will pass through mexico and parts of the united states but it won't be another one in this exact place for another 400 years. out a 0 sum game. without his or these are our top stories president elect joe biden says democracy has prevailed office in the us electoral college validated his presidential election victory buys the kids donald trump of trying to sabotage the will of millions of voters by telling the results this legal maneuver was an effort by elected officials and one group of states to try to get the supreme court to wipe out the votes of more than 20000000 americans in other states and to hear the president you do a candidate who lost the electoral college lost the popular vote and lost each and

every one of the states whose votes they were trying to reverse it's a position. we've never seen before a position they refused to respect the will of the people refuse respect the rule of law and refuse to honor our constitution they said in general of the united states has resigned and will step down next week when you have fallen out of favor with donald trump this month after he failed to support the president's unfounded claims of election fraud but his resignation as a boss of the allegations would still be pursued tweeted that their relationship had been a very good one a number of covert 19 deaths in the us past 300000 as the biggest vaccination campaign in the country's history gets underway medical workers and elderly care home residents are being prioritized. europe's drug regulators are under pressure to approve a krone virus vaccine to stop the rise in cases on the continent the netherlands is

following germany's footsteps announcing a new nationwide look down over the christmas and new year holiday period and in london tougher restrictions will come into effect from wednesday. warns china it would be in breach of global trading rules if it stops imports of australian coal it comes after chinese state media reported possible restrictions the 2 countries have been and a growing trade dispute since china called for an investigation into the origins of the corona virus pandemic. and then i jury and government says it's negotiating with armed men who abducted hundreds of school boys from katsina state federal police have deployed extra investigators parents of the students have staged protests those are your headlines i'll be back with more news here on al-jazeera that's after inside story. we know what's happening i read them and we know that they feel that others are not i was just thrown. back to put it on fire back fires

and then i'm going to give you. what you think you cal death story is what and make a difference. a piece still ended the bosnian war 24 years ago but ethnic and political divisions haven't gone away some say they worsening so come the country really rebuild and prevent history from repeating itself this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program on iran come on the and herzegovina was a war zone 25 years ago muslim bosniaks orthodox and catholic croats fought over the newly independent country 100000 people were killed the u.s. broke a dayton peace accord ended the bloodshed in 1095 but it divided the nation into 2

entities one for bows next and croats and the other and it created a complex political system that still driven by ethnicity the social fractures have only widened over the is this tony but the reports from sarajevo. plus new buildings in sarajevo but it's a facade real life for most of bosnia is not as bright as one of the poorest countries in europe has high rates of youth unemployment widespread corruption and a fraught political framework. with the. orchestra playing mozart's 25th symphony a special covert restricted on line celebration marked the official signing of the dayton peace agreement that ended the war bill clinton who was u.s. president at the time lauded the achievement the nightmare you endured then has never returned and the credit. belongs to all the people of all backgrounds. the peace deal ended the bloodiest conflict in europe since the

2nd world war but it didn't kick start the process of reconciliation or we knew the ethnic cohabitation enjoyed in pre-war bosnia. grieve and been implemented we would have had a much better situation today what is being implemented is still genocide here because there is too school in an effort to reverse the ethnic cleansing the dayton accords stated that everyone had the right to return to their homes or to get compensation that has never happened the serbs control 49 percent of the country and for them dayton was a good deal. but. the newly elected mayor of east sarajevo says 80 percent of bosses would vote for independence if they have the chance and not thinking about it but if different counterparts different sides and kurds if they want to have to have a centralized state with a majority of votes the next. bill of. all decision to send to other

nations is i'm going to say that's not possible the dayton agreement has been criticised because it appeared to reward the serbs for aggression by legitimizing their territory republika srpska despite the atrocities committed on all sides during the conflict there have been hardly any revenge killings or into ethnic violence but with many unresolved issues especially the prosecution of war criminals according to some there's tension the sparks that is here in boston there is very dangers. should not be here what has been done is often harder to undo deighton unintentionally cemented the division of the country most don't know how injustice will be solved but they do know that bosnia can never go back to what it was when no one looked at the religion but only a person. the lack of opportunities here has lead 1800000 boson's to leave the country there are both positive and negative aspects to the dayton agreement

depending on your point of view but ultimately it stopped the war and ended the bloodshed the question that has to be asked is whether the fault for the lack of progress and reconciliation lies with the agreement or the bosnians themselves and the answer is probably both tony bertie al-jazeera sarajevo. let's bring in our guests and no point going to montenegro alexander cohost the podcast sorry they're calling in toronto and the like mr roach professor of humanities at york university toronto and in berlin we have gerald nelson founding chairman at the european stability initiative welcome to each of you like to begin in puerto rico 1st with alexander. this was a landmark historic agreement it brought an end to the bloodiest civil war in europe since the 2nd world war. was that the end of it well that was the end of the

actual cold i mean the something that gets repeated after him but he doesn't care repeated often enough is that the dayton peace accords was made just to stop the war and stop the bloodshed which you as a result however is a continuation of the we can i think we can probably call it conflict between a truce 3 side 3 major ethnic groups. and that has now moved on into politics well has moved on into politics a long time ago 25 years ago and has been continuously so for since then. i think you can safely claim that bosnia has been in the slim bourse rather star status quo for what 2 and a half decades. and it's wrong to i mean bush rove edge if if this agreement only brought an end to the war surely that was good enough but more negotiation needed to take place another date and for politics should have taken place and that never happened it. never happened and. an extended just explained

did they tend really froze the situation on the ground and in some way on what it did is it reinforced the violence induced partition and of course that violence and that legacy easy scribed impost what institution in all post-war structures or both in the end so it is extremely hard to move forward when you are in fact have the war still looming a very very powerfully over everyday life bosnians that should have been addressed a long time ago but see no one should never of course say that it is impossible now it ought to be done but you talk to be done from scratch general in berlin this is always the agreement that everybody lourdes is the one thing that the u.s. and its allies say that cemented their position as a force for good in the world they managed to get this conflict ended but did they forget about it after that. well. let's look

at also now in a wider context there were lots of conflicts in the early 1990 s. in all sets not because they are in chechnya between i mean and also by john. in each of these other conflicts whatever truce was reached in the ninety's there was another war or did the dishes remain even in cyprus still today and for a divided diner in northern ireland you have peace walls between all physical walls between ethnics and protestants in belfast thousands of and if we look at bosnia 25 years after dayton you don't have any of this it's been said by your reports of bosnia as violent crime rate is lower than the many e.u. member states so are you saying they are you saying that the current situation is a success is that we're saying 0 when i say i would i would i would say that we've

had 8 rounds of elections we have today a parliament at the state level with 42 members of parliament when there are 14 parties represented it's true that there are 3 parties ethnic groups that all everything not a single party leader today in bosnia was a leader during or this is a new generation and that every level of wasn't federalism you have coalitions so what i'm saying is possible has many many problems but by any objective areas wealth with post or come and with its neighbors bosnia democracy or health aid so. all of the pain all opposition at every level you had more changes in government that neighboring what i mean if we are we must say that with all its problems by comparison to any other real place bosnia has that not too badly.

the rest. is great what are you complaining about. you know it's really interesting to have gerald say all of these things but as a real true bosnian who had suffered both through the war and has lived in post-war conditions i have to actually have to disagree on all accounts the 1st one comparing bosnia to any other places i think unfair just like it's unfair to compare any other place to bosnia the only thing that would be fair is to examine what kind of political system we're left with and see what would be the best way to get us out of situation that we're currently in if you compare bosnia to said you're not doing anyone any favors just like if you're comparing bosnia to belgium which sometimes also gets done you're not doing anyone any favors so the best ways to examine the place itself and just see what what to do is for you know this conversation about parliament where you have 42 parliamentarians from 14 different parties that's great but the problem actually had to arm 2 houses and the

other house the the upper house rather the house of peoples is elected soley through you know the new national according to the atman national keep and for instance me as a citizen of bosnia and someone who identifies as opposed to him and not as a boy is now a core bosnian serb or a bosnian croat cannot be elected in 2 dot body and i think dr paradox tells you everything you need to know about gerald's claims. in toronto i mean i bitterly i mean you were shaking your head there the comments that general nelson was making to take the way he was talking about the fact that it was that this was a confessional state this was an idea that there were spoiler titian's from every web but they it was working is it looking. no it is not working and it can work it could work if there was a structure that would actually allow for the change but i think that in just 34

swartz alexander has just said you know when you have ethnic politics in place you really cannot have a democracy when you have a and any kind of entity that just is there for 2 to cresent each people that somehow is a one a square all and all these for one you really cannot have a democratic system you cannot have bal you lose that are about secularism about humanism about human rights and you know all the terms everything is reduced to ethnic politics so even though these parties have tried to break through that paradigm the nevertheless always i did use fact to who presents one and in any place forces i think politics in this kind of a way it's a it's a it's a it's a battle but these last from the start so that has to be scratched and a secular society with similar values needs to be put in place we have heard you know you've had 25 years there's been jaron ausra you point out

a generational change of politicians yet this ensuring the legacy of ethnicity of ethnic politics still exists why is that. because the dayton i mean in a very important way rewarded those who profit to its problems the war and the now profiting from the peace and they have no reason to give up their power their unity is i mean we have. constant narratives that the both news cannot live together whereas in fact bosnia have been living together for centuries and it also is one of the most stable diverse countries that that it exists in not just in europe but in the broader region in the world perhaps and it has there has always been very close. living together and quite existence people engaged in bold in each other's lives so on the ground the situation is rather different of course where the dayton

has that it has indeed created these artificial lines of division within both and people are growing up not knowing about the other in the same way in which they had in the past so. that is in the interest of ethnic politicians and they keep repeating the same story that you know they cannot leave with the others and and and they have they have benefited from that they have profited from that and they will not move away unless they're really forced to joan nelson the people that they said and labeled with the people to a profit from war and then now profit from pace and that's why things haven't changed you agree with that. well i was working in bosnia for 4 years right after the war and of those war criminals who were then in control in republika srpska or in many of the croat areas of the country they have been arrested and put on trial more than you know almost any other conflict in the 20th century except perhaps

germany after the nazi regime so you had an major reckoning fortunately and i saw the positive impact of putting these people on trial you know the former president of the next president. this allowed return of people you had 200000 pieces of property. houses restored within 5 years the former owner. the result of this is that you had the mosques which went destroyed because there was a program and rebuilt if you go to doughboy today in republika srpska you hear the call to pray 5 times a day if you go to bind you look at the capital of republika srpska you'll see wonderful mosque which was destroyed white nationalist in 1908 which was rebuilt now is this perfect no but if you look at any other post conflict society and i just referred to in the e.u.

you know if you look at not that island which also had a peace agreement in the ninety's. the idea that people promised them sent the lakes will stop feeling like protestants and. because you find some magic constitutional solution is just a fantasy but chances are they finding ways many times get your tional a magical constitutional solution is not a fancy it's democracy it actually exists we have federal isman balls in the eye and we have democracy and people hold excellently revolting 8 times in the elections last time in 2018 consider offering it actually i do yet the head office of democratic institutions probably always see that your complaints they did have complaints about elections and said yes yeah i problems but. i think that 2 things people carry about most of 3 think isolation of the country as the that is a big problem because that explains a lot of its property it is much more isolated and gets

a lot less assistance and racial does that the role of neighboring countries if in serbia you have ministers in the compliment off at an angle. that is a serious or in bosnia was fuelled by its neighbors and 38 and very loose talk of the constitution and the hoofed which will be used in the end only by the nationalists because they still have an agenda but at the moment is europe or to have found will take a separate issue as long as bosnia remains a federation where every ethnic group has our also at the local level but always in coalition as long as it's a federation boss and it will be stable and that's why all the reforms that will have to take place will have to take place because it is a complex society not just the complex politics dialogue incremental change and persuading others because bosnia is indeed multi-ethnic again in puerto rico alexander result when your reaction. babs i don't know if i want to continue

just reacting to everything gerald is saying but look when it comes to when it comes to construct a making a democratic society you cannot do it solely through elections when you say that the elections in bosnia took place and they were they went well it's that you're right and that's fine for the number of people you know exit polls show that it's usually about 50 percent of the people who have the right to vote to go out and actually vote what you have that is another problem that is not the patch and that for the past 10 years at least hundreds of thousands of the you know of the of the youngest people of the most educated people of that of the brightest and the best and brightest have all left for the country mostly countries in the what's and those are the people 'd who would have been expected to bring change if we are only talking about democracy being something that you elect every 4 years however the market seems much more than that and like i already said you know you have citizens

who are 2nd class in the political sense you have citizens who cannot be elected for president you have citizens who cannot be or a member of the presidency rather you have citizens we cannot be elected and to the parliament that cetera you had a city who hasn't had elections for the past what 12 years 8 years 12 years in total since that since there was a change in government and this is the 1st time that you will going to you're going to have that but just the mere fact that it took between 8 and 12 hears to agree whether on whether a city or not should have elections or not really makes all of those points moot i'm sorry. listen you've been very kind enough to react joe now says point so now i want to your question which i'm hoping you can enlighten for us surely it's a system that works you it may well be frozen the tensions may be frozen then they will be ethnicity issues within the country as well but it is a functioning democracy and maybe that's enough but is there a is there a change that you would like to say yeah ok so you're right in the sense that one

of the one of the worst things you can possibly say about bosnia is that it's completely unmanageable in this function i think it's not a failed state we've heard that being used as a rhetorical point especially from the bosnian serb side. i think it is one of the most complicated political systems if not the most public political system in the world however that does not make it ungovernable or dysfunctional what i would like to see however is a shift in gears a change in the approach where we're no longer going to allow for things such as you know blatant cronyism. nepotism. the use of this large political apparatus for personal goals etc take you know take the country and the same direction that it's been there keep it stuck where it was 25 years ago i would rather see a society in which all of those young people i have already mentioned have

a clear vision of what their life would look like if they had if they were to stay and share the sort of or had the sense of hope because one key point that i would like to make and sorry from talking to long is that we really need to make a move you make a shift from the sort of politics of pates to politics of hope. and if we don't do that i really don't see how bosnia is going to get out of the situation that they were going to mean i mean listen there is this idea that the you know alexander is saying that there are you know change is possible if there are you know state wide institutional changes but with a highly devolved state such as bosnia with with ethnic tensions and politics being driven by ethnicity are you hopeful that that can change or do you think it needs change needs to happen in a different way. well i would like to comment also on something the general said

a bit earlier and that is the influence crum the neighboring countries and. they do need to be brought into the conversation because as long as this kind of ethnic division from within is seen as regionally should rather then just as a matter of bosnia the you know there is always going to be at some level you possibility to move forward because serbia and croatia are going to have it will be meddling in into the politics of bosnia all along and yes that needs to be to be stopped but it can be only stopped if this idea the vision of a democratic pluralist both yes' bolstered from inside and from outside so i do think there is hope and i do think there is a possibility of change extremely. smart and you know intelligent and energetic young people in bosnia as well as in the end they ask for

who would like to see the change but completely incapable of moving forward because every stop. every phase of their work they are stalked by some kind of ethnic nationalist decision or platform and so on so forth so the change has to happen in such a way where the language of the vocabulary would language of human rights to the language of reconsideration that where the language of living together is no longer it used to this kind of ethnic. consideration but he's done in a much more universalist if you wish him and he's the quite a so there's a lot i mean we've got running out of time and i would like to put your point to shutdown now still to having heard but i thought others who guess do you think it's time for i dated a lot to the political version fest that knowledge as that is go are you know the light changed outside but i don't think it's dark but bosnia. agree with you just because i think there is

a lot of potential and the fact that you have almost nobody lands in a society that is you know so much destruction and so much hate foment it by radical nationalists is a testimony that bosnia is possible that change is possible in a federation many levels many success stories cantons for example that ration are responsible for education health care schooling and yeah lots and lots of archy's income total assemblies in fact in the 10 commandments if you'll take all the seats you get i get 24 different parties many of them new and all are separate some state lost the election there is a view from the european union from europe itself that actually we fixed bosnia and now it's an internal domestic issue surely must agree that the future of all of these countries and we've seen integration has to be to join and why it's european union and also to get the kind of support. in the last 70 years but you budget all

that 12000000000 euros bosniak the last 25 years you put it right receive a 1000000000 euros from the now obviously this means less money for farmers less infrastructure less developed and one result is that many people leave as indeed they are eating up the bulk of. if we want to focus on a successful bosnia then we need to make its federalism but that's what we need to encourage reformers we need to give them a european perspective we need to support them and we need to stop talking down bosnia as a hopeless case well i want to thank all our guests xandra reza i mean i'll go to roche and general of the house and i'd like to thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time but this to go of sight out of there don't come and further discussion go to our facebook page at facebook dot com forward slash inside story and you can also join the conversation on twitter we are at a j inside story for me iraq and the whole team here i don't.

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