Peace Seen as 'Just a Breather
Before War Resumes in Earnest'
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia, May 13 (Reuters) — Almost six months of peace and a budding economic revival have not calmed fears in Bosnian Serbs' main industrial center, Banja Luka, that the peace process is fragile and war could return. "There is a lot of fear that the current peace could easily be a mere respite for all three sides to reconsolidate, rearm and re-equip and then it will be war again, only bloodier," a senior U.N. official told Reuterss.
"We have come to a sensitive stage in the peace process," said Michael Maclay, spokesman for the international community's High Representative for Bosnia, Carl Bildt. The Dayton peace accord ended 43 months of war in Bosnia last December, mainly thanks to the overpowering presence of the 60,000-strong NATO-led peace Implementation Force (IFOR).
"These guys mean business and right now no one dares test their patience," said Lala Djordjevic, a local businessman with strong ties with Croatia. But if they go home, all this might turn out to have been just a breather before war resumes in earnest."
Under the agreement, the peacekeeping mission is due to end in December. The U.N. official said there was still too much to do and too little time if IFOR's pullout goes ahead on schedule. "The main problem is the lack of mutual confidence and nationalist leaders keen on preserving the barriers," he said.
Under Dayton, Bosnia was divided into two almost equal halves, with a porous administrative border, between the Serbs and a Muslim-Croat Federation. In reality the borders have effectively sliced the country in two because the freedom of movement guaranteed under Dayton remains largely a dead letter. U.N. officials trying to organize the return of more than two million displaced Bosnians fear that as many as as two-thirds of them will never go back to their homes.
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal together with his army commander, General Ratko Mladic, fears any cooperation with his former enemies would make a mockery of his reasons for fighting the war. His continued presence, despite the Dayton accord prohibiting indicted war criminals from holding office, inhibits rapprochement between the two sides. Karadzic's ruling SDS party is accused by the moderate opposition of using indimidation, including bombings of political rivals, before mid-September elections.
Bildt is keen to wrench the Serbs out of the economic and political isolation imposed on them by Karadzic, exacerbating rivalry between Banja Luka, the biggest Serb urban and industrial centre, and Pale, the stronghold of hardliners. Commitments to integrate Muslim and Croat entities in the federation have foundered on the private nationalist agendas of politicians on both sides and the resistance of local ethnic gangsters who profit from division.
Municipal elections in Mostar scheduled for May 31 are in doubt after Muslim parties failed to register on time.
The unresolved status of Brcko, a vital town straddling a bottleneck along a corridor linking Serb territory in eastern and western Bosnia also remains a flashpoint of instability. The international community is seen as too slow in funnelling millions of promised dollars to revitalise the shattered economy and rebuilding the devastated country, adding to the despair of the people.
"We started trade with Croatia the first minute the guns fell silent, or even a little before that, but make no mistake, all this could collapse any moment if the crazies have their way," Djordjevic said. "The only way out is to get rid of hardliners on both sides and keep IFOR here for at least another five years."
Berserkistan, May 10 · Bildt Wins Commitment from Moderate Serbs in Banja Luka
Berserkistan May 5 · Banja Luka Moderates Seen as Serb Successors
People from Banja Luka on the Internet
Banja Luka Homepage
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