Biographical Note
On November 1, 1995, the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia met at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio to begin negotiations about the ongoing Bosnian War. Three weeks later on November 21, the talks ended with a final cease fire outlined by the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On account of the location where the talks took place, the General Framework Agreement came to be popularly known as the Dayton Accords.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was selected as a secluded area where the negotiations could proceed without distraction from the media and city life. The Clinton Administration's team was led by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, and included National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, Deputy National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright. This team was able to help bring about an agreement signed by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović, Serbian President Milošević, and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the negotiations on November 21.
The framework preserved Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single sovereign state consisting of two autonomous and federated territorial divisions: Republika Srpska for the Bosnian-Serb population, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where most of the country's Croat and Bosniak population resides. The agreement also bound the signatory states to respect the sovereignty of the other states, to uphold the human rights of refugees, and to cooperate with organizations charged with enforcing the agreement, including for the investigation of war crimes and human rights violations.
The Dayton Accords were formally signed on December 14, 1995 in Paris, France. Both the peace and the structure of government in Bosnia and Herzegovina that were established by the Accords have held to this day (2024).