THE international community issued a stern warning to Bosnia's ethnic leaders yesterday play by the rules of the year old peace pact or risk losing aid and entry into the civilised world.
It also condemned the Serbian leadership for its clampdown on opposition voices in Belgrade and vowed it would not stand idly by if last year's Bosnia peace deal proved empty.
"We have to make clear that a deal is a deal and the signatories to the peace agreement must live up to their obligations in every respect," Mr Carl Bildt, the international community's High Representative in Bosnia, said.
Mr Bildt, addressing a major conference in London to measure progress on the peace finalised in the Dayton agreement, said there was plenty of bad news to review since the guns fell silent.
Refugees had yet to go home, war criminals remained at large and sinister political forces were on the rise.
Nor would NATO be endlessly at hand to police the fragile peace, as the West said peacekeeping would be scaled back next year when the alliance is due to leave Bosnia.
"Today, the forces of repression and retrogression seem to be gaining the upper hand in the regime in Belgrade," Mr Bildt told ministers and delegates from more than 50 nations.
"It is only when human rights are guaranteed that we will see politics emerge from the bonds of fear and war."
The US, too, launched a fierce attack over the tensions in Serbia, which have all but overshadowed the two day Bosnia peace conference.
The US Assistant Secretary of State, Mr John Kornblum, said the state of democracy in Serbia was "deplorable", adding that US ties with Belgrade would remain frosty until it improved.
The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, speaking at the conference on behalf of the EU, called on all parties involved in the Bosnian conflict to hand over indicted suspected war criminals without delay.
EU efforts, he said, "led to last year's substantial progress towards implementation of the peace agreement in political, diplomatic, human and financial terms". Real difficulties remained. "If we were all sure that real and lasting peace and stability had come to the region of former Yugoslavia there could be no need for us to be here today."