Vance-Owen plan

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Map of Bosnia-Herzegovina according to the Vance-Owen Plan:
_ Sarajevo
_ Bosniaks
_ Croatians
_ Serbs

The Vance-Owen-Plan (also Vance-Owen-Friedensplan ) was a proposal for the settlement of the Bosnian war . It was presented in January 1993 by the two chairmen of the Geneva Yugoslavia Conference , Cyrus Vance and David Owen . Outwardly, the plan retained the statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina , but provided for a decentralized state in which most of the government functions are carried out by ten largely autonomous provinces.

Each of the three ethnic groups would form the majority of the population in three provinces, while the capital Sarajevo would have the status of an ethnically mixed, demilitarized federal district with the seat of the central government. However, federal competences should be restricted to defense, foreign policy and trade. A presidency as the highest state organ should consist of three representatives from each of the major ethnic groups.

Although an ethnic group had a clear majority in almost all regions (based on the 1991 census), ethnic expulsions should be revised and all regions should be ethnically mixed. The regions that were mostly inhabited by one group were not connected to one another. This was intended to prevent the formation of administratively coherent, ethnically homogeneous areas. The communication routes between the provinces should be under the protection of UNPROFOR . After all, the regions with a Serb majority should not border on neighboring Serbia .

In addition to the plan for the division into provinces, an agreement on a common constitutional framework and a peace agreement were foreseen. Since no agreement could be reached on the demarcation between the provinces, this part of the plan was initially deleted. Negotiations continued on the other components of the plan. On May 6, 1993, the self-appointed parliament of the Bosnian Serbs rejected the plan. This rejection was in a referendum on 15./16. May confirmed by the Serbian population. Cyrus Vance gave up his role as UN mediator and was replaced by Thorvald Stoltenberg . On June 17, 1993, David Owen officially declared the plan a failure.

Due to the unwillingness to compromise on the part of the warring parties involved, the fighting flared up again. The Owen-Stoltenberg Plan represented another attempt at peaceful agreement .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Marie-Janine Calic: The war in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Causes, conflict structures, attempted international solutions , Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-518-11943-5

literature

Web links