg-Bosna?

Šimonović:It is not for me to answer this question. It

should be addressed to Ambassador Sacir-bey, who, representing Bosnia and Herzego-vina, represents Herceg-Bosna as well.

Sacirbey:Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.

Wedgwood:You see, special parallel relationships

can work.

Sacirbey:A new central bank has been formed for

Bosnia and Herzegovina, based upon the


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legal continuity of the old central bank. Thatbank will act for the entire territory of Bos-nia and Herzegovina. It will have one gover-nor, who will be a foreign national for thefirst six years, and three vice-governors: onefrom the Republika Srpska and two from thefederation. There will be one currency inuse, one legal currency. It may be possiblethat the currency will have different namesin different parts of the country. That is whathas been advocated by some. But franklywhat matters is that there is one unifiedmonetary policy because that really is criti-cal to the sovereignty of a country, but moreimportantly to its cooperation with theWorld Bank and the IMF when it comes torebuilding of the country. I’m not going toget into the polemics of whether it is good tohave two names, three names, five names, orone name, I’m just going to focus on the factthat there will be one legal tender.

Šimonović:Unofficially, I’m informed that in Her-

ceg-Bosna the most appreciated currency isthe deutsche mark.

Wedgwood:And the deutsche mark is not what it

used to be.

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NOTES

1 See Anne Phillips, The Politics of Presence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).2 Ibid, p. 52.3 Ibid, p. 2.4 Ibid, p. 6.5 Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Mass.: Harvard University Press,1992).6 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York:Simon & Schuster, 1996).7 Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 72 Foreign Affairs 22 (Summer 1993).8 Trial of Hans Albin Rauter (Netherlands Special Court, S-Gravenhage, May 4, 1948, and Neth-erlands Special Court of Cassation, Jan. 12, 1949), 14 Law Rep. Trials of War Crim. 89 (UN WarCrimes Commission 1949), reprinted in 16 I.L.R. 526.9 Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, Prosecutor v. DuškoTadic a/k/a “Dule,” IT-94-1-AR72, Appeals Chamber, Oct. 2, 1995.10 18 U.S.C. § 2441.11 Agreement on Normalization of Relations, Croatia-Fed. Rep. of Yugoslavia, Aug. 23, 1996,UN Doc. A/51/318 S/1996/706 (Aug. 29, 1996), Annex, reprinted in 35 I.L.M. 1219 (1996).12 See “Agreement on Normalization of Relations, Croatia-Fed. Rep. of Yugoslavia, 23 August1996, UN document A/51/351, S/1996/744 (Aug. 29, 1996), reprinted in 35 I.L.M. 1219 (1996).13 UN GA RES 49/43 (Dec. 9, 1994).

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About the Authors and Participants

Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor ofLaw and Political Science at Yale. He re-ceived his LL.B. from Yale Law School andclerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly of theU.S. Court of Appeals and for Justice JohnM. Harlan of the U.S. Supreme Court. Hisworks include Social Justice in the LiberalState (1980), We the People (1991), and IsNAFTA Constitutional? (1995). ProfessorAckerman is a member of the AmericanLaw Institute and a Fellow of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences.

Kofi A. Annan is the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations. He hasserved in the United Nations throughout theworld for over 30 years and was formerlyUndersecretary-General for PeacekeepingOperations, served as Special Representativeof the Secretary-General in the FormerYugoslavia and Special Envoy to NATOduring the transition period following theDayton Accord. His other UN duties haveincluded Assistant Secretary-General forProgramme Planning, Budget, and Finance;Director of the Budget; Assistant Secretary-General in the Office of Human ResourcesManagement; and Controller of the UnitedNations Organization. Following the Iraqiinvasion of Kuwait, Mr. Annan negotiatedwith Iraq over the release of Western hos-tages and humanitarian aid. He studied at theUniversity of Science and Technology atKumasi and completed his undergraduatework in economics at Macalester College.He has done graduate work in economics atthe Institut Universitaire des Hautes EtudesInternationales in Geneva and received aMaster of Science degree in Management asa Sloan Fellow at the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology. Secretary-General Annan isa Trustee of Macalaster College and has

served as Governor of the InternationalSchool of Geneva.

Judge Antonio Cassese is the former Presi-dent of the International Criminal Tribunalfor the Former Yugoslavia, and the formerPresiding Judge of the Appeals Chamber ofthe United Nations International CriminalTribunal for Rwanda. He was Professor ofInternational Law at the University of Pisafrom 1972 to 1974, Professor of Interna-tional Law at the University of Florencesince 1975, and Professor at the EuropeanUniversity Institute in Florence from 1987 to1993. Judge Cassese has held visiting ap-pointments at Cambridge University, OxfordUniversity, the University of Paris, andelsewhere. He served on the United NationsHuman Rights Commission from 1972 to1975, and the General Assembly LegalCommittee in 1974, 1975, and 1978. He wasa member of the Council of Europe SteeringCommittee for Human Rights from 1984 to1988, serving as its Chairman from 1987 to1989. From 1989 to 1993, Judge Cassesewas the President of the Council of Europe’sCommittee for the Prevention of Torture.His books include Inhuman States: Impris-onment, Detention, and Torture in EuropeToday (1996), Self-determination of Peo-ples: A Legal Reappraisal (1995), HumanRights in a Changing World (1990), Inter-national Law in a Divided World (1986),and The New Humanitarian Law of ArmedConflict (1979, 1980).

Stojan Cerović was co-founder of Vrememagazine in Belgrade, where he is now acolumnist. He has been an acute observerand critic of the events in the former Yugo-slavia. He was a Nieman Fellow at HarvardUniversity in 1993–94.


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Paul Dubinsky is Assistant Professor ofLaw at New York Law School and an Inter-national Affairs Fellow at the Council onForeign Relations. He formerly served asAssociate Director of the Orville H. Schell,Jr., Center for International Human Rightsand as lecturer at Yale Law School, wherehe taught European Community Law andHuman Rights Law. Mr. Dubinsky also di-rected the Allard Lowenstein InternationalHuman Rights Clinic at Yale Law School.He received his B.A. from Yale College, hisJ.D. from Harvard Law School, and anLL.M. in European Community Law fromKatholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium.Mr. Dubinsky previously taught interna-tional law as an Adjunct Professor atGeorgetown University Law Center andpracticed international law with Wilmer,Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C. Hispublications include “The Essential Functionof Federal Courts: The European Union andthe United States Compared,” AmericanJournal of Comparative Law (1994).

Ambassador Robert Frowick headed theOrganization for Security and Cooperationin Europe’s Mission in Bosnia and Herzego-vina. He has previously held several ambas-sadorial positions in U.S. delegations to theConference on Security and Cooperation inEurope (CSCE) and in 1994 was the Head ofa CSCE Monitor Mission to the Republic ofMacedonia. From 1982 to 1986, he was Po-litical Adviser and Chief of the PoliticalSection at the U.S. Mission to NATO inBrussels. During his U.S. State Departmentcareer, he served in diplomatic missions inRome, Prague, Paris, Bucharest, and Mont-real. He also worked for the U.S. Depart-ment of Defense from 1957 to 1958 and wasa pilot in the U.S. Air Force. AmbassadorFrowick was an Overbrook Fellow at Yalefrom 1958 to 1960. He was a Visiting Re-search Fellow at Stanford from 1975 to 1976

and was a Visiting Scholar there from 1989to 1995.

Misha Glenny, writer and broadcaster, iscurrently completing a history of nationalismand great power activity in the Balkans enti-tled History of the Balkans (1999). He re-ceived a B.A. from Bristol University in1980 and conducted postgraduate research atCharles University in Prague from 1981 to1982. He was a Fellow of the WoodrowWilson International Center for Scholarsfrom September 1995 to July 1996, and ofthe World Economic Forum in Davos from1993 to 1996. Among his many prestigiousawards are the 50 Years Fulbright Distin-guished Scholar Award (1996) and theOverseas Press Club of America Award(1993). His book The Fall of Yugoslavia:The Third Balkan War (1992) won the Cor-nelius Ryan Prize for Best Book on ForeignAffairs. He has also written The Rebirth ofHistory: Eastern Europe in the Age of De-mocracy (1990) and many articles on theBalkans which have appeared in the NewYork Review of Books, the New York Times,and elsewhere.

James Gow is a reader in War Studies atKings College, London. His books includeTriumph of the Lack of Will: InternationalDiplomacy and the Yugoslav War (1997);Legitimacy and the Military: The YugoslavCrisis (1992); Peace-making, Peace-keeping: European Security and the Yugo-slav Wars (1992); and Yugoslav Endgames:Civil Strife and Inner-State Conflict (1991).Since 1994, he has been an expert adviser onmilitary-political and international matters tothe Office of the Prosecutor of the Interna-tional Criminal Tribunal for the FormerYugoslavia. Mr. Gow was also the first wit-ness to testify before the tribunal. From1997, he has been a member of the Expert


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Panel for Strategic Defence Review advisingthe UK Secretary of State for Defence.

David Harland is Senior Political Officer ofthe United Nations Mission for Bosnia-Herzegovina and adviser to the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Dr. Harland also has served assenior political adviser to the commandersof the UN Protection Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina (UNPROFOR), Lt. General SirMichael Rose and Lt. General Rupert Smith.He has lived in Sarajevo since 1993. Heholds a Ph.D. in international relations fromthe Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacyat Tufts University and formerly served inthe UN Environmental Program in Nairobi.

Ambassador Vladislav Jovanović is thePermanent Representative of the FederalRepublic of Yugoslavia to the United Na-tions. Previously he was the Minister forForeign Affairs of the Federal Republic ofYugoslavia and the Minister for Foreign Af-fairs of Serbia. His prior posts also includeDeputy Assistant Minister for MultilateralAffairs in the Foreign Ministry, Ambassadorof Yugoslavia to Turkey, and Minister-Counsellor in the Embassy of Yugoslavia tothe United Kingdom. Ambassador Jovano-vić received his legal education from theUniversity of Belgrade.

Theodor Meron is a Professor at New YorkUniversity School of Law and was an ad-viser to the Chief Prosecutor of the Interna-tional Criminal Tribunal for the FormerYugoslavia. Professor Meron is author ofnumerous books and articles, including Hu-man Rights Law-Making in the United Na-tions: A Critique of Instruments and Process(1986); Human Rights in Internal Strife:Their International Protection (1987); Hu-man Rights and Humanitarian Norms asCustomary Law (1989); Henry’s Wars andShakespeare’s Laws (1993); and Bloody

Constraint: War and Chivalry in Shake-speare (1998). He has also edited HumanRights in International Law—Legal andPolicy Issues (1983–84).

Julie Mertus is Assistant Professor of Lawat Ohio Northern University Pettit Collegeof Law. She was Visiting Professor atEmory Law School, and was Visiting Fellowat the human rights program at Harvard LawSchool and an affiliate at the Harvard Centerfor International Affairs. She was formerlycounsel to Human Rights Watch (HelsinkiWatch), where she investigated humanrights and war crimes in the former Yugo-slavia and worked on issues related to theformation of the International Criminal Tri-bunal for the Former Yugoslavia. A 1994recipient of MacArthur and Soros Founda-tion grants, she lived and worked in the re-gion for over two years during the Bosnianwar. She is the author of Kosovo: HowMyths and Truths Started a War (1999), anexploration of the building of Serb andKosovar Albanian national identity; co-editor of The Suitcase: Refugees’ Voicesfrom Bosnia and Croatia (1997); and authorof Local Action/Global Change, a manualon women’s human rights, which has beenpublished by the United Nations in manylanguages. She has written extensively onhuman rights, eastern Europe, and relatedissues for such publications as the New YorkTimes, Oxford University Press, and for op-position presses within Yugoslavia. Ms.Mertus has also taught in the political sci-ence and law faculties of the University ofBucharest, Romania (as a Fulbright Profes-sor), New York University, Cardozo LawSchool, Smith College, SUNY Buffalo LawSchool, and Belgrade Women’s Studies. Sheis a 1988 graduate of Yale Law School.

Soren Jessen-Peterson was the United Na-tions High Commissioner for Refugees’(UNHCR) Special Envoy for the former


132

Yugoslavia, and has also served as Directorof UNHCR’s Liaison Office to the UnitedNations, Director of the Executive Office ofUNHCR, and UNHCR Regional Represen-tative for the Nordic Countries. He has alsoserved on many delegations, including theUNHCR Delegation to the General Assem-bly of the UN and the UNHCR Delegationto the Summit of the Organization of IslamicConference. He has written numerous arti-cles and chapters in two books: Which Fu-ture: The Global Refugee Situation in a Fu-ture Perspective (1988) and Asylum in Nor-dic Countries (1990). Mr. Jessen-Petersonreceived a bachelors degree in philosophyand a masters degree in law from Copenha-gen University.

Douglas Rae is a Professor in the Depart-ment of Political Science and the School ofManagement at Yale University. He re-ceived his Ph.D. from the University ofWisconsin. He was a Guggenheim fellowand was on the editorial boards of both theAmerican Political Science Review and theBritish Journal of Political Science. In 1989he was awarded the George Hallet Prizefrom the American Political Science Asso-ciation. Professor Rae has chaired the YaleDepartment of Political Science and servedas Director of Undergraduate Studies andDirector of Graduate Studies. He has beenactive in civic affairs, serving on the boardsof directors of several civic organizations,including Park Friends of New Haven andthe New Haven Public Housing Authority.He has been a consultant for several foreigngovernments, including Spain and the Neth-erlands Antilles. He has published numerousbooks and articles, the most current of whichis Small Tyrannies of Place (forthcoming1998). Professor Rae is a fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.

W. Michael Reisman is Myres S. McDou-gal Professor of Law at Yale Law School.He received his LL.B. from Hebrew Univer-sity in 1963 and his LL.M. and J.S.D. fromYale Law School in 1964 and 1965. He hasbeen a visiting professor in Tokyo, HongKong, Berlin, Basel, and Geneva. He is aFellow of the World Academy of Art andScience and a former member of its Execu-tive Council. Professor Reisman is also amember of the Advisory Committee on In-ternational Law of the Department of State.He was Vice-President and then President ofthe Inter-American Commission on HumanRights of the Organization of AmericanStates. His books include The Laws of War:Basic Documents on the Law of Interna-tional Armed Conflicts (with C. Antoniou,1994) and International Incidents (with A.Willard, 1988).

Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey is thePermanent Representative of Bosnia andHerzegovina to the United Nations and itsSpecial Envoy for the Implementation of theDayton Peace Agreement. Previously, heserved as Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ForeignMinister and played a key role in negotiatingthe Dayton Accord. Before assuming thesediplomatic posts, Ambassador Sacirbey helda variety of positions in business and fi-nance, including Vice President and Man-ager of the Standard and Poor’s Corporationand Senior Vice President for the SecurityPacific Merchant Bank. He received his lawdegree from Tulane University and hisM.B.A. from Columbia University.

James Schear is Deputy Assistant Secretaryof Defense for Peacekeeping and Humani-tarian Assistance, and was formerly ResidentAssociate at the Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace. Prior to joining the en-dowment he received his Ph.D. in interna-tional relations from the London School of


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Economics and was a Senior Associate atthe Henry L. Stimson Center. He has heldresearch appointments at the InternationalInstitute for Strategic Studies, Harvard Uni-versity’s Center for Science and Interna-tional Affairs, and the Brookings Institution.From 1992 to 1995. Mr. Schear served as apolicy consultant to the United Nations,where he performed field assessments of UNoperations in Cambodia and the formerYugoslavia. Dr. Schear has edited threebooks and published many articles, the mostrecent of which, “Bosnia’s Post DaytonTraumas” appears in the fall 1996 issue ofForeign Policy.

Laura Silber was the Balkans correspon-dent for the Financial Times and was basedin the region for nine years. She is the co-author with Allan Little of Yugoslavia:Death of a Nation (1995). She was chiefconsultant for the six-part BBC documentaryseries of the same name.

Ambassador Ivan Šimonović is the Perma-nent Representative of the Republic ofCroatia to the United Nations. Previously, heserved as Croatia’s Deputy Foreign Minister,First Assistant Foreign Minister, and Assis-tant Minister. Before government service,Dr. Šimonović was an Associate Professorin the Department for the Theory of Law atthe Zagreb Law School. He received his le-gal training and his Ph.D. from the ZagrebLaw School. Dr. Šimonović has also con-ducted graduate-level courses at the Inter-University Center in Dubrovnik and theFaculty of Sociology and Political Sciencesin Ljubljana. In 1993–94 he was awarded aFulbright scholarship to conduct research atYale Law School and gave a number of lec-tures around the United States during hisstay. Dr. Šimonović has also served on nu-merous government commissions, includingthe Government Commission to TraceMissing Persons, the Commission for Legal

Assistance, and the State Commission onBorders.

Colonel Alan G. Stolberg is the Chief ofthe Europe/NATO Division Plans and PolicyDirectorate of the U.S. European Commandin Stuttgart, Germany. He earned a B.A.from St. John’s University, an M.A. in In-ternational Relations from the University ofSouthern California, and an M.A. in Na-tional Security and Strategic Studies fromthe U.S. Naval War College. From March toJune of 1995, he was the U.S. EuropeanCommand’s Liaison Officer to UNPROFORassigned to Sarajevo. Commissioned as aMilitary Intelligence Officer, he has servedin various intelligence positions relating toeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,and as Army Research Director of the U.S.Naval War College. As a battalion com-mander, he has deployed soldiers in peaceoperation missions in a number of places,including Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Tur-key, northern Iraq, and Rwanda.

Paul Szasz is an Adjunct Professor at theCenter for International Studies at New YorkUniversity School of Law. Before his re-tirement from the United Nations in 1989,he served as Director of its General LegalDivision and Deputy to the Legal Counsel.Since then he served as Director (Legal) inthe Office of the Special Representative ofthe UN Secretary-General for Namibia andas Legal Adviser to the International Con-ference on the Former Yugoslavia, and asVisiting Professor of International Law,University of Georgia School of Law. Pro-fessor Szasz received his engineering andlegal educations at Cornell University and heclerked for Judge Elbert P. Tuttle of theFifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Yael Tamir is a Senior Lecturer in the De-partment of Philosophy of Tel Aviv Univer-sity. She received her Ph.D. in political phi-


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losophy from Balliol College, Oxford, andhas been a visiting scholar at the Center forHuman Values at Princeton University andthe Program in Ethics and the Professions atHarvard University. Ms. Tamir is the authorof Liberal Nationalism (1993) and editor ofDemocratic Education in MulticulturalStates. Ms. Tamir has written numerous arti-cles on nationalism, liberal theory, and theo-ries of rights. She is also a founding memberof Peace Now (the Israeli peace movement)and an active member of the Israeli CivilRights Association.

Ruti Teitel is a Professor at New York LawSchool, where she teaches international hu-man rights law. She was a Senior Fellow atthe Orville H. Schell, Jr., Center for Interna-tional Human Rights at Yale Law School.Her extensive writings on human rights andconstitutionalism include “Transitional Ju-risprudence: The Role of Law in PoliticalTransformation” in the Yale Law Journal(1997); “Constitutional Costs to Free MarketTransitions” in The Meaning of Rights in theFormer Soviet Bloc Countries (1996); “Re-actionary Constitutional Identity” in Con-stitutionalism, Identity, Differenc,e and Le-gitimacy: Theoretical Perspectives (1994);“Post-Communist Constitutionalism: ATransitional Perspective” in the ColumbiaHuman Rights Law Journal (1994); “Para-doxes in the Revolution of the Rule of Law”in the Yale Journal of International Law(1994); and “Dilemmas of Post-TotalitarianJustice” in the University of Chicago LawSchool—East European Constitutional Re-view (1992). Professor Teitel is a member ofthe Steering Committee of Helsinki Watchand a member of the Executive AdvisoryBoard of the Holocaust/Human Rights Re-search Project of Boston College LawSchool. Professor Teitel was a 1993 recipi-ent of a grant from the United States Insti-tute of Peace and has been a regular com-

mentator for Court TV regarding the Bos-nian war crimes trials conducted by the In-ternational Criminal Tribunal for the FormerYugoslavia. She is currently working on abook entitled Transitional Justice, to bepublished by Oxford University Press.

Christine Wallich has been with the WorldBank since 1977 and was Country Directorfor Bosnia-Herzegovina from the DaytonAccord until recently. She has worked forthe World Bank in eastern Europe and theBalkans, as well as in Russia. Since 1997she has been Director of the World Bank’scorporate strategy department. Dr. Wallichholds a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale Uni-versity and specializes in public finance andfiscal policy. She recently authored twobooks, Russia and the Challenge of FiscalFederalism and Decentralization of the So-cialist State.

Ruth Wedgwood is Senior Fellow and Di-rector of the Project on International Organi-zations and Law at the Council on ForeignRelations, and Professor of Law at Yale LawSchool. She chaired the symposium on theDayton Peace Accord held at Yale Univer-sity and co-sponsored by the Council onForeign Relations. She writes on interna-tional politics and international law, as wellas problems of peacekeeping, UN finance,and UN reform. Professor Wedgwood hastravelled in Bosnia and Eastern Slavonia toexamine the peacekeeping and civil recon-struction efforts. Professor Wedgwood is amember of the American Law Institute andthe Secretary of State’s Advisory Committeeon International Law. She directed theCouncil on Foreign Relations’ five-city taskforce report on “American National Interestand the United Nations.” She also directedthe Council’s Capitol Hill study group on“Lessons Learned in Peacekeeping: WhatWorked, What Didn’t, and Why.” A former


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law clerk to Judge Henry Friendly of theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Cir-cuit and Justice Harry Blackmun of the U.S.Supreme Court, she served as an adviser onintelligence and criminal justice issues in theCarter administration, and as a federalprosecutor. (Her prosecution of a Bulgarianintelligence operative led to negotiations forthe release of Andrei Sakharov and NatanScharansky.) In 1998–99, she served as theCharles Stockton Professor of InternationalLaw at the U.S. Naval War College. Herpublications include The RevolutionaryMartyrdom of Jonathan Robbins (a study ofthe eighteenth-century origins of the Ameri-can foreign affairs power) and The Use ofForce in International Affairs. She writes onforeign policy for the Christian ScienceMonitor, the International Herald Tribune,the New York Times, the Washington Post,and the Washington Times.

Susan Woodward is Senior Research Fel-low at the Centre for Defense Studies,King's College, University of London, and aformer Senior Fellow at the Brookings In-stitution. Previously she was a NationalFellow at the Hoover Institution and Associ-ate Professor of Political Science at YaleUniversity. She has also held teaching posi-tions at Williams College, Mount HolyokeCollege, and Northwestern University, andfellowships at Harvard and Princeton Uni-versities. She earned her B.A. at the Univer-sity of Minnesota in 1966 and her M.A. andPh.D. in Political Science at Princeton Uni-versity in 1968 and 1975. Her works includeBalkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution af-ter the Cold War (1995); Socialist Unem-ployment: The Political Economy of Yugo-slavia, 1945–1990 (1995); “Time for a Post-Mortem on Bosnia?” in The Brookings Re-view (1995); and “Soviet Rehearsal inYugoslavia? Contradictions of the SocialistLiberal Strategy” in Communist Regimes:The Aftermath (1991).

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Glossary of Places and Terms

Badinter Commission: Arbitration com-mission appointed in 1991 by the Euro-pean Community and chaired by RobertBadinter, former president of the ConseilConstitutionnel in France. It advised theEuropean Community on which of thebreakaway republics in the former Yugo-slavia should be recognized by the mem-ber countries, although the EuropeanCommunity disregarded the advice.

Banja Luka: Largest Serb city in Bosniaand Herzegovina, located in the westernportion of Republika Srpska, 200 kmnorthwest of Sarajevo. In 1998 BanjaLuka became the capital of RepublikaSrpska.

Belgrade: The capital of the Federal Re-public of Yugoslavia and capital of Ser-bia, located at the confluence of the SavaRiver and the Danube, and politicalstronghold of Slobodan Milošević.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Formerly knownas the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina;recognized in the Dayton Agreement asBosnia and Herzegovina with constituent“entities” of the Croat-Muslim Federa-tion and Republika Srpska.

Bosniac: A term coined in the civil conflictto refer to citizens of Bosnia and Herze-govina who do not identify themselvesas Croats, Serbs, or Muslims. In practice,most Bosniacs are Muslims.

Brčko: The major Bosnian port on the SavaRiver, formerly used for shipping toEuropean markets. Control of the cityand surrounding area was the subject ofan arbitration under the Dayton Agree-ment (Annex 2, article V).

Conference on Security and Cooperationin Europe (CSCE): Organization whosename was changed to OSCE at the Bu-dapest Conference in 1994.

Contact Group: Diplomatic consultativegroup comprising the United States, theUnited Kingdom, France, Germany, andRussia.

Dayton Agreement: Popular name for theGeneral Framework Agreement (see be-low).

Doboj: City in the western portion of Re-publika Srpska, 116 km east of BanjaLuka and 163 km north of Sarajevo.

Drina River: River on the eastern border ofBosnia and Herzegovina flowing into theSava River.

Eastern Slavonia: An eastern portion ofCroatia located in the Danube valley.The Serbs in the region attempted to se-cede from Croatia in 1991. The transferof the area back to Croatian control wassupervised by UNTAES (see below).

Ekavski: The dialect of Serbo-Croatianspoken by most inhabitants of Serbia. In1991, the Serbian assembly designatedthe Ekavski and Ijekavski dialects as“Serbian” and the official language ofSerbia.

European Union: Created from the Euro-pean Community by the Treaty of Maas-tricht (November 1, 1993), the EU hasattempted to create a unified foreignpolicy on behalf of the 15 member states.

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY):The Yugoslav federation, currently com-posed of Serbia and Montenegro.

Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina:Croat-Muslim federation formed in 1994at U.S. urging, which in turn became oneof the two “entities” of Bosnia and Her-zegovina under the Dayton Agreement.

Foča: Town in Republika Srpska on theDrina River located 77 km southeast ofSarajevo and 33 km upstream of Go-radze. The Serbs refer to this town asSrbinje.


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General Framework Agreement: Peaceaccord negotiated at Dayton betweenAlija Izetbegović (representing Bosniaand Herzegovina), Mate Granić (repre-senting Croatia), and SlobodanMilošević (representing Yugoslavia).The agreement was signed by the partiesin Paris on December 14, 1995, and wasalso witnessed by France, Germany,Russia, Great Britain, and the UnitedStates.

Glamoć: Former Bosnian Serb town locateddue west of Sarajevo near the borderwith Croatia.

HDZ (Croat Democratic Union): The mainCroatian political party in Bosnia andHerzegovina, founded in 1990. TheHDZ in Croatia is led by PresidentFranjo Tudjman.

Herceg-Bosna: The term used to describe ade facto Croat government in Croat re-gions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. TheFederation Agreement of 1994 was sup-posed to end the existence of Herceg-Bosna, but the Zagreb government hascontinued de facto to support the activi-ties.

High Representative: A position created byAnnex 10 of the Dayton Agreement tooversee implementation of the civilianaspects of the peace settlement. UnderArticle V of Annex 10, “[t]he High Rep-resentative is the final authority in thea-ter regarding interpretation of thisAgreement on the civilian implementa-tion of the peace settlement.”

IFOR (Implementation Force): The multi-national (largely NATO) military forcedeployed to implement the DaytonAgreement. IFOR was created by UNSecurity Council Resolution 1031 (1995)pursuant to Annex 1A of the DaytonAgreement. IFOR’s tasks included sepa-ration of the warring parties, supervisingthe cantonment of weapons, patrolling

the IEBL, and assistance in implement-ing the civilian aspects of the accord.

Ilid`a: A suburb of Sarajevo and site of theSaravejo airport, located 7 km west ofSarajevo center. Ilid`a was held by Serbforces prior to the implementation of theDayton Agreement.

Inter-Entity Boundary Line (IEBL): Theboundary established by the DaytonAgreement between Republika Srpskaand the Federation of Bosnia and Herze-govina.

International Development Association(IDA): An entity of the World Bank thatgives loans at concessionary rates to de-veloping countries.

International Police Task Force (IPTF):Police monitors appointed under theDayton Agreement from UN membercountries to assist in the restructuring ofthe local Bosnian police.

Krajina: Derived from the Serb-Croatianword for “end” or “frontier,” the VojnaKrajina was the border between theAustria-Hungarian and Ottoman em-pires, now an area of Croatia, locatedalong the western and northwestern bor-ders of Bosnia and Herzegovina. TheAustrians encouraged Serbs who hadbeen displaced by the Ottoman Turks tosettle in the area and allowed them po-litical autonomy.

Manjača: The high plateau to the west ofthe Vrbas River and south of BanjaLuka.

Mostar: City located 133 km southwest ofSarajevo which functioned as the capitolof Herceg-Bosna. The destruction of asixteenth-century Stari Most bridge con-necting the largely Bosnian Croat westbank with the largely Muslim east bankof the Nerevta River came to symbolizethe dissolution of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Mrkonić Grad: Town located 68 km southof Banja Luka.


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Operation Storm: Croatian offensive in1995 to regain control of the traditionallySerb areas of Croatia, namely WesternSlavonia and the Krajina.

Opstina: A local unit of government,roughly comparable to a county in theUnited States.

Organization for Security and Coopera-tion in Europe (OSCE): a pan-European security organization whose 55participating states span the geographicalarea from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

Pale: Until 1998, the capital of RepublikaSrpska, Pale is located 17 km fromSarajevo. Prior to the Bosnian conflict,Pale was a small skiing village.

Posavina Corridor: A narrow corridor ofland along the Sava River that links thetwo halves of Republika Srpska.

Republika Srpska: The Bosnian Serb entitywithin Bosnia and Herzegovina, recog-nized in the Dayton Agreement.

Sava River: River forming the northernborder of Bosnia and Herzegovina,flowing eastward until it joins the Da-nube at Belgrade. The Sava was tradi-tionally navigable to Brčko and beyond.

SDA (Party of Democratic Action): Thelargest Bosniac (and de facto Muslim)political party, founded in 1990 by AlijaIzetbegović.

SDS (Serb Democratic Party): The largestBosnian Serb political party, founded byRadovan Karadžić and Momcilo Kra-jišnik in 1990. The SDS has espoused ahard-line nationalism, and has opposedeffective implementation of the DaytonAccord.

SFOR (Stabilization Force): A follow-onmilitary force composed of troops fromNATO, Russia, and other Europeancountries. SFOR was authorized by UNSecurity Council Resolution 1088(1996).

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia(SFRY): The name of Yugoslavia priorto its dissolution. For most purposesFRY is considered the successor state ofSFRY.

Srbinje: The Serb name for the town previ-ously known as Foča (see above).

UNCRO: United Nations Confidence Res-toration Organization in Croatia (March1995–January 1996), which replacedUNPROFOR in Croatia.

UNHCR: UN High Commissioner forRefugees.

UNMIBH: UN Mission in Bosnia and Her-zegovina.

UNPROFOR: United Nations ProtectionForce (March 1992–December 1995),initially established in Croatia but ex-tended to include Bosnia in June 1992and the former Yugoslav Republic ofMacedonia in December 1992. The op-eration was restructured in March 1995,at which time UNPROFOR was re-stricted to Bosnia.

UNTAES: United Nations TransitionalAdministration for Eastern Slavonia, Ba-ranja, and Western Sirmium (January1996–January 1998), designed to assistin the peaceful integration of these tradi-tionally Serb areas into Croatia.UNTAES was led by U.S. Air ForceMajor General (ret.) Jacques-Paul Klein.

Vance-Owen Plan: A peace plan for Bos-nia-Herzegovina negotiated by CyrusVance and Lord David Owen in 1993that would have created 7 to 10 govern-mental units within Bosnia-Herzegovina,each with mixed populations.

Vrbas Canyon: A narrow canyon along theVrbas River leading from Jajce andMrkonić Grad toward Banja Luka. TheVrbas Canyon represented the last physi-cal barrier impeding the Croatian forcesof Operation Storm from entering BanjaLuka.


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Washington Agreement: Agreement ofMarch 1, 1994, which led to the estab-lishment of the Federation of Bosnianand Herzegovina.

Western Slavonia: One of the traditionallySerb areas of Croatia.

Yugoslav National Army (JNA): The JNAwas largely composed of Serbs prior tothe dissolution of SFRY. The JNA re-mained loyal to President Milošević andattempted to prevent the secession ofSlovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. After Bosnia-Herzegovinadeclared independence, JNA forces inthe republic were redesignated as forcesof Republika Srpska.

Zagreb: The capital of Croatia, located onthe Sava River, 390 km west of Bel-grade.

Zenica: Town located 77 km northwest ofSarajevo.

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Glossary of Names

Yasushi Akashi: Special Representative forthe UN Secretary-General in the formerYugoslavia from 1993 to 1995.

Carl Bildt: Former prime minister of Swe-den. He became Co-chairman of the In-ternational Conference on the formerYugoslavia upon the resignation of LordDavid Owen in 1995. Also served asHigh Representative in Bosnia and Her-zegovina under the Dayton Accord from1995 to 1997.

Peter Carrington: Co-chairman of the In-ternational Conference on the formerYugoslavia from 1991 to 1992.

Milorad Dodik: Prime Minister of Repub-lika Srpska from 1996 to 1998; a rela-tively moderate figure.

Mate Granić: Foreign Minister of Croatia.He negotiated the Dayton Agreement onbehalf of the Bosnian Croats.

Pierre Harmel: Former foreign minister ofBelgium.

Richard Holbrooke: United States specialenvoy for the Balkans (now PermanentRepresentative of the United States tothe United Nations). Ambassador Hol-brooke negotiated the cease-fires andDayton Accord in 1995.

Alija Izetbegović: Wartime leader of theBosnian Muslims and founding leader ofthe SDA; Bosniac member of the presi-dency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Radovan Karadžić: Political leader of theBosnian Serbs during the war. He wasindicted by the International CriminalTribunal for the Former Yugoslavia onJuly 25 and November 16, 1995. Underthe terms of the Dayton Agreement he isineligible as an indicted war criminal toserve in any public office.

Jacques-Paul Klein: Head of UNTAES(see above). When that mission com-pleted its task, he became Deputy in theOffice of the High Representative forBosnia and Herzegovina, and later Spe-cial Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Momcilo Krajišnik: First Serb member ofthe presidency of Bosnia and Herzego-vina.

Joseph Luns: Former Secretary-General ofNATO.

Slobodan Milošević: Wartime president ofSerbia; now President of the FRY.Milošević orchestrated the raised Serbnationalism in the 1990s, causing thedissolution of Yugoslavia.

Ratko Mladić: Military leader of the Bos-nian Serbs during the war and com-mander of forces in Republika Srpska.He was indicted by the InternationalCriminal Tribunal for the Former Yugo-slavia on July 25 and November 16,1995, and is allegedly responsible for themassacre at Srebrenica.

David Owen: Former Foreign Secretary inthe U.K. government, and Co-chairmanof the International Conference on theFormer Yugoslavia together with CyrusVance.

Biljana Plavšić: President of RepublikaSrpska. She was chosen by RadovanKaradžić as his successor when he wasforced to retire from public office. Sheeventually split with the SDS (Karad-žić’s political party) and formed a sepa-rate party.

Ibrahim Rugova: Albanian leader inKosovo.

Rupert Smith: British Lieutenant-Generalcommanding UNPROFOR troops in

Glossary of Names

141

Bosnia who ultimately called in theNATO air strikes after the fall of Sre-brenica.

Sejfudin Tokić: Bosnian Muslim opposi-tion leader.

Franjo Tudjman: President of Croatia.Cyrus Vance: Former U.S. Secretary of

State, served as Special Envoy of the UNSecretary-General from 1991 to 1992.Secretary Vance negotiated a peace ac-cord to end the fighting in Croatia in1992, and co-chaired the InternationalConference on the Former Yugoslaviafrom 1992 to 1993, seeking a peace ac-cord in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Carlos Westendorp: High Representativeunder the Dayton Agreement from 1997to 1999.

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