almanac on security sector oversight in the Western Balkans

Accountability of Statutory Security Actors in the Western Balkans
tainly falls into this category as well, because ethno-political communities of Serbs,
Croats and Bosniacs started building up their armed units on its territory before the
outbreak of war. The same military formations later played key roles in the throes of
a full-blown armed conflict. 194 This is why Bosnia and Herzegovina was constituted
as a separate and independent state consisting of two entities only after the Dayton
Agreement had been signed. The exisiting security forces were changed, and new
ones created, in accordance with the provisions stipulated in the Dayton Agreement.
The ultimate goals of the sides in conflict and the (pre)war dynamics set the pace of
establishment and determined the nature of security institutions in this group. What
these institutions (and the states themselves) have in common, as the authors of the
case studies observed, is the fact that they were all built from scratch. Nonetheless,
a more complex process seems to have been at play here. It is therefore closer to the
truth to assert that the security forces in these countries were the product of two simultaneous
and inter-connected processes.
When the new states proclaimed their independence, they had already put under
their control the local police and civilian intelligence services, including their databases
and networks of associates. 195 Naturally, the purpose of these institutions – their
symbols, legitimacy, underpinning ideology, professional and ethnic structure of personnel
– were all changed at the same time. In addition to the existing ones, new armies
were being formed immediately before and/or during the war. 196 Despite this, old
patterns of civil-military and civil-police relations found their way into the new states
due to the mutation of the authoritarian regime, brought about by the takeover of
the former military, police and intelligence personnel. 197 Moreover, the special status of
intelligence services remained intact. The new state security institutions also inherited,
and later transformed, the organisational culture of their Yugoslav predecessors. 198
The second group includes Albania and Serbia and Montenegro – first as parts of the
FRY and State Union of SaM, and later as two independent states. What these states
have in common is the fact that all of them inherited the security forces, together
with their social and professional baggage, from the former state and/or former regimes.
However, in Serbia and Monetenegro, unlike Albania, these institutions were
changed in the circumstances of the undeclared state of war – more precisely, during
their undercover participation in combat operations in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina,
and quite open participation during the war in Kosovo. Thus, there are certain
194 BiH Army, Army of the Republika Srpska, Croatian Defence Council.
195 In Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, this happened after the first multi-party elections (1990)
won by the noncommunist elites, whereas in Kosovo, these bodies emerged by the end of the 1990s,
along with the formation of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
196 The core of the Croatian Army was thus created, within the Croatian National Guard, which was
then a part of the police.
197 In the formative phase, the officers of the former Yugoslav National Army comprised the core of
the Macedonian Army; see also, Koneska and Kotevska, 2011, p.11.
198 The heritage of the Yugoslav National Army penetrated the post-Dayton Army of Bosnia and
Herzegovina via members of the armed forces of the former Army of the Republic Srpska, which had
been created from the western remnants of the former Yugoslav National Army.
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Almanac on Security Sector Oversight in the Western Balkans