You seem to be quiet informed about the situation...

Rory

Excellent piece.

I have always wondered that when the Serbs were on the ropes that 49%-51% was the basis for the territorial arrangement for Dayton?

Also with regards to Brčko, we knew in 1997 that there would be a third option for it. Which itself is strange given that the U.S. was stationed in that part of Bosnia and IMHO whatever grumbling that there would have been regarding the arbitration that no one was about to challenge the U.S.

Herceg-Bosna wasn't para-state, Herceg-Bosna was political subject of b-h Croats, subject who co-signed all peace plans including Washington and Dayton agreement.

Yes, sorry, I have taken out the word "para-state", which was not really appropriate.

According to the war losses study of Mirsad Tokača Muslims made up 97% of ARBiH fatalities, while Croats made up 92% of HVO fatalities.

It would seem that actually HVO was slightly less ethnically homogeneous than ARBiH. Thus it would actually be just as correct to speak of "the Bosnian Muslim Army" and "the mainly Croat HVO".


Anyway, an excellent text. It is rare to see dispassionate insight such as this about the Bosnian War from any source. It seems to be the one conflict in the debate around which outsiders (Westerners) are as emotionally invested as the locals who actually fought it.

Rory

I took a minute to think about the creation of municipalities in the Federation and the unintended consequences of that.

Basically the law states that you need to have 4000 people to create a municipality and that it be geographically viable. The caveat is that the mother municipality has to sign off on it.

Now obviously after Dayton was signed you were left with both sides holding pieces of old municipalities so a bunch of new municipalities were created to take into account where the entity borders split municipalities. You can read that and the list of new municipalities created with this law here: http://www.fbihvlada.gov.ba/bosanski/za ... opcina.htm

You can also read this thread on the forum that discusses changes to municipal border here: topic1251.html and this law in the Tuzla Canton that talks about new municipalities here: http://www.vladatk.kim.ba/vlada/Dokumen ... upravi.htm

So let’s see how creating new municipalities plays out.

Now for our purposes there were 4 ethnic Croat municipalities created with the above law: Ravno in Herzegovina, Domaljevac in the Posavina Canton, Usora in the Zenica Canton and Dobretići in the Central Bosnia Canton. More or less with the exception of Usora, the other three municipalities followed the division of old municipalities between the RS and FBiH.

Now keep in mind that the Ravno municipality has about 1,000 people and therefore is not in line with the letter of the law. The people of Dobretići, if memory serves did not want to form a separate municipality but wanted to be joined with Jajce. If you look on a map the area of Dobretići is just an extension of the Croatian villages in Jajce. But if that happened on paper Jajce would have a Croatian majority. I’m sure that is why the two were not joined.

So the municipality of Domaljevac followed the pattern of proclaiming municipalities where the entity boundaries split the old one municipality. In this case Domaljevac was part of the old Šamac municipality which was divided by the Federation and the RS.

Usora then really is an anomaly because it incorporated a number of Croatian villages of the Tešanj municipality and a couple from Doboj that we held onto. If you see the above link regarding new municipalities you will see that there are two new municipalities for Doboj: Doboj-Istok (East) and Doboj-Jug (South). So if we follow the logic of creating new municipalities based on the entity boundaries, Usora has no business existing because you theoretically have no reason to split Tešanj and the Croatian villages brought into Usora from Doboj could have in theory been part of Doboj-Jug (south). If memory serves I think the international community stepped and urged the recognition of Usora.

So not only is Usora an anomaly, it is now a precedent for the creating of new municipalities in the Federation. I think this is an unintended consequence for people wanting to centralize the Federation. I am sure that there are a few people out in Sarajevo that did not want to see Usora formed. This leads me to think that “centralization” equals the marginalization of Croats into a folk group that could be paraded around to show people how multi-ethnic Bosnia is but at the same time have no real political clout.

The precedent that Usora sets also does a few things that centralizing forces in Sarajevo do not want to see. With the establishment of a new municipality you have a formal political entity that is focused on an area that would otherwise be on the margins of both Tešanj and (in theory) Doboj-Jug. The creating of a new political seat will attract investment and those funds could be earmarked for outlying areas better then if Usora was not created not to mention that revenue made within the new municipality would stay there. If Usora were not created, how would Tešanj use the revenue generated in those Croatian villages? The municipality would have to draft out a strategic plan that would have a radically different agenda for the area then if Usora were not created and split between Tešanj and (in theory) Doboj-Jug. Usora can now divert funds to education, culture and media. If this sounds familiar I am rehashing some points I made on the Croatian entity thread: english/the-croatian-entity-t4470.html

This is why Sarajevo won’t allow new municipalities. If people think that Zlatko Lagumdzija of the SDP would be pro new municipalities guess again. On paper Soli meets the criteria for a new municipality but Tuzla has not allowed it. Keep in mind Tuzla has been an SDP stronghold for a very long time. On the other hand a precedent has been set.

Thanks a lot for that. Those links are very useful. I didn't know about the rule about 4,000 people etc. Might the Croats not be a bit wary about pushing for these new municipalities because then they would have to allow the same thing for Muslims in Croat-dominated areas (such as the Hercegovina-Neretva Canton) though?

Every now and then you hear stuff about putative municipalities here and there in the Livno and Herzegovina Cantons. I don't know how serious those attempts are and sometimes I wonder if it isn't in part a response to people trying to organize municipalities elsewhere.

In the Herzegovina Canton you sometimes hear about a proposed municipality centered around the town of Počitelj which is part of the Čapljina municipality. This is a drawing that someone had posted in the municipal borders thread.



Like I said earlier I don’t know how serious this attempt is and I don’t think I have ever heard any formal organization set up to create. But if there were, I’m sure the municipality of Čapljina would block the creation of it since it would have to sign off on it. There is also the larger question/issue of a Muslim dominated municipality south of Mostar and what the long term implications of it are since the muslims want to try and punch out to the Adriatic.

One thing you will see from this crudely drawn map is that the muslim-dominated villages combined have something like 3,700 people (per the 1991 census) and you see the area of Rotimlja in the neighboring Stolac municipality. So in order for a Počitelj municipality to happen you would also need the Stolac municipality to sign off on letting Rotimlja go.

BUT there is the question of what is the real demographic picture of the area is and how that comes into play. Lots of Croats from central Bosnia moved into what would be the Počitelj municipality and I think Rotimlja might now have a Croat majority. Though I suppose you could argue that the creation of the Počitelj municipality might encourage muslims to return to their home areas. But then what do you do with Croats from Bosnia that live there and or may be opposed to the creation of it?

The other proposed municipality I have seen would be one in Livno and usually from what I have seen the proposal would be to form it within the city limits. I don’t know how you would draw it as I don’t think I have ever seen a map for this. Again the Livno municipality would have to sign off on this and I don’t think that would happen anytime soon.

One thing I wanted to point out is that a proposed muslim dominated Livno municipality would be geographically small and possibly confined to portions of the town of Livno. I don’t know how it would survive economically. To be honest I don’t know what industry the town of Livno has so I can’t speak to that.

But maybe in some ways this scenario would parallel the creation of Ravne-Brčko and Gornje Ravne and what effect it might have on Brčko itself. If you look on a 1991 demographic map, you will see that most of the muslims are confined to Brcko and a small strip south of it that includes villages of Brka, Maoča, Gornji Rahić, etc but for the most part the overwhelming majority of muslims live in Brčko. Something like 60%. I do know Brčko had some industry but I don’t know how much of it survived the war and what is now going on economically there.

Contrast the situation of Croats in what would be in the new municipality and you will see that something like 85%+ Croats living in the Brčko municipality were living in villages that would have comprised the new Ravne-Brčko municipality. Just as an FYI Gornje Ravne would have been a part of Ravne-Brčko and then created later. That’s how it was explained to me. I have always heard that some of the more productive areas and well to do areas in the Brčko municipality before the war were some of those Croat villages.

There is no question that what would be left of Brčko municipality, would have taken an economic hit at the loss of these areas, which would have annoyed the muslims not to mention the establishment of new Croat political center in the area at Seonjaci (the village of Bijela was bigger but don’t ask me why) and later on at Zovik when Gornje Ravne was created. Finally since Ravne-Brčko would have bordered the Sava river it would have cut the corridor, which would have annoyed the Serbs.

The question is how big of an economic hit would Brčko have and to tie this together with Livno would the muslims be shooting themselves in the foot economically if they created a municipality within the town of Livno? However, if you are looking to establish a political center, does economic viability really matter as long as you can get a political foothold in an area?

Thanks a lot for that. I wasn't aware of attempts to make municipalities in Livno and Pocitelj. I was thinking more of Mostar. The Croats would like it to be unified as part of a Croat-dominated territorial unit, but the Muslims might argue that if Croats are allowed to control parts of Muslim-dominated cantons, they are allowed to dominate parts of Croat-dominated cantons, including East Mostar.

Rory: I could see that. I could also see where if the entire Mostar municipality/region joined a Croatian entity then the muslims politically get pushed back to Jablanica, which would annoy them because they would have no political presence in the southern part of the country not to mention that they "lose" Mostar. Also consider about what I mentioned in my previous post regarding Počitelj and how it might get you closer to the Adriatic. You lose Mostar and now you've taken a few steps back...