'Freely to Return': Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The objective pursued by the policies of ethnic cleansing carried out during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has been largely achieved, and the main challenge of the international intervention is to reverse this situation by focusing on minority returns. More than four years into the peace process, very few minority returns have taken place despite the exceptional level of international involvement in the country. This paper looks at the strategies employed to recreate a multi-ethnic country, and attempts to analyse why such strategies have so far failed to produce the desired result. Such failure cannot only be explained by the inadequacies of some international initiatives to promote minority returns, but also, and mainly, by political obstruction from local officials. The paper will end by proposing some directions for the future.