TRAVEL REPORT The Hon. Michael Atkinson MP Attorney-General ...

BiH is moving slowly towards becoming a fully functioning State . Previously, aconstituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, BiHproclaimed independence in March, 1992, triggering a three-year conflictduring which the three ethnic groups were at war with each other in varyingalliances . The Dayton Peace Agreement signed on 21 November, 1995, bythe Bosnian, Croatian and then Yugoslav presidents, put an official end to thefighting .The Dayton Agreement endorsed the principle that BiH remain a single statewithin existing borders . It divided the country into two entities : the Federationof Bosnia-Herzegovina (the Federation), populated mainly by Bosniaks andCroats and comprising 51 per cent of the country ; and the Republika Srpska(R.S .), with a predominantly Serb population, holding 49 per cent of theterritory .Dayton set up a federal government with the following elements :Presidency, three-person (eight-month) rotating comprising twomembers from the Federation (one Croat and one Bosniak) and onemember from the R.S . The Presidency is responsible for foreign policy,appointment of ambassadors, international treaties and co-ordinationwith international and non-governmental organisations ;Council of Ministers (equally divided between the three ethnic groupsand responsible for overseeing foreign, economic and fiscal policy) ;Parliament (comprised of a House of Representatives, a 42-memberbody - 28 from the Federation and 14 from the R.S . - elected by partylist vote, and a House of Peoples, with 15 members (5 Serb, 5 Bosniakand 5 Croat) indirectly elected by the Federation's House of Peoplesand the R.S . National Assembly) ; and aCentral Bank .The Federation and the R .S . both have their own parliamentary assemblies .The Dayton Agreement also established the Office of the HighRepresentative (O .H.R .) as the highest authority to implement its civilianaspects . The High Representative (former British politician Paddy Ashdown,since May, 2002) holds wide-ranging powers to impose laws and bindingdecisions in cases where the Government is unable to agree, or where it isdeemed to be in the interest of the economic and political development of thecountry . The willingness by successive High Representatives to use thesepowers has been crucial to progressing reforms . Under Ashdown's leadership,the O.H .R . is focused on implementing microeconomic reform and fightingorganised crime and corruption . Ashdown is also the Special Representativeof the European Union (E.U .) in BiH .The NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) has the task of maintainingpeace on the ground . As the situation in BiH improves and the focus ofactivities shifts from peacekeeping to crime prevention (targeting thetrafficking of people, weapons and drugs) the number of troops is beingsteadily reduced . From a high of 60,000 troops at the end of the war in 1995,it is expected that the number of SFOR troops will be reduced to 7,000 byTravel Report, Hon. Michael Atkinson, MP. and Ms. Vini Ciccarello M.P., August, 2004 67