Bosnia makes pledge to unite government

WASHINGTON – With a prod from the United States, leaders of Bosnia’s three major ethnic factions agreed Tuesday to remake their divided government a decade after the end of their bloody civil war, Europe’s bloodiest fighting since World War II.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heralded the Balkan accord struck in Washington but warned that international patience has run out for the accused war criminals who walk free in Bosnia.

“There can be no more excuses and no more delays,” Rice said at a State Department luncheon celebrating the 10th anniversary of a U.S.-brokered peace settlement. “Ten years is long enough.”

Rice spoke at a luncheon with Bosnian political leaders and diplomats from the Clinton administration.

The 1995 agreement signed in Dayton, Ohio, ended a three-year civil war only by allowing Serbs, Croats and Muslims to preside over separate political spheres. The result was an inefficient, three-headed government that Rice said was appropriate for its day but is now outmoded.

“Today, Bosnia-Herzegovina is joining the international community,” Rice said.

Tuesday’s agreement commits Bosnian leaders to revamp the national constitution by March of next year, with an eye to joining NATO and the European Union.

European nations have told the Bosnians that they have little hope of joining the EU, with its trade, border, economic and political advantages, under the country’s current constitution.

In a separate statement, the Serb entity within Bosnia said it will cooperate with an international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

And all the leaders said they were determined to deliver all persons indicted for war crimes to the tribunal in the Hague.

The most notorious of these are Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, accused of masterminding brutal Bosnian Serb offensives against Muslims.