Original scientific paper
Gerard TOAL
; School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech., SAD
Carl DAHLMAN
; Department of Geography, Miami University of Ohio, SAD
Abstract
Has ethnic cleansing succeeded? Geographies of minority
return and its meaning in Bosnia-Herzegovina
The paper describes the geopolitical strategy of ethnic cleansing as it was
used in pursuit of state-breaking and state-making in Bosnia-Herzegovina
during the 1992-1995 war. It considers the question of whether this strategy
worked in the sense that it left a segregated population and exclusionary
political geography in Bosnia ten years after Dayton. The paper presents
two geographies of post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina which relate to the
legacy of ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is discussed as a gepolitical
strategy that yields a political geography characterized by the massive
population displacement brought by nationalists' effort to segregate and
partition Bosnia. Although ethnic cleansing was succesfull in dividing
population and territory acording to the nationalists' maps, The Dayton
Peace Accord that ended the war contained provisions that eventually led
to considerable return migration by displaced persons, udoing the
exclusivity of the war's political geography. The paper provides maps of
the geography of return to describe and analyze the effect to which the
effort to promote minority returns over the last decade has ameliorated the
political geography of ethnic cleansing. The paper then analyzes the
meanings ascribed to Bosnia-Hercegovina's current population and territory
ten years after Dayton. Nationalist politicians, international diplomats,
observers and journalists are among those disseminating new visions of the
meaning of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which make claims about persistence of
nationalism or the condition of human rights in post-war Bosnia. Their
depiction of Bosnia as either yet broken by nationalism or near fixed by
international community does not describe properly the actual lived spaces
in post-war Bosnia. We argue, instead, that Bosnia must be understood as a
new political space that defies the purity of nationalist visions and also fails
to satisfy the wish of a truly heterogeneous society. Ethnic cleansing has
not succeded nor has it yet been reversed.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
67085
URI
Publication date:
15.9.2007.
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