By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 1, 2007; A01

CORRIDOR 5C, Bosnia -- In a country where most roads are so narrow and winding that passing means playing the odds, the four-lane stretch of asphalt north of Sarajevo was supposed to be Bosnia's fast track to the future, part of a 210-mile superhighway linking Budapest to the Adriatic Sea.

Instead, the $5 billion project, launched in 2002, has become a symbol of Bosnia's inability to overcome its acrimonious past. Construction has stalled, with only 12 paved miles open for travel even as neighboring countries near completion of their adjoining routes. Some newspapers here have sarcastically referred to it by the local word for toilet, which sounds like the highway's name.

Obstructing the project are lingering forms of the same ethnic divides that fueled three years of civil war in the 1990s.

Muslim and ethnic Croat officials in the national government in Sarajevo contend that major undertakings such as Bosnia's largest-ever public works project should be coordinated from the capital. But the Serb minority, which tried to secede during the war and today only grudgingly accepts being part of the country, fights almost all forms of national authority. Serb leaders have yet to allow construction to begin on segments in the zone of the country that they dominate, saying that road building should be a local responsibility.

The dispute "is a symptom of the fundamental issue in this country, which is a disagreement about its character," said Transportation Minister Bozo Ljubic, a Croat, who oversees the project. "Our crisis is this: Are we one country or two? Is our future together or divided?"

Those questions have come to a head this summer as leaders of the country's three main ethnic groups prepared for talks this week aimed at smoothing Bosnia's long-sought entry into the European Union. At times, the rhetoric grew so heated that Bosnia's international overseers issued stern warnings to rein it in.

Under the 1995 Dayton peace accords, which ended the war, Bosnia was split into two autonomous zones. Muslims, who represent about 50 percent of the population, predominate in the zone known as the Federation. Most of Bosnia's Croats, who represent perhaps 15 percent of the population, live in the Federation as well. Serbs, meanwhile, making up around 35 percent of the population, are the vast majority in a zone known as the Republika Srpska (literally "republic of Serbs").

In a June letter to the United Nations, Haris Silajdzic, Bosnia's wartime prime minister and now the Muslim representative in the country's three-pronged presidency, proposed eliminating the system of autonomous ethnic rule in favor of a more centralized state.

"Dayton's divisions were necessary to end the war, but we have the majority of citizens, and their will -- for a strong multiethnic state -- should be respected," Silajdzic said in a recent interview. "We cannot allow anyone to cement a situation that is the product of ethnic cleansing." He said he considers Srpska, which includes lands where Serb forces killed or evicted Muslims and Croats during the war, to be an ill-gotten gain.

Srpska's prime minister, Milorad Dodik, a polished former businessman, responded with his own rhetorical barrage, declaring that any attempt to abolish the zones would trigger an eventual referendum in Srpska on whether to secede. Dodik also announced plans to open offices representing Srpska in European capitals and in Washington and has been fighting to retain a separate Srpska police force, which many Muslims associate with war crimes.

Last week, he tied Srpska's future to that of neighboring Kosovo, which is technically part of Serbia though under U.N. rule and currently locked in independence talks. "It would suit us if Kosovo declared independence," he told Srpska television. "We could say, 'How can they do it and we cannot?' "

Dodik said during an interview in a restaurant on the outskirts of Banja Luka, the Srpska capital, that Serbs must control their own destiny. "Bosnia is divided, not just on the surface, but essentially," he said. "The more people are pushed, the more stability is jeopardized. Silajdzic's policy is making a bid for Muslim domination, and we cannot accept that."

Although both men's proposals would gut Dayton, which for 12 years has preserved a tenuous peace, few Bosnian or international officials appear to believe there is much danger of large-scale violence. Many, however, say they fear the political stalemate will leave Bosnia underdeveloped as benchmarks are missed and the focus of international institutions shifts elsewhere.

"Since March or April of last year, there has been political polarization along ethnic lines, and it's shifted from an upbeat outlook across the board to negative, inflammatory rhetoric," said Raffi Gregorian, principal deputy high representative of the foreign governments that are parties to the Dayton accord. His office publicly warned Dodik last week of possible sanctions over his recent statements. Under Dayton, named for the Ohio city in which it was negotiated, the high representative has the power to remove Bosnian officials.

"The concern now is that long-term instability will radicalize the population and that Bosnia, which has overcome so much, gets left behind by its own doing," Gregorian added.

The standoff between Dodik and Silajdzic emerged amid a push last year by the foreign parties for constitutional amendments to strengthen the central government. Silajdzic and some allies infuriated foreign officials by withdrawing their support on the grounds that the bill didn't go far enough, and it failed by two votes.

"The reforms were a huge gamble that lost. So what you're left with is, basically, strong entities and a Mickey Mouse national parliament," said Elvis Zutic, country director for the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. "Dayton is exhausted. And with Silajdzic and Dodik, there seems to be no willingness to find a middle ground."

While violence has been rare since the war ended -- 2,500 European Union peacekeepers remain deployed here -- ethnic tensions still pervade all aspects of life. In the Federation, Muslim and Croat children are educated in the same buildings but segregated by ethnicity for certain courses under a program known as "two schools under one roof."

Last week, at a soccer match in Sarajevo between Bosnia and Croatia, Muslim fans fired flares toward the Croatian section and chanted "Ustashe," the name of the Nazi-aligned fascist movement in Croatia during World War II. Many Bosnian Croats, meanwhile, sat in the Croatian cheering section.

The deepest divide, however, is between Bosnian Muslims and Serbs. In Gorazde, a city in the Federation that juts like a finger into eastern Srpska, all main road links with Sarajevo pass through the Serb zone, although the new highway could change that. The roughly 35,000 residents of Gorazde were surrounded and besieged by Serbs during the war, and nearly 700 were killed.

"The problem is theirs, not ours," said Ahmed Kulinic, 50, a resident who fought in the war and, like much of Gorazde's population, is unemployed. "Serbs have our passports, and yet they have no love for our country, only Srpska. This is a united country, recognized by the whole world, and it needs to stay that way, as it has been all through history."

Just across the boundary, in the Srpska town of Rogatica, it is nearly impossible to find anyone who wants to be Bosnian. "If we were separate we could focus on our own affairs, rather than still talking about who is guilty of what, 15 years after the war," said Slavisha Yankovic, 40, who is also unemployed. "The war started because no one wants to live with each other. We fought, and everyone got his share, and that's it."

Ljubic, the transportation minister, said he had recently redoubled efforts to secure an agreement allowing the highway project to move forward. Last month, he submitted a bill to that effect to the cabinet, but Srpska officials quickly responded that there is no constitutional basis for the plan.

Although the country's constitution lists transportation between the two zones as a national-level matter, Dodik insists that sections of the highway inside Srpska should be controlled from there. He has sent no representative to the committee reviewing bids for a contract to complete the project. If the impasse continues, Ljubic said, work will begin on a section entirely within the Federation, between Sarajevo and the majority-Croat city Mostar. In addition to the roadway, the national government's plans call for the eventual addition to Corridor 5C, the geographic channel in which the highway is situated, of rail lines and a natural gas pipeline that other European countries could use.

"This highway is not just for us, but for all of Europe," Ljubic said. "Hungary is nearly done with its section. By the end of next year, Croatia's part will reach the contact point with our border. We have to act very quickly. People must abandon their extreme demands or else we will become like the appendix of Europe, in the anatomical sense. We'll be dealt with only when inflamed."