Implications Of Dayton Peace Agreement On Current Political Issues In Bosnia-Herzegovina
Social discontent has already erupted in open unrest. Protesters from all ethnic groups regularly block major highways across Bosnia to protest and shout unpaid wages, pensions and social benefits. [301] In the past, some local politicians have channeled these troubles into the nationalism that led to the war. And two of the ultranationalist political parties that started the war – the HDZ and the SDS – remain in absolute power in some parts of the country. Although powerful arguments, which are convenient for the dominant ethnic elites throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, lie behind them, do not stand up to scrutiny. Despite the fact that up to 50% of the total housing stock was destroyed during the war, there are literally thousands of unused housing units throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thousands of cases of double occupancy, where land residents occupy minority apartments in cities while keeping their homes in the village. There are other cases of politically connected strongmen “managing” stolen housing. If we add many self-contained housing units to large private houses, the wide choice of housing available internationally and the politically connected persons occupying spacious minority housing, it is clear that Bosnia and Herzegovina has many housing opportunities that are not pursued by the local authorities. Many of them could be released to accommodate the DP occupancy property on which the owners wish to return. The need for public administration reform is highlighted by a 2009 decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which obliges Bosnia and Herzegovina to change the ethnic nature of which it has chosen its Director General and part of its legislative power. The existing proposals attempt to push constituent peoples into a supposedly ethnic-blind structure, to which a complex network of indirect elections would allow party leaders to vote for the executive with as little democratic input as possible. The EU and the outside world support this tinkering with Dayton in order to comply with this decision, although such proposals have clearly failed.
Bosnians must rebuild their political structure from the bottom up. The limited temporary detachment of IPG monitors leads to a steady flow of experienced monitors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, just as they begin to develop a deep understanding of the country and its role in it. They are generally replaced by inexperienced newcomers who do not know the language, culture or previous political difficulties in implementing the CCA. Article X of Appendix 1-A commits the parties to “cooperate fully with all entities that have participated in the implementation of this peace settlement or are otherwise empowered by the United Nations Security Council, including the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.” It will be shown in the rest of this report that this cooperation will not take place. The main reason is that the only enforcement mechanism in the entire Dpa is in Article VI:3. This article clearly states that IFOR (now SFOR) has the right to “contribute to the establishment of safe conditions for the behaviour of other peace-resolution tasks, in order to assist UNHCR and other international organizations in their humanitarian missions… Observe and prevent interventions in the movement of civilians, refugees and comics and respond appropriately to deliberate violence against life and the person. This article is the key to the full implementation of the Dpa.
