These days, on which we are making use of political power in Turkey, it is very interesting as an international specialist to visit Bosnia-Herzegovina, which could not form its federal government for over a year. Fortunately, all groups including Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian politicians agreed several days before 1. January that a new government would be created after 15 months and we can say that Bosnia-Herzegovina entered the New Year with hopes.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is a federation consisting of a small country. One of them is Serbian Republic, called Republika Sırpska and the other one is Bosnia-Herzegovina Federation where Bosnian and Croatian population is denser. It can be said that the most complex political structure is in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The country has presidency council and it consists of Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian members. Therefore, we can say that the country has three presidents and these presidents represent the country by turns. It can be understood if there is just a council, but the central institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina are represented by three people. For example, because of the tripartite presidency system in football federation, FIFA and UEFA warned Bosnia-Herzegovina in April 2011. However, single presidency could not be established because of dissentive vote of Serbian and Croatian delegates and Bosnia-Herzegovina was precluded from the international competitions. Bosnia-Herzegovina Federation, having come together in May 2011, approved single presidency system and UEFA’s restraining order was cancelled. As can be understood from this concrete example, Dayton Peace Treaty, signed in 1995, both created a complex structure in Bosnia-Herzegovina and this structure made it difficult for Bosnia-Herzegovina to be integrated into global system and European Union. The system, which has been brought by Dayton, is so complicated that the Bosnian students, even international relations studies and law school students have difficulty in answering the questions regarding this system. For example, such questions as ‘’ How many delegates or ministers are there?’’ are unanswered and all of them say that ‘’At least we know that we have 3 presidents’’ laughingly. Dayton brought such a system that while Bosnia-Herzegovina are governed by two small states and an autonomous region, 10 cantons were created in Bosnia-Herzegovina entity and each canton had its own prime minister and cabinet. 5 of cantons include Bosnians mostly and 3 of them include Croatian mostly. The remaining two cantons (Central Bosnia and Herzegovina-Neretva), including many different ethnics, have more different legislations procedures. Of course, these cantons are applicable to Bosnia-Herzegovina entity and there is another entity called Serbian Republic in which governing is made by local administration and any cantonal structure is out of question. It is normal if you are confused while reading this text because in order to understand such a complex system it could be considered necessary to talk with the people, who signed Dayton Treaty and inquire the specifics of the system created with the aim of include the ethnic groups in administration. The institution that could explain the system more easily may be Supreme Representative Office, which controlled the Dayton enforcement and which is the supreme court of the country. Although, Dayton Treaty proposed that all ethnic groups should be included in the processes, it is seen to have created an ethnicity-based, bureaucratic and functionless structure and drove people to pessimism about their country by bringing a system that no one even its own people cannot understand. It is not logical to expect the people who were stricken by 1992-1995 war, and influenced by war psychologically, to build a new future with a system brought by such a treaty as Dayton. The sense of autonomy, created for each ethnic group aims at including ethnic groups to decision making process. On the other hand, it caused many conflicts on insignificant matters. 15-month-old cabinet crisis and the UEFA crisis that we stated above are among the most concrete examples.
In conclusion, despite of the complex political structure in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the daily life is not so problematic and boring. In New Year celebration I could see that people in Bosnia- Herzegovina are able to take pleasure in life in spite of that chaos. As New Year break coincided Sunday, Bosnian people had public holiday in Monday and Tuesday. They are able to seize the day even if they are pessimistic about their future. Another point that attracted my attention during the holidays is that some tradesmen said ‘’we are having holiday today’’ when a customer want something even if they are in their shops. When I asked that to a friend he said that it is holiday when it is holiday, working when it is working day. Before I close my remarks I would like to say that Turkey, which claims that everything is good in its own place and time, should learn something from Bosnian people in terms of implementation and I leave my observations from the streets to the next article.
Burak YALIM
President of International Relations Studies Association (IRSA)
Translated by Yasemin Taşçı
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