http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4608
by Nebojsa Malic
A fascinating media phenomenon could be observed last week, following the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs. Anyone who was even tangentially involved in the 1990s events in Bosnia rushed forth to offer their thoughts; ex-diplomats and politicians, journalists and commentators used Karadzic’s capture as an opportunity to remind the world not so much of the tragedy of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3195 in the Bank of Collective Serbian Guilt, showed up to claim a dividend.Politics of Fear
The most facetious displays of self-aggrandizement dressed themselves up in the cloak of concern. It did not take long for the BBC, for example, to claim that Karadzic’s arrest “casts a shadow over Bosnia’s fate.” Even though just last week it was argued that the Inquisition’s capture of the Bosnian Serb leader was a “triumph” over nationalism, it has all of a sudden become a boost to the nationalists!
An exemplary prophet of gloom was Paddy Ashdown. This former viceroy of Bosnia claimed on the pages of the Observer on Sunday that “there is a real threat of Bosnia breaking up again.” He pointed the finger squarely at the Serb Republic (“Karadzic’s creation”) and its Prime Minister, Milorad Dodik, charging him with “aggressively reversing a decade of reforms.” Said Ashdown:
“He has set up the parallel institutions and sent delegations to Montenegro to find out how they broke away. He has used the autonomy granted by the Dayton Agreement to undermine the Bosnia Dayton envisaged.”
Those who know Bosnia, of course, find it hard to take baronet Norton-sub-Hamdon seriously. These are the exact same things he used to say when he ruled Bosnia (2002-2006) as a personal fiefdom, serving as the living embodiment of Lord Acton’s dictum. He was wrong then, and he is wrong now.
Dayton, Revised
What sort of Bosnia was envisioned at Dayton, exactly? The agreement achieved at the U.S. airbase in Ohio in November 1995 ended the civil war by establishing a loose federation between the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat “Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” with a minimal central government granted strictly limited powers. An international envoy, called “High Representative,” was appointed to oversee the agreement’s implementation.
However, in 1997 the “Peace Implementation Council” – composed of Western countries that backed the Dayton agreement – expanded the authority of the HR, making him a de facto dictator of the country. These “Bonn powers” were subsequently used to summarily dismiss elected officials, impose laws, change boundaries, create new entities (Brcko District), and effect “reforms” in the name of Dayton – even though the Dayton Constitution never actually authorized any of this. Then again, when has a “goddamn piece of paper,” be it the one from Philadelphia or the one from Ohio, ever stopped those that crave power?
Further complicating things was that the warring factions in Bosnia perceived Dayton differently. For the country’s Serbs and Croats, it was the vindication of their wartime goal to secure territorial autonomy and protection from Muslim domination. For many Muslims it was a temporary setback to the dream of a centralized, unified state they could dominate through superior numbers. Fighting may have ended in 1995, but the subsequent Bosnian politics was, to paraphrase Clausewitz, war by other means. Efforts to centralize Bosnia under the viceroys inevitably played into the hands of Muslim nationalists, even as Serb and Croat nationalists were blamed for all the ills that still plagued the country.
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=13228