Peace plans offered before and during the Bosnian War

Four major peace plans were offered before and during the Bosnian War by European Community (EC) and United Nations (UN) diplomats before the conflict was finally settled by the Dayton Agreement in 1995.

Carrington–Cutileiro
The Carrington–Cutileiro peace plan, named for its authors Lord Carrington and Portuguese ambassador José Cutileiro, resulted from the EC Peace Conference held in February 1992 in an attempt to prevent Bosnia-Herzegovina sliding into war. It proposed ethnic power-sharing on all administrative levels and the devolution of central government to local ethnic communities. However, all Bosnia-Herzegovina's districts would be classified as Muslim, Serb or Croat under the plan, even where no ethnic majority was evident.

On 11 March 1992, the "Assembly of the Republic of Serb Bosnia-Herzegovina" unanimously rejected the plan, putting forth their own map which claimed almost 2/3 of Bosnia's territory, with a series of ethnically split cities and isolated enclaves, and leaving the Croats and Muslims with a disjointed strip of land in the centre of the republic. This plan was rejected by Culiteiro, but put forth a new draft which stated that the three constituent units would be "based on national principles and taking into account economic, geographic, and other criteria."

On 18 March 1992, all three sides signed the agreement; Alija Izetbegović for the Bosniaks, Radovan Karadžić for the Serbs and Mate Boban for the Croats.

On 28 March 1992, however, Izetbegović withdrew his signature and declared his opposition to any type of division of Bosnia, after meeting with then US ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmermann, in Sarajevo.


 *  What was said and by whom remains unclear. Zimmerman denies that he told Izetbegovic that if he withdrew his signature, the United States would grant recognition to Bosnia as an independent state. What is indisputable is that Izetbegovic, that same day, withdrew his signature and renounced the agreement..

Vance–Owen
In early January 1993, the UN Special Envoy Cyrus Vance and EC representative Lord Owen began negotiating a peace proposal with the leaders of Bosnia's warring factions. The proposal, which became known as the "Vance-Owen peace plan", involved the division of Bosnia into ten semi-autonomous regions and received the backing of the UN. Although the President of the Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić, had signed the plan on 30 April, it was rejected by the Bosnian Serbs National Assembly on 6 May, and subsequently referred to a referendum. The plan was rejected by 96% of voters, although mediators referred to the referendum as a "sham". On 18 June, Lord Owen declared that the plan was "dead".

Given the pace at which territorial division, fragmentation and ethnic cleansing had occurred, the plan was already obsolete by the time it was announced. It became the last proposal that sought to salvage a mixed, united Bosnia-Herzegovina; subsequent proposals either re-enforced or contained elements of partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On 1 April, Cyrus Vance announced his resignation as Special Envoy to the UN Secretary-General. He was replaced by Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg on 1 May.

Owen–Stoltenberg
In late July, representatives of Bosnia-Herzegovina's three warring factions entered into a new round of negotiations. On 20 August, the U.N. mediators Thorvald Stoltenberg and David Owen unveiled a map that would partition Bosnia into three ethnic mini-states, in which Bosnian Serb forces would be given 52 percent of Bosnia-Herzegovina's territory, Muslims would be allotted 30 percent and Bosnian-Herzegovina Croats would receive 18 percent. On 29 August 1993 Bosniaks rejected the Plan.

Contact Group plan
Between February and October 1994, the Contact Group (U.S., Russia, France, Britain, and Germany) made steady progress towards a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This was known as a Contact Group plan, and a heavy pressure was put on Bosnian Serbs to accept the plan when Federal Republic of Yugoslavia imposed an embargo on Drina river. It was also rejected in a referendum held on 28 August 1994.