Dayton

Dayton Peace Agreement

The death of Yugoslavia's president Tito in 1980 introduced plurality of conflicting interests in Yugoslavia's government. A new ruling body, Yugoslav Presidency Council, with its members - six republics and two autonomous regions, Kosovo and Vojvodina, all of which were granted wider autonomy under the 1974 Yugoslav constitution, was formed in order to retain authority over the country. However, events in the late 1980's with Milosevic regime asserting central power over two autonomous regions, thus reversing the 1974 constitution, and gaining Montenegro's loyalty meant that his regime had four out of eight votes in Presidency Council under control. Consequently, any decision would have to be verified by Serbs in order to be made. Further complications occurred when, with higher unemployment and ambitious nationalistic regimes rising to power (Milosevic, Tudjman and Izetbegovic), people started rapidly alienating from their communistic belief system that was based on "brotherhood and unity" of ethnicities, and started finding scapegoats for recent economic hardships and government crisis in other nationalities. Consequently, some republics started openly considering possibility of pursuing independence. Before long, Slovenia and Croatia organized referendums on which majority of 88 % and 94 % respectively chose independence. However, other factors besides political situation also fostered the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Namely, after 1980, the economic crisis, that actually started in 1970's but had been successfully kept away from the eyes of public by growing borrowings of foreign capital, became even worse and a lot more obvious. Yugoslavia's economy was based on inefficient industry with overmanned and underfinanced factories, and there was little hope to restructure it. Burdened by $20 billion external debt, economy in decline and turmoil in Presidency Council, as a consequence of growing ethnic tensions, Yugoslavia's destiny was sealed.

However, all of these events, although enough to account for dissolution of Yugoslavia, are insufficient to explain the causes of the bloodiest war in Europe since WWII. Something else was needed to spur this conflict. Heated nationalistic feeling in parts of Yugoslavia where population was of mixed nature - Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) - with 44% of the people Bosniaks (predominately Muslims), 31% of population Serbs (Eastern Orthodox Christians) and 17% Croats (Catholics) produced the anticipated result - civil war. Although the Serbs in eastern part of Croatia declared independent Republic of Srpska Krajina, and soon the war between the Serbs and Croats in Croatia started, it took Bosnia's declaration of independence on March 3rd 1992, following the referendum boycotted by Serbs, to ignite a full-scale ethnic conflict. As none of the ethnic minorities in BIH, living next to the countries ruled by their nation, would agree to live in a unitary state where nationalistic movement has power, but instead would try to annex parts of that state where they are minority to their nation states, Bosnia could not survive as an independent state. Thus, the war between Muslims, Serbs and Croats in Bosnia started. During the war, Serbs were generously helped by the regime in Belgrade, while Croats received support from independent Croatia. This civil war, with minor ceasefires, lasted until November 1995 when the Dayton peace agreement was reached. The war resulted in more than around 250,000 casualties, over 2 million displaced persons, and approximately $ 100 billion material damage inflicted on state and private property. In this war civilians were the primary target, since the actors wanted to create ethnically clean territories by displacing and killing the ethnic minorities in those areas. While Croat and Serb forces tried to divide Bosnia between themselves, Bosniaks were fighting to establish unitary Muslim-dominated state. There were numerous examples of acts of ethnic cleansing, such as Vukovar, Srebrenica and Srpska Krajina. War situation changed in March 1994 when, under US pressure, Bosniaks and Croats agreed to stop fighting each other and agreed to establish Muslim-Croat federation. United and supported by NATO, they launched attacks against Serbs and the balance of power was clearly shifted in their favor. Next year, Dayton agreement was signed.

Dayton agreement, although the only successful, was not the first peace agreement proposed to the warring sides. Namely, the first plan was Carrington-Cutileiro's plan of 1992 that proposed establishing three ethnic cantons similar to the Swiss ones. This plan was ratified by all three parties, but later Izetbegovic withdrew his signature. In January next year, Vance and Owen put forward a plan that included the creation of ten semi-autonomous ethnic regions. This plan was rejected both by Serbs because the city of Srebrenica, surrounded by Serb territory, was included in canton that was planned to belong to Bosniaks and by Clinton Administration, which allegedly did not want to commit troops and logistics necessary to make the plan work. The third, Owen-Stoltenberg's plan, was proposed in August 1993 and it introduced the creation of three mini ethnic states. (52% of the territory was supposed to be allotted for Serbs, 30% for Bosniaks and 18% for Croats). Although this plan was rejected by Bosniaks, it gave a new idea of dividing Bosnia on ethnic lines. The next, the Contact Group (US, Russia, Germany, Great Britain, and France) plan was developed in October 1994, and substantial progress towards peace was made, primarily because Milosevic basically imposed embargo on Bosnian Serbs to persuade them to accept it. This plan was later used in making Dayton Agreement, and it was based on existence of Inter-Entity Boundary line.

All these previous plans, although not successful, provided knowledge and ideas that were improving and building up until the Dayton agreement was reached. This does not necessarily mean that other plans were worse or less feasible than Dayton agreement, but they surely lacked acceptance of all actors involved in conflict. These actors were not only warring parties, but also great powers, especially NATO