As has been noted previously here, the Dayton Accords are not working and Bosnia is getting more dysfunctional every day. Some of my friends that visit family there regularly note that the situation is really deteriorating - it had reached a relatively stable place in the early 2000s (which was a reason for scaling down international involvement back then), but in recent years, things are getting tense again. The main actor is, of course, Dodik, who is no longer even pretending not to have separatist intentions in the face of compromise solutions that everyone else is more or less willing to accept. The main one being a cantonisation proposal based on the Swiss model and the success of Brčko District. It's an intentionally absurd situation - reform is clearly needed, because the government and bureaucracies at the federal level (FBiH, RS and, practically, the Brčko District being entities) is completely non-functional by almost any metric do to having to deal with intentionally castrating solutions enshrined in Dayton (rotating presidency, ethnic quotas, etc.), and yet RS is blocking reform because it would have to compromise some of its absurd "rights" to make a functional state (its currently practically a state-within-a-state, which would obviously have to change) but is at the same time stoking independence ambitions among the populace by pointing at the dysfunctionality of the federal government (a bit of an unfortunate term since the Federation of BiH is an entity of BiH, but here I'm using it to refer to the "overall" government).Sabre-rattling between Croatia and Serbia over Bosnia intensifies wrote:Sabre-rattling between Croatia and Serbia over Bosnia intensifies
Rise in vitriol between Balkan nations over future of region harks back to bloody conflicts of the 1990s
Leaders of the former Yugoslavia traded hostile invective that recalled the wars of the 1990s today after Croatia's president threatened armed intervention to halt any Serbian attempts to partition Bosnia.
Milorad Dodik, the prime minister of the Serbian half of Bosnia, accused the Croatian leader, Stipe Mesic, of warmongering after a blunt warning from Zagreb.
"If Milorad Dodik scheduled a referendum for secession … I would send the army," Mesic said, adding that he would "break the Bosnian Serb region in half". Mesic's threat also triggered a strong response in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
The war of words erupted as Bosnia prepares for elections later this year, which diplomats and analysts expect to be marked by angry and destabilising nationalism on all sides.
Dodik is determined to keep Bosnia as ethnically divided as possible and is resisting all international attempts to forge a more functional state and establish central government authority. He regularly threatens to stage a direct vote on secession from Bosnia.
Mesic, who is to stand down after a decade as Croatian president next month, accused the Bosnian Serb leader of seeking to revive the failed Serbian policies of a decade ago aimed at establishing a "Greater Serbia".
Dodik is fighting a political war of attrition with the international powers who still control Bosnia and enjoy last-resort powers, nearly 15 years after the end of the war there.
"Dodik believes that the world will tire of Bosnia and that he will schedule a referendum then … and then the dream of a Greater Serbia will finally be fulfilled," Mesic told journalists in Zagreb.
The Serbian half of Bosnia is split in two and connected by a narrow corridor that runs along the River Sava on the border with Croatia. Mesic said he could send Croat forces to the choke point. A referendum would result not in a Serbian breakaway, but in the destruction of the Serbian half of Bosnia, the Croatian president predicted.
A senior government official in Belgrade, Borislav Stefanovic, reacted angrily, declaring that Mesic's "moral and political authority is at almost zero".
Dodik said the Croatian leader was "radical and extreme" and accused him of warmongering after playing a key role in the wars of the 90s. Mesic was the last president of Yugoslavia before it collapsed in bloodshed in 1991.
"This is a disturbing threat by a man who started his political career with a war and now wants to end it with a war," Dodik said. "It is a classic call to war."
Few observers expect Bosnia to slip into a repeat of its 1992-95 war, but the verbal fisticuffs in recent days is the most aggressive for years. The country is dysfunctional and its ethnic division entrenched, generating gloom about its European integration prospects in Brussels.
Lady Ashton, the EU's new foreign policy chief, has singled Bosnia out as the most unstable corner of Europe.
As for Mesić's comments. The military side of the question is clear - OSRH (Croatian Armed Forces) have the capability, equipment and experience to do what's needed. However, the political and economic sides would be disastrous - massive losses in the tourism sector, much higher costs of financing, if EU accession is not achieved by the time this comes to a head, a practical indefinite postponement of that, etc. As that is pretty much clear to everyone, the public support for his comments in Croatia is lukewarm at best - on the one hand, nobody is willing to pay the price, especially after all the troubles of our own in the '90ies, on the other hand, letting RS separate and likely join Serbia is strategically completely unacceptable to Croatia - it would cause a complete disintegration of Bosnia which would leave Croatia with an unacceptable geographic situation (Serbia, once RS joins it, "filling" Croatia's "horseshoe"), unacceptable political situation (Bosnian Croats are already being marginalised in the joint Bosniak-Croat FBiH and are increasingly having separatist feelings of their own, despite Croatia exerting maximum pressure for them to integrate - if RS leaves Bosnia, its generally felt that they would themselves declare some sort of separate state, despite Zagreb's wishes to the contrary, which would likely also lead to a radicalisation of the Bosniaks who normally represent one of the most moderate Muslim populations around - and nobody wants to see a Middle-eastern influenced Bosnia that would emerge from that - they've been very diligent in combating various Wahabbist "volunteer" influences from the previous war, however that could easily change in such a charged situation), plus it being unacceptable for historical reasons (RS being built on actions like the Srebrenica genocide and other war crimes).
Blah, what a mess.
As ineffectual as it might be, the international community (and by that I mean the Great Powers) must turn their focus back on Bosnia relatively soon, or things there could spiral out of control, again.
It should also be noted that this is the best English article I could find on the subject. It still omits a lot of information circulating locally. The most important is probably that it is generally considered that this isn't a solo adventure by Mesić, but rather a message from NATO to Dodik through a channel that can be used for that purpose (Mesić is stepping down as president in February and so is politically expendable and as a source below the radar enough not to get mainstream attention in the west, compared to NATO, the US, EU or any EU member making a similar statement). Dodik's statements on Mesić are also ridiculous to anyone with any knowledge of his role in Yugoslavia's breakup.
