Dayton Truth Signed in Paris: How Ideological Propaganda Has Been Trying to Hide the Aggression Against Bosnia and Herzegovina for 30 Years

By: Prof. Dr. Hazim Bašić, member of the Presidency of Krug 99

A review of some claims by Nenad Kecmanović in the pamphlet titled 'The Dayton Deception Signed in Paris'

'Deception' as Headline Manipulation: From Initial Thesis to Swapping of Theses

When someone starts a text with the sentence 'Dayton is a great deception', they admit from the outset that the facts are not strong enough, so they resort to cheap propaganda hyperbole. The Dayton Agreement did not fall from the sky, nor was it 'arranged' for Serbs, Croats, or Bosniaks. It is the result of a three-and-a-half-year internationally recognized aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the result of mass crimes, genocide, the siege of Sarajevo, and hundreds of thousands killed, wounded, and displaced.

Dayton did not begin to fail because it was a 'deception', but because the political elites on whose ideology Kecmanović has been warming himself for decades have never accepted Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state, but only as a temporary pause on the path to creating 'Greater Serbia'. This is the core of the problem, not Holbrooke, Lisbon, or the West. Incidentally, the so-called 'original Dayton' is a non-existent political-legal qualification, as the Dayton Agreement is an ongoing process even today.

Cutileiro, Holbrooke, the Contact Group, and 'Tuned Borders'

Kecmanović's claim that Holbrooke 'plagiarized' the Lisbon Plan is as nonsensical as his claim that there was no aggression in BiH but a civil war. Holbrooke was merely a firefighter putting out the fire that Milošević had started. And let's be clear, without the Serbian army, the MUP, the JNA arsenal, and paramilitary formations, there would have been no war in BiH, because no one outside the Greater Serbian project could have started it. Everything else is propaganda forgery.

When Kecmanović talks about 'tuned borders', he omits the most important fact: the borders in Dayton were not determined by Washington's will, but by the map of ethnic cleansing that had already occurred. If it weren't for the genocide in Srebrenica, the numerous concentration camps (Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje, ...), the massacres in Prijedor, Foča, Višegrad, Zvornik, and other cities, the territorial ratio would have looked different. Although Dayton did not reward the victim, but the crime, it was signed in the name of peace with many compromises. Today's proponents of the Greater Serbian project try to play the victim; they would gladly secede a part of Bosnia, but with an implied amnesty for responsibility for the consequences.

The thesis that 'Serbs were handicapped' because Karadžić was excluded from the process aims to make people forget that this same Karadžić had already been indicted for genocide and ethnic cleansing. Likewise, the story about the 'access to the Adriatic' is nothing more than a nostalgic obsession with the Greater Serbian dream of Serbia having access to the sea through the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. As for Brčko, the arbitration did not create a break in the territory of the entity, but prevented a break in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, Brčko was saved from the physical erasure of its Bosniak and Croat population, which does not represent any alleged 'injustice towards Serbs'.

The Height of Cynicism: 'Bosniaks Saved from Capitulation'

Only someone who conceals genocide, relativizes the siege of Sarajevo, denies the systematic destruction of Bosnian cities, and tries to cover up Milošević's official policy of the 1990s can write that. Dayton did not save Bosniaks from total annihilation; their defense, organization, and resistance saved them, as did the fact that, despite everything, they refused to disappear. Views on 'a population majority without political significance' are a continuation of the same ideology that claimed in 1992 that 'Muslims have no right to a state'. In these two theses, along with calling Bosniaks 'poturice' (who, as such, are ideologically less valuable people, and of course do not belong in these areas), one can find traces of fascism.

Attack on High Representatives: A Strategic Topic for Those Who Want to Dismantle BiH

Kecmanović pushes the narrative that high representatives 'destroyed Dayton'. The truth is the opposite: high representatives returned political processes to constitutional frameworks because it was precisely Republika Srpska that systematically undermined the state through blockades, secessionist moves, and open violations of Dayton. As for Schmidt, the problem is not him, but the obvious fact that every trace of BiH's constitutional functionality is to be abolished in Republika Srpska. Therefore, the attack on the OHR is part of a broader strategy of dismantling the state, which is not a new idea but an old project in a new guise.

Manipulations about Trump, Germany, and Geopolitical 'Theories'

The part of the text about Trump, alleged 'secret promises', and geopolitical ramblings about the 'Fourth Reich' is nothing more than a political phantasmagoria. The goal is clear: to create the impression that the West is weakening, and that Serbia and Republika Srpska, with Russia, will finally have the opportunity to 'resolve the Bosnian question'. But the facts are relentless: Trump did not withdraw support for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany has a legitimate interest in the stability of the Western Balkans, the EU is the only realistic prospect for BiH, and finally - Russia is trying to weaken Europe by destabilizing the region. Stories about 'American non-intervention' serve only one purpose: to encourage secessionism.

The last part of Kecmanović's text about the war, Russians in Berlin, and a 'new deal' is a typical end to a column aimed at intimidation, not analysis. The message is simple: if you don't give us what we took by force from 1992-1995, we will cause a new crisis. This is not an analytical stance but a transparent call for new political blackmail.

The Dayton Agreement has many shortcomings, but it is not a 'deception'. It is a deception to falsify historical facts, it is a deception to try to present a crime as a 'political injustice', to portray BiH as a temporary mistake that should disappear. And the greatest deception to oneself and any uncritical readers is that Bosnia and Herzegovina is still not accepted as a fact, nor as a reality, nor as a state.