Bosnia-Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) suffered from a bloody civil war between 1992-1995. While the international community brought the conflict to an end and peace has triumphed for over ten years, the country’s economic progress has been slow over the last ten years and some of the ethnic divisions that contributed to the civil war remain. Indeed, the country still remains politically divided into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federacija Bosne i Hercegovine -- FBiH) and the Serb Republic (Republika Srpska -- RS), which are supposedly meant to operate within a federal structure. In reality, FBiH and the RS have remained two very distinct entities.

There does appear to be rising support from within BiH for the country to join the EU. This is very much the carrot and stick that the EU is offering the country to undertake the political and economic reforms needed to sign a Stabilisation Association Agreement (SAA) -- one of the first steps towards EU membership. BiH has already joined NATO’s Partnership for Programme (PfP) and hopes for future membership of the alliance.

To keep security and maintain the momentum towards EU membership, the EU has deployed a military force (EUFOR) in the country. Apart from overseeing the military aspects of the Dayton Peace Agreement, EUFOR troops are trying to combat organised crime. BiH has now emerged as one of Europe's main transit points for criminal gangs involved in drugs and human trafficking.

Overview
In early 1992 multi-ethnic BiH (comprising Bosnian Muslims (Bosniak) 48 per cent, Serb 37.1 per cent and Croat 14.3 per cent) held a referendum on independence from Yugoslavia. Following the outcome of the referendum, which saw an overwhelming majority in favour of succession but was boycotted by BiH's minority Serb population, independence was announced in April 2002. The Bosnian Serbs responded by announcing the creation of their own state (the RS) and civil war broke out as Bosnian Serbs managed to gain large chunks of territory.

The international community responded to the conflict by deploying a lightly-armed UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) and tried to get the warring factions to agree to a series of peace plans. However, NATO and the UN were eventually forced to launch Operation Deliberate Force in August 1995, bombing targets around Sarajevo and in other areas held by the Bosnian Serbs. The attacks encouraged a combined offensive by the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats to push the Bosnian Serbs back from areas that they had conquered at the beginning of the civil war.

On 21 November, the leaders of BiH, Croatia and Yugoslavia met in Dayton, Ohio in the US to sign an agreement to end the war. On 14 December 1995, the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (more commonly referred to as the Dayton Peace Agreement) was officially signed in Paris, thus bringing an end to the war. In BiH alone, more than 250,000 people were killed while over one million people became refugees or displaced.

Despite the Dayton Agreement, BiH's ethnic divisions remained as the Bosniak and Croat population formed the FBiH (approximately 51 per cent of the country), while the Bosnian Serbs maintained the RS (49 per cent). Under the federal structure, BiH as a whole became responsible for monetary policy, trade, defence, foreign affairs and law enforcement, while the FBiH and the RS became responsible for their own economic policy, defence and law. The FBiH and RS each gained their own presidents, governments and parliaments.

Dayton authorised the deployment of the NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) and in December 1995, 60,000 IFOR troops from 29 nations began Operation Joint Endeavour to "monitor and enforce compliance with the military aspects of the Peace Agreement". Joint Endeavour became Joint Guard in 1996 when IFOR was renamed the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) and it was then agreed at NATO's June 2004 Istanbul Summit to allow an EU Force (EUFOR) to take over from SFOR. On 12 July, the European Council authorised the deployment of 7,000 troops from 22 EU states and 12 non-EU states through Joint Action 2004/570/CFSP. UNSC Resolution 1572 (22 November) rubber-stamped the deployment, and Operation Althea was launched on 2 December 2004. The number of troops contributing to EUFOR later fell to 6,000 and on 27 February 2007, the EU announced a transition plan for EUFOR, resulting in a further fall in troop levels over a three-month period to about 2,500 personnel.

Current situation

EUFOR is now composed of about 2,455 troops from 32 countries (24 EU member states and eight non-EU). It is spearheaded by the 580-strong Multinational Manoeuvre Battalion (MNBN) at Camp Butmir in Sarajevo, which will be able to deploy anywhere in the country should a crisis arise. The MNBN is currently under Spanish command and is composed of troops from Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey. Remaining personnel are assigned to EUFOR HQ at Camp Butmir and with about 44 lightly-armed Liaison and Observation Teams (LOTs) divided among five Regional Co-ordination Centres (RCC) located at Banja Luka (RCC 1), Mostar (RCC 2), Sarajevo (RCC 3), Tuzla (RCC 4) and Zenica (RCC 5). The LOTs live among the population where they could provide the EUFOR HQ with early warning of any potential problems. A 534-strong military police force, the Integrated Police Unit (IPU), undertakes various duties in support of EUFOR and the BiH government, including intelligence-gathering and combatting crime.

Estimated EUFOR troop contributions (includes EUFOR HQ staff)

EUFOR is currently commanded by Spain’s Major-General Ignacio Martín Villalaín (since December 2007), while the operational commander of EUFOR is the UK’s General John McColl -- who is also NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR).

EUFOR is tasked with ensuring that BiH adheres to the military aspects of Dayton. The force works closely with Slovakia’s Miroslav Lajcák, the double-hatted UN's Office of the High Representative (OHR)/EU Special Representative in BiH (EUSR), who oversees the civilian aspects of Dayton. EUFOR is also working with international agencies helping to track down suspected war criminals wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague, Netherlands, namely the former Bosnian Serb leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Both men are wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including ordering the alleged massacre of 8,000 Bosniaks near the town of Srebrenica during July 1995. It has been claimed that the men are currently hiding in Serbia, and the EU continues to demand that Belgrade hand them over.

EUFOR is assisting the BiH authorities in combatting crime. The country has now become a major hub for organised crime with criminal gangs and regional insurgent groups involved in arms and drugs smuggling, human trafficking and tax evasion. Of the 500,000 people who illegally enter EU member states, a large number come via BiH and the rest of the Balkans. It is believed that more than 80 per cent of heroin on the European market comes via the Balkans from Afghanistan and Iran.

NATO
The 200-strong NATO Headquarters Sarajevo (NHQSa) advises the BiH government on defence reform, counter-terrorism and on the capture of suspected war criminals. As of March 2007, the US's Major-General Richard Wightman Jnr was the commander of NHQSa. Much of NHQSa’s revolves around the Defence and Security Sector Reform (DSSR), which developed a unified BiH defence ministry and armed forces capable of involvement in NATO’s PfP programme, which BiH joined in December 2006. DSSR saw the formation a single 10,000-strong Bosnian armed forces (Oruzane Snage BiH -- OS BiH) in mid-2007, composed of three mechanised infantry brigades, a support brigade and an aviation brigade. The creation of the OS BiH was seen as one of the key requirements for future EU and NATO membership that will contribute to the country's stability and allow the full withdrawal of foreign forces from the country. Equally though, there is a growing need for further political reforms to bring the FBiH and RS closer together, but there remains hostility in some political quarters within the country, while the final status of nearby Kosovo could have major repercussions for BiH and the rest of the Balkans during 2008.

Last revision: December 2007