Ab de Buck & Caspar ten Dam

31 March 2022, Dordrecht, the Netherlands 

Russia has invaded Ukraine – a horrible war has begun. It still receives little attention, but similar violence threatens to break out in Bosnia. Nationalist Bosnian-Serb politicians are working on a unilateral secession of their dominated part of the country, Sprska. They also seek to set up their own army. The Russian invasion of Ukraine will further spur them to continue their path toward secession by force if necessary. The EU is in a position to stop this, but is currently allowing it to run its course.

Bosnia has enjoyed a fragile peace since the devastating war of 1992-1995. The Bosnian-Serb leader Milorad Dodik has now placed a bomb under it. He is working to ensure that the Serb-dominated part or entity of the country (Srpska) will secede from the Bosnian state this spring, even with its own army.[1] In doing so, he receives active support from Serbia and Russia. The decision to seek or at least threaten secession violates the Bosnian constitution. But it constitutes above all a dangerous development. Please note: this is not just about a population group that seeks to peacefully secede from a country, such as when Flanders were to separate itself from Belgium. The roots of the call for secession of Srpska lie in the war back in the 1990s. During and through this war, extreme-nationalist Bosnian Serbs strived for an ethnically pure state: a state exclusively reserved for ethnic Serbs. All others were systematically expelled, raped and murdered. This ethnic cleansing and accompanying brutalities led to the mass murder of more than 8,000 men and boys from Srebrenica in July 1995, a sad and horrible low point in the war.

If the current secession plans go ahead, the end station will be abundantly clear: the non-Serbian inhabitants will finally be bullied out. It will lead to a completely fragmented Bosnia, streams of refugees and brutal violence. Unsurprisingly a large majority of the population of Bosnia (74%) is opposed to secession – even, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, a distinct majority of inhabitants in Srpska itself as well.

Bosnia lies in the middle of Europe, and Europe has a vital responsibility to keep the peace there. Bosnia has a High Representative, currently Christiaan Schmidt, who has far-reaching political powers through the Dayton peace accord, and there is a European peacekeeping force, EUFOR. Unfortunately the latter has been reduced from 7,000 troops in 2004 to a mere 600 now. [2]

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and our Dutch ambassador in Sarajevo strongly condemned Dodik’s steps.[3] We welcome such strong statements. But it should not stop with words. Concrete steps are needed to truly prevent escalation:

– resignation of the Bosnian Serb leader Dodik. The High Representative has the power to do so [4];

– sanctions against politicians who are actively working to split Bosnia;

– increase the EUFOR peacekeeping force back to its original strength of 7,000 men and women.

We call on the Netherlands to lead the way in taking these and kindred steps. Just as the Netherlands did in helping to realise the arrest of Bosnian-Serb leaders Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic and bring them to justice at the Yugoslav Tribunal in The Hague years ago.

In Srebrenica, the Netherlands has seen with its own eyes the horrors that can take place if ethnic extremism is given free rein. We are now seeing it in Ukraine as well. It is still possible to block the way to renewed separatism and brutalities in Bosnia. Now we still can. Otherwise we are – again – too late.

Ab de Buck & Caspar ten Dam, board members of CHI and former board members of Political Committee Stari Most (PCSM) [5]

Ab de Buck and Caspar ten Dam have been co-organisers through PCSM of the yearly commemoration in The Hague of the fall of Srebrenica since 1996 [6]

[1] https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/12/13/balkan-republika-srpska-zet-volgende-stap-richting-afscheiding-van-bosnie-herzegovina-a4068717 (a Dutch media source).

[2] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUFOR_Althea

[3] Ref. Ares(2022)646395-27/01/2022

[4] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoge_vertegenwoordiger_voor_Bosni%C3%AB_en_Herzegovina (or see its English equivalent)

[5] See http://starimost.nl/ (in Dutch)

[6] Ibid