This article has a lot in it from a Croatian perspective.

Source: http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/arti ... -in-bosnia

Is EU Membership the Solution to Rising Ethnic Tensions in Bosnia?

Mark S. Smith Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017

Fears of another war are growing in Bosnia and Herzegovina as xenophobia and nationalist rivalries surge in the largely autonomous and Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska. Observers are warning that a growing separatist movement in the territory threatens the terms of the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian War of the 1990s.

That conflict killed more than 100,000 people and displaced some 1 million civilians through interethnic violence between Catholic Croats, Bosnian Muslims—or Bosniaks—and Orthodox Christian Serbs. Republika Srpska, the majority-Serb enclave of Bosnia and Herzegovina that was formalized by the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords, virtually cleansed the bulk of its territory of Croats and Bosniaks during the conflict. More than two decades later, the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre at Srebrenica still evoke horrifying images of the war crimes committed.

A former member of the Croatian parliament is gathering support for what he says may be the only workable way to avoid further escalation and ensure long-term peace. The plan put forward by the former Croatian lawmaker, Ivan Bagaric, calls for fast-tracking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s membership in the European Union and demilitarizing the country. Bosnia formally applied for EU membership last year, and its application was accepted by the bloc’s 28 member states in September.

Bagaric is a well-known humanitarian who served in the Croatian and Bosnian parliaments. During the war in the 1990s, he was a brigadier general in charge of Bosnian Croat health and rescue services.

In an interview, Bagaric says that, “Serbian nationalism in Republika Srpska has escalated faster and more fiercely than ever.” He warns that the threat of a new conflict is greater than it was before the war between Serbia and Kosovo in 1998 and 1999.

Serbian nationalists’ efforts to take territories they regard as part of “Greater Serbia” played a major role in sparking the Balkan wars of the 1990s that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia, from Croatia’s war for independence through the Bosnian War and the subsequent conflict in Kosovo.

For Bosnia and Herzegovina, EU membership “is not just a way to prevent war, but also a way forward toward stability and prosperity,” Bagaric says. Membership would also boost the Bosnian economy, since “Croats, Bosnian-Muslims and Serbs would all be able to look for jobs within the EU, which would ease many of the internal pressures and frictions.”

Those internal tensions have been stoked by the nationalist Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, who has consistently threatened to hold an illegal referendum on the territory’s secession by 2018, with a view to ultimately joining Serbia. Last September, defying a ruling by Bosnia’s Constitutional Court, he went ahead with a vote on celebrating Republika Srpska’s national day on Jan. 9, which marks a major Orthodox feast and the date in 1992 when Bosnian Serbs declared the creation of their own state in Bosnia and triggered the devastating civil war. The Constitutional Court had ruled that the referendum discriminated against non-Serbs; it passed overwhelmingly under Dodik’s watch.

Many fear that Republika Srpska’s independence—a direct breach of the Dayton Accords—would ignite a cataclysmic chain reaction. If Bosniaks, who control a majority in the central government in Sarajevo, used military force against Republika Srpska’s secession, Serbia would almost certainly come to the territory’s aid. Bosnian Croats are unlikely to accept secession either and could draw Croatia in to defend their claims, since Zagreb has an obligation to protect the Bosnian Croat population, as outlined in the Dayton Accords and as written into the Croatian constitution.

Tensions have been mounting in Republika Srpska since it went ahead with its “statehood day” celebration last month in Banja Luka, the entity’s administrative capital. In a swell of Serb patriotism, police officers, firefighters and nationalist groups marched through the streets, thumbing their nose at the Constitutional Court, Bosnia’s other ethnic groups, the EU and the Dayton Accords themselves.

Local television stations have upped the Serbian nationalist rhetoric and broadcast live interviews with Bosnian Serb wartime military and political leaders, some of whom were sentenced by a U.N. tribunal for crimes against humanity. Reports of a weapons buildup in Serbia and Republika Srpska, following major arms deals with Russia and Belarus, have only added to the tensions.

Bagaric now runs a public health center in Mostar, in southern Bosnia, but he has maintained close ties with former political peers among the country’s various factions. “These are not isolated incidents, but a policy aimed at holding a referendum on secession,” he warns. He doesn’t doubt that a vote on Republika Srpska’s independence would pass.

Three days before former President Barack Obama left the White House, the U.S. Treasury Department levied financial sanctions against Dodik for posing a “significant risk of obstructing the implementation of the Dayton Accords.” But Dodik has been emboldened by an increasingly cozy relation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has signaled his support for Bosnian Serb independence and hosted Dodik in Moscow in September. Dodik dismissed the sanctions as the “arrogant policy of the outgoing U.S. administration” and said he was “proud to be sanctioned.” It is unclear, given President Donald Trump’s expressed desire for closer ties with Russia, whether the sanctions will survive the new administration.

To date, Croatia is the only nation in the western Balkans to have gained full EU membership. While the EU accepted Bosnia’s membership application last fall, the European Commission could take a year to determine whether the country should even become a candidate—and longer still to grant full membership, if Bosnia meets all of Brussels’ benchmarks.

Bagaric and others’ hopes for a fast track to EU membership may be just that. “There’s reluctance on the part of the EU to accept Bosnia and Herzegovina unconditionally, because the current situation is still a long way from fulfilling the criteria for acceptance,” Bagaric admits. He points out that in 2007, “neither Romania nor Bulgaria was any better at fulfilling these criteria, yet they were accepted.”

Support for EU membership runs high within Bosnia and Herzegovina. As Andrew MacDowall reported in World Politics Review in November, “One of the few things that most Bosnians of all ethnicities agree on is wanting to join the EU.”

“The strongest supporters of EU membership and demilitarization would be the people themselves, regardless of their nationality or ethnic allegiance,” Bagaric says. “So many people were injured or lost loved ones in the last war. They want do whatever is necessary to prevent another war.”

EU membership could also stave off the instability of a looming referendum on Republika Srpska’s independence, if Dodik follows through on his threat. Given the national day vote and Dodik’s defiance—with Putin’s support—of critics at home and in Brussels, one shouldn’t underestimate the brash Bosnian Serb leader.

Not a single word about Muslim hegemony - the main reason Dodik wants to gain independence for Republika Srpska.

The only good thing in the article is a call for demilitarization.

A common superficial approach from the European Union.

The main problem is, that all politician from the EU never percieve problems in their essence. They don't comprehend political situation in B&H at all.

They don't, because they don't invest more then a few hours of their time when they prepare to perform some task in BiH that is given to them by the EU authorities.

They probably just read Wikipedia, some official report, and one or two YouTube videos to see where they're gonna spend their working vacation and what's to see and visit in Sarajevo.

Honestly, how much of your time would you invest if you are given a ONE-DAY task in Guinea Bisao, to go there and fly back the day after, with no research team to support you with some analysis or data? Perhaps you would talk to local ambassadors?

This stupidity works now in our favor, as these lazy birocrates can now be easily duped by their Croatian colleagues in the EU institutions. Although, there is so much discrimination against Croats in BiH that they don't even need to invent things, just shed some light on the most important issues and include them in the list of EU requests for BiH.

I am sure that they will shed some light. On the grave danger of Serbian separatism.

Yeah... If you recall... On the Foreign Ministry's Memo about Kolinda's tour in Washington DC, priority was given to the Serbian separatism, and only then to the issues Croats are dealing with. Croats would be very happy with unitary Bosnia-Herzegovina, if they were assured it would be a relatively stable country, rather than Bosnia-Herzegovina with three entities which could brake-up easily.

Of course, the brave Pretzels want a buffer zone between them and the evil Serbs. And becouse they are so brave and unafraid of the Serbs, they will not fear to sacrifice BiH Croats for that goal.

I blame Croatian politicians in B&H for that. They have nothing done for 15 years to introduce Croatian public and official Zagreb, that Muslim centralism is currently the main problem in B&H.