Escalating Ethnic Tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina

April 3, 2011 | 1345 GMT

Bosnia-Herzegovina faces further destabilization after Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Serb leaders
met in the city of Mostar on March 25 to announce plans to bring down the purportedly
illegally formed Bosniak-dominated government in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The
Croat-Serbian alliance is a nightmare scenario for the Bosniaks, who could be forced to rethink
their actions and work toward a compromise to prevent a political collapse in Bosnia-
Herzegovina.

Analysis

Ethnic tensions continued to simmer in Bosnia-Herzegovina as Bosnian Croat and Bosnian

Serb leaders met in the city of Mostar on March 25 to announce their plans to unseat the
Bosniak-dominated government in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (³the Federation´ is
the Croat-Bosniak political entity within Bosnia-Herzegovina), which they have said was
illegally formed. (On March 17, a Bosniak-led political bloc, the Bosniak platform, formed a
government in the Federation without the necessary Croat representatives in the upper house.)
The Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs said they plan to form a national government and have
encouraged other Bosniak parties to join them, but no government can be formed until the
crisis in the Federation is solved, thereby making political collapse a very real possibility and
creating a nightmare scenario for the Bosniaks.

There has not been a national government is Bosnia-Herzegovina, nor has there been a
government within the Federation, for five and a half months. The long-standing tensions
between the Croats and Bosniaks ² which have been simmering for several years despite
Germany¶s signaling that it would help forge a compromise and despite the ushering of reforms
in Bosnia-Herzegovina ² are only part of the problem. The core of the dilemma is the political
structure of Bosnia-Herzegovina forged by the Bosnian war.
]olitical Structure and Conflict

The Washington Agreement, signed in March 1994, ended the 1993-1994 Muslim-Croat war
and created the Muslim-Croat Federation. The pact granted Bosniaks and Croats some
autonomy and created an entity comprising 10 cantons (five Bosniak-majority and five Croat-
majority at the time of the agreement) in a special arrangement with Croatia. The December
1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the Bosnian war completely, brought the Serb-
held territories ² now Republika Srpska (RS) ² under Sarajevo¶s loose control, while the
Federation¶s close relationship with Croatia effectively ended. In accordance with the Dayton
agreement, Bosnia-Herzegovina¶s central government comprises a rotating three-chair
presidency, with a seat for each major ethnic group, and a weak bicameral parliament based in
Sarajevo. RS is a centralized de facto Serbian state within a state with its own parliament.

This is the complex political structure within which Muslim-Croat tensions have been rising
since the October 2010 national elections, in which Bosniaks, as they did in the 2006 election,
voted a Croat they favored ² Zeljko Komsic ² into the rotating presidency seat reserved for
Croats, even though the overwhelming majority of Croats voted for two other candidates. This
was possible because Croats and Bosniaks, who outnumber the Croats, vote with the same
ballot list in the Federation, and voters can choose any candidate regardless of their own
ethnicity. This recently created a standoff between the Bosniaks and Croats, as the Croats
refused to acknowledge the election results.
On March 15, Commissioner Valentin Inzko of the office of the High Representative ² the
international community¶s overseer of Bosnia-Herzegovina ² sponsored talks between the two
Bosniak-majority parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the party of Democratic
Change (SDA), and the two majority Croatian parties, the Croatian Democratic Union of
Bosnia-Herzegovina (HDZ B-H) and the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina
1990 (HDZ 1990). The two Bosniak parties, once bitter political rivals, offered four of the five
constitutionally guaranteed Croatian ministerial seats in the Federation government to HDZ B-
H and HDZ 1990, leaving one seat for a Croatian representative from the Bosniak-majority
SDP and giving the Croatian seat in the rotating presidency to Komsic. The talks ended without
an agreement, as the two majority Croatian parties wanted all of the ministerial seats and the
Croat seat in the rotating presidency, citing the majority of Croat votes for their two parties.

With no agreement in place, at the March 17 government formation, the Bosniak platform
appointed Croats from fringe parties to the constitutionally guaranteed ministerial seats
reserved for Croats and named Zivko Budimir of the small, far-right Croatian Party of Rights
as Federation president in order to meet constitutional ethnic quotas. In response, Croats
protested across the Federation on March 17; protests have continued in various Croatian towns
and cities across the Federation since then.

The Croatian parties filed a lawsuit with the Federation¶s constitutional court and also appealed
to Zagreb for support immediately. Croatian President Ivo Josipovic and Prime Minister
Jadranka Kosor called for the ³legitimate representatives´ of Croats to be present in the
Federation government, a direct swipe at the Bosniak platform and their fringe Croat party
partners. This was a major change from Croatia¶s usual hands-off approach to the Bosnian
Croats, a policy that had been in place since 2000 and is essentially a prerequisite for Croatia¶s
membership in the European Union.

On March 21, HDZ B-H President Dragan Covic announced a drive to form a Croat national
assembly for Croat-majority cantons and municipalities within the Federation (nine Croatian
political parties along with HDZ B-H and HDZ 1990 are scheduled to meet sometime after
April 16). HDZ 1990 President Bozo Ljubic and RS President (and president of the Alliance of
Independent Social Democrats party) Milorad Dodik expressed support for the move. The
culmination of the Croats¶ response came March 25, when Covic, Ljubic, Dodik and Serbian
Democratic Party President Mladen Bosic gathered in Mostar ² a meeting of the heads of the
two largest Bosnian Croat parties and the two largest RS parties. The four leaders issued a joint
statement calling on all parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina to engage in constructive talks,
denouncing what they called the illegal formation of the Federation government and
announcing that no national government would be formed until the crisis in the Federation is
resolved. Covic said he would speak with Bosniak political leaders, but added that in forming a
Federation government, Croatian interests had to be considered.

Serbian-Croatian Alliance: A Nightmare for Bosniaks

RS wants to devolve Bosniak-dominated Sarajevo¶s central authority as much as possible.

Dodik is therefore using the Croat-Bosniak tensions to illustrate to the international community
that his approach of building a strong ethnic entity at the expense of the central Bosnian
government is in fact the only way to run Bosnia-Herzegovina, hence his encouraging the
Croatian side to push for greater concessions from the Bosniaks. The Serbs see the Bosniaks as
attempting to impose their will within the Federation against Croat wishes ² and see RS as the
next possible victim.

The Croats are fighting for their government seats, taking an approach far different from their
declaration of self-administration in 2001 after what they considered systematic discrimination
(which was followed by NATO troop deployments to Croat areas and the arrests of senior
Croat leaders). The election law changes by the Office of the High Representative in 2006, as
well as the 2006 and 2010 elections, have been fueling Croat discontent. Croats, and especially
Covic, are making sure to point out now that Croats want representation based on Croat votes,
and that they want the rule of law followed.

It is still a major question whether the international community, especially a European Union
dominated by Germany, which has unofficially taken charge of political change in the Balkans,
will support a centralized Bosnia-Herzegovina or allow Croats more autonomy in lieu of
Bosniak political gerrymandering within the Federation. The Council of Europe on March 21
threatened sanctions if a national government was not formed, essentially encouraging the
Bosniak platform to continue its gamble in the Federation. On March 24, Bosnia¶s Central
Election Commission annulled the formation of the government, as the minimal amount of
Croat seats needed to be present for the formation of a government were not present. The
Office of the High Representative did not react to the Bosniak platform¶s maneuver initially,
but Inzko announced March 28 that the Central Election Commission¶s finding would be
suspended until the Federation¶s Constitutional Court made a decision ² a move for which the
U.S. Embassy expressed support.

Current Federation President and HDZ B-H member Borjana Kristo, along with two Croatian
ministers, tendered their resignations in protest. ³By suspension of the ruling of the Central
Election Commission, the only competent body to implement the election results, the rule of
law in Bosnia-Herzegovina has been reduced to the absurd,´ Kristo said. The Constitutional
Court suspended the proceedings March 30 after the Croats withdrew their two lawsuits, and,
in further protest of Inzko¶s decision, Kristo called the proceedings meaningless. On March
31, Covic said in an interview that Croats would engage in civil disobedience if the Central
Election Commission ruling was not followed.

With the European Union¶s involvement in the Libyan intervention and the eurozone sovereign
debt crisis still unresolved, it is unclear whether the European Union can refocus on the
Balkans. There seemed to be a push for it earlier in the year, but revolutionary activity in the
Arab world (and particularly Libya) has drawn the bloc¶s attention elsewhere. If a centralized
Federation and Bosnian state dominated by Bosniaks are the European Union¶s goals, then
Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs, two old enemies, will more than likely form an even tighter
political alliance (as the March 25 Mostar meeting suggests), an alliance that will politically
resist all centralization efforts.
 A Serbian-Croatian alliance would be a daunting scenario for the Bosniaks, who could end up
reassessing their gamble to escalate and instead search for a compromise ² as suggested by a
small number of Bosniak journalists, academics and political parties. In light of the
Constitutional Court¶s suspension of the proceedings, the Bosniak platform¶s decision to either
move forward with the government they formed or meet the demands of the overwhelming
majority of Croatian voters could determine whether the Federation and the Bosnian state itself
will move forward or collapse politically.

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