Rifts in Bosnia threaten donors’ aid conference

Date: 19/06/1997

By Mark Turner

A CONFERENCE aimed at finding around 1 billion ecu to help rebuild Bosnia looks likely to fail in its major objective, if it goes ahead at all next week.

The meeting is in danger of collapse because the Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia's two constituent entities, is refusing to integrate itself with its Croatian and Muslim counterpart.

Almost two years after the Dayton peace agreement, Bosnia remains as divided as ever and is in increasing danger of splitting into its constituent ethnic parts.

The country currently exists in little more than name, since both entities send separate representatives to meetings, and their economies and infrastructure are closer to Croatia or Serbia than to each other.

To help alleviate this situation, the international 'steering board' of concerned countries met in Sintra, Portugal, last month and demanded greater efforts to create a viable federal government.

“The international community will not tolerate tendencies, in either of the entities, to develop patterns of cooperation with neighbouring countries which are inconsistent with the integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” it said in a statement, demanding a common flag by September and that the parties live up to the Dayton accord.

Although it scheduled a donors' conference for next Tuesday (24 June), the board added that no money would be pledged unless Bosnia began sewing itself together by, among other things, adopting a package of 'quick start laws', creating a central bank and establishing joint trade rules.

At Sintra, both entities committed themselves to these measures, but since then the Bosnian Serbs have backtracked.

This has placed the major donors between the devil and the deep blue sea. Given that governments placed so much emphasis on the need for closer integration at Sintra , it would be extremely embarrassing were they nevertheless to give the Serbs macroeconomic support.

But the vast majority of international aid provided up until now has gone to the Croat-Muslim Federation, and further isolation of the Republika Srpska is unlikely to achieve long-term peace in Bosnia.

In addition, since the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are committed to supporting a central government and not separate entities, they could not support the federation alone.

With the meeting already downgraded from foreign minister to senior official level, it is now under threat of cancellation by countries like the US. Washington sources are said to be “very concerned about the Bosnian Serbs backsliding on key economic legislation they previously agreed to at Sintra”.