CNN on Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Dangerous Crisis Brewing in the Balkans

(Patria) - Bosnia and Herzegovina is on the brink, analysts warn, of the most serious crisis since the end of the war in 1995, when thousands were killed and horrific acts of ethnic cleansing were committed.

The High Representative of the international community in Bosnia, Christian Schmidt, warned earlier this week that the peace agreement signed at the end of the war with US mediation is in danger of collapse, unless measures are taken to stop Serbian separatists in their efforts to secede.

Milorad Dodik, the Serbian leader in the tripartite presidency, has repeatedly threatened over time to secede from the rest of the country, which since the war has consisted of two autonomous regions linked by a central government. This time, however, he is going further, by introducing laws that would separate the Republika Srpska from state institutions such as the armed forces and the judiciary.

“This is tantamount to secession without declaring it,” Schmidt told the UN Security Council, which met this week to extend the mandate of the long-standing EUFOR peacekeeping mission, led by the European Union.

In a country where ethnic divisions between Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats led to the commission of war crimes in not-so-distant history, this level of tension makes observers very nervous.

“There is no doubt that this is by far the most dangerous crisis since 1995 and that it could lead to a new war,” said Ismail Ćidić, president of the Bosnian Advocacy Center, an independent non-governmental organization advocating for a free, sovereign, democratic and secular Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Sectarian tensions between communities have persisted since the end of the war and the signing of the Dayton Agreement mediated by the United States.

The agreement ended the three-and-a-half-year war by dividing the country along ethnic lines, into the Republika Srpska and the Federation, shared by both Bosniaks and Croats. The two regions are linked by a tripartite presidency, international envoys and a central government.

No peace agreement can erase the killings, systematic rapes and other horrors people endured during the war, but one incident stands out in memory more than others: the Srebrenica massacre that occurred between July 11 and 22, 1995.

Bosnian Serb forces killed thousands of Muslim men and boys. Their leaders were later convicted of war crimes, and the international community recognized the massacre as genocide. However, not all Serbs are ready to accept this.

One such person is Dodik – who was particularly angered by a law recently introduced by the High Representative, under which prison sentences could be imposed on anyone who denies that genocide was committed.

Earlier this year, he said of the law: “This is the nail in the coffin of Bosnia… Republika Srpska has no other option but to begin… secession.”

How bad could things get?
Observers fear that, even if Dodik does not move towards secession, his actions could seriously destabilize and provoke violence, forced migration and terrible misery for ordinary people.

“Citizens across Bosnia and Herzegovina – including the entity of Republika Srpska – fear violence,” said Arminka Helić, a politician of Bosnian origin who is now a member of the British House of Lords, and a former special adviser to the British Foreign Secretary. “A further step towards secession would likely lead to a reaction. There is no chance that the breakup of Bosnia and Herzegovina can be done peacefully.”

Heather Staff, an adviser to the RAMP project, an organization specializing in migration policy, warns that “violent conflict will lead to a refugee crisis and displaced people – in the 1990s and 2000s we saw people fleeing Bosnia to neighboring countries such as Montenegro.”

She says this is a region “where rhetoric has occasionally been harsh regarding the treatment of those seeking asylum… how would those fleeing be treated in neighboring countries?”

The impact would of course be felt beyond Bosnia and Herzegovina's borders.

Jasmin Mujanović, author of the book ‘Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans’, said it would be “a catastrophe for the European Union and the wider Atlantic community, because it would be yet another security crisis in an already extremely unstable Southeastern Europe.”

He stressed that with security crises already existing in Ukraine, Belarus, Syria and Afghanistan, “a significant deterioration of security and stability in Bosnia is something that both the EU and the US can hardly afford.”

As is often the case in geopolitics, a thorn in the side of the West provides an opportunity for rivals like Russia and China. A senior EU official told CNN they are concerned about how the situation could be exploited.

“We are caught between two fires. It cannot be seen that the international community is sacrificing the Serbs, because it pushes them and Serbia further into the embrace of Russia. But the Balkans are on the doorstep of the EU. Increased Russian influence in the region gives them another foothold and a platform for influence, if they want to further destabilize things.”

Many in the West privately acknowledge that no one has managed to step in so far and that it might now be too late. Multiple sources in the EU, NATO and the wider European diplomatic community expressed regret over the historical failure of the West to impose sanctions or otherwise act against those fanning the flames in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Dodik and his clique of secessionists and genocide deniers have been consistently appeased by the international community for 15 years. He has been talking about – and moving towards – secession since 2006,” said Helić.

Mujanović said that, although neighboring Serbia and Russia are the “primary architects of this crisis,” he believes that “the refusal of the international community – especially NATO states – to act decisively to curb this crisis several years ago” encouraged Dodik and his supporters. Mujanović specifically pointed to the EU, which he said had been “extremely ineffective” due to its own internal disagreements, making the bloc “in many ways a non-factor at this point.”

“The international community has a clear mandate to protect peace in Bosnia,” said Ćidić. “Any escalation of violence in Bosnia could terribly harm them because they cannot afford a conflict supported by Russia, involving Chinese and other interests, on NATO's borders.”

But will the West do anything? A NATO official told CNN: “We call on Russia to play a constructive role in the Western Balkans. We regularly see Russia doing the opposite. NATO works to promote stability, security and cooperation in the region. Any external interference in domestic democratic processes is unacceptable.”

It is clear that NATO could only act on the orders of its member states and there is no indication that anything other than harsh words will happen anytime soon.

A senior EU official said there is political will to do something more significant among some EU member states, but acknowledges it will be very difficult to involve all 27 without some major concessions to countries within the bloc on other issues.

The UN Security Council cannot act without Russia, which earlier this week voted to keep peacekeepers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, only after the name of the High Representative was removed from the text of the resolution, undermining the credibility of that office.

However, there is reason for hope. Mujanović says EU member states could “impose unilateral sanctions” on Dodik and his supporters, which he believes would have an impact.

But diplomacy did not work in the 1990s, and Ćidić does not believe it will now. “This failed diplomatic approach resulted in more than 100,000 dead and more than 1.1 million refugees,” he said.

That tougher approach could be sanctions, combined with treating secessionist moves as a European “security challenge,” said Helić. “We have to turn this around. The sooner we do it, the better and easier. We don't want to wait for years like we did in the 1990s.”

It is hard to see the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina improving in the near future. However, with enough political will, powerful actors could prevent it from sliding back into violence.

The question is – Are powerful Western nations too distracted to devote enough attention to a country that is currently not at the top of their priority list – and even if they are ready to act, might they find that they are too late?