Dayton Agreement

But the question is whether there's the possibility of anything changing.

And in Bosnia, you've got a system there that was put in place by the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995, which positively encourages ethno-nationalist politicians to indulge in their usual rigmarole of stoke fear, divide, rule and profit.

And they've been doing that for the past 30 years.

And meanwhile, in Serbia, you've got an example where you've got Vucic and the Progressive Party, who more than anything else, have shown themselves to be extremely competent.

The ICRC has been involved in 130 ceasefire agreements as the neutral intermedia- intermediary, as the facilitator that operationalized this, the first chapters.

Take the Dayton Agreement, um, following the, the, you know, the separation of, of the former Yugoslav republics and the war in, in, in Yugoslavia, in former Yugoslavia.

The first chapter contained an all-for-all exchange of all prisoners of war, and this exchange was supported in the negotiations technically by the ICRC.

Mm.

We wrote it in 1990, but maybe it was published in 1991.

So that's part of the story because in the Dayton agreement, the peace agreement that ended the Balkan wars, uh, Article 6 mandated that Bosnia-Herzegovina had to have a currency board for the first six years of its existence.

And so, at one point, after the fact, and then I was asked by the President of the United States to oversee that, to make certain that they installed it the right way, which I did.

And after the fact, I asked Dick Holbrook, Ambassador Holbrook, how that amendment got into the Dayton Agreement.

It's kind of strange for a peace agreement to have a currency board provision in it mandate.

Well, it got in because they did want to establish stability and get rid of the hyperinflation and establish a new currency.

And so they knew about the work we'd done in Estonia and Lithuania in particular.

And It got in because Milosevic was the president of Serbia at the time, and he signed the Dayton Agreement for the Rump Yugoslavia, for Serbia.

How is the embassy actively working to showcase market opportunities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to American business leaders and commercial partners?

Yes, trade presents a very important aspect, which is not so big, because 90% of Bosnia's exports go to the European Union, which is like our natural environment, the market of 500,000 500 million people in the European market, but the United States is very, very important for us in a strategic way, because we should know that America brokered the peace in Bosnia in 1995, the Dayton Accords, so-called, and that's why for us the security, which is guarded by the American involvement in Bosnia-Herzegovina is of the utmost interest.

Therefore, I believe it's something which is a priority.

I mentioned also Euro-Atlantic integration as an element of security for Bosnia-Herzegovina and the region is becoming a member of NATO, as the U.S. is a great partner member of NATO, dominating member of NATO.

Systematic, meaning this was written into this plan as a form of violence and genocide and humiliation and an attempt to essentially destroy a community.

It didn't really work was never really going to work but they had this belief that that they could make it work they could basically compel bosniaks that aren't murdered to just leave the region and never come back but that's not quite what happened because bosniaks ultimately put up a resistance and they managed to in fact through sana 95 the large towards the end of the war operation by the bosnian military essentially free a large chunk of the country, and at that point threatened to essentially eliminate the Serbs entirely, the Serb extremists in Bosnia, and that's when the Dayton Agreement was forced.

Another thing I wanted to ask you, is it true that now, back before Srebrenica, what people know about, there was Preder, and were more people unalived at that time, and is it true that he didn't get convicted of genocide for that, but at that time, in around 92, if you can go into it and help us understand, that by the time they got to the evidence, it wasn't like Srebrenica, where it was attained, earlier so they can go ahead and have a stronger case but was it because it was years later that they uncovered this that's why he didn't get also convicted of that and if this was anti-serb or anti is this was a conspiracy why didn't they also why did they not rule against him at that time

Well, that's why I think the whole argument that it's a court that's biased against Serbs is a joke argument.

She's from Nemesenje.

She was taken as a sexual slave into Baračko jezero area of Bosnia for four years.

She was sexual slave for four years and they only released her after the Dayton agreement.

And in fact, in 1996, she was pulled out of there.

I went, you know, I went to Bosnia.

I stayed there until the end of the war with the Dayton Accords.

And then I returned when those were signed and the war was clearly over and fought in battles with Arab fighters.

And when I returned home, I tried to get back into life.

Not at all.

This region is just four months out from the Dayton agreement.

They are desperately trying to hold together a fragile peace after years of devastating bloody civil war.

The stakes are basically existential at this point.

And it was a great example of When America leads, America can succeed and can win.

And so our leadership in the world, we sort of restored it in bringing the Dayton Peace Accords and bringing an end to the fighting there.

And it tore up that region, but I think now it's on a path to recovery thanks to a lot of serious diplomacy.

And there's still a lot of problems, so we have a lot of job security there, I guess.