Refugees – 1998

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Refugees – 1998

1998

Intermediate Implementation Intermediate implementation

From January to September 1998, some 90,000 refugees and IDPs returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Among those, 50,000 returned under the German Government’s return program. Of the total number of those who returned, 2,440 persons returned to the Republika Srpska. Some 9,340 returned to their pre-war homes. A total of 6,063 refugees and IDPs returned to minority areas. The UNHCR continued to promote minority returns with the declarations of new “Open Cities”. Minority returns was a particularly important issue, since they get to the heart of whether multi-ethnicity could be regenerated in Bosnia, or whether the country would remain de facto partitioned among its three constituent peoples. The UNHCR, together with the Office of the High Representative, provided assistance to those returned. Both entities also monitored the implementation of the new property legislation passed by the Federation in April 1998.1

According to a UNHCR yearbook report, some 129,073 refugees and 29,570 IDPs returned by the end of 1998.2 The Republika Srpska did not meet the deadline to adopt the property law consistent with the Peace Agreement. The deadline of 31 August was set at Luxembourg.3

On 24 December 1998, the Republika Srpska National Assembly passed a Law on Amnesty, which amended the previous Law on Amnesty’s exclusion of deserters and draft dodgers from legal protection. The president refused to sign the law. The amnesty laws were readopted by the RS national assembly on 23 July, overriding the earlier veto by the president.4

  1. “Report of the Secretary General on the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” U.N. Security Council (S/1998/862), September 16, 1998.
  2. “2002 UNHCR Statistical Yearbook – Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
  3. “11th Report of the High Representative for Implementation of the Peace Agreement to the Secretary-General of the United Nations,” OHR, 1998, accessed May 2, 2011, http://www.ohr.int/other-doc/hr-reports/default.asp?content_id=3674.
  4. “15th Report by the High Representative for Implementation of the Peace Agreement to The Secretary-General of the United Nations,” OHR, 1999, accessed May 2, 2011, http://www.ohr.int/other-doc/hr-reports/default.asp?content_id=3679.