The Bill Clinton administration’s envoy to the Balkans, the famous Richard Holbrooke, was a heavy-handed diplomat. Only 30 years ago the world watched helplessly as the bloodiest war in the former Yugoslavia: 100,000 deaths in a conflict between Bosnians, Croats and Bosnian Serbs from 1992 to 1995. Holbrooke brought three leaders, delegates from the three opposing communities, to the Wright-Patterson military base in Dayton (Ohio). The location was not chosen by chance: it was far from the media, from political pressure, more than 700 kilometers from Washington and about 8 thousand kilometers from Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.
Holbrooke said he needed a place “no one could escape.” And there entered, on November 1, 1995, Alija Izetbegovic, president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slobodan Milosevic, president of Serbia, who represented the interests of the Bosnian Serbs, and Franjo Tudjman, president of Croatia. “The negotiations were at once intellectual and physical, abstract and personal, something like a combination of chess and mountain climbing,” Holbrooke recounted in his book To end a war. The three leaders left the military base on November 21st with the agreement in hand, a pact that was solemnly signed on December 14th in Paris. And it left no one happy.
Tudjman died in 1999 of cancer, Izetbegovic in 2003 of cardiovascular disease, Milosevic died of an acute heart attack in his cell in The Hague in 2006 and the mediator Holbrooke, in 2010, after an aortic dissection. The pact is still in force, with the iron in precarious health.
A Constitution was forged in Dayton, almost a work of engineering, where a State was formed with two entities: the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (FBiH), predominantly Bosnian and Croatian, with 51% of the territory, and divided, in turn, into ten autonomous cantons; the Republika Srpska, with a Serbian majority and 49% of the territory. To these entities was later added the Brcko District, under joint administration and international supervision.
The country has a tripartite presidency and remains under the supervision of the Office of the High Representative. This position, held since 2021 by the German politician Christian Schmidt, has had the so-called “Bonn powers” since 1997, which give him the power to impose laws when local parties are unable or unwilling to act, allow him to fire elected officials or even ban certain people from holding public positions for life.
The Dayton Accords have been criticized for many reasons: for creating a slow, complex and often inefficient political system, for relying too much on international oversight, and for entrenching divisions between ethnic groups. But there are also those who defend it. This is the case of journalist Haris Imamovic, 36, who explains on the phone from Sarajevo that this country of 3.5 million inhabitants has seen great progress since 1995: “At the end of the nineties you couldn’t travel safely across the country. And ten years later you could move freely. There are interactions between Bosnians and Croats. Even between Serbs.”
Regarding the excess of bureaucracy, agencies and officials, Imamovic underlines: “It is true that there are many. But the big problems of daily life, health, education or security, are ultimately in the hands of the local authorities of the cantons”. The journalist, who worked for four years as president of the country, underlines: “Dayton tends to be blamed for everything. But the truth is that the country’s biggest problems are the depopulation of rural areas and unemployment. And it’s not Dayton’s fault, because it also happens in the rest of the Balkan countries.”
The Dayton Accords are often mentioned whenever a hard-to-resolve conflict erupts, such as the invasion of Ukraine or the war in Gaza. Mira Milosevich, senior researcher for the Balkans at the Elcano Royal Institute, warns that the wars are similar only on a tactical level and are not always about drawing lessons. But he explains that the agreements demonstrate “the enormous ability of the United States to force representatives to negotiate.” And he underlines another lesson of those pacts: the recognition of the conquered lands. “30% of the Serbian population who conquered 49% of Bosnian territory was recognized.”
Milosevic concludes that the great success of Dayton was the achievement of this “frozen peace”. “Bosnia has not made progress in democratizing its institutions. It is difficult to do so when Republika Srpska continues to look towards Serbia and the Bosnian Croat Federation towards the European Union.” The researcher believes that the country and the Balkans will be reborn only “when there is a generational change”.
Florian Bieber, professor of South-East European Studies at the University of Graz in Austria, believes the country’s big challenge now is to reform the Constitution to make it compatible with EU membership, which Bosnia and Herzegovina is pursuing. Bieber explains that the last “serious attempt” to reform the Magna Law took place in 2006 and failed by just two votes in Parliament.
Bieber estimates that one of the greatest risks, “although not the only one”, to reforming the Constitution is the presence of the pro-Russian leader Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska for 15 years. Dodik had threatened on numerous occasions to annex Republika Srpska to Serbia. On 1 August he was sentenced to a six-year ban from political office for disobeying the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and High Representative Christian Schmidt.
“Dodik is clearly determined to rule from behind the scenes,” warns Bieber. “It appears he plans to run Republika Srpska through frontmen, which makes any changes unlikely,” Bieber warns. The second major challenge is the Croatian ruling party’s demand for greater protection of Croat rights, something the Bosnian majority rejects as it reinforces ethnic divisions.
Bosnian Serb analyst Tanja Topic regrets that after Dayton “a rich caste of politicians” emerged who for three decades consolidated “the ethnic and nationalist matrix.” These leaders keep the country trapped in a “war of words” with “inflammatory rhetoric.” Topic criticizes the fact that parties block reforms by putting “particular interests” first and that they use the High Representative as an excuse for inaction. The analyst appreciates that Dayton brought about the end of the war. But he warns that this has also “consolidated ethnic division” and a “corrupt, clientelistic and nepotistic” political system.
Tanja Topic believes that the rule of law is “an unattainable dream” in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “It is necessary to reboot the entire society and try to change the paradigm of values. And this is a process that could take another three decades,” he concludes.
