A mild defence of Belgium

In Belgium, First World War memorials bear rousing inscriptions such as “POUR LA PATRIE” AND “GESNEUVELD VOOR HET VADERLAND”, but seem reluctant to give this “Patrie” or “Vaderland” a name.

Is this because Belgium is a completely artificial state with more in common with Bosnia, a country that struggles to command the loyalty of most of its population, than with Switzerland, which grew organically into a state with a strong identity? Opponents of European integration are particularly keen proponents of this view, seeing Belgium as a kind of prototype for the grander project of breaking down linguistic barriers across the continent to create a European superstate.

But those who wish to defend national identity against the anti-historical cultural vandalism of the European Union should perhaps be wary of denigrating Belgium, which in Britain at least, is sneeringly dismissed as both artificial and boring. Opponents of Belgium’s existence are fond of pointing out that it was created in 1831 by foreigners against the wishes of most of its inhabitants, in contrast to Switzerland’s much more gradual and consensual emergence as an independent state, a process that began in 1291.

But the similarities between Belgium and Switzerland could be much more important than the very different ways in which they came into being.

Perhaps the most important similarity is that, while both countries are made up of populations that speak the same languages as inhabitants of neighbouring countries, the Swiss and the Belgians do not see these countries as their home nations. The inhabitants of Geneva and Liege are French-speaking, but they are no more French than the citizens of Swansea and Glasgow are English. People from Antwerp speak Dutch and people from Zurich speak German, but they are not Dutch or German. In this regard, Belgium has much more in common with Switzerland than with Bosnia, where Serbs look to Serbia as their homeland and Croats to Croatia.

So the suggestion, made by some who see Belgium as an artificial state, that it should split into two, with Flanders joining the Netherlands and Wallonia France, may be problematic. It is difficult to see how this could be achieved without trampling over the Flemings’ and Walloons’ distinct identities, which have been shaped by hundreds of years of separation from their supposed mother countries. Flying the French tricolour from town halls in Liege and Charleroi in Wallonia and the Dutch flag in Antwerp and Ostend in Flanders would in many ways be just as artificial as the imposition of the EU flag.

Maybe Flanders and Wallonia could respectively join the Netherlands and France in the same way England and Scotland came together to form the United Kingdom in 1707? But it seems highly questionable that either Flanders and the Netherlands or Wallonia and France could emulate this unique coming together of nations. Would the highly-centralised French Republic, with its population of more than 60 million people, be willing to undergo the sweeping constitutional changes needed to create a federation with a territory of less than three-and-a-half million inhabitants? Conversely, would the 16 million Dutch welcome a merger with a new federal unit containing six million people? This seems doubtful.

Paradoxically, a union between Flanders and Wallonia may be the best way for these territories to preserve their distinct identities precisely because of the insurmountable differences between them. Flanders and Wallonia could easily be swallowed up by the Netherlands and France, but within Belgium, they will always be protected by the linguistic division between them.

Bihac, 1995

Many people believe that Croatia’s defeat in August 1995 of the Croatian Serb para-state, ‘Republika Srpska Krajina’ (RSK), prevented a repeat of the Srebrenica massacre in Bihac, a besieged town in northwest Bosnia.

This may not be the case. The besieged area around Bihac town was much larger than the Srebrenica enclave had been and was mostly territory that had always been nearly 100% Bosniak (Muslim). The pre-war Serb population in Bihac municipality was significant, but in Cazin, the municipality north of Bihac, it was less than 1%. Further north, the Serbs were propping up Fikret Abdic, a local Bosniak politician who had broken away from the Sarajevo leadership to establish an “autonomous province” around Velika Kladusa, another overwhelmingly Bosniak municipality. These municipalities were of little interest to the Serbs.

Referring to the Serb attack on Bihac of late 1994, the VRS general in charge of the operation, Manojlo Milovanovic, claimed in an interview that he was ordered not to take Bihac town. This is in keeping with the previously stated Serb objective to establish the border of the Serb state on the Una, a river that runs through Bihac. One of the Serbs' main objectives was to control the strategically important railway line that ran from the main Bosnian Serb controlled city Banja Luka to the RSK ‘capital’ Knin via the outskirts of Bihac, and also linked the two limbs of the RSK.

The situation was similar in August 1995 when the Serbs, who had captured Srebrenica the previous month, turned their attention to Bihac. They were again supporting Fikret Abdic, who had been reinstalled in Velika Kladasa in late 1994 having been ejected from the region by the Bihac-based 5^th Corps of the ARBiH (Bosnian Army) earlier in the year. Given that his forces joined the Serbs in their attack on the 5^th Corps, it seems possible that had they succeeded in defeating the 5^th Corps they would have left Abdic in control of Velika Kladusa, Cazin and part of Bihac, including the town. It is possible that the Abdic forces would have massacred soldiers and civilians if they had taken control of Bihac. It is also possible that the Serbs would have preferred to enter Bihac town themselves and committed atrocities worse than the Srebrenica massacre the previous month. Perhaps they also would not have tolerated the presence of a densely populated island of Bosniak territory wedged between the RSK and the Republika Srpska and cast Abdic aside once he was no longer useful to them, emptying Cazin and Velika Kladusa of its Bosniak population. 

But the other possibility, that they may have left Abdic in long-term control of Cazin, Velika Kladusa and part of Bihac municipality, including the town, seems to have been given very little consideration.

Some thoughts on the local elections in Bosnia

A pattern seems to be emerging in the Central Bosnia canton, one of the two “mixed” cantons in the Bosniak-Croat Federation that was established in 1994.


In the 2004 mayoral elections, Jajce, previously a Croat-controlled municipality having been captured from the Serbs by the HVO (Bosnian Croat Army) in the dying days of the Bosnian war, elected an SDA (Bosniak nationalist) mayor. In the 2008 mayoral elections, the SDA took Busovaca and Novi Travnik, previously part of a crescent-shaped sliver of Croat-dominated municipalities surrounded by Bosniak-majority territory.

Yesterday it was the turn of Vitez, which became the fourth previously Croat-controlled municipality in the canton to come under the control of the SDA, although an examination of the voting figures suggests one should not read too much into this particular result. The percentage of the electorate voting for Croat mayoral candidates in Vitez actually rose from 60% in 2008 to 62% in 2012, with the SDA profiting from a split in the Croat vote. The Croat vote also held up at 46% in Busovaca, which was a straight contest between the Croat nationalist HDZ and the victorious SDA, and in Jajce, the Croat vote rose to 46% from 44% in 2008.

But in Novi Travnik, which the SDA held, the Croat vote fell from 56% in 2008 (when the SDA benefited from a split in the Croat vote) to 38% in 2012, while in Kiseljak, which the HDZ won, it declined to 64% from 70%.  In Zepce, a Croat enclave in the Bosniak-dominated Zenica-Doboj canton, 55% of votes went to explicitly Croat parties, compared with 60% last time, although the left-wing SDP, which is seen by many Croats as a party representing Bosniak interests, fielded a Croat candidate rather than a Bosniak one, which may have swung some Croat voters.

The picture is complex, but the dramatic falls in the Croat nationalist vote as a percentage of the total in Novi Travnik, Kiseljak and Zepce point to a weakening of the Croat position in the Central Bosnia and Zenica-Doboj cantons, a trend that is symbolised by the SDA’s victory in Vitez yesterday.

Local elections and ethnic consolidation in Bosnia

It is interesting to note that in the Muslim-Croat war of 1993-1994, neither side was able to capture any municipalities in which the other group had been in the majority on the eve of the war.

The most bitter fighting was over the municipalities in which no group had been in the majority according to the 1991 census, such as Mostar, Bugojno, Zepce and Fojnica. Most such municipalities were by the end of the fighting either like Mostar territorially divided between Croats and Muslims (known as Bosniaks from 1994) or under the control of the group that had made up the largest percentage of its population. The exceptions were two municipalities that prior to the war had a Muslim plurality but fell under Croat control, Zepce and Stolac, and another, Vares, which previously had a Croat plurality but was captured by the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) in October 1993.

In 1995, the Bosnian Croat Army (HVO) captured Jajce, another municipality that prior to the war had a Muslim plurality, from the Serbs,so at the end of the Bosnian war, the Croats controlled three municipalities where Bosniaks had previously been the largest group, while the Bosniaks controlled one where Croats had been most numerous.

Jajce became part of the Central Bosnian canton, one of the two “mixed” cantons that had been established by the Washington Agreement of 1994 that ended the Muslim-Croat war, while Stolac became part of the other “mixed” canton, Herzegovina-Neretva. Although “mixed”, it was quite clear when these cantons were established that the Bosniaks would be stronger in the Central Bosnia canton, while Croats would be the predominant group in Herzegovina-Neretva. Many Bosniaks returned to Jajce, often in the face of opposition from local Croats, and the municipality in 2004 elected a Bosniak mayor, but Stolac remains under firm Croat control.

Jajce is not the only municipality in the Central Bosnia Canton to move from Croat to Bosniak control. In the 2008 local elections, mayoral candidates from the main Bosniak political party, the SDA, won in Novi Travnik and Busovaca, which previously had Croat mayors. This is interesting because prior to the war they both had – albeit marginal – Croat pluralities. Novi Travnik and Busovaca may come to be seen as the second and third previously Croat-plurality municipalities to “fall” to the Bosniaks, 14 years after  Vares. The Croat “loss” of these three municipalities means that the Bosniaks have a 3-2 advantage in terms of control of municipalities where the other group was more populous in 1991. Elsewhere in the central Bosnia canton, Novi Travnik and Busovaca could even eventually be joined by Vitez, the previously Croat-plurality municipality that connects them and possibly even Kiseljak which was 52% Croat and 41% Muslim according to the 1991 census, so would be the first municipality in which one group had been in the majority to come under the control of the other group.

Zepce, which is in the Bosniak-dominated Zenica-Doboj canton, still has a Croat mayor, but this is something of an anomaly, because its borders were altered in 2001 to take in mainly Croat areas of the neighbouring municipalities of Zavidovici and Maglaj. Nevertheless the border alterations may not be enough to secure Croat predominance there permanently.

The SDA is highly unlikely to take control of Zepce, Vitez and Kiseljak in the local elections next month and Dobretici in the central Bosnia canton and Usora in Zenica-Doboj, two tiny Croat municipalities that were created after the Dayton accords, will elect Croat mayors as will Kresevo in the Central Bosnia canton. But the election results are likely to show a gradual consolidation of Bosniak predominance in these cantons.

In the Hercegovina-Neretva Canton, meanwhile, Stolac is likely to remain under firm Croat control despite the previous Muslim plurality and substantial Bosniak returns to that municipality. Interestingly, and perhaps in recognition of which way the wind is blowing, the SDA will not field a mayoral candidate there, or in Capljina, another municipality in the canton that before the war had a large Croat population.

The immediate fallout of the Muslim-Croat war was a rigid but very untidy division between the two populations, with areas controlled by each group spattered across territory dominated by other group. Conversely, Croats and Bosniaks are now much more intermingled, but it seems that a neat division corresponding to the Croat- and Bosniak-dominated cantons, including the "mixed" cantons, is emerging. Next month’s local elections could show this trend continuing.

With the benefit of hindsight: Croatian operations in Bosnia in 1995

Croatian Army (HVO) and Bosnian Croat Army (HVO) operations in Bosnia in 1995 helped pave the way for the much-celebrated defeat of the Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK), the part of Croatia that had been occupied by Serbs since 1991. Other benefits of these operations, which continued until well after the RSK collapse, are less easy to discern.

The first major success of the HV and HVO in Bosnia in 1995 was the capture of Bosansko Grahovo,a town in Western Bosnia, in July. This put the Croats in a position to advance towards Knin, the capital of the RSK, from two directions, which they did the following month during “Operation Storm”, the action that led to the collapse of the RSK. The operation in July also saw the Croats capture Glamoc, a town to the West of Bosansko Grahovo. Though part of an operation that was directed at Knin, the capture of Glamoc also put the Croats in a strong position to advance towards Jajce, from which they had been expelled following the Serb takeover in 1992. Bosansko Grahovo and Glamoc were prior to the war majority Serb towns with negligible Croat populations, so were of no interest from an ethnic point of view, but Jajce had been 35% Croat and was an attractive target.

The Serbs were on the ropes after Operation Storm and the HV/HVO and the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) began advancing in September, the HV/HVO towards Jajce and the ARBIH south and east out of the Bihac pocket, which had been besieged by the Serbs before Operation Storm, and in parallel with the northward Croat advance towards Jajce.

The Croats captured Drvar, Sipovo and Jajce, while the ARBiH’s Bihac-based 5^th Corps captured Sanski Most, Bosanski Petrovac, Kljuc and Bosanska Krupa and its 7^th Corps took Donji Vakuf. The ultimate prize for both the HV/HVO and the ARBiH was Banja Luka, the biggest city in Serb-controlled Bosnia. Capturing Jajce put the Croats in a position of strength vis-a-vis the ARBiH and prevented a link up between the 5^th and 7^th Corps. Nevertheless, the 5^th Corps was still in a possible position to advance on Banja Luka and, following its successes earlier in September, advanced towards Mrkonjic Grad. Further north it was advancing on Bosanski Novi and Prijedor.

Keen to advance towards Banja Luka before the ARBiH, the HV on 18 September opened up a new front, attacking the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) across the river Una at three points along the Bosnia-Croatia border between Bosanski Novi (described Novi Grad on the above map) and Bosanska Dubica. The attack was a total failure, resulting in many HV deaths and a retreat back across the river.

The Croats made a final push towards Banja Luka in October, capturing Mrkonjic Grad, but under strong American pressure failed to advance any further.

The Croats captured six Bosnian towns during 1995. They also pushed the Serbs away from the Western Bosnian border with Croatia, which must have seemed like an advantage at the time, and gained control of Bosnian territory separating the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) heartland around the cities of Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla and the Bosniak-dominated Bihac pocket, which could be an advantage in any future negotiations with the Bosniaks. Eastern Slavonia, the part of Croatia bordering Serbia, was still under Serb control at this time, so capturing Serb territory in Bosnia may have helped to persuade the Serbs that they would have to give it up.

But Croat gains seem meagre with the benefit of hindsight. Five of the six towns they captured, Bosansko Grahovo, Glamoc, Drvar, Sipovo and Mrkonjic Grad, were sparsely populated and had previously had large Serb majorities. The latter two were returned to Serb control by the Dayton agreements.

And the other town they captured, Jajce, had actually been slightly more Muslim (39%) than Croat (35%) before the war. The Washington Agreement that ended the conflict between the Croats and the Muslims in 1994, establishing a Muslim-Croat Federation made up of cantons,  placed Jajce in a “mixed” canton in which Bosniaks were more numerous than the Croats rather than in a Croat-majority canton. Though the HVO capture of Jajce ensured that it was in reality under Croat control in the years after the war, facilitating the return of its Croat population, Bosniaks have also been returning and are now more numerous. The contours of a division between Croat and Bosniak spheres based on cantonal borders within the Muslim-Croat Federation may gradually be taking shape. The Bosnian newspaper Dnevni List earlier this year reported that the Federation’s Prime Minister Nermin Niksic highlighted the financial benefits of merging some of the cantons. Such a reorganisation would merge the “mixed” central Bosnian canton, which includes Jajce, with other Muslim-majority cantons, while the other “mixed” canton (centred on the city of Mostar and in which Croats are more numerous than Bosniaks) would merge with two Croat-majority cantons. So even the symbolically important capture of Jajce may not turn out to be a lasting victory from a Croat point of view.

Aside from the questionable territorial gains the Croats made in Bosnia in 1995, they also seem to have been motivated by the desire to curry favour with the West, which wanted to bring the Serbs to the negotiating table and to confine them to 49% of Bosnia’s territory, and to gain the status of a regional power. Both objectives were met to an extent, although the claim to have achieved the latter looks rather empty in retrospect, particularly in light of the demise of the planned confederation between Croatia and the Federation, which was still on the agenda before the Dayton agreement. To actually gain enough power to redraw the Bosnian map in their favour, the Croats would have had to capture Banja Luka, giving them strong leverage over both Serbs and Bosniaks. But they failed to do this and now see themselves as an oppressed minority in a Muslim-dominated Federation. Many must wonder whether it was worth engaging in military operations after Operation Storm at all.