Former United States (U.S.) Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Michael Murphy, whom the authorities of Republika Srpska(RS), along with High Representative Christian Schmidt, accuse of being the main architects of the deep political crisis that persists today, spoke out after concluding his diplomatic mission in our country in February.
Murphy addressed the period from the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement to the present. He reminded that this year the world will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Dayton Peace Agreement. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly will convene this Friday in Dayton to pay tribute to the principles of peace and security that guided the negotiators in Dayton.
Murphy also touched upon the current crisis, stating that BiH faces the greatest threat since the war, due to the secessionist plans of Milorad Dodik and the dismantling of the Dayton structure. He conveyed that Dodik’s policy threatens peace in the region and that he uses manipulations to conceal personal responsibility and crime.
Murphy stated that there is no legal way to change the constitution outside of an agreement within BiH – changes must result from compromise and realistic political circumstances, not unilateral actions. The goal must be to strengthen a united BiH within the framework of the Dayton Peace Agreement and European integration, not division or the creation of new entities. Federalization as a means of creating a third entity is a dangerous retrograde project, Murphy conveyed.
“When it was signed, the Dayton Peace Agreement was celebrated especially because it ended a terrible war, marked by genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other war crimes, a war that cost the lives of more than 100.000 people. Thirty years after Dayton, this achievement is often underestimated. The role of the Dayton Agreement in maintaining peace in BiH over thirty years is also easily underestimated. We should not do this because the alternative is too terrible to even contemplate.
The Dayton Peace Agreement was by no means perfect, but in the secure framework of the present, some see only its flaws and consider it responsible for the problems that trouble BiH today. This is not fair to the authors of the Dayton Agreement, who, under circumstances far from ideal, worked hard and created peace that few at the time believed was possible. It is also about negative history – a history that denies the ability to act of those who have led BiH from 1995 to today. Ultimately, the political leaders of the country are responsible for missed opportunities to reform the Dayton Constitution, the failure to overcome ethnic divisions, and rampant corruption, all of which have too often characterized post-war BiH and prevented the progress of the country that the authors of the Dayton Peace Agreement envisioned. It was not Dayton that forced BiH political leaders to do bad things; they did them all of their own volition.
One of the most persistent criticisms of the Dayton Peace Agreement is that it is responsible for ethnic divisions in BiH. This confuses cause and effect. BiH has always been a multiethnic space – from the medieval Kingdom of Bosnia, through the Ottoman vilayet, the Austrian province, and the Yugoslav republic, up to today. This has produced a rich and beautiful cultural-historical heritage – a heritage that belongs to all citizens of BiH – but which has occasionally caused terrible tragedies, especially in the 20th century. Most often, the perpetrators of these tragedies were unscrupulous political figures hungry for power who used fear based on ethnic affiliation as a weapon and manipulated it, not the people who lived and worked alongside each other in communities across the country. So it was in 1941 and 1992.
The most dangerous myth about the Dayton Peace Agreement, which is unscrupulously and vehemently propagated by some in RS, is that the peace agreement was the pinnacle of BiH’s history, not the starting point and foundation upon which post-war construction can occur. These and other false claims about the Dayton Peace Agreement are used to incite dissatisfaction, rekindle the flames of ethnic tension, and as justification for a dangerous plan that exposes BiH and its citizens to risk. These false claims are also designed to distract citizens from the poor political and financial management of irresponsible political leaders who make them. It is not pleasant for these politicians to explain how they and their families have enriched themselves from state salaries – where is the money? –while RS has failed to realize its economic potential and suffers a significant population decline, as many Serbs have moved elsewhere to live in the democracy, prosperity, and security they desire and deserve. Many politicians in the Federation of BiH (FBiH) have similarly enriched themselves at the state’s expense and harmed the entity’s finances and economic progress. Therefore, they too should be held accountable.
As I have said many times before, we are not talking about a perfect document. There is a clear need for further reforms and amendments to the Dayton Constitution, especially if BiH wants to secure its rightful place within Euro-Atlantic institutions. The European Union(EU) has made it clear that functional state institutions are necessary to lead BiH on the demanding path of EU integration. At the same time, there are too many abuses of rules based on ethnic affiliation, many of which are linked to Dayton after 1995, like harmful sticky shells on the hull of a ship; they have nothing to do with the vital interests of voters, but everything to do with the enrichment of political leaders themselves or those close to them. Finally, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has issued several rulings, the most significant of which is the Sejdic-Finci group of cases, requiring the country’s political leaders to align the BiH Constitution with the European Convention on Human Rights. The EU has set the implementation of these decisions as a condition for BiH‘s accession to the EU.
There have been several attempts, supported or led by the international community, to secure an agreement among BiH’s political leaders on constitutional amendments to implement the rulings of the ECHR. Unfortunately, they failed because political leaders were unwilling to negotiate sincerely, with a readiness to reach a compromise, because political leaders sought to find an unconstitutional shortcut through legislation on issues that can only be resolved through constitutional amendments, or because political leaders completely refused to participate in discussions. In any case, political leaders placed their interests above those of their voters, and the citizens of BiH – from all ethnic groups – have suffered as a result.
The political mathematics associated with constitutional reform has remained unchanged since I first delved into it in 2006 when I was a political advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. Constitutional amendments are impossible without the agreement of a majority of political parties in the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH (PABiH). The international community, including the High Representative, does not have the authority to change the constitution. The constitution cannot be changed through legal procedures or arrogance. Constitutional change must take into account the political and social reality in BiH, which will ultimately also limit it. An honest assessment of both means that territorial reorganization – whether through unitarism or a higher level of federalization – will not happen. Frankly speaking, both ideas are bad, and for many of its proponents, federalization does not reflect a genuine commitment to the philosophy of governance. It is a Trojan horse aimed at creating a new ethnically defined third entity. This is an old and discredited war goal that led to terrible violence and ethnic cleansing and which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) called a joint criminal enterprise. In this context, it is certainly not a pro-European aspiration as many who advocate it claim. An honest assessment of political reality also means accepting the concept of constituent peoples, a term that has existed in one form or another in BiH long before the Dayton Peace Agreementwas written. Majority rule is politically unsustainable in BiH in the near future, and the largest Bosniak ethno-nationalist political party in the last ten years has done very little to build the trust necessary for that,“ Murphy stated.
