Dayton Stockholm Syndrome: The agreement stopped the war and created a constitution on graves, allowing executioners to continue their campaign!

By: Rasim Belko

First, let me tell you right away: if I had been the ambassador of BiH to this conference in Dayton by chance – I would have either drunk myself to death out of despair or sent a telegram: "I couldn't make it. You celebrate the genocidal order without me.“

While officials in Dayton, Ohio, commemorated the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina was once again a topic – not as a country moving forward, but as a prime example of how a conflict can be frozen, turned into a simulation of peace, and used for decades as a playground for foreign interests. In short – they came to pat us on the head and tell us: „This chaos of yours is great, don't change it.“

The United States, as the guarantor and author of this constitutional monstrosity, stated that it would not change its foreign policy towards Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Sarajevo, this statement was welcomed as great support. Because here, institutions, parties, and most media outlets have long given up on substance. It is enough for someone from Washington to pat them on the shoulder, and they will chew on that gesture for days as a sign of „friendship and care“.

And what does that American policy actually mean? It means maintaining the status quo. And the status quo in BiH is institutionalized chaos – political, economic, judicial, and social ruin in whose mire contractors work for the interests of aggressors..

The Dayton Agreement stopped the gunfire, but it translated the war aims into constitutional frameworks. Not a single European country operates on the principles on which BiH is still trying to breathe. And when a country has to ask two countries that attacked it – whether it can join NATO – that is called colonial administration, not sovereignty.

That is why it was interesting at this conference to hear the repackaged messages of the war aggressors, now in diplomatic guise. The Croatian concept of apartheid towards Bosniaks in the area that the HDZ considers its backyard is still called European values here, with possible application to the entire BiH. To make matters worse, that concept is no longer even attempted to be hidden in Dayton. Serbia, on the other hand, supports the territorial integrity of BiH, but not its sovereignty.

In other words – let BiH exist on paper, but let it be known whose is whose, who can do what. It's like your neighbor saying: „I support you staying in your apartment, but I decide when you turn on the heating.“

And what did the representatives of BiH say? Absolutely nothing new. Nothing that could shake that system, nothing that could disturb the neighbors, nothing that could anger the High Representative. Standard platitudes about the „European future“, „the necessity of dialogue“, and „the importance of stability“. As if someone prescribed them a protocol: „If you accidentally think of mentioning the abolition of ethnic voting or, God forbid, a civilizational constitution – go to the corner immediately.“

On the sidelines of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, BiH was present only on paper. We did not raise the issue of membership, nor the problem of the presence of Russian agency in the entities, nor the topic of violation of the Dayton Agreement by neighbors. We came, ate canapés, took pictures, and headed back.

And so, thirty years after the war was stopped, BiH continues to remain in the clutches of an agreement that did stop the aggression, but left the aggressors with all the levers to continue that aggression by political means. And they are doing it – every day, in every institution, at every step.

The saddest part of the whole story is that official Sarajevo suffers from Dayton Stockholm Syndrome. Trapped by their own illusions, convinced that change happens when someone from the Embassy gives you a smile, and reform happens when HDZ and SNSD deign to show up at a meeting. Everything that does not disrupt the existing order is celebrated here as success. And every idea of a normal, civic, modern state is stifled in its infancy.

Therefore, as long as we have leaders who are satisfied with the fact that no one spat in their faces in Dayton – nothing will change here.

Dayton is not a peace agreement. Dayton is a sophisticated mechanism for maintaining permanent political chaos in which aggressors move faster and more easily towards achieving their war aims. And until we admit this to ourselves, and until we gather the courage to openly tell the world, we will be hostages of our own cowardice and foreign interests.

And time for awakening is running out.