The Troubled History of Partition

Radha Kumar

From Foreign Affairs, January/ February 1997

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Summary:  The Dayton accord reached in November 1995 was something historically familiar: a partition agreement. As in Bosnia today, partition has usually arisen not as a means of national self-determination but as a way for great powers to "divide and quit." Often described as the only workable solution to ethnic feuding, partitions have in fact generally fomented violence and required further international intervention. Similar conditions ensure that Bosnia will turn into a policy of divide and be forced to stay. Had outside powers worked from the beginning to reintegrate the fractured country, Bosnia, the Balkans, and Europe might have had a more durable resolution. The Dayton agreement should evoke memories not of Munich but of Cyprus.

Radha Kumar, a Warren Weaver Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation, is the author of the forthcoming book Divide and Fall: Bosnia and the Annals of Partition.

BOSNIA GOES THE WAY OF CYPRUS

The September elections in Bosnia highlighted what was until then an implicit aspect of the current peace: it is more likely to move Bosnia toward the ethnic states for which the war was fought than to reestablish the multiethnic Bosnia that once was. Indeed, as the Dayton process unfolds, it becomes clearer that the peace agreement signed in November 1995 after three and a half years of war was something historically familiar: a so-called peace accord that is in reality a partition agreement with an exit clause for outside powers.

At the same time, while key aspects of the document, such as the creation of two "entities" with virtually separate legislatures, administrations, and armies, tend toward partition, the pact attempts to get around some of the more hostile legacies of partition through a common economic space and arms control, and it creates structures that could reverse the partition process by returning refugees and rebuilding civil society. So far, these structures have been dormant, and the holding of national elections in a still highly uncertain peace marks the tilt toward partition. As was widely predicted, the Bosnians gave their ethnic leaders new mandates, and Bosnia took another step toward partition. However, the postponement of the municipal elections due to irregularities in voter registration means the international community is not yet in a position to accept partition as the democratically expressed will of the people.

The Bosnian war and the Dayton peace agreement have reignited a debate on whether partition is an effective solution to ethnic conflict. Although Bosnia is the starting point, the arguments in this debate have broad resonance at a time in which the rapid spread of ethnic and communal wars east and south of Bosnia is of increasing concern to the international community. Defenders of partition make an argument that runs as follows. When an ethnic war is far advanced, partition is probably the most humane form of intervention because it attempts to achieve through negotiation what would otherwise be achieved through fighting; it circumvents the conflict and saves lives. It might even save a country from disappearing altogether because an impartial intervenor will attempt to secure the rights of each contending ethnic group, whereas in war the stronger groups might oust the weaker ones. In fact, its advocates say, the ideal strategy for resolving an ethnic conflict is to intervene and take partition to its logical conclusion by dividing a country along its communal battle lines and helping make the resulting territories ethnically homogeneous through organized population transfers. This will ensure that partition is more than a temporary means of containing conflict. Less thorough partitions, however, can still be a lasting means of containment.-1

Partition, however, has its own sordid history, not arising as a means of realizing national self-determination, but imposed as a way for outside powers to unshoulder colonies or divide up spheres of influence -- a strategy of divide and quit. Although described as the lesser of ...

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