Peace in Bosnia?

• Author: Harland, David
• Position: One year after Dayton agreement

Recently, the commander of the British division in Bosnia paid a farewell call on a prominent Bosnian Army general. He noted that, although there was still a long way to go, Bosnia was at least at peace, and the peace was stable. General Dudakovic said to him, 'There is no peace here. Nothing is stable. There is only unfinished business -- business which will be finished when the Bosnian Army is in Banja Luka.'

For the last year or two of the war in Bosnia, the broad outlines of the peace settlement had been clear -- the country would be more or less evenly divided between the Serbs on one side and a US-brokered Federation of Muslims and Croats on the other. The two `Entities' would have broad autonomy within a state with weak central government, and, on paper at least, the two million people who had fled their original homes would be allowed to return, and there would be full freedom of movement throughout the country.

For two principal reasons the dispensation worked out in 1993 and 1994 was not actually signed and sealed until the end of 1995. The first reason was the non-engagement of the United States. According to Thorvald Stoltenberg, former Norwegian Foreign Minister and then Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, the United States encouraged the Muslim authorities to reject the package when it was first offered in the summer and autumn of 1993. For the Americans, it seems, the prospect of supporting a solution in which the results of ethnic cleansing would be sanctified, by allowing the Serbs to keep much of the territory they had gained in the war, was (for a time, at least) too much.

The second reason was the superior military position of the Serbs. From the outset of hostilities in the spring of 1992, the Serbs dominated the battlefield, and rapidly took control of some 70 per cent of the country. They believed that by continuing to apply military pressure, mainly military pressure on civilian populations, they would ultimately force the Muslims to recognise that they were defeated and that the Muslims would have to accept considerably less than what they or their international supporters had hoped for.

Basic ingredients

For almost two years the basic ingredients of the stalemate--American disengagement and Serb military dominance -- remained unchanged. Peace plans came and went. Then, at the beginning of 1995, the matrix changed. The Bosnian Serb military leadership decided that their basic strategy, of dominating the battlefield with heavy weapons but not moving decisively against the Muslims, was unsustainable. They saw that the Muslims were not going to capitulate, and, indeed, were likely to grow progressively stronger and to bring their manpower advantage to bear.

The new Serb strategy was to be dynamic and aggressive, rather than reactive. The Serbs would destroy the UN-designated `safe areas' to free up forces for a final assault on the Muslim heartland. According to the basic plan, the three enclaves in the east--Srebenica, Zepa and Gorazde--were to be attacked first. Forces were then to be transferred west, as part of an attack on the Bihac enclave, where the renegade Muslim leader Fikret Abdic would be installed as a puppet. Finally, using forces freed by these operations, a final attack would be mounted against either Sarajevo or Tuzla.

The strategy involved a risk--that the international community would intervene militarily against the Serbs. Frustrated by lack of progress against the Muslims, however, and alarmed by the growing power of Croatia, they decided to take the risk. A record of international hesitation and half-heartedness made them more confident. Throughout the spring of 1995 the Serbs probed the UN...