From conflict resolution towards state building : the role of the international community and the European Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Once, one of the six Republics of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its particular geo-strategic position, was considered the heart of it. The peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina with same ethnic origins but multi-confessional affiliation have merged into a specifically Bosnian concept of unity within diversity. The complex confessional structure of the country was the key factor for its non-national foundation. Bosnia and Herzegovina was a multi-ethnic country, and according to the 1991 census, there were 44% of Bosnian Muslims, 31% of Bosnian Serbs (Orthodox Christian), 17% Bosnian Croats (Catholics). Others (Jews, Roma, Albanians and Yugoslavia) had the status as national minorities. Therefore, in the process of the dissolution of former Yugoslavia, there was a strong belief among the peoples that there could be neither territorial partition of nor social separation within Bosnia and Herzegovina.