Bosnia-Herzegovina was formerly one of six republics in the Yugoslav federation. After the longtime ruler of Yugoslavia, Josip Tito, died in 1980, and particularly after Slobodan Milosevic assumed power in 1986, the federation began to unravel, and ethnic tensions escalated.
Today, Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) continues to recover from a devastating war that took place from 1992-1995 in the context of the breakup of Yugoslavia after Milosevic mobilized military action to accomplish his vision of a “greater Serbia”.
After Bosnia-Herzegovina declared itself independent in 1992, ethnic Serbs within its borders—supported by neighboring Serbia and Montenegro—responded with violence. Serbian paramilitary forces began to shell the capital city of Sarajevo, and “ethnic cleansing” of Bosniak communities by Yugoslav army units and Serbian paramilitary forces led to large-scale displacement, mass rape, and starvation. There were tens of thousands of civilian casualties.
The single worst incident of the conflict took place in July 1995, when Bosnian Serb forces laid siege to Srebrenica, which had been declared a “safe area” by the United Nations. Many civilians had sought refuge there from the violence around them. The civilian group was separated, women from men, and over the course of five days, more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were massacred.
In November 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords brought an end to three years of violent ethnic conflict. By that time, the war had displaced some two million people from their homes (half of the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina), and left communities and the economic system in ruins.
The Dayton Peace Accords, in which the U.S. played an important diplomatic role, established a multi-ethnic democratic government. An international peacekeeping force, led by NATO, served from 1995-2005 to help implement the agreement and then transitioned to a smaller European Union-led force to help deter a recurrence of hostilities and ensure stability on the ground. The war left Bosnia divided between the Serb-run Republika Srpska (RS) and the Federation, which is dominated by Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Croats. The constitutional structure designed in Dayton succeeded in ending the war, but its critics argue that it has prevented the country from developing beyond wartime divisions.
In February 2014, Bosnia-Herzegovina fell into its deepest political crisis since the Dayton Peace Agreement. Years of political deadlock, dire economic conditions including an unemployment rate hovering above 44 percent, and growing impatience by citizens with their political leaders fueled violent protests across the country and led a number of government officials to resign. Further exacerbating the country’s economic situation and straining its infrastructure, the worst flooding to hit the region in over a century devastated Bosnia in May 2014. The damage across the region is expected to cost billions of euros.
Though ethnic tensions remain, the general elections of 2014 indicate that some change is in the air. In the Federation, the Social Democrats, who have dominated the past four years, lost heavily, and power shifted towards a Bosniak nationalist party. In the RS, Milorad Dodik, its long-standing nationalist leader who wants the RS to secede, lost support to an opposition that has become more credible.
Today, military and political leaders charged with responsibility for war crimes committed during the 1990s are still being tried. Meanwhile, USIP experts, scholars, and members of the international community continue to call for reforming the Bosnian-Herzegovinian constitution to distribute power more fairly and efficiently as a key to building peace. The U.S. and the broader international community have provided significant support to assist in the political, economic, and social reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and a range of governmental and non-governmental actors continue to work to guard against a recurrence of violent conflict.
