Swiss act as early warning system in Bosnia

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, the European Union Force EUFOR is nearly doubling the size of its peacekeeping force in Bosnia & Herzegovina to maintain stability. The Swiss are also participating in the EUFOR mission there as information gatherers, acting as a kind of early warning system.

The two Swiss Liaison and Observation Teams (LOT) in Mostar and Trebinje assess the situation and mood on the ground and report back to mission headquarters in Sarajevo. The reports allow EUFOR to create a picture of the whole country and to spot the potential for escalation of conflicts at an early stage.

The LOT team in Mostar says it is often approached on the streets by citizens who are concerned about the ongoing war in Ukraine and how this could affect them. The team says the 500 peacekeeping troops sent by EUFOR will be arriving over the next two weeks.

The Swiss Armed Forces have been participating in the ALTHEA mission of the European Union Force (EUFOR) since 2004. It’s Switzerland’s second mission in the Balkans alongside the NATO-led international peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, KFOR. The Dayton peace accord of 1995 ended the civil war in Bosnia that cost about 100,000 lives after the break-up of Yugoslavia, including those of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys killed in and around the town of Srebrenica.

‘Worst political crisis since the war’

Bosnia lies hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine, and Russia does not present an immediate threat. But it is facing a political crisis that some fear could lead to armed conflict, little more than 25 years after the Bosnia war ended with the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement.

Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, announced last year that the Serb-run entity, Republika Srpska, would quit key state institutions to achieve full autonomy within the country, in violation of the 1995 peace accords. Its parliament passed a series of laws enabling the entity to form its own parastatal institutions and its own army by May. Analysts say the separatist movement has at least tacit support from Moscow.

Carolina Bohren, a spokeswoman for the Swiss defence ministry, says the presence of international troops on the ground has helped to stabilise the situation and prevent the outbreak of violent clashes in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Vera Wagner is part of the LOT team in Mostar, which was besieged during the Bosnian war. While the bloodshed is in the past, the country is still struggling to overcome the legacy of the conflict. The city is divided along ethnic lines. High unemployment and a weak economy have driven many young people away, in search of work. Wagner told SWI swissinfo.ch what it was like to keep tabs on possible conflict situations in a melting pot such as this.