Word: ethnicity
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...current leader of Bosnia's Serbs, Milorad Dodik, has vowed to hold a vote on the future status of the Republika Srpska. Now, as Bosnia lurches toward elections in October, it looks increasingly likely he'll make good on that threat, calling into question the future of a multi-ethnic Bosnia. (See the top 10 news stories...
...Despite the bitter legacy of the war, Bosnia made strides in the first decade of its existence toward increased cooperation between the country's three ethnic groups and a greater centralization of powers. But in the run-up to the 2006 elections, the country saw a spike in nationalist rhetoric from both Bosniaks and Serbs - and the tenuous détente was derailed. This was when Dodik, who had previously been considered a moderate by many in the international community, began promising an independence referendum. Since that time, Bosnia has been virtually paralyzed...
...country's Serbs see the Republika Srpska as a guarantee of their rights in a state dominated by a Muslim majority. But for many Bosniaks and Croats, its very existence is an affront and a reminder of the success of Karadzic's campaign of ethnic cleansing. Reuf Bajrovic, a Sarajevo-based political analyst with links to the Social Democratic Party, the successor to the Communist Party and the closest thing Bosnia has to a multi-ethnic party, warns that Bosniaks and Croats would not accept partition. "The lesson is that ethnic cleansing is a legitimate form of state building...
...Iraq's vicious outpouring of sectarian violence after the American invasion in 2003 - was it a reaction to the suppression of religious identity under Saddam Hussein or an extension of the policies of American administrators who found it easiest to deal with Iraqis through a crude sectarian and ethnic prism? Whatever the cause, the sectarian leaders who prevailed in the elections enabled by the U.S. proved incapable of peacefully resolving their differences, which were instead settled in the streets. But as Iraq's fragile new democracy matures, its ever divisive identity politics are becoming more complicated...
...That change may also be caused by shifts in the sectarian fault lines. Instead of Shi'ite-vs.-Sunni conflict, tensions now are mounting inside ethnic and sectarian groups. The duopolistic ruling parties of Iraqi Kurdistan find themselves under threat from a breakaway movement - Goran, or "change" - more interested in cleaning up politics in the Kurdistan Regional Government than in accelerating Kurdish autonomy from the rest of Iraq. And there's been plenty of bad blood between al-Maliki and the fundamentalist Shi'ite parties of the Iraqi National Alliance ever since the Prime Minister sent the army...