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Mladen Ancic(1999).
Who erred in Bosnia-the gap between history and politics.

Political publications - Osijek, Zagreb, Split. Pan Liber

Was it a war for the independence of three newly emergent states - Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina - against the aggression of the former Yugoslavia, or was it a civil war? Mladen Ancic poses this fundamental question in his book. In his search for an answer, he considers the fact that the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina did not conclude with a victory or defeat for any of the three parties (which gives credence to all three interpretations), and attempts to come to a conclusion about who actually erred in Bosnia.

Ancic, a young Croatian historian - facts which are not insignificant in understanding his approach, methods, arguments and conclusions - tries to respond from a certain historical distance to the obvious fact that the Bosnian issue, in spite of the efforts of the entire world, is still not resolved, political responses to the crises were not successful, and efforts of world politicians were in vain.

By means of a thorough dissection in which he uses strong historical documentation, he shows the impossibility of the Dayton project and of any Bosnia based upon the principle of force and the predominance of only one of its nations. Ancic locates the roots of this Bosnian knot in the history of Bosnia, and in the omnipresent pejorative syntagma used by foreign politicians, experts, and journalists to explain an often incomprehensible and unresolvable issue, i.e.: "the centuries-long hatred" or "actions of the political elite which brought the nations into conflict."
Through a series of chapters which address and direct the basic question of his research - "Between history and politics", "civilization, history, and territory", "Era of the clash of civilizations", "Three Bosnias", "Who Erred in Bosnia", "Croatian role in Bosnia", "How to Understand Bosnia", "History Repeats Itself as a Farce", "Legend of the Bogomils and Bosniak-Muslims", "In the fog of Bosnian myths and legends" - he investigates the historical dimension.
Ancic divides the issue into three areas: interpreting the legal-state status and formation of Bosnia-Herzegovina through history, the creation and articulation of collective identity and relations toward legal-state territory (two areas in which he feels he is most capable), and the third area, explanation of the national customs and traditions (about which he is less qualified; therefore, he does not enter into a more detailed discussion of this topic).

With the thoroughness of an historian, he collects historical facts with which he can successfully show how Bosnia is anchored by history to the past, and how it determines the present and the future. Today's political reality is rooted to the historical, psychological, sociological, religious, cultural, and political past of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and no type of force, artificial political theories, pressure, or political "engineering" can change this fact (just as the recent political develpments in BH after the last elections confirm Ancic's basic thesis on the need to recognize reality; that is, create a political configuration of the state which validates the will of all three nations).

Ancic addresses the responsibility held by outside factors in extending Bosnia's agony, and the stubborn efforts of the world to reject the facts which arise from the special historical-political development of this geographical area upon which three distinct national identities developed: Bosniak, Serbian, and Croatian. The obvious desire of these three nations for a guarantee of their biological security (from which flow all other national rights, freedoms, and obligations) and a state configuration which would grant them this freedom has been, subsequent to the recent actions during and after the elections, rejected, attacked, and characterized as "tribal, nationalistic, and exclusionary."

Ancic carefully and thoroughly discusses and interprets Bosnian history from the Middle Ages to the present day, and shows how the Ottoman invasion interrupted the process of national identification and the consolidation of those areas of the state which were then known as the Bosnian kingdom.

Political development was thereby frozen for four centuries. Often cited is Srecko Dzaja's research "Confessionality and Nationality of Bosnia and Herzegovina: pre-Emancipation Phase, 1463-1804 (R. Oldenburg Verla, Munich, 1984, Sarajevo, 1993) in which he concludes that Bosnia, after 1463, ceased to exist as a unified political entity (though it was hardly that prior to the Turkish occupation). Four centuries of Turkish rule brought to a halt all processes of national emancipation until 1878. Only the Franciscans passed on their Catholicism, and the Orthodox church promulgated the mythical strength of Dusan's empire.

The Bosnian Muslims, who resided on the edges of the empire, were entitled in the period when the Ottomans were the strongest, and when the Ottoman Empire disintegrated at the beginning of the 19th century, the Muslims, with their reawakened desire for national identity, become its most conservative element, and resisted reform by armed rebellion (Dragon of Bosnia).

The Congress of Berlin, like Dayton 120 years later, placed Bosnia under an Austrain protectorate. The consequence of this decision was that the Serbian and Croatian nations, thus far disenfranchised, allied themselves to their mother states of Serbia and Croatia, then a part of Austro-Hungary, while the Muslims rejected both these options, choosing to maintain the basic identity they have kept to the present day.

Austro-Hungary used the policy of "divide and conquer" to endorse the Muslims and impede the desire of the other two nations to unite with their mother states. Neither the first nor the second Yugoslavia was able to resolve this omnipresent issue of inequality of two nations and one religion. Tito finally resolved it by means of the 1974 Constitution, in which Muslims (on the basis of religion) are transformed into Muslims (on a basis of nationality) in order to put them between the Serbs and Croats and, by means of their equal status, attempt to save Yugoslavia (and at the same time, Bosnia and Herzegovina). With the reopening of the Bosnian Pandora's box at the end of the 80s, the Yugoslav crisis, and the war in the first half of the 1990s, the suppressed national desires of the three nations, (war brought about the Muslim-Bosniak national identity), broke out, and all attempts to reach a final resolution failed. Two of the nations, the Serbs and the Croatians, again sought assistance from their mother states, while the Bosniaks became the most fervent supporters of a Bosnian unitary state, as they saw in this a chance to reach their final goal: a state in which they would rule the other two nations by their predominant numbers. Bosniaks now attempted to overcome the historical discontinuity between Middle Ages Bosnia, which barely had the attributes of statehood, and modern Bosnia and Herzegovina by creating historical myths and legends - about the state and its Illyrian heritage, the existence of a continuous military history, language, culture, and religion (Bogomil). They hoped by this to create the historical foundations for a political resolution by which Bosnia and Herzegovina would function as an independent and autonomous state in which Bosniaks, the only legal successors, would predominate.

Since the final resolution - a military victory or defeat of one of the warring parties - would have been contrary to the principles of the new world order and the strategic interests of the great powers on the territory of southeastern Europe, the war was brought to a halt in Dayton.

At the same time, all the processes of political affirmation of the three nations in conflict were stopped and put on hold, though they could peacefully have reached a solution which validated their individual political desires. In Ancic's view, the most natural resolution would have been division and, finally, free elections and resolution.

It is the three nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina which are affected most by the delay and imposed political relations, and are the only factors truly interested in a lasting peace. Ancic, in the broadest chapter of his book, "Between history and politics" concludes that the war was a natural and almost unavoidable result of political events. In their delayed national identification, all three nations desired division and a consolidation of their own territory, as well as the setting of borders which would guarantee their security. Although some of the earlier proposals offered by the international community to resolve the crisis: three republics, national cantons, were closer to the wishes of the three nations, the Washington and Dayton Agreements ignored all of them.

The international factors attempted further to impose a unitary, multi-ethnic, civil Bosnia and Herzegovina, supporting in this way the Muslim idea of one, indivisible Bosnia and Herzegovina in which Bosniak-Muslims would dominate the others by the strength of their numbers. Thus the instability was prolonged, an instability which, according to Ancic, could be resolved, and he shows how by paraphrasing Cato's saying about Carthage; that is, that it should be destroyed, but the verb "destroy" is replaced by the verb "divide". His paraphrase goes thus: "Ceterum censeo Bosniam esse partiendam."

On the basic question of who erred in Bosnia in the conflict between Croatians and Muslims, Ancic analyzes data from both sides and concludes how the conflict could have arisen. Alija Izetbegovic, and the Muslims (who later became "Bosniaks") refused to directly acknowledge the Serb-Croatian conflict, and resisted joining forces with the side which was under attack. When they themselves were brutally attacked and found themselves unprepared, faced with defeat and biological extinction, they then assumed the role of victim-nation. They began to emphasize their national, religious, and cultural tolerance, and their civil and democratic orientation, values which were acceptable and understandable to the West. Croatians were characterized at every opportunity as their opposite, nationally intolerant, prepared to destroy the unitary state and form pacts with the enemy. The only step which would have freed Croatians from the label of "separatist" would have been their acceptance of Muslim domination under the auspices of a civil state. The thesis of Croatians as the guilty party in the conflict with the Muslims is rejected firmly by Ancic: "the only agreement with the Muslim partners which could have been reached in the first war years (1991-1992) would have been the complete surrender of the Croatian side. And nothing else!"

Ancic also touches upon Huntington's thesis of the clash of civilizations. Ancic sees a confirmation of Huntington's thesis in the example of Bosnia, and particularly the failed American policies which supported the "victim" based on their principles of idealism, morality, siding with the good, resisting evil and therefore "de facto" assisting in the creation of an Islamic state in Europe. He asserts that ignoring the latent danger from Islamic radicalism on the borders of Croatia was extremely dangerous, and the rejection of the Croats and the uncritical assistance to and enabling of a possible Islamization of the Bosnian state were strategically and politically incomprehensible.

Ancic believes the only means for resolving the current political "pat position" in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a "revision and adjustment of the Washington and Dayton Agreements, on the basis of equality of all three nations. This means that… if the Serbs have a right to Republika Srpska, then the same right applies to the Muslims and the Croatians." The precondition for this, according to Ancic, is a "redefinition of existing territorial arrangements, creating a balance between two basic demands: a) separate economic and defense capabilities; and b) territorial and geographical conditionality."

Both conditions require territorial exchanges which would mean an unavoidable transfer of populations. Ancic holds that this resolution is less costly than new bloodshed, and that it will be reached either by a new round of negotiations or a new war. Ancic concludes bitterly that "the wise person would opt for the former, but experience shows that intelligence was never the predominant factor here."

This book will certain not appeal to the creators of the current political projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who will categorize it as a nationalistic interpretation and justification for Croatian policies toward Bosnia and Herzegovina. The serious reader, however, will not reject the book, because he will utilize history to evaluate and attempt to resolve the issue of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and can find therein sufficient facts, figures, and connections to reach a richer understanding of the Bosnian "dark land". Ancic's historical arguments foresaw today's political developments. It is difficult to oppose his proposals for the resolution of the Bosnian crisis and reject his identification of those responsible for its prolongation. Due to inflexible political facts, there is continuing opposition to the current imposed political resolutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the refusal to submit deepens the continuing instability, and delays the entry of Bosnia and Herzegovina and surrounding countries into the family of European nations.

Miroslav Međimorec