Two decades after the end of the Bosnian war, tensions in the country are once again on the rise. In Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia-Herzegovina's constituent substates, the government has scheduled a referendum on whether to continue observing its Statehood Day on Jan. 9. Even though a Bosnian court outlawed the vote, Republika Srpska plans to forge ahead. Although on the surface the Sept. 25 vote appears to concern a relatively minor issue, it illustrates that in the more than 20 years since the war's end, Bosnia's conflicts have not been resolved but merely frozen.
The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has long since ended, but the country's political structures remain divided. The Dayton Agreement, which brought an end to three years of fighting in 1995, split Bosnia into two substates, the predominantly Bosniak and Croat Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the mostly Serbian Republika Srpska. (In the late 1990s, a third, smaller entity, the Brcko District, was created as a self-governing unit.) A council of ministers — in which the three main ethnic groups get equal representation — officially governs the whole country, though the two substates have significant autonomy. Complicating matters further, the Peace Implementation Council, a special commission with representatives from 55 countries, enjoys governmental and legislative powers in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
While this system has brought stability to the country, it has also perpetuated ethnic divisions and complicated decision-making in one of Europe's poorest nations, as evidenced by the dispute over Republika Srpska's referendum. Republika Srpska's Statehood Day commemorates the date in 1992 when Bosnia's Serbs proclaimed their own republic. It also coincides with an Orthodox festivity, the Serbian Patron Saint's Day. For these reasons, Bosnia's constitutional court ruled that the observed date discriminates against the region's Muslim Bosniak and Catholic Croat minorities, and banned the referendum.
Now, concern is growing that the Statehood Day referendum will lay the groundwork for a future vote on Republika Srpska's secession from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The substate's president, Milorad Dodik, has repeatedly promised over the years to hold a referendum on Republika Srpska's future, vowing to protect ethnic Serbs from the Bosniaks' alleged attempts to take control of the whole country. Dodik has been particularly critical of Bosnia's constitutional court, arguing that the body, which includes representatives from the country's three main ethnic groups and from the international community, tends to rule against the Serbs' interests. Still, Republika Srpska's secession seems unlikely at this point. Because Bosnia-Herzegovina depends heavily on foreign aid, Bosniak, Serbian and Croat leaders want to preserve enough social and political stability in the country to secure financial assistance from institutions such as the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Widespread violence is similarly unlikely to erupt, though sporadic politically or ethnically motivated clashes cannot be ruled out.
