Is There Hope for Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Bosnia and Herzegovina is arguably in its biggest crisis since the end of the civil war (1992–1995) and the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995, which was imposed by the United States and NATO in Dayton, Ohio. To recall, the Dayton Agreement established Bosnia and Herzegovina as a highly decentralized confederal state of three constituent peoples—Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats—consisting of two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (which, no matter how confusing it may sound, is not the same as the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina), composed of 10 cantons, some of which are ethnically pure Croatian, some ethnically pure Bosniak, and some mixed Bosniak-Croatian, and the Republika Srpska (with a predominantly Serb ethnic majority).
Under the same agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina was reduced to a protectorate governed by an unelected international official—the so-called High Representative of the International Community. This official is appointed by a resolution of the United Nations Security Council, based on the recommendation of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), which includes representatives from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Presidency of the European Union, the European Commission, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (represented by Turkey), all under the chairmanship of the High Representative.
Bonn Powers and Their Consequences
Since 1997, the High Representative has had so-called “Bonn Powers,” which allow him to act as an absolute monarch by amending the constitutions of the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, enacting and modifying laws, dismissing elected officials and civil servants, banning individuals from participating in elections, revoking citizens’ rights, and confiscating personal documents without the right to appeal. In the words of prominent Croatian lawyer and attorney Anto Nobilo:
“A cold, legal analysis, free from political interests, indicates that Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a sovereign state. A sovereign state means that there is governance by the people through their representatives and that no foreign power can control state affairs. This is the fundamental characteristic of a sovereign state. If we compare that to the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is certainly not a sovereign state, and it is unbelievable that 30 years after the war, an unconstitutional situation still persists in which foreigners can pass laws, annul laws, dismiss any elected representative chosen by the will of the people, and essentially nullify Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sovereignty.”
In such a situation, High Representative Christian Schmidt—whose appointment was not confirmed by the UN Security Council due to opposition from Russia and China—issued a decision in 2022 proclaiming the Law on Amendments to the Law on the Temporary Ban on the Disposal of State Property of Bosnia and Herzegovina. With this decision, based on his Bonn Powers, he annulled the Law on Immovable Property of the Republika Srpska, which had been previously adopted by the National Assembly of Republika Srpska.
The President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik—who himself began his political career as Prime Minister in 1998 with the support of international SFOR troops and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright—responded in May 2023 by signing a decree bringing into effect laws on the non-implementation of Constitutional Court rulings of Bosnia and Herzegovina and decisions of High Representative Christian Schmidt, which had been passed by the National Assembly of Republika Srpska despite Schmidt’s annulment of them under his official powers.
As a result, legal proceedings were initiated against Dodik before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, culminating in a first-instance verdict sentencing him to one year in prison and banning him from holding political office for five years.
It is important to note that the core of the crisis lies in the dispute over whether the ownership of the former Yugoslav federal unit, the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SR BiH), belongs to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina or its entities. This dispute is unfolding in light of numerous potential lithium deposits discovered throughout the country, which implies that the real conflict is over who will have the authority to negotiate with major mining corporations like Rio Tinto, which have already set their sights on Bosnia and Herzegovina and neighboring Serbia.
In response to the verdict, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska passed a decision in early March 2025 banning the operations of the Court, Prosecutor’s Office, and the Special Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SIPA) within the territory of Republika Srpska.
False Hopes of Bosnian Serbian Politicians in the Trump Administration
The global redistribution of power further exacerbates the already tense political situation.
Milorad Dodik, who evolved from one of the staunchest supporters of liberal globalization into a leader with views closely aligned with Hungary’s Fidesz and the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), had hoped for understanding from Donald Trump’s new U.S. administration—an understanding that, for now, has not materialized. This has delighted Bosniak political leaders in Sarajevo, who still perceive the U.S. embassy and the American ambassador as the true governing authority in Bosnia and Herzegovina, even more than High Representative Christian Schmidt.
This perception is further reinforced by the fact that on the day of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s general elections (October 2, 2022), Schmidt imposed amendments to the country’s Election Law and the Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBIH), mostly in line with the expectations of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), the party with the most support among Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The introduction of the D’Hondt method for distributing mandates, which benefited Croat representation, was labeled as apartheid by much of the Bosniak leadership.
The resolution of the Croat issue in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina through constitutional suspensions and imposed legal solutions has further deepened divisions and distrust within Bosnia and Herzegovina’s protectorate-like system. This move frustrated the Bosniak side and reinforced a narrative that the Croat minority (approximately 15% of the total population according to the 2013 census) has disproportionate control over both the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entire country of Bosnia and Herzegovina, effectively blocking its governance.
In the context of the ongoing crisis, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska has announced plans to adopt a new republican constitution, which would permanently annul all laws imposed by High Representatives from 1997 to the present—despite lacking the necessary majority to pass such a measure. Unresolved tensions between Croats and Bosniaks further paralyze any possibility of reaching a compromise solution.
At the time of writing this article, the situation has escalated further as the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina—whose authority has been banned in Republika Srpska—issued an order for the judicial police to arrest the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, Prime Minister Radovan Višković, and National Assembly Speaker Nenad Stevandić.
The situation remains highly tense, as the Ministry of the Interior of Republika Srpska has announced that it will protect Dodik, Stevandić, and Višković from the state’s special police forces and EUFOR peacekeeping troops, whose command has already called for additional reinforcements in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Problem of Fake “Pro-Bosnian Forces”
The problem of Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, is far more complex than just issues concerning the jurisdiction of the judiciary and other state institutions. Nearly 30 years after the war, despite the interventions of High Representatives and the activities of numerous NGOs, mostly funded by American and European money with the primary agenda of “reconciliation,” Bosnia and Herzegovina has failed to develop a cultural policy that would define a minimal shared identity among all its citizens.
A particular failure in this regard can be attributed to Sarajevo’s so-called “pro-Bosnian” political factions, whose support base exclusively consists of the Bosnian-Muslim (Bosniak) electorate. These factions, under the slogans of a civic, multiethnic, and multiconfessional society, advocate for greater centralization—even to the extent of abolishing the country’s entities and cantons. In other circumstances, such a policy might be considered progressive; however, in this specific case, it represents a rigid falsification of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s historical identity and a clear attempt to transform the country into a predominantly Bosniak national state.
One of the latest manifestations of this tendency occurred in the realm of monument culture—specifically, the erection of a statue of Bosnian King Tvrtko I Kotromanić in the center of Sarajevo, followed by a scholarly panel discussion at the Sarajevo City Hall aimed at retroactively explaining to whom the monument was actually dedicated.
Tvrtko I, whose original 14th-century title was “In Christ Jesus, the pious, God-appointed Stefan, King of Serbs, Bosnia, and the Seacoast,” has been monumentally and “scholarly” stripped of almost all historical connections to his true identity. Instead, he has been proclaimed the central symbol of Bosnian, or rather Bosniak, patriotism, despite his potential to serve as a symbol of a more layered and multi-identity cultural policy.
The views of Sarajevo’s regime ideologues, based on ignoring contemporary historical sources from Tvrtko’s royal chancery regarding his coronation in “Serbian lands”, and instead built on nonexistent facts and bizarre speculations, are not just an insult to historical scholarship but represent the culmination of a revival of the failed colonial ideology of Austro-Hungarian governor Benjamin Kállay (1882–1903). Kállay, by deliberately omitting historical facts, sought to artificially separate Bosnian history from Serbian history as part of Austria-Hungary’s fight against the unity of South Slavs.
This phenomenon can be recognized in every manifestation of “Kállayism” and other proto-fascist and fascist anti-modernist tendencies—from the Austrian-backed Mehmed-beg Kapetanović Ljubušak, through the Ustaša racial theories of young intellectuals like Muhamed Hadžijahić, Smail Balić, and Alija Nametak, to the infamous 1942 appeal to Adolf Hitler signed by Sarajevo’s intellectual elite. Furthermore, today’s historical falsifications of Bosnian history closely follow the extreme nationalist distortions of Croatian Franciscan historian Dominik Mandić.
The only “innovation” in modern Bosnian-patriotic narratives is that this mixture of historical falsifications—both old and new—is now being falsely presented as part of Bosnia’s antifascist and National Liberation War (NOR) legacy. This ideological decontextualization is particularly evident in the deliberate erasure of the true historical content of the State Antifascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ZAVNOBiH) from World War II.
Specifically, efforts are being made to strip ZAVNOBiH of its original legacy—especially its embracing of Serbian anti-colonial traditions and its fundamental role in the creation of Yugoslavia, which in turn secured Bosnia and Herzegovina’s status as an equal federal unit. Instead, ZAVNOBiH is being reinterpreted as a continuation of Austro-Hungarian colonial anti-Serb policies—in other words, as everything that its true founders actually fought against.
The Student Movement in Serbia and the Hope for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Survival
All of this causes immeasurable harm to the progress of freedom-oriented initiatives across the entire Balkan Peninsula. As I often like to point out to groups of Americans visiting Sarajevo, despite the damp layers of bloody historical heritage, Bosnia and Herzegovina can hardly be classified as a typically divided society.
Even though almost every Bosnian and Herzegovinian generation since the Great Vienna War in the late 17th and early 18th centuries has endured unspeakable wartime horrors and suffering—with the 1992–1995 war being not an exception but rather the rule—it is still not unusual in Bosnia and Herzegovina to see children from different ethnic and religious backgrounds playing together, young people going out together, and individuals entering ethnically mixed marriages. Even today, 30 years after the war, people live on territories where their ethnic group is not the majority without significant incidents.
However, the energy emerging from the protests in Serbia, particularly the unity of students across all ideological and religious divides, provides great hope for revolutionary political transformations throughout the region—especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has been exhausted for decades by hate propaganda and foreign occupational governance.
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