The Continuing Challenge of Refugee Return in Bosnia & Herzegovina

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The Continuing Challenge of Refugee Return in Bosnia & Herzegovina THE CONTINUING CHALLENGE OF REFUGEE RETURN IN BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA 13 December 2002 Balkans Report N°137 Sarajevo/Brussels TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................i I. INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 II. RETURN AND DISPLACEMENT IN 2002...................................................................4 III. NATIONALIST STEREOTYPES AND THE POLITICAL IMPACT OF RETURN...............................................................................................................................5 IV. CREATING SPACE FOR RETURN OR RELOCATION?........................................7 A. RECONSTRUCTION ASSISTANCE........................................................................................ 7 B. PROPERTY REPOSSESSION ................................................................................................ 9 C. RETURNING TO SELL? .....................................................................................................11 D. ILLEGAL LAND ALLOCATION TO REFUGEES: DEMOGRAPHIC ENGINEERING CONTINUES .....11 V. REASONS NOT TO RETURN.......................................................................................14 A. DISCRIMINATION IN A DEPRESSED ECONOMY...................................................................14 B. MONO-ETHNIC INSTITUTIONS..........................................................................................16 C. SECURITY.......................................................................................................................18 D. APARTHEID IN EDUCATION..............................................................................................19 E. PENSIONS AND HEALTH INSURANCE ................................................................................21 VI. CASE STUDIES ................................................................................................................22 A. FOCA (“SRBINJE”) ..........................................................................................................23 B. PRIJEDOR .......................................................................................................................25 C. DRVAR...........................................................................................................................29 VII. CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE ..........................33 A. ENTITY LEVEL CHANGES ................................................................................................33 1. Composition of the Governments .........................................................................33 2. Entity Presidents and Vice-Presidents ...................................................................34 3. Sharing Key Entity Positions ................................................................................34 4. Parliamentary Reforms .........................................................................................35 B. CHANGES IN THE CANTONS.............................................................................................36 C. INTEGRATING THE ADMINISTRATION ...............................................................................38 VIII. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................39 A. ANNEX 7 AND THE RE-INTEGRATION OF RETURNEES ........................................................39 B. THE RISKS OF DECLARING VICTORY TOO SOON .............................................................40 APPENDICES A. MAP OF BOSNIA.............................................................................................................41 B. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP ....................................................................42 C. ICG REPORTS AND BRIEFING PAPERS..............................................................................43 D. ICG BOARD MEMBERS ...................................................................................................48 ICG Balkans Report N°137 13 December 2002 THE CONTINUING CHALLENGE OF REFUGEE RETURN IN BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS In preparing for and orchestrating the proximity The Cassandras overlooked several factors. Not only talks that marked the end of the 1992-1995 war in did support for two of the three nationalist parties, Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), the authors of the the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and Serb Dayton Peace Accords (DPA) placed a particularly Democratic Party (SDS), decline, but the latter faced high priority on the return of refugees and internally its most serious challenge to date from the moderate displaced persons to their pre-war homes. Annex 7 Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD). of the DPA is devoted entirely to ensuring the right This was sufficient to undermine its longstanding of return. The peacemakers hoped that such return claim to be the natural party of government in “its” might one day reverse the territorial, political and entity, Republika Srpska (RS). Moreover, the votes national partition of the country that the DPA of returnees and potential returnees, voting in otherwise recognised. absentia, have begun to affect politics, permitting Federation-based parties to claim 17 per cent of the While the first four years of peace saw large-scale seats in the RS National Assembly in the October return by both refugees and internally displaced elections. persons to areas where their own nations were a majority, the chauvinist agendas and entrenched The media also failed to consider that the biggest power structures of the nationalist parties kept losers, the multinational Social Democratic Party “minority” returns to a minimum. By 2000, however, (SDP) that had led the “Alliance for Change” in the there was a surprising reversal. Not only has this Federation and on the state level, may have done trend continued, as ordinary people seek to return to most to contrive their own defeat. In any case, the their pre-war homes in ever-larger numbers, but it low turnout (55 per cent) was as much a vote against has begun to alter the prevailing political climate in politics-as-normal as for nationalism. much of the country. Perhaps more remarkably, the press missed the story The results of Bosnia’s fourth post-war general of the more than 367,000 Bosnians who have “voted elections on 5 October 2002 seemed to point in the with their feet” against partition and returned to live opposite direction. They were widely interpreted by as “minorities” in areas governed by former foes. the international media and some of the domestic Years of international effort to open up returns press as an unalloyed victory for the nationalist through targeted reconstruction assistance – and to parties that made and fought the war – and had done ensure that refugees and displaced persons have their worst since to preserve its spoils, including the every opportunity to reclaim pre-war residences – homogenisation achieved by "ethnic cleansing". The have borne fruit. Official figures show that some outcome was seen as an ominous setback for efforts 900,000 people have returned to homes from which to put the complex multinational state recreated in they fled or were expelled during the war. High Dayton on the path to stability, legitimacy, prosperity Representative Ashdown can reasonably claim that and European integration. The Continuing Challenge Of Refugee Return In Bosnia & Herzegovina ICG Balkans Report N°137, 13 December 2002 Page ii “we’ve invented a new human right here, the right to Nationalist authorities also create economic return after a war.” incentives for “their” people to relocate through the often-illegal distribution of building plots and The Peace Implementation Council will consider bus iness premises, with the apparent intention of refugee issues in January 2003. There are worrying ensuring that returnees remain a poor minority. indications, however, that impressed by recent success in creating and implementing a legal This report also analyses the impact of recent framework for repossessing pre-war housing, it may amendments to the constitutions of Bosnia's two declare Annex 7 officially “implemented” before the entities. These aim to eliminate discrimination by job is done. That would suit the authorities in RS annulling the special constitutional status once and parts of the Federation who are keen to equate accorded Serbs in the RS and Bosniaks and Croats in property law implementation with actual return and the Federation and require local administrations to close the book before creating the conditions that hire returnees according to national quotas, based on make return sustainable. Yet Annex 7 makes clear the population in the last, pre-war census. If that the Bosnian authorities must also create the implemented, these amendments will give returnees “political, social and economic conditions conducive greater opportunity to defend their interests. to the voluntary return and harmonious reintegration of refugees and displaced persons, without The partial nationalist victory in October prompted preference for any particular group”. some commentators to suggest the time had come for the international community to give up on its While highlighting the positive role return has had multinational experiment in BiH and accept a final in moderating nationalist politics in some areas,
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