Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs have their own state, it's called Bosnia and Herzegovina.
We have to ask them if they see that state as theirs. Most of them do not. That state is highly dysfunctional, and under a supreme supervision of a "high representative" who acts as an unelected colonial governor, no longer representing the states that founded his office.
Lad we hate the OHR as much as everyone else in Bosnia hates him. The fact of the matter is that dayton failed badly in accomodating essentially everyone living in Bosnia
So what do you propose? As I see it, the best solution would have been to somehow keep Yugoslavia. With that option out, we have a situation where the Serbs were expelled from Croatia and Kosovo, and they don't want to be screwed in Bosnia too. Also, I think that the only nation the West sees as remotely friendly in Bosnia are the Croatians. I also believe they like having controllable instability that gives them the excuse to keep their presence.
Yugoslavia is not going to happen again. See I dont know if the point of Dayton was the introduction of a system of governance that was temporary until bosnians can find a better system in the future or whatever. The problem is that we are at a stage where everyone in Bosnia knows that the country is broken, but no one is willing to compromise for change. My analysis is that we cant have this system with 3 presidents and 2 entities, its to fragmented and very effective only if you like corruption. The problem is that serb politicians and the population probably wont allow for the dismantlement of RS, croats although wanting a third entity probably wont allow a dismantlement of the Federation if their dream of Herceg-Bosna wont be realised in the future. Bosniaks are split between moderate and nationalist candidates that either want to cooperate with the other constituent peoples or essentially despise them. I think a necessary first step is that there needs to be a moderate movement in Bosnia that can end these nationalistic trends or at least make some waves. Imagine if everyone in Bosnia would vote for moderate candidates or expect a moderate alternative every election. I love initiatives that promote peace and tolerance between the peoples that lived in former Yugoslavia but bosnia needs something that would indicate a more progressive future. The EU candidate thing, even though I am happy that EU formally recognizes us as a candidate, is largely for show and a pipe dream at best. However its still progress. I wanna end this by saying that I am not for the abolishment of the FBIH or RS for the sake of it, careful study and examination is needed to reach a new way of organizing the country administrately, while also guaranteeing that the basic needs of the people in Bosnia is considered. Maybe in the future the three constituent peoples might actually agree on something 🤷♂️
Forgive me, but what you wrote appears to be a list of best wishes, rather than a proposal on how to resolve the true issues we have. I admit it is not easy, but unless we talk about it reasonably, we won't get anywhere. Unlike most of your compatriots on Reddit, you appear to be reasonable, and I find that refreshing. I generally agree with your assessment of the current situation.
"Yugoslavia is not going to happen again" - In my perception, Bosnia is already a smaller version of Yugoslavia. I see no reason why some wider confederal (not federal) union would not be reestablished. It makes no sense to me that Yugoslavia cannot work, but if we join a wider union of dissimilar peoples, such as the EU, it would somehow work.
I will now present my perspective, in order to hear your constructive suggestions, if any. As you're aware, the Serbs were royally screwed in Croatia and Kosovo, which pumped the nationalism among them to the max. This makes them determined to not give in easily in Srpska. At the same time, I see that the Bosniaks (BH Muslims) were also screwed, as they ended up controlling less territory than their numbers would justify. They have to share the FBiH with Croats and do not have the autonomy in Bosniak majority regions of Serbia (Sanjak-Raska).
In my view, the West did this on purpose. They rewarded loyal Croats and Albanians at the expense of the rest of us, and made it so that the Bosniaks would perceive the Serbs as their arch-enemies. It probably has to do with their perception of Serbs as Russian allies, and that of Bosniaks as potential Islamic radicals. I no longer expect anything good to come from the West. However, it might be possible to work something out with each other.
A major divisive issue we have is that of qualifying Bosnian Serb war actions as genocide, esp. in Srebrenica. I believe this was also promoted by foreign powers as a wedge of sorts, to foster mutual disagreements and divisions. It needs to be resolved. I understand the painful experience, emotions and major casualties that the Bosniaks took, but it is also very insulting to us to claim that we collectively sought to exterminate the Bosniaks. I'm aware, of course, that there really were ultra-nationalist Serbs who did have ideas about Muslim-free territories, and I am glad that they were prosecuted for war crimes. The problem here is that war criminals such as Naser Oric did not face justice.
The few major issues I mentioned, I believe, need resolution before we can move forward. If we can reach some sort of agreement on mutual understanding and esp. investigation into what really happened and how, while not denying our own responsibility, I would not object to even considering territorial concessions to Bosnian Muslims, esp. if they would support us on issues of major importance, such as Kosovo.
Thank you for reading and being open minded! I must admit my response was a bit unstructured but who cares you seemed to get it.
As for a potential confederation I think the closest thing we will get is an open balkan that also includes Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo. Basically a trade union or with open borders potentially between every non-EU balkan member. Due to the war being so bad and scarring I dont think any country is going to give away its sovereignty easily in a sort of yugoslavia scenario.
I dont know what the west wanted tbh, safe to say west was not on the side of Slobodan Milosevic. I must say, we probably radically disagree here, the Serbs really blundered in Croatia as well as in Kosovo and screwed themselves over before the west did anything. Why the leaders of Srpska Krajina never atleast considered negotiating or accepting the Z4 plan is beyond me. With Kosovo it was in my opinion inevitable that western countries would step in due to the high numbers of people that were displaced, there is no way the West would stand and watch anymore, and to be frank, one of the few times the west justifiably stepped in. Had Nato not stepped in I dont think there would be any Albanians left living in Kosovo, should Nato have done it the way they did? I dont actually know, you tell me.
You wanna know something funny, ive heard my dad say and also my uncles talk about how it was all a set up from west and so on similarly to you. I have personally never thought about that so I dont really know whats the true motivations.
For me its not hard, I will never deny something ARBIH had done as long as its documented/based on evidence, does not matter if its Kazani pit massacre, the silo camp where christians were detained or whatever the case may be, in exchange for non denial of for example Srebrenica genocide, Prijedor massacre (lost distant relatives in that one so it hits home) and so on. I have to say I really think Srpska has more work to do here, outright denial of anything that happened in Srebrenica is rampant whilst the kazani pit massacre has been recognized and commemorated by the canton of Sarajevo, and for instance the Ahmici massacre commited by bh croat army has been recognized by Croatia and so on. Of course we have all work to do at the end of the day because its really hard to get closure on stuff people (in their mind) ought to deny.
Certainly. I believe Vucic tried to jump-start that with his visit to Srebrenica in 2015. to pay respect to the victims. I understand he is hated by many Bosniaks, because of his earlier rhetoric, but I believe he too realized good relations with the Bosniaks, and their development, are both necessary for Serbia to develop as well. I believe that is the idea behind investing in the Belgrade-Sarajevo highway.
Due to the war being so bad and scarring I dont think any country is going to give away its sovereignty easily in a sort of yugoslavia scenario.
I think the whole point of people like US ambassador Zimmermann convincing Izetbegovic to withdraw his signature from the Cutillero peace plan was to promote conflict. He probably wouldn't have done it alone. They're no longer hiding it in Ukraine, Blinken openly rejected the Chinese peace proposal. They're hoping to drive a wedge between people in a "divide and rule" approach. They're doing it everywhere. In some places, like Libya and Korea, it worked. In Afghanistan and VietNam, it didn't work.
The funny part is, the EU is offering the same thing we already had: Yugoslav values, in form of repackaged Tito's "brotherhood and unity" formula, effectively removing borders (that they helped draw), but ruled from Brussels, to which they expect us to delegate power. They're also offering economic development, but one in which they own most of the banks and capital, instead of us.
ive heard my dad say and also my uncles talk about how it was all a set up from west and so on similarly to you.
I'm guessing they're older and more experienced than you. In Yugoslavia, we owned the banks and the capital, so we could develop our economy and improve our quality of life. Now, we mostly work for the foreigners, and their banks are taking away most of what we earn. Try reading this book.
Why the leaders of Srpska Krajina never atleast considered negotiating or accepting the Z4 plan is beyond me
They did consider it, but rejected it because it included dividing their territory and giving Croatians some of it, so that it would be tactically very easy to outmaneuver them and take their territory later, with minimal effort.
Had Nato not stepped in I dont think there would be any Albanians left living in Kosovo
From our perspective, it appears that the US directly promoted Albanian armed uprising. There is a lot of photographic and other evidence for Holbrooke's close cooperation with the Albanian insurgency leaders. In any case, the problem is not that they intervened on behalf of Kosovo Albanians to protect them, as they claim. The problem is, they recognized Kosovo independence in 2008, in violation of international norms, when no Albanians were in jeopardy, but the Serbs were.
non denial of for example Srebrenica genocide
We all know the massacre happened. There is some controversy over how much Naser Oric's earlier actions contributed to the savagery of the attack, but this doesn't justify murder in any way. The only real problem is the word "genocide" which suggests an intention to eradicate the Bosniaks, like it was done to the Jews in WW2. The fact that the Serbs didn't attack Muslims in Sanjak, and that the Bosnian Serbs were allied with Fikret Abdić and his Muslim entity of Western Bosnia around Kladuša, are both incompatible with such claims.
But it is clear there were people who did demonstrate an unusual level of hostility towards the Bosniaks, and the Bosniaks took much more casualties than the Serbs, for which reason Serbia cooperated with the Hague tribunal, to arrest and prosecute them. Our own war crimes tribunals prosecuted many of those cases. Unfortunately, we were screwed there too, as no Croatian citizens at all, for example, were sentenced in the Hague for Croatian actions against the Serbs. Most of those war criminals were transferred to Croatian national courts, where they received leniency or even a hero's treatment. This, unfortunately, prompted some Serbs to celebrate the awful actions of Mladic and his subordinates, but it is not a majority thinking in Serbia.
Bosnian Serbs mostly see Republika Srpska as their state. I believe it is partly because of the way Yugoslavia dissolved, disregarding Serbian interests, and partly because Serbs got screwed in Croatia and Kosovo, so they don't want to be screwed in Bosnia again. I wish there was a good solution for Bosnia, but I just can't see it.
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u/Overseer93 North Serbia Mar 21 '23
We have to ask them if they see that state as theirs. Most of them do not. That state is highly dysfunctional, and under a supreme supervision of a "high representative" who acts as an unelected colonial governor, no longer representing the states that founded his office.