Seminar on: IMPLICATIONS OF THE 13TH SAARC SUMMIT

PROGRAM

ABSTRACT
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT MECHANISM IN FORMER YOGOSLAVIA
TEHSEEN NISAR

The end of the cold war transformed the international structure of global, regional and global conflicts. With the metamorphosed politico-security environment the world had encompassed, arose new dimensions of inter and intra state dynamics of many conflicts.
Marred in an increasingly intractable nature of the global order, the conflicts arising at the intrastate level had enormous stakes. One that was no less significant was perhaps none other than in the Balkans. The causes of which had hitherto been exacerbated by the disintegration of the erstwhile Soviet Union followed by the secession of Slovenia and Croatia, and leading to the quest for independence in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This raised the whole issue of Muslim enclave in a predominantly Christian Europe, followed by the worst human carnage that involved the genocide and mass slaughter of the Bosnian Muslims under the fratricidal Serb regime of Slobodan Milosovic during 1992-1995.
The war saga finally came to an end with The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, Dayton Accords, Paris Protocol or Dayton-Paris Agreement, reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in November 1995, and formally signed in Paris on December 14, 1995. These accords put an end to the three and a half year long war in Bosnia. The Dayton Proximity Talks culminated in the initialing of a General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was initialed by the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The Agreement was witnessed by representatives of the Contact Group nations -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia -- and the European Union Special Negotiator.
The agreement mandated a wide range of international organizations to monitor, oversee, and implement components of the agreement. The NATO-led IFOR (Implementation Force) was responsible for implementing military aspects of the agreement and deployed on the 20th December 1995, taking over the forces of the UNPROFOR.

Although, The Dayton Accords ended the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995 but 10th anniversary of that achievement gives reason to investigate the post-war period - today's realities and future perspectives. Which conflict lines demarcate the contemporary society? Did peace building AND Conflict management activities address the underlying causes of violent conflict? What obstacles are there for conflict transformation? What are the potentials and limits of international support? What does 'civil society' mean in Bosnia and how is it related to state building and democratization? How can people constructively deal with the past in order to design the future in the region of former Yugoslavia?

*Paper presented in an International Workshop on Conflict Management Mechanisms and the Challenge of Peace organized by the Program on Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, Department of International Relations, University of Karachi in collaboration with the Hanns Seidel Foundation, Islamabad at the Arts Auditorium on November 26-27-2007

** Senior Research Fellow, Area Study Center for Europe, University of Karachi.