Bosnia Muslims, Croats Agree on a Constitution

Bosnian Croats and Muslims announced agreement Sunday on a 52-page constitution for a new federation they hope to create from the war-ruined regions they hold in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

But in recognition that they can move no farther on the road to an overall peace settlement without the cooperation of Bosnian Serb rebels, the two factions that until a week ago had been battling each other conceded that the thorny details of their state-building will have to be postponed.

The U.S.-mediated peace talks that have been taking place at the American Embassy here for the last 10 days will move to Washington later this week for a ceremony to mark what both Bosnian parties emphasized is only a first step in resolving the bitter conflict that has ravaged the former Yugoslav federation for the last three years.

The U.S. special envoy for the Balkans crisis, Charles E. Redman, said the constitutional agreement will be signed in Washington on Friday.

“It has been very successful this week,” Redman told journalists shortly after the constitutional talks adjourned late Sunday. “The next stage is to talk to the Bosnian Serbs to try to agree on an overall settlement.”

The pact setting out a governing framework for the Bosnian federation being reconstructed by Croats and Muslims calls for a strong central government, a presidency, a prime minister, a federal legislature and an unspecified number of cantons that would be largely self-governing, Redman explained.

But he brushed aside questions about the number and shape of the cantons as secondary details, making clear the most divisive territorial issues remain to be worked out.

U.S. officials seeking to broker a reconciliation of Bosnia’s warring factions announced in Washington on March 1 that Croats and Muslims had agreed to end the clashes that have ravaged central Bosnia for the last year. The agreement included a commitment to build a binational federation within the Bosnian territory that the two parties had been apportioned during a year of European-mediated peace talks in Geneva.

Those negotiations sought to deed 17.5% of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Croats, who make up about that share of the republic’s population, and 33.5% to the Bosnian government, representing the Muslim Slavs--about 44% of the republic--as well as several hundred thousand citizens of other ethnic groups who are still committed to a multicultural society.

However, a large segment of that combined 51% of Bosnian territory remains under Serbian occupation.

Asked how much the success of the new Croatian-Muslim federation depends on cooperation from the Serbs, Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic replied: “A lot.”

Both Silajdzic and Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic, representing the leadership of Croatia, which hopes to eventually forge an economic union with the new Bosnian federation, emphasized that the constitutional deal was only the beginning of a long process.

“Let’s hope that this will be the first major step in the peace agreement,” Silajdzic said.

Redman sought to portray the Vienna meetings as a breakthrough in the conflict that has inflicted the worst killing and displacement in Europe since World War II.

“It’s been hard work, but from start to finish it was conducted in an excellent atmosphere,” the U.S. envoy said of the constitution drafting.

But he said further work on territorial questions and the eventual Bosnian-Croatian alliance would have to wait until the Bosnian Serbs make their position clear.

That third and most heavily armed faction in the 2-year-old Bosnian war has shown little interest in joining any common state with the Muslims and Croats, which may complicate the other parties’ attempts to forge a new state for themselves.

Russia’s special envoy for the former Yugoslav republics, Deputy Foreign Minister Vitaly S. Churkin, has also embarked on what Western diplomats see as a two-pronged effort to restore peace in the Balkans, with the United States using its influence with the Croats and Muslims while Russia takes advantage of its traditional ties with the Serbs.

Redman and Churkin met in London last Friday to confer on the next steps of the East-West peace initiative, before Churkin traveled to Sarajevo to assess the prospects for getting the Bosnian Serbs involved in the new federation-building process.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has warned that the Muslim-Croatian deal appears aimed at isolating and pressuring his rebels into giving up territory they have taken, and the president of the self-styled Bosnian Serb parliament, Momcilo Krajisnik, dismissed the idea of a new federation as “illogical.”

But under pressure from Churkin, the Serbs last month agreed to withdraw or surrender heavy weapons that had been bombarding Sarajevo for 22 months and to allow Tuzla airport to be reopened for a humanitarian airlift.