The long, difficult road to Dayton
| Author | Jutta Paczulla |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000118 |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
COMING
ATTRACTIONS
JUTTA
PACZULLA
The
long,
difficult
road
to
Dayton
Peace
efforts
in
Bosnia-Herzegovina
=
As
THE
YEAR
1995
CAME
TO A
CLOSE,
with people around the globe
in festive spirits chiming in the new year, a drama was unfolding in
Bosnia that was anything
but
festive.
The
world observed, through the
eyes
of
CNN,
how a
us
army engineering battalion tried to cross the
Sava River from Croatia into Bosnia, setting up pontoon bridges to
pave the way for entry into Bosnia by the NATO implementation force
(IFOR).
The
crossing, conducted in poorweather conditions, took days
longer than anticipated.
One
could observe the engineers and troops
battling nature in the form
of
mud and dirt on the banks
of
the Sava
River.
The
operation symbolized a new beginning for the war-torn
state
of
Bosnia. International support, especiallyAmerican, had been
pledged for the implementation
of
peace.
The
Dayton accords, the
basis for this new engagement, had been signed only weeks earlier, ini-
tialled by the warring factions at Wright-Patterson air force base in
Dayton, Ohio, on 21 November 1995 and officiallysigned in Parison
[utta
Paczulla
isa
senior
researcher
who
formerly
worked
for the
International
Criminal
Tribunal
for the
former
Yugoslavia
in The
Hague
andthe
federal
Department
of
Justice
in
Ottawa.
She
is
currently
a PhD
candidate
in
history
at the
University
of
Toronto.
The
author
wouldliketo
express
her
gratitude
to
Professor
Margaret
MacMillan
forher
support
in the
preparation
ofthis
article.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter 2004-2005
lutta
Paczulla
14 December 1995.
The
Sava River crossing, difficult as it was, also
symbolized the long, hard, and awkward road that led to Dayton.
The
wars that occurred in the 1990s in the former Yugoslaviawere
the most ferocious conflicts on European soil since the Second World
War. Identified as "ethnic conflicts," the fighting in the Balkans exhib-
ited complex ideological, religious,
and
ethnic roots, with historical
grievances mixed up in all aspects.
The
Dayton peace process, under
discussion here, focused
on
the situation in Bosnia. In
the
period
between May 1992 and December 1995, Bosnia was the battleground
for three ethnic groups, the Bosnian Muslims,' comprising 43.7 per-
cent
of
the Bosnian population, the Bosnian Serbs who represented
31.4 percent, and the Bosnian Croats, with astrength
of
17.3 percent. 2
The
complicated origins
of
the war lay in part in the attempt by the
Bosnian Serbs to break up Bosnia and link the areas which contained
Serb ethnic majorities to the larger entity
of
Serbia.
The
goal was the
establishment
of
what Serb propagandists called "Greater Serbia."
The
Bosnian Serbs rejected the alternative
of
becoming part
of
aunified,
independent state
of
Bosnia, whose government would likely be dom-
inated by the Muslims.
The
Bosnian Muslims, in turn, feared that they
themselves would be dominated by Serbia
if
they were to remain in a
rump Yugoslaviawhose ethnic balance had been upset by the secession
of
Slovenia
and
Croatia.
The
Bosnian Muslims, after pursuing inde-
pendence, consistently fought
to
retain a unified Bosnian state, a state
that would include the Bosnian Serbs
and
Bosnian Croats,
but
which
would give the Muslims enhanced control
of
the government due to
their relative population strength. These sets
of
incompatible visions,
while
not
telling the complete story, were at the heart
of
the intra-eth-
nic Bosnian conflict.
By the time the Dayton peace initiative came to fruition, after four
years
of
war, more than half
of
Bosnia's 4.3 million citizens had been
displaced, either as refugees in host countries (1.2 million) or as inter-
nally displaced persons in Bosnia
(l
million); roughly 250,000 were
1
Throughout
this article,the terms
"Bosnian
Muslim"or simply "Muslim" are
used,ratherthanthe term"Bosniak"
which
evolved
post-Dayton.
2
These
figuresare
based
onthe results of the last
prewar
census
in
Bosnia,
con-
ductedin 1991. Inaddition to the threemainethnic
groups,
asmall
percentage
of
people
<5.5
percent)
identified
themselves
as
"Yugoslavs,"
and
2.1
percent
fell into
the
category
of "others."
256
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Wint.t2004-2005
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