Toni Cerkez, lecturer at the Tallinn University School of Governance, Law and Society.
As the EU grapples with growing instability at its periphery, Estonia has strong reasons to pay closer attention to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Though the two countries may seem worlds apart, both face pressures from rising illiberalism and Russian influence — embodied in Republika Srpska’s separatist leader Milorad Dodik, writes Toni Cerkez.
Why should Estonia care about what is going on in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H)? To many readers, this question might appear odd. The two countries (re)gained their independence at roughly the same time (Estonia in 1991 and B&H in 1992), but do not have much in common apart from that. Inspired by the looming visit of the EU’s high representative for foreign and security policy and Estonia’s former PM Kaja Kallas to Sarajevo (Kallas visited Sarajevo on April 8 — ed.), I argue in this essay that this is a misapprehension. The fact is, many Estonians do not know much about B&H and many B&H citizens do not know much about Estonia, but there are very strong reasons for us here in the northeast of Europe to care about this country in the southeast and to study and analyze what happens in it. I begin with a brief historical overview of B&H before presenting the arguments.
Historical context: From Ohio to Brussels
What most know about Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) is that there was a war. Lasting from 1992 to 1995, it followed the disintegration of Socialist Yugoslavia. The conflict in B&H was particularly complex due to its diverse population: Bosniaks (predominantly Muslim), Serbs (Orthodox), Croats (Catholic) and minorities such as Jews. No single group holds a clear majority and many are interconnected through historical and familial ties.
The war ended with the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) in December 1995, signed at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio by leaders of Serbia, Croatia and B&H. Among the most horrific events of the war was the Srebrenica Genocide, where Bosnian Serb paramilitary forces, supported by the Milošević regime, killed around 8,000 Bosniak civilians, mostly boys and men, July 11-15, 1995.
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