MISSOURI COMMENTARY: BOSNIA: NEVER AGAIN UNITED

The Dayton Accords did not resolve the discord in Bosnia. They were simply a time out. That is not to belittle what was done at Dayton. Considering the killing, raping and maiming that beset Bosnia for four years, even an agreed-to interval of (in Bosnian terms) relative calm was an achievement of high order.

The next achievement was the introduction of NATO forces to separate the combatants and insure that the fighting stopped. That has been done with skill. Chalk up an A for that part of the Dayton Accords.

Now we get to the hope-and-prayer part of the peace agreement: That by the end of this year, a national government will be installed with a president and a national assembly committed to maintaining the union of all Bosnia, that refugees will return to their original homes with their safety and security guaranteed, that the war criminals -- particularly Radovan Karadic and Gen. Ratko Mladic -- will be removed from power and political influence and that all sides -- Serbs, Croats and Muslims -- would fully cooperate with the international supervisors.

In short, the Dayton Accords were premised on the notion that four years of genocidal conflict could be rather quickly forgotten and that somehow there would be a peaceful, cordial mixing of the erstwhile ethnic enemies. For all to be so neatly put aside in a country almost destroyed by war was to dream the most impossible of impossible dreams. As more mass graves are discovered and as more survivors publicly describe the horrors they have experienced, the notion of Bosnia reintegration will grow even more remote.

Yes, the military combatants have been separated by the NATO forces, but nothing else has been achieved in terms of reconstituting Bosnia. Nothing much can be achieved. Nothing much will be achieved.

With NATO forces set to withdraw at the end of the year, how many Muslims want to put their lives under the protection of Gen. Mladic's force in the Serb-held sector of Bosnia? The Muslims, the most vigorous advocates of an ethnically integrated Bosnia under Muslim authority, are quick to put their own displaced people in housing once occupied by Serbs. The Croats play their undisguised waiting game to affiliate their part of Bosnia with the motherland.

The forces of nationalism and ethnic intolerance within Bosnia overwhelm any notions of an ethnically integrated Bosnia. Although the Serb forces were retreating as the war ended, Serb nationalists got what they wanted; control over a vast portion of Bosnia, separate and apart from any Muslim control from Sarajevo. Dayton did not alter this basic fact and elections in September, if held, will not alter it either.

The Clinton administration and its NATO allies want to try to stick to the Dayton timetable: elections in September and troops out by the end of the year. There is no desire to prolong the presence of foreign troops. Indeed, there is always the fear of getting stuck in some part of Balkan quagmire.

If the nation that the international community seems to guarantee is a unified Bosnia, then Bosnia is not ready for elections this September. Indeed, if unity is the objective, Bosnia will never be ready for elections. By war and bloodshed, Bosnia has been partitioned into three parts. The agonies and memories of war prevent reintegration. The pragmatics of what group controls what turf prevents reintegration. The politics of nationalism -- as keen in the Balkans as anywhere else in the world -- prevent reintegration.

It is just as well to go on with the elections in September because no other time will be any more propitious. The balloting will ratify what we already know: Bosnia is unalterably partitioned, and the Serbs' original goal for starting the war has been achieved.

Whether in the future new conflicts will erupt between the three nationalistic elements, we do not know. We do know that Bosnia as an entity has had a great, great fall and can never be put back together again.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.