Summary
Sipke de Hoop
Bosnië tussen Dayton en Brussel: twaalf en een half jaar internationaal hulpbeleid
Sipke de Hoop analyses the international reconstruction policy in Bosnia. Thirteen years after the Dayton Peace Agreement and many billions of dollars of aid the central government is still very weak, nationalists run the country, while unemployment is very high. The failed attempts of rebuilding and reconciliation have to do with three main factors: the inheritance of the past; the inefficiënt and complex constitutional structure that was created in 1995; and the policy of the international community. Many mistakes of this community contributed to continuing the unstable situation in Bosnia. In an early phase, the Ameri-cans with their 'quick elections, early exit policy' laid the foundations for the difficulties. In later stages, the Office of the High Representative (OHR) practi-cally ruled the still deeply divided country. The lack of strategy and the limited mandate for civil reconstruction were exchanged for a policy that gradually became close to an almost 'colonial behaviour'. By closing critical media and by constant interventions in national politics the OHR did not contribute to the development of a democratic system. From the beginning the priorities were defined in terms of the return of refugees, ethnic integration and the electoral process. With this policy the multi-ethnic fiction that was created with the imposed Dayton Agreement was kept alive, but the international community failed to develop a decent economic policy, nor did it create the basis for sustainable development, nor was it able to convince the three ethnic parties to work together on reforms for a future in Europe. A change of tactics in 2006 - an attempt to give the ownership of the reform process back to the nationalities in Bosnia - resulted in a complete standstill and an even more nationalistic climate. The three main options of an intervention policy - fast elections, a protectorate, local ownership - did not work out in Bosnia.