Two decades after a peace deal was reached to end conflict in Bosnia, "a perfect storm is gathering" in the small Balkan nation, its former top international envoy Paddy Ashdown warned Friday.
Speaking in Sarajevo ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Dayton agreement, which ended nearly four years of inter-ethnic war, Ashdown called on the international community to "wake up and smell the danger".
He said that Bosnia had been "the global poster-boy" of post-conflict peace-building in the first decade after the agreement, but had now "moved decisively back into the dynamic of disintegration".
"The international community seems to have lost the will and Bosnian politicians on all sides seem to have abandoned the vision," he told a conference.
"It is a deadly combination. A perfect storm is gathering".
Ashdown, a British politician who served as the international community's high representative to Bosnia between 2002 and 2006, said he did not believe a return to conflict was likely, but added: "I cannot now discount the possibility".
The Dayton agreement, reached in the United States, on November 21, 1995, split Bosnia into two semi-independent entities: the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serbs' Republika Srpska, which are linked by weak central government institutions but also each have their own government, police and judiciary.
In July, MPs in the Republika Srpska backed the holding of a referendum on whether to continue recognising the state court system, which processes war crimes and organised crime cases, although no date has been set.
Ashdown warned the referendum was "aimed at unstitching the fabric of state law" and a "stalking horse" for a referendum on succession.
He also expressed concerns over too many corruption cases being dismissed by lower courts, and the possibility of an ethnic Croat "third entity" being created in the country.
"Does no-one see where this is leading? Does no-one see that this is where it all began in 1992?" he asked.
According to the Dayton deal, the high representative has the power to impose laws and sack elected officials, and Ashdown did not shy away from using these powers during his tenure, sacking dozens of officials who opposed reforms.
His successors have abandoned his forceful approach, believing that it harmed Bosnia's democratic development.