Don’t Repeat Dayton’s Mistakes in Kosovo

By Muhamed Sacirbey,
The Wall Street Journal, 27 April 1999

Was Dayton Munich? Slobodan Milosevic’s “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo and his blatant
challenge to NATO have more than ever put into question the 1995 peace agreement to end the
war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It does not take several years of hindsight to recognize that Dayton relieved Mr. Milosevic of
the
stain of his aggression and genocidal aims in Bosnia. By promoting him as the indispensable
partner, the best of bad choices, Dayton negotiators gave him a legitimacy that he did not
deserve. They in effect gave him new political life, the opportunity of a new place and time to
again reinvigorate his authoritarian hold by targeting a new enemy. In that sense, Richard
Holbrooke became an unwitting midwife in Mr. Milosevic’s rebirth.

If Dayton holds one overriding lesson for the Kosovo endgame, it is this: that Mr. Milosevic
must not again walk away having been legitimized by an “agreement” that bears his signature.

The fate of Kosovo, of the peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, of democracy and stability in
post-Soviet Europe and indeed of NATO itself all imminently coincide in the war now raging in
Yugoslavia. The lessons to be gleaned from our experience at Dayton and its aftermath are ones
NATO ignores at its peril.

First, toothless promises of refugee return will not escape harsh historical judgment. NATO’s
stated objective, to ensure the national and human rights of the Albanian Kosovars, cannot be
accomplished without the Kosovars returning permanently to reside in Kosovo, whatever its final
status. This will most likely necessitate a meaningful commitment of NATO ground troops,
whether deployed after a political agreement is reached or when NATO leaders judge a
deployment most useful.

A similar promise to Bosnia’s refugees, made at Dayton, has become a dead letter. This has
proved to be the greatest obstacle to peace and normalcy in post-Dayton Bosnia. It has
strengthened the influence of radicals, especially those who perpetrated the crimes of ethnic
cleansing. As long as refugees do not return, the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing are emboldened
to further the disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina by stealth, believing that the
consequences of their crimes are becoming ever more irreversible.

Not only must the broken promises of refugee return not be repeated in Kosovo but, if our
promises there are to be meaningful, the West must now act to provide the security and means
for refugees within Bosnia and Herzegovina to return.

Second, any partition of Kosovo, no matter how expedient, would be disastrous both for
NATO’s
credibility and for a region teeming with ethnic divisions fomented by years of nationalist
propaganda.

Mr. Milosevic has his own strategy for an endgame. His orchestrated campaign of ethnic
cleansing is intended to create “facts on the ground” that NATO will find logistically difficult to
change. He will go as far as he can, including the exiling or killing of the last Albanian in
Kosovo. However, as a bargaining tactic, he will offer half the spoils back in a partition deal in
order to secure the other half, empty of Albanians.

As a U.S. official recently noted to me, Mr. Milosevic never gives in, he only bends. Dayton
was
a tactical retreat, but Rambouillet was a major threat to Mr. Milosevic’s entire plan for an
ethnically homogeneous Serbia. That is, for Mr. Milosevic the problem with Rambouillet was
not the nature of autonomy (which he could massage in any fashion that suited him), but the
democratizing influence of Western troops deployed within a state he now absolutely controls.

He would gladly part with half the territory of Kosovo in order to get rid of the 90%
Albanian
population and avoid the influence of NATO elements within the borders of a country he now
rules without accountability. His experience in Dayton leads him to believe that the Western
democracies would rather legitimize the consequences of ethnic cleansing than commit the
resources necessary to reverse it.

The consequences of accepting such an arrangement are infinitely unsettling. To divide
Kosovo
would be to doom Bosnia, Macedonia and other states of the region to endless wars of partition
and leave us hostage to the grand schemes of ethnic cleansers.

Third, Mr. Milosevic most profited from the Dayton experience because it placed him on the
same stage as the world’s most powerful democratic leaders. He converted this credibility into
currency for repression at home and continued aggression in the region. And he used it to
undermine the very peace agreement he committed to in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As Prime Minister Tony Blair recently put it: There is nothing more left to negotiate with
Mr.
Milosevic. What has been agreed to already is the bare minimum. And as the former prime
minister of Yugoslavia, Milan Panic, has said, whatever deal is arranged to end the war in
Kosovo, do not negotiate it or sign it with Mr. Milosevic. Unfortunately, NATO has not ruled out
a deal with Mr. Milosevic; this may prove a fatal mistake. If he is there to negotiate or sign an
agreement, his legitimacy in the eyes of the Serbs will be confirmed.

The endgame of Kosovo has to be accompanied by an invigoration in the implementation of
the
Dayton Accords. Too often in the past, a trip to Belgrade and an appeal to Mr. Milosevic were
the quick fix to a real or contrived obstacle in the implementation of Dayton. Unfortunately, this
strategy has had the most corrosive effect on the peace process.

None of this is to suggest that Dayton should be buried. We Bosnians have no better
alternative.
But neither can it be praised for restoring “peace” in Bosnia without the necessary commitment
to its implementation. A dead-letter Dayton is the surest way to jeopardize the peace of Bosnia
and the region as a whole. To this end, three pillars of the Dayton accords must be bolstered. The
return of all refugees and full cooperation with the war crimes tribunal in the Hague are two. The
third and crucial pillar is the supremacy of the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, adopted
within the agreement, and its creation of a secular, liberal, democratic European state.

The lesson of Dayton is not only that the nature and details of a peace agreement must punish
the
aggressors and achieve a measure of justice, but also that the success of peace is most decided by
the personalities who sign the agreement. The ultimate judgment by history of the worth of this
agreement will be determined by the faithfulness of its implementation.

The people of Kosovo can profit from these lessons. For Bosnia, we–the parties most
responsible
for the implementation of the accords–must recommit ourselves to the spirit and letter of
Dayton. For the Western democracies and NATO, the culprits of war have been irreversibly
revealed. The judgment of history will not be as kind if expediency is chosen the second time
around.

Mr. Sacirbey is Bosnian Ambassador to the United Nations, and one of the signatories of the Dayton agreement.