The Dayton Peace Agreement

Peace negotiations to end the war in the territory of the former BiH were conducted at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio (United States of America), from November 1 to 21, 1995. The result of these talks was the agreed General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was formally ratified at a conference in Paris on December 14 of the same year.

Previous Peace Plans and Attempts

Various negotiations and plans concerning the establishment of peace and the regulation of relations between the warring parties, coordinated by different international entities, had been conducted since the first half of 1992. Some of these included: the Cutileiro Plan, the London Conference, the Vance-Owen Plan, the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan, the Washington Agreement, and the Contact Group Plan. Due to rejection by various parties, none of the above brought peace to the territory of the former Yugoslav republic. Alongside previously undertaken initiatives in international circles, the American administration created the conditions for the final cessation of armed conflicts in late 1995. The starting point for new negotiations consisted of basic principles, mostly accepted on September 8 in Geneva and September 26 in New York, along with military ceasefire agreements established concurrently on the ground.

Composition and Participants of the Dayton Conference

The conference was attended by delegations from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Republika Srpska, the Republic of Croatia, and the so-called Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Representatives of the United States were also present. The delegation of FR Yugoslavia was led by Slobodan Milošević, who, based on the agreement of August 29, 1995, had the authority to negotiate on behalf of Republika Srpska regarding issues concerning the Serbian people in BiH. The Republika Srpska delegation included Momčilo Krajišnik (head of delegation), Nikola Koljević – Vice President of Republika Srpska, Aleksa Buha – Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as a group of experts from various fields essential to the negotiations. The Croatian delegation was led by Franjo Tuđman, and the Sarajevo delegation by Alija Izetbegović. The United States representatives were led by Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke.

Course of Negotiations

The talks took place in an extremely tense atmosphere, marked by numerous disagreements and pressures. The territorial aspect of the internal division of Bosnia and Herzegovina caused the most friction. The principle of a 49% share of the territory for Republika Srpska and 51% for the Federation of BiH had already been accepted. These were the two entities that comprised BiH. Other factors were also subject to various negotiations, as were the relations among and within the delegations, all of which influenced the long and difficult course of the talks.

Initialing and Signing of the Agreement

Although the media reported on November 20 that a final agreement had been reached, negotiations continued into the next day. On November 21, the consent of all participating parties was finally achieved, and the agreement was initialed, practically ending the war. All that remained was to formalize the agreement with official signatures in Paris on December 14 and begin its implementation. The Paris ratification was performed by Milošević, Tuđman, and Izetbegović, in the presence of Bill Clinton, Javier Solana, Jacques Chirac, Viktor Chernomyrdin, and others.

Structure of the Peace Plan

The peace treaty consisted of twenty interconnected documents, nineteen of which were annexes to the core document—the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The agreement comprises two main parts: the military aspects of the peace settlement, which regulated relations between NATO forces and BiH, Croatia, and the FRY; and the civil aspects of the peace settlement, featuring eleven annexes containing provisions on the constitutional order, inter-entity boundaries, elections, human rights, and the return of refugees and displaced citizens.

Consequences and Significance of the Dayton Agreement

The implementation of the agreement involved a significant military presence and a key role for international political actors. Although the Dayton Peace Agreement halted one of the largest conflicts on European soil since World War II—a conflict that claimed just under 100,000 lives—none of the warring parties were fully satisfied with the accord. The existence of Republika Srpska as an entity within a decentralized, practically confederal state did not satisfy the Muslim authorities, who would continue their struggle in the following years for the political derogation of the Serbian entity, which possessed significant attributes of sovereignty. In this, they were supported by Western actors. Simultaneously, through the agreement, Republika Srpska lost significant parts of Sarajevo, leading to an exodus of approximately 150,000 Sarajevo Serbs, which represented a new tragedy in a series of wartime and, in this case, post-war events. Furthermore, Republika Srpska did not gain access to the sea, and some territories that had been majority-Serbian for centuries, such as those in the west around Drvar, Glamoč, and Grahovo, remained within the territory of the Federation of BiH.