The Bosnian War ended with the signing of the Dayton Agreement 25 years ago. However, Germany's top diplomat has said there is still the need for "reconciliation and cooperation" in the Balkans.
Ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian war targeted Bosnian MuslimsImage: Reuters/D. Ruvic
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German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that it is time to end persistent ethnic tension in Bosnia-Herzegovina in a video speech given Saturday during a virtual event marking the 25th anniversary of the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War.
The agreement was reached at a US air force base in Dayton, Ohio and subsequently signed in Paris on December 14, 1995.
"Twenty-five years after Dayton it is high time for real reconciliation and cooperation," Maas said, adding that although the agreement did not solve the conflict in the Balkans, it "created a foundation for building bridges."
"It ended a terrible war and made peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina possible," said Maas during a video greeting at a virtual event hosted by the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, an international body responsible for implementing Dayton Agreement.
Bosnia and Herzegovina: The war in books and films
Twenty-five years ago, the Dayton Agreement ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The scars of war gave rise to diverse creative works.
Image: Everett Collection/picture alliance
Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams
In 2006, director Jasmila Zbanic received the Golden Bear for Grbavica (Esma's Story) — a film that focused on systematic rape that was used as a weapon of war in the Balkans. It tells the story of Esma, who was raped and became pregnant during the war. She keeps it a secret for a long time, until her teenage daughter demands the truth one day.
Image: Everett Collection/picture alliance
No Man’s Land
This tragi-comic view of the war tells the story of three soldiers — two Bosniaks and a Serb — who are caught between the fronts in "no man's land" and are forced to wait for help in a trench. Underscoring the absurdity of the civil war, director Danis Tanovic won the Golden Globe for "No Man's Land" in 2002 and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Image: Everett Collection/picture alliance
In the Land of Blood and Honey
The film marked actress Angelina Jolie's debut as director and screenwriter. In this love story, Bosnian Muslim artist Ajla and Serbian police officer Danjiel are lovers torn apart along ethnic lines when the war breaks out. They eventually meet again — at a camp where Bosnian Muslim women are raped.
Image: AP
The Siege
At just 23 years of age, Frenchman Rémy Ourdan experienced first-hand the horrors of war — as a war reporter in besieged Sarajevo. But his affinity for the city continued after the war ended. His 2016 documentary film is based exclusively on material he collected during the four years of war.
Sarajevo Film Festival
The Sarajevo Film Festival was conceived from the ruins of war 25 years ago when the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed. Created as a symbol of resistance against war and for peace, it is today the most important and largest film festival in southeastern Europe.
A poetic book about the loss of home and starting life anew elsewhere. Sasa Stanisic writes about Oskorusa, a mountain village where his grandfather grew up. There he meets old relatives, who confront him with questions about "here" and "there" — and about his own roots.
As If I'm Not There
As in Jasmila Zbanic's film "Grbavica," the main theme of Slavenka Drakulic's novel is the use of systematic rape as a weapon of war. Dedicated to the survivors who had to endure unspeakable suffering, it is focuses on what many of them were forced to keep secret for a long time.
Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood
Journalist Barbara Demick spent two years in Sarajevo when the city was under siege. Her book is a personal account of what happened during those years. She portrays life in a single street, the Logavina, one of the oldest streets in the city. Muslims, Serbs, Croats, and Jews live peacefully there together until the war comes and destroys hope. (Adapted by Brenda Haas.)
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Bosnia's EU aspirations
More than 100,000 people died —the majority being Bosnian Muslims— and millions were left homeless during the Bosnian war, one of the bloodiest conflicts that accompanied Yugoslavia's disintegration in the early 1990s.
The conflict was fueled by ethnic tension between Orthodox Serbs, Muslim Bosniaks, and Catholic Croats following Bosnia-Herzegovina declaration of independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. Although the fighting is over,these tensions persist.
Maas said that although the country has "achieved a lot" since the conflict ended, including aspiring to join the EU, he called on leading politicians to "act together to initiate reforms and reduce corruption."
"Nationalist agitation, denial of war crimes or glorification of those who committed them have no place in a country that wants to join the EU," said Maas.
However, the EU has drawn criticism for not being more active in promoting European integration in the Balkans.
"It should be up to the EU to handle the problems of the region and actively promote the countries' further European integration. But back in the 1990s, when Bosnia and Herzegovina, and later Kosovo, were involved in terrible wars, it was US initiatives that put matters on the right track," former high representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schwarz-Schilling told DW in 2019.
"To date, all the EU's undertakings have been lackadaisical and ineffective; we can only be grateful for the US initiatives, even if they've displeased some in Europe," he said.
