THE DAYTON agreement hangs by a thread. It has enforced the end of the shooting war, for the present time, by the use of 60,000 NATO occupation troops.
However it strengthens the nationalist forces on all sides, facilitates the continuation of ethnic cleansing in a different form, and fails to produce a settlement leading to a unitary Bosnia.
The manner of the reunification of Sarajevo, the principal transfer of territory called for under the agreement - involving the return of the Saraievo suburbs to Bosnian federation control - has had disastrous political consequences.
Ninety-five percent of Serbs moved out, in a few cases opening up graves in order to take ancestors with them. This flight is a result of the war itself, and of the ethnic cleansing achieved by the Serb leaders through threats, fire bombings and thugs in the night.
Before the war Sarajevo was a cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic city. It was the war-ame beacon of the struggie to defend multi-ethnic Bosnia. Most Sarajevans identified more with each other than with their ethnic origins. They were proud of that, and recognised that they defended a principle for the future in the midst of war.
Recent events have seriously weakened - but not destroyed - this sentiment The remaining Serbs feel undermined. This effects the whole struggle for the defence of multi-ethnic Bosni, Serb nationalists across Bosnia cynically use it to stop the return of non-Serb refugees.
The ethnic separation of Sarajevo strengthens Croatian and Serbian nationalism as do the attempts to Islamicise Bosnia, further weakening the fragile Federation.
The dynamic of the Dayton Accords is • 4. to consolidate three ethnic blocks, within bosnia. Only a pomacal sorudon, linked to the return of the refugees from all communities, can prevent that. for later this year.
After the Dayton accords this political disaster became predictable. It signals that nothing is really settled. All the conditions remain for a resumotion of the war after the withdrawal of NATO forces planned Under chese conditions the election of an all-Bosnia government, required by the Accords before the end of 1996, is impossible. Everything points towards the development of separate states. Already the borders in Bosnia, patrolled by NATO troops, are the most impregnable in Europe. All institutions in the two halves of the country are developing separately.
It was always preposterous to think that Dayton could have lead to a unitary Bosnia. It consolidated a partition of the Republic Srpska from the Bosnian Croat Federation, and created the conditions for the Republic Srpska to become a separate state.
Clinton got what he needed — a ceasefire before the US Presidential elections — but neither an end to the war, nor a withdrawal of the US troops after 12 months, are assured.
The Dayton Accords were not a political settlement but an external partition close to the lines advocated by the Serb leaders. The Bosnia government was given little choice over the carve up of Despite the weakening Federation (perhaps because of it) Bosnia now faces an additional partition: first by Dayton and Serbia, and now by Croatia. Tudjman was the greatest beneficiary of the Dayton Accords and the situation is ominous. There are still restrictions on the return o Bosnian refugees to Croatian-controlled parts of the federation. There is little reintegration in key towns like Mostar.
The Dayton Accords trapped Bosnia between its enemies and its fake friends. It must escape this reactionary carve-up and return to the positon where it can actene both its national rights and the remaining elements of a multi-ethnic society which are crucial to its political future.