On Wednesday 4 November, the Frontline Club marked the twentieth anniversary of the Dayton Agreement – the peace agreement that marked the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina – by welcoming a panel of those who helped shape negotiations at the time, and who reported on the three year conflict.

The discussion was moderated by Allan Little who reported on the war for the BBC. Anthony Loyd, foreign correspondent for The Times who reported on the Bosnian war in 1993 and wrote about his experience in My War Gone By, I Miss It So, recently returned to Bosnia for the first time in 20 years and kicked off the discussion.

Describing Bosnia as two countries, Loyd said: “In most of the towns they seemed as depopulated as they had done in the war… Sectarian divisions were more glaring than ever before and had been entrenched by Dayton. It seemed a sad and zombified place.”

Kemal Pervanic survived the atrocities of the Omarska concentration camp and has since dedicated his work to education and reconciliation in Bosnia. He painted a picture of a country whose youth are seeking to heal the wounds of the past and look to the future. “There’s a crop of new people, born towards the end of the war, a small group of people who want to see real change.”

Describing the often tortuous reconciliation process, Pervanic told of a fellow volunteer who had tried to kill him during the war. “We reached a point where he kind of apologised to me,” he said. He also blamed the government for the country’s division, saying: “Politicians are driving a wedge between us and young people.”

Zrinka Bralo was a radio journalist in Sarajevo and came to London in 1993 where she has fought for social justice and refugees’ rights. She described how “consumerism and capitalism [had] moved in and glossed over” many of the country’s issues, particularly the lack of democracy in the Bosnian constitution which reserves the highest political positions, including the Presidency, to three “constituent peoples” – Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats.

Paddy Ashdown served as high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union special representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina from May 2002 until January 2006. He was instrumental in ensuring the success of Dayton in the early years. His outlook for the country’s future was bleak. “The sky is darkening in Bosnia, by the day, by the month and by the year,” he said.

Ashdown was particularly critical of the international community for failing maintain peace and stability in the country. “It takes a long time to wash away the aftermath of conflict. You need strategic patience to see it through and the international community has failed to see it through.”

He described the first ten years after the Dayton agreement as “brilliant” but through neglect, the progress of the country “has been allowed to unravel.”

"The international community is going to do f*ck all for us," @KemalPervanic on Bosnia's problems @frontlineclub pic.twitter.com/gZZM92W2Uw

— Harriet Agerholm (@HarrietAgerholm) November 4, 2015

Bralo and Ashdown both spoke of a country returning to a “three mono-ethnic state” – Bosniak, Serb and Croat – in which multi-ethnicity is in “severe danger.” Bralo lamented the fact that Jews and Protestants are blocked from standing for president.

Among the audience questioners was Clive Baldwin, a lawyer for Jakob Finci, a Bosnian Jew who successfully launched an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights on the basis that Bosnia’s Constitution violates the European Convention on Human Rights. Baldwin pointed out that six years later nothing has been done and the constitution has not been changed. “It’s because Europe has given up on Bosnia,” Ashdown said.

Bralo agreed, saying: “Bosnia wanted to become more like Europe but Europe is becoming more like Bosnia.”

Pervanic, to the agreement of the panel, identified the youth and grassroots level initiatives as the key to the country’s development. Ashdown added: “They need time and need to get rid of generation that ran the war. The people in charge are exactly the same people at Dayton and they use peace for the same purposes of the war. They need to create a state were younger people can break through.”

The complex situation of the French-led intervention in Mali and the issues in the surrounding region was untangled somewhat on 6 February 2013 at the Frontline Club’s First Wednesday: A new front in the fight against terrorism?

Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House was the chair and started things off by asking the panel to give their impressions of the region.

Ibrahima Diane, a journalist and editor at BBC Afrique, said that common thought is that the fight is between “Islamists against the southern Mali and it’s more complex than that”.

Wilfred Willey, president of the Malian Community Council in the UK, reinforced Diane‘s point that the complexities must be understood:

“Mali has known several rebellions since it took its independence in 1960. But none of them have had the impact and severity that this one has brought.”

Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News’ International Editor, who had returned from Mali only two days before said that the Malian people are rejoicing now that François Hollande has intervened, but “liberator soon becomes occupier”. There is “hatred and vitriol” building for the Tuareg, a nomadic community spread out over Mali, Niger and Algeria, with people looking for who to blame for Mali’s situation.

The debate moved on to the complex number of forces in the region: the MNLA, Ansar Dine, Al Qaeda, Mujao and the Signed-in-Blood Battalion. While some of these forces have been around for years before the Arab Spring, there are some more opportunistic rebel groups who have, as Willey pointed out, “used the opportunity to have a go and take over the whole region”, such as the Signed-in-Blood Battalion who instigated the Algerian hostage situation.

On the question of whether Hollande was right to intervene in Mali, Willey had no doubt that it was the best thing to do at the time:

“There were those on the frontline who had lost all hope . . . and their intervention gave that hope back. . . . Mali has suffered up to 10 months under the Sharia law. . . . We just wanted someone to come and help us with these people. So yes, the French were right to intervene.”

But what should be done going forward in Mali?

Lord Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal Democrats and UN High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, said:

“The Prime Minister has said this will last 10 years. . . . If you think of Afghanistan and Iraq as a model for the next 10 years then you’re going the wrong way and my worry is that a prevailing thought that is in Whitehall at present.

“Using the purely military option as we did in Afghanistan, as we did in Iraq, and as we’re in danger of doing in Mali, not only doesn’t work . . . but anyway we can’t do it. We don’t have the troops any longer, we don’t have the resources, we don’t have the defence budgets. And actually that may be rather a good thing. If this lasts 10 years, it’ll be because we do this in a different, cleverer, smarter way.

“We get ahead of the curve. . . . We begin to use all the networks of skill that we have in order to build up the structures in those countries so that they can do this job for themselves.”

“I want to be optimistic about the fate of Mali and the fate of this region,” Diane said about the next move for Mali and its elections later this year.

Ashdown disagreed, he thought that creating a rule of law would have a greater effect:

“In a post-conflict country . . . if you do not first of all create the rule of law as best you can . . . [elections] will embed the corrupt structures into the process of an elected government.”

Hilsum finished off with a final thought about the people she had met throughout her time in Mali:

“For me the most important thing is that there has to be a process which involves reconciliation, . . . the rule of law and the installing of human rights. Because if you don’t have that then the people I’ve met and . . . have been very excited and delighted at this intervention, those people will be let down and those people’s lives will never improve.”

Watch the full discussion below:

You can watch highlights from this event here.

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By Joseph Stashko

Almost 15 years after the Dayton Agreement, the future of Bosnia is still very uncertain.

That was the unanimous agreement by the panel at last night’s Frontline Club, comprising of Paddy Ashdown, Kemal Pervanic, founder of Most Mira charity, and chaired by Allan Little, the BBC correspondent who spent many years covering Yugoslavia.

If you couldn’t join us for this event, you can watch our video feed of the entire thing here:

Pervanic, a survivor of the Omarska concentration camp, spoke of his experiences during the Bosnian War, but also about what steps should be taken in order to establish long term peace in the region:

As a Bosnian, I have to vote for a Serb or a Croat. I want to vote for someone who votes for free healthcare, free travel, but currently we have people in power where the system suits them. That keeps them in power, and as a citizen I can’t change that with my vote. We need real leadership.

Lord Ashdown agreed, but added that “You cannot create a sustainable peace until the thin crust of those who ran the war are out of the way. Only then can you start to rebuild.”

He continued by saying that the EU must be able to risk a short term crisis by setting standards for Bosnia and adhering to them. Warning that there may be factions who are willing to disrupt the whole process of rehabilitation, Ashdown emphasised that Bosnia had to “draw a line and move beyond this”.

Both Ashdown and Pervanic agreed on the notion of historical honesty, that all involved parties had to admit their failings in the past and progress with the present.

Pervanic described his experiences in forgiving people and moving on:

Those who tried to kill you, they’re still humans. In the end, I succeeded in forgiving people, and I chose to move on from the past by helping to improve my environment, rather than feeling sorry for myself.

For more on how Pervanic approached his own resolution, listen to this Audioboo:

He was also appearing to promote awareness of his charity, Most Mira. The project is run by a group of Bosnian and English volunteers, and its’ goal is to provide opportunities for young people in the Prijedor region of Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Pervanic finished by emphasising his disillusionment with the ability of politicians to create change, saying:

There is no will on behalf on politicians to make the change. You can’t just wait around for them to help you, you have to do it yourselves. That’s why Most Mira is relevant.

You can read more about his experiences of living in prison camps in his book; The Killing Days: My Journey through the Bosnian War.

If you missed the talk, you can see our Twitter feed below:

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With crucial post-war elections due in October this year we will be discussing present-day Bosnia and asking what lies ahead: How fragile is the peace established by the Dayton Agreement that ended the 1992-1995 war?

With the 3 October elections and the trial of ex Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, at the Hague, the months ahead are likely to be critical for Bosnia.

Paddy Ashdown, former High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina will be in conversation with Kemal Pervanic, founder trustee of Most Mira, who is a survivor of the Omarska concentration camp and author of The Killing Days: My Journey through the Bosnian War, and Allan Little, BBC correspondent in Former Yugoslavia 1991 – 1995.

Kemal Pervanic will also be talking about his return to the area with the Most Mira charity to bring together Serb and Bosnian Muslim young people in the Omarska Prijedor area for annual arts festivals.

 Photocredit: blandm via a creative commons licence 

What is it to endorse and vote Labour? Principally, it is to vote for the party of cosying up to the banks and super-rich in order to bestow on them fabulous wealth at crippling public expense, and create the widest gap between the richest and the poorest since the early 1960s. It is to vote for the party which took Britain vaingloriously into an illegal war on the basis of a pack of lies. It is to vote for obsessive authoritarianism and survelliance of a bludgeoned, stressed out one-nation-under-CCTV. It is to vote for the overpaid civil servant, for education cuts and tuition fees, bumper bonuses and bank bailouts. It was under a Labour government which promised to eradicate child poverty that London won the Olympic games: but in the Olympic city, 19 per cent of children now live below the poverty line.  Under such circumstances, one would expect the Conservatives to be romping home with the same incomprehensible public euphoria that propelled Tony Blair to power 13 years ago. But, after their initial spurt in the polls, not even Labour’s wreckage seems to be able to muster much enthusiasm for the Bullingdon Tories. The true-blue base will of course turn out as usual. Many will transfer from Labour in pursuit of novelty value or out of lack of imagination – and a few even more desperate liberals will be voting Eton, after visions of David Cameron reigning in the City, calling off the bailiffs, dismantling surveillance cameras, curbing energy prices – and just generally getting the trains they privatised into becoming the worst and most expensive in Europe to run on time. What a rude shock awaits them: for what is a vote for the Conservatives? The launch issue of Frontline last year carried an article called ‘Looted Britain’, about the smash-and-grab of this country’s ‘Family Silver’ as Harold MacMillan called it, by an oligarchy of free-market zealots both Labour and Conservative.  Perhaps there are enough people who remember that to vote Conservative is to vote for the destruction of the country’s proud manfufacturing base (of a kind kept by the Germans and French), the sleazy sell-off of those utility companies and railways in the first place and the prospect of losing the little that is left of infrastructure in Britain.

Some might be tempted to flee to the Liberal Democrats, who can afford to appear as angelic as they do because they have never had to govern and never will, since the two so-called ‘main parties’ have stitched up the electoral system to ensure just that. They might well, however, hold the balance of power.  This third party is best judged not by what it promises it could never do in government, but what it does in local government, when it gets the chance to give us a glimpse of its real self. On Merseyside, the Lib Dems have supervised the wholesale demolition of a city, to build a vast, white elephant shopping mall. On Tyneside, they have similarly packaged a downtown showroom while failing utterly to rennovate the ragged edges.  In Southwark, the party is so adept at managing public housing that a crowded block of flats lethally caught fire through negligence, while anyone trying to live on water along the Thames is extorted and threatened into homelessness. The Lib Dems have a European vision, but no record at local level to qualify them nationally and little national credibility since Paddy Ashdown’s leadership.

A vote for a minor party may be a tempting option for various communities: environmentalists (The Greens), fascists (BNP), nostalgics (Scargill) or ridiculous little-Englanders (UKIP).  But even more than for the Lib Dems, the system is rigged so as to rob anyone so inclined of even the voice one might enjoy in another country.

The MPs’ expenses scandal, and its minimal impact on the political class, helps to demonstrate what kind of political parties now claim newspapers’ endorsements and public votes.  The political class demonstrated that it acts as a body, in its own interests and its own interests only. To behold the parties strut their mediocrity – in Parliament, on ‘Question time’ and in the embryonic hustings – is an insult to the people in a time of recession and crisis. They demonstrate no more than that the differences between them are ersatz and non-existent, and that none are capable of meeting the challenge of rebuilding this battered, looted country.

Frontline considers that for a publication to endorse any political party at this election is to demean itself, and that for citizens to flatter any party with a vote is to demean themselves.  There may come a time – but it is unlikely – when “None Of The Above” is an option on the ballot paper, as it is in some countries – and were that option to exist now, it would probably be the number one choice. There may even come a time when the parties reform themselves and cease to dumb down the discourse and with them the country. But until they do, there is nothing honourably to do but vote for a devolutionary or separatist party in Scotland or Wales, a party comitted to peace in Northen Ireland, an independent in England, or – rather than stay at home – spoil the ballot, with humour or otherwise.