Bosnia nears political crisis point

Within the spacious, modern courtrooms of Bosnia‘s war crimes chamber, the harrowing details of the country‘s civil conflict in the 1990s are laid bare.

The war tore apart Bosnian Serbs, Muslims and Croats, leaving the world to talk for the first time of “ethnic cleansing“.

Fifteen years since the guns fell silent, the cases are still so sensitive that foreign judges and prosecutors are employed there to ensure freedom from ethnic bias.

In December last year, Bosnia‘s international high representative - the country‘s top political figure - extended their mandate.

But the decision caused a political storm in Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb Republic.

Republika Srpska is one of two semi-autonomous entities that make up post-war Bosnia - the other being the Federation between Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats.

The entities were created by the Dayton Peace Accords which ended the war in 1995 and are overseen by the Office of the High Representative (OHR).

Patricia Whalen, an American judge at the war crimes court, believes the row over the judiciary perfectly illustrates the point, with only mixed support for her function from abroad.

“The fact that we were allowed to become such an issue shows that the international community was not speaking with one voice on this,“ she says.

“It happens with all sorts of projects where the international community comes together and does things half-way.“

Fifteen years on, it seems nobody is quite sure how to mend Bosnia. War may be a thing of the past here, but political division is blighting the country‘s future.