BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Republika Bosnia i Herzegovina

CAPITAL: Sarajevo

FLAG: Introduced in early 1998, the flag consists of a yellow triangle on a royal blue field, with a row of white stars running diagonally along the triangle's edge. The yellow triangle represents the country's three main ethnic groups, while the royal blue field and stars symbolize a possible future inclusion in the Council of Europe.

ANTHEM: Zemljo Tisucljetna (Thousand-Year-Old Land).

MONETARY UNIT: 1 convertible marka (km) = 100 convertible pfenniga. km1 = $0.00699 ($1 = km143) as of 2005.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES: The metric system is the legal standard.

HOLIDAYS: New Year's Day, 1–2 January; Labor Days, 1–2 May; 27 July; 25 November.

TIME: 1 pm = noon GMT.

LOCATION, SIZE, AND EXTENT

Bosnia and Herzegovina is located in southeastern Europe on the Balkan Peninsula, between Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro. Comparatively, Bosnia and Herzegovina is slightly smaller than the state of West Virginia, with a total area of 51,129 sq km (19,741 sq mi). Bosnia and Herzegovina shares boundaries with Croatia on the n, w, and s, Serbia and Montenegro on the e, and the Adriatic Sea on the s, with a total boundary length of 1,459 km (906 mi). Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital city, Sarajevo, is located near the center of the country.

TOPOGRAPHY

The topography of Bosnia and Herzegovina features hills, mountains, and valleys. Approximately 50% of the land is forested. The country has three main geographic zones: high plains and plateaus along the northern border with Croatia, low mountains in the center, and the higher Dinaric Alps which cover the rest of the country. Approximately 10% of the land in Bosnia and Herzegovina is arable. Bosnia and Herzegovina's natural resources include coal, iron, bauxite, manganese, timber, wood products, copper, chromium, lead, and zinc. Bosnia and Herzegovina is subject to frequent and destructive earthquakes.

CLIMATE

The climate features hot summers and cold winters. In higher elevations of the country, summers tend to be short and cold while winters tend to be long and severe. Along the coast, winters tend to be short and rainy. In July, the mean temperature is 22.5°c (72.5°f). January's mean temperature is 0°c (32°f). Annual rainfall averages roughly 62.5 cm (24.6 in).

FLORA AND FAUNA

The region's climate has given Bosnia and Herzegovina a wealth of diverse flora and fauna. Ferns, flowers, mosses, and common trees populate the landscape. Beech forests are found throughout the mountains, with spruce found at some higher altitudes. Wild animals include deer, brown bears, rabbits, fox, and wild boars.

ENVIRONMENT

Metallurgical plants contribute to air pollution. Ongoing interethnic civil strife has seriously damaged the country's infrastructure and led to water shortages. Urban landfill sites are limited. As of 2000, about 44.4% of the total land area is forested. Deforestation was not a significant problem. In 2003, only 0.5% of the total land area was protected. Hutovo Blato is a Ramsar wetland site. The Sutjeska National Park in the south covers an area of about 17,500 hectares (43,250 acres).

As of 2002, there were at least 72 species of mammals and 205 species of birds. According to a 2006 report issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), threatened species included 8 types of mammals, 8 species of birds, 1 type of reptile, 1 species of amphibian, 11 species of fish, 10 other invertebrates, and 1 species of plant. Endangered species include the slender-billed curlew, Danube salmon, and the field adder.

POPULATION

The population of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2005 was estimated by the United Nations (UN) at 3,840,000, which placed it at number 125 in population among the 193 nations of the world. In 2005, approximately 12% of the population was over 65 years of age, with another 18% of the population under 15 years of age. There were 94 males for every 100 females in the country. According to the UN, the annual population growth rate for 2005–10 was expected to be 0.1%, a rate the government viewed as too low. The government is concerned about high numbers of working-age people leaving the country and problems with reproductive health care practices. (An estimated 30% of all pregnancies end in abortion.) The projected population for the year 2025 was 3,677,000. The population density was 75 per sq km (195 per sq mi).

The UN estimated that 43% of the population lived in urban areas in 2005, and that urban areas were growing at an annual rate of 1.45%. The capital city, Sarajevo, had a population of 579,000 in that year.

Civil strife greatly reduced the population through war, genocide, and emigration. When the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed in 1996, there were an estimated two million Bosnian refugees and displaced persons. That year, there were an estimated 25,000 more deaths than births, creating a population decrease of 1%. By 2006 the population was no longer declining, but massive emigration continued to be a concern for the country's economic future.

MIGRATION

Many people living in Bosnia and Herzegovina fled the war that followed independence. In other countries, their numbers were lumped together with other refugees from "Yugoslavia" or "former Yugoslavia." As of 1999, more than 330,000 Bosnian refugees were still in need of a permanent home. An estimated 110,000 Bosnian refugees and 30,000 displaced people returned to their homes from outside and within Bosnia in 1998. Only some 41,000 minority returns occurred in 1998, and some 3,000 in 1999. In 2003, there were 330,000 internally displaced persons (IDP) within the country.

In 2005, the net migration rate was estimated as. 3 migrants per 1,000 population. Worker remittances in 2003 totaled $870 million. The government views the emigration level as unsatisfactory.

ETHNIC GROUPS

In 2002, about 48.3% of the people were Bosniak (Muslim) and 34% were Serbs. Croats made up about 15.4% of the populace.

LANGUAGES

Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian are all spoken.

RELIGIONS

Throughout its history, ethnicity and religion have served as flash points for conflict and changes in government. Ethnic groups tend to be closely linked with distinct religious affiliations; however, the rate of active religious participation is considered to be low. The Bosniaks are generally Muslim. As such, nearly 40% of the population is Muslim. The Serbs are generally Serbian Orthodox, a faith practiced by about 31% of the population. Most of the Serbian Orthodox live in the Republika Srpska. The Croats are primarily Roman Catholic, a faith practiced by about 15% of the population. Protestants account for about 4% of the population. Missionary groups include Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodists, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and Krishna Consciousness. There is a small Jewish community.

The constitution provides for freedom of religion and this right is generally respected in practice. In 2004, the state passed a Law on Religious Freedom which provides for greater freedom of religion and governs the legal licensing of religious groups.

TRANSPORTATION

Bosnia and Herzegovina's railway system, as of 2004, consisted of 1,021 km (634 mi) of standard gauge track, of which 795 km (494 mi) had been electrified. In 2002, there were 21,846 km (13,575 mi) of highways, of which 14,020 km (8,712 mi) were paved.

Ports include those at Bosanska Gradiska, Bosanski Brod, Bosanski Samac, and Brĉko. All are inland waterway ports on the Sava. However, none are fully operational. Large sections of the Sava are blocked by downed bridges, silt and debris. There is no merchant marine.

In 2004 there were an estimated 27 airports. Of these in 2005, eight had paved runways and there were also five heliports. In 2003, about 73,000 passengers were carried on scheduled flights.

HISTORY

Origins

Bosnia and Herzegovina occupies the area between historical Croatia-Slavonia to the north, Dalmatia to the south, and Serbia and Montenegro to the east/southeast. Populated in ancient times by Thracians, Illyrians, Celts, with Greek colonies since 400 bc, the area was taken over by the Romans around 168 bc. However, it took the Romans some one hundred and fifty years to gain control of the entire area, which they called Dalmatia Province. The most difficult aspect of their occupation was getting past the coastal cities to build roads to rich mining sites in the interior, which still maintained its native, Illyrian character in resistance to pressures to Romanize. Eventually, many Romanized Illyrians became important leaders in the Roman armies and administration and some even became emperors. The division of the Roman Empire into the western and eastern halves in ad 395 found Bosnia as the frontier land of the western half, since the dividing line ran south from Sirmium on the Sava river along the Drina River to Skadar Lake by the Adriatic coast.

Slavic tribes have been raiding and settling in the Balkan area in large numbers since the 5th century ad, moving in slowly from their original lands east of the Carpathian Mountains. These early Slavic settlers were joined in the 7th century ad by Croatian and Serbian tribes invited by Byzantine Emperor Heraclius to help him fight the Avars. The area of Bosnia and Herzegovina became the meeting ground of Croats (western area) and Serbs (eastern area). As medieval Bulgarians, Croatians, and Serbians developed their first states, Bosnia became a battleground among them and the Byzantine Empire. Christianization of the area was completed by the 9th century, when most of the Bosnian area came under the influence of Rome and Croats became Catholic, while most Serbs fell under the influence of the Byzantine Empire and became Eastern Orthodox.

The Bosnian area between the 9th and 11th centuries was essentially under Croatian influence when not conquered by Bulgarians, Serbs, or Byzantium. After Hungary and Croatia effected their royal union in ad 1102, Hungary took over Bosnia and the Dalmatian cities in 1136. Bosnia was then ruled by Croatian "Bans" under joint Hungarian-Croatian sovereignty. When the soldiers supplied by Ban Borić (r.1150–1167) to the Hungarian Army were defeated by Byzantium in 1167 at Zemun, Bosnia came under Byzantine rule. Hungary renewed its claim to Bosnia in 1185, during Ban Kulin's reign (1180–1204), which was marked by his independence from Hungary, partly due to the inaccessibility of its mountainous terrain.

Geography itself was an incentive to the local autonomy of Bosnia's individual regions of Podrina, Central Bosnia, Lower Bosnia, and Hum (today's Herzegovina). Each region had its own local hereditary nobility and customs, and was divided into districts (Župas ). The typical Bosnian family of this period had possession of its land without dependence on a feudal relationship to prince or king, as was the case in much of Europe. Bosnia was nominally Catholic under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Dubrovnik, who would consecrate a Bishop of Bosnia, usually from local Bosnian priests. These Bosnian Catholics used a Slavic liturgy and a modified Cyrillic alphabet called "Bosaniča" and had no knowledge of Latin. The region of Hum, on the other hand, was settled by Serbs in the interior, was mixed Orthodox and Catholic in the coastal area and mostly ruled by princes of the Serbian dynasty (Nemanja) until 1326.

The Catholic Church in Bosnia was isolated from the coastal areas and had developed its own Slavic liturgy and practices. These customs were suspect to the Latin hierarchy in both Hungary and the coastal cities. Ignorance of the language and customs of simple people and poor communications generated rumors and accusations of heresy against the Bosnian Church and Ban Kulin, its supposed protector. Kulin called a Church Council in 1203 at Bolino Polje that declared its loyalty to the Pope and renounced errors in its practices. Reports of heresy in Bosnia persisted, possibly fanned by Hungary, and caused visits by Papal legates in the 1220s. By 1225 the Pope was calling on the Hungarians to launch a crusade against the Bosnia heretics. In 1233, the native Bishop of Bosnia was removed and a German Dominican appointed to replace him. In spite of Ban Ninoslav's (1233–1250) renunciation of the "heresy," the Hungarians undertook a crusade in 1235–41, accompanied by Dominicans who were already erecting a cathedral in Vrhbosna (today's Sarajevo) in 1238. The Hungarians used the crusade to take control of most of Bosnia, but had to retreat in 1241 because of the Tartars' attack on Hungary. This allowed the Bosnians to regain their independence and in 1248 the Pope sent a neutral team (a Franciscan and a Bishop from the coastal town of Senj) to investigate the situation but no report is extant.

The Hungarians insisted that the Bosnian Church, which they suspected of practicing dualist, Manichaeic beliefs tied to the Bogomils of Bulgaria and the French Cathars, be subjected to the Archbishop of Kalocsa in Hungary, who it was thought would intervene to end these heretical practices. In 1252, the Pope obliged. However, no Bishop was sent to Bosnia itself—only to Djakovo in Slavonia—so this act had no impact on the Bosnian Church. The crusades against the Bosnian Church caused a deep animosity towards the Hungarians that in the long run weakened Bosnian's determination to resist the invasion of the Islamic Turks. Thus the Bosnian Church that professed to be loyal to Catholicism, even though it continued in its practice of ascetic and rather primitive rituals by its Catholic monastic order, was pushed into separation from Rome.

Around 1288, Stjepan Kotroman became Ban of the Northern Bosnia area. In his quest to consolidate all of Bosnia under his rule, though, he was challenged by the Šubić family of Croatia, who had taken over Western Bosnia. Paul I Šubić then expanded his family's area of control, becoming Ban of Bosnia and later, in 1305, Ban of All Bosnia. However, the power of the Šubić family declined in subsequent years, and Kotroman's son Stjepan Kotromanić was able to take control of Central Bosnia by 1318, serving as a vassal of the Croatian Ban of Bosnia, Mladen Šubić. Kotromanić then allied himself with Charles Robert, King of Hungary, to defeat Mladen Šubić, helping Kotromanić to consolidate his control over Bosnia, the Neretva River Delta, and over Hum, which he took in 1326 but lost in 1350 to Dušan the Great of Serbia. In recognition of the role the Hungarians had played in his consolidation of power in Bosnia, Ban Kotromanić gave his daughter Elizabeth into marriage to King Louis of Hungary in 1353, the year of his death.

Raised in the Orthodox faith, Kotromanić was converted to Catholicism by Franciscan fathers, an order he had allowed into Bosnia in 1342. The Franciscans concentrated their efforts at conversion on the members of the Bosnian Church (or Bogomili) and, by 1385, had built some 35 monasteries, four in Bosnia itself. Since most Franciscans were Italian and did not know the Slavic language, their effectiveness was not as great as it could have been and it was concentrated in the towns where numerous non-Bosnians had settled to ply their trades. During this period silver and other mines were opened which were administered by the townspeople of Dubrovnik. This influx of commerce helped in the development of prosperous towns in key locations and customs duties from increased trade enriched Bosnian nobles. A whole new class of native craftsmen developed in towns where foreign colonies also prospered and interacted with the native population, thus raising Bosnia's overall cultural level.

Kotromanić's heir was his nephew Tvrtko (r.1353–91) who would become the greatest ruler of Bosnia. Tvrtko could not command the loyalty of the nobles at first, however, and he soon lost the western part of Hum (1357) to Hungary as the dowry promised to King Louis of Hungary when he married Elizabeth, Kotromanić's daughter. But by 1363, Tvrtko had grown powerful enough to repel Hungarian attacks into Northern Bosnia. In 1366 Tvrtko fled to the Hungarian Court, having been unable to repress a revolt by his own nobles, and with Hungarian help regained his lands in 1367. In 1373 he obtained the upper Drina and Lim Rivers region. In 1377 he was crowned King of Bosnia and Serbia (his grandmother was a Nemanja) at the Mileševo monastery where Saint Sava, the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church, was buried. Between 1378 and 1385, Tvrtko also gained control of the coastal territory of Trebinje and Konavli near Dubrovnik, along with the port city of Kotor. In 1389, Tvrtko sent his troops to support the Serbian armies of Prince Lazar and Vuk Branković at the legendary Battle of Kosovo Polje. The battle itself was a draw but it exhausted the Serbs' capability to resist the further Turkish invasions. The Turks retreated, having suffered the death of Sultan Murad I, assassinated by a Serbian military leader, and Tvrtko's commander at Kosovo claimed victory. Having sent such a message to Italy, Tvrtko was hailed as a savior of Christendom. He had made a first step towards a possible unification of Bosnia and Serbian lands, but the Turks, and then his own death in 1391, made it impossible.

Bosnia did not disintegrate after Tvrtko's death, but was held together through a Council of the key nobles. The Council elected weak kings to maintain their own power and privileges. Tvrtko had no legitimate descendants so his cousin Dabiša (r.1391–95) was elected, followed by his widow Helen of Hum (r.1395–98), and then Stjepan Ostoja (r.1398–1404), opposed by Tvrtko II (r.1404–09), probably Tvrtko I's illegitimate son. Between 1404 and 1443, Bosnia witnessed civil wars between factions of the nobles taking opposite sides in the Hungarian wars of succession. Thus Stjepan Ostoja was returned to the throne from 1409 to 1418, followed by Stjepan Ostojić (r.1418–21), then Tvrtko II again (r.1421–43). During this period the Turks participated in Bosnian affairs as paid mercenaries, through their own raids, and by taking sides in the struggles for the Bosnian throne. The Turks supported Tvrtko II, who managed to rule for over 20 years by recognizing the sovereignty of both the Hungarians and Turks, and playing one against the other. After the Turks' conquest of Serbia in 1439 made them direct neighbors of Bosnia along the Drina River, Turkish raids into Bosnia increased. The Ottomans assumed a key role in internal Bosnian affairs and became the mediator for Bosnian nobles' quarrels. The Bosnian nobles and their Council clung to their opposition to a centralized royal authority, even though it could have mounted a stronger defense against Hungarians and Turks. Thus Bosnia grew ever weaker with the skillful maneuvering of the Turks. Twenty years after Tvrtko II's death, in 1443, the Turks conquered an exhausted Bosnia with a surprise campaign.

Herzegovina (named after the ruler of Hum, Stefan Vukćić who called himself Herzeg/Duke) was occupied by the Turks gradually by 1482, and the two regions were subject to the Ottoman Empire for the next 400 years until the 1878 takeover by Austria.

Under Ottoman Rule

The mass conversion of Bosnian Christians to Islam, a rather unique phenomenon in European history, is explained by two schools of thought. The traditional view recognizes the existence of a strong Bogomil heresy of dualism and social protest. These Bosnian Christians, having been persecuted by both Catholic and Orthodox Churches and rulers, welcomed the Ottomans and easily converted in order to preserve their land holdings. In doing so, they became trusted Ottoman soldiers and administrators. The other school of thought denies the existence of a strong and influential Bogomil heresy, but defines the Bosnian Christian church as a nativistic, anti-Hungarian, loosely organized religion with a Catholic theological background and simple, peasant-based practices supported by its monastic order. The rulers/kings of Bosnia were Catholic (with the single exception of Ostoja) and very tolerant of the Orthodox and so-called Bosnian religions. However, these religious organizations had very few priests and monks, and therefore were not very strong. The Bosnian Church was practically eliminated in 1459 through conversions to official Catholicism, or the forced exile of its leadership. Thus, by the time of the Turkish conquest, the Bosnian Church had ceased to exist and the allure of privileged status under the Ottomans was too strong for many to resist.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was ruled by a Pasha or Vizier appointed by the Sultan and assisted by a Chancellor, supreme justice, and treasurer, each heading his own bureaucracy, both central and spread into eight districts (Sandžaks ). Justice was administered by a khadi who was both prosecutor and judge using the Koran for legal guidance, thus favoring Muslim subjects. Catholics, who were outside the established Orthodox and Jewish communities represented by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch and Chief Rabbi in Constantinople, were particularly exposed to arbitrary persecutions. In spite of all this, communities of followers of the Orthodox (Serbian) Church and Catholic (Croatian) Church survived into the late 19th century when in 1878 Austria obtained the authority to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina, putting an end to four centuries of Ottoman rule. The Ottomans introduced in Bosnia and Herzegovina their administration, property concepts, and customs. The adherents to Islam were the ruling class, regardless of their national or ethnic backgrounds. Christian peasants practically became serfs to Muslim landlords while in the towns civil and military administrators had control over an increasingly Muslim population. Large numbers of Bosnians fled the Turkish takeover and settled in Venetian-occupied coastal areas where many continued the fight against the Turks as "Uskoki" raiders. Others emigrated north or west into Slavonia and Croatia and were organized as lifetime soldiers along military regions (Krajina ) in exchange for freemen status, land, and other privileges. On the Bosnian side, Christians were not required to enter military service, but the so-called "blood tax" took a heavy toll by turning boys forcibly into Muslim Janissaries—professional soldiers converted to Islam who would generally forget their origins and become oppressors of the Sultan's subjects. Girls were sent to harems. Taxation became more and more oppressive, leading to revolts by the Christian peasantry that elicited bloody repressions.

Under Austro-Hungarian Rule

Historically both Croats and Serbs have competed for control over Bosnia. The Croats, who had included Bosnia in their medieval kingdom, could not effectively continue their rule once joined with the more powerful Hungarians in their royal union. The Serbs, on the other hand, were assisted by Hungary in their expansion at the expense of the Byzantine Empire. Later, they also received Hungarian support in their resistance to Turkish inroads and therefore could not invest their energies in Bosnia, in their view a "Hungarian" territory. Thus Bosnia was able to assert its own autonomy and individuality, but did not evolve into a separate nation. With the Austrian occupation, however, a new period began marked by a search for a Bosnian identity, supported by Austria who had an interest in countering the national unification ambitions of both Croats and Serbs.

The population of Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided into three major religious-ethnic groups: Croatian Catholics, Serbian Orthodox, and Bosnian Muslims. With the disappearance of the Bosnian Church just before the Ottoman occupation in 1463, most Bosnians were Croatian and Catholic, with a Serbian Orthodox population concentrated in Eastern Herzegovina and along the Drina River frontier with Serbia. The Serbs were mostly peasants, many of whom became serfs to Muslim landlords. Their priests, who were generally poorly educated, lived as peasants among them. Serbian urban dwellers, insignificant in number at first, grew to be an important factor by the late Ottoman period and developed their own churches and schools in the 19th century. Crafts and commerce were the main occupations of the new Serbian middle class.

Croats were also mostly peasants and, like the Serbs, became serfs to Muslim landlords. Members of the Franciscan order lived among the peasants, even though they also had built several monasteries in urban centers. There was almost no Croat middle class at the start of the Austrian period and the Catholic clergy was generally its advocate.

The Muslim group consisted of three social subgroups: the elites, the peasants, and urban lower classes. Most Muslims were peasants, but they were free peasants with a standard of living not better than that of the Christian serf-peasants. The Muslim hodžas (priests) lived among the peasants as peasants themselves. The second subgroup consisted of merchants, craftsmen, and artisans and were mostly concentrated in towns. Together with the urban lower classes, these two groups made up the Muslim majorities in most towns by 1878. The members of the Muslim elites were mostly religious functionaries, landowners, and commercial entrepreneurs, all favored by Islamic laws and traditions. Following the 1878 occupation, Austria recognized the right of Turkish functionaries to keep their posts, the right of Muslims to be in communication with their religious leaders in the Ottoman Empire, the right of Turkish currency to circulate in Bosnia, and also promised to respect all traditions and customs of the Bosnian Muslims. The Austrian approach to the administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina was close to the British colonial model that retained the existing elites and cultural individuality while gradually introducing Western administrative and education models.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided by the Turks into six administrative regions that were confirmed by Austria: Sarajevo, Travnik, Bihać, Donja Tuzla, Banja Luka, and Mostar (Herzegovina). Each was headed by a regional supervisor. Participation in cultural and religious organizations was encouraged, while engaging in politics was prohibited. The Austrians promoted a policy of equality between Christians and Muslims, banned organizations of an open political purpose, and prohibited the use of national names (Serb and Croat) for public institutions. At the same time, educational institutions designed to promote loyalty to Bosnia (and Austria) as such were encouraged. Censorship and other means were used to insulate Bosnians from the influence of their Croatian and Serbian co-nationals across the borders. By terminating the earlier Muslim secular/religious unity, many administrative and judicial functions were no longer carried out by the Muslim elites, but were instead presided over by the Austrian bureaucracy and judiciary, though a separate Muslim judiciary was continued. The Muslim landowners lost some privileges but were able to retain their land and the system of serfdom was allowed to continue.

A widespread and important institution supporting Muslim cultural life was the Vakif (Vakuf in Serbian/Croatian). The Vakuf was a revenue-producing property set up and administered as a family foundation for the support of specified causes. Once set up, a Vakuf could not be sold, bequeathed, or divided and was exempt from normal taxes. In 1878 it was estimated that one-fourth to one-third of usable land in Bosnia was tied to Vakufs. The administration of Vakufs was lax and open to much manipulation and abuse. The Austrian administration was able to establish effective controls over the Vakuf system by 1894 through a centralized commission and the involvement of prominent Muslims in the administration of Vakuf revenues in support of Islamic institutions.

The continuation of serfdom by the Austrian authorities was a deep disappointment for the peasants that were eagerly expecting emancipation. Abuses led to peasant revolts until the Austrians introduced cash payments of the tithe (one-tenth of harvest due to the state) and the appraising of harvest value as basis for payment in kind (one-third) to the landlord. A land-registry system was instituted in 1884, and landowners that could not prove legal ownership lost title to some properties. This policy generated wide discontent among Muslim landowners. Another cause of frequent disorders were cases of religious conversions. Under Muslim law, a Muslim convert to another faith was to be executed (this penalty was later eased to banishment). The Austrian policy of confessional equality required a freedom of religious conversion without any penalty and a conversion statute was issued in 1891.

The general aim of the Austrian administration was to guide the development of a coequal confessional society that would focus its efforts on cultural and economic progress without political and national assertiveness. Benjamin von Kallay, the first Austrian Chief Administrator for Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted to avoid anything that could lead to the creation of a separate Muslim nation in Bosnia. On the other hand, he was determined to insulate Bosnians from external developments in the South Slavic areas. Such a position was unrealistic, however, since all of the main groups—Serbs, Croats, and Muslims—identified themselves with their own national/religious groups in the neighboring areas and had developed intense cultural/political relationships with them. Serbs looked at Serbia's successes and hoped for unification with their motherland. Croats followed closely the Croatian-Hungarian tensions and hoped likewise for their unification. The Muslim community, meanwhile, struggled for its own cultural/religious autonomy within a Bosnia that still recognized the Ottoman Sultan's sovereignty and looked to him for assistance.

The unilateral annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria in 1908 exacerbated Austria's relations with Serbia (and almost caused a war) and with the Hungarian half of the Hapsburg Crown that opposed the enlargement of the Slavic population of Austria-Hungary. Serbia's victories in the Balkan wars added fuel to the "Yugoslav" movement among the South Slavs of Austria, including Bosnia and Herzegovina. Here the Austrian administration countered the growing "Yugoslav" assertiveness with a "divide and rule" initiative of developing a separate "Bosnian" national consciousness which they hoped would tie together Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. All nationalist movements use elements of history to develop their own mythology to unite their members. Thus, the medieval Bosnian kingdom was the basis for development of a Bosnian national consciousness. It was opposed by most Serbs and Croats, who awaited unification with Serbia or Croatia, but gave some sense of security to the more isolated Muslim Bosnian community. Already by the beginning of the 20th century, separate ethnic organizations and related political associations had to be allowed. The 1908 annexation led to the promulgation of a constitution, legal recognition of political parties, and a Bosnian Parliament in 1910. The internal political liberalization then allowed the Austrian administration to concentrate on the repression of student radicals, internal and external terrorists, and other such perceived threats to their rule.

The Muslim community was split internally, with a leadership dominated by landowners and weakened by the forced emigration to Turkey of its top leaders. It finally came together in 1906 and formed the Muslim National Organization (Muslimanska Narodna Organizacija) as its political party, with the blessing of its émigré leaders in Istanbul. Intense negotiations with the Austrian administration produced agreements on religious and cultural autonomy as well as landowners' rights. The latter were a preeminent concern, and landowners were able to preserve their ownership rights based on Ottoman law and the peasants' payments of compulsory dues. The religious autonomy of the Muslim faith was assured by having the nominees for the top offices confirmed by the Sultan's religious head upon request by the Austrian Embassy in Istanbul. The same process was also used in matters of religious dogma and law.

Cultural autonomy for Muslims was affirmed through the streamlining of the preexisting vakuf system into local, regional, and central assemblies responsible for the operation of the vakufs and the related educational system. Overall, the Muslims of Bosnia had achieved their objectives: preserving their large landholdings with peasants still in a quasi-serfdom condition; assuring their cultural autonomy; and retaining access to the Sultan, head of a foreign country, in matters of their religious hierarchies. Politically, the Muslim National Organization participated in the first parliament as part of the majority supportive of the Austrian government.

Serbs and Croats had also formed political organizations, the nature of which reflected Bosnia's peculiar ethnic and socio-political conditions. The Serbian National Organization (Srpska Narodna Organizacija) was founded in 1907 as a coalition of three factions. The Croatian National Community (Hrvatska Narodna Zajednica) was formed in 1908 by liberal Croat intellectuals, followed in 1910 by the Croatian Catholic Association (Hrvatska Katolička Udruga). A cross-ethnic Social Democratic party, formed in 1909, failed to win any seats in the Parliament. A Muslim Progressive Party, formed in 1908, found hardly any support even after changing its name to the Muslim Independent Party. The Muslims were more conservative and were opposed to the agrarian reform demanded by the Serbs and Croats, who each continued to favor an association or unification with their respective "Mother Country." Croats asserted the Croatian character of Bosnia based on its Croatian past, while Serbs just as adamantly claimed its Serbian character and supported Serbia's "Greater Serbia" policies.

Given the demographics of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1910 census: Serbian Orthodox, 43%; Croat Catholics, 23%; Muslims, 32%) each side needed the support of the Muslims who, though pressured to declare themselves Serbs or Croats, very seldom would do so and would rather keep their own separate identity. Up until the Balkan wars, Muslims and Serbs would support one another hoping for some kind of political autonomy. Croats advocated unification with Croatia and a trialist reorganization of the Hapsburg Monarchy, giving the united South Slavs a coequal status with Austrians and Hungarians. Any cooperation by the Muslims was predicated on support for the continuation of serfdom. This stance prevented cooperation with the Croatian Catholic Association, which insisted on agrarian reform and the termination of serfdom.

With the Serbian victories and Ottoman defeat in the Balkan wars, Serbs became more assertive and Croats more willing to cooperate with them in the growing enthusiasm generated by the idea of "Yugoslavism." A parliamentary majority of Serbs and Croats could have effected the liberation of the peasants in 1913 but the Hungarians opposed it. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand on 28 June 1914, and World War I, combined to make the issue moot when the Parliament was adjourned. The assassination of the Archduke was apparently the work of members of the "Young Bosnia" students association supported (unofficially) by Serbia through its extremist conspiratorial associations, the "Black Hand" and the "Serbian National Defense." The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia was extremely harsh but Serbia met all the conditions that did not violate its sovereignty. Austria nevertheless declared war and immediately attacked Serbia. The Serbian community of Bosnia and Herzegovina was subjected to a regime of terror and indiscriminate executions by the Austrian authorities. Serbian leaders were subjected to trials, court martial proceedings, and infamous concentrations camps where internees died of epidemics and starvation.

First (Royal) Yugoslavia

Throughout World War I, Bosnians fought in Austrian units, particularly on the Italian front until Austria's surrender. The Bosnian National Council decided to unite with the Kingdom of Serbia, as Vojvodina did and the Montenegrin assembly did on 24 November 1918. On 27 November 1918 the delegation from the Zagrebbased National Council of the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs also requested unification with Serbia of the Slovene, Croat, and Serbian lands of Austria-Hungary. Following the Declaration of Union on 1 December 1918, a provisional government was set made up of representatives of Serbia and the National Council, with other groups added later. A provisional Assembly was also convened consisting of members of the Serbian Parliament, nominees from the National Council and other regional Assemblies such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Vojvodina. In November 1920 a Constituent Assembly was elected and functioned as both the legislature and constitutional convention. Bosnian Serbs supported the Serbian Agrarian Party, while two Muslim parties, the National Muslim Organization from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Džemijet Party of the Kosovo and Macedonia Muslims had seats in the assembly. Croats, on the other hand, joined the mainstream parties of Croatia.

By joining the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in 1918, Bosnia and Herzegovina ceased to exist as a distinct political/historical unit, particularly since the heads of local governments were appointed by and directly accountable to the central government in Belgrade. After 10 years of a tumultuous parliamentary history culminating in the assassination of Croatian deputies, King Alexander dissolved parliament and disbanded all political parties, establishing a royal dictatorship in 1929. He then reorganized the country into a "Yugoslavia" made up of nine administrative regions (banovine ) named after rivers. What once was Bosnia and Herzegovina was split among four of the new units (Vrbaska, Drinska, Primorska, and Zetska). Serb and Croat peasants were finally freed from their feudal obligations to Muslim landlords through the agrarian reforms decreed in 1919 and slowly implemented over the next 20 years. Except for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia, land held by ex-enemies (Austrians, Hungarians, Turks) were expropriated without compensation and redistributed to the peasants—1.75 million of them plus 2.8 million dependents. As a result, the average size of agricultural holdings fell to 15 acres, causing inefficiencies and very low yields per acre. Peasants were forced to borrow even to buy food and necessities. They fell deeply in debt, both to local shopkeepers who charged 100–200% interest and to banks that charged exorbitant rates up to 50%. In comparison, peasant cooperatives in Slovenia used single digit interest rates.

Politically, the Muslim Organization, as a small party, allied itself mostly with the Slovene People's Party and either the Serbian Democratic or Radical parties in order to participate in a series of governments before the 1929 royal dictatorship was implemented. The Muslim Organization's main goals were to obtain the best possible compensation for land expropriated from Bosnia's Muslim landowners and to preserve the Muslims' cultural identity. In 1932, Muslim leaders joined the Croats, Slovenes, and some Liberal Serbs in issuing the Zagreb manifesto calling for an end to the King's dictatorship and for democratization and regional autonomies. For this the centralist regime interned and imprisoned several of the leaders and instituted wider repressions. Following the assassination of King Alexander in 1934 in Marseille, France, the Croat Peasants Party was joined by the Muslims, Serbian Agrarians, and Serbian Democrats in opposition to the Centralists, winning 38% of the votes in spite of the government's intimidating tactics. With the opposition refusing to take part in the parliament, a new government was formed by the Serbian Radicals with the inclusion of the Muslims and the Slovene People's Party.

This new coalition government lasted until 1939, but was never able to resolve the "Croatian" autonomy issue. In addition, while under the leadership of Milan Stojadinović, Yugoslavia's foreign policy moved the country closer to Italy and Germany. Meanwhile a growing consensus had developed that the "Croatian" question had to be solved, particularly in view of the aggressive ambitions of Yugoslavia's neighbors. Thus, the Regent Prince Paul and Dr. Vladimir Maćek, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, worked with the Minister of Social Policy, Dragiša Cvetković, on an agreement establishing a Croatian Banovina made up of the historical regions of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia along with parts of Vojvodina, Srem, and Bosnia. The president of the senate, Monsignor Anton Korošec (also leader of the Slovene People's Party), engineered the resignation of five ministers, two Slovenes, two Muslim, and Dragiša Cvetković. Regent Paul then called on Cvetković to form a new government. Dr. Maćek became vice-premier and Ivan Subašić was named Ban of the autonomous Croatian Banovina, which was given its own Sabor (parliament). The Croatian parties considered this development as a positive first phase towards their goal of an independent Croatia that would incorporate all of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Serbian centralists, on the other hand, saw this phase as a threat to their own designs of incorporating Bosnia and Herzegovina (and Serb populated areas of Croatia) into a "Greater Serbia" unit of Yugoslavia. Thus, on the eve of World War II, the stage was set for a direct confrontation between the independent minded Croatians and centralistic Serbs. The Muslims of Bosnia were caught in their crossfire.

World War II

Germany, Italy, and their allies Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, attacked Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941 and divided the country among themselves. The Croatian terrorist Ustaša organization collaborated with the aggressors and was allowed to proclaim an Independent State of Croatia on 10 April 1941. This new state incorporated the old Croatian Banovina in addition to all of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Of its total population of 6.3 million, one-third were Serbian and 750,000 were Muslim. Once entrenched in power, the Ustaša troops began implementing their plan for "cleansing" their Greater Croatia of the Serbian population by the use of terror, mass deportations, and genocidal massacres later condemned by the Nürnberg Court.

The Serbian population responded in kind with its Cetnik formations and by joining the Partisan resistance movement led by Josip Broz-Tito, head of the Yugoslav Communist Party. Bosnia and Herzegovina suffered terrible losses in several German-led offensives against Bosnian resistance, and in the internecine civil war among Communist-dominated Partisans, nationalist Cetniks (mostly Serbs), and Croatian Ustaše and home guard units. The Muslim population in particular was caught in the middle between the Ustaše and the Serbian Cetniks. The Ustaše considered the Muslims of Croatian origin and expected them to collaborate with the Ustaša regime. The Serbian Cetniks, on the other hand, viewed most Muslims as the hated Turks and Ustaša collaborators, and therefore engaged in slaughters of Muslims, particularly in Eastern Bosnia around the cities of Foča and Goražde.

The political programs of the Cetniks and Partisans were a reflection of the old centralist (Serbian) hegemony and the Federalist positions of the prewar opposition parties. Thus the Partisan resistance, though aiming at a revolutionary power grab, offered a federated Yugoslavia made up of individual republics for each national group—Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, newly recognized Macedonians and Montenegrins. To avoid a battle over a Serbian-Croatian border issue, Bosnia and Herzegovina was resurrected as a buffer area between Serbia and Croatia. It would also allow (again) for the cultural autonomy of the Muslim population. The Allied and Soviet support the Partisans received enabled them to prevail, and they organized Socialist Yugoslavia as a Federative People's Republic with Bosnia and Herzegovina as one of the constituent republics approximately within the boundaries of the former Austrian province.

When Soviet armies entered Yugoslavia from Romania and Bulgaria in the fall of 1944—Marshal Tito with them—military units and civilians that had opposed the partisans had no choice but retreat to Austria or Italy to save themselves. Among them were the Cetnik units of Draža Mihajlović, and "home guards" from Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia that had been under German control but were pro-Allies in their convictions and hopes. Also in retreat were the units of the Croatian Ustaša that had collaborated with Italy and Germany in order to achieve (and control) an "independent" greater Croatia, and in the process had committed terrible and large-scale massacres of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and others who opposed them. Of course, Serbs and Partisans counteracted and a fratricidal civil war raged over Yugoslavia, pitting Croats against Serbs, Communists against Nationalists. These skirmishes not only wasted countless lives, they used up the energy and property that could have been used instead against the occupiers. After the end of the war, the Communist-led forces took control of all of Yugoslavia and instituted a violent dictatorship that committed systematic crimes and human rights violations on an unexpectedly large scale. Thousands upon thousands of their former opponents were returned from Austria by British military authorities only to be tortured and massacred by Partisan executioners.

Second (Communist) Yugoslavia

Such was the background for the formation of the second Yugoslavia as a Federative People's Republic of five nations—Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Macedonians, and Montenegrins—and Bosnia and Herzegovina as a buffer area with its mix of Serb, Muslim, and Croat populations. The problem of large Hungarian and Muslim Albanian populations in Serbia was solved by creating the autonomous region of Vojvodina (Hungarian minority) and Kosovo (Muslim Albanian majority) to assure their political and cultural development. Tito attempted a balancing act to satisfy most of the nationality issues that were carried over unresolved from the first Yugoslavia, but failed to satisfy anyone.

Compared to pre-1941 Yugoslavia where Serbs enjoyed their controlling role, the numerically stronger Serbs in the new Yugoslavia had "lost" the Macedonian area they considered "Southern Serbia"; they had lost the opportunity to incorporate Montenegro into Serbia; they had lost direct control over the Hungarian minority in Vojvodina and Muslim Albanians of Kosovo (viewed as the cradle of the Serbian nation since the Middle Ages); they could not longer incorporate into Serbia the large Serbian populated areas of Bosnia; and they had not obtained an autonomous region for the large minority Serbian population within the Croatian Republic. The Croats, while gaining back from Hungary the Medjumurje area and from Italy the cities of Rijeka (Fiume), Zadar (Zara), some Dalmatian islands, and the Istrian Peninsula, had "lost" the Srem area to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had been part of the World War II "independent" Croatian state under the Ustaša leadership. In addition, the Croats were confronted with a deeply resentful Serbian minority that became ever more pervasive in public administrative and security positions. The Slovenes had obtained back from Hungary the Prekmurje enclave and from Italy most of the Slovenian lands taken over by Italy following World War I (Julian Region and Northern Istria). Italy retained control over the "Venetian Slovenia" area, the Gorizia area, and the port city of Trieste. (Trieste was initially part of the UN protected "Free Territory of Trieste," split in 1954 between Italy and Yugoslavia, with Trieste itself given to Italy.) Nor were the Slovenian claims to the southern Carinthia area of Austria satisfied. The "loss" of Trieste was a bitter pill for the Slovenes and many blamed it on the fact that Tito's Yugoslavia was, initially, Stalin's advance threat to Western Europe, thus making Western Europe and the United States more supportive of Italy.

The official position of the Marxist Yugoslav regime was that national rivalries and conflicting interests would gradually diminish through their sublimation into a new Socialist order. Without capitalism, nationalism was supposed to wither away. Therefore, in the name of their "unity and brotherhood" motto, any "nationalistic" expression of concern was prohibited and repressed by the dictatorial and centralized regime of the "League of Yugoslav Communists" acting through the "Socialist Alliance" as its mass front organization. As a constituent Republic of the Federal Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina shared in the history of the second experiment in "Yugoslavism."

After a short postwar "coalition" government period, the elections of 11 November 1945, boycotted by the noncommunist "coalition" parties, gave the Communist-led People's Front 90% of the vote. A Constituent Assembly met on November 29 and abolished the monarchy, establishing the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia. In January 1946, a new constitution was adopted, based on the 1936 Soviet constitution. The Stalin-engineered expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Soviet-dominated Cominform Group in 1948 was actually a blessing for Yugoslavia after its leadership was able to survive Stalin's pressures. Survival had to be justified, both practically and in theory, by developing a "road to Socialism" based on Yugoslavia's own circumstances. This new "road map" evolved rather quickly in response to some of Stalin's accusations and Yugoslavia's need to perform a balancing act between the NATO alliance and the Soviet bloc. Having taken over all power after World War II, the Communist dictatorship under Tito pushed the nationalization of the economy through a policy of forced industrialization, to be supported by the collectivization of agriculture.

The agricultural reform of 1945–46 (limited private ownership of a maximum of 35 hectares (85 acres) and a limited free market after the initial forced delivery of quotas to the state at very low prices) had to be abandoned because of the strong passive, but at times active, resistance by the peasants. The actual collectivization efforts were initiated in 1949 using welfare benefits and lower taxes as incentives along with direct coercion. But collectivization had to be abandoned by 1958 simply because its inefficiency and low productivity could not support the concentrated effort of industrial development.

By the 1950s, Yugoslavia had initiated the development of its internal trademark: self-management of enterprises through workers councils and local decision-making as the road to Marx's "withering away of the state." Following the failure of the first fiveyear plan (1947–51), the second five-year plan (1957–61) was completed in four years by relying on the well-established selfmanagement system. Economic targets were set from the local to the republic level and then coordinated by a Federal Planning Institute to meet an overall national economic strategy. This system supported a period of very rapid industrial growth in the 1950s. But a high consumption rate encouraged a volume of imports, largely financed by foreign loans, far in excess of exports. In addition, inefficient and low-productivity industries were kept in place through public subsidies, cheap credit, and other artificial protective measures that led to a serious crisis by 1961.

Reforms were necessary and, by 1965, "market socialism" was introduced with laws that abolished most price controls and halved import duties while withdrawing export subsidies. After necessary amounts were left with the earning enterprise, the rest of the earned foreign currencies were deposited with the national bank and used by the state, other enterprises, or were used to assist less developed areas. Councils were given more decision-making power on investing their earnings. They also tended to vote for higher salaries in order to meet steep increases in the cost of living. Unemployment grew rapidly even though "political factories" were still subsidized. The government thus relaxed its restrictions to allow labor migration particularly to West Germany where workers were needed for its thriving economy. Foreign investment was encouraged up to 49% in joint enterprises, and barriers to the movement of people and exchange of ideas were largely removed. The role of trade unions continued to be one of transmission of instructions from government to workers, allocation of perks along with the education/training of workers, monitoring legislation, and overall protection of the self-management system. Strikes were legally neither allowed nor forbidden but—until the 1958 miners strike in Trbovlje, Slovenia—were not publicly acknowledged and were suppressed. After 1958, strikes were tolerated as an indication of problems to be resolved. Unions, however, did not initiate strikes but were expected to convince workers to go back to work.

Having survived its expulsion from the Cominform in 1948 and Stalin's attempts to take control, Yugoslavia began to develop a foreign policy independent of the Soviet Union. By mid-1949 Yugoslavia ceased its support of the Greek Communists in their civil war against the then Royalist government of Greece. In October 1949, Yugoslavia was elected to one of the nonpermanent seats on the UN Security Council and openly condemned North Korea's aggression toward South Korea. Following the "rapprochement" opening with the Soviet Union initiated by Nikita Khrushchev and his 1956 denunciation of Stalin, Tito intensified his work on developing the movement of nonaligned "third world" nations. This would become Yugoslavia's external trademark, in cooperation with Nehru of India, Nasser of Egypt, and others. With the September 1961 Belgrade summit conference of nonaligned nations, Tito became the recognized leader of the movement. The nonaligned position served Tito's Yugoslavia well by allowing Tito to draw on economic and political support from the Western powers while neutralizing any aggressiveness from the Soviet bloc. While Tito had acquiesced, reluctantly, to the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary for fear of chaos and its liberalizing impact on Yugoslavia, he condemned the Soviet invasion of Dubček's Czechoslovakia in 1968, as did Romania's Ceausescu, both fearing their countries might be the next in line for "corrective" action by the Red Army and the Warsaw Pact. Just before his death on 4 May 1980, Tito also condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Yugoslavia actively participated in the 1975 Helsinki Conference and agreements and the first 1977–78 review conference that took place in Belgrade, even though Yugoslavia's one-party communist regime perpetrated and condoned numerous human rights violations. Overall, in the 1970s and 1980s, Yugoslavia maintained fairly good relations with its neighboring states by playing down or solving pending disputes—such as the Trieste issue with Italy in 1975—and by developing cooperative projects and increased trade.

Ravaged by the war, occupation, resistance, and civil war losses and preoccupied with carrying out the elimination of all actual and potential opposition, the Communist government faced the double task of building its Socialist economy while rebuilding the country. As an integral part of the Yugoslav federation, Bosnia and Herzegovina was, naturally, impacted by Yugoslavia's internal and external political developments. The main problems facing communist Yugoslavia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were essentially the same as the unresolved ones under Royalist Yugoslavia. As the "Royal Yugoslavism" had failed in its assimilative efforts, so did the "Socialist Yugoslavism" fail to overcome the forces of nationalism. Bosnia and Herzegovina differs from the other republics because its area has been the meeting ground of Serbian and Croatian nationalist claims, with the Muslims as a third party, pulled to both sides. Centuries of coexistence of the three major national groups had made Bosnia and Herzegovina into a territorial maze where no boundaries could be drawn to clearly separate Serbs, Croats, and Muslims without resorting to violence and forced movements of people. The inability to negotiate a peaceful partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia doomed the first interwar Yugoslavia to failure. The Socialist experiment with "Yugoslavism" in post-World War II Yugoslavia was particularly relevant to the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina where the increasing incidence of intermarriage, particularly between Serbs and Croats, caused the introduction of the "Yugoslav" category with the 1961 census. By 1981 the "Yugoslav" category was selected by 1.2 million citizens (5.4% of the total population), a large increase over the 273,077 number in 1971. Muslims, not impacted much by intermarriage, have also been recognized since 1971 as a separate "people" and numbered two million in 1981 in Yugoslavia. The 1991 census showed the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina consisting mainly of Muslims (43.7%), Serbs (31.4%), and Croats (17.3%) with 6% "Yugoslavs" out of a total population of 4,364,000.

Bosnia as a political unit has existed since at least 1150. Headed by a Ban in the Croatian tradition, Bosnia lasted for over 300 years with an increasing degree of independence from Hungary through King Tvrtko I and his successors until the occupation by the Ottoman Turks in 1463 (1482 for Herzegovina). Bosnia and Herzegovina was then ruled by the Turks for 415 years until 1878, and by Austria-Hungary for 40 years until 1918. Bosnia and Herzegovina ceased to be a separate political unit only for the 27 years of the first Yugoslavia (1918–1945) and became again a separate unit for 47 years as one of the republics of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia until 1992. Yet, in spite of an 800-year history of common development, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina never assimilated into a single nation. Bosnia was initially settled by Croats who became Catholic and then by Orthodox Serbs escaping from the Turks. Under the Turks, large numbers converted to Islam and, in spite of a common language, their religious and cultural differences kept the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims apart through history so that Bosnia and Herzegovina has been more a geographic-political notion than a unified nation.

Consequently, while the resurgent nationalism was galvanizing Croatia into an intensifying confrontation with Serbia, the Bosnian leadership had to keep an internal balance by joining one or the other side depending on its own interests. Bosnia and Herzegovina was torn between the two opposing "liberal" and "conservative/centralist" coalitions. In terms of widening civil and political liberties, Bosnia and Herzegovina usually supported in most cases the liberal group. Its own economic needs as a less developed area, however, pulled it into the conservative coalition with Serbia in order to keep the source of development funds flowing to itself, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Serbia (for the Kosovo region). Also, the "Yugoslav" framework was for Bosnia and Herzegovina an assurance against its possible, and very likely bloody, partitioning between Serbia and Croatia.

The liberal group, centered in Slovenia and Croatia, grew stronger on the basis of the deepening resentment against forced subsidizing of less-developed areas of the federation and buildup of the Yugoslav army. Finally, the increased political and economic autonomy enjoyed by the Republics after the 1974 constitution and particularly following Tito's death in 1980, assisted in turning Tito's motto of "unity and brotherhood" into "freedom and democracy" to be achieved through either a confederated rearrangement of Yugoslavia or by complete independence of the Republics. The debate over the reforms of the 1960s had led to a closer scrutiny—not only of the economic system, but also of the decision-making process at the republic and federal levels, particularly the investment of funds to less developed areas that Slovenia and Croatia felt were very poorly managed, if not squandered. Other issues of direct impact on Bosnia and Herzegovina fueled acrimony between individual nations, such as the 1967 Declaration in Zagreb claiming a Croatian linguistic and literary tradition separate from the Serbian one, thus undermining the validity of the "Serbo-Croatian" language. Also, Kosovo Albanians and Montenegrins, along with Slovenes and Croats, began to assert their national rights as superior to their rights as Yugoslav nationals.

The Eighth Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) in December 1964 acknowledged that ethnic prejudice and antagonisms existed in socialist Yugoslavia. The Congress went on record against the position that Yugoslavia's nations had become obsolete and were disintegrating into a socialist "Yugoslavism." Thus the republics, based on individual nations, became bastions of a strong Federalism that advocated the devolution and decentralization of authority from the federal to the republic level. "Yugoslav Socialist Patriotism" was at times defined as a deep feeling for one's own national identity within the socialist self-management of Yugoslavia.

Economic reforms were the other focus of the Eighth LCY Congress led by Croatia and Slovenia, with emphasis on efficiencies and local economic development decisions with profit criteria as their basis. The liberal bloc (Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Vojvodina) prevailed over the conservative group and the reforms of 1965 did away with central investment planning and political factories. The positions of the two blocks hardened into a nationalliberal coalition that viewed the conservative, centralist group led by Serbia as the Greater Serbian attempt at majority domination.

To the conservative centralists the devolution of power to the republic level meant the subordination of the broad "Yugoslav" and "Socialist" interests to the narrower "nationalist" interest of republic national majorities. With the Croat League of Communists taking the liberal position in 1970, nationalism was rehabilitated as long as it didn't slide into chauvinism. Thus the "Croatian Spring" bloomed and impacted all the other republics of Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, as the result of a series of 1967–68 constitutional amendments that limited federal power in favor of the republics and autonomous provinces, the federal government was seen by liberals more as an inter-republican problem-solving mechanism bordering on a confederacy. A network of inter-republican committees established by mid-1971 proved to be very efficient at resolving a large number of difficult issues in a short time. The coalition of liberals and nationalists in Croatia generated sharp condemnation in Serbia, where its own brand of nationalism grew stronger, but as part of a conservative-centralist alliance. Thus the liberal/federalist versus conservative/centralist opposition became entangled in the rising nationalism within each opposing bloc. The devolution of power in economic decision-making spearheaded by the Slovenes assisted in the "federalization" of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. This resulted in a league of quasi-sovereign republican parties. Under strong prodding from the Croats, the party agreed in 1970 to the principle of unanimity for decision making that, in practice, meant a veto power for each republic. However, the concentration of economic resources in Serbian hands continued with Belgrade banks controlling half of total credits and some 80% of foreign credits. This was also combined with the fear of Serbian political and cultural domination. The Croats were particularly sensitive regarding language, alarmed by the use of the Serbian version of Serbo-Croatian as the norm with the Croatian version as a deviation. The language controversy thus exacerbated the economic and political tensions, leading to easily inflamed ethnic confrontations.

Particularly difficult was the situation in Croatia and Serbia because of issues relating to their ethnic minorities—Serbian in Croatia and Hungarian/Albanian in Serbia. Serbs in Croatia sided with the Croat conservatives and sought a constitutional amendment guaranteeing their own national identity and rights and, in the process, they challenged the "sovereignty" of the Croatian nation and state, as well as its right to self-determination, including the right to secession. The conservatives won and the amendment declared that "the Socialist Republic of Croatia (was) the national state of the Croatian nation, the state of the Serbian nation in Croatia, and the state of the nationalities inhabiting it."

Meanwhile Slovenia, not burdened by large minorities, developed a similar liberal and nationalist direction along with Croatia. This fostered an incipient separatist sentiment opposed by both the liberal and conservative party wings. Led by Stane Kavčić, head of the Slovenian government, the liberal wing gained as much political local latitude from the federal level as possible during "Slovenian Spring" of the early 1970s. By the summer of 1971, the Serbian party leadership was pressuring President Tito to put an end to the "dangerous" development of Croatian nationalism. While Tito wavered because of his support for the balancing system of autonomous republic units, the situation quickly reached critical proportions also in terms of the direct interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croat nationalists, complaining about discrimination against Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, demanded the incorporation of Western Herzegovina into Croatia. Serbia countered by claiming Southeastern Herzegovina for itself. Croats also advanced many economic and political claims: to a larger share of their foreign currency earnings, to the issuance of their own currency, to establishment of their own national bank to negotiate foreign loans, to the printing of Croatian postage stamps, to a Croatian army and to recognition of the Croatian Sabor (Assembly) as the highest Croatian political body and, finally, to Croatian secession and complete independence.

Confronted with such intensive agitation, the liberal Croatian party leadership could not back down and did not try to restrain the public demands nor the widespread university students' strike of November 1971. This situation caused the loss of support from the liberal party wings of Slovenia and even Macedonia. At this point Tito intervened, condemned the Croatian liberal leadership on 1 December 1971 and supported the conservative wing. The liberal leadership group resigned on 12 December 1971. When Croatian students demonstrated and demanded an independent Croatia, the Yugoslav army was ready to move in if necessary. A wholesale purge of the party liberals followed, with tens of thousands expelled from the party. Key functionaries lost their positions, while several thousands were imprisoned (including Franjo Tudjman who later became president in independent Croatia). Leading Croatian nationalist organizations and their publications were closed. On 8 May 1972 the Croatian party also expelled its liberal wing leaders and the purge of nationalists continued through 1973 in Croatia, as well as in Slovenia and Macedonia. However, the issues and sentiments raised during the "Slovene and Croat Springs" of 1969–71 did not disappear. Tito and the conservatives were forced to satisfy nominally some demands and the 1974 constitution was an attempt to resolve the strained inter-republican relations as each republic pursued its own interests over and above a conceivable overall "Yugoslav" interest.

Beginning in 1986, work began on amendments to the 1974 constitution. They created a furor, particularly in Slovenia. Opposition was strongest to the amendments that proposed creation of a unified legal system, central control of transportation and communication, centralizing the economy into a unified market, and granting more control to Serbia over its autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. These changes were seen as being accomplished at the expense of the individual republics. A recentralization of the League of Communists was also recommended but opposed by liberal/nationalist groups.

By 1989, the relations between Slovenia and Serbia reached a crisis point, especially following the Serbian assumption of control in the Kosovo and Vojvodina provinces (as well as in Montenegro). Serbian President Milošević's tactics were extremely distasteful to the Slovenians and the use of force against the Albanian population of the Kosovo province worried the Slovenes (and Croats) about the possible use of force by Serbia against Slovenia itself. The tensions with Serbia convinced the Slovenian leadership of the need to take protective measures and, in September 1989, draft amendments to the constitution of Slovenia were published. These included the right to secession, the sole right of the Slovenian legislature to introduce martial law and to control the deployment of armed forces in Slovenia.

A last attempt at salvaging Yugoslavia was to be made as the extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia convened in January 1990 to review proposed reforms such as free multiparty elections and freedom of speech. The Slovenian delegation attempted to broaden the spectrum of reforms but was rebuffed and walked out on 23 January 1990, pulling out of the Yugoslav League. The Slovenian Communists then renamed their party the Party for Democratic Renewal. On 10 April 1990 the first free elections since before World War II were held in Slovenia. A coalition of six newly formed democratic parties, called Demos, won 55% of the votes, with the remainder going to the Party for Democratic Renewal, the former Communists, 17%; the Socialist Party, 5%; and the Liberal Democratic Party (heir to the Slovenia Youth Organization), 15%. The Demos coalition organized the first freely elected Slovenian government of the post-Communist era with Dr. Lojze Peterle as the prime minister.

Milan Kučan, former head of the League of Communists of Slovenia, was elected president with 54% of the vote. His election was seen as recognition of his efforts to effect a bloodless transfer of power from a monopoly by the Communist party to a free multiparty system and his standing up to the recentralizing attempts by Serbia.

All of these developments had also a deep impact on Bosnia and Herzegovina. When the Antifascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) proclaimed the federal principle on 29 November 1943, Bosnia and Herzegovina was included as one of the constituent republics of post-World War II Yugoslavia. Muslims were not considered a "nation" yet. Serbs claimed that Muslims were Islamized Serbs, and Croats claimed that Muslims were descendants of the Croatian Bosnian Church that had converted to Islam. The Muslims themselves, meanwhile, claimed their own separate identity and were recognized as equal to Serbs and Croats.

The sense of Muslim identity grew stronger and incorporated demands for Muslim institutions parallel to the Serbian and Croatian ones. Muslims sought to define themselves as the only "true" Bosnians and thus a call to define Bosnia and Herzegovina as a "Muslim" Republic. Muslim activist groups multiplied during the 1970s and 1980s.

Since the 1970s and into the late 1980s the Muslims' self-assertiveness as an ethnic community grew ever stronger and was viewed as a balancing element between Serbs and Croats. As the winds of change away from communism swept the western republics of Slovenia and Croatia in 1989 and 1990, Bosnia and Herzegovina also was preparing for multiparty elections to be held on 18 November 1990. Meanwhile, across Bosnia and Herzegovina's borders with Croatia, the Serbian population was clamoring for its own cultural and political autonomy. Serbs perceived threats from the Croatian Democratic Union, the winner in the April 1990 elections in Croatia.

By July 1990, a Bosnia and Herzegovina branch of the Croatiabased Serbian Democratic Party had become very active in the 18 Bosnian communes with Serbian majorities adjacent to the Croatia Krajina (border area). By the fall of 1990, the program of the Serbian Democratic Party in Croatia had advanced a plan to include the Bosnian Serbs into a joint Krajina state, which would have a federal arrangement with Serbia proper. This arrangement, it was hoped, would undercut any thoughts of a confederation of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Such a confederation, however, was favored by the Party of Democratic Action (Muslim) and the Croatian Democratic Union. In spite of their differences in long-term goals, the three nationalist parties were committed to the continuation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to the termination of Communist rule. On 1 August 1990, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared itself a "sovereign and democratic state." The former Communist Party became the Party of Democratic Change, while Yugoslavia's Prime Minister Marković formed the Alliance of Reform Forces that advocated his economic reforms. The Muslim Party, Serbian Party, and Croatian Democratic Union then formed a coalition government with Alija Izetbegović of the Muslim Party as President of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Independence and War

Meanwhile, Slovenia and Croatia had published a joint proposal in October 1990 for a confederation of Yugoslavia as a last attempt at a negotiated solution, but to no avail. The Slovenian legislature also adopted a draft constitution in October proclaiming that "Slovenia will become an independent state." On 23 December 1990, a plebiscite was held on Slovenia's "disassociation" from Yugoslavia if a confederation solution could not be negotiated within a sixmonth period. An overwhelming majority of voters approved the secession provision. Slovenia declared its independence on 25 June 1991. On 27 June 1991, the Yugoslav Army tried to seize control of Slovenia and its borders with Italy, Austria, and Hungary under the pretext that it was its constitutional duty to assure the integrity of Socialist Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Army units were surprised by the resistance they encountered from the Slovenian "territorial guards" which surrounded Yugoslav Army tank units, isolated them, and engaged in close combat, mostly along border checkpoints. These battles ended in most cases with Yugoslav units surrendering to the Slovenian forces. The war in Slovenia was ended in 10 days due to the intervention of the European Community; a cease-fire was declared, which gave time to the Yugoslav Army to retreat from Slovenia by the end of October 1991.

The coalition government of Bosnia and Herzegovina had a very difficult time maintaining the spirit of ethnic cooperation won in its elections, while the situation in Slovenia and Croatia was moving to the point of no return with their declaration of independence of 25 June 1991 and the wars that followed. Particularly worrisome were the clashes in Croatia between Serbian paramilitary forces and Croatian police and the intervention of the Yugoslav Army in order to "keep the peace." Another element that worried the Bosnian government was the concentration of Yugoslav Army units in Bosnia and Herzegovina following their retreat first from Slovenia and then from Croatia. In October 1991, the Serbian Democratic Party held a plebiscite in the two-thirds of Bosnian territory under Serbian control and announced the establishment of a Serbian Republic inside Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In December 1991, the Bosnian Parliament passed a Declaration of Sovereignty and President Izetbegović submitted to the European Community an application for international recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent nation. A referendum on independence was held on 29 February 1992. With the Serbs abstaining in opposition to the secession from Yugoslavia, Muslims and Croats approved an independent Bosnia and Herzegovina by a vote of 99.7%. In reaction to the referendum, Serbs proceeded to prepare for war in close cooperation with the Yugoslav army.

On 1 March 1992 in Sarajevo a Serbian wedding party was fired upon. This was the spark that ignited armed confrontations in Sarajevo and other areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnian Serbs by late March of 1992, formally established their own "Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina." The international recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the European Community and the United States (along with the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia) was issued on 6 April 1992. This action was viewed as another affront to the Serbs, and gave more impetus to Serbian determination to oppose the further splitting of Yugoslavia that would cause the final separation of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina from Serbia proper. The bond among the Serbs of Croatia and Bosnia with the Serbian government controlled by Slobodan Milošević, and with the Yugoslav Army was firmly cemented. The decision of Serbia, along with the Serbs of Bosnia and Croatia, to take advantage of Yugoslavia's demise and try to unite Serbian territories in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina with Serbia proper precipitated the wars in Croatia first and then in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Desperate acts by Serbs engaged in "ethnic cleansing" (torching, and systematic rape and executions in imitation of the World War II Ustaša tactics) revolted the whole world and elicited retaliation by the initially allied Croats and Muslims.

War spread in Bosnia in mid-1992 with the relentless bombardment of Sarajevo by Serbs and the brutal use of "ethnic cleansing," primarily by Serbs intent on freeing the areas along the Drina River of Muslim inhabitants. Croats and Muslims retaliated in kind, if not in degree, while Serbs took over control of some 70% of the country and used concentration camps and raping of women as systematic terror tactics to achieve their "cleansing" goals. Croats kept control of western Herzegovina, while their Muslim allies tried to resist Serbian attacks on mostly Muslim cities and towns full of refugees exposed to shelling and starvation while the world watched in horror. The European Community, the United States, the UN, and NATO coordinated peacekeeping efforts, dangerous air deliveries to Sarajevo, airdrops of food and medicinal supplies to keep the people of Sarajevo from dying of starvation and sicknesses.

The various plans proposing the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina into three ethnic cantons were not acceptable to the winning Serbian side. The cantonization plans were also a partial cause for the breakdown of the Muslim-Croatian alliance when the two sides began fighting over areas of mixed Croat and Muslim populations. One such area was the city of Mostar in Herzegovina, where the Croats had established the Croatian union of "Herzeg-Bosnia," later named the state of Herzeg-Bosnia. Finally, under the threat of air strikes from NATO, the Serbs agreed to stop the shelling of Sarajevo and hand over (or remove) their heavy artillery by February 1994, so Sarajevo could get a respite from its bloody siege of several years. A truce was implemented by mid-February 1994 and was barely holding while continuing negotiations were taking place that, on US initiative, brought Croats and Muslims back together on a confederation plan accepted by the two sides and signed in Washington on 18 March 1994.

In July 1994, the EC, the United States, and Russia agreed on a partition plan giving the Croat-Muslim side 51% of the land, with 49% offered to the Bosnian Serbs who, holding 70%, would need to give up a large area under their control. As of the end of July 1994, the Bosnian Serbs' parliament had rejected the plan and had resumed occasional sniping and mortar shelling of Sarajevo, shooting at UN peacekeepers and supply airplanes, and blocking of the single access road to Sarajevo. After almost two-and-a-half years of war, destruction, and terrible suffering imposed on the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the efforts of the international community and its very cumbersome decision-making process had brought Bosnia and Herzegovina back to the partitioning plan originally agreed on at a Lisbon meeting in February 1992. In the fall of 1994, President Milošević of Serbia had closed the borders between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to stop any further assistance to the "Republika Srpska" that he himself helped establish. President Milošević agreed to "extricate" Serbia from its direct support for the Bosnian Serbs in the hope that a compromise partitioning plan that would allow each side to "confederate" with Croatia and Serbia respectively and would offer both sides the opportunity to turn their energies to positive efforts of physical and psychological reconstruction.

The quest to create a "Greater Serbia" continued into July 1995, when Bosnian Serbs overran the UN protected areas of Srebrenica and Zepa, extending their territory near the Croatian border. Over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were summarily executed at Srebrenica. In retaliation, NATO forces initiated air raids on Bosnian Serb positions on 30 August 1995. Two weeks later, Bosnian Serb forces began lifting their siege on Sarajevo, and agreed to enter into negotiations on the future of Bosnia. Pressured by air strikes and diplomacy, Serb leaders joined authorities from Croatia and Bosnia in Dayton, Ohio, for US-sponsored peace talks.

The Dayton Accords

After three years of war, the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina was completed on 21 November 1995 in Dayton, Ohio. Signed in Paris in mid-December, the agreement called for 60,000 NATO peacekeepers to oversee the disarming process. The agreement, known as the Dayton Accords, provided for the continuity of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single state with two constituent entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBH) and the Republika Srpska (RS). The FBH occupies the 51% of the territory with a Bosniak (Muslim) and Croat majority, while the RS occupies the remaining 49% with a Bosnian Serb majority. Following the signing of the Dayton Accords, the UN economic sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian Serb party were suspended, and the arms embargo was lifted (except for heavy weapons). During 1996, the NATO-led Implementation Force assisted with the military aspects of the Dayton Accords to provide stability in order to facilitate civilian reconstruction and the return of refugees and displaced persons. Elections were scheduled and conducted on 11 September 1996.

In March 1996, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia filed its first charges against Serbian soldiers accused of committing atrocities in Bosnia. Among those cited were Serb generals Djordje Djukic and Ratko Mladic, and the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. In May 1997, the tribunal completed its first trial with a conviction of a Bosnian Serb police officer for murdering two Muslim policemen and the torture of Muslim civilians.

Casualty estimates from the war vary from as low as 25,000 to over 250,000 persons. Some three million people became refugees or internally displaced persons. About 320,000 Bosnians had taken refuge in Germany during the war. However, the refugees returned to find a significant housing shortage and massive unemployment. Moreover, the goals of the Dayton Accords to encourage the rebuilding of multi-ethnic communities have not been realized. Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat leaders continued to reinforce ethnic partitions and resisted cooperation with Bosniaks to carry out the peace agreement.

Despite the Dayton Accords, outbreaks of violence persisted. The legacy of centuries of confrontations by the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Turkish Empires in the Balkans continued to haunt the area and a rekindling of the conflict was almost inevitable. In June 1998 NATO peacekeeping forces decided to extend their stay until a more stable peace was achieved. General elections held in 1998 were relatively quiet, but tensions in the Kosovo region increased as Yugoslav forces attacked Kosovar rebels. In March 1999 NATO jets downed two Yugoslav MiG fighters, allegedly thwarting an attempted attack on peacekeeping forces. Fighting between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo raged as NATO aircraft bombed the area. Russia attempted to pass a resolution in the UN Security Council to forbid further bombing runs by NATO warplanes, but failed. Violent conflicts dissipated through the next year, as the International Court of Justice furthered reparations for crimes, and Yugoslavia agreed to a peace plan on 3 June 1999.

Bosnia and Croatia signed a border agreement in July 1999. The strategically located city of Brčko—previously Serb-ruled, and a main site of contention between the country's factions—received a Muslim-Croat/Serb coalition government in March 1999 from the Hague International Court of Justice. Officials from the Serb Republic were disturbed because this portion of land was the one territorial link between the western and eastern portions of the Republic. In 1999, NATO began reducing the 25-nation peacekeeping force by one-third over a period of six months. Mass gravesites continued to be unearthed in northeastern Bosnia, near Sarajevo and in Srebrenica as numerous war criminals were arrested and brought to trial at the Hague.

Municipal elections were held in March 2000, and general elections took place that November. The November elections resulted in a win for the Serbian nationalist Serb Democratic Party (SDS), formerly lead by Karadzic, in the Republika Srpska; the Croatian nationalist HDZ party won among ethnic Croat voters; but the reformist Social Democratic Party narrowly beat the Bosnian Muslim nationalist Party of Democratic Action (SDA) party in certain areas of the Federation. In May 2001, Bosnian Serbs used force to break up ceremonies marking the rebuilding of two destroyed mosques in Banja Luka and Trebinje.

Parliamentary, presidential, and municipal elections were held in October 2002, and nationalists strengthened their positions. The work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague continued. In 2001, former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic surrendered to the tribunal, but pleaded not guilty to charges of genocide; however, in October 2002, she changed her plea to one of guilty of crimes against humanity, and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. In early 2001, a verdict against three Bosnian Serbs found guilty of torturing and raping Bosnian Muslim women marked the first time the tribunal called rape a crime against humanity. Later that year the tribunal found Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic guilty of genocide for his role in the massacre at Srebrenica; he was sentenced to 46 years in prison.

In May 1999, former Yugoslav President Milošević was indicted by the tribunal for war crimes committed in Kosovo; he was subsequently indicted for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, including charges of genocide carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992–95. His trial began in February 2002. In December 2004, the NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR), whose goal was to deter renewed hostilities, concluded its mission. Peacekeeping operations were taken up by the European Union Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR). In June 2005, a Bosnian armed unit with members from all three main ethnic groups left for Iraq, to support the US-led coalition at war there.

GOVERNMENT

Several proposals contributed to the current system of government, which was outlined through the Dayton Accords of 1995. The February 1992 Lisbon proposal first suggested the partitioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina into "ethnic cantons," but was rejected by the Muslim side. The Vance-Owen proposal of early January 1993 dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina, still a unified state, into nine "ethnic majority" provinces with Sarajevo as a central weak government district was accepted by Croats and Muslims on 7 January 1993 and ratified on 20 January 1993 by the Bosnian Serbs' Parliament with a 55-to-15 vote in spite of deep misgivings. However, two key events delayed the necessary detailed implementation discussions: Croat forces' attacks on Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina and on Serbs in Croatia, and the new administration of US President Bill Clinton, from whom the Bosnian Muslims hoped to obtain stronger support, even military intervention. Thus by mid-March 1993, only the Croats had agreed to the three essential points of the Vance-Owen proposal, namely the Constitutional Principles (10 provinces), the Military Arrangements, and the detailed map of the 10 provinces. On 25 March 1993 the Bosnian Muslims agreed to all the terms, but the Bosnian Serb legislature on 2 April 1993 rejected the revised 10-province map and the Vance-Owen plan was scuttled.

The Owen-Stoltenberg plan was based on a June 1993 proposal in Geneva by Presidents Tudjman and Milošević about partitioning Bosnia and Herzegovina into three ethnic-based "states." Owen-Stoltenberg announced the new plan in August 1993 indicating that the three ethnic states were realistically based on the acceptance of Serbian and Croatian territorial "conquests." At the same time the Croat Bosnian "parliament" announced the establishment of the "State of Herzeg-Bosnia" and the Croatian Democratic Alliance withdrew its members from the Bosnian Parliament. The Bosnian Parliament then rejected the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan while seeking further negotiations on the Muslim state's territory and clarifications on the international status of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The next plan, developed with the more proactive participation of the United States and bringing together again the Croats and Muslims into a federation of their own, was signed in Washington on 18 March 1994 following the Sarajevo cease-fire of 17 March. On 31 March 1994 the Bosnian assembly in Sarajevo approved the new constitutional provisions establishing a Federation of Muslims and Croats with the presidency to alternate between Croats and Muslims. The Geneva contact group (United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia) agreed on a new partition plan in July 1994 that divided Bosnia and Herzegovina: 51% to the joint Muslim-Croat federation and 49% to the Serbs.

Under the Dayton Accords, a constitution for Bosnia and Herzegovina was established that recognized a single state with two constituent entities. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBH) incorporated the 51% of the country with a Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat majority, while the Republika Srpska (RS) occupied the 49% of the country with a Bosnian Serb majority. The constitution specified a central government with a bicameral legislature, a three-member presidency comprised of a member of each major ethnic group, a council of ministers, a constitutional court, and a central bank. The bicameral Parliamentary Assembly consists of a House of Peoples, with 15 delegates, and the House of Representatives, with 42 members. In each house, two-thirds of the representatives are from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and one-third from the Republika Srpska.

As a result of the Dayton Accords, Bosnia and Herzegovina is administered in a supervisory role by a High Representative chosen by the UN Security Council. As of 2005, that representative was Paddy Ashdown.

Elections for central and federation-level canton offices were conducted on 14 September 1996 as specified by the Dayton Accords. Alija Izetbegović, Momcilo Krajisnik, and Kresimir Zubak were elected to the presidency representing respectively the Bosniaks (Muslims), Serbs, and Croats. Izetbegović was named Chair in accordance with the new constitution. Krajisnik, later accused of joining Karadzic in siphoning off million of dollars in potential tax revenue through gasoline and cigarette monopolies, boycotted the council after one meeting, paralyzing the government.

Izetbegović was reelected to the Muslim seat of the joint presidency in the September 1998 elections; Ante Jelavic won the Croat seat; and Zivko Radisic, the Serb seat. An eight-month chairpersonship rotates among the three joint presidents. Elections were held in 2002. Sulejman Tihić won the Muslim seat; Dragan Cović, the Croat seat; and Mirko Sarović, the Serb seat. In April 2003, Sarović resigned following a report by Western intelligence agencies regarding an affair involving illegal military exports to Iraq and allegations of spying on international officials. He was replaced by Borislav Paravac. In March 2005, High Representative Paddy Ashdown removed Dragan Cović from the presidency, who faced corruption charges. He was replaced by Ivo Miro Jović.

The FBH government has a president and a bicameral parliament (House of Representatives and House of Peoples). The RS government has a president and a unicameral legislature (National Assembly). As a result of a 2002 constitutional reform process, an RS Council of Peoples was established in the RS National Assembly. In 2003, High Representative Paddy Ashdown abolished the Supreme Defense Council of the RS, and altered the constitutions of the RS and FBH, removing all reference to statehood from both.

POLITICAL PARTIES

Three main political parties wield significant political power at all levels of government. The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) dominates the Republika Srpska, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) is the main Bosniak (Muslim) nationalist party, and the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ) represents Croat areas. However, a reformist party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the FBH is gaining in popularity. Other parties include: Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBIH); Civic Democratic Party (GDS); Croatian Peasants' Party of BIH (HSS); Croat Christian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HKDU); Croat Party of Rights (HSP); Independent Social Democratic Party (SNSD); Liberal Bosniak Organization (LBO); Liberal Party (LS); Muslim-Bosniak Organization (MBO); Republican Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RP); Serb Civic Council (SGV); Socialist Party of Republika Srpska (SPRS); Serb Radical Party (SRS); Democratic Socialist Party (DSP); Social Democrats of Bosnia Herzegovina; Party for Democratic Progress (PDP); National Democratic Union (DNZ); Social Democratic Union (SDU): Serb National Alliance (SNS); and the Coalition for a United and Democratic BIH (coalition of SDA, SBIH, LS, and GDS). Parliamentary elections were held on 5 October 2002, and seats in the House of Representatives were distributed as follows: SDA, 10 seats; the SBiH, 6 seats; the SDS, 5 seats; HDZ, 5 seats; the SDP, 4 seats; the SNSD, 3 seats; the PDP, 2 seats; and 6 other parties took 1 seat each.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBH) and the Republika Srpska (RS). The FBH is further divided into 10 cantons: Goražde, Livno, Middle Bosnia, Neretva, Posavina, Sarajevo, Tuzla Podrinje, Una Sana, West Herzegovina, and Zenica Doboj. There are also municipal governments. Brčko district, in northeastern Bosnia, is an administrative unit under the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina; it is not part of either the RS or the FBH, and the district remains under international supervision.

JUDICIAL SYSTEM

The 1995 Dayton Accords established a constitution including a Constitutional Court composed of nine members. The Constitutional Court's original jurisdiction lies in deciding any constitutional dispute that arises between the FBH and the RS or between Bosnia and Herzegovina and one or both of the FBH and the RS. The Court also has appellate jurisdiction within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, although it is subject to influence by nationalist elements, political parties, and the executive branch. Original court jurisdiction exists in both municipal and cantonal courts (10 in the FBH); the RS has 5 municipal courts and district courts. Appeals in the FBH are taken to the Federation Supreme Court, and in the RS to the RS Supreme Court. The constitution provides for open and public trials. The legal system is based on civil law system.

ARMED FORCES

As of 2005, the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) consisted of 24,672 active personnel, of which the army is the largest service with 16,400. However, the country is composed of two political entities: the Muslim and Croat-based Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serb-based Republika Srpska. As a result, the country's armed forces, as well as its equipment, are divided between the two entities. In December 2003, the Bosnian parliament passed a law that established a chain of command that went from the State Presidency to the Ministry of Defense, then to the Joint Staff, then to a joint Operational Command, and from there, down to the armed forces of each entity. In 2005, the Federation Army (excluding 40,000 reservists) had 16,400 active personnel, supported by 188 main battle tanks, 35 armored infantry fighting vehicles, 129 armored personnel carriers, and more than 946 artillery pieces. The Army of the Republika Srpska had 8,200 active personnel and 20,000 reservists. Equipment included 137 main battle tanks, 74 armored infantry fighting vehicles, 74 armored personnel carriers, and 500 artillery pieces. The (Serb) air wing includes 14 combat capable aircraft, of which there are 13 fighter ground attack aircraft. Under the Dayton Peace Accord (1995) and the Common Defence Policy (2001) the armed forces are being reduced. Defense spending in 2005 totaled $143 million.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Bosnia and Herzegovina was admitted to the United Nations on 22 May 1992 and serves in several specialized agencies, such as the FAO, IAEA, UNESCO, UNIDO, and WHO. The country is an observer in the WTO. Bosnia and Herzegovina joined the OSCE on 30 April 1992. The country is also a member of G-77, the Council of Europe, the Southeast Europe Cooperation Initiative (SECI), and the Central European Initiative. Bosnia and Herzegovina is an observer in the OAS and the OIC. The country is part of the Nonaligned Movement and has supported UN efforts in Ethiopia and Eritrea (est. 2000) and the DROC (est. 1999). Diplomatic relations with Croatia, Albania, and Serbia and Montenegro have been stable since the signing of Dayton Accords (1995). In environmental cooperation, Bosnia and Herzegovina is part of the Basel Convention, the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, Ramsar, the Montréal Protocol, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the UN Convention son the Law of the Sea and Climate Change.

ECONOMY

Before the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina ranked next to Macedonia as the poorest republic of the former Yugoslav SFR. Although industry accounted for over 50% of GDP, Bosnia and Herzegovina was primarily agricultural. Farms were small and inefficient, thus necessitating food imports. Industry was greatly overstaffed, with Bosnia and Herzegovina accounting for much of the former Yugoslav SFR's metallic ore and coal production. Timber production and textiles also were important.

The destructive impact of the war on the economy led to a 75% drop in GDP. Since the Dayton Accords of 1995, trade increased in Croat areas, and significant growth began in Muslim areas. Reconstruction programs initiated by the international community financed the construction of infrastructure and provided loans to the manufacturing sector. External aid amounted to $5 billion between 1995–99. This aid caused growth rates to increase to 30%, but as of 2003, that rate had stabilized to around 6%. Actual GDP growth by that year had reached half its prewar level.

Privatization has been slow and Western financial organizations are increasing calls for reform in this area, especially in telecommunications and energy. (The private sector accounts for only 35% of the economy.) Foreign direct investment remains low, due in part to corruption and many layers of bureaucracy. Tax reform is needed, as is reform of the banking industry and the financial services sector. In 2002, the government adopted a poverty reduction strategy designed to create more jobs and increase exports. As foreign aid declines in coming years, Bosnia and Herzegovina will need to increase exports to generate hard currency revenues. Some progress was made in this area in 2001 with exports of clothing, furniture, and leather goods.

The economic rate of recovery has been spectacular and encouraging in subsequent years. Thus, the GDP growth rate improved from 5.6% in 2002, to 7.0% in 2003, and 8.3% in 2004; it was expected to grow even further, at 9.5%, in 2005. Unemployment, similar to most former Yugoslav republics, save Slovenia, remains a major problem. In 2004, the unemployment rate was 44%, although many of the officially jobless are thought to be working within the grey economy. Inflation has decreased to insignificant levels (0.8% in 2004), and it may pose a problem to the country's export sector.

INCOME

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports that in 2005 Bosnia and Herzegovina's gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated at $28.3 billion. Bosnia has a large informal sector that could also be as much as 50% of official GDP. The CIA defines GDP as the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year and computed on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP) rather than value as measured on the basis of the rate of exchange based on current dollars. The per capita GDP was estimated at $6,800. The annual growth rate of GDP was estimated at 5.2%. The average inflation rate in 2005 was 1.4%. It was estimated that agriculture accounted for 14.2% of GDP, industry 30.8%, and services 55%.

According to the World Bank, in 2003 remittances from citizens working abroad totaled $1.178 billion or about $307 per capita and accounted for approximately 16.9% of GDP. Foreign aid receipts amounted to about $130 per capita.

The World Bank reports that in 2003 household consumption in Bosnia and Herzegovina totaled $6.4 billion or about $1,670 per capita based on a GDP of $7.0 billion, measured in current dollars rather than PPP. Household consumption includes expenditures of individuals, households, and nongovernmental organizations on goods and services, excluding purchases of dwellings.

It was estimated that in 2004 about 25% of the population had incomes below the poverty line.

LABOR

The labor force in 2002 numbered 1.026 million. As of end 2004, the official unemployment rate stood at an estimated 45.5%. However, the actual unemployment rate may be between 25% and 30%, due to the so-called "gray economy." There is no data available as to the occupational breakdown of the Bosnian work force.

All workers are legally entitled to form or join unions and to strike, but labor activity is limited due to high unemployment rates and economic hardship. Unions are highly politicized and are formed along ethnic lines. Strikes were used frequently in 2001 as a form of protest against arrears in salaries and overdue wages.

The minimum employment age in the Bosnian-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska entities is 15. However, many younger children often assist with family agricultural work and minors between the ages of 15 and 18, in order to work, must provide a valid health certificate. As of 2005, the minimum wage was $193 per month in the Federation and $51 in Republika Srpska. The legal workweek in both entities is 40 hours, although seasonal workers may work up to 60 hours per week. Laws in both entities require a 30-minute rest period during the work day. Safety and health regulations are generally ignored due to the economic devastation of war.

AGRICULTURE

About 21.3% (1,030,000 hectares/2,545,000 acres) of the total area was considered arable land in 2002. About 4% of the economically active population was engaged in agriculture in 2003. During the disintegration of Yugoslavia, civil fighting in the major agricultural areas often interrupted harvests and caused considerable loss of field crops. Principal crops harvested in 2004 included (in 1,000 tons): corn, 800; wheat, 250; potatoes, 350; fruit, 157; oats, 55; and rye, 12.

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

There are some 1.2 million hectares (three million acres) of permanent pastureland, representing about 23.5% of the total land area. Because of the breakup of Yugoslavia and subsequent civil war, the livestock population fell significantly during the 1990s. In 2004, the livestock inventory included (in 1,000s): sheep, 670; cattle, 440; pigs, 300; horses, 18; and chickens, 4,700.

Production of meat fell from 158,000 tons in 1990 to 24,000 tons in 1999, and amounted to 32,300 tons in 2004. In 2004, milk production was 460,000 tons; egg production was 15,100 tons during that time.

FISHING

With no ports on its 20 km (12 mi) of Adriatic coastline, marine fishing is not commercially significant. Inland fishing occurs on the Sava, Una, and Drina Rivers. The total catch in 2003 was 8,635 tons, 77% from inland waters.

FORESTRY

About 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres) are forested, accounting for nearly 53% of the total land area. Much of the output is used for fuel. In 2003, forest product imports totaled $24 million; exports, $65.3 million.

MINING

Bosnia and Herzegovina's mineral resources include iron ore, lead, zinc, manganese, and bauxite. Iron ore production was centered in Varescaron, Jablanica, Ljubija, and Radovan; lead and zinc ore was mined at Olovo, Varescaron, and Srebrenica; manganese ore operations were centered at Bosanska Krupa; bauxite deposits were worked at Vlasenica, Zvornik, and Banja Luka; substantial nickel deposits had been worked near Visegrad; and substantial nickel deposits had been worked near Visegrad. Energoinvest operated a lead-zinc mine at Srebrenica, a manganese mine at Buzim, bauxite mines in many locations, alumina plants at Birac-Zvornik and Mostar, an aluminum smelter at Mostar, and a petroleum refinery at Bosanski Brod. Before the civil war, Bosnia and Herzegovina was a major center for metallurgical industries in the former Yugoslavia and a major producer of bauxite, alumina, and aluminum. Mineral production in 2003 were, in metric tons: iron ore, 126,929; bauxite, 229,317; lead, (none reported for 2003); zinc, (none reported for 2003); salt, 84,000; crude gypsum, 77,500; ceramic clay, 35,861; and ornamental stone, 35,800 sq m. Other nonfuel mineral resources included asbestos, barite, bentonite, kaolin, lime, magnesite, ammonia nitrogen, glass sand, sand and gravel, soda ash, caustic soda, and crushed and brown stone. Capacity utilization in industrial minerals mining has fallen and modernization and privatization were essential for long-term viability.

ENERGY AND POWER

As of 2002, total electrical capacity was 3.950 million kW. Generation for that year amounted to 10.401 billion kWh, of which 5.215 billion kWh was hydroelectric and 5.186 billion kWh were produced by conventional thermal plants. Electrical generation was irregular during the civil conflict of the early to mid-1990s. Total electricity consumption in 2000 was 2.6 billion kWh. In 2002, consumption had risen to 8.559 billion kWh.

Brown coal and lignite mines are located around Tuzla. Coal production is consumed primarily by the country's thermal electric power stations. A petroleum refinery at Bosanski Brod reportedly had an annual capacity of 100 million tons in 1995, and depends entirely on imports; however, the refinery was extensively damaged in April 1993 during local fighting.

INDUSTRY

Mining and mining-related activities make up the bulk of Bosnia and Herzegovina's industry. Steel production, vehicle assembly, textiles, tobacco products, wooden furniture, and domestic appliances are also important industries. Industrial capacity, largely damaged or shut down in 1995 because of the civil war, has increased. In 1998, industrial production grew an estimated 35%. Nevertheless, this figure remains lower than the pre-1992 rate, and in 2001, output stood only about half its prewar level. In the Republika Srpska, the Serb Democratic Party controls every significant production facility, government department, and state institution. Privatization began in 1999, but as of 2001, only 7 of 138 strategic enterprises had been sold. Large gains were made in the export of clothing, furniture, and leather goods in 2001. The construction sector in 2002 held promise for growth, as projects to improve infrastructure were underway.

Industrial production growth in 2004 was outpaced by the GDP growth rate, reaching only 5.5%, as opposed to 8.3%. This is an indicator that industry was outperformed by the services sector, which contributed 55% to the overall GDP; industry came in second with a 30.8% share in the GDP composition; agriculture contributed 14.2%. The industrial output growth seemed to recover in 2005, with strong performances by the manufacturing and mining sectors.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Scientific and engineering education is provided at the universities of Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and Tuzla (founded in 1948, 1975, and 1976, respectively). The Institute for Thermal and Nuclear Technology, founded in 1961, is located in Sarajevo. Leading professional groups include the Society of Mathematicians, Physicists and Astronomers, the Union of Engineers and Technicians, and the Medical Society of Bosnia and Herzegovina, all headquartered in Sarajevo.

DOMESTIC TRADE

Bosnia and Herzegovina is still struggling with efforts to move from socialism to private sector, market-led capitalism. Commerce has been severely restricted by the ongoing interethnic civil strife. In the Bosnian Serb area, senior police commanders and officials in the governing Serb Democratic Party have a monopoly on cigarette and gasoline sales. Retail establishments tend to be very small with limited inventories; however, some large shopping centers are gaining ground. Direct marketing and sales are also gaining in popularity. Installment plans and financing, even for very low cost items, is common, since credit is not widely available or accepted.

Though postwar reconstruction is nearly complete, as of 2002, the country's economy still depended heavily on foreign aid. With the establishment of the Central Bank and currency board in 1997, inflation has since been brought under control; however, unemployment is still high, at about 40% in 2002. As of 2002, the private sector only accounts for about 35% of the economy.

FOREIGN TRADE

Due to the UN trade embargo, international trade with Bosnia and Herzegovina was limited during the civil war. In 2000, exports amounted to nearly $1 billion, up from less than $400 million in 1998. Clothing, furniture, and leather goods led this upswing in export revenues. Exports went mainly to Italy, Yugoslavia, and Switzerland. Imports in 2000 totaled $3.6 billion, with Croatia, Italy,

and Slovenia supplying 21%, 16%, and 14% of the total value, respectively.

Before the war, manufactured goods accounted for 31% of exports; machinery and transport equipment, 20.8%; raw materials, 18%; other manufactured products, 17.3%; chemicals, 9.4%; fuel and lubricants, 1.2%; and food and live animals, 1.2%. Fuels and lubricants made up 32% of annual imports before the war; machinery and transport equipment, 23.3%; other manufactured items, 21.3%; chemicals, 10%; raw materials, 6.7%; food and live animals, 5.5%; and beverages and tobacco, 1.9%.

Exports totaled $1.7 billion (FOB—Free on Board) in 2004, and mainly went to Italy (22.3%), Croatia (21.1%), Germany (20.8%), Austria (7.4%), Slovenia (7.1%), and Hungary (4.8%). Base metals topped the list of exports, with 24.9% of total exports; followed by wood and wood products (15.2%); mineral products (11.8%); and chemicals (7.5%). Imports were more than three times as high as exports, at $5.2 billion, and mainly came from Croatia (23.8%), Slovenia (15.8%), Germany (14.8%), Italy (11.4%), Austria (6.6%), and Hungary (6.1%). The most import import commodities were machinery (15.5%), mineral products (12.7%), foodstuffs (11.7%), and chemicals (9.4%).

BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported that in 2001 the purchasing power parity of Bosnia and Herzegovina's exports was $1.1 billion while imports totaled $3.1 billion resulting in a trade deficit of $2 billion. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that in 2001 Bosnia and Herzegovina had exports of goods totaling $1.17 billion and imports totaling $3.92 billion. The services credit totaled $288 million and debit $228 million. Although Bosnia and Herzegovina runs large trade deficits, due to low domestic production, the gap between imports and exports in the early 2000s was narrowing steadily. Export growth in 2001 was fueled by duty-free access of Bosnian exports to the EU.

Exports of goods and services totaled $2.1 billion (FOB—Free on Board) in 2004, up from $1.5 billion in 2003. Imports grew from $5.6 billion in 2003, to $6.7 billion in 2004. The resource balance was on a negative upsurge, growing from -$4.1 billion in 2003, to a whopping -$4.6 billion in 2004. A similar trend was registered for the current account balance, which deteriorated from

-$1.7 billion in 2003, to -$1.9 billion in 2004. The national reserves (including gold) were $1.8 billion in 2003, covering approximately 4 months of imports; in 2004, they grew to $2.4 billion.

BANKING AND SECURITIES

The central bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the National Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In June 1992 Yugoslavia's central bank refused to issue Yugoslavian dinars in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Commercial banks in the country include Privredna Banka Sarajevo, Hrvatsk A Banka d.d. Mostar, and Investiciono-Komercijalua Banka d.d. Zenica.

In 1996, Croatian dinars were used in Croat-held areas for currency, presumably to be replaced by new Croatian kuna. Old and new Serbian dinars were used in Serb-held areas. Hard currencies, such as the deutschmark, supplanted local currencies in areas held by the Bosnian government. In April 1997 the presidential council agreed on a single currency, the konvertibilni marka (KM), for both the Muslim/Croat and Bosnian Serb parts of the country.

Bank privatization is problematic, but improving. Some of the state-owned banks targeted for privatization were actually privatized during the war. Many are considered insolvent, but in 2001, individual bank deposits in Federation banks were up 178%. The International Monetary Fund reports that in 2001, currency and demand deposits—an aggregate commonly known as M1—were equal to $1.3 billion. In that same year, M2—an aggregate equal to M1 plus savings deposits, small time deposits, and money market mutual funds—was $2.2 billion.

INSURANCE

No recent information is available.

PUBLIC FINANCE

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated that in 2005 Bosnia and Herzegovina's central government took in revenues of approximately $4.3 billion and had expenditures of $4.4 billion. Revenues minus expenditures totaled approximately -$28 million. Total external debt was $3.1 billion.

TAXATION

Current information is unavailable due to civil unrest.

CUSTOMS AND DUTIES

Bosnia has signed free trade agreements with Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia. Tariff rates for imports from other countries are zero, 5% or 10%, depending on the good, with consumption and luxury goods generally receiving the higher rates.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT

Private investment plummeted during the civil war, when UN sanctions were in force. The conclusion of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995 brought positive changes in the investment climate. In May 1998, a law on foreign direct investment (FDI) was passed and in June 1998, a law on privatization. While privatization of small and medium enterprises made good progress, the state of larger strategic firms has progressed more slowly. As of spring 2002, only 7 of 138 large state-owned enterprises had been sold and only 35% of the economy had been privatized. The largest foreign sale was the Zenica Steel Mill, which became the BH Steel Company in a joint venture with Kuwait Consulting and Investment Company (KCIC) in which both sides put up $60 million (KCIC paid $12 million in 1999 and took over $48 million of debt).

In 1997, only $1 million of FDI flowed into Bosnia and Herzegovina, but this jumped to $54.6 million in 1998 and then to $148.8 million in 1999. A decline occurred in 2001 to $131.5 million (when riots broke out in two Republika Srpska towns over the rebuilding of mosques), but the numbers recovered to $164 million. The overwhelming majority of foreign investment into Bosnia and Herzegovina comes from aid groups and international financial institutions.

From 1994 to 2002, over half (55.5%) of FDI was in manufacturing, thanks primarily to the BH Steel Company venture. Banking has received 16.5% (mainly from Dubai, Austria, and Croatia); services, 6.8%; trade, 6.2%; transport, 0.9%; and tourism, 0.7%.

Previous years have seen Bosnia and Herzegovina take on major changes in an attempt to attract foreign investors. A liberal State Foreign Investment Policy Law, a common currency, and a more streamlined trade and customs policy were some of the most noteworthy attempts to increase capital inflows. However, these efforts failed to bring about the desired result—an indicator that more changes of the legal framework and business environment have to be undertaken. Foreign investments totaled around $1.9 billion in 2003. In the first nine months of 2004, $367 million in FDI came into the country, with 60% of these inflows going to the banking sector.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Following the 1995 peace agreement, economic assistance was expected to lay the groundwork for a revival of the economy. The actual distribution of assistance to particular entities or areas was tied to the government's compliance with the Dayton Accords. Into 2005, privatization and reconstruction were ongoing. The absence of a single market in Bosnia and Herzegovina is an obstacle to economic development, as is the lack of legal certainty and a high degree of bureaucratization. A central bank was established in 1997, and a new currency launched in 1998. Successful debt negotiations have been held with the London Club and the Paris Club.

In 2004, Bosnia and Herzegovina scored an important increase in economic output, but the GDP was still below prewar levels. Apart from a series of systemic and political problems, the country has to fight rampant unemployment, a large underground economy, and an inflation level that was not helping the already low export levels. However, one of Bosnia's long-term goals is EU integration. A series of planned privatizations and restructurings in the energy, transportation, telecommunication, and construction sectors were expected to jump-start the economy and create a circle of cumulative causations that will attract future investments in the future.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Social welfare systems have been in crisis since the wars of the 1990s. International efforts are in place to shift from humanitarian aid to a sustainable social welfare system. There is also an effort to reformulate disability pensions.

Although gender discrimination is proscribed by the 2003 Law on Gender Equality, the extent of legal and social discrimination against women varies by region. Women in urban areas pursue professional careers in such areas as law, medicine, and academia, while their rural counterparts are often relegated to the margins of public life. Violence against women remains underreported and there are accounts of police inaction in domestic situations. It was estimated in 2004 that over 25% of families experiences domestic violence. The problem is more significant in rural areas, and is exacerbated by poverty and alcoholism. Trafficking of women remains a major problem in the region.

All sides were guilty of human rights atrocities in the war and its aftermath. By 1995, it was estimated that up to two-thirds of the country's prewar population have become refugees or displaced persons. Women were targeted for cruel treatment during the war, and Serb forces systematically used rape as a tool to accelerate ethnic cleansing. The worst single incident of genocide in Europe since World War II occurred in the Bosnian "safe haven" of Srebrenica in 1995. Over 7,000 men and boys were massacred at Srebrenica. As of 2005, many if not most of the perpetrators of these vicious acts remain unpunished.

Human rights abuses have continued in the political entities established by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords. Discrimination and harassment of minority ethnic groups remain a huge problem in all regions. There are widespread reports of police brutality and corruption, and prison standards are poor. However, human rights groups are able to operate without government restrictions.

HEALTH

There were over 200,000 war-related deaths in the 1990s (120,000 in 1992 alone) and many Bosnians were permanently disabled. Besides causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries, the Bosnian war destroyed much of the health care infrastructure. Many hospitals were destroyed and infant mortality rates increased.

In 2005, the average life expectancy was 78 years. The infant mortality rate was 11 deaths per 1,000 live births in that year. In 2002 the birth rate was estimated at 13 per 1,000 people and the death rate was 8 per 1,000. In 1999, an estimated 83% of children under one had a measles vaccination and 90% of children were immunized for diphtheria. In 1999, there were 87 cases of tuberculosis per 100,000 people.

Salaries for health care providers are low, and medical equipment is outdated. As of 2004, there were an estimated 134 physicians, 411 nurses, 16 dentists, and 9 pharmacists per 100,000 people. Primary care is provided through health centers (dom zdravlyas ) and outpatient branches called ambulantas. As of 1999 there were 87 dom zdravlyas in the Bosnian Federation, staffed by general practitioners and nurses, providing primary care, preventive care, health education, and rehabilitation. Among the secondary and tertiary care facilities in the Republika Srpska is one in Banja Luka that has 1,327 beds and one in Sarajevo with 776 beds. The country has five medical schools. Health expenditure was estimated at 8% of GDP.

The HIV/AIDS prevalence was 0.10 per 100 adults in 2003. As of 2004, there were approximately 900 people living with HIV/AIDS in the country. There were an estimated 100 deaths from AIDS in 2003.

HOUSING

There is a chronic housing shortage in Bosnia and Herzegovina, since a majority of all homes, and even a few entire towns, were destroyed during the civil war in the period 1992–1995. Over two million people were forced from their homes during that time and about 65% of the housing stock was destroyed or seriously damaged. Since 1998, over 100,000 housing units have been repaired in some way, but many existing homes are still in serious need of repair and utilities are not always available. With the help of international assistance programs, only about half of the nation's refugees and displaced residents were able to return to their homes by 2001.

EDUCATION

Before the Bosnian war of the early 1990s, the area covered by present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina had 641 primary and 243 secondary schools. By 1996, these totals had been reduced to 270 primary and 141 secondary schools. There were fewer than 200,000 primary pupils, taught by 8,000 teachers, and 65,500 secondary students, with 4,100 teachers.

Education at the elementary level is free and compulsory for students between the ages of 6 and 15. At the secondary level, children have the option to take up general education (gymnasium), vocational, or technical. General secondary lasts for four years and qualifies the students for university education. In 2001 the government began a modernization program for primary and secondary education, covering curriculum, special needs education, in-service teacher training, and other areas. The academic year runs from October to July. The languages of instructions are Croatian and Serbian. Education is administered by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports. Each of the country's 10 cantons also has its own education ministry.

There are four main universities: the University of Banja Luka (founded in 1975); the University of Mostar (founded in 1977); the University of Tuzla (founded in 1976); and the University of Sarajevo (founded in 1949), which offers programs in the social sciences, humanities, sciences, medicine, law, and engineering. Several other academies have been founded throughout the country since 1993. The adult literacy rate for 2004 was estimated at about 95.6%, with 98.4% for males and 91.1% for females.

LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS

Numerous historic sites have been damaged by war, including the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which sustained major damage and a large loss of materials in a 1992 bombing. Outside groups, such as UNESCO, have since been working to rebuild the National Library. In Banja Luka, there is an important university and public library founded in 1936, and holding 226,000 volumes with an impressive collection of Eastern manuscripts. The University of Sarajevo also housed an impressive library, but it was badly damaged during the civil war. The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina has a library with 162,000 volumes.

Prior to the 1992 war, Sarajevo was a major cultural center in the Balkans. It still hosts nearly a dozen museums, including the Museum of the Old Orthodox Church, the Museum of Young Bosnia, the State Museum, and the Museum of the City of Sarajevo, as well as Bosnia's National Museum. In the provinces are the Museum of the National Struggle for Liberation in Jajce and the Museum of Herzegovina in Mostar.

MEDIA

In general, the telephone and telegraph network is in need of modernization and expansion. Service in many urban centers is said to be below the level of other former Yugoslav republics. In 2003, there were an estimated 245 mainline telephones for every 1,000 people. The same year, there were approximately 274 mobile phones in use for every 1,000 people.

There are over 200 commercial radio and television stations, but the most influential stations are those operated by the Public Broadcasting Service of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serb Republic Radio-TV. In 2003, there were an estimated 243 radios for every 1,000 people. The number of television sets in use was unavailable in the same survey. Also in 2003, about 26 of every 1,000 people reported having access to the Internet. There were 15 secure Internet servers in the country in 2004.

In Sarajevo, the daily newspaper Oslobodjenje (Liberation ) managed to publish continuously throughout the siege of that city despite power and phone line outages, newsprint shortages, and direct attacks on its offices. Founded in 1943 as a Nazi resistance publication, Oslobodjenje, which is published in Serbo-Croatian, had a circulation of 56,000 in 2002. In 1993, two of its editors received international recognition from the World Press Review.

The constitution signed in Dayton, Ohio, on 21 November 1995, provides for freedom of speech and the press. However, the extreme ethnic segregation in various regions is reported to put the media in each area under considerable regional restrictions. The development of independent media is beginning to be implemented, through the sponsorship of private organizations, cultural societies, and political parties, along with Western aid organizations.

ORGANIZATIONS

The Bosnia and Herzegovina Chamber of Commerce promotes trade and commerce in world markets. There are some professional associations, particularly those representing medical professionals in specialized fields.

There are over a dozen learned societies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Research institutions in the country are concentrated in the areas of nuclear technology, meteorology, historical monument preservation, and language.

Youth organizations include the Student Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Council of Scout Associations. There are a number of sports associations, including those dedicated to such favorite pastimes as tennis, skating, and handball. There is also an active committee of the Special Olympics.

There is a national chapter of UNICEF and the Red Cross Society. Volunteer service organizations, such as the Lions Clubs International, are also present.

TOURISM, TRAVEL, AND RECREATION

Civil war has limited the development of a tourism industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo, the capital city, is growing as a tourist attraction. The city was the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics. In 2003, there were about 165,000 tourist arrivals. Tourist receipts totaled $258 million.

According to the US Department of State, the cost of staying in Sarajevo in 2005 was about $172 per day.

FAMOUS BOSNIANS AND HERZEGOVINIANS

Dr. Alija Izetbegović (1925–2003) was the president of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1991–96, and was a member of the threeman presidency from 1996–2000 until he stepped down due to ill heath. Dzemd Bijedic (1917–1977) was a leader of Yugoslavia from 1971 until 1977, when he was killed in a plane crash. The 1914 assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo led to WW I.

DEPENDENCIES

Bosnia and Herzegovina has no territories or colonies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Beverly. Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Andjelic, Neven. Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy. London: Frank Cass, 2003.

Bose, Sumantra. Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Cousens, Elizabeth M. Toward Peace in Bosnia: Implementing the Dayton Accords. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001.

Cuvalo, Ante. Historical Dictionary of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 1997.

Doubt, Keith. Sociology after Bosnia and Kosovo: Recovering Justice. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.

Filipovic, Zlata. Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo. New York: Viking, 1994.

Frucht, Richard (ed.). Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2005.

Jones, Lynne. Then They Started Shooting: Growing Up in Wartime Bosnia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004.

King, David C. Bosnia and Herzegovina. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2005.

Lovrenovic, Ivan. Bosnia: A Cultural History. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

Mahmutcehajic, Rusmir. Bosnia the Good: Tolerance and Tradition. New York: Central European University Press, 2000.

McElrath, Karen (ed.). HIV and AIDS: A Global View. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Pinson, Mark (ed.) The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Their Historic Development from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia. 2nd ed., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Pejanovic, Mirko. Through Bosnian Eyes: The Political Memoir of a Bosnian Serb. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 2004.

Sacco, Joe. War's End: Profiles from Bosnia, 1995–1996. Montréal: Drawn and Quarterly, 2005.

Schuman, Michael. Bosnia and Herzegovina. New York: Facts On File, 2004.

Terry, Sara. Aftermath: Bosnia's Long Road to Peace. New York: Channel Photographics, 2005.

Velikonja, Mitja. Religious Separation and Political Intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina. College Station, Tex.: Texas A and M University Press, 2003.

Yugoslavia, the Former and Future: Reflections by Scholars from the Region. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

History & Background

Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina, designated here as BiH), once a culturally rich jewel of the Balkan republics in the former Yugoslavia, suffered dramatically during the 1990s from a tragic civil war involving its three main ethnic groups—Serbs, Bosnian Muslims ("Bosniacs"), and Croats. The war impacted all aspects of Bosnian society and dramatically reduced the material and social quality of life in the country. Similarly, the war reshaped the percentages and numbers of ethnic minorities living in the country as well as the personal and professional relationships between members of various ethnic groups. In 1991 approximately 31 percent of the Bosnian population was Serb, 17 percent was Croat, and 44 percent was Bosniac, with 5.5 percent of the population considering themselves "Yugoslav" and 2.5 percent belonging to other ethnic minorities such as Roma/Sinti and Jews. About 27 percent of marriages were "mixed" across ethnic lines in 1991, and Bosnia and Herzegovina was well known for the compatible ethnic blending of the inhabitants in many of its towns and villages. Following the radical social, economic, and political transformations that occurred throughout Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the break-up of the Soviet Union in August of 1991, and a build-up of ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia (a six republic federation created by outside powers in 1918 at the end of the first World War), Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia in October 1991. By 1992 BiH was engulfed in a genocidal civil war, with significant outside military intervention from the Serbian army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Heavy shelling and violent attacks by the three warring sides destroyed the people, land, and social infrastructure of BiH, including the education system, between March 1992 and October 1995. Violence subsided only with a ceasefire declared in October 1995 when representatives from the three warring sides (Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and Serbs) met in Dayton, Ohio to develop a peace accord. This peace agreement, known officially as the "General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina" (unofficially, as the "Comprehensive Peace Agreement" or "Dayton Accords") was signed in Paris in December 1995. A freshly written Constitution for BiH was annexed to the peace agreement.

The Constitution developed as part of the Dayton Accords detailed a complete restructuring of the government of BiH, with Bosnia and Herzegovina to be kept intact as a single country with internationally recognized exterior boundaries equivalent to those standing before the war and the internal boundaries significantly realigned. The Dayton agreement recognized 51 percent of the territory of BiH as belonging to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federacija Bosna i Hercegovina, designated here as FBH), whose population is mainly Bosnian Muslim or Croat, and 49 percent of BiH as belonging to the Serbian Republic (Republika Srpska, designated here as RS), where the majority of the population is Serbian. ("Herzegovina" refers to a region just south of the country's border with Croatia in northern BiH where the majority of the population is Croat.) In addition to the two Entities, the northeastern Bosnian town of Brcko was demilitarized in March 2000 and is now recognized as a self-governing administrative unit under the jurisdiction of the national state, neither part of FBH nor of RS.

Each of the two sub-national territories, FBH and RS, is known as an "Entity," with Bosnia and Herzegovina itself considered a single, unified national state. In turn, the Federation (i.e., the Muslim/Croat majority Entity) is subdivided into ten Cantons where political power is relatively decentralized for many government functions. The Serb Republic is not subdivided. However, at both the national level and in both the FBH and the RS, much political control remains centralized with key policy decisions issuing from the national government organs and from each Entity's governing structures. At the national level, economic and foreign policy are decided by the national government organs of BiH. Based on the Dayton Accords, internal affairs, including education policies, are left to the Entities, and in the case of the Federation, in large measure to the ten Cantons. However, due to the problems arising from the operation of two entirely parallel educational systems and, in the case of FBH, ten subsystems, efforts were being made by the year 2000—with substantial encouragement and financial support from international organizations such as the World Bank, the European Union, the Council of Europe, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and the United Nations Development Programme—to redesign the country's education system and administrative structures, to upgrade and modernize teacher training, teaching methods, the curriculum, and textbooks, and generally to reform schools and improve the quality of instruction. (The World Bank loan of $10.6 million for the Education Development Project, for example, was designed to improve primary education and teacher training and, more specifically, was to be used to 1) finance grants for schools, teacher training (both pre-service and in-service), and scholarships; 2) define and assess performance standards in primary and secondary schools and to harmonize them with European standards; 3) provide technical assistance and training for academics to improve higher education; and 4) provide data for a Poverty Reduction Strategy and conduct a Living Standards Measurement Study.)

By early 2001, nearly 10 years after Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia, the ethnic make-up of BiH had changed rather significantly from the pre-war situation, along with the residential concentrations of the various ethnic groups living in different parts of the country. In 2001 approximately 40 percent of BiH's population was Serb, about 22 percent Croat, and about 38 percent Bosniac, the large number of war casualties and population displacements caused by the war having altered the ethnic mix. Regarding religion, the composition of BiH is approximately 40 percent Muslim, 31 percent Orthodox, 15 percent Roman Catholic, 4 percent Protestant, and 10 percent other (including some Jewish).

The population of BiH, estimated at about 3.8 to 4.2 million in 2000, had recovered in numbers almost to its pre-war size of 4.4 million, though the population had dropped dramatically in the 1990s due to the numbers of Bosnians who were killed in the war (about 250,000) or who fled the country (about 1.2 million). During the 1990s about two-thirds of the population in the 20- to 40-year-old range left the country. In 1999 only 3.5 million people were estimated to be living in Bosnia. In addition to those killed, more than 200,000 Bosnians were wounded in the war, and 13,000 were permanently disabled, including thousands of children. Within the country, about 850,000 people were still displaced (living outside their home communities) in 2001. (An official population census was to have been taken in 2001 but was postponed to 2003, making it very difficult to provide accurate statistics concerning the population and school enrollments or attainment, graduation, and literacy rates.) Approximately 60 percent of Bosnia's population lived in urban areas in 1999, at which time BiH had a population density of about 72 persons per square kilometer.

By 2000 BiH had a growth rate of about 3.1 percent, which was in part due to the increasing return of refugees who had been living abroad during the war. The fertility rate in BiH in 2000 was about 1.71 percent. Approximately 20 percent of Bosnians in the year 2000 were 14-years-old or younger while 71 percent of the population was between 15 and 64 years of age and about 9 percent was 65 or older. BiH had an infant-mortality rate of 15 per 1000 live births in 2000 and an under 5 years child-mortality rate of 18 per 1000. The average lifespan of Bosnians in the year 2000 was about 71.5 years (68.8 years for men and 74.4 for women).

Geographically speaking, BiH is an almost entirely land-locked country with only about 20 kilometers of coastline, though the country is situated close to the Adriatic Sea. BiH is bordered on the west and the north by Croatia, while Serbia (one of the two states remaining in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 2001) is located on its eastern side and Montenegro (the other remaining Yugoslavian state) is to its southeast. Measuring 15,209 square kilometers, BiH is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of West Virginia. The terrain of BiH is primarily mountains and valleys with large forested areas, especially in the RS; the highest elevation is Maglic at 2.386 meters high.

For centuries the Bosnian economy was primarily agricultural. The primary agricultural products were wheat, corn, fruit, vegetables, and livestock. In the decades before the war of the 1990s BiH became increasingly industrialized, producing wood products, furniture, and military equipment for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia due to the prevalence of forests and metallic ores in the country. In 1996 about 23 percent of the Bosnian workforce was employed in industry, 58 percent in services, and just 19 percent in agriculture. After the war, as international donors infused substantial financial support to restart BiH's economy and State and Entity officials and international actors collaboratively developed new plans to prepare BiH's population for employment, this balance was expected to shift even further toward the service sector, though the transformation was anticipated to be gradual. By 1999 the Bosnian economy was growing at an annual rate of roughly 5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). However, a sizable black market also was in operation, as well as a "gray market" of workers who were paid but did not receive job-related benefits. Furthermore, many of those legally employed waited long periods for delayed paychecks, a situation that may have discouraged many from seeking regular employment. The unemployment rate in the country was about 35 to 40 percent in 1999. BiH's annual per capita income (i.e., the gross domestic product per person in U.S. dollars) was only $1,030 in 1999—a substantial drop from the per capita income level of $2,400 in 1990, but a significant rise from the immediate post-war rate of $456 in late 1995. (Per capita income in the Republika Srpska for 1999 was significantly higher: US$1,934.) International donor aid accounted for about 30 percent of the GDP in BiH in 2000. Before the war Bosnia and Herzegovina was the second-poorest republic of the six member states in Yugoslavia. About 27 percent of Bosnians were living below the relative poverty line in 2001, while 11 percent were living in extreme poverty. Regional disparities are quite apparent in the standard of living in different parts of the country; about half the population of RS in 2001 was living below the poverty line whereas in Sarajevo (the Federation's capital city) and West Herzegovina (one of the Croat-majority areas) fewer people were living in poverty.

Constitutional & Legal Foundations

Bosnia and Herzegovina is an emerging democracy governed by a complex array of structures at the State, Entity, and Cantonal levels. The basis for the educational structures at the State level, in each of the two Entities, and in the ten Cantons of the Federation is laid out in the Constitution prepared as part of the 1995 Dayton Accords. In addition to the governing organs whose members are selected and elected by Bosnians, the post-war government of BiH includes the non-Bosnian Office of the High Representative, designed to oversee the implementation of the Dayton Accords and to monitor progress toward ethnic reintegration and the just and peaceful resettlement of Bosnia's large population of refugees and internally displaced people. Whereas a sizable UN peacekeeping force was deployed throughout Bosnia after the war to ensure the country's stability and to prevent a return to ethnic violence, by the late 1990s a Stabilization Force (SFOR) led by NATO was in place in the country to implement the military side of the Dayton Accords and to protect the security of civilians as the country moved toward reconstruction and rehabilitation. In addition, an International Police Task Force (IPTF) was established by the United Nations in an Annex to the Dayton Accords to monitor local police and provide them with training and advice as well as to investigate alleged abuses of human rights. Human rights conditions in the country remained difficult in the late 1990s; as of 2001 security forces in the country—including the regular police, "special" or secret police, and the armies maintained by the two Entities—continued to provoke complaints from Bosnians of human rights abuses, largely involving police brutality.

A very helpful chart depicting the complex layout of BiH's principal governing structures at the national level and the Entity levels is provided by the Bosnian Embassy on their website (http://www.bosnianembassy.org/). As the chart graphically shows, the Bosnian people elect the three member rotating Presidency (consisting of one Bosniac, one Serb, and one Croat, where the President rotates every eight months) to a four year term. In turn, the Presidency appoints the members of the Council of Ministers for BiH, who are approved by the national, 42 member House of Representatives and who report to the national, 15 member House of People, the second national level legislative chamber (consisting of 5 Bosniacs, 5 Serbs, and 5 Croats elected for 2 year terms).

The voters of the Federation directly elect 28 members of the national House of Representatives (who serve 2 year terms) as well as the 140 members of the Federation's own House of Representatives (who also serve for 2 years). The Federation's House of Representatives and the Federation's House of Nations (consisting of 30 Bosniacs, 30 Croats, and 14 others) constitute the 2 chambers of the Federation's legislature. The Federation has its own Presidency for the Entity, a two member Presidency consisting of one Bosniac and one Croat elected for a two year term and rotating between President and Vice President every six months.

The Serbian Republic has its own unicameral legislature, the RS National Assembly, consisting of 83 members elected for 2 year terms by the voters of the RS. The members of this Assembly elect the RS's members of the national House of Representatives and also select the RS members for the national House of People. The RS has its own Entity President, one person elected for a two year term.

In addition to the executive and legislative branches of government, BiH has a judicial branch consisting of a Constitutional Court of nine members, four of them selected by the Federation's House of Representatives, two by the RS's National Assembly, and three non-Bosnians selected by the president of the European Court of Human Rights. The judiciary at the national level is supplemented by judicial organs in each of the Entities as well as by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, leading at times to confusion by Bosnian authorities as to which rules apply to which situations in terms of arrests and detention. According to the U.S. Department of State in early 2001, the judiciary in both the RS and the Federation was unduly influenced by the dominant political parties and by the executive branch. In addition to rather widespread problems of discrimination against women and violence against them, especially domestic violence, minorities were often subject to severe discrimination in Serb and Croat majority areas and to a lesser extent in Bosniac majority areas. This was especially the case for refugees and the internally displaced, many of whom had not yet returned to their home communities or who had returned to areas now controlled by a different ethnic group than lived there in pre-war days. Job discrimination and discrimination in education have plagued many people in BiH since the war and are not likely to be fully addressed until better arrangements are made by the nationalist parties in power to ensure the fair distribution of employment and education benefits to all people living in Bosnia—including those who belong to none of the three major ethnic groups.

Although Bosnia has made some progress in rebuilding schools and beginning education reforms since the war ended, progress has been slowed by the conflicts and contradictions existing between the two parallel education systems of RS and FBH; by the presence of ten separate educational systems across the Federation's ten Cantons; by the clashing co-existence of pre-war and more recent educational laws, teaching methods, and curricula; and perhaps most significantly, by the presence and resistance of ethnic nationalist individuals and political parties among the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniacs who wish to impose their own particularistic interpretations of history and of the war on their communities and the curricula in their schools. Especially problematic in terms of subject matter has been the teaching of recent history, notably the war period of the 1990s. Certain international organizations and experts have called for a moratorium on the teaching of the history of this period in the country until a combination of international historians and local experts can thoroughly revise the history texts and curricula used in Bosnian schools so that teaching is accurate and can impartially reflect what transpired before and during the war years. However, this recommendation for a moratorium has been met with heavy protests and resistance from ethnic nationalists interested in preserving their own interpretations of Bosnian history and warrelated events and promulgating their biased views in Bosnia's schools.

In 2001 international education specialists and Bosnian educators, government officials, and pedagogical researchers continued to work collaboratively to revise offensive textbooks throughout Bosnia and to remove passages of inaccurate, inflammatory, and/or nationalist writing from the books and curricula used in schools. Rewriting texts and removing objectionable material from the teaching curricula was begun in August 1999 after the three education ministers in the country—the Minister and Deputy Minister of Education for the Federation and the Minister of Education for the RS—responded to international pressure and finally signed an agreement concerning the excision of objectionable passages and the identification of other passages as debatable. Based on an agreement made by the Minister of Education in May 2000, this work was to be completed by the end of June 2000 with substantial improvements in the quality of textbooks made by the end of the year 2000.

At the turn of the millennium, the focus of educational reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina was on rebuilding schools, retraining teachers, improving the curriculum, reducing the number of subjects taught in the schools so as to increase educational quality and efficiency, and developing more functional vocational education systems at both secondary and higher levels of instruction, including at the level of adult education, so that workers with employable skills could be trained for the newly reviving Bosnian economy. In general, a major emphasis of educational reform work was being placed on unifying the school systems operating in the country and dismantling the often conflicting parallel systems that had developed between the two Entities and across the ten Cantons. The duplication and mismatching of educational programs and schools in the separately developed systems around Bosnia and Herzegovina were making the return and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced Bosnians especially problematic. Since the languages and subjects taught in one part of the country were not matched by those taught in other places, students seeking to transfer from one community and educational system to another often experienced rejection and/or confusion. Furthermore, since examinations, diplomas, and credentials were not uniformly established or awarded across the various educational systems, problems often have arisen for graduates seeking to work in another part of the country from where the original exams had been taken or diplomas and credentials had been awarded. In the year 2000 the RS developed three new laws concerning education in primary and secondary schools and at higher levels of education. A new strategy for vocational education in the RS had been defined and adopted by the Entity government in 1999. In turn, FBH had ten different laws pertaining to vocational education in secondary schools, one for each of its ten cantons. Major reforms were being planned by the World Bank and other international partners of Bosnian education officials through their collaborative work with Bosnian teachers and administrators by early 2001, when special efforts began to address in earnest the problem of harmonizing the various conflicting educational systems and the problems of ethnic segregation and discrimination that appeared to be widespread. Roma and Jews were especially marginalized in the education systems that had developed after the war.

Educational System—Overview

During the period of post-war recovery in Bosnia and Herzegovina, education is viewed as a very crucial component in the reconstruction and rehabilitation process. As a potential means of helping children and youth of different ethnic backgrounds to practice tolerance and understanding and of helping adults to reconcile their differences, communities to stabilize, and ethnic minorities to live safely with the dominant majority in each part of the country, education—and especially "civic education"—is seen as essential. International observers and Bosnian educators attuned to the need to foster a multiethnic society have expressed the belief that carefully planned and implemented educational programs may promote democratization and facilitate the reintegration and resettlement of refugees and the internally displaced. Moreover, educational programs are viewed not only as important for the children and youth of BiH but also for Bosnian adults, many of whom must retrain for new labor market conditions and a less-industrially based economy.

Few international data sources on population and education-related issues contain statistics for Bosnia in the post-1995 period, making an accurate depiction of the status of education in the country extremely challenging. Nonetheless, it was apparent at the turn of the new millennium that the status of BiH's schools remained quite poor, judging from the reports of a number of international donor agencies and organizations working with national and local authorities in BiH to reconstruct and reinvigorate the educational system. The World Bank, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, several UN agencies, international organizations like the International Foundation for Election Systems, and private donors such as the Soros Foundation have been instrumental in fostering educational reform and reconstruction in the country, providing a combination of funding and technical advisors to improve education in BiH. In 1996 BiH became a member of the World Bank (with membership retroactive to 1993) and the country began receiving massive amounts of international assistance to recover from the war. The 26 initial reconstruction grants given to BiH by the World Bank to catalyze the rebuilding of social infrastructure included grants for educational programming. Additionally, the European Training Foundation (ETF) of the European Commission dedicated significant resources and expertise to promoting improved vocational training in the country at both secondary and higher levels. As part of the assistance from ETF, a National Bosnian Observatory was established in Mostar in the FBH in 1999 with a branch office in Banja Luka, the capital of the RS. The Observatory was charged with the following tasks in collaboration with national education authorities and international "social partners": 1) to gather, analyze, and distribute information about vocational training, the labor market, and the implementation and assessment of education reform; 2) to serve as a contact point for national and international actors concerning information on vocational training and the labor market; 3) to conduct studies and prepare evaluation papers and policy reports pertaining to vocational training that could be used by the Bosnian authorities to develop and improve programming; 4) to assess developments in vocational training and the labor market; 5) to link up educational institutions with labor market institutions; and 6) to store data concerning social partners and institutions.

Free and compulsory education is provided by both Entities in BiH for all children between the ages of 7 and 15 or for the 8 years of primary schooling. By 2000 approximately 98 percent of adult males and 89 percent of adult females were considered literate. School enrollments at the primary level were estimated to be about 100 percent for both boys and girls; general enrollment statistics at the secondary level were not available.

Language of Instruction: Three versions of the Serbo-Croat language ("Serbian," "Croatian," and "Bosniac") are used in BiH's schools—essentially, variants of the same language that were developed in conjunction with the nationalistic campaigns that swept the country in the 1990s. Despite their differences, the three versions of Serbo-Croat are mutually comprehensible. The languages of instruction in specific geographical areas typify the ethnic composition of those areas, although according to BiH's new Constitution of 1995 all areas should provide educational opportunities to all minority groups. In 2001 both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets were in use in Bosnian schools, with both scripts legally mandated for all students to learn.

Unfortunately, during the post-war years, Bosnian schools often have failed to provide instruction in the home language of some of their students, a defect that hopefully will be addressed and at least partially corrected in the reforms taking place at the State, Entity, and Cantonal levels from the year 2000 on as the educational systems are harmonized into one cohesive system. Linguistic and cultural rights had not yet been clarified in the context of education at the turn of the millennium due to situations of ethnic dominance and the continuing nationalistic influence of dominant majorities throughout the country. Lluís Maria de Puig of Spain, education rapporteur for the Council of Europe's Committee on Culture and Education, studied the country's educational system through in-depth interviews with education specialists, government administrators, and international experts working in BiH and wrote in the Committee's March 2000 report, "Language, and more generally, education policies have become a vehicle for promoting 'national' separation. The political struggle within education manifests itself both in the context of 'national subjects'—history, language and literature and social studies—and in the desire for political control of the three separate education systems (created by the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniacs in the country)." Educational programs serving the needs of all children, including ethnic minorities, thus had not been fully or adequately developed by the year 2000. This is likely to change, though perhaps gradually, as national and international partners in education continue to work together to improve the Bosnian education system.

Preprimary & Primary Education

While several conflicting education systems existed in BiH in the year 2000 and a campaign was beginning among national educators and administrators and international partners to harmonize the systems, the following description of the levels of education provided in Bosnian schools generally applied to schools throughout the country in the year 2000.

From ages one to three, children may attend daycare centers that emphasize physical care. Children ages three to six or seven may attend kindergarten. "Special kindergartens" also exist for children ages three to seven (or nine). In the RS 41 public kindergartens and 2 private ones were in operation in the 1999-2000 school year, educating 5,987 children; with 772 kindergarten teachers in the RS, the pupil to teacher ratio was 7.76.

Compulsory schooling begins at age 7, when children begin primary school, and lasts for 8 years to age 15. Primary schooling is typically divided into 2 tiers: a first tier for ages 7 to 11, with children taught in classes, and a second tier for pupils ages 11 to 15, where subjects become the focus of educational arrangements. Special primary education is provided from ages 7 (or 9) to 15. Alongside the regular public schools where the full range of academic subjects are taught, parallel schools exist for teaching music and ballet at the primary level. All together, approximately 21,000 primary teachers provided education to pupils between the ages of 7 and 15 in BiH in the year 2000. During the 1999-2000 school year in the RS, 7,059 teachers in 196 public primary schools provided education to 124,305 pupils (60,418 in the lower-primary grades, grades 1 to 4, and 63,887 in the upper-primary grades, grades 5 to 8).

Secondary Education

Between the ages of 15 and 18 or 19 (sometimes 20), students attend the third tier of schooling, 3V (vocational) or 3G (general or gymnasium). Again, special education is provided at the secondary level for students between the ages of 15 and 18. Students in the 3G tier take four years of instruction in academic subjects, after which they take examinations that lead to their admission to institutions of higher education. Students in the 3V tier take either three or four (sometimes five) years of training in vocational areas. In the Federation, attending Teacher school at the secondary level, which lasts four years, is one option for students. In both Entities secondary students can follow educational programs in Arts, Music, and Ballet schools (lasting four years), Religion schools (four or five years), Technical and related schools (lasting four years), and Crafts schools (lasting three years). Students in the Crafts schools take terminal exams that permit them to practice their craft commercially if they are qualified and/or to move on to higher education as Professional Craftsmen through a course and examination program lasting two years coupled with two more years of practical experience. Students in the four year technical-training programs at the secondary level take exams that allow them to go on to higher education training in their field. Other secondary students (e.g. those in the Gymnasium programs and the Teacher schools) take exams at the completion of their studies that permit them to enter appropriate institutions of higher education. Among the types of vocational education provided at the secondary level is religious education, which is offered through religion schools for students ages 15 to 19 in FBH and for students ages 15 up to 20 in RS.

In the year 2000, almost 9,000 secondary teachers were teaching students in BiH (both Entities). The number of teachers was about 3,400 in the RS, where 54,232 students were enrolled in a total of 92 public secondary schools in 1999-2000, yielding a student to teacher ratio of 16.1. Secondary level vocational students accounted for about 75 percent of all secondary students in the Federation in the 1998-1999 academic year and numbered 82,605 (for the Federation alone), with a pupil to teacher ratio of 21 to 1. As to vocational schools at the secondary level, the Federation had 37 types of technical and related schools covering 120 crafts and technical professions in the year 2000, while the RS had comparable programs in about 14 occupational areas for over 100 professions that year.

Higher Education

Higher education can take several forms in BiH. Students who have pursued an academic program or an art, music, or ballet-focused course of study at the secondary level are eligible for admission to Faculties of higher education or Art Academies after successfully passing their exams. These programs last three to six years in the Federation and four to six years in the RS. Pedagogical Academies and Senior Secondary Schools are another option for students graduating from the secondary education programs in BiH; programs in these institutions last two years. The final levels of higher education include Masters degree programs (lasting two years) or Specialization studies (lasting one year), with the Masters programs followed by doctoral studies for some students leading to the Ph.D. degree. In the RS 13,883 postsecondary students were enrolled in 2 public universities (including 28 faculties, schools, and academies) and 4 public non-university educational institutions during the 1999-2000 academic year.

Foreign Students: Before the war Yugoslavian universities and schools, including the renowned University of Sarajevo, attracted many foreign students, including students from developing countries who received academic grants from the formerly socialist government of Yugoslavia. However, because of the widespread destruction of schools, universities, and libraries during the war and the general degradation of economic and social conditions in the country, this picture of foreign enrollment in Bosnian educational institutions changed completely in the 1990s. In contrast, many Bosnia students found placements in colleges and universities abroad, often sponsored by international peace and development-related organizations such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Administration, Finance, & Educational Research

Government Educational Agencies: The three Ministers of Education in charge of planning and implementing education policy in the country are the Minister and Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Minister of Education of the Republika Srpska. According to the Constitution of 1995 attached to the Dayton Accords, administration of education in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the responsibility of the two Entities, and in the case of the Federation, the ten Cantons as well. In some parts of the country, Canton-level legislation specifies that educational authority further rests at the municipal level. This has led to a confusing array of responsibilities and government agencies in charge of various aspects of education in the country with often overlapping and contradictory responsibilities, visions, and priorities. In the March 2000 report of the Council of Europe's Committee on Culture and Education, de Puig wrote, "It is increasingly openly acknowledged that the current Bosnian Constitution, as annexed to the Dayton Agreements, is in practice an obstacle to the country's proper functioning." De Puig explained that since 1992, three separate educational systems had established themselves in the country: 1) in the Republika Srpska the education system had been "imported from Serbia and uses texts from Belgrade, the Cyrillic alphabet and the 'Serb language,"' 2) in the three Croat-majority Cantons of the Federation, in parts of two other Cantons, and in the Catholic schools set up by Croatians around the country, a Croatian system was in place, "using school books from Zagreb, the Latin alphabet, and the 'Croat language,"' and 3) a third system developed by Bosniacs in Sarajevo was also in place which used the "Bosniac language" and textbooks produced in Sarajevo while the city was under siege.

By May 2000 the three education ministers in BiH had met and agreed to the following measures aimed at eliminating ethnic segregation and harmonizing the disparate education systems into one integrated system: 1) revision of textbooks to remove objectionable material and improve their quality; 2) creation of a Curriculum Harmonisation Board consisting of one representative of the Ministry, one representative from a Pedagogical Institute for each community, and representatives of the international community to coordinate curricula, exchange information about the education systems, and recommend ways to streamline the teaching of subjects throughout the curricula; 3) development by each ethnic group of curricular modules reflecting the group's culture, language, and literature and the needs of the Roma/Sinti minority and other minorities in BiH, with the modules to be integrated into the curricula of the other two major ethic groups; 4) teaching of both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, the shared linguistic, literary, and cultural heritage of the three main ethnic communities, and all major religions practiced in BiH; 5) introduction of "shared, core elements" into all curricula to foster "a sense of common identity and citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina" among all students in Bosnia, drawing upon European educational experience and practice, and replacement of the old civic defense/social studies courses with a new Human Rights and Civic Education course; 6) hiring of teachers from the different ethnic groups constituting the Bosnian population to teach in a multiethnic system where teachers are not segregated by ethnicity; 7) recognition of pupils' educational certificates and records and of teachers' and teacher-trainers' qualifications throughout the country, regardless of their place of origin within the country; 8) removal of national subjects textbooks that emphasize one ethnic group and do not refer to BiH as a whole or as the country in which instruction is being given; and 9) peaceful negotiation of all outstanding cases of school crises. This agreement was the product of meetings facilitated by the Office of the High Representative in Sarajevo and other representatives of the international community working to improve the quality of education in BiH and to smooth the way for the education system to be better integrated and more functional.

Educational Budgets: In 1998 BiH spent about 10.8 percent of the national budget on education. That same year, about 4.8 percent of the Federation's budget was spent on education. In the year 2000 about 17 percent of the budget of the RS was planned for educational expenditures, with 4 percent of the Entity's budget reserved for secondary education. In the RS about US$51.7 million was spent on education by the Entity government (including expenditures for the Ministry of Education itself and for primary, secondary, and tertiary education but not including expenditures for secondary-education material expenses, which are the responsibility of the municipalities); about 83 percent of this $51.7 million covered salaries. In general, greater expenditures have been made in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina than in the Republika Srpska on education.

Financing education in BiH is accomplished through taxation and other public financing measures; contributions from private and international donors; legacies, gifts, and foundations; and the sales of school products and services, intellectual services, and material goods. As an indication of the scale of international support given to the reconstruction of schools and the education system in BiH in recent years, it can be noted that the World Bank loan approved in May 2000 for the Education Development Project in BiH was valued at US$10.6 million, with the total project expected to cost $14.6 million (and much of the additional $4 million expected to come from other international partners).

Nonformal Education

Adult Education: In addition to the vocational training efforts already mentioned above, some of them directed toward increasing the employability of adults, continuing education programs for adults were in the process of being developed in the year 2000 through the collaborative efforts of education authorities in BiH and international specialists in education. Besides these programs, civic education programs designed to promote ethnic tolerance, democratic participation, and human rights were developed and implemented throughout the country from the late 1990s on, receiving international funding support and technical assistance from international nongovernmental organizations like the Open Society Institute and the International Foundation for Election Systems.

Distance Education (TV, Radio, and Internet): Distance education has been recommended in BiH as one possible means of addressing the educational needs of the refugees and internally displaced who have not yet returned to their home communities or been fully resettled and reintegrated. Thirty-three television stations and 292 "repeaters" broadcasted television programming in BiH just before the end of the war, in September 1995. About 940,000 radios were in use in 1997; one year later eight AM radio stations, 16 FM radio stations, and 1 short-wave radio station were transmitting broadcasts throughout the country. In 1999 two Internet service providers were operating in the country.

Summary

In March 2000 the Council of Europe's Committee on Culture and Education recommended that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe do the following to improve education in Bosnian schools: 1) provide funding for the Council to continue to offer key support to the education sector in BiH, 2) work with the High Representative and international organizations operating in BiH to reinterpret the Dayton Accords so education planning, implementation, and management responsibilities will be better distributed at the Canton, Entity, and State levels; 3) coordinate the work of the Council and other international organizations to link international funding with Bosnian compliance with prior conditions set by international donors concerning such issues as textbook improvements, ethnic desegregation, coordination, and language policies; 4) continue to encourage a moratorium on teaching about the 1990s war so that historians from all of BiH's ethnic communities can work together with international experts to develop a commonly agreed-upon approach to teaching recent history; 5) provide moral and material support for local educational initiatives, especially those that counteract ethnic segregation; 6) continue to support multiethnic pilot projects in education and consider expanding these in places where the greatest impact may be had, such as Brcko and Mostar; 7) make sure that all ethnic communities, including minorities besides the three major ethnic groups, can exercise their rights to education via a multiethnic perspective; 8) suggest administrative, financial, and legislative solutions to establish a cost-effective system of higher education capable of meeting current and future needs; and 9) "consider using distance learning to overcome ethnic segregation at university level."

As the international community progressively disengages itself from providing funding and technical assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the coming years, and once the country becomes more economically secure and has overcome the fragmentation it suffered during the recent years of violent ethnic conflict, it is hoped that educational authorities will be able to envision a future for the children and youth of their country that includes multiethnic cooperation and the protection of human rights, regardless of the ethnic group to which a person belongs. To this end, the views of the Council of Europe's Committee on Culture and Education on the complexity and significance of educational reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina, expressed in their March 2000 report to the Council, come to mind: "Achieving the transition to a more integrated education system—or at least the more effective co-ordination of parallel systems—is an immensely difficult task which necessitates complex planning in stages and the restoration of confidence between the different communities. In the present post-war context, where most of the country's regions continue to be divided along ethnic lines, few issues can have a higher priority."

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—Barbara Lakeberg Dridi

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Compiled from the September 2006 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:
Bosnia and Herzegovina

PROFILE

PEOPLE AND HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS

ECONOMY

FOREIGN RELATIONS

U.S.-BOSNIAN RELATIONS

TRAVEL

PROFILE

Geography

Area: 51,129 sq. km, slightly smaller than West Virginia.

Cities: Capital—Sarajevo (est. pop 387,876); Banja Luka (220,407); Mostar (208,904); Tuzla (118,500); Bihac (49,544).

Terrain: Mountains in the central and southern regions, plains along the Sava River in the north.

Climate: Hot summers and cold winters; areas of high elevation have short, cool summers and long, severe winters; mild, rainy winters in the southeast.

People

Nationalities: Bosniak (Muslim), Bosnian Croat, Bosnian Serb.

Population: (July 2004 est.) 4,007,608 (note: all data dealing with population are subject to considerable error because of the dislocations caused by military action and ethnic cleansing).

Population: growth rate (2004 est.) 0.45%.

Ethnic groups: Bosniak 48.3%, Serb 34.0%, Croat 15.4%, others 2.3%. (Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2002—Bosnia-Herzegovina)

Religions: Muslim (40%); Orthodox (31%); Catholic (15%); Protestant (4%); other (10%).

Languages: Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian (formerly “Serbo-Croatian”).

Education: Mandatory 8 years of primary school, 4 years in secondary school, and 4 years in universities and academies. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are 407 primary schools with 250,000 students, 171 secondary schools with 80,000 students, 7 universities in the major cities (Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Bihac, and Foca) and 6 academies (4 pedagogic and 2 art academies).

Education: Adult literacy rate—male 94.1%, female 78.0%.

Health: Infant mortality rate—(2005 est.) 21.05 deaths/1,000 live births. Life expectancy (2005 est.)—male 70.09, female 75.8.

Work force: (2001 est.) 1.026 million.

Government

Type: Parliamentary democracy.

Constitution: The Dayton Agreement, signed December 14, 1995, included a new constitution now in force.

Independence: April 1992 (from Yugoslavia).

Government branches: Executive—Chairman of the Presidency and two other members of three-member rotating presidency (chief of state), Chairman of the Council of Ministers (head of government), Council of Ministers (cabinet). Legislative—bicameral parliamentary assembly, consisting of national House of Representatives and House of Peoples (parliament). Judicial—Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, both supervised by the Ministry of Justice.

Political subdivisions: Two entities: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (divided into 10 cantons) and Republika Srpska. In accordance with Annex 2, Article V, of the Dayton Peace Agreement that left the unresolved status of Brcko subject to binding international arbitration, an Arbitration Tribunal was formed in mid-1996. On March 5, 1999, the Tribunal issued its Final Award. The Final Award established a special District for the entire pre-war Brcko Opstina, under the exclusive sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The territory of the District belongs simultaneously to both Entities, the Republika Srpska and the Federation, in condominium. Therefore, the territories of the two Entities overlap in the Brcko District. In accordance with the Final Award, the District is self-governing and has a single, unitary, multiethnic, democratic Government; a unified and multiethnic police force operating under a single command structure and an independent judiciary. The District Government exercises, throughout the prewar Brcko Opstina, those powers previously exercised by the two Entities and the former three municipal governments. The Brcko district is demilitarized.

Political parties: Party of Democratic Action (SDA); Croatian Democratic Union of BiH (HDZ-BiH); Serb Democratic Party (SDS); Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH); Civic Democratic Party (GDS); Croatian Peasants’ Party of BiH (HSS); Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD); Liberal Party (LS); Republican Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RS); Serb Civic Council (SGV); Social Democratic Party (SDP); Socialist Party of Republika Srpska (SPRS); Social Democrats of Bosnia Herzegovina; Party for Democratic Progress (PDP); National Democratic Union (DNZ); Democratic Peoples’ Alliance (DNS); Coalition for a United and Democratic BiH (coalition of SDA, SBiH, LS, and GDS).

Suffrage: Universal at age 18.

Economy

GDP: (2004 est., purchasing power parity) $26.21 billion.

GDP real growth rate: (2004 est.) 5.0%.

Income per capita (2004 est., purchasing power parity) $6,500 (note: figure heavily depends on the population and does not account for the gray economy).

Inflation rate: (2004 est.) 1.1%.

Natural resources: Hydropower, coal, iron ore, bauxite, manganese, forests, copper, chromium, lead, zinc, cobalt, nickel, clay, gypsum, salt, sand, forests.

Agriculture: Products—wheat, corn, fruits, vegetables, livestock.

Industry: Types—steel, minerals, vehicle assembly, textiles, tobacco products, wooden furniture, explosives, munitions, aircraft repair, domestic appliances, oil refining.

Trade: (2004) Exports—$1.7 billion f.o.b.

PEOPLE AND HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS

The three main ethnic groups in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina are Bosniak, Serb, and Croat, and languages are Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian (formerly “Serbo-Croatian”). Nationalities are Bosniak (Muslim), Bosnian Serb, and Bosnian Croat. Religions include Islam, Serb Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, some Protestant sects, and some others.

For the first centuries of the Christian era, Bosnia was part of the Roman Empire. After the fall of Rome, Bosnia was contested by Byzantium and Rome’s successors in the west. Slavs settled the region in the 7th century, and the kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia split control of Bosnia in the 9th century. The 11th and 12th centuries saw the rule of the region by the kingdom of Hungary. The medieval kingdom of Bosnia gained its independence around 1200 A.D. Bosnia remained independent until 1463, when Ottoman Turks conquered the region.

During Ottoman rule, many Bosnians converted from Christianity to Islam. Bosnia was under Ottoman rule until 1878, when it was given to Austria-Hungary as a colony. While those living in Bosnia came under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, South Slavs in Serbia and elsewhere were calling for a South Slav state. World War I began when Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Following the Great War, Bosnia became part of the South Slav state of Yugoslavia, only to be given to Nazi-puppet Croatia in World War II.

During this period, many atrocities were committed against Jews, Serbs, and others who resisted the occupation. The Cold War saw the establishment of the Communist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito, and the reestablishment of Bosnia as a republic with its medieval borders within the federation of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia’s unraveling was hastened by Slobodan Milosevic’s rise to power in 1986. Milosevic’s embrace of Serb nationalism led to intrastate ethnic strife. Slovenia and Croatia both declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. In February 1992, the Bosnian Government held a referendum on independence. Bosnia’s parliament declared the republic’s independence on April 5, 1992. However, this move was opposed by Serb representatives, who favored remaining in Yugoslavia. Bosnian Serbs, supported by neighboring Serbia, responded with armed force in an effort to partition the republic along ethnic lines to create a “greater Serbia.” Full recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s independence by the United States and most European countries occurred on April 7, and Bosnia and Herzegovina was admitted to the United Nations on May 22, 1992.

In March 1994, Muslims and Croats in Bosnia signed an agreement creating the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This narrowed the field of warring parties to two. The conflict continued through most of 1995, ending with the November 21, 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which was formally signed on December 14, 1995 in Paris. Bosnia and Herzegovina today consists of two entities —the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is largely Bosniak and Croat, and the Republika Srpska, which is primarily Serb.

In July 2000, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rendered a decision whereby Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs are recognized as constituent people throughout the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In March 2002, this decision was formally recognized and agreed by the major political parties in both entities.

The most recent national elections took place in October 2002, electing new state presidency members, entity governments, and State, Entity and cantonal parliaments. The three main nationalist parties (SDA, HDZ and SDS, obtained the most

votes among their respective ethnic groups and have, together with coalition members, formed governments at both the State and Entity levels. The next national elections are scheduled for October 2006. Bosnia and Herzegovina introduced the direct election of mayors at regional and municipal elections held in October 2004.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS

General Government Framework Information and Information Regarding the President and the Cabinet. Under the provisions of the Dayton Peace Accords, the entities have competencies in areas such as finance, taxation, business development, and general legislation. Entities and cantons control their own budgets, spending on infrastructure, health care, and education. Ongoing reforms have led to the creation of a single, multi-ethnic military under state-level command and control to replace the previous entity-based institutions and a state-level Indirect Taxation Authority (ITA) that is responsible for the implementation of a state-wide value-added tax (VAT), revenues from which fund the governments of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the two entities. Customs, which had been collected by agencies of the two entities, also is now collected by a new single state customs service.

Presidency. The Presidency in Bosnia and Herzegovina rotates among three members (Bosniak, Serb, Croat), each elected for a 4-year term. The three members of the Presidency are directly elected (the Federation votes for the Bosniak/Croat, and the Republika Srpska for the Serb).

The Presidency is responsible for:

• Conducting the foreign policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Appointing ambassadors and other international representatives, no more than two-thirds of whom may come from the Federation;
• Representing Bosnia and Herzegovina in European and international organizations and institutions and seeking membership in such organizations and institutions of which it is not a member;
• Negotiating, denouncing, and, with the consent of the Parliamentary Assembly, ratifying treaties of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Executing decisions of the Parliamentary Assembly;
• Proposing, upon the recommendation of the Council of Ministers, an annual budget to the Parliamentary Assembly;
• Reporting as requested, but no less than annually, to the Parliamentary Assembly on expenditures by the Presidency;
• Coordinating as necessary with international and non-governmental organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Exercising command and control over the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina in peacetime, crises, and war, and;
• Performing such other functions as may be necessary to carry out its duties, as may be assigned to it by the Parliamentary Assembly, or as may be agreed by the Entities.

The Chair of the Council of Ministers is nominated by the Presidency and approved by the House of Representatives. He is then responsible for appointing a Foreign Minister, Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Trade, and others as appropriate. The Council is responsible for carrying out the policies and decisions in the fields of defense, intelligence, foreign policy; foreign trade policy; customs policy; monetary policy; finances of the institutions and for the international obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina; immigration, refugee, and asylum policy and regulation; international and inter-Entity criminal law enforcement, including relations with Interpol; establishment and operation of common and international communications facilities; regulation of inter-Entity transportation; air traffic control; facilitation of inter-Entity coordination; and other matters as agreed by the Entities.

Legislature. The Parliamentary Assembly is the lawmaking body in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It consists of two houses: the House of Peoples and the House of Representatives. The House of Peoples includes 15 delegates, two-thirds of whom come from the Federation (5 Croats and 5 Bosniaks) and one-third from the Republika Srpska (5 Serbs). Nine members of the House of Peoples constitutes a quorum, provided that at least three delegates from each group are present. Federation representatives are selected by the House of Peoples of the Federation, and Republika Srpska representatives are selected by the Republika Srpska National Assembly.

The House of Representatives is comprised of 42 members, two-thirds elected from the Federation and one-third elected from the Republika Srpska. Federation representatives are elected directly by the voters of the Federation, and Republika Srpska representatives are directly elected by Republika Srpska voters.

The Parliamentary Assembly is responsible for enacting legislation as necessary to implement decisions of the Presidency or to carry out the responsibilities of the Assembly under the constitution; deciding upon the sources and amounts of revenues for the operations of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and international obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina; approving a budget for the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina; and deciding whether to consent to the ratification of treaties.

Judiciary. The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the supreme, final arbiter of legal matters. It is composed of nine members: four are selected by the House of Representatives of the Federation, two by the Assembly of the Republika Srpska, and three by the President of the European Court of Human Rights after consultation with the Presidency. The Constitutional Court’s original jurisdiction lies in deciding any constitutional dispute that arises between the Entities or between Bosnia and Herzegovina and an Entity or Entities. The Court also has appellate jurisdiction within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both the Federation and the Republika Srpska government have established lower court systems for their territories.

Principal Government Officials

Bosnia’s central government is headed by a tripartite presidency, with one representative of each of the three major ethnic constituencies.

National Government

Presidency Chairman (Bosniak/Muslim): Sulejman TIHIC

Presidency Member (Serb): Borislav PARAVAC

Presidency Member (Croat): Ivo Miro JOVIC

Chairman, Council of Ministers: Adnan TERZIC

Min. of Civil Affairs: Safet HALILOVIC

Min. of Communication & Transport: Branko DOKIC

Min. of Defense: Nikola RADOVANOVIC

Min. of Finance & Treasury: Ljerka MARIC

Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mladen IVANIC

Min. of Foreign Trade & Economic Relations: Dragan DOKO

Min. of Human Rights & Refugees: Mirsad KEBO

Min. of Justice: Slobodan KOVAC

Min. of Security: Barisa COLAK

Speaker, House of Representatives: Nikola SPIRIC

Dep. Speaker, House of Representatives: Seflik DZAFEROVIC

Dep. Speaker, House of Representatives: Martin RAGUZ

Chmn., House of Peoples: Mustafa PAMUK

Dep. Chmn., House of Peoples: Velimir JUKIC

Dep. Chmn., House of Peoples: Goran MILOJEVIC

Governor, Central Bank: Kemal KOZARIC

Ambassador to the US: Bisera TURKOVIC

Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: Milos PRICA

Federation Government

President: Niko LOZANCIC

Vice President: Sahbaz DZIHANOVIC

Vice President: Desnica RADIVOJEVIC

Prime Minister: Ahmet HADZIPASIC

Dep. Prime Min.: Dragan VRANKIC

Dep. Prime Min.: Grahovac GAVRILO

Min. of Agriculture, Water Management, & Forestry: Marinko BOZIC

Min. of Development & Entrepreneurship: Mladen CABRILO

Min. of Education & Science: Zijad PASIC

Min. of Energy, Mining, & Industry: Vahid HECO

Min. of Environment & Tourism: Katica CERKEZ

Min. of Finance: Dragan VRANKIC

Min. of Health: Vjekoslav MANDIC

Min. of Interior: Mevludin HALILOVIC

Min. of Justice: Borjana KRISTO

Min. of the Liberation War Veterans & Disabled Veterans Issues: Zahid CRNKIC

Min. for Refugees & Displaced Persons: Edin MUSIC

Min. of Social Welfare & Labor: Radovan VIGNJEVIC

Min. of Trade: Maid LJUBOVIC

Min. of Traffic & Communications: Nedzad BRANKOVIC

Min. of Urban Planning: Ferid OTAJAGIC

Speaker, House of Representatives: Muhamed IBRAHIMOVIC

Dep. Speaker, House of Representatives: Josip MERDZO

Dep. Speaker, House of Representatives: Dusanka PECENAC

Chmn., House of Peoples: Slavko MATIC

Dep. Chmn., House of Peoples: Enes DUVNJAKOVIC

Dep. Chmn., House of Peoples: Spomenka MICIC

Republika Srpska

President: Dragan CAVIC

Vice President: Adil OSMANOVIC

Vice President: Ivan TOMLJENOVIC

Prime Minister: Milorad DODIK

Min. of Administration & Local Government: Nebojsa RADMANOVIC

Min. of Agriculture, Forestry, & Water Management: Slaven PEKIC

Min. of Economic Affairs & Coordination: Jasna BRKIC

Min. of Economy, Energy, & Development: Milan JELIC

Min. of Education & Culture: Anton KASIPOVIC

Min. of Finance: Aleksandar DZOMBIC

Min. of Health & Social Welfare: Ranko SKRBIC

Min. of Interior: Stanislav CADJO

Min. of Justice: Omer VISIC

Min. of Labor & Veterans: Bosko TOMIC

Min. of Refugees & Displaced Persons: Omer BRANKOVIC

Min. of Science & Technology: Bakir AJANOVIC

Min. of Trade & Tourism: Predrag GLUHAKOVIC

Min. of Transport & Communications: Nedeljko CUBRILOVIC

Min. of Urban Planning, Civil Engineering, & Ecology: Fatima FETIBEGOVIC

Min. Without Portfolio: Branislav BORENOVIC

Speaker of the Republika Srpska National Assembly: Igor RADOJICIC

Dep. Speaker of the Republika Srpska National Assembly: Sefik HAFIZOVIC

Dep. Speaker of the Republika Srpska National Assembly: Tomislav TOMLJANOVIC

Bosnia and Herzegovina maintains an embassy in the United States at 2109 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20037 (tel.: 202-337-1500; fax: 202-337-1502).

ECONOMY

Next to Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina was the poorest republic in the old Yugoslav Federation. For the most part, agriculture has been in private hands, but farms have been small and inefficient, and food has traditionally been a net import for the country. Industry still is greatly overstaffed, reflecting the legacy of the centrally-planned economy. Under Tito, military industries were pushed in the republic; Bosnia hosted a large share of Yugoslavia’s defense plants. Three years of interethnic strife destroyed the economy and infrastructure in Bosnia, caused the death of about 200,000 people, and displaced half of the population.

Considerable progress has been made since peace was reestablished. Due to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s strict currency board regime, which links the Konvertibilna Marka (BAM) to the Euro, inflation has remained low. However, growth has been uneven, with the Federation outpacing the Republika Srpska. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s most immediate task remains economic revitalization. In order to do this fully, the environment must be conducive to a private sector, market-led economy. Privatization has been slow, and unemployment remains high. Restructuring of BiH’s domestic debt (estimated at over 2000% of GDP) is imperative. The introduction of a Value-Added Tax (VAT) in 2006 has increased the government’s tax revenues and resulted in a budget surplus.

BiH’s top economic priorities are: acceleration of EU integration by concluding a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA); strengthening the fiscal system; public administration reform; World Trade Organization (WTO) membership; and securing economic growth by fostering a dynamic, competitive private sector. To date, work on these priorities has been inconsistent and not in line with milestones. The country has received a substantial amount of foreign assistance but must prepare for declining assistance flows in the future.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

The implementation of the Dayton Accords of 1995 has focused the efforts of policymakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the international community, on regional stabilization in the former Yugoslavia. However, donor resources for Bosnia and Herzegovina have diminished due to competing assistance priorities elsewhere in the region and globally. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s relations with its neighbors Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia have been fairly stable since the signing of Dayton in 1995. The U.S. role in the Dayton Accords and their implementation has been key to successes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since the Dayton Accords were signed, over $14 billion in foreign aid has moved into Bosnia and Herzegovina, approximately $940 million of it coming from SEED funds. As stated above, this support has been key to the growth and revitalization of the economy and infrastructure in the republic. In addition to SEED funding, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) programs have been crucial to the redevelopment of Bosnia and Herzegovina. USAID has programming in the following areas: economic policy reform and restructuring; private sector development (the Business Development Program); infrastructure rebuilding; democratic reforms in the media, political process and elections, and rule of law/legal code formulation; and training programs for women and diplomats.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a member of the United Nations (1992); International Monetary Fund (IMF) (1992), World Bank (1995), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) (1992); and the Council of Europe (2002). It also participates in regional cooperation through the Stability Pact, Central-European Initiative (CEI), Southeast Europe Co-operation Initiative (SECI), Southeast Europe Co-operation Process (SEECP), Adriatic-Ionic Initiative (AII) and others.

U.S.-BOSNIAN RELATIONS

The 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was ended with the crucial participation of the United States in brokering the 1995 Dayton Accords. After leading the diplomatic and military effort to secure the Dayton agreement, the United States has continued to lead the effort to ensure its implementation. U.S. troops participate in the Bosnia Peacekeeping force (SFOR), and the United States has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to help with reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, economic development, and military reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has played a large role in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, including programs in economic development and reform, democratic reform (media, elections), infrastructure development, and training programs for Bosnian professionals, among others. Additionally, there are many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have likewise played significant roles in the reconstruction.

Principal U.S. Embassy Officials

SARAJEVO (E) Address: Alipasina 43; Phone: +387 33 445 700; Fax: +387 33 659 722; Workweek: Monday–Friday 8:00AM to 5:00PM; Website: http://www.usembassy.ba.

Last Updated: 1/4/2007

BANJA LUKA (BO) Address: Jovana Ducica 5, Banja Luka; Phone: +387-51-211-500; Fax: +387-51-218-291; Workweek: Monday–Friday; Website: www.usembassy.ba.

Last Updated: 12/27/2006

TRAVEL

Consular Information Sheet : November 15, 2006

Country Description: Since the December 1995 signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, there has been significant progress in restoring peace and stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although physical infrastructure was devastated by the war, in recent years there has been significant improvement, and reconstruction is progressing. Hotels and travel amenities are available in the capital, Sarajevo, and other major towns, but they are relatively expensive. In the more remote areas of the country, public facilities vary in quality.

Entry and Exit Requirements: A passport is required for travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina. American citizens do not require a visa for tourist stays up to three months. Unless the traveler is staying at a hotel, all foreigners must register with the local police within 24 hours of arrival. U.S. citizens planning to remain in Bosnia and Herzegovina for more than three months must obtain a visa prior to travel, or apply for a temporary residence permit from the local police station having jurisdiction over their place of residence. A residence permit costs $50 dollars for a period of three to twelve months. For additional information concerning longer stays, employments, and other types of visas, please contact the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at 2109 E. Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20037, telephone 202-337-6473. Visit the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina web site at http://www.bhembassy.org/ for the most current visa information.

Safety and Security: Landmines remain a problem in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The area of suspected landmine contamination is estimated at over 2000 square kilometers, which is more than 4% of the country’s territory. These devices have killed more than 400 people since 1996. While most urban areas have been largely cleared, special care should be taken when near former lines of conflict, including the suburbs of Sarajevo. The de-mining community recommends staying on hard surface areas and out of abandoned buildings. Families traveling with children in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be especially aware of the danger posed by mines and unexploded ordnance. Localized political difficulties continue and random violence may occur with little or no warning. Bosnian criminals use firearms and explosives to settle personal, business, and political disputes. The foreign community is rarely the target of such violence, but there is always the danger of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. While most Bosnian citizens appreciate the assistance of the international community, occasional anti-foreign sentiment is sometimes encountered.

In October 2005 a small group of individuals with extremist affiliations was arrested in Bosnia and Herzegovina on suspicion of planning terrorist acts. Further, in December 2005, an explosive device was discovered on a public transit bus in Sarajevo. While these incidents did not result in injury or loss of life, they are a source of concern. Also, the publication in Western Europe of cartoons deemed offensive by some Muslims motivated protests in Sarajevo.

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department’s Internet web site, where the current Worldwide Caution Public Announcement, Travel Warnings and Public Announcements, can be found. Up-to-date information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S., or for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll-line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).

Crime: The overall crime rate throughout the country remains relatively low, but Sarajevo has seen a recent marked rise in confrontational crimes, such as attempted muggings. Residential break-ins have also been on the rise. Pick pocketing and vehicle break-ins are also a problem, and are on the rise. Most pickpockets operate in pairs and employ distraction methods to execute their craft. There are also documented cases of pick-pocketing and other scams to get money from foreign passengers aboard public transportation. Travelers should take normal precautions to protect their property from theft and exercise common sense personal security measures, traveling in groups, and staying in well-lighted areas after dark. Confrontations with local citizens resulting from traffic incidents or public disagreements should be avoided.

Information for Victims of Crime: The loss or theft abroad of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. If you are the victim of a crime while overseas, in addition to reporting to local police, please contact the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate for assistance. The embassy/consulate staff can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, to contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed.

Medical Facilities and Health Information: Prior to the war 1992-1995, hospitals in Sarajevo were the leading educational, diagnostic, and therapeutic institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina and throughout much of Eastern Europe. During the war they were targeted and suffered major destruction. Although the medical infrastructure is being rebuilt, many deficits still exist. The lack of adequate medical facilities, especially outside Sarajevo, may cause problems for visitors. Because many medicines are not obtainable, travelers should bring their own supply of prescription drugs and preventive medicines. Private practitioners and dentists are becoming more common; however, quality of care varies and rarely meets U.S. or western European standards. All major surgery is performed in public hospitals.

Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s hotline for international travelers at 1-877-FYI-TRIP (1-877-394-8747) or via the CDC’s internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/travel. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization’s (WHO) website at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith.

Medical Insurance: The Department of State strongly urges Americans to consult with their medical insurance company prior to traveling abroad to confirm whether their policy applies overseas and whether it will cover emergency expenses such as a medical evacuation.

Traffic Safety and Road Conditions: While in a foreign country, U.S. citizens may encounter road conditions that differ significantly from those in the United States. The information below concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance.

Road travel is possible throughout most of the country. However, some roads are still damaged from the war, and poorly maintained. Roads are sometimes blocked due to landslides, de-mining activity, and traffic accidents. Bosnia and Herzegovina is among the rare countries in Europe that has fewer than ten kilometers of four-lane highway. The existing, two-lane roads between major cities are quite narrow at places, lack guardrails, and are full of curves. Travel by road can be risky due to poorly maintained roads, and morning and evening fog in the mountains. Driving in winter is hazardous due to fog, snow, and ice.

Local driving habits are poor, and many vehicles are in bad condition. Many accidents occur when drivers exceed safe speeds along winding mountain roads. Accidents involving drunk driving are an increasing problem. Driving after dark is especially dangerous, and street lighting is not common outside the major towns. Road construction may be poorly marked, and automobiles share the road with heavy vehicles and agricultural equipment. Travelers are encouraged to convoy with other vehicles, if possible, and to plan their trip to ensure they travel only during daylight hours.

Although the number of service stations outside major cities has increased in recent years, many do not offer mechanical or other services. The emergency number for vehicle assistance and towing service is 1282; ambulances can be called at 124, and police at 122.

Speed limit traffic signs are not always obvious or clear. The speed limit on the majority of roads is 60 km/h, and on straight stretches of road it is generally 80 km/h. The use of seat belts is mandatory. Talking on a cell phone while driving is prohibited. The tolerated percentage of alcohol in the blood is.03%.

In order to drive legally in Bosnia and Herzegovina, you must have an international driving permit in addition to your U.S. license. Visit the website of the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s national tourist office and national authority responsible for road safety http://www.bihamk.ba.

Aviation Safety Oversight: As there is no direct commercial air service between the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not assessed Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Civil Aviation Authority for compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation safety standards. For more information, travelers may visit the FAA’s Internet web site at http://faa.gov/safety/programs_initiatives/oversight/iasa.

During winter months, flights into and out of Sarajevo are frequently delayed or cancelled due to heavy fog. Travelers should be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, lengthy delays, and the possibility of alternate routings, or time-consuming overland transportation.

Special Circumstances: Bosnia and Herzegovina is still predominantly a cash economy. Although the use of credit cards has become more widespread in recent years, travelers still should not expect to use them to cover all expenses. Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are available at international banks in Sarajevo and other major cities and towns, but their number is limited. Traveler’s checks can be cashed in banks in major cities, but often with delays of a few weeks or strict monthly limits. Cash transfers from abroad may also involve delays. The convertible mark, the Bosnian currency since June 1998, is pegged to the euro under a currency-board regime, which guarantees its stability. All official payments must be made in convertible marks, though many private stores and service providers also accept euros. Any bank in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be able to exchange U.S. dollars into the convertible marks with the usual bank commission (being between 1% and 2%).

Photographing military installations, including airports, equipment, bridges, government checkpoints, troops and the U.S. Embassy is forbidden. If in doubt, please ask permission before taking photographs.

Criminal Penalties: While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country’s laws and regulations, which sometimes differ significantly from those in the United States and may not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe than in the United States for similar offenses. Persons violating Bosnia and Herzegovina laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession, use, or trafficking in illegal drugs in Bosnia and Herzegovina are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines. Engaging in sexual conduct with children or using or disseminating child pornography in a foreign country is a crime, prosecutable in the United States.

Children’s Issues: For information on international adoption of children and international parental child abduction, see the Office of Children’s Issues website at http://travel.state.gov/family/family_1732.html.

Registration/Embassy Location: Americans living or traveling in Bosnia and Herzegovina are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department’s travel registration website and to obtain updated information on travel and security within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency. The U.S. Embassy is located at Alipasina 43, telephone (387)(33) 445-700, fax: (387)(33) 221-837; Internet address http://www.usembassy.ba. On weekends, holidays, and after hours, an Embassy duty officer can be reached at telephone (387)(33) 445-700. If after dialing you receive a recorded message, press “0,” and then ask for the duty officer.

International Adoption : March 2006

The information below has been edited from a report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Adoption section of this book and review current reports online at www.travel.state.gov/family.

Disclaimer: The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is based on public sources and current understanding. Questions involving foreign and U.S. immigration laws and legal interpretation should be addressed respectively to qualified foreign or U.S. legal counsel.

Please Note: While there is nothing in Bosnian law that specifically prohibits foreigners from applying to adopt a Bosnian child, the law stresses that there must be overwhelming justification and exceptionally compelling reasons for a foreigner to be permitted to do so. The definition of “overwhelming justification” is judged on a case-by-case basis. The law says specifically that a foreign citizen may appear as an adoptive parent “if the adoption is in the best interest of the child and if the child cannot be adopted in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” The Ministry of Social Policy in the Bosnian entity where the child is living (either the Federation or the Republika Srpska, RS) must approve his/her adoption by foreigners. In practice, it is extremely difficult to obtain this approval.

Immigrant visas for Bosnian citizens are issued at the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia.

Patterns of Immigration: Please review current reports online at www.travel.state.gov/family.

Adoption Authority: In both entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation and the Republika Srpska, adoptions are the responsibility of the municipal Centers for Social Work, the Bosnian equivalent of the county or municipal social services department in the United States.

The municipal Center for Social Work prepares an adoption case for submission to the Ministry of Social Policy of the entity in question, which makes the final determination in the case. The Ministry of Social Policy will also seek the approval of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Federation or Republika Srpska, depending on where child is located.

Eligibility Requirements for Adoptive Parents: Bosnian law requires that at least one adoptive parent be between the ages of 25 and 45, and that there be at least an 18-year age difference between that parent and the child. In exceptional circumstances, persons older than 45 may be permitted to adopt, but the age difference between the parent and child may not exceed 45 years. In practice, children are placed only with married couples.

In addition, persons falling into any of the following groups are prohibited from adopting Bosnian children:

• persons whose parental rights have been taken away;
• persons with a limited or no ability to work;
• persons who provide insufficient guarantees that they will raise the child correctly;
• persons who are mentally ill, retarded, or suffering from any illness that could endanger the health and life of the adopted child.

Residency Requirements: There are no residency requirements for Bosnia.

Time Frame: The municipal Center for Social Work publishes its decision regarding its recommendation on an adoption within two months of receiving the adoption application. However, in practice it usually takes longer for the Center to make a decision. Once the Center reaches a decision they then forward the application package to the Ministry of Social Policy with their recommendation. The Ministry is supposed to reach a decision about a request for adoption in two months. Once the Ministry makes a decision, it is sent back to the Center that accepted the application. If the decision is favorable, the prospective adoptive parents must be personally present at the official ceremony (act) of adoption.

Adoption Agencies and Attorneys: There are no U.S. adoption agencies operating in Bosnia. The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo maintains lists of attorneys. Prospective adoptive parents can contact the Embassy directly for a copy of that list.

Adoption Fees: The Bosnian government does not charge a fee for its role in the adoption process.

Adoption Procedures: Persons who wish to apply to adopt a particular child can do so by contacting the Center for Social Work of the municipality/district in which the child is resident and submitting the documents listed below. Prospective adoptive parents who do not have a particular child in mind can contact the Center for Social Work for a designated area to inquire if there are any children eligible for adoption.

If the Center affirms that a child is eligible for intercountry adoption, the Center will request the documents listed below to determine the eligibility of the prospective adoptive parent(s). It should be noted that it is entirely possible that a Center will not respond at all to an inquiry from a foreign national, since under Bosnian law, intercountry adoption is permitted only in exceptional circumstances (typically when there is a compelling medical need, or one of the adopting parents is of Bosnian origin).

The Center then forwards the application package, along with its recommendation, to the Ministry of Social Policy. The Ministry makes a final decision and sends the package back to the Center. The Center then notifies the prospective adoptive parents. If the decision is favorable, the prospective adoptive parents must be personally present at the official ceremony (act) of adoption.

Documentary Requirements: There is no specific application form. The prospective adoptive parent(s) must write a signed letter to the relevant Center for Social Work providing basic information about them. It can be submitted by mail or through an authorized representative. The application must be accompanied by the following documents about each of the adoptive parents:

• Certified Birth certificate.
• Certified Marriage certificates (if applicable).
• Medical certificate of good health, preferably provided by a hospital or general practice clinic, rather than a private physician.
• Proof of citizenship (certified copy of a birth certificate, naturalization certificate or passport).
• Police certificate (i.e., certificate that no criminal record exists) issued by local law enforcement authorities from every place of residence where the applicant has lived for more than a year since the age of 18.
• Court certificate (i.e., certificate proving that the prospective adoptive parent is not under any court investigation at the present time).
• Certificate about capacity for gainful employment. This should take the form of a resume of previous employment records, and an original letter (on official stationery) signed by the current employer, stating the job title, if the position is full- or part-time, how long the person has been employed and the salary.
• Certificate proving that the prospective adoptive parent has never been charged with child neglect or abuse. This may take the form of an official letter from the local department of child welfare.
• Documents testifying to the prospective adoptive parent’s income and property.
• Home study (social worker’s analysis) about the prospective adoptive family, including its ability to care for a child. For non-Bosnian applicants, including Americans, the social services department of the applicant’s country must conduct the study.

All original documents and the application letter must be in English and each must be accompanied by a translation into Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian done by an official court translator. It is easier and less expensive to have the translations done in Bosnia. The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo can provide a list of court translators. The Embassy itself cannot, however, do the translations.

Embassy and Consulates in the United States:
The Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina
2019 E. Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 2003
Tel: (202)337-1500.

Bosnia also has consulates in New York and Chicago.

U.S. Immigration Requirements: Prospective adopting parents are strongly encouraged to consult USCIS publication M-249, The Immigration of Adopted and Prospective Adopting Children, as well as the Department of State publication, International Adoptions. Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at travel. state.gov/family.

U.S. Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina:
U.S. Embassy, Consular Section
Alipasina 43
71000 Sarajevo
Bosnia and Herzegovina
tel: +387 33 445-700
fax: +387 33 221-837
e-mail: bhopa@state.gov

Additional Information: Specific questions about intercountry adoption in Bosnia & Herzegovina may be addressed to the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. General questions regarding intercountry adoption may be addressed to the Office of Children’s Issues, U.S. Department of State, CA/OCS/CI, SA-29, 4th Floor, 2201 C Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20520-4818, toll-free Tel: 1-888-407-4747.

Travel Warning : March 30, 2006

This Travel Warning has been revised to update security information and remind American citizens of the potential danger of travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina. This Travel Warning supersedes that of August 1, 2005.

The Department of State warns U.S. citizens that there are still risks from occasional localized political violence, landmines, and unexploded ordnance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Criminal activity has also been on the rise, particularly in urban areas, with a marked increase in reports of residential break-ins, vehicle and petty theft. There exists a substantial organized crime presence throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina; however, violent confrontations between rival criminal elements usually occur in larger cities and pose little direct threat to Americans. In one suspected instance of a criminally-related act, an explosive device was discovered on a public transit bus in Sarajevo in December 2005. Travelers are warned to exercise additional vigilance in urban areas to avoid being victimized during confrontational crime.

The international community, including American interests, continues to be the target of occasional threats. Ongoing efforts to capture persons indicted for war crimes may result in isolated local disruptions and protests. Global events may also have an impact in some communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and lead to protests and demonstrations. In October 2005, a small group of individuals with extremist affiliations was arrested in Bosnia and Herzegovina on suspicion of planning terrorist acts. The publication in Western Europe of cartoons deemed offensive by some Muslims also motivated protests in Sarajevo in February 2006. While these incidents did not result in injury or loss of life, they are a source of concern.

U.S. government facilities worldwide remain at a heightened state of alert, and may close temporarily or suspend public services to review their security posture. The Embassy in Sarajevo has closed in the past to review its security posture and may have to do so again. In those instances, the Embassy will make every effort to continue providing emergency services to American citizens. Official U.S. government employees and affiliated personnel under the Embassy’s authority are subject to periodic travel restrictions when the security situation warrants it. These restrictions are subject to change on short notice and Americans who visit Bosnia-Herzegovina should contact the Embassy in Sarajevo for updated security information.

Although mine and unexploded ordnance clearance continues, there are still areas that international de-mining organizations consider unsafe. While urban areas have been declared “mine-safe,” not all minefield locations are known. The de-mining community recommends that people remain on hard-packed surfaces and not approach abandoned and destroyed buildings and orchards, as un-cleared mines still surround them. Families traveling with children should be especially aware of this danger and make sure the children do not stray from safe areas. Official estimates of the number of landmines and other unexploded ordnance vary, and travelers may wish to visit the web site of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Center at www.bhmac.org for the most current information regarding landmines.

We recommend that U.S. citizens avoid crowds and demonstrations, keep a low profile in dress and actions, and stay alert for changes in the security situation. The U.S. Embassy may not be able to provide consular services to U.S. citizens in areas where local authorities will not cooperate with or protect U.S. government officials.

Americans visiting or residing in Bosnia-Herzegovina are urged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department’s travel registration website, https://travelregistration.state.gov/, and to obtain updated information on travel and security within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. The U.S. Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina is located at Alipasina 43, telephone (387)(33) 445-700: fax (387)(33)221-837; Internet address http://www.usembassy.ba. On weekends, holidays, and after hours, an embassy duty officer can be reached at telephone (387)(33) 445-700. If after dialing you receive a recorded message, press”0” and then ask for the duty officer.

U.S. travelers can also get up-to-date information on security conditions by calling 1-888-407-4747 in the U.S. or Canada, or on a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444. U.S. citizens should also consult the Department of State’s Consular Information Sheet for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Worldwide Caution Public Announcement at http://travel.state.gov.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Compiled from the August 2005 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:
Bosnia and Herzegovina

PROFILE

Geography

Area:

51,129 sq. km, slightly smaller than West Virginia.

Cities:

Capital—Sarajevo (est. pop 387,876); Banja Luka (220,407); Mostar (208,904); Tuzla (118,500); Bihac (49,544).

Terrain:

Mountains in the central and southern regions, plains along the Sava River in the north.

Climate:

Hot summers and cold winters; areas of high elevation have short, cool summers and long, severe winters; mild, rainy winters in the southeast.

People

Nationalities:

Bosniak (Muslim), Bosnian Croat, Bosnian Serb.

Population (July 2004 est.):

4,007,608 (note: all data dealing with population are subject to considerable error because of the dislocations caused by military action and ethnic cleansing).

Population growth rate (2004 est.):

0.45%.

Ethnic groups:

Bosniak 48.3%, Serb 34.0%, Croat 15.4%, others 2.3%. (Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2002—Bosnia-Herze-govina)

Religion:

Muslim (40%); Orthodox (31%); Catholic (15%); Protestant (4%); other (10%).

Language:

Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian (formerly "Serbo-Croatian").

Education:

Mandatory 8 years of primary school, 4 years in secondary school, and 4 years in universities and academies. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are 407 primary schools with 250,000 students, 171 secondary schools with 80,000 students, 7 universities in the major cities (Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Bihac, and Foca) and 6 academies (4 pedagogic and 2 art academies).

Education:

Adult literacy rate—male 94.1%, female 78.0%.

Health:

Infant mortality rate—(2005 est.) 21.05 deaths/1,000 live births. Life expectancy (2005 est.)—male 70.09, female 75.8.

Work force (2001 est.):

1.026 million.

Government

Type:

Parliamentary democracy.

Constitution:

The Dayton Agreement, signed December 14, 1995, included a new constitution now in force.

Independence:

April 1992 (from Yugoslavia).

Branches:

Executive—Chairman of the Presidency and two other members of three-member rotating presidency (chief of state), Chairman of the Council of Ministers (head of government), Council of Ministers (cabinet). Legislative—bicameral parliamentary assembly, consisting of national House of Representatives and House of Peoples (parliament). Judicial—Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, both supervised by the Ministry of Justice.

Subdivisions:

Two entities: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (divided into 10 cantons) and Republika Srpska. In accordance with Annex 2, Article V, of the Dayton Peace Agreement that left the unresolved status of Brcko subject to binding international arbitration, an Arbitration Tribunal was formed in mid-1996. On March 5, 1999, the Tribunal issued its Final Award. The Final Award established a special District for the entire pre-war Brcko Opstina, under the exclusive sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The territory of the District belongs simultaneously to both Entities, the Republika Srpska and the Federation, in condominium. Therefore, the territories of the two Entities overlap in the Brcko District. In accordance with the Final Award, the District is self-governing and has a single, unitary, multiethnic, democratic Government; a unified and multiethnic police force operating under a single command structure and an independent judiciary. The District Government exercises, throughout the prewar Brcko Opstina, those powers previously exercised by the two Entities and the former three municipal governments. The Brcko district is demilitarized.

Political parties:

Party of Democratic Action (SDA); Croatian Democratic Union of BiH (HDZ-BiH); Serb Democratic Party (SDS); Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH); Civic Democratic Party (GDS); Croatian Peasants' Party of BiH (HSS); Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD); Liberal Party (LS); Republican Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RS); Serb Civic Council (SGV); Social Democratic Party (SDP); Socialist Party of Republika Srpska (SPRS); Social Democrats of Bosnia Herzegovina; Party for Democratic Progress (PDP); National Democratic Union (DNZ); Democratic Peoples' Alliance (DNS); Coalition for a United and Democratic BiH (coalition of SDA, SBiH, LS, and GDS).

Suffrage:

Universal at age 18.

Economy

GDP (2004 est., purchasing power parity):

$26.21 billion.

GDP real growth rate (2004 est.):

5.0%.

Income per capita (2004 est., purchasing power parity):

$6,500 (note: figure heavily depends on the population and does not account for the gray economy).

Inflation rate (2004 est.):

1.1%.

Natural resources:

Hydropower, coal, iron ore, bauxite, manganese, forests, copper, chromium, lead, zinc, cobalt, nickel, clay, gypsum, salt, sand, forests.

Agriculture:

Products—wheat, corn, fruits, vegetables, livestock.

Industry:

Types—steel, minerals, vehicle assembly, textiles, tobacco products, wooden furniture, explosives, munitions, aircraft repair, domestic appliances, oil refining.

Trade (2004):

Exports—$1.7 billion f.o.b.

PEOPLE AND HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS

The three main ethnic groups in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina are Bosniak, Serb, and Croat, and languages are Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian (formerly "Serbo-Croatian"). Nationalities are Bosniak (Muslim), Bosnian Serb, and Bosnian Croat. Religions include Islam, Serb Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, some Protestant sects, and some others.

For the first centuries of the Christian era, Bosnia was part of the Roman Empire. After the fall of Rome, Bosnia was contested by Byzantium and Rome's successors in the west. Slavs settled the region in the 7th century, and the kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia split control of Bosnia in the 9th century. The 11th and 12th centuries saw the rule of the region by the kingdom of Hungary. The medieval kingdom of Bosnia gained its independence around 1200 A.D. Bosnia remained independent until 1463, when Ottoman Turks conquered the region.

During Ottoman rule, many Bosnians converted from Christianity in favor of Islam. Bosnia was under Ottoman rule until 1878, when it was given to Austria-Hungary as a colony. While those living in Bosnia came under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, South Slavs in Serbia and elsewhere were calling for a South Slav state. World War I began when Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Following the Great War, Bosnia became part of the South Slav state of Yugoslavia, only to be given to Nazi-puppet Croatia in World War II. During this period, many atrocities were committed against Jews, Serbs, and others who resisted the occupation. The Cold War saw the establishment of the Communist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito, and the reestablishment of Bosnia as a republic with its medieval borders within the federation of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia's unraveling was hastened by the rise of Slobodan Milosevic to power in 1986. Milosevic's embrace of Serb nationalism led to intrastate ethnic strife. Slovenia and Croatia both declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. In February 1992, the Bosnian Government held a referendum on independence. Bosnia's parliament declared the republic's independence on April 5, 1992. However, this move was opposed by Serb representatives, who favored remaining in Yugoslavia. Bosnian Serbs, supported by neighboring Serbia, responded with armed force in an effort to partition the republic along ethnic lines to create a "greater Serbia." Full recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence by the United States and most European countries occurred on April 7, and Bosnia and Herzegovina was admitted to the United Nations on May 22, 1992.

In March 1994, Muslims and Croats in Bosnia signed an agreement creating the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This narrowed the field of warring parties down to two. The conflict continued through most of 1995, ending with the Dayton Peace Agreement, signed on November 21, 1995 (the final version was signed December 14, 1995 in Paris). Bosnia and Herzegovina today consists of two entities—the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is largely Bosniak and Croat, and the Republika Srpska, which is primarily Serb. In July 2000, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rendered a decision whereby Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs are recognized as constituent people throughout the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In March 2002, this decision was formally recognized and agreed by the major political parties in both entities.

The most recent national elections took place in October 2002, electing new state presidency members, entity governments, and State, Entity and cantonal parliaments. The three main nationalist parties (SDA, HDZ and SDS, obtained the most votes among their respective ethnic groups and have, together with coalition members, formed governments at both the State and Entity levels. The next national elections are scheduled for October 2006. Bosnia and Herzegovina introduced the direct election of mayors at regional and municipal elections held in October 2004.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS

General Government Framework Information and Information Regarding the President and the Cabinet. Under the provisions of the Dayton Peace Accords, the entities have competencies in areas such as finance, taxation, business development, and general legislation. Entities and cantons control their own budgets, spending on infrastructure, health care, and education. Ongoing reforms have led to the creation of a state-level Indirect Taxation Authority (ITA) that will be responsible for the introduction and implementation of a state-wide value-added tax (VAT) in 2006, revenues from which will fund the governments of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the two entities. Customs, which had been collected by agencies of the two entities, will now be collected by a new single state customs service. Draft defense legislation is under consideration by the state and entity parliaments that would create a single, multi-ethnic military under state-level command and control and eliminate the previous entity-based institutions.

Presidency. The Presidency in Bosnia and Herzegovina rotates among three members (Bosniak, Serb, Croat), each elected for a 4-year term. The three members of the Presidency are directly elected (the Federation votes for the Bosniak/Croat, and the Republika Srpska for the Serb).

The Presidency is responsible for:

• Conducting the foreign policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Appointing ambassadors and other international representatives, no more than two-thirds of whom may come from the Federation;
• Representing Bosnia and Herzegovina in European and international organizations and institutions and seeking membership in such organizations and institutions of which it is not a member;
• Negotiating, denouncing, and, with the consent of the Parliamentary Assembly, ratifying treaties of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Executing decisions of the Parliamentary Assembly;
• Proposing, upon the recommendation of the Council of Ministers, an annual budget to the Parliamentary Assembly;
• Reporting as requested, but no less than annually, to the Parliamentary Assembly on expenditures by the Presidency;
• Coordinating as necessary with international and non-governmental organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Exercising command and control over the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina in peacetime, crises, and war, and;
• Performing such other functions as may be necessary to carry out its duties, as may be assigned to it by the Parliamentary Assembly, or as may be agreed by the Entities.

The Chair of the Council of Ministers is nominated by the Presidency and approved by the House of Representatives. He is then responsible for appointing a Foreign Minister, Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Trade, and others as appropriate. The Council is responsible for carrying out the policies and decisions in the fields of defense, intelligence, foreign policy; foreign trade policy; customs policy; monetary policy; finances of the institutions and for the international obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina; immigration, refugee, and asylum policy and regulation; international and inter-Entity criminal law enforcement, including relations with Interpol; establishment and operation of common and international communications facilities; regulation of inter-Entity transportation; air traffic control; facilitation of inter-Entity coordination; and other matters as agreed by the Entities.

Legislature

The Parliamentary Assembly is the lawmaking body in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It consists of two houses: the House of Peoples and the House of Representatives.

The House of Peoples includes 15 delegates, two-thirds of whom come from the Federation (5 Croats and 5 Bosniaks) and one-third from the Republika Srpska (5 Serbs). Nine members of the House of Peoples constitutes a quorum, provided that at least three delegates from each group are present. Federation representatives are selected by the House of Peoples of the Federation, and Republika Srpska representatives are selected by the Republika Srpska National Assembly.

The House of Representatives is comprised of 42 members, two-thirds elected from the Federation and one-third elected from the Republika Srpska. Federation representatives are elected directly by the voters of the Federation, and Republika Srpska representatives are directly elected by Republika Srpska voters.

The Parliamentary Assembly is responsible for enacting legislation as necessary to implement decisions of the Presidency or to carry out the responsibilities of the Assembly under the constitution; deciding upon the sources and amounts of revenues for the operations of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and international obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina; approving a budget for the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina; and deciding whether to consent to the ratification of treaties.

Judiciary

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the supreme, final arbiter of legal matters. It is composed of nine members: four are selected by the House of Representatives of the Federation, two by the Assembly of the Republika Srpska, and three by the President of the European Court of Human Rights after consultation with the Presidency. The Constitutional Court's original jurisdiction lies in deciding any constitutional dispute that arises between the Entities or between Bosnia and Herzegovina and an Entity or Entities. The Court also has appellate jurisdiction within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both the Federation and the Republika Srpska government have established lower court systems for their territories.

Principal Government Officials

Last Updated: 1/3/2006

National Government

Presidency Chairman (Croat): Ivo Miro JOVIC
Presidency Member (Bosniak/Muslim): Sulejman TIHIC
Presidency Member (Serb): Borislav PARAVAC
Chairman, Council of Ministers: Adnan TERZIC
Min. of Civil Affairs: Safet HALILOVIC
Min. of Communication & Transport: Branko DOKIC
Min. of Defense: Nikola RADOVANOVIC
Min. of Finance & Treasury: Ljerka MARIC
Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mladen IVANIC
Min. of Foreign Trade & Economic Relations: Dragan DOKO
Min. of Human Rights & Refugees: Mirsad KEBO
Min. of Justice: Slobodan KOVAC
Min. of Security: Barisa COLAK
Speaker, House of Representatives: Nikola SPIRIC
Dep. Speaker, House of Representatives: Seflik DZAFEROVIC
Dep. Speaker, House of Representatives: Martin RAGUZ
Chmn., House of Peoples: Mustafa PAMUK
Dep. Chmn., House of Peoples: Velimir JUKIC
Dep. Chmn., House of Peoples: Goran MILOJEVIC
Governor, Central Bank: Kemal KOZARIC
Ambassador to the US: Bisera TURKOVIC
Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: Milos PRICA

Federation Government

President: Niko LOZANCIC
Vice President: Sahbaz DZIHANOVIC
Vice President: Desnica RADIVOJEVIC
Prime Minister: Ahmet HADZIPASIC
Dep. Prime Min.: Dragan VRANKIC
Dep. Prime Min.: Grahovac GAVRILO
Min. of Agriculture, Water Management, & Forestry: Marinko BOZIC
Min. of Defense: Miroslav NIKOLIC
Min. of Development & Entrepreneurship: Mladen CABRILO
Min. of Education & Science: Zijad PASIC
Min. of Energy, Mining, & Industry: Izet ZIGIC
Min. of Finance: Dragan VRANKIC
Min. of Health: Vjekoslav MANDIC
Min. of Interior: Mevludin HALILOVIC
Min. of Justice: Borjana KRISTO
Min. of the Liberation War Veterans & Disabled Veterans Issues: Zahid CRNKIC
Min. for Refugees & Displaced Persons: Edin MUSIC
Min. of Social Welfare & Labor: Radovan VIGNJEVIC
Min. of Trade: Maid LJUBOVIC
Min. of Traffic & Communications: Nedzad BRANKOVIC
Min. of Urban Planning & Environment: Ramiz MEHMEDAGIC
Speaker, House of Representatives: Muhamed IBRAHIMOVIC
Dep. Speaker, House of Representatives: Josip MERDZO
Dep. Speaker, House of Representatives: Dusanka PECENAC
Chmn., House of Peoples: Slavko MATIC
Dep. Chmn., House of Peoples: Vahid HECO
Dep. Chmn., House of Peoples: Spomenka MICIC

Republika Srpska

President: Dragan CAVIC
Vice President: Adil OSMANOVIC
Vice President: Ivan TOMLJENOVIC
Prime Minister: Pero BUKEJLOVIC
Min. of Administration & Local Government: Zdena ABAZAGIC
Min. of Agriculture, Forestry, & Water Management: Goran PERKOVIC
Min. of Economic Affairs & Coordination: Jasmin SEFEROVIC
Min. of Economy, Energy, & Development: Miladin GLIGORIC
Min. of Education & Culture:
Min. of Finance: Svjetlana CENIC
Min. of Health & Social Welfare: Ivo KOMLJENOVIC
Min. of Interior: Darko MATIJASEVIC
Min. of Justice: Dzerard SELMAN
Min. of Labor & Veterans: Miodrag DERETIC
Min. of Refugees & Displaced Persons: Jasmin SAMARDZIC
Min. of Science & Technology: Fuad TURALIC
Min. of Trade & Tourism: Boris GASPAR
Min. of Transport & Communications: Dragoje LAJIC
Min. of Urban Planning, Civil Engineering, & Ecology: Muhamed LISIC
Min. Without Portfolio: Milovan STANKOVIC
Speaker of the Republika Srpska National Assembly: Dusan STOJICIC
Dep. Speaker of the Republika Srpska National Assembly: Sefik HAFIZOVIC
Dep. Speaker of the Republika Srpska National Assembly: Tomislav TOMLJANOVIC

Bosnia and Herzegovina maintains an embassy in the United States at 2109 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20037 (tel.: 202-337-1500; fax: 202-337-1502).

ECONOMY

Next to Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina was the poorest republic in the old Yugoslav Federation. For the most part, agriculture has been in private hands, but farms have been small and inefficient, and food has traditionally been a net import for the country. Industry still is greatly overstaffed, reflecting the legacy of the centrally-planned economy. Under Tito, military industries were pushed in the republic; Bosnia hosted a large share of Yugoslavia's defense plants. Three years of interethnic strife destroyed the economy and infrastructure in Bosnia, caused the death of about 200,000 people, and displaced half of the population.

Considerable progress has been made since peace was reestablished. Due to Bosnia and Herzegovina's strict currency board regime, which links the Konvertibilna Marka (BAM) to the Euro, inflation has remained low. However, growth has been uneven, with the Federation outpacing the Republika Srpska. Bosnia and Herzegovina's most immediate task remains economic revitalization. In order to do this fully, the environment must be conducive to a private sector, market-led economy. Privatization has been slow, and unemployment remains high. Restructuring of BiH's domestic debt (estimated at over 2000% of GDP) is imperative. Bosnia and Herzegovina also faces the challenge of implementing a significantly new tax reform, by introduction of a Value-Added Tax (VAT) in 2006.

BiH's top economic priorities are: acceleration of EU integration by concluding a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA); strengthening the fiscal system; public administration reform; World Trade Organization (WTO) membership; and securing economic growth by fostering a dynamic, competitive private sector. To date, work on these priorities has been inconsistent and not in line with milestones. The country has received a substantial amount of foreign assistance but must prepare for declining assistance flows in the future.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

The implementation of the Dayton Accords of 1995 has focused the efforts of policymakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the international community, on regional stabilization in the former Yugoslavia. However, with the efforts to bring peace in Kosovo and Macedonia, donor resources for Bosnia and Herzegovina have diminished. Bosnia and Herzegovina's relations with its neighbors Croatia, Albania, and Serbia have been fairly stable since the signing of Dayton in 1995. The U.S. role in the Dayton Accords and their implementation has been key to successes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since the Dayton Accords were signed, over $14 billion in foreign aid has moved into Bosnia and Herzegovina, approximately $940 million of it coming from SEED funds. As stated above, this support has been key to the growth and revitalization of the economy and infrastructure in the republic. In addition to SEED funding, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) programs have been crucial to the redevelopment of Bosnia and Herzegovina. USAID has programming in the following areas: economic policy reform and restructuring; private sector development (the Business Development Program); infrastructure rebuilding; democratic reforms in the media, political process and elections, and rule of law/legal code formulation; and training programs for women and diplomats.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a member of the United Nations (1992); International Monetary Fund (IMF) (1992), World Bank (1995), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) (1992); and the Council of Europe (2002). It also participates in regional cooperation through the Stability Pact, Central-European Initiative (CEI), Southeast Europe Co-operation Initiative (SECI), Southeast Europe Co-operation Process (SEECP), Adriatic-Ionic Initiative (AII) and others.

U.S.-BOSNIAN RELATIONS

The 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was ended with the crucial participation of the United States in brokering the 1995 Dayton Accords. After leading the diplomatic and military effort to secure the Dayton agreement, the United States has continued to lead the effort to ensure its implementation. U.S. troops participate in the Bosnia Peacekeeping force (SFOR), and the United States has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to help with reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, economic development, and military reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has played a large role in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, including programs in economic development and reform, democratic reform (media, elections), infrastructure development, and training programs for Bosnian professionals, among others. Additionally, there are many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have likewise played significant roles in the reconstruction.

Principal U.S. Embassy Officials

SARAJEVO (E) Address: Alipasina 43; Phone: +387 33 445 700; Fax: +387 33 659 722; Workweek: Monday-Friday 8:00AM to 5:00PM; Website: http://www.usembassy.ba.

BANJA LUKA (BO) Address: Jovana Ducica 5, Banja Luka; Phone: +387-51-211-500; Fax: +387-51-218-291; Workweek: Monday-Friday; Website: www.usembassy.ba.

TRAVEL

Consular Information Sheet

July 29, 2005

Country Description:

Since the December 1995 signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, there has been significant progress in restoring peace and stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although physical infrastructure was devastated by the war, in recent years there has been significant improvement, and reconstruction is progressing. Hotels and travel amenities are available in the capital, Sarajevo, and other major towns, but they are relatively expensive. In the more remote areas of the country, public facilities vary in quality.

Entry/Exit Requirements:

A passport is required for travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina. American citizens do not require a visa for tourist stays up to three months. Unless the traveler is staying at a hotel, all foreigners must register with the local police within 24 hours of arrival. U.S. citizens planning to remain in Bosnia and Herzegovina for more than three months must obtain a temporary residence permit from the local police having jurisdiction over their place of residence and pay a fee of U.S. 50 dollars for a period of three to twelve months. For additional information concerning longer stays, employment, and other types of visas, please contact the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at 2109 E. Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20037, telephone 202-337-1500 or the Internet address http://www.bosnianembassy.org. Overseas, inquiries may be made to the nearest Bosnian embassy or consulate.

In an effort to prevent international child abduction, many governments have initiated procedures at entry/exit points. These often include requiring documentary evidence of relationship and permission for the child's travel from the parent(s) or legal guardian not present. Having such documentation on hand, even if not required, may facilitate entry/departure. Visit the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina's web site at http://www.bosniaembassy.org for the most current visa information.

Safety and Security:

More than 600,000 unmarked landmines and other unexploded ordnance remained throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war. These devices have killed more than 300 people since 1996. While most urban areas have been largely cleared, special care should be taken when near former lines of conflict, including the suburbs of Sarajevo. The de-mining community recommends staying on hard surface areas and out of abandoned buildings. Families traveling with children in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be especially aware of the danger posed by mines and unexploded ordnance. Localized political difficulties continue and random violence may occur with little or no warning. Bosnian criminals use firearms and explosives to settle personal, business, and political disputes. The foreign community is rarely the target of such violence, but there is always the danger of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. While most Bosnian citizens appreciate the assistance of the international community, occasional anti-foreign sentiment is sometimes encountered.

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Internet web site at http://travel.state.gov where the current Worldwide Caution Public Announcement, Travel Warnings and Public Announcements can be found. Up-to-date information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S., or for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).

Crime:

Although street crime is relatively low and violent crimes are rare, pick pocketing and vehicle break-ins are a problem, and are on the rise in the capital city, Sarajevo. Most pick-pockets operate in pairs and employ distraction methods to execute their craft. There are also documented cases of pick-pocketing and other scams to get money from foreign passengers aboard public transportation. Sarajevo has also seen a recent marked rise in confrontational crimes, such as attempted muggings. Travelers should take normal precautions to protect their property from theft and exercise common sense personal security measures, traveling in groups, and staying in well-lighted areas after dark. Confrontations with local citizens resulting from traffic incidents or public disagreements should be avoided.

Information for Victims of Crime:

The loss or theft abroad of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. If you are the victim of a crime while overseas, in addition to reporting to local police, please contact the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate for assistance. The embassy/consulate staff can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, to contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed.

Medical Facilities and Health Information:

Prior to the war 1992-1995, hospitals in Sarajevo were the leading educational, diagnostic, and therapeutic institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina and throughout much of Eastern Europe. During the war they were targeted and suffered major destruction. Although the medical infrastructure is being rebuilt, many deficits still exist. The lack of adequate medical facilities, especially outside Sarajevo, may cause problems for visitors. Because many medicines are not obtainable, travelers should bring their own supply of prescription drugs and preventive medicines. Private practitioners and dentists are becoming more common; however, quality of care varies and rarely meets U.S. or western European standards. All major surgery is performed in public hospitals.

Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's hotline for international travelers at 1-877-FYI-TRIP (1-877-394-8747) or via the CDC's Internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/travel. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization's (WHO) web-site at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith.

Medical Insurance:

The Department of State strongly urges Americans to consult with their medical insurance company prior to traveling abroad to confirm whether their policy applies overseas and whether it will cover emergency expenses such as a medical evacuation.

Traffic Safety and Road Conditions:

While in a foreign country, U.S. citizens may encounter road conditions that differ significantly from those in the United States. The information below concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance.

Road travel is possible throughout most of the country. Some roads are still damaged from the war, and roads are sometimes blocked due to landslides, de-mining activity, and traffic accidents. Bosnia and Herzegovina is among the rare countries in Europe that has fewer than ten kilometers of four-lane highway. The existing, two-lane roads between major cities are quite narrow at places, lack guard-rails, and are full of curves. Travel by road can be risky due to poorly maintained roads, and morning and evening fog in the mountains. Driving in winter is hazardous due to fog, snow, and ice.

Local driving habits are poor, and many vehicles are in bad condition. Many accidents occur when drivers exceed safe speeds along winding mountain roads. Accidents involving drunk driving are an increasing problem. Driving after dark is especially dangerous, and street lighting is not common outside the major towns. Road construction may be poorly marked, and automobiles share the road with heavy vehicles and agricultural equipment. Travelers are encouraged to convoy with other vehicles, if possible, and to plan their trip to ensure they travel only during daylight hours.

Although the number of service stations outside major cities has increased in recent years, many do not offer mechanical or other services. The emergency number for vehicle assistance and towing service is 1282; ambulances can be called at 124, and police at 122.

Speed limit traffic signs are not always obvious or clear. The speed limit on the majority of roads is 60 km/h, and on straight stretches of road it is generally 80 km/h. Wearing seat belts is mandatory. Talking on a cell phone while driving is prohibited. The tolerated percentage of alcohol in the blood is.05.

In order to drive legally in Bosnia and Herzegovina, you must have an international driving permit in addition to your U.S. license. The national authority responsible for traffic information and safety is the Automobile Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina, known as "BIHAMK." Their web site, which also offers information in English, is http://www.bihamk.ba.

Aviation Safety Oversight:

As there is no direct commercial air service between the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not assessed Bosnia and Herzegovina's Civil Aviation Authority for compliance with ICAO international aviation safety standards. For more information, travelers may visit the FAA's Internet web site at http://faa.gov/safety/programs_initiatives/oversight/iasa.

During winter months, flights into and out of Sarajevo are frequently delayed or cancelled due to heavy fog. Travelers should be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, lengthy delays, and the possibility of alternate routings, or time-consuming overland transportation.

Special Circumstances:

Almost all of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a cash economy. Although the use of credit cards has become more widespread in recent years, travelers still should not expect to use them to cover all expenses. Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are available at international banks in Sarajevo and other major cities and towns, but their number is limited. Traveler's checks can be cashed in banks in major cities, but often with delays of a few weeks or strict monthly limits. Cash transfers from abroad may also involve delays. The convertible mark, the Bosnian currency since June 1998, is pegged to the euro under a currency-board regime, which guarantees its stability. All official payments must be made in convertible marks, though many private stores and service providers also accept euros. Any bank in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be able to exchange U.S. dollars into the convertible marks with the usual bank commission (being between 1% and 2%).

Photo-graphing military installations, including airports, equipment, bridges, government checkpoints, troops and the U.S. Embassy is forbidden. If in doubt, please ask permission before taking photographs.

Criminal Penalties:

While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country's laws and regulations, which sometimes differ significantly from those in the United States and may not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe than in the United States for similar offences. Persons violating Bosnia and Herzegovina's laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession, use, or trafficking in illegal drugs in Bosnia and Herzegovina are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines. Engaging in illicit sexual conduct with children or using or disseminating child pornography in a foreign country is a crime, prosecutable in the United States.

Children's Issues:

For information on international adoption of children and international parental child abduction, see the Office of Children's Issues website at http://travel.state.gov/family/family_1732.html.

Registration/Embassy Location:

Americans living or traveling in Bosnia and Herzegovina are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department's travel registration website, https://travelregistration.state.gov, and to obtain updated information on travel and security within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency. The U.S. Embassy is located at Alipasina 43, telephone (387)(33) 445-700, fax: (387)(33) 221-837; Internet address http://www.usembassy.ba. On weekends, holidays, and after hours, an Embassy duty officer can be reached at telephone (387)(33) 445-700. If after dialing you receive a recorded message, press "0", and then ask for the duty officer.

Travel Warning

August 1, 2005

The Department of State warns U.S. citizens that there are still risks from occasional localized political violence, landmines, and unexploded ordnance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Criminal activity has also been on the rise, particularly in urban areas with a marked increase in reports of residential break-ins, vehicle and petty theft. There exists a substantial organized crime presence throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina; however, violent confrontations between rival criminal elements usually occur in larger cities, and pose little direct threat to Americans. Travelers are warned to exercise additional vigilance in urban areas to avoid being victimized during confrontational crime.

The international community, including American interests, continues to be the target of occasional threats. In addition, increased efforts to capture persons indicted for war crimes resulted in isolated local disruptions and protests in 2004.

U.S. Government facilities worldwide remain at a heightened state of alert, and may close temporarily or suspend public services to review their security posture. The Embassy in Sarajevo has closed in the past to review its security posture and may have to do so again. In those instances, the Embassy will make every effort to continue providing emergency services to American citizens. Official U.S. Government employees and affiliated personnel under the Embassy's authority are subject to periodic travel restrictions when the security situation warrants it. These restrictions are subject to change on short notice, and Americans who visit Bosnia-Herzegovina should contact the Embassy in Sarajevo for updated security information.

Although clearance of mine and unexploded ordnance continues, there are still areas that are deemed unsafe by international de-mining organizations. Estimates vary, but a conservative figure suggests that more than 600,000 mines and other unexploded ordnance remain uncleared. While urban areas have been declared "mine-safe," the location of some minefields is unknown and the de-mining community recommends remaining on hard-packed surfaces. Abandoned and destroyed buildings and orchards should not be approached, as uncleared mines still surround them. Families traveling with children should be especially aware of this danger and make sure the children do not stray from safe areas.

It is always recommended to avoid crowds and demonstrations, keep a low profile in dress and actions, and stay alert for changes in the security situation. The U.S. Embassy may not be able to provide consular services to U.S. citizen in areas where local authorities will not cooperate with or protect U.S. Government officials.

Americans visiting or residing in Bosnia and Herzegovina are urged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department's travel registration website, https://travelregistration.state.gov/, and to obtain updated information on travel and security within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. The U.S. Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina is located at Alipasina 43, telephone (387)(33) 445-700: fax (387)(33)221-837; Internet address http://www.usembassy.ba. On weekends, holidays, and after hours, an embassy duty officer can be reached at telephone (387)(33) 445-700. If after dialing you receive a recorded message, press"0", and then ask for the duty officer.

U.S. travelers can also get up-to-date information on security conditions by calling 1-888-407-4747 in the U.S. or Canada, or on a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444. U.S. citizens should also consult the Department of State's Consular Information Sheet for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Worldwide Caution Public Announcement at http://travel.state.gov.

International Adoption

January 2006

The information below has been edited from a report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Adoption section of this book and review current reports online at www.travel.state.gov/family.

Disclaimer:

The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is based on public sources and our current understanding. Questions involving foreign and U.S. immigration laws and legal interpretation should be addressed respectively to qualified foreign or U.S. legal counsel.

Please Note:

While there is nothing in Bosnian law that specifically prohibits foreigners from applying to adopt a Bosnian child, the law stresses that there must be over-whelming justification and exceptionally compelling reasons for a foreigner to be permitted to adopt a Bosnian child. The definition of "overwhelming justification" is judged on a case-by-case basis. The Ministry of Social Policy in each Bosnian entity (the Federation and the Republika Srpska, RS) must approve adoptions by foreigners, which is not the case for adoptions by local Bosnian citizens. In practice, it is extremely difficult to obtain this approval. Furthermore, in a country that is still recovering from a long and brutal conflict, it can be extremely difficult to determine if the whereabouts of a parent are simply unknown or if the child is truly an orphan.

Patterns of Immigration of Adopted Orphans to the U.S.:

Recent U.S. immigrant visa statistics reflect the following pattern for visa issuance to orphans

Fiscal Year: Number of Immigrant Visas Issued
FY 2003: 2
FY 2002: 3
FY 2001: 1
FY 2000: 1
FY 1999: 0

Adoption Authority in Bosnia & Herzegovina:

In both entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation and the Republika Srpska, adoptions are the responsibility of the municipal Centers for Social Work, the Bosnian equivalent of the county or municipal social services department in the United States. The Center for Social Work prepares an adoption case for submission to the Ministry of Social Policy of the entity in question, which makes the final determination of the case. The Ministry of Social Policy will also seek the approval of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the entity.

Eligibility Requirements for Adoptive Parents:

Bosnian law does not prescribe what characteristics potential adoptive parents must have, but it lists those that would be an obstacle to adoption. Therefore, a person "whose parental right has been taken away, person with no or limited working ability, person who does not provide enough guarantee that he/she would raise the adopted child to become a useful member of the community, person mentally ill or retarded, or person suffering from another illness that could endanger the health and life of the adopted child, or person who has not yet attained the age of 18", may not adopt a child. In general, children are given for adoption only to married couples. No upper age limit is specifically mentioned, but the general tendency is not to approve any adoption where a parent would be more than 40 years older than the child.

Residential Requirements:

There are no residential requirements stipulated in Bosnian law.

Time Frame:

The law stipulates that the Center for Social Work should reach a decision about an application for adoption within two months. However, in practice it usually takes longer for the Center to make a decision. Once the Center reaches a decision they then forward the application package to the Ministry of Social Policy with their recommendation. Bosnian law states that the Ministry should reach a decision about a request for adoption in two months. Once the Ministry makes a decision, it is sent back to the Center that accepted the application. If the decision is favorable, the prospective adoptive parents must be personally present at the official ceremony (act) of adoption.

Adoption Agencies and Attorneys:

There are no U.S. adoption agencies operating in Bosnia. The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo maintains lists of attorneys. Adoptive parents can contact the Embassy for a copy of that list. Please see below for contact information.

Adoption Fees in Bosnia Herzegovina:

The Bosnian government does not charge a fee for its role in the adoption process.

Adoption Procedures:

Persons who wish to apply to adopt a particular child can do so by contacting the Center for Social Work of the municipality/district of which the child is a resident and submitting the documents listed below. Prospective adoptive parents who do not have a particular child in mind can contact the Center for Social Work for a designated area to inquire an adoptable child is available. If the Center affirms that a child is available for foreign adoption, the Center will request the documents listed below to determine the eligibility of the adoptive parent(s). It should be noted that it is entirely possible that a Center will not respond at all to an inquiry from a foreign national, since under Bosnian law, international adoption is permitted only in exceptional circumstances (typically when there is a compelling medical need, or one of the adopting parents is of Bosnian origin.)

The Center then forwards the application package to the Ministry of Social Policy with its recommendation. Once the Ministry makes a decision, it is sent back to the Center that accepted the application. The Center then notifies the prospective adoptive parents of the decision. If the decision is favorable, the prospective adoptive parents must be personally present at the official ceremony (act) of adoption. This is an official act signed by the adoptive parents in person and representatives of the government. It takes place at the Center for Social Work. The court then issues an official decision or decree ratifying the proceedings conducted by the Center for Social Work.

Documents Required for Adoption in Bosnia Herzegovina:

There is no specific application form. A request for adoption should be in the form of a letter, written by the prospective adoptive parent. It should state the basic facts about the prospective adoptive parents and must bear their personal signatures. It can be submitted by mail or through an authorized representative. The application must be accompanied by the following documents about each of the adoptive parents:

• Certified Birth certificate.
• Certified Marriage certificates (if applicable).
• Medical certificate of good health preferably provided by a hospital or general practice clinic, rather than a private physician.
• Proof of citizenship (certified copy of a birth certificate, naturalization certificate or passport).
• Police certificate (i.e., certificate that no criminal record exists) issued by local law enforcement authorities from every place of residence where the applicant has lived for more than a year since the age of 18.
• Court certificate (i.e., certificate proving that the adoptive parent is not under any court investigation at the present time).
• Certificate about capacity for gainful employment. This should take the form of a resume of previous employment records, and an original letter (on official stationery) signed by the current employer, stating the job title, if the position is full- or part-time, how long the person has been employed and the salary.
• Certificate proving that the adoptive parent has never been charged with child neglect or abuse. This may take the form of an official letter from the local department of child welfare.
• Documents testifying to the adoptive parent's income and property.
• Home study (social worker's analysis) about the adoptive family, including his/her personal ability to care for a child. If the adoptive parent is a foreigner (not a resident or citizen of Bosnia), the authorized social services department in the applicant's country must conduct the study.

All original documents and the application letter must be in English and each must be accompanied by a translation into Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian done by an official court translator. It is easier and less expensive to have the translations done in Bosnia. The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo can provide a list of court translators.

Authenticating U.S. Documents to be Used Abroad:

All U.S. Documents submitted to the Bosnian government/court must be authenticated. Visit the State Department website at travel.state.gov for additional information about authentication procedures.

Embassy and Consulates in the United States:

The Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina
2019 E. Street, N.W.,
Washington, DC 2003
Tel: (202)337-1500.

U.S. Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina:

U.S. Embassy, Consular Section
Alipasina 43
71000 Sarajevo
Bosnia and Herzegovina
tel: +387 33 445-700
fax: +387 33 659-722
e-mail: bhopa@state.gov

U.S. Immigration Requirements:

A child adopted by a U.S. citizen must obtain an immigrant visa before he or she can enter the U.S. Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at travel.state.gov/family.

Additional Information:

Specific questions about adoption in a particular country may be addressed to the U.S. Embassy in that country. General questions regarding international adoption may be addressed to the Office of Children's Issues, U.S. Department of State, CA/OCS/CI, SA-29, 4th Floor, 2201 C Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20520-4818, toll free Tel: 1-888-404-4747.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Compiled from the October 2007 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:

Bosnia and Herzegovina

PROFILE

Geography

Area: 51,129 sq. km, slightly smaller than West Virginia.

Cities: Capital—Sarajevo (est. pop 387,876); Banja Luka (220,407); Mostar (208,904); Tuzla (118,500); Bihac (49,544).

Terrain: Mountains in the central and southern regions, plains along the Sava River in the north.

Climate: Hot summers and cold winters; areas of high elevation have short, cool summers and long, severe winters; mild, rainy winters in the southeast.

People

Nationality: Bosniak (Muslim), Bosnian Croat, Bosnian Serb.

Population: (July 2004 est.) 4,007,608 (note: all data dealing with population are subject to considerable error because of the dislocations caused by military action and ethnic cleansing).

Population growth rate: (2004 est.) 0.45%.

Ethnic groups: Bosniak 48.3%, Serb 34.0%, Croat 15.4%, others 2.3%. (Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2002—Bosnia-Herzegovina)

Religions: Muslim (40%); Orthodox (31%); Catholic (15%); Protestant (4%); other (10%).

Languages: Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian (formerly “Serbo-Croatian”).

Education: Mandatory 8–9 years of primary school (depending on region), 3–4 years in secondary school (vocational/liberal arts), and 3–5 years in universities (depending on major). In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are 1,089 primary schools with 350,000 students and 289 secondary schools with 162,000 students. The main public universities are in larger cities (Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Bihac, Zenica) and there are a number of private institutions of higher education. Adult literacy rate—male 94.1%, female 78.0%.

Health: Infant mortality rate: (2005 est.)—21.05 deaths/1,000 live births. Life expectancy (2005 est.)—male 70.09, female 75.8.

Work force: (2001 est.) 1.026 million.

Government

Type: Parliamentary democracy.

Constitution: The Dayton Agreement, signed December 14, 1995, included a new constitution now in force.

Independence: April 1992 (from Yugoslavia).

Government branches: Executive—Chairman of the Presidency and two other members of three-member rotating presidency (chief of state), Chairman of the Council of Ministers (head of government), Council of Ministers (cabinet). Legislative—bicameral parliamentary assembly, consisting of national House of Representatives and House of Peoples (parliament). Judicial—Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, both supervised by the Ministry of Justice.

Political subdivisions: Two Entities: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (divided into 10 cantons) and Republika Srpska. In accordance with Annex 2, Article V, of the Dayton Peace Agreement that left the unresolved status of Brcko subject to binding international arbitration, an Arbitration Tribunal was formed in mid-1996. On March 5, 1999, the Tribunal issued its Final Award. The Final Award established a special District for the entire pre-war Brcko Opstina, under the exclusive sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The territory of the District belongs simultaneously to both Entities, the Republika Srpska and the Federation, in condominium. Therefore, the territories of the two Entities overlap in the Brcko District. In accordance with the Final Award, the District is self-governing and has a single, unitary, multiethnic, democratic Government; a unified and multiethnic police force operating under a single command structure and an independent judiciary. The District Government exercises, throughout the prewar Brcko Opstina, those powers previously exercised by the two Entities and the former three municipal governments. The Brcko district is demilitarized.

Political parties: Party of Democratic Action (SDA); Croatian Democratic Union of BiH (HDZ-BiH); Serb Democratic Party (SDS); Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH); Croatian Democratic Union-1990 (HDZ-1990); Bosnian Party (BOSS); Social Democratic Union (SDU); Croatian Party of Rights (HSP); Civic Democratic Party (GDS); Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD); Social Democratic Party (SDP); Socialist Party of Republika Srpska (SPRS); Party for Democratic Progress (PDP); National Democratic Union (DNZ); Democratic Peoples’ Alliance (DNS); Bosnian Patriotic Party (BPS); Work for Progress (RzB); Serb Radical Party (SRS). Suffrage: Universal at age 18.

Economy

GDP: (2006 IMF est., purchasing power parity) $33.75 billion.

Nominal GDP: (Central Bank and IMF figures) $11.51 billion. If non-observed economy is included, nominal GDP is estimated by the Central Bank to be $13.4 billion.

GDP real growth rate: (2006 World Bank est.) 6.2%.

Income per capita: (2006 IMF est., purchasing power parity) $8,370.

Nominal GDP per capita: $2,995, or, including the estimated gray economy, $3,487.

Inflation rate: (2006 est.) 7.4%. (This is a one-time effect of the introduction of a value-added tax.)

Natural resources: Hydropower, coal, iron ore, bauxite, manganese, forests, copper, chromium, lead, zinc, cobalt, nickel, clay, gypsum, salt, sand, forests.

Agriculture: Products—wheat, corn, fruits, vegetables, livestock.

Industry: Steel, aluminum, minerals, vehicle assembly, textiles, tobacco products, wooden furniture, explosives, munitions, aircraft repair, domestic appliances, oil refining.

Trade: (2006 Central Bank figure) Exports—$2.5 billion f.o.b.

PEOPLE AND HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS

The three main ethnic groups in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina are Bosniak, Serb, and Croat, and languages are Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian (formerly “Serbo-Croatian”). Nationalities are Bosniak (Muslim), Bosnian Serb, and Bosnian Croat. Religions include Islam, Serb Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, some Protestant sects, and some others.

For the first centuries of the Christian era, Bosnia was part of the Roman Empire. After the fall of Rome, Bosnia was contested by Byzantium and Rome's successors in the west. Slavs settled the region in the 7th century, and the kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia split control of Bosnia in the 9th century. The 11th and 12th centuries saw the rule of the region by the kingdom of Hungary. The medieval kingdom of Bosnia gained its independence around 1200 A.D. Bosnia remained independent until 1463, when Ottoman Turks conquered the region.

During Ottoman rule, many Bosnians converted from Christianity to Islam. Bosnia was under Ottoman rule until 1878, when it was given to Austria-Hungary as a colony. While those living in Bosnia came under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, South Slavs in Serbia and elsewhere were calling for a South Slav state. World War I began when Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Following the Great War, Bosnia became part of the South Slav state of Yugoslavia, only to be given to the Nazi-puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in World War II. During this period, many atrocities were committed against Jews, Serbs, and others who resisted the occupation. The Cold War saw the establishment of the Communist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito, and the reestablishment of Bosnia as a republic with its medieval borders within the federation of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia's unraveling was hastened by Slobodan Milosevic's rise to power in 1986. Milosevic's embrace of Serb nationalism led to intrastate ethnic strife. Slovenia and Croatia both declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. On March 1, 1992, the Bosnian Government held a referendum on independence. Bosnia's parliament declared the republic's independence on April 5, 1992. However, this move was opposed by Serb representatives, who favored remaining in Yugoslavia. Bosnian Serbs, supported by neighboring Serbia, responded with armed force in an effort to partition the republic along ethnic lines to create a “greater Serbia.” Full recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence by the United States and most European countries occurred on April 7, and Bosnia and Herzegovina was admitted to the United Nations on May 22, 1992.

In March 1994, Muslims and Croats in Bosnia signed an agreement creating the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This narrowed the field of warring parties to two. The conflict continued through most of 1995, and many atrocities were committed, including acts of genocide committed by members of the Army of Republika Srpska in and around Srebrenica from July 12-22, 1995, where approximate 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed. The conflict ended with the November 21, 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which was formally signed on December 14, 1995 in Paris.

Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the political and military leaders of the Bosnian Serb separatist movement, were indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (www.un.org/icty) in The Hague in July 1995 on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from their role in the Srebrenica massacre. Karadzic and Mladic remain at large.

Bosnia and Herzegovina today consists of two Entities—the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is largely Bosniak and Croat, and the

Republika Srpska, which is primarily Serb. In July 2000, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rendered a decision whereby Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs are recognized as constituent people throughout the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In March 2002, this decision was formally recognized and agreed by the major political parties in both Entities. The most recent national elections took place in October 2006, electing new state presidency members; Entity governments; and state, Entity, and cantonal parliaments.

The traditionally nationalist parties (SDS, HDZ, SDA) lost ground to emerging opposition parties (SNSD, SBiH, HDZ-1990), although the opposition parties relied heavily on ethnically based messages to appeal to voters. A six-party coalition has formed a national government. The next national elections are scheduled for October 2010. Bosnia and Herzegovina introduced the direct election of mayors at municipal elections held in October 2004.

The international community retains an extraordinary civilian and military presence in BiH stemming from the Dayton Peace Accords. The Dayton Accords created the position of High Representative, an international official charged with overseeing implementation of the civilian aspects of the agreement. The current High Representative (since July 2007) is Slovakia's Miroslav Lajcak (www.ohr.int).

In December 1995, NATO deployed a 60,000-troop Implementation Force (IFOR) to oversee implementation of the military aspects of the peace agreement. IFOR transitioned into a smaller Stabilization Force (SFOR) in 2006. With the end of the SFOR mission in December 2005, the European Union (EU) assumed primary responsibility for military stabilization operations.

Approximately 2,500 EU troops remain deployed in Bosnia (www.euforbih.org). NATO maintains a small headquarters operation with responsibility to assist with defense reform and efforts against persons indicted for war crimes and counterterrorism (www.afsouth.nato.int/NHQSA/index.htm).

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS

General Government Framework Information and Information Regarding the President and the Cabinet. Under the provisions of the Dayton Peace Accords, the Entities have competencies in areas such as finance, taxation, business development, and general legislation. Entities and cantons control their own budgets, spending on infrastructure, health care, and education.

Ongoing reforms have led to the creation of a single, multi-ethnic military under state-level command and control to replace the previous Entity-based institutions and a state-level Indirect Taxation Authority (ITA) that is responsible for the implementation of a state-wide value-added tax (VAT), revenues from which fund the governments of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the two Entities. Customs, which had been collected by agencies of the two Entities, also is now collected by a new single state customs service.

Presidency. The Presidency in Bosnia and Herzegovina rotates among three members (Bosniak, Serb, Croat), each elected for a 4-year term. The three members of the Presidency are directly elected (the Federation votes for the Bosniak/Croat, and the Republika Srpska for the Serb).

The Presidency is responsible for:

• Conducting the foreign policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Appointing ambassadors and other international representatives, no more than two-thirds of whom may come from the Federation;
• Representing Bosnia and Herzegovina in European and international organizations and institutions and seeking membership in such organizations and institutions of which it is not a member;
• Negotiating, denouncing, and, with the consent of the Parliamentary Assembly, ratifying treaties of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Executing decisions of the Parliamentary Assembly;
• Proposing, upon the recommendation of the Council of Ministers, an annual budget to the Parliamentary Assembly;
• Reporting as requested, but no less than annually, to the Parliamentary Assembly on expenditures by the Presidency;
• Coordinating as necessary with international and non-governmental organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Exercising command and control over the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina in peacetime, crises, and war, and;
• Performing such other functions as may be necessary to carry out its duties, as may be assigned to it by the Parliamentary Assembly, or as may be agreed by the Entities.

The Chair of the Council of Ministers is nominated by the Presidency and approved by the House of Representatives. He is then responsible for appointing a Foreign Minister, Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Trade, and others as appropriate. The Council is responsible for carrying out the policies and decisions in the fields of defense, intelligence, foreign policy; foreign trade policy; customs policy; monetary policy; finances of the institutions and for the international obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina; immigration, refugee, and asylum policy and regulation; international and inter-Entity criminal law enforcement, including relations with Interpol; establishment and operation of common and international communications facilities; regulation of inter-Entity transportation; air traffic control; facilitation of inter-Entity coordination; and other matters as agreed by the Entities.

Legislature. The Parliamentary Assembly is the lawmaking body in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It consists of two houses: the House of Peoples and the House of Representatives.

The House of Peoples includes 15 delegates, two-thirds of whom come from the Federation (5 Croats and 5 Bos-niaks) and one-third from the Republika Srpska (5 Serbs). Nine members of the House of Peoples constitutes a quorum, provided that at least three delegates from each group are present. Federation representatives are selected by the House of Peoples of the Federation, and Republika Srpska representatives are selected by the Republika Srpska National Assembly.

The House of Representatives is comprised of 42 members, two-thirds elected from the Federation and one-third elected from the Republika Srpska. Federation representatives are elected directly by the voters of the Federation, and Republika Srpska representatives are directly elected by Republika Srpska voters.

The Parliamentary Assembly is responsible for enacting legislation as necessary to implement decisions of the Presidency or to carry out the responsibilities of the Assembly under the constitution; deciding upon the sources and amounts of revenues for the operations of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and international obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina; approving a budget for the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina; and deciding whether to consent to the ratification of treaties.

Judiciary. The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the supreme, final arbiter of legal matters. It is composed of nine members: four are selected by the House of Representatives of the Federation, two by the Assembly of the Republika Srpska, and three by the President of the European Court of Human Rights after consultation with the Presidency. The Constitutional Court's original jurisdiction lies in deciding any constitutional dispute that arises between the Entities or between Bosnia and Herzegovina and an Entity or Entities. The Court also has appellate jurisdiction within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both the Federation and the Republika Srpska government have established lower court systems for their territories.

Principal Government Officials

Last Updated: 2/1/2008

Bosnia's central government is headed by a tripartite presidency, with one representative of each of the three major ethnic constituencies. The chairmanship of the presidency rotates among the three presidency members every eight months.

National Govt.

Presidency Chmn. (Croat): Zeljko KOMSIC

Presidency Member (Serb): Nebojsa RADMANOVIC

Presidency Member (Bosniak): Haris SILAJDZIC

Chmn., Council of Ministers: Nikola SPIRIC

Min. of Civil Affairs: Sredoje NOVIC

Min. of Defense: Selmo CIKOTIC

Min. of Finance: Dragan VRANKIC

Min. of Foreign Affairs: Sven ALKALAJ

Min. of Foreign Trade: Slobodan PUHALAC

Min. of Human Rights & Refugees: Safet HALILOVIC

Min. of Justice: Barisa COLAK

Min. of Security: Tarik SADOVIC

Min. of Transport & Communication: Bozo LJUBIC

Governor, Central Bank: Kemal KOZARIC

Ambassador to the US: Bisera TURKOVIC

Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: Milos PRICA

Federation Govt.

Pres.: Borjana KRSTO

Vice Pres.: Mirsad KEBO

Vice Pres.: Spomenka MICIC

Prime Min.: Nedzad BRANKOVIC

Dep. Prime Min.: Vjekoslav BEVANDA

Dep. Prime Min.: Gavrilo GRAHOVAC

Min. of Agriculture, Water Industry, & Forestry: Damir LJUBIC

Min. of Culture & Sports: Gavrilo GRAHOVAC

Min. of Development, Entrepreneurship, & Crafts: Velimir KUNIC

Min. of Education & Science: Meliha ALIC

Min. of Energy, Mining, & Industry: Vahid HECO

Min. of Environment & Tourism: Nevenko HERCEG

Min. of Finance: Vjekoslav BEVANDA

Min. of Health: Safet OMEROVIC

Min. of Interior: Muhidin ALIC

Min. of Justice: Feliks VIDOVIC

Min. of Labor & Social Welfare: Perica JELECEVIC

Min. of the Liberation War Veterans & Disabled Veterans Issues:

Min. of Refugees & Displaced Persons: Edin MUSIC

Min. of Soldiers’ Matters: Zahid CRNKIC

Min. of Spatial Planning: Salko OBHODJAS

Min. of Trade: Desnica RADIVOJEVIC

Min. of Traffic & Communications: Nail SECKANOVIC

Min. of Urban Planning:

Republika Srpska Govt.

Pres.: Milan JELIC

Vice Pres.: Davor CORDAS

Vice Pres.: Adil OSMANOVIC

Prime Min.: Milorad DODIK

Min. of Agriculture: Radivoje BRATIC

Min. of Economic Relations & Coordination: Jasna BRKIC

Min. of Economy & Energy: Rajko UBIPARIP

Min. of Education & Culture: Anton KASIPOVIC

Min. of Finance: Alexsandr DZOMBIC Min. of Health & Social Protection: Ranko SKRBIC

Min. of Interior: Stanislav CADJO

Min. of Justice: Dzerard SELMAN

Min. of Labor & Veterans Affairs: Bosko TOMIC

Min. of Public Admin. & Local Self-Govt.: Zoran LIPOVAC

Min. of Refugees & Displaced Persons: Omer BRANKOVIC

Min. of Science & Technology: Bakir AJANOVIC

Min. of Trade & Tourism: Predrag GLUKOVIC

Min. of Transport & Communications: Nedeljko CUBRILOVIC

Min. of Urban Planning & Ecology: Fatima FETIBEGOVIC

Min. of Youth, Families, & Sport: Proko DRAGOSAVLJEVIC

Bosnia and Herzegovina maintains an embassy in the United States at 2109 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20037 (tel.: 202-337-1500; fax: 202-337-1502).

ECONOMY

Next to Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina was the poorest republic in the old Yugoslav Federation. For the most part, agriculture has been in private hands, but farms have been small and inefficient, and food has traditionally been a net import for the country. Industry still is greatly overstaffed, reflecting the legacy of the centrally-planned economy. Under Tito, military industries were pushed in the republic; Bosnia hosted a large share of Yugoslavia's defense plants. Three years of interethnic strife destroyed the economy and infrastructure in Bosnia, caused the death of about 200,000 people, and displaced half of the population. Considerable progress has been made since peace was reestablished. Due to Bosnia and Herzegovina's strict currency board regime, which links the Konvertibilna Marka (BAM) to the Euro, inflation has remained low. However, growth has been uneven, with the Republika Srpska outpacing the Federation for the first time since Dayton. Bosnia and Herzegovina's most immediate task remains economic revitalization. In order to do this fully, the environment must be conducive to a private sector, market-led economy. Privatization has been slow, and unemployment remains high. The introduction of a value-added tax (VAT) in 2006 has increased the government's tax revenues and resulted in a budget surplus.

BiH's top economic priorities are: acceleration of EU integration by concluding a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA); strengthening the fiscal system; public administration reform; World Trade Organization (WTO) membership; and securing economic growth by fostering a dynamic, competitive private sector. To date, work on these priorities has been inconsistent. The country has received a substantial amount of foreign assistance but must prepare for declining assistance flows in the future.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

The implementation of the Dayton Accords of 1995 has focused the efforts of policymakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the international community, on regional stabilization in the former Yugoslavia. However, donor resources for Bosnia and Herzegovina have diminished due to competing assistance priorities elsewhere in the region and globally. Bosnia and Herzegovina's relations with its neighbors Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia have been fairly stable since the signing of Dayton in 1995. The U.S. role in the Dayton Accords and their implementation has been key to successes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since the Dayton Accords were signed, over $14 billion in foreign aid has moved into Bosnia and Herzegovina, approximately $940 million of it coming from Support for East European Democracy (SEED) funds.

As stated above, this support has been key to the growth and revitalization of the economy and infrastructure in the republic. In addition to SEED funding, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) programs have been crucial to the redevelopment of Bosnia and Herzegovina. USAID has programming in the following areas: economic policy reform and restructuring; private sector development (the Business Development Program); infrastructure rebuilding; democratic reforms in the media, political process and elections, and rule of law/legal code formulation; and training programs for women and diplomats.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a member of the United Nations (1992); International Monetary Fund (IMF) (1992), World Bank (1995), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) (1992); and the Council of Europe (2002). It also participates in regional cooperation through the Stability Pact, Central-European Initiative (CEI), Southeast Europe Co-operation Initiative (SECI), Southeast Europe Co-operation Process (SEECP), Adriatic-Ionic Initiative (All) and others.

U.S.-BOSNIAN RELATIONS

The 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was ended with the crucial participation of the United States in brokering the 1995 Dayton Accords. After leading the diplomatic and military effort to secure the Dayton agreement, the United States has continued to lead the effort to ensure its implementation. The United States maintains command of the NATO headquarters in Sarajevo. The United States has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to help with reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, economic development, and military reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has played a large role in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, including programs in economic development and reform, democratic reform (media, elections), infrastructure development, and training programs for Bosnian professionals, among others. Additionally, there are many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have likewise played significant roles in the reconstruction.

Principal U.S. Embassy Officials

Last Updated: 2/19/2008

SARAJEVO (E) Alipasina 43, +387 33 445 700, Fax +387 33 659 722, Workweek: Monday–Friday 8:00AM to 5:00PM, Website: http://sarajevo.usembassy.gov.

BANJA LUKA (BO) Jovana Ducica 5, Banja Luka, +387-51-211-500, Fax +387-51-218-291, Workweek: Monday-Friday, Website: http://www.usembassy.ba.

The U.S. Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina is at Alipašina 43, 71000 Sarajevo (tel.: 387-33-445-700; fax: 387-33-659-722).

TRAVEL

Consular Information Sheet

August 13, 2007

Country Description: Since the December 1995 signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, there has been significant progress in restoring peace and stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although physical infrastructure was devastated by the war, in recent years there has been significant improvement, and reconstruction is progressing. Hotels and travel amenities are available in the capital, Sarajevo, and other major towns, but they are relatively expensive. In the more remote areas of the country, public facilities vary in quality.

Entry and Exit Requirements: A passport is required for travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina. American citizens do not require a visa for tourist stays up to three months. Unless the traveler is staying at a hotel, all foreigners must register with the local police within 24 hours of arrival. U.S. citizens planning to remain in Bosnia and Herzegovina for more than three months must obtain a visa prior to travel, or apply for a temporary residence permit from the local police station having jurisdiction over their place of residence. A residence permit costs $50 dollars for a period of three to twelve months. For additional information concerning longer stays, employments, and other types of visas, please contact the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at 2109 E. Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20037, telephone 202-337-6473. Visit the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina web site at http://www.bhembassy.org for the most current visa information.

Safety and Security: Landmines remain a problem in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The area of suspected landmine contamination is estimated at over 2000 square kilometers, which is more than 4% of the country's territory. These devices have killed more than 400 people since 1996. While most urban areas have been largely cleared, special care should be taken when near former lines of conflict, including the suburbs of Sarajevo. The de-mining community recommends staying on hard surface areas and out of abandoned buildings. Families traveling with children in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be especially aware of the danger posed by mines and unexploded ordnance.

For more information about landmines please visit www.bhmac.org. Localized political difficulties continue and random violence may occur with little or no warning. Bosnian criminals use firearms and explosives to settle personal, business, and political disputes. The foreign community is rarely the target of such violence, but there is always the danger of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. While most Bosnian citizens appreciate the assistance of the international community, occasional anti-foreign sentiment is sometimes encountered.

In October 2005 a small group of individuals with extremist affiliations was arrested in Bosnia and Herzegovina on suspicion of planning terrorist acts. Further, in December 2005, an explosive device was discovered on a public transit bus in Sarajevo. While these incidents did not result in injury or loss of life, they are a source of concern. Also, the publication in Western Europe of cartoons deemed offensive by some Muslims motivated protests in Sarajevo.

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Internet web site at http://travel.state.gov where the current Travel Warnings and Travel Alerts, including the Worldwide Caution Travel Alert, can be found. Up-to-date information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S., or for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll-line at 1-202-501-4444.

Crime: The overall crime rate throughout the country remains relatively low, but Sarajevo has seen a recent marked rise in confrontational crimes, such as attempted muggings. Residential break-ins have also been on the rise. Pick pocketing and vehicle break-ins are also a problem, and are on the rise. Most pickpockets operate in pairs and employ distraction methods to execute their craft.

There are also documented cases of pick-pocketing and other scams to get money from foreign passengers aboard public transportation. Travelers should take normal precautions to protect their property from theft and exercise common sense personal security measures, traveling in groups, and staying in well-lighted areas after dark. Confrontations with local citizens resulting from traffic incidents or public disagreements should be avoided.

Information for Victims of Crime: The loss or theft abroad of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. If you are the victim of a crime while overseas, in addition to reporting to local police, please contact the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate for assistance. The embassy/consulate staff can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, to contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed.

Medical Facilities and Health Information: Prior to the war 1992-1995, hospitals in Sarajevo were the leading educational, diagnostic, and therapeutic institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina and throughout much of Eastern Europe. During the war they were targeted and suffered major destruction. Although the medical infrastructure is being rebuilt, many deficits still exist. The lack of adequate medical facilities, especially outside Sarajevo, may cause problems for visitors. Because many medicines are not obtainable, travelers should bring their own supply of prescription drugs and preventive medicines. Private practitioners and dentists are becoming more common; however, quality of care varies and rarely meets U.S. or western European standards. All major surgery is performed in public hospitals.

Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's hotline for international travelers at 1-877-FYI-TRIP (1-877-394-8747) or via the CDC's internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/travel. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization's (WHO) website at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith.

Medical Insurance: The Department of State strongly urges Americans to consult with their medical insurance company prior to traveling abroad to confirm whether their policy applies overseas and whether it will cover emergency expenses such as a medical evacuation.

Traffic Safety and Road Conditions: While in a foreign country, U.S. citizens may encounter road conditions that differ significantly from those in the United States. The information below concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance.

Road travel is possible throughout most of the country. However, some roads are still damaged from the war, and poorly maintained. Roads are sometimes blocked due to landslides, de-mining activity, and traffic accidents. Bosnia and Herzegovina is among the rare countries in Europe that has fewer than ten kilometers of four-lane highway. The existing, two-lane roads between major cities are quite narrow at places, lack guardrails, and are full of curves. Travel by road can be risky due to poorly maintained roads, and morning and evening fog in the mountains. Driving in winter is hazardous due to fog, snow, and ice. Local driving habits are poor, and many vehicles are in bad condition. Many accidents occur when drivers exceed safe speeds along winding mountain roads. Accidents involving drunk driving are an increasing problem. Driving after dark is especially dangerous, and street lighting is not common outside the major towns. Road construction may be poorly marked, and automobiles share the road with heavy vehicles and agricultural equipment. Travelers are encouraged to convoy with other vehicles, if possible, and to plan their trip to ensure they travel only during daylight hours.

Although the number of service stations outside major cities has increased in recent years, many do not offer mechanical or other services. The emergency number for vehicle assistance and towing service is 1282; ambulances can be called at 124, and police at 122.

Speed limit traffic signs are not always obvious or clear. The speed limit on the majority of roads is 60 km/h, and on straight stretches of road it is generally 80 km/h. The use of seat belts is mandatory. Talking on a cell phone while driving is prohibited. The tolerated percentage of alcohol in the blood is .03%.

In order to drive legally in Bosnia and Herzegovina, you must have an international driving permit in addition to your U.S. license. Visit the website of the Bosnia and Herzegovina's national tourist office and national authority responsible for road safety http://www.bihamk.ba.

Aviation Safety Oversight: As there is no direct commercial air service between the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not assessed Bosnia and Herzegovina's Civil Aviation Authority for compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation safety standards. For more information, travelers may visit the FAA's Internet web site at http://faa.gov/safety/programs_initiatives/oversight/iasa.

During the winter months, flights into and out of Sarajevo are frequently delayed or cancelled due to heavy fog. Travelers should be prepared for last-minute schedule changes, lengthy delays, and alternate routings, or time-consuming overland transportation.

Special Circumstances: Bosnia and Herzegovina is still predominantly a cash economy. Although the use of credit cards has become more widespread in recent years, travelers still should not expect to use them to cover all expenses. Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are available at international banks in Sarajevo and other major cities and towns, but their number is limited. Traveler's checks can be cashed in banks in major cities, but often with delays of a few weeks or strict monthly limits. Cash transfers from abroad may also involve delays. The convertible mark, the Bosnian currency since June 1998, is pegged to the euro under a currency-board regime, which guarantees its stability. All official payments must be made in convertible marks, though many private stores and service providers also accept euros. Any bank in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be able to exchange U.S. dollars into the convertible marks with the usual bank commission (being between 1% and 2%).

Photographing military installations, including airports, equipment, bridges, government checkpoints, troops and the U.S. Embassy is forbidden. If in doubt, please ask permission before taking photographs.

Criminal Penalties: While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country's laws and regulations, which sometimes differ significantly from those in the United States and may not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe than in the United States for similar offenses. Persons violating Bosnia and Herzegovina laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession, use, or trafficking in illegal drugs in Bosnia and Herzegovina are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines. Engaging in sexual conduct with children or using or disseminating child pornography in a foreign country is a crime, prosecutable in the United States

Children's Issues: For information on international adoption of children and international parental child abduction, see the Office of Children's Issues website at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Registration and Embassy Locations: Americans living or traveling in Bosnia and Herzegovina are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department's travel registration website and to obtain updated information on travel and security within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency.

The U.S. Embassy is located at Alipa-sina 43, telephone (387)(33) 445-700, fax: (387)(33) 221-837; Internet address http://www.usembassy.ba. On weekends, holidays, and after hours, an Embassy duty officer can be reached at telephone (387)(33) 445-700. If after dialing you receive a recorded message, press “0,” and then ask for the duty officer.

International Adoption

March 2006

The information in this section has been edited from a report of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Overseas Citizens Services. For more information, please read the International Adoption section of this book and review current reports online at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Disclaimer: The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is based on public sources and current understanding. Questions involving foreign and U.S. immigration laws and legal interpretation should be addressed respectively to qualified foreign or U.S. legal counsel.

Please Note: While there is nothing in Bosnian law that specifically prohibits foreigners from applying to adopt a Bosnian child, the law stresses that there must be overwhelming justification and exceptionally compelling reasons for a foreigner to be permitted to do so. The definition of “overwhelming justification” is judged on a case-by-case basis. The law says specifically that a foreign citizen may appear as an adoptive parent “if the adoption is in the best interest of the child and if the child cannot be adopted in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” The Ministry of Social Policy in the Bosnian entity where the child is living (either the Federation or the Republika Srpska, RS) must approve his/her adoption by foreigners. In practice, it is extremely difficult to obtain this approval. Immigrant visas for Bosnian citizens are issued at the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia.

Patterns of Immigration: Please review current reports online at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Adoption Authority: In both entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation and the Republika Srpska, adoptions are the responsibility of the municipal Centers for Social Work, the Bosnian equivalent of the county or municipal social services department in the United States. The municipal Center for Social Work prepares an adoption case for submission to the Ministry of Social Policy of the entity in question, which makes the final determination in the case. The Ministry of Social Policy will also seek the approval of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Federation or Republika Srpska, depending on where child is located.

Eligibility Requirements for Adoptive Parents: Bosnian law requires that at least one adoptive parent be between the ages of 25 and 45, and that there be at least an 18-year age difference between that parent and the child. In exceptional circumstances, persons older than 45 may be permitted to adopt, but the age difference between the parent and child may not exceed 45 years. In practice, children are placed only with married couples.

In addition, persons falling into any of the following groups are prohibited from adopting Bosnian children:

• persons whose parental rights have been taken away;
• persons with a limited or no ability to work;
• persons who provide insufficient guarantees that they will raise the child correctly;
• persons who are mentally ill, retarded, or suffering from any illness that could endanger the health and life of the adopted child.

Residency Requirements: There are no residency requirements for Bosnia.

Time Frame: The municipal Center for Social Work publishes its decision regarding its recommendation on an adoption within two months of receiving the adoption application. However, in practice it usually takes longer for the Center to make a decision. Once the Center reaches a decision they then forward the application package to the Ministry of Social Policy with their recommendation. The Ministry is supposed to reach a decision about a request for adoption in two months. Once the Ministry makes a decision, it is sent back to the Center that accepted the application. If the decision is favorable, the prospective adoptive parents must be personally present at the official ceremony (act) of adoption.

Adoption Agencies and Attorneys: There are no U.S. adoption agencies operating in Bosnia. The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo maintains lists of attorneys. Please review current reports online at http://travel.state.gov/family for a list of agencies.

Adoption Fees: The Bosnian government does not charge a fee for its role in the adoption process.

Adoption Procedures: Persons who wish to apply to adopt a particular child can do so by contacting the Center for Social Work of the municipality/district in which the child is resident and submitting the documents listed below. The Center for Social Work is the Bosnian equivalent of the county or municipal social services department in the United States.] Prospective adoptive parents who do not have a particular child in mind can contact the Center for Social Work for a designated area to inquire if there are any children eligible for adoption. If the Center affirms that a child is eligible for intercountry adoption, the Center will request the documents listed below to determine the eligibility of the prospective adoptive parent(s). It should be noted that it is entirely possible that a Center will not respond at all to an inquiry from a foreign national, since under Bosnian law, intercountry adoption is permitted only in exceptional circumstances (typically when there is a compelling medical need, or one of the adopting parents is of Bosnian origin).

The Center then forwards the application package, along with its recommendation, to the Ministry of Social Policy. The Ministry makes a final decision and sends the package back to the Center. The Center then notifies the prospective adoptive parents. If the decision is favorable, the prospective adoptive parents must be personally present at the official ceremony (act) of adoption. This is an official act signed by the adoptive parents in person and representatives of the government. It takes place at the Center for Social Work. The court then issues an official decision or decree ratifying the proceedings conducted by the Center for Social Work. The court does not have the authority to overrule the Ministry's decision.

Required Documents: There is no specific application form. The prospective adoptive parent(s) must write a signed letter to the relevant Center for Social Work providing basic information about them. It can be submitted by mail or through an authorized representative. The application must be accompanied by the following documents about each of the adoptive parents:

• Certified Birth certificate.
• Certified Marriage certificates (if applicable).
• Medical certificate of good health, preferably provided by a hospital or general practice clinic, rather than a private physician.
• Proof of citizenship (certified copy of a birth certificate, naturalization certificate or passport).
• Police certificate (i.e., certificate that no criminal record exists) issued by local law enforcement authorities from every place of residence where the applicant has lived for more than a year since the age of 18.
• Court certificate (i.e., certificate proving that the prospective adoptive parent is not under any court investigation at the present time).
• Certificate about capacity for gainful employment. This should take the form of a resume of previous employment records, and an original letter (on official stationery) signed by the current employer, stating the job title, if the position is full-or part-time, how long the person has been employed and the salary.
• Certificate proving that the prospective adoptive parent has never been charged with child neglect or abuse. This may take the form of an official letter from the local department of child welfare.
• Documents testifying to the prospective adoptive parent's income and property.
• Home study (social worker's analysis) about the prospective adoptive family, including its ability to care for a child. For non-Bosnian applicants, including Americans, the social services department of the applicant's country must conduct the study.

All original documents and the application letter must be in English and each must be accompanied by a translation into Bosnian/Serbian/ Croatian done by an official court translator. It is easier and less expensive to have the translations done in Bosnia. The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo can provide a list of court translators. The Embassy itself cannot, however, do the translations.

The Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina
2019 E. Street, N.W.,
Washington, DC 2003
Tel: (202)337-1500.
Bosnia also has consulates in New York and Chicago.

U.S. Immigration Requirements: Prospective adopting parents are strongly encouraged to consult USCIS publication M-249, The Immigration of Adopted and Prospective Adoptive Children, as well as the Department of State publication, International Adoptions. Please see the International Adoption section of this book for more details and review current reports online at http://travel.state.gov/family.

U.S. Embassy, Consular Section
Alipasina 43
71000 Sarajevo
Bosnia and Herzegovina
tel: +387 33 445-700
fax: +387 33 221-837
e-mail: bhopa@state.gov

Additional Information: Specific questions about intercountry adoption in Bosnia & Herzegovina may be addressed to the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. General questions regarding intercountry adoption may be addressed to the Office of Children's Issues, U.S. Department of State, CA/OCS/CI, SA-29, 4th Floor, 2201 C Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20520-4818, toll-free Tel: 1-888-407-4747. For information on international adoption of children and international parental child abduction, call Overseas Citizens Services at 1-888- 407-4747.