Dividing Divided States. Gregory F. Treverton
and Herzegovina (BiH), Bosnian Serb leaders, especially, embarked on armed conflict and ethnic cleansing.62 During the three-year conflict that ensued, more than one million people were driven out of the country and an equal number were internally displaced. In December 1995 the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) was signed, ending the conflict and establishing BiH as a federal republic made up of two “entities,” divided largely along ethnic lines. The DPA outlined a path to peace and provided for the return of displaced peoples, with involvement from NATO and the UNHCR. The Office of the High Representative was established to oversee the civilian implementation of the DPA.
In the decade following the DPA, refugees and IDPs have steadily returned to BiH, many under a registration program run by the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees to monitor and assist resettlement, including through reconstruction assistance. Although half of the displaced seem to have returned, the drive for ethnically “pure” areas that drove ethnic cleansing in the early 1990s continues to threaten the recovery of returnees and the long-term displaced alike.
Course of the Dispute
For three years immediately after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, BiH was plagued by the atrocities of ethnic cleansing, primarily carried out by Bosnian Serbs. By the time the war ended with the signing of the DPA in December 1995, more than half of the 4.4 million people of BiH had been hounded from their homes. Approximately 1.3 million people were internally displaced, and nearly the same number fled the country. In addition to calling a ceasefire, the DPA established the framework for the transition to peace and democracy. BiH was split into two “entities”—the mainly Serb Republika Srpska (RS) and the predominantly Croat and Muslim Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH). Initially, each entity had its own government while progress toward national integration was being made.
The DPA outlined pivotal roles for NATO peacekeeping forces and for the Office of the High Representative (OHR), which was in charge of civilian affairs. The 1997 Bonn Conference conferred upon the OHR the power to guide the reconciliation process. The so-called Bonn powers included the authority to remove public officials and ban legislation that violated the DPA or otherwise hindered progress toward peace and reconciliation. Under this arrangement many roadblocks were eliminated, but the formation of a fully functioning, integrated political system is still to be accomplished.
The DPA also made explicit provisions for the rights of displaced people to return to the areas from which they fled (Annex VII).63 Underlying the emphasis on return was the “moral and political imperative to reverse ‘ethnic cleansing.’”64 To accomplish the objective of a speedy return, the DPA designated the UNHCR as the lead international agency to oversee the return of refugees and IDPs. The Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees (MHRR) coordinated return efforts at the national level, while both “entities”—RS and FBiH—also maintained their own ministry for refugees.65 A registry was established by the MHRR to monitor and assist resettlement, and to provide reconstruction assistance, when applicable.
As is the case in other instances of ethnically motivated displacements, the return of displaced persons to the communities they fled can be used to fan fresh ethnic tensions. Depending on their ethnicity, returnees will bolster a majority group or weaken its numbers. Thus, vested interests in who returns, where, can result in a patchwork of de facto local policies, a pattern that played out in BiH. Many displaced people returned before the ink was dry on the DPA. However, in the first two years returnees were predominantly “majority returns”—that is, displaced people who returned to areas in which they belonged to the ethnic majority. Minority returns followed later once additional guarantees were in place.
Not until the early 2000s did minority and other returns gather momentum again. Several factors are credited with this development, including improved security, reconstruction, and property restitution. With the coordinated efforts of the OSCE, UNHCR, and OHR, ethnic violence declined, and many felt comfortable returning to the areas they had fled. Massive housing projects rebuilt at least some of the housing that was destroyed during the war. Perhaps the most important factor in these later flows of returnees was the provisions to reclaim or receive compensation for property abandoned during the war.66
The DPA affirmed that all refugees have the right to reclaim their homes or be compensated for lost or destroyed property. To accomplish this goal, the DPA created the Commission for Real Property Claims of Displaced Persons and Refugees (CRPC). The CRPC’s mandate called for the commission to “receive and decide any claims for real property in BiH, where the property has not voluntarily been sold or otherwise transferred since April 1, 1992, and where the claimant does not now enjoy possession of that property.”67 Although the CRPC’s decisions were final, it was not vested with the power to directly enforce its decisions, and the domestic institutions that did have such power lacked the will to enforce the rulings.
The commission remained largely ineffective and was ultimately replaced by Property Law Implementation Plan (PLIP) in 1999. The PLIP was organized by the OHR, NATO, and the UNHCR to enforce new legislation governing the resolution of property claims. Compared to its predecessor, the PLIP was well funded and supported by the international community. It was also more flexible and capable of handling emerging needs, such as the claims to occupancy rights in socially owned apartment properties. It has been very effective. Of the 200,000 claims received, 93 percent had been resolved by mid-2005, making this the first successful case of large-scale property restitution in a postconflict setting.68
As time has passed, the MHRR has come to recognize that return is not the universally appropriate solution to displacement. Many of those who remain as registered IDPs within BiH are vulnerable—the elderly, the mentally and physically handicapped, individuals traumatized by war, all of whom are unable or unwilling to return to the communities they fled. Thus, the MHRR and the international community have increased funding for efforts to support IDPs where they have now settled. In addition, the MHRR’s 2008 revision of the National Strategy for Implementation of Annex VII acknowledged the need to provide means for compensating the displaced for their lost property, in addition to enabling restitution for those who want to return to their homes.69
Assessment and Possible Lessons
Perhaps the most obvious means of assessing the success of dealing with displaced people is by measuring the extent to which they have returned to the areas they fled. According to UNHCR and MHRR estimates, more than one million refugees and IDPs combined (slightly more IDPs than refugees) had returned to their prewar residence in BiH by June 2008. However, this estimate may undercount those who have returned to the area but not the residence in which they lived and overcount IDPs who returned only to leave again.70
Returning has proven to be difficult for a number of reasons. Rural areas, in particular, have had high unemployment rates following the war. Thus, many young IDPs and refugees from the countryside have chosen to remain in larger cities and towns or indeed abroad, where they have greater access to education and jobs. Some return only to reclaim their property and subsequently sell or rent it while continuing to live elsewhere. Still others return with plans to resettle permanently but find it daunting to do so. There are fewer economic opportunities after the devastation. In addition, those who returned to their former communities as ethnic minorities have experienced discrimination in employment and access to health services and ethnocentric curricula in local schools.71 Thus, while significant progress has been made, the goal of returning the displaced to their homes amid safety, security, and dignity remains only partially fulfilled.
Officially the armed conflict between ethnic groups in BiH ended many years ago, and while a stable unified government has yet to be achieved, the government has held together. Yet ethnicity continues to cleave BiH society. So long as that is the case, the issue of displaced people cannot fully be put to rest, though many may have found a place to settle. The following are several lessons from the experience of BiH that may have broader relevance:
When ethnic conflict is the direct cause of displacement, it can be naïve to think that returning displaced persons to their homes undoes the ethnic divides created by war. While multiethnic communities may be desired in principle by national (and international) entities, the rights of displaced persons, including the right not to return to their place