PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release : 9 September 1998

ICG Examines the Prospects for Bosnia Developing as a Stable, Functioning State

The International Crisis Group (ICG) publishes today a report examining the prospects for Bosnia developing as a stable, functioning state.

The eight-page paper, entitled Whither Bosnia? considers why Bosnia is not developing effective political institutions capable of functioning without the need for heavy international involvement and intervention.

Despite considerable progress in consolidating the peace and rebuilding normal life in Bosnia, political institutions do not function properly. Mutually suspicious representatives of the three main ethnic groups dominate the country's political life. They hold very different perspectives about how the country should look. They co-operate in implementing the Dayton Peace Agreement only grudgingly and under international pressure.

Bosnia's electoral system favours ethnically-based parties, as voting patterns reflect the need to assert the narrow perceived interests of the ethnic community in the face of fear and mistrust of other ethnic groups. Political representatives look for votes only from their own community, and in their determination to be seen to be stoutly defending the narrow ethnic interest, they can rarely reach the consensus which the Bosnian political system requires.

Bosnia has repeatedly to fall back on the international community to take necessary decisions. The increasing level of international intervention is positive in building the elements of a functioning state. However, in the longer term a political system needs to be developed which suits Bosnia's particular needs as a multi-ethnic state, so that at some point Bosnians can take responsibility for running their own country.

The report analyses the flaws in Bosnia's political system. It discusses the development of a crony capitalism in Bosnia, in which political leaders and their friends carve up economic assets at the expense of a proper economic transition. It assesses the risk that the process of economic reform will contribute to this development. It concludes with a series of recommendations which, if heeded, could help Bosnia to develop as a stable, functioning state, enabling the international community at some stage to withdraw and leave Bosnians to run their own affairs.

Read the full report, Whither Bosnia?.

For further information and copies of the report, contact ICG in Sarajevo at (+387 71) 447 845, in Brussels at (+322) 502 9038, or in Washington at (+1 202) 986 9750.

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