The Dayton Peace Agreement is in danger of coming unraveled, as nationalist Bosnian Croats mount a campaign of intimidation and thuggery in an attempt to create a separate Croat ministate within Bosnia-Herzegovina. Still sometimes seemingly at sea in the complex world of Balkan politics, the UN international supervisors who control the NATO-led Bosnian Stabilization Force (SFOR) have become apparently unwitting contributors to the hardening of attitudes among the Croat community. The catalyst was the enforced closure earlier this year of the Hercegovacka Banka, which the international authorities believed, with some justification, had become a major source of funding for the nationalist Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) and its private army of thugs, which has been closely connected with organized crime. Unfortunately the suspension of the bank’s activities meant that many ordinary Bosnian Croats found their savings placed out of their control.
Businesses were suddenly without funds and local organizations, even charities could no longer draw on their accounts. In seeking to clamp down on hard-liners, the authorities delivered a blow to people of all political views and thus helped polarize opinion toward the extremists.
A further questionable judgment has been the weeding out of all extremists from the multiethnic Bosnian administration. HDZ representative are no longer permitted to help govern the country. The argument here is less clear cut because it had become obvious that these people had no intention whatsoever in behaving constructively.
So instead, moderates have been encouraged to enter the political arena. This unfortunately has brought about the current mounting reign of terror in the Bosnian Croat community.
Moderate politicians are being targeted for bomb attacks and their supporters are being threatened or beaten up. The local Croat authorities seem to be or powerless to act against these hoodlums. Since the HDZ no longer has any participative political role, the only way for the international community to act against them would be to proscribe them and treat them as criminals. That however would probably merely fuel their separatist campaign, drive them underground and unleash a campaign of full-blown terrorism, aimed first against dissenters in their own community and then the wider Bosnian state. This month’s short-lived rebellion of hard-line Croat troops within the Bosnian Army, could be a dangerous marker card for how the cracks within Bosnian society could be levered open again. The extremist HDZ is demanding that Croat Bosnians be given the same independent ministate within Bosnia as were the Serbs under the Dayton agreement.
The key to Bosnia’s future however still lies with the international peacemakers and the UN’s High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch. The short-term toughness over the likes of Hercegovacka Banka needs to be backed by a clear long-term commitment that SFOR troops will be there for as long as they are needed. At the moment there are siren voices saying that the SFOR deployment should be rethought with a view to reducing its role. This is music to the ears of the extremists, who know how to play a waiting game.
What is necessary is a clear and consistent demonstration of SFOR determination. Cracking down on extremist thugs and protecting moderates in the Croat community would be a useful start. This should be done with the help and backing of Zagreb. Persuading Belgrade to pull the plug on the cancerous Republika Srpska would be a major second step.
