Ab de Buck & Caspar ten Dam
Russia has invaded Ukraine – a terrible war has begun. It is still receiving little attention, but similar violence threatens to break out in Bosnia. Nationalist Bosnian-Serb politicians are working towards unilateral secession of the entity dominated by them, Sprska. They also aim to form their own army. The Russian invasion of Ukraine will further encourage them to push through secession by force as well. The European Union (EU) is in a position to stop this from happening, but to date is showing little initiative to do so.
Bosnia has known a fragile peace since the devastating war of ’92 – ’95. The Bosnian-Serb leader Milorad Dodik has now planted a bomb under it. He is working on the secession of the Serb-dominated entity of the country (Srpska) from the Bosnian state this spring, even with its own army. In doing so, he is receiving active support from Serbia and Russia. This decision of his is contrary to the Bosnian constitution. But it is above all a life-threatening undertaking. Please note: this is not just about a population group that seeks to peacefully secede from a country, such as if Flanders were to secede from Belgium. The roots of the call for secession lie in the war of the 1990s. Many or most Bosnian Serbs strived for an ethnically pure state: a state only intended for Serbs. Everyone else was systematically expelled, raped and murdered. With the mass murder of more than 8,000 men and boys from Srebrenica in July 1995 as a sad low point of this cruel war waged against a multi-ethnic society and state that Bosnia once was and could still fully be in the future.
If the current separatist plans go ahead, it will be clear what the final destination will be: the non-Serb residents will still be bullied away by intimidation and even murder. It will lead to a completely fragmented Bosnia, flows of refugees and violence. A large majority of the population of Bosnia (74%) is therefore against secession (even 66% within Srpska – a sign of hope we should utilise).
Bosnia is in the middle of Europe, and Europe thus bears a vital responsibility to keep the peace there. There is a High Representative installed by the Dayton peace accord, currently occupied by Christiaan Schmidt, who has far-reaching political powers, and there is a European peacekeeping force, EUFOR. Only this has been reduced from 7,000 men in 2004 to just 600 now. [1]
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and our ambassador in Sarajevo strongly condemned Dodik’s steps.[2] We welcome this strong stand. It should not stop at words however. Concrete steps are needed to really prevent escalation:
– the firing of Bosnian-Serb leader Dodik. The High Representative has the power to do so [3];
– sanctioning politicians actively working towards the disintegration of Bosnia;
– bringing the EUFOR peacekeeping force back to its original strength of 7,000 men. Just recently it has been decided to strengthen EUFO with additional 500 men from Austria, Rumania, Bulgaria and Slovakia.[4] This is welcome news, but more should be done.
We call on the Netherlands to lead the way in this regard. Just as the Netherlands led the way in the arrest of the main Bosnian-Serb wartime leaders Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.
In Srebrenica, we from the Netherlands saw with our own eyes the horrors that could take place if ethnic extremism is given free rein. We are now also seeing it in Ukraine. It is still possible to prevent this from happening in Bosnia once more. We still can. Otherwise we will be – again – too late.
Ab de Buck & Caspar ten Dam, boardmembers International Committee for Humanitarian Intervention [5]
Ab de Buck and Caspar ten Dam have since 1996 helped to organise the yearly commemoration of the fall of Srebrenica on the 11th of July in The Hague [6]
[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUFOR_Althea
[2] Ref. Ares(2022)646395-27/01/2022
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Representative_for_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina
[4] Source?
[5] see also alternative website of CHI: https://committeehumanitarianintervention.wordpress.com
[6] Als boardmembers of the former Political Committee Stari Most http://starimost.nl