IV.

Effectiveness

Although the Dayton Accord was supposed to ensure the integrity of Bosnia, Muslim and Serb leaders had differing objectives in this regard. While Muslim leaders considered the accord a guarantee of the reintegration of Bosnia under a central government, Serb leaders viewed the agreement as a stepping stone to the creation of two separate states within Bosnia. The Croats’ stance was somewhere in between these two positions, with the dominant element in the Croatian government leaving open the possibility of partitioning Bosnia along ethnic lines.

All three sides implemented Dayton’s military components, but compliance with the civil and political aspects proved more problematic. The NATO forces failed to guarantee safe passage for citizens travelling within the country, and nationalist Serbs and Croats resisted the reintegration of communities divided by the war. Nationalist parties maintained their hold on power, scoring well in each contest in Bosnia’s elections of 1996 compared to parties representing liberal, multi-ethnic, and democratic positions, although a more moderate Serbian administration won power in the January 1998 elections in the Serb Republic. The success of the nationalist parties discouraged the emergence of civil democracy in Bosnia and helped to consolidate the country’s ethnic divisions. Finally, although the Dayton Accord required that Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian leaders cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, set up to prosecute war criminals, these leaders did little to assist the tribunal. As a result, most prominent suspects of war crimes remained free despite international pressure to secure their arrests.