Word: bosnias
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...rhetoric out of the country is alarming. Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik publicly declared that he doesn't believe the common state has a future, and occasionally hints that his Serb-dominated statelet may secede from Bosnia. From the other side of the ethnic divide, leading Bosniak politician Haris Silajdzic repeatedly calls for the abolishment of the Serbian Republic, which he sees as a product of a Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign during the war. "It appears that the status quo created by genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes has acquired a degree of sanctity in Bosnia and Herzegovina...
...once again, Bosnia is in deep crisis, with tensions running high between ethnic Serbs, Croats and Muslims (now officially called Bosniaks). There is even talk of a new war. Might this be a sudden test for the new Obama Administration? (See the Top 10 Underreported Stories...
Even Holbrooke, the chief architect of the Dayton peace agreement, is worried. "It's time to pay attention to Bosnia again, if we don't want things to get nasty very quickly," Holbrooke said in a letter co-signed by Paddy Ashdown, the former chief of Office of High Representative (OHR), the international supervising and administrative body in Bosnia. Both Holbrooke and Ashdown claim that Bosnia is regressing, and that the Western powers should swiftly and strongly engage to prevent a renewed conflict and ensure Bosnia's evolution into "a functional and E.U.-compatible state...
...Bosnia about to dissolve in another bloody mess? Some analysts caution that the talk of war is overblown and overheated. Some real progress has been achieved in the past 13 years. The peace has been sustained; a high proportion of refugees have returned to their homes; and despite harsh words, no serious incidents of ethnic violence has occurred in recent years. In June 2008, Bosnia signed a crucial agreement with the E.U., putting it on the road to membership. Most importantly, the country's armed forces were recently unified and, unlike Bosnia's political apparatus, put under central command...
Other observers agree. "Talk of possible war in Bosnia today is foolish and irresponsible" says former OHR official Gerald Knaus, who now heads the European Stability Initiative, a Berlin-based think-tank. "There is no more chance of war in Bosnia today than there is in Cyprus or Belgium." Knaus blames the current troubles on the "irresponsible political elites." That political accomodation that allowed the war to end 13 years ago, however, will continue to roil the country's politics for the foreseeable future. Knaus sees no easy way out of the Serb-Bosniak stalemate. "No miraculous constitutional reform plan...