The Bosnian elections

Three years after the war of extermination that tore apart the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the heart of the Balkans, the survivors have returned to elect a future government in elections carried out under strict international supervision. The results, however, have signaled frustration for the hopes of the international community, which was trying to integrate the republic's ethnic Serb, Croat and Moslem population.

The parties seeking to reconstruct the country did not fair well. In essence, the Serb, Croat and Moslem parties that won the elections represent the same forces that unleashed the civil war at the beginning of the decade. The viability of a multinational state in Bosnia (thus) remains in doubt, and with it, efforts to pacify and rebuild that devastated corner of Europe.

-- Clarin, Buenos Aires, Argentina