Death Of Yugoslavia 5z264s

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Bulgaria

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•Skopje MACEOONIA

Yugoslavia

1945-1991

Greece

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MARCH 1992: Ceasefire in Croatia and Bosnia on the threshold of war

S/t.ol'tn itJ

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Zagreb •

I'ojvodlnll

SPRING J 993: Vance-Owen plan

1

Prijedor·

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BK�jK Lu�.

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UN Protected Areas in Croatia

Bo.<;nia-Herzegovin.1:

� Cro at majority [ill Muslim majority � Serb majority

Em Territory without absolute national majority vm

11,5,91 Muslim provinces !2. 4, 61 Serb provinces 13, 8 I Croat provinces 110 I Mixed Muslim-Croat province [7 I Saraj evo, special status

SEPTEMBER 1993: Serbo-Croat plan for the partition of Bosnia

JULY 1994: Group pJan and front Jines

mediated by Owen and Stoltenberg

Banj. Lub •

".... Front line

� 1::::::::\

Territory Serbs gain Croat territory

Territory under Serb control

Muslim territory

Territory Serbs have to cede

o Serb territory �

Sarajevo under UN istration

x

Sarajevo under UN control

Tenitory under Muslim-Croat control

CAST OF CHARACTERS

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Abdic, Fikrel -LC;,Icler of breakaway 'Auto�omous province ofWe� lern . Bosnia' in the Muslim-populated Bih� regIon. A nval of lzetbegoVlc. Adtic, Blagojc General. JNA Chief of Staff (1991) and Feden.l Defence Minister (1992). _

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Aksentijevic. Milan -JNA General in Slovenia - imp�isoned in roat;:l transferred to Sarajevo when war began. Unceremoniously pellsLoned by MiiooeviC.

_

Andjelkovii:, Rila -Milooevic a.ide during his ris e to power. AUll\i, Husamedin _ Ethnic Albanian, MiloSevK'S placeman in Kosovo P-arty. Babic, Milan

_

Leader of the: Krajina Serb rebellion in Croatia.

Badintcr, Robert -Judge, Chairman of the EC Arbitration Committee: on Yugoslavia (1991).

Boritner, Ivan - Slovene non-commissioned officer -leaked (planted) documents to Mladina (1988).

Bosanac, Vesna - Heroic Director of Vukovar's hospital during war.

Boutros-Ghali. Boutros - UN Secretary GeneraL

Brezak, Ivan - Croatian Deputy Interior Minister (1991). Br?� et, Stane:- JNA iral and Solvene who was Deputy Defence . the flTSt big purge of Yugoslav-orientated generals in MII"Ilsler. PensiOned m 1992.

Broz,josip -llTO - Founder of Communist Yugoslavia. Ruled from 1945 until his death in 1980.

Bu�in, Nenad - � on te ?e�o's representative on the Federal Presidency who reSigned along wllhjovlC In March 1991. Unlike his Serbian coUeagues he never returned. Budimirovic, B�ko - Kosovo Serb activist.

Bajramovic, Sejdo Appointed Koso� o's rep rc sc: ntati� e on �he Yugoslav Federal Presidency in 1991- unswervmgly loyal to Milo�eV1c.

Bulatovie, Kosta - Kosovo Serb activist.

Baker,James -US Secretary of State (1991).

Youngest Montenegro Party Chief and later elected President of Montenegro.

Savear, Igor Slovenia's Deputy Defencr Minister, and first Police Minister after independence,

Curington, Lord Peter - First EC peacr envoy (1991-92).

_

_

Bulatovic, Momir - Came to power on Slobodan MilokviC's coat-tails.

Christopher, Warren - US Secretary of State -from 1992.

8ilandZie, Dubn -Tudjman's advisor in 1991. Sincr 1994 DepUly Hud of the Croatian office in Belgrade.

Churkin, Vitaly - Russia's speci:.t.l envoy to former Yugoslavia (1993-94).

Boban, Male -Bosni:.m Croat leader, ousted when the Muslim-Croal federation was created.

Ckrebic, DoSan - &:rb Communist functionary. Staged mock resignation ordered by MiloSevic in 1988.

Bogdanovic, Rilo -Interior Minister of Serbia. �� ted afm demon strations on 9 f','larch, 1991. Remained one of Milo�v\Cs closest confidant5.

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Cosie. Dobrica - Influential Serbian nationalist writer seen as spiritual father of Serbs. President of FRY from 1992-93.

Bogieevie Bogie -Bosnia-Henc:go vina's representative on the Federal Presidenc . Serb who remained loyal to Bosnia's government during the war.

Cvetkovic,jovan -Mayor of Svetozarevo, confronted Milokvit at Mayors' meeting in March 1991.

Bokan, Dragoslav -Ultranationalist politician. Serb par amil itary leader.

De Michdis, Gianni - Italian Foreign Minister (1991).

;

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8oljkovac,Josip -First Interior Minister of indep en ent Croatia, responsi . ble for recruitment of thousands of new Croat p oll ce 11"1 199G-91. Boras, Franjo Croat representative on Bosnian Presidency. Never reruffled to Sarajevo after May 1992. _

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Dedakovie, Mile-Jasrreb - Croatian commander ofVukovar. Arrested after accusing Tudjman of not helping defend the town. Degoridja, SIavko - Prominent HDZ official. Held several key positions in Croatia.

xiii

CAST OF CHARACTERS

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Delimustafie, Alija Fikret Abdie.

_

Bosnian Interior Minister (1991-92). Muslim ally of

Di'iak.jovan - General. Serb. Deputy Commander of the Bosnian Army. Dizdarevlc, Raif Bosnia's representative to the Federal Presidency, replaced by Bogie Bogittvit in 1990. _

Djukie, Slobodan - Mayor of Valjevo. Attended 16 March Mayors' meeting when Milokvlt warned: 'At least we know how to fight'.

Djurdje\':lc, Vojislav - General. JNA Commander in Sarajevo. Doko,jerko - Croat. Bosnian Defence Minister (1991).

Dole, Bob - Republican US Senate leader. Domljan,Zarko

_

Dmkovic, Vllk

_

to liberal.

HOZ official. Spea�r of the Croatian Parliament (1991). CharismatiC Serbian opposition leader - from nationalist

Drnov§ek,janc'l. - Slovenia's representative on the Yugoslav Federal Presidency and later Prime Minister of independent Slovenia.

Durakovie, Nija'l.

_

tion to l z etbegoviC.

Bosnian Communist Party leader, remained in opposi

Eagleburger, Lawrence - Former Ambassador SeCfClary of Slate (1992 ).

to Yugoslavia. Acting

Galbraith, Peler - US Ambassador to Croatia from 1993.

'Yugos l av' represenrative to Ihe Bosnian Presidency, but SDA leader. Emerged 1992 as Bosnia's d�faCIO Vice President.

Game, Ejup

_

Genscher, Hans Dietrich - German Foreign Minister, railroaded EC into Croatian r ecogniti on in 1991. Gligorov, Kim - First president of independent Macedonia. Shrewd politician who survived five decades of Yugoslav poli tics.

Gr:.te.anin, Petu - JNA General. Serbian President (1988-89). Interior

Gvero, Milan - Colonel JNA Spok' sman andI ater Dep",>, Commander of . · the B osman 5 erb s.

Hadi.i� Goran - S ecrerary of the Vukovar branch of the SOS in 1991 . : . L ater uccame 'PreSIdent' of Krajina. Hadtifejzovie, Senad - Sarajevo televison n ews a nchorm an.

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Hafner! V inko - Old S ovene Communist. Member of the Central Committee ofYu�laV1a. Warned Milokvit t hat he was leading 'he country towards d lsa srer. Halilovie, Sefcr - First Commander of Bosnian Army. Hurd, D ouglas - British Foreign Sec re t ary. Founding leader of the Muslim Par of 0 ocra c Action (S�A). Elected President of the Presidency ofB nia_ rz ego na i cr muln-party el ectio n s in 1990. Presided over Bosnia's declarat on 0f

Izetbegovic, Alija -

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�ft

mdependence and war.

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.

:

jackovich, Victor - First US Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina. colonel at Virovitica who betrayed General S p egeJ"}. . . . . Defence Mmlster Croanas , over clandesrine gun-runmng operations.

Jagar, �adimir -

JN�

�a , jane� -: Slo�en.e journalist and opposition activist, who became ence M m i ster 10 mdependent Slovenia.

��' Ka'j'uSa - Ethnic

Albanian Party Chief of Kosovo, ousted with

J0kano'' e, Zarko - A leader of student demonstrations in March 1991. ,I p. L ater I jovanovic, Vladislav - Serbian Foreign Minister.

�: e, �Orisav - Serbi. �'s representative on the Federal Presidency. Held a

t o party and pohlical posts. A close associate of Slobodan Milo�vit.

Juppe, Alain - French Foreign Minister (1994-95).

Minister in Ante MarkoviC's Government.

i Jur e, Perka - Croatia's Deputy Police Minister, 1990.

Granic, Mate - Croatian Foreign Minister - from 1993.

d

l functions, including Prime Gregurie, Franjo - HDZ official. Held severa . (1991) a Minister of Croati

Kadijevic, Veljko - Federal Defence Minister 1988-1992.

Ka� in. Jelko - Slovene Information Minister - credited with medla bl"Itz ·

unng Slovene war.

CAST OF CHARACTERS MilooevK Karadtic Radovan - Bosnia.n Serb bder from 1990. Split with The Hague in 1994. ychiatrist. Investigated by InternationalTribunal in for war crimes 1995.

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Kavaja, Burhan - Ethnic Albanian Head ofTrepfa mine, imprisoned after miners' strike in 1989.

:

Kenes, Mihalj - One of tht leader.; of thc Yogur� ' revoluri� n. MiI�viC's reliable ally in secret police - instromental m arming Serbs In Croatia.

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

Lwe, Zoran - President of FRY (from 1993), Took instructions from Milokvlc. Lobr, Sonja - Sioven� (reformed) Communist official. Mahmutcehajie, Rusmir - SDA leader - ad\'ocate of forming the Patriotic League in Bosnia. M;uoula, Braoko - JNA iral, Yugoslav Defence Minister - until 1988.

Kljujii::, Stjepan - Croat member of Bosn�an Presi ency. Advocated unified Bosnia. Rtmoved by Boba.n in 1992 - re-lOstated In 1994.

Manolic,josip - HDZ leader and, until a rift in 1994, one ofTudjman's . m05t trusted adViSOr.;.

Koljevil:, Nikola - Bosnian Serb 'Vice President'. Member of Bosnian Presidency before the w:or.

Markovic, Ante - Last Croation Federal Prime Minister 1989-91. Introduced market and, to a lesser extent, political reforms.

KoUek, Konrad - General. Commander of the JNA's Fifth Army Dimict.

Markovic, Mi�ana - Slobodall Milo�evits wife. Powerful and influential figure. Belgrade university professor.

Kormil: Iva - Croat member of Bosnian Presidency (1993). Backed Muslim-Croat federation. Kordii::, Dario - Bosnian Croat journalist - turned HVO commander. Kosclmick, Hans - German EC Mayor of Mostar from 1994. Kostil:, Snnko - Acting President of rump Yugoslavia after Croatian MesiC withdrew from the Federal Presidency, Kosril:,jugoslav - Vojvodina's representative on the Federal Presidency in 1991. Ko:tyrev, Andrei - Russian Foreign Minister. Kraj�nik. MOrOCilo - Bosnian Serb Speaker of pre-war Bosnian Parliament nicknamed Mr No for his tough st;\nce.

_

Kristan, Ivan - Slovene Chief justice of the Federal Constitutional Court

(1989).

Marrie, Milan - Knin police chief. Leader of Manitevci his own paramilitary unit in 1991. Lam 'PM' of self-styled state f Krajina.

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MaeKenrie, Lewis - Canadian UN Commander in Sarajevo (1 992). Mendiluce,jose Maria - Top UNHCR official in former Yugoslavia. Mt!iii::, Stipe - Cro�ti�·s representative on the Federal Presidency, HDZ . leader and, until a rtft In 1994, one ofTudjman's most trusted advisors. Milok\-i �, Siobodan - President of Serbia - singled out by the international c o�munny as most responsible for Yugoslavia's violent disintegration, Later pr:used for dfons towards peace. Mitevic, Di.lSan - Confidant of MilokviC and Chief of TV Belgrade. Mitsotakis, Konstantin - Greek Prime Minister (1993).

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Ia� ii:, Ratko - General. Commander of Bosnian Serb Army from I revlOusly Commander of Knin Corps.

1992.

Kronie, B�ko - Vojvodina Party official, ousted in the Ami-Bureaucratic Revolution in 1988.

Morillon, Phillipe - Commander of UN Forces in Bosnia (1993).

Kuhn, Milan - Slovene Communist Party leader who became the fim president of independent Slovenia.

Mo �na. Rah�an - Milo�ev£s token Albanian - Kosovo Pany Chid and preVIously pollee chief.

Kukanjac, Milurin - General. JNA Commander of Sarajevo.

Nambiar, Satish - General. First UN Commander in former Yugoslavia.

Lagumdtija, Zlatko

Okun, Herben - Cyrus Vance's right-hand man. Former Ambassador.

-

Bosniall (reformed) Communist leader.

xvii

CAST OF CHARACTERS

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Opocic.Jovan - Serb r:.l.bb!ero from Croatia - who later helped found SDS.

R�kovicjo"an - Founder of the Serbian Democratic Pany in Croatia. Mode rate. Eclipsed by Milan Babic.

Oric, Naser - Leader o f Srebrenica defenders from 1992. Fornler bodyguard of Milooevit.

Rainatovic, Zdjko-Arkan - Commander of fierce paramilitary unit and brieOy MP. Worked for Serbia's secret police.

Orue, Ljiljana - Saf1lljevo psychiatrist.

Redman, Ch;ules - Clinton's special envoy to peace talks (1993-94).

Owen, Lord David - EC mediator, co-chairman of the Peace Conference on former Yugoslavia (1992-95).

Rcihl-Kir,josip - Osijek regional Po lice Chief who tritd ro keep w.u from . erupting. MUJdered by HDZ extremIsts.

Panic, Zivota General. Commander of the Firs� Army Dis�rict during Vukovar operations. Later VJ Commander-in-Chlef. Purged m 1993.

Ribitic, Cirit - Slovene Communist leader.

_

Panic, Milan in 1992.

_

Belgrade-born, California millionaire. FRY Prime Minister

Pankov, Radovan - One of the leaders in the Anti-Bureaucratic revolution in Vojvodina. Minister in Serbian Government.

Rose, Sir Michael - British General. Commander of UN troops in Bosnia.

(1994-95).

Rugow, Ibrahim - Leader of Kosovo ethnic Albanians. Rupel, Dimitrij - Slovene Foreign Minister.

Paraga, Dobrosav - Founded Croatian Party of Right. Long-time nationalist Croatian dissident.

Sacirbcy, Mohammed - Bosnia's Ambassador to the UN.

Paspalj, Mile - Speaker of Krajina Assembly.

Sapunx!Uu, Riza - Kosovo's representative on the Yugoslav Presidency. sacked m 1991.

Pavclic, Ante - Leader of the Nazi-puppet Independent State of Croatia, 1941-45. Pavlovic. DragiJa - Bdgf1ll. de P1rt}' Chief and Stambolit's protege. 1'eter1e, Lojze - Slovene Prime Minister in 1990.

Scowcroft, Brtnt - Leading US for�ign policy-maker. US National Security Council - until 1992. Sei�Ij, Vojisla,: - Ultranationalist MP who commanded paramilitary unit dunng�. M �ame him his favourite politician and helpe l d him create hiS parly. Later piled him.

Pla\�ic, Biljana 'Vice-President' of sd f-prodaimed Bosnian Serb state. . Was a member of pre-w;u Bosnian PreSidency.

Skoljc,jme - Head of the Slovene Youth Organization (19119 ).

I'ohara, Armin - Journalist turned Bosanski Bred defender.

S��z.ic. Haris - Prim e Minis ter of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Form erly Foreign Mlllisier.

_

Poos, Jacques - Luxembourg·s Foreign Minister (1991). Praljak, Siobodan - Theatre director. Commander of Bosnian Croat Militia (1993).

�,?e. �edc1jko - One of tht leaders of the Anri-BureauCr:.i.ti

�i III

c revolution

oJvodllla. Part y official.

Sogorov, MiloV'lln - Vojv odina

Party Chief, ousted in 1988.

Putnik,Jote - Fonner Slovene dissident. Leader of DEMOS opposition coalition in 1990 elections.

Solevic, Miroslav - Kos ovo Serb activist.

Ratan lvica Croatian Communist leader - abandoned the last Party Congr�ss after the Slovenes. Lost 1990 elections.

the

_

R:deta, Andrija - JNA General. Deputy Commander of the Fifth Army District. XVIII

SPC� j, Martin - Croatia's first Defence Minister. Form �Ifth Army District in the er Commander of Yugoslav Army.

. \. . . 5tambolic' Iwn - Commulllst po lUCIa n. Helpeu' Milo�evic rise to powu On Iy to face betrayal . He was oust�d by his best friend in 1987.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Stambuk, Vladimir - Belgrade University Professor.Close to Mira

Vasiljevit, AleksandaJ" - Head

Markovic.

Sacked in May

Stanovnik,Jane'l - President of

Slovenia

(1988).

V ico, Ratomir -CI ?se as �iale

Stojanovic, Svetour - Serb. professor. Dobrica Cosic's dose:

advisor.

Stoltenberg, Thorvald - UN en,'O}' ro InternationalConference, replaced Cyrus Vance (1993). SlIklje, Borut

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SloveneCommunist. YugoslavCenualCommittee member.

Su!ak, Gojko -Croatia's Defence Minister. One ofTudjman's dosest allies

from

1990.

Suvar, Stipe -CroatianCommunist leader. Head �f Yugoslav Party Tasl/:, David - Mladina journalist. Arrested in 1988 for ing on military document.

head of peacekeeping.

Serbian party activist, protege of Mira MarkoviC.

Trgovtevic. Ljubinka - Member

of Scrbia's Presidency. Sided with

T rifunovic, Vlado - JNACommander. Arrested after war. TlIdjman, Fnnjo - Founding leader of theCroatian Democr:l.tic Union (HDZ) and first presidem of independentCroatia. TupllrkovslU, Vasil- Macedonian politician. Member Presidency (1991). Tus, Antun -CroatianJNA Gcneral. Took charge Forces in 1991.

of Yugoslavia's

ofCroaria's Armed

Unkovic, Slobodan - President of the Serbian Parliament van

Commander of

the

Vrhnika Barracks

VUasi, Azem - Ethnic Albanian Kosovo Parry leader. Jailed in 1989 after MilokvK pledged to arrest him at mass rally. Released in April 1990. \Vejnaendts, Henri - Dutch Ambassador to ,Carrington's deputy,

1988.

Mladi"a. Atrested as parI of Ljubljana

Zimmermann, Warren - US Ambassador 10 Yugoslavia

(1989-92).

(1991),

den Brock, Hans - Dutch Foreign Minister (1991).

Vanee,Cyrus - UN envoy and co-chairman of the PeaceConference on former Yugoslavia.

=

1994.

Zulfikarp�ic, Adil - Bosnian Muslim businessman in Switzerland

- financed SDA and signed 'Belgrade initiative'

Thornberry,Cedric - UNPROFOR civilian of6cial.

Stambolic.

Vidmar,Tone - JNA General. Deputy

(1991).

Za'TI, Franci - Editor inChief of

a Sl:cret

of Belgrade Serbian

Zubak, Krclimir -Croat President of Bosnia Federation from

Tharoor, Shashi - Special assistant to the UN

-

o f M il�cvit. Head

1991.

television. InformatIOn Mmlster.

four in

(1988-89).Croatia's representative on Federal PreSIdency 1989-90.

Todorovic, Zoran

of JNA counter-intelligence (KOS) in

1992 in purge of Gener.us.

with Milo�evic in 1991.

INTRODUCTION

ABBREVIATIONS

AP DEMOS EC EU FRY

HDZ HVO

European Community

Croatian Democratic Union Croat Council of Defence

International Monetary Fund

NOH

Mass movement in Croatia 1971 Independent State of Croatia (1941)

SOA

Party for Democratic Action

SAO

Yugoslav Peoples' Army

Serbian Autonomous Region

50S SFRJ

Serbian Democratic Party Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia

TO

Territorial Defence Force

SPS SKJ

UN UNHCR

'

European Union Federal Republic ofYugosiavia

IMF

JNA MASPOK

On that day we'll say to HI'II: 'Haveyou had enough?' And Hell will answer: 1s there more?' Toga dana mi CNIIO reii paldu: Jesi Ii se lIapuflio?' Apahao ie odgovoriti: /ma IijOir Mesa Selimovit, Dervif i Smrt

Associated Press Democratic Opposition Coalition of Slovenia

Socialist Party of Serbia League of Communists ofYugosiavia

United Nations United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees

UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force

NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION c is 'ts' as in bats

� is

'ch' as in archer

cis 'tj' as in tune

dj is 'dg' as in bridge dz is 'g' as in gentle

j is 'y' as in you lj is 'Ui' as in million nj is

'n' as in new

s is 'sh' as in sharp

1; is 'zh' as in treasure

uslim refugees flee into the woods, crowd into lorries, some are shot dead while trying to escape a Serb onslaught, Blackened skdetons of buildings form Sarajevo's skyline, Mediators and politi

M

cians wring their hands, wondering how to stop the wars in former

Yugoslavia, whose waves of wrenching violence have provoked such

public outrage. Over the past five years, these images have become familiar. They

have faithfully conveyed the anguish of the time. We wrote this book to shed light on the decisions which led to the

horror and destruction. It is an attempt to identify, disionately and

clinically, the crucial events in both the lead-up to the war and in its progress once fighting had started, and to reconstruct those events through the s of those people who took part in them - the milestones, if you like, on the road to catastrophe. It does not con demn, or condone, or justify any of the players in the unfolding

tragedy. It tries simply to relate what happened, and why, an d at whose behest. The war in Yugoslavia was not the international community's 'fault'. It was a home-baked cake. War was planned and waged by . Yugoslavs. But It was not 'historically inevitable'. To attribute the . �a1amlty that engulfed (he peoples of Yugoslavia to unstoppable forces . IS to aVOid addressing oneself to the central dynamic of the war. It is also to let the guilty mcn off the hook. And, from the point of view of Western statesmen, it also provides a justifica tion for their failure to end the war.

This book shows that Yugoslavia in part did not die a natural death b ut that, rath er, it was deliber ately and systematically killed offby men wh o had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, from a peaceful . . transitI On from state SOCt. -, a.l1sm and one-party rule, to a mark�t-based econ om and multi-party democracy. We trace the origins of the war � . to th e fiSC of S erb . -,.l1. Sm among Belgrade mtellec natlOna tuals in the ffi1 'd 19805, and the subsequent harnessing of nationalist rhetoric by .

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XXII

XXIII

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Siobodan Milo�evic. The book traces Milo5eviC's conscious use of nationalism as a vehicle to achieve power and then to strengthen his control first over Serbia, and then over Yugoslavia. His centralising,

guilt y. The foot soldiers of Yugoslavia's march to war wefC legion and wert: drawn from all the country's nationalities. i It is as well, 3.150, to state what this book is not. It is not a cr e dr cO/ur, a call to arms of the 'Save Bosnia Now' type (though we believe that Bosnia cou1d, and should, have been saved). It is not a polemic against the failure of the "Yest to protec� the w�ak � nst the strong. ' or Journalists; It IS not a 'we were And it is not a book about Journalism there and it was horrible' of life on the front line. We have charted what we believe t o be the principal stages in the country's violent disintegration. In this context - and in a (futile) effort to keep the book a manageable length, many important events have been omitted. The fate of Macedonia has been ov erlooked . Macedonia's somewhat speciftc and wider set of circumstances makes it possible to separate it from its northern neighbours. Nor have we detailed opposition movements in the various rep ubli cs . The principal

authoritarian. anti-democratic leadership, and his calculated, clever manipu1ation of the politics of ethnic imoiera!,ce, p�voked the . other nations of Yugoslavia, convincing them it was Impossible (0 stay In the

federation. If our book has a single core thesis, i t's this: that under Milo�evifs stewardship, the Serbs were, from the beginning of Yugoslavia'S disintegration, the key secessionists. . . . , . We chose to start the book with Milo�eVJc s nse to power achieved by his manipulation of the crisis in Kosovo. w..e the� pl�t how e sus . tained himself in power by provoking successive cnses In Serbia; and how he extended his power base beyond the borders of his own repub lic. Finally by arming Serb communities ?utside Se:bia, h� was �ble to present the o ther nations in Yugoslavia, time after time, With a sImple, sinister choice: either stay in Yugoslavia on my , or ftg ht a war against the Serbs. Presid�nt Mila Kubn of Sloven ia. and Pres dent Franjo Tudjman of Croatia took h i S c hall enge . Slo.v enta w�n a ltght in vain that the mternattOnal combelieved Croatia while 'war' ning

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munity wou1d come to its rescue. . In the run-up to war, Milosevic and Tudjman began to Jostle for a better position in their battle for the spoils of Yugo�lavia.It be�n

with talks about the partirion of Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia, at the expense of the Muslims. The Muslims, .unprepared for. war, were the biggest victims - the traces of their culrural henta�, mosques and graves obliterated. Minarets, Orthodox and Catholic churches jumbled together for cenruries wimessed the end of the peaceful coexistence of the three communities. W hen internationa1 mediators entered the fray, they behaved as though war were self-evidendy futile and irrariona1; all they needed to do was to persuade the 'warring factions' of this trui s� and, once t e scales had fallen from their eyes, the guns would fall Silent. They did not see (or chose not to) t hat war for many ofYugo slavia's leaders had become a profoundly rational course of action. Milo�evic, like many other rulers in h istory, had used nationalism for his own ends. He was never a nationalist. He had fanned the fires of nationalism when it suited him. He was a pragmatist with :l simple calculation. Unbridled nationalism - even war - would give him the power to rule unchaJlenged over as big a country as possible. This is not to say that Milo�evic was uniquely malign or solely

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xxiv

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actors in this disaster have been its leaders. We have tried to lay bare the dynamics of the war by isolating the crucial events, the secret meetings, the hidden de ci si ons, and by nam

ing the men whose actions led - sometimes by accident, sometimes by design - to war. Working with Brian Lapping Associates, hundreds of interviews have been conducted. As a rule quoted p er sonal recollec tions are taken from those inte!Views or from our reporting unless otherwise specified. The first Yugoslav state was created after World War One on the smoulderng ruins of the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires. It was called at Its foundation the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and was only later rechristened Yugoslavia. It was ruled by the Serbian dynasty . KaradjordjeviC, and embodied the nineteenth-cenrury dream of uruty for t e South Slavic people s Guzni slaveni), which had been nurrured by mtcllecruals of all the South Slav nationa1ities who yeamed for liberation from foreig n - [hat is to say Austri and . Ottoman - domma . t·Ion. The young Y ugoslav monarchy qUICkl y �came a Serbian dictatorsh ip. Croat intellectuals in particu1ar ini"illy enthusia��t .. . ' · about the Y ugos'av 1·dcal, grew disillUS IC . ioned and embittered.

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kn Josip Br�z, a locksmith who was half Slovene and half Croat was own

�o hiS army powers Invaded an d . enemies Germans, . mo

narchists

of Partisan guerillas as Tito. In 1941 the Axis . . parttt .LOnc d Yugos,aVla . . Tlto counted among his . . n f ascist s (Ustak) Ita,lans, Croatla and Serb (Chetfit·ks) . C ommufit. st Yugosla via was declared on 29

'

INTRODUCTION

November, 1943 at Jajce in central Bosnia, and reborn twO years later. In 1945, the Soviet Army iberated l most of Eastern Europe from German occupation and Moscow installed Communist governments in Bertin, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest. The Yugoslavs had, however, substantially liberated themselves. Though Tiro rcmained committed to the Soviet way, he was the only post-war Communist l�ade� who had built his position from the bottom up. From Moscow s pomt of view, he was dangerously independent. Yugoslavia was expeUed from the common institutions of the eastern bloc in 1948. After the split with Moscow, Tito steered Yugoslavia between e�t and west. He was feted in Cold War western Europe, as an antl Moscow Communist. He used the country's unique position to secure financial backing, and a prosperity that was beyond its means. Throughout his stewardship ofYugoslavia, Tito tried to prevent his state from suffering the same fate as its predecessor. The Serbs were the biggest nation - twice as populous as the second largest, the Croats. Successive post-war constitutions were designed to balance institutional power between the constituent republics, to prevent the stale falling under the hegemony of one nation. In his eternal battle to keep the republics on equal footing, Tito. who was made president for life, carried out pu�s fIrSt of the Serbs, then the Croats, or the Muslims. By 1974, at least on paper, the coun try was decentralised to an unprecedented extent. Yet while Tito was alive there were no illusions about who held the reigns of power. It was a one-party state under one man's control. There was a pay-off; Yugoslavs were allowed to travel, to work abroad. and they did not suffer the same darkness as life in the USSR and the eastern bloc. Wary of appointing a successor. Tito created a hopelessly ineffi cient heir, the collective head-of-state - an eight-man presidency from each of the six republics and Serbia's twO autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina. Yugoslavia had a federal parliament, six republican parliaments and t\vo provincial parliaments. Government institutions had been established but it was the Communist Party (or Parties) that mattered. There were ten Communist parcies - one for each of the six republics and two provinces, one federal party and the party of Yugoslav People's Army. . . . When Tito's health began to decline, the federal party IOstltutlOns declined with him. Yugoslavia became a country composed of eight republican or provincial Communist parties and the secret poice. l When he died, at the age of eighty-eight, in May 1980, there was a xxvi

INTRODUCTION

genuine outpouring of patriotic grief among all Yugoslavia's nations. The ethnic Albanian Communist functionary, Mahmut Bakalli, later ed. 'We all cried, but we did not know we were burying Yugoslavia.' Finally this book is a lament to the failed promise of Yugoslavia. As Communism declined in the late 1980s. it was, in many ways, better placed than any mher
XX"fJii

PART ONE: LAYING THE CHARGE 1 'THIS IS OUR LAND'

The Stirring ofStrb Nationalism

of all nationalists in Yugoslavia to put their vision t was the dreamand then make it a reality. They knew their plans paper on Icoulddownnot be e ted imm ediately, hut they were content to wait. The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts remains shrouded in mystery nearly a decade after its existence was revealed. Was the Memorandum an attempt to settle political scores in Serbia? l oSevit, the ambitious Party chief, avoid taking How did Slobodan Mi revival of Serbian nationalism the first step this Was a public stand? avia? Yugosl bering dismem towards In this rough document, a cabal of Serbian academics1 had cata logued chelf nat ionalist grievances. They had not yet intended to publish it, but somehow this unfmished draft appeared in the press. Set against the savagery of the next decade, the Memorandum now seems pale and hackneyed, but, when excerpts were published on 24 September, 1986, in Vr{trnjt NavoSli, the mass-circulation daily, it was a political bombshell. The country was convulsed. Serbs were in such an unjust position in post-Second World War Yugoslavia, argued the document, that their very existence was threat ened. They were the victims of economic and political discrimination by their Croat and Slovene countrymen. Serbs had made the greatest military contri bution (and suffered the most casualties) over the last c�ntury and, far from being rewarded, were being punished in peace time. The Serb nationalist convinion that it had always been the Serbs' fate to 'win the war and lose the peace ,' was gai ning popular currency. For the Serbs in Kosovo and the Memorandum aI1e�.d, the situation was even worse. InCroatia, Kosovo and Metohija, the traditIOnal Serbian name for t he republic's southern province, Serbs fac�d total �enocidc . It said they were facing the greatest defeat in . �elr liberation struggle waged since 1804, the Serb revolt ag inst the urks. The status of Serbs in Kosovo had long been a subject of resent ent in Serbia, but the draft Memorandum went a step further, � SOunding the alarm about the position of Serbs in the other republics: ex cu

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LAYING THE CHARGE

iH1S IS OUR LAND'

Exupt during the period of the NDH (the 1ndeprndmt Stale of Croatia, prodaimid in 1941 by the pro-N azi Ustale), Srrbs in Croatia haw ntiHr bun as tndangertd as thty are today. The rtJollition of tbtir national status must be a top priority political question. If a solution is not found, the r�nsequ�nr� s will �t damaging on many It'Vtls, not onlyfor re/allons wlthm CroatIa bllt alsofor all of YugOJlavirr.

mythical statuS was ensured i� 1968. �hen he .was expelled f�om the Central Committee for accuslOg ethmc .AJbamans . of separatism and anti-Serbian �ntiments. In the �970s, dlsgruntle� mtellectuals rallied around him. Cosic held clandestlOe monthly meetings on the need for democratic reform in Yugoslavia. The police watched him constantly, but he was never arrested. He called this 'pragmatic tyranny'. To imprison him would have becn counter-productive.

Yugoslavia, in its present form, was no longer an adequate solution to the Serbian question. The Memorandum argued that the country was disintegrating, and that forty per cent of Serbs had been left languishing beyond the frontiers of the mother.land. Th� . blame, it said, rested with the Comintern legacy, the national polmcs of the Yugoslav League of Communists, and their faithful and ig�orant Serbian followers. The seventy-four-page tract accused Siovema and Croatia ofconspiring against Serbia. The campaign had been allegedly spearheaded byTito himself and Kardelj, the Slovene architect of Self Management: Yugoslavia's own brand of socialism, based on the concept of social rather than state ownership). . . . m£1u consIderable Serbia's Academy of Sciences and Arts Wielded ence. Removed from the public gaze, along with the Writers' Union, it was one of few institutions not totally controlled by the Communist Party. In Croatia and Slovenia, these twO organisations had a similar status. In Serbia, part of the intelligentsia had enjoyed a century-long tradition of comfortable coexistence with the rulers of the day. Memoranda had been used as a means of political communication in Serbian history. In writing their's, the nationalist academics were drawing on a Serbian tradition that pre-dated Yugoslavia. Dobrica Cosic, the writer seen as spiritual father of the Serb nation, denied that hc contributed to the Memorandum. It is, however, the undoubted distillation of his ideas, and he defended it when it came under attack'. A member of the Academy, Cosic went so far as to explain, rather unconvincingly, that the Memorandum was not 'nationalist' but 'anti-Tito and pro-Yugoslav'. An icon for Serbian dissidents, Cosic, silver-haired and bespec tacled, spoke in the accent of a Serbian peasant. His quiet manner �id not mask his belief, and that of his fellow nationalists, in the authonty of his message. D�spite having been the powerful cultural ideol?�e in Tito's regime, Cosic is credited with making sure that SOCialist Realism - the mandatory form of expression elsewhere in Eastern Europe - was not enforced in Communist Yugoslavia. His almost JO

The President of Serbia, Ivan Stambolic, heard secret police reports that the Academy had undertaken a covert project, but was told that it consisted simply of a socio-economic assessment of the current situation. However, when the Memorandum was made public in September 1986, its contents shocked even the Belgrade leadership. Stambolic and his protege, Dragi�a Pavlovic, the Belgrade Party chief whose domain traditionally included the media, roundly denounced the document. For Stamboic, l a Serbian nationalist in the eyes of Croats and Slovenes, but accused of being too soft by Serbian hardliners, the Memorandum was an ominous indication of rising chauvinism. He called it a requiem for Yugoslavia. The Academy assailed the federation for dividing rather than uniting Serbs, which, according to Stambolic, rurned the country's biggest nation into its most dangerous. The fact that the Memorandum lambasted the Serbian leadership for arrogance and inaction spurred Stambolic to respond. He was depicted as totally ineffectual and ripe for removal. The �t Memorandum did not create nationalism, it simply tapped sentIments that ran deep among the Serbs, but which suppresse� and, as a result, exacerbated by Communism. were Academy 5 �ct echoed opinions whispered throughout Serbia. The The Serbian press outdid the other republics in the severity of its �tt.acks on the Mem orandum and the Academy. Indeed, the Slovene .�Y' D"ev�ik, p�sed the Belgrade media for its determination to get ''. °f natJo nalism. Croatian politicians bashed the document. L. Iberals, who dIsagree · the text itself, ed the Academy's ' WIth . m�nd.dIn h speak Its �� . s the midst of the political furore, only a tiny of AcademiCian the docu . spoke Out agai . nst . men Throughout YugosI aVla, . t. . C ommu msts hurled IOvect lve agalOst the M:mo'a?dum and the Academy. Except for Milo§evic. The leader of th... Serblan Commum· st p . ated arty, wh0 usually castig anyone who dev,·" ed eiTom the 0ffi!CIa ' I I·me, remamed Silent · . He let others speak in . ' ' his pIace, making ure he document was condemned - this was' after 011, h·IS duty - but sh' . expressio Ied away from a publiC n of his views. .

LAYING THE CHARGE

'THIS IS OUR LAND'

At a session of the Belgrade Party, Du�an Mitevic, a close friend of Milo�evic and his wife Mi�ana, denounced the Memorandum as dangerous for Yugoslavia and the Serbian nation. The fact that ?U . speech was carried as a commentary 10 t�e S�te-ru� Belgrade daily, Po/ifili.Q, meant that Milo�evic supponed It. Mllokvte also made sure . . the speech was distributed at a Party meeting . . to find out why Mltevte on pressure Stambolic and Pavlovic put . that there was answered ic 'Milokv Milo�vic was keeping silent to th confu add to want not id d he and discussion much already too � ing a plays usually who player role ootball f a like is He sion. but then scores the goals,' said Mitevie, then a city Party official.

nation by their big brothe�. which feared domi . . W'th the promulgat ion of the 1974 constlnltlon, Serblas position l . a succession preoccupied ofleaderships6 The question _1... m" 'e federation " concern. Although f the statuS of Kosovo became the most pressmg , Kosovo was regarded by Se.rhs as the cradle : nery per cent Albanian of their civilisation. It was the seat of the Serbian church, the Patriarchate at Pee. Serbian politicians and intellecruals have wrestled

Cracks were appearing in StamboliC's twenry-five-year friendship with Milo�evic. But Stambolic failed to appreciate the extent of the danger until their fateful showdown at the Eigh�h Session of the Serbian League of Communists. Promoted by his powerful uncle Petar, Ivan Stambolic had engineered �ilo�eviC's adv�ncemenr to the post of Party chief. In the style of a typiCal Commurust ru�er, he h�

silenced dissent within the leadership over the promotIOn of hiS friend, who was then litde more than the colourless head ofTehnogas, a state fuel company. At the time, Stambolic justified the purge as an attempt to revitalize the Party with fresh blood. At the age of fifty,

Stambolic was stepping down from the more powerful Party leader ship to become Serbian president. He wanted to devote himself to changing the constirutions. . The Yugoslav constitution, adopted in 1974, devolved substanbal power to Yugoslavia's six republics, giving each a central bank, sep�� educational and judicial systems. h gave the same to Serb� s l poice,

two provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina. The provinces elected �epuues to the Serbian parliamem, as well as having their own asse�bhes.. tWO provinces were made constituent of[he fede'?"tlon, glvmg their leaders seats on Yugoslavia'S rotating presidency, which assumed power when Tiro died. On several occasions, they sided 'vi�h the other . republics against Serbia. In this way, the enormous dispanty between Serbia and the other republics was diminished. Serbia was no longer

�

a republic of ten million people, more than twice that of the

biggest republic, Croatia. By virrually abolishing Belgrade's ,u.,horil)' over Kosovo and Vojvodina, the constirution cut Serbia, now a manageable population of six: million, down to size. Serbs complained that the expression 'weak Serbia - strong

;��;��

embodied the attitude of their countrymen. While the � gave Serbs something to gripe about, it also calmed the other

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for more than a century with the thorny question of Kosovo'. The balance of power had already shifted dramatically in the southern province when Tiro's hard-line interior minister, A1eksandar . Rankovic, was ousted 10 19668. Over the next twenty years, and especially after 1974, ethnic Albanians ruled the roost, holding most

positions of power in the province. In the autumn of 1981, a year after Tito's death, ethnic Albanians took to the streets, demanding independence from Serbia and that Kosovo become the sevemh republic. The protests were crushed by the Yugoslav Army and federal police. While the province's powers almost matched those of the republics, they stopped short of the right to secede, which the republics arguably enjoyed. Of course, a decade later in Croatia it would become clear that the right of secession was little more than notiona�, impossible to exercise witho ut bloodshed. Secretly encouraged by Cosie, a group of Kosov o Serbs dissatisfied .their position began to organize. 'They complained about their pos.mon and I ad�s�d �em t� write a petition and to put forward � , their de�ands, SaId COSIC. Bur Cosic was not their only . They ha� � silen� backer_ - the Serbian government. A trio of local Serb acoVJS�, M lfOslav Solevic, Kosta Bulatovic and Botko Budimirovic �n clfL1Jlated their frnt protest petition. It attra cted just seventy-sV: sl&I:'atures. But, later , they were to garner wider public with � � � fre qu�?tly repeated simple message: 'This is our land. If Koso vo o etohiJa are not Serbian then we don't have any land ofour own'. ve� the ncxt four year s, a motley protest group calli ng itself the ommlttee of Serbs " " and Montcnegnn " s sought to Igmte Serb emotions. Tney old tales ofwoe - ofbeing forced ro move under pressure of "pes an , d harassmem9. In " ' , the group easil 1986 y collected more than 50 000 Signatures ' from Serbs calling for a chan ge in Kosovo" Even though the secret poI"Ice had mfil " rT:l.ted Sole the Party vie's organisation � [��:�s had nOt yet take n the movement un�er its wing: On 2 Apr . . BulatovlC. was rres ted In Kosovo PolJe - and the police questi ' � oned him regularly 10 the months that crOnies followed. His Went to Be1grad e for help. Late that night, they met the

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LAYING THE CHARGE

·Tl·IIS IS OUR LAND'

dissident nationalist writer, Vuk Draskovii::, in the Hotel r.1�,d,,� Draskovii:: took them to meet Cosii:: in the nearby Hotel told them to come later to his house in the exclusive B::�:;�::::: of Dedinje, where the Communist establishment rubs

foreign diplomats. . Budimirovic noticed that Cosie was shaking visibly, as he greettd. the Kosovo activists by the front gate. It was midnight. Inside, he guided his guests to the cellar, where dusty books lined the walls. They sat there until two o'clock in the morning:

Thry (am� to m� in fh� ullar and w� agrud bow thry should strugg/�, what tJuy should do, and whichforms ofmntanu thry should offir. I helpd them in everything they did. I co-operatd with them in their illegal struggle. Cosie rang Dtffian Ckrebic, the Serbian President. The n� morning

at eight o'clock, he received the delegation in Parliament.Ckrebit told

tm , U them: 'This is where you should be. Not where you were last m',

a key moment. No longer would the movement be 'onfinc� underground. The Communists were about to hijack the nationalists' cause. Recognizing its usefulness, official Serbia began irs he,d10"l1

was

and ultimately disastrous descent into nationalism. It tapped a scam of national grievance, officially stifled but privately nurtured

decades. Its primitive appeal, the Communist leadership believed. would revive Serbia's stagnating poli i cal and economic system. Eight

t

months after the Memorandum sent shock-waves throughout the

country, its basic message was beginning to take root.

1 The Serbian economist Kom. Mihajlovic, who later became one MilokviC's closesl advisors, is widdy believed to be the Memorandum's author. While he never acknowledged lIul he wrote the papers he published later contained an identical ntionale. 2 Memorandum, p.64. 3 Celebrated as a monumental achievement in the Socialist world, Management was actually a convoluted syslem based on 'social .. bY '" meaning factories are owned by workers and their councils rather ,h, state, �ut in fact it was very difficult to define who owned what. 4 Cosi':: was active in the Committee for Freedom of Speech defended those throughout Yugoslavia, who were prosecuted for their cal views. The accused would later becO ' ' WhO " WhO Of th' 1 : � � �;� : Yugoslavia. Franjo Tudjman, arrested for ::: � led for become Croatian President; Alija Izctbegovic, : � , jai

President of Bosnia in 1990; Vojislav Seklj, Serbian nlism would become paramilitary and MPj and Dobroslav Paraga, a Croat extremist ist national ultra etc. and paT2military leader, once over a fish dinner with Kardelj, even he, the S Stambolit recalled that arclJitcct of the constitution, itted it caused problems for Serbia. Seen as Tito's heir apparent until he died in 1979, Kardclj said Stambolic and his comrades should work towards changing the constitution. But by Tito's death in 1980, no progress had been made, and afterwards the question was shelved. A Yugoslav ideologue from Slovenia, Karddj also tried to reassure Srambolit that the country would survive without him and Tiro. 'Whoever a\Tllcks the equ�ty of nations, the federated �t-up, whoever attempts to take away the factones !ffim Ihe '."'orkers: or to raIse the question of Yugoslavia's independence we II break hIS neck! 6 Yugoslavia promulgated three constitulions in the post-Second World 946, 1%3,.and 1974. Until 197�. the question of regulating rela . WIth nons m Tltos YugoslaVIa was a key tOpiC a multitude of constitutional amendments a90pted in the meantime. 7 Dobri�a Cosie and other �.embcrs of �is nati�nalist dissident clique . secretly deVlud a scheme to partlllon the prOVInce, gIVIng Serbia its treasured Orthodox monasteries. The remainder would be handed to the Albanians lea�ng them free. to unite with their kinsmen across the border in Albania: toslt never u nve iled his plan. insisting the public was not r eady [0 give u P even part of Kosovo. 8 Ale�andar Rankovic was expeUed from the Yugoslav League of Co�mu�SIS on 1 July, 1966, for abu5t of power in the secret police, i.e. wire tappmg�ltO. In Kosovo, Rankovifs name was synonymous among Alba nians a.felgn �fte or. For Serbs, he ruled with a mong hand and kept a lid on � n natl n sm. When he died on 20 August, 1983, tens of thousands of �� '"'"�� the funeral in what became the first mass-prot est about the .�."s 0f Serbs 10 Kosovo and Yugos ,_.,' I aVla " III general. The turn-out signa . lled the .s f sm. �va? Stambolic, then �: �; Bdgrade City Chief, said: 'All . acro go �;: ey cfltlc lzed me for not controlling it should I have P"' tanks round the cem elery?' 9 In fact, statistics l' d'lcate that th e Illcld ' , ence of rape was much lowc KoSOVo than eIsewhere �In r in Yugoslavia. -

"!ar �ri�: �

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'NO ONE SHOULD DARE TO BEAT YOU'

2

happening. He watched the crowd from the _.I to sec what was ntcu wa ownstalfS what was to beeorne one of d · to gIVe · in g g o Y before bat c areer. 'No one should dare to beat es ofhi c spe rtant � . St impo � � the a modern Serb rallying call. cOlOlOg unwIttingly u ' he bellowed, the croW ? outSide started chanting: changed, suddenly mood '510bo 510bo'. 'This sentence enthroned him as a tsar,' saidSolevic. He J'oked �hat Milosevic was, in fact, telling the police that no-one had the right to attack them when he unered the phrase that would secure his mythical status among Serbs. �ut, as Solevic itted. with a deep . . laugh, mere was not a smgle policeman who did not get a �ating that night. By parking the truck full of stones, the Kosovo Serbs had had

:: ��


i ofSlobodan Milofevif The Rse Apri/1987-Deumber 1987

here was nothing about the Serbian Comm�nist leader's visit to Kosovo Poljc on 24 April, 1987, to suggest It would change course of history. Bm for the rust time Slobodan Milo�vic donned the mantic of protector of all Serbs. It was a stroke of good fortune for

T

the young Party chief. The Serbian President, Stambolic, should have gone to Kosovo himself for talks with loca1 1eaders, but casually Sent Milo�cvic in his place. It was a careless move which set in motion a

train of events that would cost him his career. On the eve of the trip. MiloSeviC's wife, Mirjana Markovic, a pro fessor of Marxism at Belgrade University, feared for her husband', safety. 'Mira was frightened for him, and with reason,' their cloac friend Du�an Mitevic claimed. 'There had been reports from the police that it wasn't safe. An advert in the Albanian emigre press had been published. putting a price on his head. I offered to go down with him to comfort Mirjana, but Slobodan phoned the next morning to say the� was no need'. Galvanized by the fact that Belgrade was finally paying attention to their plight, rhousands oflocal Serbs pressed forward, trying to s� the P2rty leader s hand as he entered the drab House of Culrure lD Kosovo Polje. Frantic to gain his anention, demonsrrators screamed about Albanian oppression. While Mil�vic met local Serb represen ta6ves, police, fearing violence. used batons to drive the crowd The protestors chanted: 'Murderers.' and 'We arc Tiro's, Tito is Suddenly, people started hurling rocks - seized from a
meir weapons ready. Milo�eviC's speech set the tone. Speaker after speaker attacked the

ethnic Albanian Party leaders, calling for a state of emergency, for the abolition of Kosovo's autonomy, and even the expulsion of Albanians.

They warned they would abandon Kosovo, that their lives were in danger at the hands of their Albanian neighbours. For the first time, Milokvic fdt the pull of the masses.

You shouldstay here. This isYOllr land. Thtu artyour houus. YOllr mtadows and gardtns. Your mtmoriu. YOII shou ldn t abandon you: I�n just bmlll$( its difficult to /iw, Imallstyou artprmuud by m)ust,u �nd dl!gradation. It was ne'{Jtrpart oftht Strbian and ��nltntgnn ,horacttr togivt lip in thl!fou ofobllac/tS, 10 dtmo b,lru whtn ils liml! tojight... YOII should stay htrtfo r IbI! salu of youranuslors and dt«mdnnls. Olmrws i tyour anuslors wouldbt dtfiltdanddtsundanfs disappoinled Bul l don� suggtst thaiyou Slay. tndurt, and toltralt a situation yourt not satisfitd wilh. On fht (onlTary, you s uld 'h ngt il wilh fht WI ofllu progwsivt � proplt htu, In StTb'a and In Y ugos/ll'fJia.

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increasingly frequent demonstrations by Kosovo Serbs. . Apparently shaken by the screaming outside, Milo�evic Said

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at da in Kosovo Polje , VUasi advised Milo�evic to distance him . t e blgotcd tirade. 'But he never said anything. ' The stormy sess'Ion lit stcd all night If . _uze M· 1 I � I o�e\llc I ' d he could become the re-. . . ' most powerlUI man m YugoslaVla · · by pIaymg · on the dIscont ent of the Kosovo Serbs, he wa . s glving litt!e away. Blit t e h whole episode had provided h1m " Wlth a . . ready formuIa Ior rousm g nationa list sentiments. o�eVlC was tra ns�ormed, set a. Ire y fi b Kosovo,' said Ivan Stambolic• the Serb. . lan Presl'dent and t c_ h en-u ndisputed leader of T �rbia . he t . wo men had been Vlftu II · a y mseparable for twenty-five )'ears. They had met as first-year studc:nts at the Law Faculty of se

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LAYlNG THE CHARGE


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Belgrade University. Both were from provincial Se�bia, both ambitious, diligent and bright. Ivan had ,,:,or�ed hiS way university, and helped Slobodan get his flISt Job In �e ( . ntxt twO decades, he made sure his friend followed In his f",,,s",•. I� time, they became an awesome political duo. . Stambolic had already visited Kosovo on 6 Apnl, 1986, when than 10 000 local Serbs gathered to protest against the arrest of activist, Bu1atovic. A year later, aware thal the simation cou1d over, Stambolic gave his protege, MiloScviC, advice before he Belgrade: 'Be careful, keep a cool head!' Despatching Milosevic to Kosovo was the first of StamboliC's mistakes. The bedraggled, and increasingly radical K�sovo ;' . forgave him for not taking the� serio�sly. �h�n MlloSev u: . pilgrimage, his friend, Stambohc, forfeited hiS nght to be their leader. It would soon become clear that whoever commanded them become the leader of all Serbs. After Milo�evies visit, the Kosovo Serbs found themselves the centre of attention. For Du�an Deputy Director of Television Belgrade, and a propaganda was a simple task to generate popular interest. 'We s�owed M ' . promise over and over again on the T�. And �hlS IS what . him'. The message found fertile ground In SerbIa. But Milo�evies 'conversion' to nationalism was not a chance He had been to Kosovo four days earlier to meet Communist o,",lolt. The visit was conveniently forgotten, giving the impression Friday's events were entirely spontaneous. At the first meering, . . Serb activists rallied 2000 people and many accused Mllooev1C refusing to address their grievances. 'Comrade ' monologue, but we invited you for a dialogue, 'We want you to come again: MiloScvic agreed to return at five on Friday. . Over the next few days. Milosevic's minions were busy . preparations. 'MiloSeviC sent a senior party official to Kosovo Poljt the Tuesday and Wednesday to stir things up,' said Vllasi. 'He . down unofficially, without ing me, and talked to $oleVlc the others. They devised way to get the masses there.' The Party chief realized the visit was of great importance to the leadership. 'We knew about it from our intelligence sources fact that the Belgrade merna and TV were aU prepared to come for this special event. Local TV usually covered the�e thin�2: . Before the April visit, Milosevic had shown little mterest 10 the uation in Kosovo, or, for that matter, in moves to change the

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i��

a

. he could ronstlw.."on . He then realized that, by seizing this agenda, . Through leader pressure Serbian d lobby an mg over the the . become . able stack 10 were the deck placemen agamst Stambolit. his summer, , . . £1ft between us 'Following Milo�eviC s speech al Kosovo PoIJe, the . grew d"per. There were no longer two currents In one party. There were now twO policies," sald S tamb0I"IC. Milo!eviC made his next move. H� arr�ng�d for a session of the yugoslav Communist P:u:,ty o� the slmanon to Kosovo. �n 16 June. . 1987, Milo!eviC showed Solevlc an advance copy of an mtroductory speech, reassuring h�� that it would be �ufficient1y to�gh on the Albanians. But SO(eVIC feared that the deputIes from Croatia, Slovenia or Kosovo might block ir. In order to make their point, 3000 Kosovo Serbs gathered in Pioneer Park, across from the federal parliament, in the heart of Belgrade. Public demonstrations were a major event. The political and military establishment was on edge. In the absence of volunteers, Ivica Ra�an, a Croatian member of the Yugoslav Party leadership, was sent to calm the crowds. Serbian leaders were pleased that Croatia would now see that Kosovo was not just Serbia's problem, bur that it warranted attention from the top ranks ofYugoslavia's leadership. Later that night, Raean and Solevic sat in the Belgrade city hall. One hundred metres away, the crowd hurled invective at the country's lead�r:s, calling them thieves and monkeys. The Serbs screamed for the aboli�o". of Kosovo's autonomy. Ra�a n considered it one of the most . humiliating episodes of his life, and one which revealed the malicious ature ofMilos:evic's politics. Afte r hours of heated talks. the Kosovo erbs agreed to leave Bel rade . But the crowd had delivered an unmisg �ble �es ge - the sheer power of their numbers could easily � dI Srupt daily hf e. MiioSevlC understood what it meant. For the fmt time he saw that gry �owd could unse "' , "' ttle the Yugoslav leadership. He mrn Sa mboije and ed to . saJ'd'. 'The f:atherland IS under threat'. Stambolic was astounded and ask ed what the matter was. He saw that Milo�eviC was ng. It struck Stam" b 0 Ie . I" as a deCISl ' ve alar that's how It ming moment. 'And ' all be"" n fhC natlOnaIIsts ' ran into grabbed h his embrace. They .b- , · . 1'm. He d ldn t really enJo y It very. much. But he knew that it Was politically very profitable: . The lure of nationalism ha Clans. At t . d aiways dangled before Serbian politiun' ...s, t he y had flme ' h It ' to bolster popu d Wit lar .

;

shaki

.

.

.

39

LAYING THE CHARGE


Stambolic - a product of the old Communist regime � had shunned it, believing it too dangerous to tamper wit�.. Milo�CVIc sense� early on that the promise of change was an ehxu. Serbs. were tued or the seemingly endless discussion about Kosovo. w�lch �ad made the Serbian leadership seem incompetent. When Mllo�eviC resolute action, he won immense popular . By
situation in KOfO'lJO il llOt improving with th( IUUj....L. . J uc g(nerol I 7 . a dfllIgtrprommd fp....t ",JIj '"II crratmg ' dnired or tasily r ian atrno1phtrt ill which .ro."'y ,,!(ml spokrn . agaiml. St

:;tiolla/ism si sten as gWlllg m

40

.

�

to Albaman nallonolum. plolivt words bring nothing but jirt... tIN rang' ofpossibl, so/utiotU for KosO'lJO has now bUll 1IflrrDW,d dtlWn to JUch an xttnt that the smollot mistake, ('f)(n mmle in goodfaith, (ould be not only for Serbs and MO'�/rnrgr /ns in Kos()W, ;or tIN also for tM baSI( stab,ht y ojYugoslavlO. but Serbian lIation,

:

to

twO

...

;ragic

Without naming him, Pavlovic was sounding a battle cry against Milo�eviC, and drawing the front line in Serbian politics. Pavlovic thought his warning would be enough to sober up the media and send message to Milo�evic and his allies that they were courting disaster. Unfortunately for Pavlovic, courting disaster was part of Milo�eviC's strategy. At home, Slobodan was relaxed. Sitting in his living room, on the table, he told Mitevic: 'We'll take care of this on Mondahisy'. feet He and Mitjana then set offfor a weekend at their villa in the south-eastern Serbian town ofPozarevac, where they had grown up together. Siobodan and Mi�ana watched the Pavlovic preSS conference on television. She saw it as an attem pt to denigrate her husband. She �us� Pavlovic of trying to destroy the 'frail hope ' her husband had !lvcn these poor, oppressed people', the Serbs of Koso The Milo�evits were extraordinarily attached to eachvo.other From their school days Pozarevac, Slobodan and Mi�ana were in�e para ble. The fact thatineach had suff ered cons ider able trag edie s may �ugh[ them together. They were both children of the Seco have Slobod ' father sru
n:R

Vist, k .,_ • .. v -] _

_ L

10

WIT

lfiS I

.

an

IS

,

"

4'

LAYlNG THE CHARGE


shot as a traitor to the Party in 1942, at the height ofwar in Belgr,1d..

<0,"',.....

The details remain unclear, but, under interrogation and divulgcd the names of her comrades5• Baby Mirjana's father was a tisan chief, who became Party boss of Serbia after the war, and

ried, leaving his daughter [Q be raised by her grandparents. Mira summers with her father on the Adriatic island of Brioni, where

hand-picked Communist elite and their families took their holidays. During the weekend, Mira and Siobodan planned a

attack. A cavalier Mi1�evK: knew that the key media were under his control. Two days later, Politika Ehprts launched a ing attack against Pavlovic. The commentary accused him of de""".,

��:-;;:��:��:

. ed every member of the Presidency to find out who allies h.ad to side with whom. They believed they could win. was gomg

Milo�evi� scored a key political victory, Forry-mne people spoke at the two-day the right to vote. The first item set the had twenty sesSIon but only . L_I: f t In the na.Jve ucue meet ing. hat he still widded of the tone for the rest On

I , who was usuaUy servile towards the Communist leader, now tried avoid him. When they fmally spoke, Stambolic found him cold arrogant. It became dear whose side Minovic was on when

reprinted the article damning Pavlovic.

Determined to fight back, Pavlovic told Stambolic he would

meeting of the Belgrade Party leadership. It seemed a good

Stambolic, who now feared for his own political future. He letter ing his friend, an act which would rerum to haunt 11 would, he said, 'fInish off my political life'. Nevcrtheless, the may have helped to win over the Belgrade Party

party session, most of the forty-fIVe

Howcver, his victory was short-lived. of the Serbian Party presidency and

sided with . . . ,

At

to announce that the matter was not fuushed.The more powerful dency of the Serbian Central Committee would meet the next

'examine the case of Dragisa PavloviC'. MiloreviC had trumped

Even some of Mil�eviC's ers were taken aback by

quickly he was closing in for the kill. 'In Communist . you are on the Central Committee agenda,' said Du�an MiteVlC, is an eighty per cent chance that you're dead.'

As soon as he heard about the session, Stambolic rang Milo'" He said he felt personally threatened by the agenda. 'He told me

to worry - there was no problem in it for me.'

. ltty. Despite the warning signs, Stambolic refused to face rea thought he had enough , but Milo�evic and his most

September,

1987,

authority, Stambolic said:

I wouldpropou ant oth" thing: Itt" not br angry, brClluJi it is not so important. It would bt goodfor Sloba and DragiJa to mittfor coffit nxry dayfor a half-hollr. Or let thtm drink Itmonadr. But Ihey should !nUl lo ovl:fcomr thi diffiwltitS; I know proplt, and 1 wll i not acctpt they cannotfind human solutions. I will not acupt that.

ing Serbian and Yugoslav unity. It was attributed to an editor but in fact, written by Mira MarkoviC>. The unprecedented ferocity of the n"N;I " '

Serbian President, Stambolic. He wanted to editor of the most influential Serbian daily,

18

p�1. din_g over the Session.

Milo�evic showed no merc)" cutting short Stambolic and his pathetic attempts at reconciliation.

This 9utstion ca� not br minimiztd by dtlcribing it as a ptrsonal . con ' c(, as two kid havmg a squobblr... This s i notptrsonol ani s ,!,OSlty or sympathy and thm art not things that call bt simplifird In that mannrr.

fl.

In th�s t:nse atmosphere, Milo �evic was called to the phone. Mira to her husband recount the meering sounding WlCC rttI n and n�rvous. 'Theres ' o going back now,' she said, , 'you're tooTh �d. WIth that Mi.lo�e � Vle rerurned to the ring . , " rught Mil0�eV}( . . s fncn · ds, most of whom were also . of th ncy, �thered at the �i l �eviCs's modest flat in cent : e 'Be ral M il "" . dIscussed Ihe r next move. u:o<:\IJC Sal·d�It was very d·ffi seSSIon, plannmg thei . I IC U 1 t, that he was very d Isappointed with some pea Ie, hat he couldn't be iev l e what some people M it-':.< B P . t said ' said ut It was M·neVI·c . ...v "". wh0 deVlsed a plan of action. It was brilliant and brought . VIctOry Within rea ch. The next morning he met £ our other of committee the Belgrade and persuaded them to sign a letter, say Stambolic . ing that ' had pressurIz . . ed them Into . couneil . lOg Pav a few d lOVI C at the city a ys earI.ler. ahaThe Serbia n Presidency . . meeting resumed ttered any i · formanc" llU5IOns ... . Mllo�evlc s per Stamb0JIC " ' may have nurtured that the two me n

Mar� listened

•

�: � '.

•

�

,

43

bAYING THE CHARGE


could remain friends. '1 thought the Russians had invaded, that Third World War had begun,' says Stambolic when he "" face. His voice raised, MiloSevic interrupted the debate:

�Iil<"".ii

do. His reasoning was simple: 'I was keen that we what they should children'. say what we think. For our grand S uld opened, the Communist E Session machinery went ighth the st another t at a ime heightening was w i . d n There tension in motion i to Serbia. The meeting was televized: throughout and hall ly the assemb for the first rime the Communists let the public inside their dark and It was a shock: For the next two days. people t:reaeherous throughout Serbia were glued to thel � TV screens, watching the show down. 1t was supposedly broadcast hve, but, as the meeting went on, es were delayed fO.r t�� news. Th�n Television Belgrade the spe . began cuttmg the speeches, Mltevlc blatantly glVlng preferential treat ment to the winning side. On the streets of �elgrade, life ground to a halt as people discussed the debate. Stambolic seemed paralysed, um.ble to mount a counter attack. It was as if he did not believe what was hap""n r- ing, L'JUb'10ka T ' h0 was a ce�tr 1 committee member, I rgo eVlc, � h'Istonan ,,! � . described seelOg Stambohc transfixed by hIS Impending execution:

h%

Comrades, I htl'Ut hesilaltdfor the laJI hour or two. we haw reui'Utd a lefler. Finl I {llJudfor it to he checked as authentic, that tlNre wasn't jome mntake. Then I douhted wINther one could really read out thiJ Itlter at tIN Presidency itJe/f Mayhe I will he e. .. making a mistak

Stambolic was now implicated in conspiring against the Party's archy. Of course, Milosevic, despite his convincing performance, already known about the letter. Mitevic's idea had put the around Stambolic's neck. It seemed to Milosevic that he was ahead, so he called a vote expeHing Pavlovic from the party. Eleven voted in favour, five ' and four abstained. Their winning strategy rested withh
real�.

ec�

�

�[� : .�::::�

PavloviC's fate

was

left up to the Eighth Session of the

Committee of the Serbian Party. Milo�eviC's camp did not to minute in planning for the Eighth Session, as it has come

known. Borisav Jovit led the charge. The group fanned out Serbia. They invited sixteen presidents of regional or district tees, who were also of the Central Committee, to in order to persuade them how to vote. In this way, they easily web ensnaring the regional bosses who, in turn, also met the of the Central Committee. They had even planned Presidency ing Miloscvit would act and MiloSevic was in charge of seeing that speakers opposing him chose speak one after the other. It was easy, since, as president, he was given the floor. By contrast, Stambolic did not plan his defence before the Session. On the eve of the meeting, he sat among friends, 44

"

He was co"'.pletf/y incapable ofthinking. /-Ie comufrom a patri archal tnfJlronmmt, where yOIl don't hit yOllr but friend and whtrtyou nroer betray YOllr Party. r, Stambolic had skirted m y f h 0 � laid by rus rivals. Byicalhiscaree own ission he had only hia?mseIf' to , Throughout his polit

' UI&IlIe for faili ng to see what Ml'lo�evic was up to. 'When somebody . . IooL lUi at your back for tw enty-fiIve years, It IS understandable that ' he &-- the UQlrc _ ..1 _ _ to put a knife in it at some pomt ' . Many people warned me but I didn't acknowledge it.' . theThe man who L._had < c:Irm m at�d aU previous chalel ngers, would faU at hand of rus uc� lfIe �. nd lv . Iilme\'ic. ' Three months after the Eighth � . , _Ion, Stambolie' con r.Ide'd 10 lrgovtev I" C. 11e toId me that he loved U " L. more .. ..&.UOSCVit him ' own brot .' than hIS hers and that he had spent mor time with e __

'

.

-

' Th, session . opened h p ch eomm morating the fiftiet h � ofTito as h � t e arty. Roth sld�s used Tito as foil. a praised the Co . unJ� t leader for fostering unity. 'He Plied t hat we were not wIt TITO. It was a public lynching,' said bolic. the unrele . nrlOg barrage on P taJnbor , rr avlovit and, by association ' I e the next sTll' r-ak,r Onered 0 ne 0f ti le r.cw bright spots.

�fS.ary ;n � �

.

S

:: ; � � ��

LAY1NG THE CHARGE


Milo�evic picked me blond-haired attractive Trgovtevic, h

waS an inexperienced politician who would not dare to television pictures showed him holdin� his head i� his her speech: '1 am afraid we are returmng to certain methods were abandoned long ago and I don't want to usc those

words, she said, infuriated Jovic. 'He got angry and said I was

them of Stalinism, but I told him that it could be fascism, too; Trgovtevic, who left politics soon afterwards, rerurning to an historian. While Milo�evit's side held the upper hand from the outset,

not clear who would win. After all, Stambolic was an institution.

downfall would bring many down with him. It would be the ,",j olr. era. Trgovtevic watched the delegates sweat.

The atmosphere was terrib/e. People were standing and biting their nails in the caft. Everyone turned greyer and greytr. �ome people carried two diffirent speeches in their pock.ets, d�pendlng on hOtlJ things furned out. You must realize that ninety per cmt ofthou people's caffers andfotures depended on the outcome ofthe muting. During the breaks, Milo�eviC's team lobbied any potential porters. Jovic was like a bee, buzzing round the restaurant. Milo�evic tried to cajole Vllasi, who resembled the

nob"",

•

Communist functionary, becoming fatter with each step up the

An eager head of Yugoslavia's Communist youth, A.zem had

Tiro's pet. 'This is now or never. Vote for me and teU the your delegation to do so, too. You'U sec I wiU pay you �ack MilmeviC. Vllasi refused: 'You have hardly helped me

10

the

I cannot help you now: MiloSevit was furious. 'He called me a

said VIlasi, 'and 1 told him that he was a ;
Milo�evic. As the session went on, Milo�evic's ers moved to the ,6

the end, Srambolic was sitting by himself. When a vote ofthe all· B P l � av ovic was expelled from the Presidency, it was clear was Cs ed would not last long. Du�an Ckrebic said: 'Serbia is does nor need new ones.' MilmevlC had won. and ders ti
�

::lie �t �

ked 100 talk, this bla-bla thar brought us here"', believes Mitevit, whose

:ili�

8

good

.

to manipuJate the sequence of events made him the Serbian

Orson WeUes.

Surprisingly, leaders from around Yugoslavia welcomed Milo�eviC's triumph. Only a handful of �ederal of�icials wanted to put it on the . Government agenda. Slovema was umnterested. Croatian function far criticize as to their own press for objecting to aries went so MiIokviC and the way that he had removed Stambolic. In fact, Stipe Suvar, Croatia's representative on the Federal Party Presidency, later explained why he had then defended his furure foe:

Stllmbolif was the mostfearedpoliti(ian on the Yligosiav scene, so lIN grey bureaucrat MiJofevii made usfiel that we (ould (Onlrol hi�. You ",-ust he was dearly not a nationalist - ev ery . the name thing he dId �s m ofY/lgosiavia - and hsi argument tlxlllheAlbamans wert St'cmionists was basically right. They did not realize

power would extend far beyond

that the implications of Mjlo �evit's rise to Serbia. His feUow Commun ists failed rs tand that Milo�evK' was about to become the first Stro � � ngm'" .. u:rTlto.

a.:w� ;;; th

ighth S�ssion, Milokvic was free to rum his attentio , n en, believes Stambolic , 'MiloSeviC became awa re that was only the lau nch pad. The goal wa s Yugoslavia.'

kotovo reo

{

He uud hi; tv. /> r �ru 1St met ed rarg to t e bull of hod throughout Yugoslavia... II was the rA-; othtr nationalisms. When Ihe biggell nation -�6·nj to wa'tlejla6"
Befort COming into d·!rect conflict with Sloven . ia, Milo�evit argu,d e ISSue f K of ' osovo. He earned OUt a Stalin·style purg' g om t �rythin h e f, B elgrade med'!a to Serb· th head waiter at the government ·11 AIter months of lurking o : Sta.nb lit. offieia�y �Ismlss in the shadows, . ed on 14 Decem by or.w.,. Ove� th ... _ ), Lan

,

'

0

c

Was

47

ber,

1987.

LAYING THE CHARGE I Kosta Bulatovit, a Kosovo Serb activist who is actually from Montenegro, explains that few people had been invited and that many of those who actu ally received invitations were 'Takojtvilt, a made-up word for people who say 'ta}oj� - That'S the: way it s i '. In othe:rwords, [ho� who blindly obey the polit ical line. 2 Two of Mil�eviC's dose: associates, Raromir Vico and his depury DtMlan Mitevit, were running television at the time. 3 Djulcic. Siavoljub, h.nmlju slaW" i anu/�m r poliritku biogru[ya SloOodana Milolroiia, Filip Vi�njic, Belgr:J.de, 1994, p. 68. 4 Djulcic, lzm�djll slaw i anarrmr, pp 13-17. . 5 Her sister, another panisan was rumou red to be Tito's lover during the: war. She: died oftuberculosis and was reponedly buried in his backyard. There were rumours that Tiro was reatly Mi�ana's father. 6 Djukic, hm�dju slaw i ana/(mr, p. 71.

3

'NO WAY BACK' The SI(J'lI�lle Spring, 1988 · ·e:S. in Slovenia were " he hontl wer t "dated na s Milo�cV1C conSOll r" . aut ' the: tilly r el h es, relaxing their hold. In the car } �. � recedented in the 0 ub C:U llsm unp . . ad "public embarked on a pen red and even flour. were toIer' O'1'oups . Communist world. Alternanve b", . _. . T}1ey covered a WIde . . parties nal mc
northwestern

A

'

'

. givmg

official stamp of approval. et outdoing the ' _ I III�gn ' blJao ror · a was a cuItu'
was t

Catholic,

�

�

C

t

_

It Was clear to me there waS absolutely flO chtl (e for SIO'Umia ' , '�fJtJ ' is whm the constar t . conflict began, wllhrmt serum s reform. 1 . had tak.�n O'U(r between me and Mi/ofevif, in part/Cillar after ht from Stambolif2.

�

49

·NO WAY BACK-

LAYING THE CHARGE youth was already

hot water with the Y;:,��;� ��

in lishment. They had caused a furore over Youth Day, ·il proposing a Hitler youth poster to promote Yugoslavia's annual race which marked the celebrations. Eight years after Tito's U�Uh, tb Yugoslav Communists still took the anniversary extre mely ."i",,., The poster was a gesture of defiance against the Communist and the Army, which remained the protectors of Titoism. fubniqi Branko Mamula, federal defence secretary, dismissed the proposal an attack on Yugoslavia. It was not only the youth who were in trouble. Slovenia's n"i""oIioI intellectuals were also on the Yugoslave Peoples' Army's (JNA) list. In February 1987, they advanced Slovenia's national P"'S"""'" in the journal, NrJ'UO RNJijo. The Communist establishment saw an answer to the Serbian Academy's Memorandum. It cUled for dosing ofnational ranks and a retum [0 Slovenia's Christian ttadilioo Moreover, Issue 57 ofN()'Uo RNJija, argued that the Slovenes better off outside Yugoslavia. Once again, Party organisations throughout the country the upsurge of nationalism and the attacks on Yugoslavia's ! But while official Yugoslavia was up in arms, Slovene and nationalist dissidents enjoyed regular and warm s, even their visions of the future ofYugoslavia seemed to conflict. The wanted centralisation and the Slovenes the opposite. Yet much in common: more than a decade before the outbreak both had begun lO question the tenets of faith together. At [�at time the nationalisms were not IT because they were not from neighbouring republics3• Kutan played a clever game. The Slovene Communists 'Contributions To The Slovene National Programme', the d published in N()'Uo Rruija, as a rehashing ofold ideas. The only of originality, his Slovene Party statement said, was that it singled the Communists as responsible for everything. The Party ignore 'the sham, high-sounding argumentation' of the authors, the other cheek and call for tolerant democratic debate. It ,,,,,,, od� Slovene chauvinists of'national intolerance and falsifying history'. The Yugoslav Anny, however, refused to turn the other cheek. was furious about the NO'IJo RNJija document. Calling it Memorandum, iral Mamula said Slovene nationalists and bourgeois right were scheming to destroy the Yugoslav Slovene

d::::

"lh�:':'u:h�';;ldjI��::: : ::

�;::�;

'They negate the national revolution, self-management and

alignment. They hope

to ally

with traitors, and use 5'

the

power.' He said the Programme attempted to launch rch to Seize ChU of defence, proposing that republican armies take ept , "'_ neW conc .Iluy4. the Yugoslav People s J"1. OYer cden • whose large round blue eyes gave him a a asked Kufan, what was happening understood he if appearance, . ng1 angelic ra He warned there would be trouble if the Slovene in oven ignored what was happening. Kutan's apparent dis missal """ro m n ' groups and the increasing . ' . mportance of the new politlCili of th ir disappointed left the He . tri e to Army fl.atter .aI . the � n

� ; ��: �

_.

lnac� � ile wammg about him for encouraglOg reform, wh Kula ' praising want to secede from Yugoslavia or attack wh s al c i d r � 'rho: � state .

YugoslaVla as a The Army was convinced it would have to draw the line. The JNA

had been formed to defend Yugoslavia against Western cap talist countries and, after 1948 and the break with the Soviet Union,

i

Eastern European Communist states. The more enemies there were abroad, the more potenti.al there was for betrayal at home. The Army was vigilant. Steeped in Communist Titoist dogma, JNA officers were isolated from the outside world. They were not allowed to travel

abroad. They were even isolated from the society that gave them their privileges. Indeed, since its foundation, the JNA had been more secre tM: than the Soviet Red Army. Officers often started their training as

fourteen-year-old boys. These youths, typically from the countryside, wouJd grow up in military academics away from home, later making . . of � the vast maJonty the officer corps. It was a strange upbringing m .a country where trad itional family bonds and limited economic prospects �ade it unusual for 'children' to leave home, even jf they . martled With offspring of their own. In their intensely sheltered war d, it was not uncommon for office rs to be summoned to a confi dential bri��g, only to be informed of events that had already been public IX months earlier Mter 1980, the JNA knew that, along S . W!.i , the League of Communists, it was the glue that was holding Tnos yffi ugoslaVla · togethcr Even up to the outbreak of war in 1991 . mOSt 0 lcers . . . .' gonume ' 1y -·· LX:lieved ·m the muitm atlonal umon . of SIX Sociali 8 th " repub cs, and in 'bratstw ijtd instw', the official slOO":l -"'-n of erhood and Uni . ro ty For all its dete lI.nat.lon, the JNA could not halt the process of politieisat . ion in ovema. It saw every move as an attack on Communis th d :h� Yugoslav Federation. Mlodilla, the weekly magu.ine o lali st Youth organisation, and a rem arkable mix of Iatire and muc ng, launched a campaign to expos e the JNA as 'an

we�

�

li

�

� a; �r:

I

•

LAYING THE CHARGE

'NO WAY BACK'

undemocratic institution always ready to stage a m,;litary
Thn.:�'��::�;

. against its own starving people, wrote Mladina revealed howJNA conscripts had built the iral an e in Opatija, a famous Adriatic resort town popular with Viennese ' society before the First World War. This expose for standard of living gave even the most loyal officers u I� n n th ' General Milan Aksentijevic, then a Colonel in � �� : � � � was article the , ,, , d says he re the day Mamula was feelings, I must say. From the article 1 learnt ing a castle - and here I was desperately trying to scrape the

:�

��

::

together to get a flat'. In March, MamuJa struck back.

1 wanttd to 'Warn thtm that th�rr wtrt limits .. Dir«t attad.s 011

th� Army W(rtforbiddtn in tht constitution; 1 was not agaimt dtmocratisation and rtconJtruction according to EurOfNan wlun _ Ihough I did bdi� in tht ont-party syst�m - not so mum

pmonally but as a rtprmntatim ojthe Army.

Frustrated, the JNA was convinced the Slovene leadership using Mladina for its own ends, When they complained about magazine. the Slovene response was that the Army should not upset by a bunch of kids. For the Generals. this tolerance was mount to approval. 'You must this was Communism,' said Colonel Aleksandar Vasiljevic, deputy co
to make an example of Mladina. Mamula believed

r;rt 0' drJycided one course of action for the JNA - a court martial. A between Slovenia's independent newspaper and the medi� �cbegan kaged JNA magazine, Narodna Armija, which accused emigre press and certain foreign papers �f'ing the Ahostile t:/ rumours'. On 20 March, DnMJnik, a daily anri-JN di:runate northern province of Vojvodina, , .s � thiS .Ie

to

ed the Serbia's newspaner r- from " , \Varmn v a Rwya " d I" " � Kuean that he an Mladina ticized fray, 1t cri . had been slow to realize that the children had moved mto an open and relentJess struggle for power. Yesterday they advocated the democrati .tion of society, while today they have already negated the leading role ofthe League of Communists'. The Vojvodina daily called for the Slovene League of Communists to take a resolute stand. As the first step in its crackdown, the JNA called a meeting of its Military Council, a body responsible for state security, to discuss how

�

to bring Slovenia into line. The Council ruled that Mladina was 'coumer-revolutionary', charging that there was a foreign-backed con ipiracy to overthrow the regime. Next, General Svetozar Visnjic, the Ljubljana Commander, went ro see Kufan to ask how Slovenia would react ifcharges were brought against the authors of the anti-JNA arti cles, He asked Kuhn whether he expected significant public outcry. If 10, warned Visnjic, the Army would prote<:t military barracks and pe nel who wer put in danger. Kuean told Visnji �n � c: 'Any does not take mto the extremely delica te political llrua�on 10 Slovenia, would have irrepa rable consequences.' Refusing to discuss politics with the Army, Ku(:an turned to the Pa rry He ed a s �al meeting of the Yugoslav Central Committ � �e to "WIged . the �tary Council. 'The anti-Slovene campaign being In.Serbia and lsewhere must SlOp. An anti-Yugoslav mood . � is . In Slovema 10 reaction to the growth of the anti-Slo M.'-�. vene &UUUU In the rest of the country It IS . " absurd to say the editors of . " _11lQ are mstruments 0r a speCial war bemg waged in Yugoslavia . . "1 WorId caPit .... alism ' K"w.."an toId t h e othe r of the Pu Iors OJ tv ode h'Ip.

�Y � �ch

:;

��

"

•

At this meetin gd ' he. became more convinced than ever that there .... . (oali. :on h ,-, at erung agam " st 51ovem" a. KuCan saw .... in the dock, " that Slovenia With the JNA as chIe " r prose .a. at _ the cuto r. He
�:�d

53

'NO WAY BACK'

LAYING THE CHARGE

anti-Communism. The question is whether the Military C"U"d "" right in its actions. I think it was, because it is not right that the should be put in the position where it has to defend itself.'

An alarmed General Kadijevic uttered what was to become stock warning: 'Yugoslavia is on the brink of disintegration'.

The very exi,trnu o/Yugoslavia as a socialist ,tale is under threat by counttr-rroolutionaries. There are (onm(/iom belwttn thae cirdts in Yugoslavia and Imigrl cire/es... Thry have great influ enu on thefortign banla and the IMF and they put conditions on thNr aid, too,jor us -mortfrtedom and human rights and dnnomuy. Enemyforces are in aculeration. The CIA has concluded that the Mladina editorial board is iimilar to SolidarnoiC in Poland The CIA has concluded the foil of Communism in Yugoslavia has begun. � must stop tlu (ounttr-rroolutionary actions.

Kadijevic dismissed Kur:an's suggestion that the Presidency bers travel Slovenia to see how best to defuse the problem. He out again:

Our (one/usions don't ntedforther study. KiKan iJ attaddng the Presidency ofthe League o/Communists o/Yugoslavia in order to cover up his own mirtaittl in lel/ing an anti-Army atmosphere develop in Slovenia. � did not need to consult with the Slovene politicallehip at all. In tlufuture the Army will act tlu way it susfit. This exchange shoW5 the extent to which relations were strained within the Central Committee. As Milosevic carried out purges, the battle lines would be redrawn, but me essence of

dispute would remain the same. Even Kadijevie's threats did not the Slovene Central Committee into devising a formula to quell Despite intense anti-Slovene propaganda in the rest

dissidents.

Yugoslavia, no-one made a move. It seemed that me danger

ed. But the JNA was not put off that easily. Less than a month later, Mladina had a scoop - a ""reI d",,""'"

,.�.,

from the Ljubljana military district 5044-3 January, m.. instructions on how to prepare for martial law. Franci revealed that the document came from Ivan Boriltner, a Slovene

of8

commissioned officer, who was about to leave me Army ing for s in the civilian world. S4

Boriltner. Vasiljevic said the Army s already watching The JN nationalist, 'So we �: Boriltner was an extreme bad learn . as an Army cryptO position ty high-securi his �m he left the Communist party. He later �e end of remove : Slovenes were being degraded and impoverished the a elPl� n� � 6 ' But Borltner had remained in the Army and got gosl via . . Iu . Mla. tn touch wim gave the document to J anez JanSa, the unfazed, was Zavrl . . expert. The magazine JNA already had Mladina's ' who was actMSt .. . IS bl' h po csta d ltlCaJ -, I" an 'Th' ment. Itary mil IS was the in s specia l... the document itself was silly and unimportant.' B t more incendiary document would soon emerge, Jama ther ' the Central Committee's 25 March session, �d a transcript caJ1ed to discuss the Military Council meeting on Slovenia - the one where KIbn finally realized that the JNA meant business. Jama held

Slovene

d graP�er'd � within

1987

and

=�� far

u

of

on to the original, not realizing that the police were watching him. That night Slovene police broke into Mikro Ada, the computer company run by Jama and his friends, and discovered copies the

classified documents. The

of Slovene leadership was informed me next

day, but took no action. On 13 May, Mlndina published 'Night of the Long Knives', a story about Army intervention which said the Army had drawn up list of people it was proposing to arrest (n maw/. The story was based on the Yugoslav Committee session, but the authors, afraid the aur;twriries would ban the issue. did not quote directly from me tran �Pt. None the less, the article caused a sensation, In a few days the IISUe was pulled from news kiosks. Ljubljana was awash with about a planned military coup. was under pressure. Later, he d reap t�� benefits of occu the � Fying the cal oppOSItIOn and the react Onary JNA, but, for the time being, he I nsure what to do. How could he explain the document which � was convinced .he ,:as responsi ble leaking? He inSisted the Y was oversteppmg ts ,, __ I the main point was not the Wi � but theJN ' A's inl" "rle C rence In poI" ltlcs. Aftcr meetmg the Slovene poliee, he a...... ......; d to launch an lDvest L' "lgatlOn to find out how the tran.... ..pt uccame pubre. I Kocan told Belgrade what he had done ' while 1U, police were oblig ed to InlOrm C [h JNA about the document they fuund in Ja ' �as computer company . Wh K.d; ",,,, ',", M:unula took early retir ement in May, 1988 it was up to to Implement , he AImys ' plan t� bnng Sloven'ia to heel. He lent his crack . S agent, Colonel VasllJevit, to Slovenia. Vasiljevic

a

Central

Ku�an

At:

b·�"

KG

'

bounds:

'

e

t

55

rumours middle ground between for

LAYlNC THE CHARGE

'NO WAY BACK'

had worked his way up through the ranks of the most elite of military and security services' counter-intelli�nce. He had minded the JNA's covert action to crush ethnic Albanian unrest Kosovo in 1981. He now arrived in Slovenia prepared to ferret OUt 'mole' who had leaked the military documents to Mladina. Alth,,"81 a specialist in clandestine operation s, Vasiljevic informed S oveni an secret police of his lan s. 'They knew everything about I met their head, Ivan Erzen, every evening to review events. Ertl, his boss, also knew of my presence in jubljana.' Kuean denied that he knew of Vasilje c's presence. 'This was a matter with by the Army and especially their secret serviceS, The State Presidency was not informed by the Army about it.' He itted that he had co-operated with the JNA. Vasiljevic and his team were ready to move. On Sunday m"rninl! . 5.30 J�a was sudde y woken up. 'They searched my home Mikro Ada offices, then put me in a cell without a bed or d,:,li!:h� he said.

i

p

vi

L

nl

They may say they ::rmltd m(for that military docummt but they never N)tn botherd to ask about it. They 'W"e only intemUd in how 1got hold ofthe tTUn5cript ofth( March Central Committu muting. Thry wantd to know who my contacis W"t in tIN C()'f)07lmmt and the military.

7�:�:

The circumstance s surrounding JanSa's arrest remai n JanSa, who three years later would rise to prominence during 'ten-day war', accused Kufan of collaborating with the JNA him. News of the arrest spread quickly. Igor Bav1':ar, Jan�a's business partner, was able to get a short report in the city edition the Ljubljana daily, De/o. In Belgrade the next day, Slovenia's leaders attended a session of the Yugoslav League of Among those attending was Borut 5uklje, a Socialist }'Sluth member of the Central Committee. Kuean turned to Suklje and 'Your friend, a nez an�a. has been arrested'. Suklje was alarmed.

J

J

�::::;::

1 got J(ard 1 didn't know at that time if this circle of arTtJ'! would tnd with janIa or would continue. At the same time II became clear to me that Ih"t was no way back. 1got thefte/i�g that KlLan was reafly JUrprised, and that he hadn't known HI advance what would happen. I couldn't say whether th( SllJVtne lehip collaborated with Belgrade or not.

leadership had been kept ";evic said the Slovene J I ., Kad . General he Party conrerence, , s . Dunng a break -In t en t m lo v e de f all ed infO� . 0 Communists that several men would h is feUow of one Id KadiJeV1\.. to _ I"ing m Wrary documents. · Slovenia for steal be arrested ill The next day the Slovene poI-ICe handed Jan�a over to the JNA. had leaked the incriminating document (it g n Borltner, who S,t 'd , ou r r to be a 'plant') was arrested, as was the Mladina journalist, name ' tary documen� Order Tasic, who had ed on the secret �w

p

J.

David S044-3. According to Yugoslav law, SloveOla was then obliged to aIIaw tbe JNA to take over the: .investigation, since the three were ted of possessing secret military documents. military jail, Jama was interrogated by Vasiljevic, who had perfected his techni ue over two decades.

"i:

q

He told me in jail that it wouldn't be a problem roen if 0/1 SIO'I.Jtnes ed me, kcause there are only a hantiful ofus in the country, and they couid kill a// ofus, ijthry wanted to. Really. He 'WQl very tough. He said: 'We can killyou, we can sentence youfor fiftun years, we can ruin yourfamily, we can kill your children, 'Wt' can do anything in the intertlt o fthe state. ' Two weeks later the JNA arrested Franci Zavrl. There was an immediate and intense public outcry Bav1':ar founded the Commi ee . for the D f e ncc of Human Rights, known as Odbor - rallyin g togeth . : er JOuma hsts, professors and other Slovene intellectuals. The arrests were e catalyst which effectively created an organized Slovene I �n movement. ·It was interesting, at the time, all old conflicts JUSt vanished,' says Bavtar. 'Very quickly we found out that this case �d bec?me a p litica Uy � c rucial case for Slovene democracy.' . t1tlOn calling foc the relea se of the Ljubljana Four as they excl .e known, uickly coUected 100 000 signatures, most! but not USlV�y from Slovenia � . Crowds gathered to sign, causing spontam m l- d emonsrr .. "' uoos on LJUbl�ana,s usually plaCi- d streets. The L _ hUJTiLl'O;rs Were stagger'109, partt.cu I arIy r'or 5loverua of u .a..u; _ most , which had one coose ' e popuIatlO ' �vatlV n s, and wher e comp laints about _0mlc - expIOltanon cr more WI. were ta despread than those about . hum," ng - hts. LaJbach and other exponents 0f t he Neue SlowtnlSche I<Mllst might h �cont. nbuted much to expa ; nding the Slovene social lOene but th arguably contributed more. At,' the

tt

� � tt

�

q

neous

;'

�A

bulldozed on, the irrsib face of Slovene politics changed reve ly The . leaders Shi- fted towards the dissidents. Janez 57

LAYING THE CHARGE

'NO WAY BACK'

Stanovnik, President of Slovenia, made the unprecedented move receiving Bav�ar's Committee. This was a dear statement Slovenia's leadership was ing the Ljubljana Four. its the meeting was in fact not planned. Bav�ar, a huge man, showed up for a private meeting, with a crowd of reporters television cameras in tOW. The mustachioed Stanovnik, looking the world like a throw�back to the days of the A""o-I � Hun1i Empire, told the impromptu press conference: ' Look. people. sympathize with what you are doing, I commit myself to take all necessary steps on the federal level'. Despite official appeals, the trial went on. Each d,v 'T�W"' ered round the courthouse. For the JNA Colonel A"'.'ntij�
u;,j

My barracks wert the hastfor the court. WI' had massivt demon strations outsidl' tlu building a// tht time - and I had to maJu SUrl' we wertproptrly dtftnded in case they got out ofcontrol. It was 'IJtry painful. I would have to walk through tlu CTt'J'IIJds and they would boo me and shout. Fur Franci Zavr/, the trial WiU pure Kapa. 'ThI'judge W(JJ not sure what was going 011. We could hear tluptople olltside the court. Nothing we, in the opposition, hod ever tried to do to rally peoplt had worked as well as that lrial. It was II symbol: the dissident, tlu journalist, fht soldier - all youlIg ond with popular appeal. Wi were the ptrftct ingredientsfor the Sl()'/)ene spring. '

Juxtaposed against these perfect patriots of the new Slovenia the JNA - acting like a bull in a china shop. The Army made mistake after another. The pubic l was excluded. The defendants not allowed their own lawyers. The trial was conducted in Croat instead of Slovene - this in itselfhelped to sway the opiini')� ' many Slovenes, for whom language is crucial to national identity'. The Army refused to bend. The Slovene leadership protested. not too loudly. Ku�an was not yet ready to mount an open to theJNA. The Ljubljana Four received sentt:nces ranging from months to four years. Instead of relaxing its grip. the federal lishment tried to force the Slovenes to climb down. An appeal President Stanovnik for clemency was refused.

imprisonment was Ionesco. 'I '- ' was Kafkaesque, the . If the tna.L ' h a frlendIy Govcmor,' sal-d Wit pnson open an in ce senten served he in my office and my magazine the editing days my pent I , late was getting back, I had I wht'n occasion, '. S On one �vr - ,. IUghts '" Prison. he wire. t over prison to b ak into the e trial took Slovenia one step further from Yugoslavia. It unified against the JNA - the symbol of the Communist the tiny republic . have I and most others would sull opted for early Federation. 'In Yugoslavia,' recalls Zavrl. 'But then began Milo�evifs attacks in J(osovo, the attacks on Slovenes in the Army, and the whole irrational pressure from Serbia and Milo�evic. It drove us out much faster.'

';:

;

1989,

1 Lai/Jarh, the German word for Ljubljana, was the first written reference 10 Ljubljana n i 1144 - twO rears later the [own was entioned in Slovene. 2 Srambolic and Kutan have remained on good since his fall from

m

1'.""3 The usually docile Macedonians, who revered Tiro for giving the a ute within the Yugoslav federation and recognizing them as a distinct ethnic community after the Second World War, reacted sharply to the Slovene doc �nt for negating the national identity of Macedonia and other Yugoslav ...on. " Mamula, hi self, wrote a book on Yugoslav defence. Odbrana

m

m may

ma/ih ZnrutJja, so he have felt especia!1y piqued. 5 Befoll: 1991, Yugoslavia earned US 12 billion annuall on arms' expons y

mostly to developing nations. . 6 VasiljcviC's .observ.ations f r" "uen t in . were common complaints. -., tunes of�conomlc depnva tlOn, about how Siovem. a \vas ing the TeSt of "ViU80' aV\a. At the same time, Serbia made the same complaints on how the rat 0 the country was exploi ting Serbia's rich raw materials. the7 In faet ,hs ',list of �a es was never revea led and according to Ali Zerdi n respceted ovene )ourna,-IS,, It - IS - doubtlU' \IIhether it existed at all. . 8 Thro their ugh ccn�unes of foreign cultu rule, the Slovenes had vigilantly preserved for the right to use their language - whose first written ae to the twelfth cemury. � •

more

�

smg da� 't �

m

•

59

'COMRADE SLOBODAN, TIiINK HARD'

4

b tton 2n� we would �spo�d to their call,' he to do was press 2 � ,

lieve 10 the League of hod. Instead, bearing Signs S2ymg: We be SlId " " h t e 1974 constltutJOn, " ' and .sts of Yugosl2V.la,, 'Down Wit

'COMRADE SLOBODAN, THINK HARD' Miloit'lJii j- Anli-Burtaucrati( Revolulion July 1988-Morch 1989

�

he Slovene spring gave way to the heat of Serbian 'u'nm... " Throughout Yugoslavia'S biggest republic, Serbs turned out by tho million for rallies. They flocked to these 'Meetings of Truth' Kosovo, as they were called, clamouring for Siobodan Milo�eviC. resembled religious revivals. The steely Milo§tvi(: rode the wave nationalism which whipped through Serbia. Having secured ,"'.oh..· control over the Serbian League of Communists, he turned fim the two provinces of Serbia, then on tiny Montenegro, and finalI" 0.: Yugoslavia itself. The emergence of nationalism was vaunted as rebirth of dignity. Serbs believed that, after fifry years under enforced slogan of'brotherhood and unity', Milo�evic had once given them back their national identity, the right to say they Serbs. Their fervour was fanned by the press. The daily n,'w'I"P'" doubled and tripled the number of faithful who attended the Each day the headlines gOI bigger, the messages more sowed fear in the rest of the country. But there seemed to be anyone could do. On 5 October, a crowd armed with triangular ,ru"on, o[",,,"und milk, laid siege to, and then ousted, the leade" "hi" P f ern province ofVojvodina. The leadership was Ii� �� : ; running the province with little mind to what Belgrade thought. 'Yogurt Revolution', as it came to be known. was the final act in drama that had begun three months earlier. The fate of the VojvodUl6 leadership had been sealed when Miroslav Solevic. the man established his loyalty in K050VO Polje by rallying the crowds 1987 on, and helping to stage�manage Milo�eviC's dramatic Polje speech, had organized a rally n i the provincial capital. Novi For Solevic, a huge bear of a man, the rally was an immense the first in a chain of protests round Serbia. However, thought it was too euly for a rally to be effective against the leaders. MilooeviC sent his envoy to dissuade the Kosovo fTom traveUing north to Vojvodina, where, in the jumble nfn"'oed groups. Serbs comprised over fifty per cent of the population. Solevic refused. MilcrleviC's people 'wanted it to appear that all

T

� ��:��

;�1�:

BOlgn"'

60

h

m"?u set off. The slog:ms were brilli2nt in their simple 2ppeal: !'eo"', t ey " Serb"12."T ,o� ther � ue stronger.' "Jv " od"lOa I�. " vO . 'Kosovo is Serbia. dl� everything poss.lble to provoke a Sole"lc . B his own ission . . The was He not leadership. disappomted Sad Novi ct with the the Stop rally to m o lengths fr being great held. to went Plrty chiefs nd-,?-ter supplies. was It power-a an ofi"the ill-con turned 1bey even tidered move. The Vojvodina leadership appeared fO be attacking the 'downtrodden' Kosovo Serbs, who were portrayed in the Belgrade media as martyrs for Serbdom. In a show of solidarity, Serbs from Novi Sad ed their K050VO brothers marching to the town centre. Women wept. This test-case cemented MiloSeviC's conviction that 'protests' were the perfect vehicle for sti�ing up popular �pinion and destabilizing loca1 Party leaders. By raking to the streets 10 mis way, be could install his people throughout Serbia and its provinces.'solevic was me front man, the one the public came to know as the organizer ofMilokvit's Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution. But behind the scenes, the SDB, the secret police, helped to get the crowds out from factories and other wotk-places' . Under the illusion that Milo�eviC had delivered their national freedom, it took little effort to stir up the masses. On lO July, Bolko Krunic, one of the Vojvodina Party leaders, tried to defen� his province's autOnomy aga.inst Milo�eviC's drive to bring it under his control. Speaking in a village in Srem, KruniC insisted, . �ebcally, because he was terrified of wh2t would happen, that he did not Oppose he constitutional changes Milo�e viC was forcing � He itted that negotiating the changes had been 'diffi� cult . b�t c�ed on Belgrade to hah its 'unprecedented efforts' to ��e his leadership. In fact, Vojvodina was trying to block the amsn nonal changes - sough t by Serbia's leaders. But afraid of ng the wrath of Belgrade, KroniC. even at this late hour, tried kruni.tt th blame on to K050VO for the protracted negotiations. ': provin rerrunded Milo �evic that, unlike the restive mosdy Albanian ce, the fertile prosperous plains of Vojvodina were peaceful:

�

cool

�h. �

�fi

. .. most StT/ous poblrcalprohlrm in Yugosla'lJt.a " n .i 11 strhsand H ' lontmtgrlnsfrom Ko!()'f){J... " . (> AI fht SQmt Ilmt " 'W ' t au orud to rtfut to groundln! O((UJQtlons. . m In ' y ' J: }tJOd o ' ma nt'fHr asfi " Iud 10 ht a upublrc. Why, andto whom. tnrdhow long arr � to go on rtJUating this'

m allknow that lIN

. Ot/, l a y IS Iht tmirrralio

6,

LAY ING THE CHARGE

SLOBODAN. THINK HARD' 'COMRAD E

An attack on Vojvodina's autonomy was also an attack on leadership and, obviously, all the privileges that came with the job His plea did not hah Belgrade's smear campaign. To no . Vojvodina tried to gain supporrwithin the ranks of the On 5 October, 1988, Mihalj Kertes, an ethnic one of Milo�eviC's most faithful executioners, led a crowd

n�.��=

workers by foot, bus and even tractor from the town of to Novi Sad, forty kilometres away. The bombastic Kertes the protestors from state factories in his native

mance starring Kents, Radovan Pankov and Nedeljko

would become Vojvodina's next leaders, the crowd of 15 at the Party leadership. Hurling stones at the assembly, chanted:

'DoltfotdjaJj' - 'down

with the armchai"��;�. :l

splashed the building with yogurt, christening the 'J

Revolution' that was making Milosevic the most

��

in Yugoslavia. Inside the building, the Vojvodina leaders Mitevic, head of Belgrade television, and Milo'"X/ w,,,·",.tdung d

events unfold on a live broadcast. They had a direct telephone with the beleaguered officials. Mitevit said the trapped men terrified,

afraid for their lives. Fearing the crowd would storm

assembly, they called for Army intervention. Belgrade blocked deployrm:nt. If the Army had been enga�d, the embattled

might have succeeded in garnering among the politicians

other parts of Yugoslavia, who were watching the developments growing concern. Macedonia's Lazar Mojsov, then President, gave

go-ahead to the Army. General Nikola Ljubific, Serbia's

tative to the federal presidency, surprisingly also said yes -

though he was one of Miloikvie's key ers. The dispatch blocked by another partisan hero of the Second World War, Petar Gratanin, President of Serbia, who was clearly acting at

��:��

behest of MilmeviC. Moreover, the JNA judged the Novi Sad . in a different light from those in Slovenia the previous

anted ' MilaSeviC, the Army saw a Communist who w in the Slovene leadership, it saw reactionaries intent on country. The generals were blinded by their ideological

The crowd swelled, screaming into the aurumn Sogorov, head of the Vojvodina Parry, desperately phoned Mil�'" appealing for help. He replied coolly: 'Okay, I'll save you, but one condition: you must all submit your resignations. Ifyou save you.'That was it. The regime crumbled. Milo§evlC was in 6,

h e )
I"�

d. Suddenly he was doration which he would comman

. patco . ..J the a ",DO hotog"ph or portrait, 0ften both, hung III every ....h .w ere His P build·mgs. There were . ' 1O ,.ks, offices and government · fru". re WIndOW, . " ""., SlO .

Mllo�eV1c stares at one 0f the bout hi, portrait. In one, . ""n )okes a he breaks down and asks: FlOally, himself ' [Ures of thousands 0f pIC .. '0ne day they'11 ta ke answers: plcrure The . us" nt'n to 'What will hapr, . bl to e t was walk h h It Impossl roug you. hang ' dow . But they'll . capital, Yugoslav and without Serbian the ade , . UT' o of BA "'0'' , "'" hearr the Milooevits confident gaze. Tlto s Image began to constantIY meeting . -'" ,--,e s over the next SIX ar. Carrying his photO. at the scores f , ,,--, diu

0

�f:, nrnple would chant that Milo�ev1c had replaced Tito. Serbs

mon

r--

Serb·la · loved Milo�evic for his pledge to protect them - to reuOlte

divided by the 1974 constitution.

Montenegro was next. It was Yugoslavia's smallest republic, with just 604 000 inhabitants. Like the other republics, under Tito, Montenegro

had its own central bank. steel works, aluminium plant and Academy

of Sciences and Arts, hut it was bankrupt. Workers were demanding higher wages, the republic seemed ripe for social unrest. Divided into thirty-five tribes, Montenegrins still know which clan they belong to. They had traditionally cast themselves as a warrior narion, hailing &om the forbidding craggy peaks of the Dinaric mountains. Of all � other communities in Yugoslavia, their hisrory, religion, and iden bty was most closely intertwined with the Serbs. There are two tra ditions which run deep in Monte negro - one the Greens, for inde pendenc�, the other, the White s, who themselves Serbs and want unIOn with Serbia. MilOS: evit knew that his Serbian revival would find fertile groun d in Montenegro. Mter all he was a native of Montenegro. A trio 0f rallics, several months apm, and an . . of economic and demands, broke the existing Mon tenegrin regime. On 7 r, ho.t on the heels of Vojvodina's Yogurt Revolution, crowds . turne tar d out III Titograd in protest, after police used truncheons and o prevent a �� demonstration by steel workers. Seven men were in"' � ter the policc ' '''''U ou " m ordered . capta hiS forces to baton-charge the aowdThe even . t was laTer manlp . • uIated by the Belgrade media which . t -...J he Montenegn· n I . . eadersh·Ip 0f crue y suppressmg the national II >rill. The fa lly shi 'fted firom . economIC concem to demands for change

call

Oc:t�litiCal

amalgam

.

LAYlNG THE CHARGE

AN, THlNK HARD' 'COMRADE SLOBOD

tl:�:::,��

in Kosovo. The occasion marked the political birth of Vice President of the Montenegrin government. At his .e a k of fifty, Kostic told the crowd, he was not there to ma name himself but to see how he could help. In just three years, by """"'0; strating his blind loyalties, the pro-Serb Kostic would be President ofrump Yugoslavia. The Montenegrin regime stayed in power another three months. the meantime, a group of young Montenegrin Communists, led Momir Bulatovic, appeared launching open harsh attacks on leadership. They knew that the criticism would go u because their mentor was in Belgrade. At thirty-four, became the Party chief of Montenegro. MilokviC's control extending beyond the borders of Serbia itself.

. over the republics; but when it was in I . t'ons federal IfiSON _L " tates 0f ,' of U . t Ia'lmed that Serbia would not . bey the d!c . ,n erest.' he C his H-< 0 V" , m alner, a k warnmg t prescien and . tion. 1n a strident ..L. fe oor, h fl " d h"IS e t u� dera pomte k tOO n, Partisa a and C ran Slovene ommunist . vet< M"I , I on " o�ev!c sal"d : gaze h iS ing x fi , and h e podium . t . fi08'" across d h h ave you c roa osen. ' whIch about hard think 'Comrade 51 bodan

After Montenegro, what next? The Yugoslav politiCa1 was shaken by Milo�eviC's revolution road-show. On I17 the Seventeenth Session of the Central Committee, the League of Communists tried to stop Milo§evic. The chief, Stipe Suvar of Croatia, proposed a vote-of-confldence in member of the politburo. It was clear that Suvar's target Milo�vic. Suvar, who earlier had been a MilokviC er, was now vinced that the Yugoslav Party should vote to oust him. MilokviC protested on the grounds that he was a buro because he was chief of the Serbian Party, so the Yugoslav had no authority over him. He won. Using this procedural loo'pbol the Party bosses from the six republics and two provinces were from re-confirmation. There is little doubt that ';f1V1;lo'
became more

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. ed out a series ofpurges with ruthless efficiency. A policy

anyone, from local authorities to Belgndd�,;am " " was sacked . agers who refused to kow-tow to Milo�VIC, P ty was dis Kosovo the of � �i ;:;:mbe;, 1988, thein leadership . �mc Albaru s, Kosovo w s n:rvous. �t ucrenoarion was in full gear; called l '

:rn � milled. Already the m.oo? IOn population, rwhe1ming maJonty of the proVlnce s 1.9 mill the

for a crack-down. As the Serbia� rallies m;:racing themselves . . . feverish - men wearmg Chetmk natIOnaliSt war

�

mementoes demanded the arrest of Albanian functionaries - Belgrade [Q str ip Kosovo of its autonomy. The Serbian leadership tightened its grip, whi l e among Albanians popular swelled for the embattled leaders, Ka�wa Jashari and Azem VlIasi. While the Party Committee met to rubber-stamp the dismissals, secured by Belgrade. miners abandoned their pitheads in Trepea marching fifty6ft kilometres [Q Pr�tina. For the n�t five days, along with Albanian students, they braved freezing temperatures as they camped out in &Ollt ofthe provincial Party headquarters in protest against the fall of their Party leaders. It was a scenario reminiscent of the Yogurt �Iution in Vojvodina, except that this time the popular protest was 1ft of the local leadership and against Belgrade. Over whisky a few weeks later, Milo�evic asked VlIasi whether he been behind the November demonstrations. 'He wanted to know � �any people could turn up and take the police completely by SWpnse, recalled Vllasi. 'He said that the police could not work out who been organizing them.' 'They turned up of their own will. T certainly did not have the t pay for them and bus them in'' said Vllasi in a retort which � IlIIU:C Mi lokYiC. !hey i we� the last Albanian protests not to end in bloodshed. The poI ce rema med on the Sl. deI"meso I n three months the Army and the poIice were to ' assert controI over the sout hern prOVln " ce. Belgrade dlsDliued t h �test as 'counrer-revolurion'. Serbia's propaganda was at -, Pitc . . e press warned of Alball lan separarism, dismissing the . .. _tion as pnmlhve . . . . Intel!,c, uaI s banded together With h" the poilnclans

prepared

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6S

LAYING THE CHARGE

BODAN, THINK HARD' 'COMRADE SLO

to warn of a conspiracy against Serbia from Ljubljana to Tirana, On 19 November, after several false startS, 'the meeting of ings' was held in Belgrade. Whenever Serbia argued with Yugoslav republics, the Belgrade leadership would threaten to the biggest rally ever. On that grey November day, Milo§evit his countrymen: 'We are not at afraid. We enter every intending to win.' The local press said at least one million turned out to listen to meir leader pledge victory 'even though enemies abroad are uniting with those inside the country'. out at the sea of people, Milo�evK: said: 'Every nation has a love eternally warms its heart. For Serbia it is Kosovo. That i, w�,v 1<0,,,, will remain in Serbia.' Milovan Vitezovic, a poet and P',rtj'-h" coined the phrase: 'The people have happened'. It became me phrase for the national awakening which propclle� MilokviC to height of power, the most powerful politician since Tito. Milo�eviC's people set up a company to provide the transport organize the meetings. Tens of thousands of workers were bussed from provincial factories. They were given sandwiches and instead of working their shifts. State enterprises forced their ees to go together to attend the 'meeting of all meetings'. For the politicians elsewhere in the other republics, Milo pledge to make Serbia whole again sounded the death-knell Yugoslavia. KiKan, Party chief of Slovenia saw the significance: abolishing me autonomy of both provinces of Vojvodina and Serbia would directly control three-out-of-eight VOles in the Presidency - in comparison with the other republics that had one each. That meant turning Yugoslavia into Serbo-slavia.' With a Montenegro, Milokvic was, eventually, to control half the the Yugoslav Federal Presidency, effectively ensuring that me tive head of state could not take a single decision without his approval. MiloSevit paid no heed to the intense criticism provoked by populist methods, bulldozing over the existing instirutions. His for his opposite numbers was evident at a Party session in when he made dear he would achieve his goals regardless of protest. 'The solution will be found through politics ed ing ' majority of people in this country. Either through the exist tions or not. On the streets or inside, by populist or elite MiloScvit was stating explicitly that if he did not get his \\ the existing power structures, he would ratly the masses in achieve his goal. He had already begun.

all

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::��

66

tional changes, with the . pressed on with the constitu parliament, on 25 federal The him". o .rop . _..,...,..hlics unable ' c the new ,mendments which deared the way lOr ,_ ber, adopted .. ends. The loose Kosovo few a only were ' ( . .........rn , There ...ian consntu Ion. &'.-h . .,.. d ' emlse. ot I h n er words, own ItS of avour f in I had t vote �b� controlled men his Kosovo's sure make to . . ed MUolevll.. nee b'Ian med'la d'IVI'ded Albamans ' IOto , , Pa
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LAYING THE CHARGE

AN. THINK HARD' 'COMRADE SLOBOD

ready [0 march w Kosovo. Throughout Serbia it was common to men pledge themsdves ready to fight in Kosovo. It seemed bluster,a conftdent swaggering boast that would never be tested. astensions rose, fears of an armed confrontation grew. The

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leadership argued violently over whether to declare a st,'''-o

gency in the province. There were accusations that the 51"..ne. , Croats were sending food and money to Kosovo to keep the

:.��;�:

going. Milo�evic wanted to deploy the JNA to end it. Kuhn told that he had no right to resort to military means, strike was prompted by the changes to the Serbian c

MiloiicviC himself had strong�armed.

Intent on stopping the strike. Milo�evic phoned VUasi in He told the ethnic Albanian leader to persuade the miners to

their strike. In response Vllasi said: 'I have been to the mines convinced that they won't give up, unless their demands are

Furious, Milo�evic warned Vllasi that 'someone will have to this.' Ignoring the clear threat, Vllasi agreed: 'Of course, the one is responsible. But the miners won't leave until their demands are Milo�evic tried to cajole him into coming to Belgrade for Vllasi shrugged off the suggestion. This was their last

��'��:��

Tensions were at fever pitch. MilaieviC made it plain to

Party politburo that he would not abandon the (,,,,st;';ru,:oo,,oJdw

After all, that was the political platform which sustained his If the Party would not back the amendments, Milol:eYK told

a meeting of the parry leadership, 'Serbia would do what it

using any means it deemed necessary, be it in accordance with or not'. Then this is the end of Yugoslavia,' answered Kuhn. That night, Milo�evic made a tactical manoeuvre to buy

three minions on the Kosovo Party leadership offered their tions. The miners, 180 of whom were already in hospital, ill

week underground, abandoned the strike. But it was tOO 12ft. situation had spiralled out of control.

The next day, the Slovene capital, Ljubljana, turned out for � the concert hall, Cankarjev Dom, organized by Bav�ar's for Human Rights. The entire Slovene political leadership siding with the strikers against Belgrade. In Serbia, the

shocked. Despite their current war of words, the Serbs generally had enjoyed good relatiom. Condescendingly, Serbs

pointed out that they had sheltered Slovene children Second World War when they fled Naz.i occupation. In total

. Serbia after Heinrich Himmler ordered the sh eIter tn §Iove1leS [ook . Another component 0f the new-born Slovenes' 'd' Io I equlsio�s s the constant comparison of the suffering of Serb n2[lO :ng . the Second World War to that of the Jews8. It the Serbs w likely to rile the Serbs than the 'n' a slolY
II oui:

O�S�I �

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this

��bruary, speaker after speaker in Ljubljana condemned the in Kosovo. Belgrade had �come the orment r.

the

! � Serbs for repression . . 'Vi 12vi2 is being defended In the Trepea mme. The Situation 10

� shows that people are no longer living together but increas

iDgIy against one anot�er. POlitics cannot be pursued on the streets or

, . when lives are put at fISk, 6:1.Id Ku�an.

The TrtJia miners are dejmding the rights 0/ citiuns and Communists in KOJ()'I)() to eifel tlNir own leadership. SI()'{)tn(s are i in Yugoslavia. Wl helped create it and are mil (asual vsitors i for itsfuture. '*' protest againstfanning the psychosis mporuhle tfthe state-oj-emergenry and w( haw warned that a quiet roup is taRing plact ht/ort our e)'es which 11 changing flu face 0/ YII(,fJslafJia.

Wa!ching the Cankarjev Dom rally on Ljubljana Television. Dubn

. MitM , Belgrade TV chief, made, what he called,

an 'unintentionally' dangerous decision. He decide d to broadcast the rally. \Vithin a few boon, complete with Serbo�Croa t subtitles translated from the th� rally sent electric jolts throug h Serbia, a nation inured to nationalist rhetoric. The Serbs appeared not to see that, when tbe SICIVenes prot ested against the Serbs in Can karjev Dom, it was tlb year of Serbian nation alist rallies echoing through '.. vta ... . The feaction was instantaneous. It 7hoy t
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LAYING THE CHARGE

'COMRADE SLOBODAN, THINK HARD'

words between Belgrade and Ljubljana. 'As soon as I got hOIllt phone began to ring: said Mitevic: Friends lold mt /Uople wtre gathering oulfide Iheir blodu of four in heottd discussion. Ten minules laur someone laid me stu4nrlJ wert Itaving Ihe campus. I realiud something 'WOuldhappen tba/ night, so I murntd to tht office 10 organiu cO'Utragt ojevents in Btlgrade... By 8.00 a.m., thm f.lXTt a million jUOple infronl tf 1M FederalAssembly. They wert UpJetfor no dearpolitical rtasfnl aparlfrom one Iransmissionfrom Slovtnia whm Ihty had hellTt/ so much abust against thurmlms.

��;:�:;I��;e;:

It remains in question how many people turn u'd out that night in Belgrade, but Serbs were truly s tionaries visited key factories around Bdgrade. The federal Dizdarevic said:

That tvening we received informationfrom federal stott stCurity thatsrotral Belgradtfoaories wert bting organized 10 call mut ingsfor tomorrow 10 co�ordinaf( and to pUI prtlJurt on Ihtfethr01 slruc/urtl. Thtfactory bOlJeS received direcl ordersfrom Zonm Todorovif, a Party official, widely known as 'kundak' (rifle-bUll)'

Party functionaries frantically phoned round for ;n,nuctic... reports came in through the night that thousands of students marching on the city. 'I told Gratanin to stop it,' said D;zd,uoi Gratanin tried to ease DizdareviC's worries, promising to divert students outside the city centre. Dizdarevic took his word. woke to the news that hundreds of thousands of demonstnuol"l gathered in front ofthe federal parliament smack in th.oc;(Y «nil The Milo�eviCs were away for the weekend in Vrnjatka in central Serbia. Mira Markovic said they did not watch d demonstration on television, and claimed to be shocked when about it. Early the next day, they decided to return to As usual Milo�evic was in no hurry to address the rally. he kept it waiting the more momentum the protest gained. arrived from Rakovica, the nearby industrial district in Belgrade, were chanting: 'Slobo, Siobo'. They would not settle for an�ne 'Milo�evic was like a saint to them, not an icon, but a living believed his every word and would not go home until he them,' said Borisav Jovic.

H��

��I��;_

crisis-sessions all day. and federal politicians held

.

1be Serblafl state-of-emergency in Kosovo. Kucan w-antc_--1u. to declarc a _... --"-tiIthat Serbia coold use the same knew I . He JWIU""'" " :- _set agamst th·s .J_d

... _ .

. in the near future. agvn" Slovenia , l. At one point,JovlC he leadership was losing contro csa:uses meO thau . I,.-< the crowd wasca e II Outsld fire on is a ·Serbi . uy· • . euphOrlt:all _t...: m ed _ c;lUA" - . Uy mcapa ble . . Gratanin said: '51000 was psych0ioglc;w . for C. fr such large crowds'9. After hours of resisting, Mi1�V1 iDI ing In ont of J:...-It ue\l1n - g that, as a l1li. the federal President, agreed to speak, be" the of crowd. Suvar of wrath the � h' uld not provoke DizdarcviC's speech said. he us,' attack �t 'No. they'll as far he 'As consay: '74 to him advised . � Gral:anin had . . I that And promIse It. you on working we're '"oncerned, S ... , � on I llitUb 0 K part IS f S b-la. , er osovo d concerne is Kosovo as . 11 ed As far . favo ofY i r are slavia' we concerned, is ugoslavia � ? �� . A young Milo�evic activist stood b�hllld Dlzdare:nc promptmg him what to say: 'Tell them that you 11 do everyrhmg to protect YugoIlavia'. His whisper was audi?le over the public address �yst�m. Dildarevil:'s humiliation showed Just how weak the federal tnstltu tical were; they had no power against this maddened crowd. People buns &om the trees, screaming for the heads of the Kosovo leadership, jotring at Dizdarevii::, calling for the arrest ofV1Jasi and demanding to •

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-. MilokviC finally appeared. Again he appealed directly to the � over the heads of the Yugoslav leaders : This rally shows that no-one (on destroy lhe (oUnl'1 buaust 1M f*1!'t won't Itt tmm, 1m /Uoplt art Iht btll guaranltt, Wt art ttn�g 10 gtl all hontsf /'tople in Yugoslavia 10fighlforptau and Imlty. Nothr.ng can stop tht Strb Itodmhip andptopltftam doing 'fDhtz1/hry want. Tagttha wt willfightfor unity and ftudom in KOIOVO. Wt havt our (O�!lilution, and this will mtan progrmfor allPtO r" YugoslaVi a. Unityfor tht Commufliu Party and theptop lt.

;:�"gt

1'br: crowd roare . Jror the arrest of the Albanian Party . . d' screammg Ieod.n. Milo!eVlc answered.· 'I cant' hear you, but we w1ll . arrest those ltIponsible mc u I d· mg tho s e w h -I 0 have useil the workers. In the name _ the SOc· I aliSt people of Serbia 1 pro mise this.'

LAYING THE CHARGE

Dufan Mit('fJrwidit was MiloS('fJifat hs i btst. 'It was a slJo.w f{ powtr - to luep (l crowd wai/ingfor hours. TINflderal PraU/tnt speaks, alld they don't leave. Finally Slobodan (omts. He speaJ.s britjly for four minlltts. Tht (Towd shouts: "Arrtst Vllasir, Slobodan did not hear it properly and rtpeated: -wt will arrtsJ those who have 10 be arresudi No matter what junctiOIl they hold". "Now go homer and fhry did... It showed hs i power and that he was their unassailable leader. '

Vllasi was driving through Belgrade. The car radio was Milo�evic's pledge to arrest him tempted Vllasi to turn up at He was jailed one day later. The crowd dispersed. For days afterwards, the d,m"m"",tie,,,," likened to 27 March, 1941, when the Serhian people had come defiance against a pact with Hider's . 'Bol)e rat 'better war than a pact', the war-time crowd had The Serbs prided themselves on being prepared to go war rather than accept the dictates of others. General ed the day when the 'people reacted spontaneously pact with the Germans ... J was eighteen at that point': There wert slreams and streams ofpeople throughout Serbia. ANI Isaid 10 Slobodan later: 'Ths i if the 271h ojMarth'andI laidhim:

'You werrn� tvtn born at thaI lime'.

The new constitution was announced, ratified by the assembly. The vote to strip itself of autonomy and submit ",•••r � authority of Belgrade was assured by the JNA tanks and the police surrounding the building and deployed throughout Ko.,,""" 28 March, 1989 the elite of Serbia turned out to celebrate the constitution. The entire from-page of Politika trumpeted that was whole again. Belgrade had brought the provinces under its tro!. While girls in white dresses sung the Yugoslav national in a chorus in a Belgrade concert hall, twenty-two ethnic and twO policemen were kiUed during two days of protests new constitution. Official Belgrade said not one word of ""'" til the deaths of the ethnic Albanians. The changes had been b; " UJ!:JtI bayonets. The day was declared a state holiday in Serbia.

7'

N. THINK HARD' 'COMRADE SLOBODA 1 2

er, .f; 9 NO\--c:mb T d � j' by some S Ihm: were even vary 'Idly ates snm 1994. _

ISO 0Cl0

E _Ie pn:senl. Id a hosl of key positions from Chief of Ihe Federu r�', K"rtes wasHtOe3.dh 0fCustoms in. 1994 (I n a countryunderem bargo,where ce t Pol! r c ;;K'>-'� . ' tha is a chOice post). Another secret po" eman, JOVlca e smu r the top, becomi g one of He would rise III � IS g&" �; Kertes. I n up w ScaniSit � most ;ted allies In May 1995 Milosevic appointed Stallisic his M.ilok . vit s ' d signated for freeing UN hostages. � �c;=YG�t, Serbia'sinother �an in the .Yugoslav politburo, who ad Stambolit's side the Eighth SesSIOn ed the ballot. Milan �ki, pro-Mil�vit Macedonian, aimosl did not make the cut-offwith WI

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Slavoljuh. IznmiJu slow i anat�me: polititlHl hiogrofua S/ohotiana MiItJkvi!a. Filip Viinjit. Bclgr�de 1994. 5 Siobodan Milokvic, Godlnr rasp/ria, BIGZ, Bclgra.d(, .1989,p. 3.33.

6 tn fact, they wer( relieved to let Belgrade deal With It. Siovema often protested against the hug� conrributions to the �cderal fund for the less-d(vd Oped regions ofYugosla\'1a - KoS?vo. Mac�doOla, �nd M.ontenegro. 7 Serbia trad(d a cusations With Croatia and Slov(Ola as to whether th( aiacn were actually on a hung(r-strike. The charg(s were aim(d at compro ailing the miners. Sine( 180 men were hospitalized, and they all looked wan aDd ill, it seems unlikely, and, in any event, irrelevant, whether they were eat c

"OI oot.

Prominent Serbian intellectuals in

1989 founded the Serbian Jewish non-a1ign(d Yugoslavia's pro-Arab, 1IIti-bnc.li policy. It soon reedved considerable official backing with its 1Ilntaly, Klara Mandie, later to be im'olv(d with severu prominent Subs � Rado:nn Karadiic, to Captai Drag<&n who had his own elite para military urut inKnin, the Kninjas. 9 Rumours have persisted that Mil�e it hates speak in public. Even Ihough he came power on a wav( of rallies, he seldom addressed crowds.

Friendship Society. Th( group opposed 8

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to

71

[0

TSAR LAZAR'S CHOlCE

nia. The pay-off , " ..ssions from Croatia and Slove , wong con....

5

a hand With l. ---l to roval of Markovic, a Croat, was frec , .. , app pur-o.l....des r.... C ' was a compromise lor The cholce

TSAR LAZAR'S CHOICE

�.

he ubiquitous smile of the new Yugoslav Prime Minister, MarkoviC, became a trademark for his seemingly boundless

T

mism. He strove to implement free-market reforms, meeting tanee from the leaders of Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia, who wanted , keep control over the economy. His programme offered hope country caught in a dangerous spiral of nationalism, generated

Serbia. In a short time, the silver-haired, blue-eyed MarkovK the most popular politician in all six republics, even though he

vilified by their governments. The mention of his name recalls of prosperity and optimism. But he is also ed for presiding over, and

ill

power to stop. Yugoslavia's excruciating descent into war. tenure, the fIrSt multi-party elections since the Second

were held in the six r�publics. Nationalist parties captured m,.t ,ofl vote. MarkOYK: cam� into conflict with S�rbia, Slovenia and Yet he was at their m�rcy. His programm� hinged on the

(�:�

of each regime, but they selectively obeyed or violated it. I republics, at odds over everything, forged an unlikely alliance

throw him. The Prime Minister was hit from al1 sides. Milo§cviC to block reforms which would weaken his monopoly over power. r tactical manoeuvre to distance itself f om the federal �'�n_ Serbia launched a separatist drive, even appointing its

titutional changes. I ate was Bonsav . d'd ' rly since the other malO can articula vic, a rators, Marko collabo pragtrusted kviC'S most , Pr � 1-0.< one o Milo .m pick�d a government �ostly composed 0r �ketat, . tcehnocr s orms, koVlc ref Mar tried h to for r suppor win o T � . �ented politicians. on 10 office, the dinar, the nat was he While happy. . the republics . onvertible and It was pegged to the German cumncy, was made c pushed through a package of MarkoviC liberalized imports and . the economy in sound fiscal anchor to wanted He laws. tiution financial policy, rather than political whim, believing that people would prefer to have a colour television. set, � car and foreign travel nationalist slogans, war and IsolatIOn. He was wrong. racber

an

cons . .,..·-d _ ., � ....,..., .

March 1989-January 1990

own

Minister, the first Yugoslav republic to do so. It became

currency to say that Serbia could survive on its own. But these were only tactics. MiloseviC's real intention was to

over the Yugoslav federation. Slovenia refused to follow the same rules as the other

Croatia wanted to keep its foreign-currency earnings from

Markovic stubbornly tri�d to defend Yugoslavia, even when nothing left to defend, pleading for reason over nationalism. December, 1991, he resigned, ostensibly in protest against the

budget which he called a war budget. Betrayed by everyone, he trolled little more than the cavernous and sprawling federal

ment building. Finally, he lost that, too. By ing MarkoviC's candidacy in January, 1989, S",bu q

J""'ri� �

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Capite the lure of shiny foreign labels, Serbia was still blindcd by the ndiant glare ofnationalism. On 28 June, 1989, a million Serbs flocked 10 Kosovo to worship at MiloSevic's feet, during celebrations to mark the aix-hundredth anniversary of Serbia's defeat by the Turks. The

date resonates throughout Serbian history. On the same day, in 1914, G.wiIo Princip, a Serb nationalist revolutionary, assassinated Austrian Alchduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, triggering the First World War. But far more important to the Serb national psyche is St Vitus's

day. 1389, when a Serbian . Kosovo kno,",:, • place In

army was defeated by the Ottomans in n as the Field of Blackbirds. According to the most revered of epICS, Tsar Lazar ed the ranks of Serbia's Jesendary heroes, in a battle that ushere d in the be.n n ning of500y'"" o· aCT , urlQ, 6m:J 'Iih dOmmat ' lOn. A� the start of the battle, the invading Turks alation ru Lazar the chOice between fighting to the death and capit ey .also offered a reward for choosi . his surrender. He refused, e kingdom of heaven over worldl y wealth and the betrayal . « hisng atl�n to a foreign opp ressor. fng to one version _ _nli of the legend, Saint Elijah came with a r ----..--& om the Mother of God:

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W!N,I /(ingdom shall I (booJtf SiNuI I 'boou a httl'Utnly

:;i:fc;

kingdom? hoou an tarthly kingdo m? u an tarthly kingdom, � 4" II/tarthlY kmg ' dom lam only a lit/It timt B Qh tawnl y kingaom WIl/ I ' la stfor tltrm .ty and 75

ilJ unluria.

LAYING THE CHARGE

TSAR LAZAR'S CHOICE

:��:;�:

Tsar Lazar chose the heavenly kingdom rather than the foreign enemy, and the medieval Serb aristocracy died that battle.

All was holy, all wm honourable, and the goodnm o/God wasfulfilled. Milokvit asked his followers to make the same choice.

minions throughout Yugoslavia shou1d pledge to eat roots rather

the numbers game. No-one could � culmination of u1 a me spectac evit outdo Mi1 Mi1o�cvit descended from the heavens d ere atmosphere' s le v _ dU l Cderatlon. ' ' . U [0 deliver his grandest snub to the Ie by hehc�?ter politicians stood on the stage, looking decidedly top . . u._1aVlas IIy In command: Milo�evic was out lO front, tota bl , rta e. ffi1o ''' gpco

�

nt'IJer (onquered or exploited others. s,rlIs in their history have . lhemselws and, when t hey liberated wan, world Tbro h /1J}() to liberate others themselves. ped lul abo they tINy Id toforget that at, one time, allow not dotS heroism The KosO'VO we wm brave and dign ified and one 0/thefiw who went into /NIlile undeftated Six untunfllafer, again we are in bat/In and quarre4. They are ,,01 armed battles, though JUch things should not be lxcludtdyd.

betray their nation by accepting foreign dictates. This, Lazar's . was inimical to the Markovic reforms, which promised a on earth.

;!/d,

The myth of Kosovo is the centrepiece of Serbian tradition. ' the name of Christ, no other name is more beautiful or m".. ...'" said Orthodox Bishop Emilijan at a celebration marking the anniversary in 19391. Half-a-century later, pilgrims stood in the Orthodox monastery, Grafanica, to view Lazar's bones. remains wou1d be ed round monasteries in Yugoslavia, which would be claimed as Serb lands when the war broke 1991. This journey, the fIrst time that Lazar's bones had been public there, was celebrated

as

a holy national rite. Some

danger. Ljubinka Trgovtevit, an early Milo�evic opponent, had

warned the Serbian leadership that the travelling exhibit -

return of Chetnik symbols such as the double-headed wtu" ,",p the Serbian royal house and the imagery of the Serbian

Church - could upset Yugoslavia's delicate balance. The

said, were the biggest nation and should act responsibly '.'''''., smaller, more vulnerable ones. But her advice was drowned

thunderous shouts of Serbs rejoicing in the conviction that finally, held the country's destiny in their hands.

In an aggressive defiant mood, Serbs flocked from ",,,,,d , world to take part in the ceremonial union of all Serbs leader. After hours spent snarled in traffic, apparently

endure a host of trials to see their leader, they thronged to the Blackbirds. From daybreak, they waited to secure places at the

but were separated from Mi1o�evic by a huge expanse of celebration at Gazimestan, the battle field, differed from the

:� ��;�

bureaucratic rallies, attended by tired-looking workers � , � o ';' ; factories. This was a momentous occasion. The state

n

have delivered the crowds to Kosovo, bur the people here

• [0 be part of this powerful expression of Serb unity. G'02;'m'...

Almost within earshot, in Kosovo's capital, PriHina, the decrepit

Socialist high-rise buildings, usually teeming with children, were

lilent. Serb folk-music blared in the heat. The town seemed aban

doned. Even though Serbs were outnumbered ten to one in Kosovo,

011; that day Albanians kept to themselves, fearing they could be tar· peed by the hordes of pilgrims, many of whom had had a generous

dote of Iljivovica (plum brandy). Milo�evit's deputy in Kosovo, vowed

urest Ib�im Rugova, the ethnic Albanian leader. That day, � fragile and unsure, waited for the hand of Belgrade to tight . .. Itl gnp over Kosovo.

to

After the March, 1989, const itutional amendments, Serbia was far

� powe?W

�cy. ces,

than the other republics. By taking control over the

It now had three votes in the eight-member federal .

Siovema W:l. afraid of this unchecked influence so the S tem republic sought to redef ine Yugoslavia; to wea L_u 0f ken the _ the centre. Serbia was confide . nt that lOtroduClOg . ,one man, one vote' would halt the Clentrifu . rc� te nng apart the federa tion. Majority vote usually � � hand In_ an .WITh democracy but in this . climate, where . . national lnte · . ' d rests domlnated III L-.... IVldual ones, it would "-ft guarante eould "" cd, for example, that the numericallysuperior Serbs oio t
��

77

LAYlNG THE CHARGE

In September, Slovenia tried to halt Serbia's drive for i'1.ation. The north-western republic proposed a package of,,__...· tional amendments, which would spell out the right to secede, necessary, from Yugoslavia. Independence, however, was not Most of the leaden;hip considered [he amendments, which ran gamut from language to the military, an insurance policy th,,, ,_ safeguard Slovenia's special position within Yugoslavia. By sanctioning the selective implementation of federal amendments dealt a body-blow to MarkoviC's helped Ljubljana to mute the rising popular the Slovene regime, that Yugoslavia's richest exploited and its prospcrity drained by the rest all , Slovenia ed for eight per cent ofYugoslavia's 23.5 million and produced nearly one-third of the hard rency exports. This fallacious equation did not take of the tually captive markets of the rest of Yugoslavia's 21.5 million or the cheap labour and raW materials which Slovenia had elsewhere - in particular, Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia. The constitution would empower Slovenes - and not the ["I,",ti"n -1II the right to decide how to allocate the wealth of the republic. posed yet another obstacle for Markovic, about which he could little but hope it would not subvert his reform programme. A storm erupted when Belgrade got 'wind' of the planned ments. Serbia demanded the right to discuss the proposed The Slovene leaden;hip responded by pointing out that amended its own cons6tution, regardless of what anybody Yugoslavia wanted, even at the cost of Albanian lives in Slovenia said Serbia had set the precedent: Yugoslav rel,uk.li" hd' right to change their own constitution. Belgrade argued that Slovenes were interfering in what was aclusively an internal a federal state. For weeks, the republics waged a war of words. The Serbian leadership was infuriated by the amendments, by subjugating federal to local interests, effectively made the their own masters - an expressed goal of the regime. Slovenia then have powers equal to, or even exceeding, those of the It could decide whether the Army should take action in the declare a state-of-emergency, redefine its relations with th" o.the' , eral units, and choose which parts of federal law it wanted to meO[. Serbian and federal military leaders debated how to Slovenia. Between themselves, they argued whether they threaten to impose a state-of-emergency or actually impose:

E TSAR LAZAR'S CHOIC

. with MiloSevic and the Io ng the various options �t hou� �p �eneral Kadijevic. 'Milo�evic and I believed that if MInister, ,d the amendments it would be the end of Slovenes le to dissuade the , The trio decided it would be preferab • l ents rather than amendm the YugoIbV te de hip from adopting ic decided that the Milo�ev being, time SIo¥at�n t�e �y. For the g a new to deterrent promulgatin effective most cIopIoYi t 0 loree .......$ the cbrea . . CMStirution2• Serbia's representative on the Yugoslav PreSidency, ovit pen;uade the federal institutions to condemn the Slovene �cional amendments. The eight-member federal Preside�cy ruled :against the amendments, � n the grou�ds that they "",:ould give .h lt m YugoslaVIa. After a meetlOg at the SIoftnia a privileged staNs w aailitat)' hideaway of Dobanovci, outside Belgrade, Janez Drno�ek, • SIoftne, who was then head of the rotating Presidency, explained Ibat a harsh public statement would be counter-productive. JoviC �cly agreed to open talks with the Slovenes in Belgrade. It was not yet time to play hardball. Tbc Serbian leaders tried to cajole the Slovenes into climbing down. A senior Slovene delegation turned up in Belgrade to face the walibly coalition ofJovic, Kadijevic and MarkoviC. Drno�ek initiated the discussion by describing the political atmosphere in Slovenia. Public expectations were high, he said, the leaders could ill-afford to .&.appoint them. JoviC, however, argued that the amendments violated tile federal constitution. The Slovenes claimed the opposite. Going � � further, the Slovenes complained that Belgrade, in fact, was wioIating the constitution by pressurizing Slovenia. The Slovenes then threw the Serbs a bone volunteering to make ections to t�e a en�ments. In fact, ;hey made a few purely � :rchang r es which did lttle to placate their Serbia i n and federal CDanIttparts In h· Is Iega 1Ist " C and argumentati.ve manner, JoviC told · l • S Iovenes what they already knew .. th , that the Presidency had ruled He ndments would directly threaten Yug oslaVia's integrity. �' at Be �_, :� lgrade would not tolerate the creation t . , of an 'asym -....... Iederanon. A IUC:cession of . meet'lOgs d'd 1 noth.lOg to Impr ove relations. In a r dIialy-Yeiled re le rence to MiloseVIC, . . K·· , uo..· an accused ,certam �ng havoc ' people of simpIy to further thei r IIid there own political ambitions. He were only two amend menrs, whIc ' h could possibly be inter. as u nconS "; utuOonal' that wh·ICh . gave the republIca 10k righ' to n parliament aut hOflze " the JNA to enter S1 veOia · ; and another, 0

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79

LAYING THE CHARGE

E TSAR LAZAR'S CHOIC

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which gave Slovenia the right to declare a """'ofC""''l!''n
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constitutional backing for armed intervention. This would the next and final three years of his career. He would never 80

0

cabal of Serbian nationalists, but lacked the part f he . isavow himself of them. That day. ...rion to d t .. conYl ' _ and ture. suggested that 'If Slovema tempera the lower to g Yl ' n t Kadi..Je . . to adopt the amendments, then the Constitutional went so ,... as . . . , should rule on them. . leaders, 'This was a major mIstake and a rurnJOg POJOt , Court To th Serb He later asked Kadijevic why the A:my changed its analysing the problem agalO, we concluded ' n He said: 'After that any move to stop the Slovenes was so e people might argue wa� forced to adopt anoth�r plan. Belgrade illegal Anny intervention.' the Slovenes made It clear t;1cncs. strong-arm Des ite the Serbian But there was one amendments. the with ahead go that th y would roe card to play. The day before the Slovene Parliament was due to and, with no advance notice, the Slovene Communists were sum moned to Belgrade for a Central Committee meeting. Kuean was aervous. 'It was an attempt to put pressure on the Slovene Communists by resorting to the principles of democratic centralism praswe on us not to adopt the amendments or to postpone the .-ion of the Slovene parliament.' He quickly called a Slovene Party meeting. where their position on the amendments was re�affirmed. 'The Slovenes are not prepared to 1M: in Yugoslavia at all costs and will not agree to poit l ical bargaining,' me Party statement said. Dctermined, the Slovenes called for the for mation of an 'asymmetrical federation', wh ich would recognize the IepUblic's special economic and political status. Having dec ided to ahead, no matter what Belgrade did, was a decision that one IeIUor Slovene official called 'crucial for the dissolution ofYugosJavia'. Full of !rep.'
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TSAR LAZAR'S CHOICE

LAYlNG THE CHARGE

Slovenes and only then Communists'. The Slovenes were the minority. They got a boost that night at the Central

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of the Yugoslav Party, when, for the first time, the Croats sided with them against the majority in a vote that was ni � ' favour of postponing the vote on the amendments a nd . The Croat vote was a watershed for the second biggest Yugoslavia, which, until then, had disguised its for tl

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push towards decentralization. It further unravelled the

disintegrating federal state. II was a logical move for Croatia, Jol · " v saw in Slovenia the only hope ofresistance to M �. ln �'
.

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Croatian Communist Party chief, had little choice but tc

fate with the Slovenes.

Slovenia lost the vote, but the Slovenes realized that would not move against them. The JNA had nUscalculated that the Slovenes would back down. Croatia was now on their the Slovene Communists left Belgrade that day in high spirits. did not use their special escape routes. Kufan ordered whisky for everyone on the plane. At the end of the sixteen-hour session, the Communists arrived in Slovenia as national saying no to Belgrade. On

27

September, Slovenia declared itself a sovereign state.

Parliament erupted in thunderous applause when the deputies

whelmingly adopted the constitutional amendments with only dissenting vote and one abstention. In a show of unity, the

Slovene leadership attended the Parliament session. Janez then President ofYugoslavia, cut short his visit to the "",;.."," General Assembly in New York.. His move showed that Slo,yocu. more important to him than his position as federal h",d-of-",te.·� Slovene people have demonstrated in this war of nerves that capable of being the masters of their own fate... This is a . moment for Slovenia,' said Janez Stanovnik, at a sion. The atmosphere was exuberant. Some of the began singing patriotic songs. In his typical Milan Kocan, the experienced Party chief who had been

in winning this round, went home to sleep. He had climbed of the Communist party, survived potentially lethal political '

and knew the biggest battles lay ahead.

Over the next month, the war of nerves intensified. Slovenia swipe at Markovic, declaring the republic unable to S,

. . . ds out 0f its txed ,_ ..I.ra! fun ms, 51oveOla cntlc.lZCd the fi et-oriented refor mark . R:U" mme, his of for progra ays mainst the IC ' h was one of . , I1lte, wh . -··0 ._I. .... . .....at': b d y, export ase uas econom Slover g hurtm

l e claiming to own income, Whi

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.

, he dinar and � . owervalUing t announcem�nt th'� M·II� eVlc ' crnveI: . stakes were l1lised with an ..... dubbed agam the Meetmg 0f Truth , •� . f nationalisr rallies' . . ·' .. CJrcus o .. 1: _ oe bread and salt, an the traditIOnal Bearing jana. in Ljubl of hospitality, the Serb nationalists said they would . ich now separated them from the the barriers, wh break about Kosovo is not known in Ljubljana,' said a S10Ycne The truth cial. . . . Yugoslav Communist offi how to deal with thiS deliberate Kufan's leadership pondered the rally, saying that it was provocation by Belgrade. Slovenia banned an excuse for military become would riots that afraid of violence, searched were before entering Serbia from rains T n. interVentio

:: �::;:;rure d

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SJovenia, The bold move helped Kocan, who was worried about the free elections which Slovenia had called before the other aepublics. By standing up to the Serbs once again, he knew there

would be some political cachet.

At the last minute, the Serb organizers who had warned that Slovenes would try to stop it by force, cancelled the meeting. But Belgrade did not IIIow the issue to die. Far from it. The Socialist Alliance of Serbia, an � of �e Communist Party, called on 'all institutions and enterprises .. Serbia to sever all relations with Slovenia on the grounds that all Nndamenral human rights and liberties had been suspended there' . December, the seventy-first anniversary of the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovene s Belgrade struck back with a braun diktat - the order to 5ever ties wi�h the northwestern republic:

people could be killed at the rally, claiming that [he

o.n 1

Wi a�e s�yi1/g dearly that no ritlU'! ofS�rhla willheg S/(l'f)t1/ia to : maf1/ In Yugoslavia or lownhimself 10 offir hread a1/d JaIl 10 t Sf who areprepared to Jhoot at him.

re than 130 major ' Serbian enterprises cut -L...:_ Wi. ll � �L Slove . n ia . Th e sl'Ightest reSistan ce was punished. The L..t. . uaoaan newspaper Po0r III"l w rounded n Yugoexport - one of top

�r the next month mo

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.

the � . �g Store fo; �ffendlng the Sentmlents of Belg rade by display109 Slovene C1ot h . es ln the shop · d . Win ows. The boycott was a classu;: -.oifestation f 'mat · ' (spite). Belgrade wanted to hit the Slovenes � it woul hun most, re"" . <>rd less 0fhow h Igh ' the pnce for Serbia". _

/

LAYING THE CHARGE

TSAR LAZAR'S CHOICE

Serbian factories relied on Slovene products, too. This was just the beginning. It was a move which cut both ways.

eastern Europe, Communism was in its death throes. Th oughout r those three days, the country's Party leaders came no closer to over of the organization. On the contrary, any ment on the future .,> > 'fl" n nci lallo coIIapsed. pro peets (or reco Party falling apart, the Bosnian leadership Communist ith the between the two si�es. Nijaz Durakovic, chief ?f caugh � nervOUS,

Milokvic rubbed salt in the wound. He had just been endorsed by Parliament as President of Serbia. In an address lO the Assembly, the newly-elected Serbian President accused the Slovenes of depriving the rest ofYugoslavia of the chance to lead a normal life in a stable COuntry, In a classic example of the Orwellian double-speak, which so charac

terius Milokvic, he said:

This SIO'IJtnt ItadtTJhip is a prottctor of (onurvatjsm in Yugoslavia, and one of the last protectors if conurlJatism in tht socialist (ountries in gtneral. Conservatism in S/rwtTIia, in (071flict with thtfoms ofprogress in Yugoslavia, and especially with tlxprogrmiw ttonomic andpolitical changes in Sn-bia, has reatttd aggresis wly and trutlly. Such aggrmivffleSJ and crutlty as a rult distingush i all conservatism.

Delegates hurled invective at one another. Milo�vic warned that if

have had enough of you.' Rafan, Croatia's Communist h�ader, turned

pale. His hands and voice shook: 'You are doing everything to force me to take sides in a dispute 1 don't want to be part 0[5.' A statement from the Slovene leadership blasted Milo�evic's speech, for its

'unfounded and absurd assertions'. Minutes of Party meetings reveal the enmity fostered over twO years ofbiner dispute. It seemed that they could not agree on a single thing. They even quarrelled about what song should open the extn

ordinary Fourteenth Congress of the Yugoslav Communist Party; the or the Inttrnacionalt, the national anthem, 'Htj Slaveni' (Hey popu1ar song, 'Yugoslavia'. At one point Ratan said: 'It is not tant how we begin, but it is important to finish with YugoslaVJa, apparently missing the irony until the others broke out in laughter'. .

•

Fourteenth Extraordinary Party Congress on 23 Throughout the doomed session in Belgrade's Sava C�n'"",. d"" II""� oIf< . tw, .? argued over the fate of the Party. Should it be divided int.o JI] , ings, Socialist and Communist, rather than according to r" u then, the gulf between Serbia, on one side, and Slovenia and on other, had become seemingly unbridgeable. Indeed, the

the

westem republics had already called free elections for the

the Bosnian Parry, tried to mend fences: I have a mandate to kneel In

front of President Kocan and Milo�evic and beg them to find some . sort of compromise: he said The deputies roamed the halls, bars and restaurants, trying to find

out what was going on in the conviction that Party decisions were never reached in public. Serbia and Slovenia continued their polemics over transforming the Party, no fewer than 458 amendments were proposed to the final Party resolution.

The Communist chiefs began to quarrel when they heard about this inaugural speech. One of MiloScviC's allies screamed at him: 'I

The final showdown between Serbia and Slovenia took place at

W

�

the Yugoslav Party disintegrated, then the parties in each republic wou1d become 'nationalist' or 'national socialist'. One Slovene deputy sa.id that it was Milokvic's Party that was 'national socialist', implying that the Serbian Party was fascist. Dubn Mitevic rushed to Mil�eviC's defence, praising him for his vision of Yugoslavia which was 'acceptabte for the working class of Serbia, the Serbian people, and the nations and nationalities of Serbia7'. For three days and nights, Mitevic made sure that the Congress filled televisio n screens throughout Yugoslavia.

Each Slo :ene proposal - from human rights to Yugoslavia's role in Europe - failed to get even half the total of 1612 votes needed to be adopted Rounds of applause greeted each defeat. The Slovenes were . huml>,lated. It became clear to them that the Serbian and �ntenegrin delegation had been instructed to vote down any �ne, proposal. � the Slovene amendments were rejected,' said n. The ubstance of the Slovene proposals was completely irrd � ::"t. Anrthmg that we submimd would have been rejected.' For > ft e h Slovene de > >,egates It was not a questi> On of If. " but when the Congress should be abandoned Meanwhile the Serbs goaded > the Slov�nes, defying them to walk OUt. The Slov enes had already planned a Sign al to leave - Ciril Ribi6c Would take h b 5, " floor and say: 'This orientation cannot be the orientaon of ovene . C0mmUOIs ts and we are leaving the Congres Fed up, the s'. Slovene delegati on walked out of the ConO'1'ess. Son», Loka , r a prom. ment Slovene part ' . y offiCial, �t1y wept as her delegation filed 0Ut Of th /:I' e hall. Many 0f the remamIng Serbian delegates >

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LAYING THE CHARGE

applauded the midnight walk-out, convinced they had scored a victory against the Slovenes. In whatwas one of MilooeviC's first political blunders, he scrambled on to centre stage and called for the Congress to continue. 'Let thOSe ' who want to go, go, and we will make a new quorum. But hi.s bid was . ignored. The confident leader, who was used to �lflg hailed with feverish enthusiasm, suddenly was at a loss. He had rruscalculated. 1vi.ca Racan had pledged that his delegation would follow the Slovenes if they pulled out of the Congress. MiloSeviC had ignored this. A third of the of the Croatian delegation were Serbs. Milooevit was relying on them to keep the Croatian delegation at Con�ss. He was wrong. The Croat delegation abandoned the Congress In of the Slovenes. The Congress had dissipated into a quarrel about everr aspect of political life. It ended in the disintegration of the Commullist Party of Yugoslavia. The Fourteenth Congress was the last attended by all s� . Yugoslav republics. The glue that was holdmg federal YugoslaVIa together had come unstuck. Federal Prime �i�ster �te arko� put a brave face on the break-up, 'Yugoslavia will continue, he said grinning. . . . The Army High Command made their trepidation eVldenL Warning Momir Bulatovic of Montenegro, who was chairing that session, General Kadijevic said: 'Defending the Party means defend ing the country'. But there was to be no compromise. �t�r the Croats refused to continue the Congress, the young Bulatovlc did not know what else to do. He called a fifteen-minute break which, as he later observed, 'lasted throughout history'.

�

.

1 Irena KostiC �nd Siobodan Vuksanovii (cds), Ptlma () K()J/1fJu, "'�'''' , Jrpl1w ptJaija, Belgr.1de, 1991, Vidi<:i SKZ, JedinstvO p. 12. 2 After the Army w:lS called in 10 Kosovo in February, 1989, th� leader ship in Belgrade increasingly view�d it as a means of conducting, and enforcing, policy. . . o .er ' a c ild c� 3 Jovita Vlahovic, a man who s�ys he lost hLs han while the partisans, but actu:i.lly it was injured whLle . Montenegro, was one ofthe more colourful extremists/agents involved Slovenia debacle. 4 Djukit, Siavoljub, lzmtdJu 1lavt i anat�me. 5 Vmne, Agonija SKJ, 5 November, 1990. (, Vrrmr, Agonija SKJ, 12 November, 1990. 7 Vjesnik, 23 January, 1990.

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86

�

6 RlFLE ON A CROATIAN SHOULDER' ,'A CROATIAN Tht Awakrmng ojCr()(Jlta 1989-1990

. roatJa watched the rise of Milo�evic in silence. For twenty years, " s sec�nd larg�st -: had been this western republic YugosIaVla of as the Silent Republic, after the crushing byTlto, In 1m a n nalist movement called Maspok, which was led by a faction of Croatia's ruling communists'. The Party leaders who had spearheaded the campaign were purged; indeed, anyone even remotely associated with it was sacked or jailed. The Croatian cultural organization, Marica Hrvatska, was dismantled after becoming a major focus of dissent, with a nationalist platform reviving economic and historical grievances against the Serbs. Nearly twO decades later, many of Maspok's ousted leaders would rise again to take part in the country's first multi-party elections since the Second World War. The winner of that poll, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) rose to power with the backing of a highly-politicized community of emigre Croats living abroad, many of whom had fled Yugoslavia after the Second World War with a second wave after A hardened-core ofCroat emigres had long been depicted by the Communists as the bogeymen ofYugoslavai , and had, for twenty years, stood accused of international terrorism. In the hostile climate of Milo�eviC's reign, the HDZ was a mass movement which easily captured the vote on its pledge to realise Croatia's IOOO-year-old dream of statehood. Croats, nursing their resentment since the crack-down on Maspok, had lo�g awaited change. State security agents and military intelli ge�ce Interrogated anyone suspected of having links with Croatian emigres, who were supposedly comm itted to the revival of an indepen dent Croatian state. For Com munist Yugoslavia, Croatian inde pendence was a taboo theme, tantamount to an attempt to rehabilitate the Usw Independent � State of Croatia (NOH). Each arrest served � a warnlOg - vigilant Yugo slavia would not tolerate any manifesta. _,. tIOn of Croafan natlO . na usm. Pnso I ' . n sentences were meted out for smgmg nationalist songs or carrym ' g thc 10hovm(fl roatlas red-andy,.h· Ite checkerboard ' emblem, whIC ' h had been the coat-of-arms in th' Pfo-Nazi ND H in 'hos It remains in doubt how many of these til e-actiVI' ties' symhois were planted' by police. For example, the

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LAYING THE CHARGE

'A CROATIAN RIFLE ON A CROATlAN SHOULDER'

possession of extremist propaganda could land someone in jail, If an Ustak pamphlct was posted from , it was sufficient evidence to bring charges against the un1ucky recipient in Zagreb who, in fiaet, may have known nothing about it.

Against this selective repression, the Croat national elite cultivated a sense of separateness from the eastern parts of the country. In the Croat nationalist mind·set, Serbia was Communist, backward and

poor, while Croatia - developed and modern - belonged to civilized Central Europe, its cultural heritage tied with the Austro-Hungarian for centuries. As the battle-lines were drawn, Croats would insist that they were outside the dark Byzantine world of Balkans. They grumbled that me Serbs ran the show; were over-represented in the

the

media and in me securiry forces. Interest in the Catholic Church swelled. For many Croats this was an affirmation of their identity

distinct from their Serb Orthodox countrymen - rather than an

� v1C at his height, a section of the Party leadership :1o�e ",, • JVlll . . " WIth k out - while another part counseIIed silence, lOltlauy spca to wanted ' such as ee!estIn < leader. Thc relormers, ng the Serbian even backi . tlme same e t d at h were an ' conMilo�evlc, in "t, saw a threat Sardeu _. ' Communist Party's role needed to change. The IOtern;u -Le _ " tha, U vlOccu I c . c relormers ITOm the mountlOg d'b! a prevented ere I e feud, howeVa, n. campaig . electoral . . In h run-up to the dectlon, TudJman gave the seethlOg crowds hat :h:y wanted: a strong dose of nationalism as an antidote to the '-

,

� coming from the east. Tudjman, unlike Milo�evic, was a gen u��nationalist, but both I�ader.s buil� their power on mobilizing the ur

asses. Croatia's Communist chief, IVlca Racan, whose renamed Party :;. Democratic Change lost to the HDZ, saw Belgrade's role in enhancing Tudjrnan's allure.

Miloftvif's aggrmive policy wal fbt strongut propaganda for Tudjman. Milofevit was unding his gangs to Croatia, wbo wert

expression of faith, By the time Communism fell in eastern Europe in 1989, the deaf ening echo of Croatia's silence was reverberating throughout the west ern republic2, The rise of Milo�eviC gave credence to those who

dancing and singing: 'Tbil il Serbia' wbich provokd and libtr atd thi national pridt and tbt nationalist rtallion of CroalJ which WIlS 1fictiw/y uud by Tudjman.

demanded that Croatia should abandon Yugoslavia, in order to get out from under the Serbian heel; and served as a warning to even the most Yugoslav-oriented Croats that it was time for urgent reforms. Years after Serb nationalism had taken hold in Belgrade and pro·

pelled Mi l oSevK: to power, the behaviour of Croat nationalists was still

muted, manifesting how effective the suppression of Croatian nation

teeming

alism had been. The vast Serb processions and mass rallies, with Serbian imagery and symbolism of domination, were often to be

seen, but, as late as 1990, its Croatian counterpart was cowed and

furtive. Across the political spectrum, Croatian intellectuals began whispering in cafes and strolling in city parks to elude the ear of me state. In various combinations, they debated what should be done.1be

most influential group included a former JNA General and histo� Franjo Tudjman. On 28 February, 1989, the Croatian DemocratIC Union (HDZ) held its first public gatheringl. A brief item broadcast on the late news was sufficient to attract supponers to me HDZ. Party was not legalized until December, 1989, when, fo�owmg Slovenia's lead, Croatian Communists decided to call moln-partY elections The Communists had run out of steam. A feud between

�

conserva�ive hard-liners and reformers had paralysed the party. Si�� Maspok, one of the most important criteria for entree into Cro�na ' . ruling elitc had been an absence (or denunciation) of nationalism.

88

His pledge to deliver Croatian statehood was also Tudjman's personal obsession. Born in 1922, he was early-on promoted to the tank of General. Years later he would justify his Partisan valour as his youthful struggle for a free Croatia, not Yugoslavia. In spite of his Communist past, Tudjman's nationalist credential s were in good order. Named by Tito as Head Political Commis sar, by 1967 he had been sacked for nationalism. Tudjman never missed an Opportunity to point out that he had been in the avant.gardt of Maspok.. He was jailed in the 1970s - a[ the time of the Maspok purges - and again in the 19805. In deference to his Partisan recor d Tudjman received better treatment than his feUow nationalists prison. One inmate was dismayed when he saw the extent of th<= former G n<=ral's priso n privileg<=s and privacy: Tudjman was accom � modated m the rela£ively comfonabl<= prison infirmary and had daily ��t Water to shave with. The irascible Tudjman was no ordin ary dis ent. It was rum oured that the great writer Miro Krld slav a, the . . n1fant ttrT ' e of eroatla lbl, ' n Intellectuals had interv ened with Tiro to . SUs""' r�nd'T' . lUd'Jmans , pnson sentence4. pre�erential treatment was even more precious outside prison. It as to mfluence Croatia's future. Unlike many dissi dents in

j�

SI

'!:IS

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LAYING THE CHARGE

Yugoslavia, Tudjman was allowed to have a port. DUring the 1980s he travelled abroad, fostering ties with Croat �migres, which eventually would help to secure his position as leader of the Croat nation. Of all the opposition contenders, Tudjman controlled the purse-strings of the Croatian emigres. The dection campaign in April 1990 allegedly cost four-million dollars. Once a political pariah, Tudjman had waited, for years, for his fortunes to reverse. He could count on one hand the faithful who had risked visiting his spacious home in the hills above Zagreb, the exciu� sive Tu�kanac districrS. Despite his crooked smile and strained demeanour, Tudjman carried himself as a man who believed in his august destiny. His demeanour was borne in part from his military

background, but also grew from the strength of his personal convic tion that he had a mission to rule. Tudjman had fallen from grace for the sin of nationalism - among his most errant beliefs was his contention that the Communists had v�scly exaggerated the number of Serb victims in the Second World War. The military establishment was outraged by his claim that the official figure of 600 000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies killed in the UsWe concentration camp, at JasenoV3c, was more than a ten-fold exaggera tion. Tudjman, however, insisted [hat, during the Second World War, the real figure of killed in all of Croatia was closer to sixty thousand. The argument about how many Serbs died at the hands of UstaJe death-squads, and in the concentration camps of UstaSe leader Ante Pavelic, has never been resolved and probably never will be6. With this public dispute, Tudjman gained currency with even the most radical of emigres - it was his mea (ulpa for his partisan past. Neverthdess he had a soft spot for Tito. Indeed, later as a power-

ful President he would be ridiculed for his efforts to imitate the debonair Yugoslav dictator. In 1969, in his book Great JdtaJ and SmJJJJ Nations, Tudjman wrote that Yugoslavia's peaceful and independent course could be attributed to Tito as 'one of the most distinguished statesmen of new nations and of the contemponry world in general".

For decades Croatian emigration had been painted in the Yugoslav media as a uniform, consummate, lurking evil, first responsible for butchering Serbs in the Second World War, then sowing the seeds of terrorism throughout the worlds. 'All Croatian emigrants were branded by the Communist authorities as fascists, Usta�e: said Tudjman: 'although they lived in democratic America, Canada or Sweden. Indeed Communist Yugoslavia, obsessed with its political

'A CROATIAN RJrLE ON

A CROATIAN SHOULDER'

unit to liquidate . a and elsewhere, established a special . .. from Croan ... Rainatovlc, A a has Leljko rkan, would , agent d One them abfoa . some There war. were former 1991 the torious during become no S d econ '" the vorld v after War. In escape to d manaut' Ustak who had 0. . Y d· h Jman u e d t a gamut. h prescience polttlcal . the ran o·TcS fiact, the emia · hat Croanan · · emlimportance ear)y on. He imew t to rec;�ize their d be a key to an HDZ victory. Josip BoljkoV3c, former for )nterl·0' M·,nister of Croatia .and HDZ Vice President, arranged gees . . visas through government connections Yugoslav get to emigres the By inviting the emigres to Zagreb for th� HDZ �ongress on February, 1990, Tudjman made what he said was hiS most c�uclal political decision, even compared to [he Sleps he took later while he was President of a newborn country torn by war.

�4

o To invillthe tmigraJion back to tht homdandf r a great muting was risky to the point that evm thostpeoplt who were later in my Ithip wailed till the last minu!t to stt whether we would bt a"tsfed or not. This is why that was a turning point in my lift in ofdtci sion making... Grtat duds, both in individual creative , and tspecially in SlJ(ial innovation and even militarily. art creaud on the razors edge btfwun tlu poniblt and tlu impossible. Thtrtfort, it is in such momenlJ thatjudgemtnt iJ important to achieve something that uems impossibltfor mOJl people.

It was not until 2500 delegates packed into Lisinski Concert hall in Zagreb, that the HDZ lellders knew they would nOt be arrested. By

the�,

the HDZ was a mass phenomenon, claiming 200 000 membe rs. TudJman told the highly-emotional crowd that he would strive for the Croatian right to self-determination and sovereignty. Ouropp'0ntnts su nothing in our programme but the claimfor the re�/orallon ofthe indeptndent Croatian Ustafl statt. Thesepeople fori 10 Stt that the Jlau was not the crtation offasc crimin iIt als; it �Iso Jl(}I)dfor tht hiJloric aspirations offlu Croal ian pevplefor an ,ndtptndtnt lIatt. They knew that Hitltrplanned to build a new Europton ordtr. His speech was Imme · dlate · )y seized on by the JNA and the Serbs' . . those fi rom n ll _-.u. parts of Croatia. In a Croatia which hai l ed the return . . _. . of alleged wat-cn mlll;su and allowed TudJma n to

P._ ....ICU · )ar)y

9'

LAY1NG THE CHARGE

IAN SHOULDER' 'A CROATIAN RIFLE ON A CROAT

speak, Serbs claimed their future was not secure. The HDZ main� tained that Tudjman was not rehabilitating the violence of the UstaJe but separating out the good parts, which was the realization of Croatia of the NDH. When Tudjman remarked: 'Thank God my wife is not a Jew or a Serb,' the hysteria grew. Aside from predictable attacks on Serbian nationalism, Tudjman also made dear his total disregard for Bosrua-Herzegovina, calling the central Yugoslav republic a 'national state of the Croatian nation', Croat nationalists saw Bosnian Muslims as Islamicized Croats - their Serb counterparts allegcd they were Orthodox Serbs. Later, u President, during a meeting with the US Ambassador Warren Zimmermann, Tudjman exploded into a tirade about lzetbegovi� and the Muslims of Bosnia. He denounced them as 'dangerous funda mentalists' who wanted to use Bosnia as a springboard for spreading Islam into Europe. Unable to keep control, despite the efforts ofru. aides to silence his outburst, Tudjman said Bosnia should be divided between Serbia and Croatia. The Herzegovina lobby - Croat emigrants from Herzegovina u well as their kin in the country - formed an important pillar of Tudjman's . In return for financial and political backing, he was beholden to this clique. They openly advocated the annexation of Herzegovina, the southern part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Extremist ambitions to extend Croatian territory as far as Zemun, a town just north of the Serbian capital Belgrade, even entered popular humour at the time. One joke said HDZ stood for HrvotJIUJ do Ztmuno, which means Croatia all the way to Zemun. The Herzegovina lobby eventu ally would come to blows with the continental Croats who did not share the expansionist drive oftheir kin. At the two-day Congress speaker after speaker asserted Croatia', right to secession and to freely forge alliances with other countri� � shaping the HDZ's election platform. In order to foster c�ua, spiritual rebirth, the HDZ pledged that perceived historical lffibal� ances would be redressed - such as fIXing the disproportional repre sentation of the Serbs who made up thirteen per cent of Croatia's 4.7 million population in the police and media. 'There won't be improvement for Croatia until a Croatian rifle is on a Croatian der, and a Croatian wallet in a Croatian pocket,9' proclaimed Djodan, an HDZ leader, who later briefly served as Defen " '' " ' The Congress took place in an atmosphere of intense el , . nationalism, and the audience waved banners emblazoned SohMmica. No longer was Croatia mute from apathy or fear of

;

�::;: :I With

9'

. for nationalism or anti-Communist statements. The impnsoned had crossed the threshold, and Slobodan Praljak, a theatre movement " Croat mili"tla, " become a commandcr 0f th e Bosman director wh0 later a stages r e e fvul d h �C bl " e 0 t e o uancy: lJ had HDZ the described how

ollhol limt Wi would win. Andso this dte/orotion was a Ik night. Thtre iJ jmilor to lhol or t'W fitt,n.m 'J a dim/or. on on optning g .. .

has fimsmd. We 'Wtrt no . and also $OdntlS that somelhmg Wt WtTt no longtr hound JO or ive group .of s txe/us �;';gtT Ihi gs. tl tgol mtt/m and to Ihis shadow st(Tuy l

4�.

The Croatian silence was shattered.

If Croatia careered towards frcc elections, Slovenia strolled. It was a different 'game' altogether in this northwestern republic, where the official five-month campaign had actually begun long before. C2!1asi political interest groups had existed since the early 1 8.0s. The Slove�e . . Communists wefe forward-looking enough to Inmate democratic reforms on their own, rather than waiting for public pressure to build. In September 1989, reformist Communist Party President, Milan Kufan, led the drive to adopt constitutional amendments, which laid the ground for elections and Slovenia's sovereignty. In December, the Slovene League of Communists changed its name, retaining its ini� tials as a memory of the past, while emphasizing the Party's transfor mation: ZSK-Parry of Democratic Reform. Its message, put forward in cheery child-like colourful shapes, was 'Europe Now!'. The reformed Communists and the opposition parties all shared what �0Can described as a 'Slovene perspective' with 'no fundame ntal di�e�nces' between them. The main point of contention among the politl�al pr ies was the prospec u:r ts for reform within Yugoslavia. DespIte the Intense political disaVT 0" cement ' the reformed Communists beli�ved It " was posSIble to transform Yugosla via into a modern demo eratH: state. e electoral campaign revolved around the question of Slovenia's role 10 Yugoslavia. Shou ld the most developed, modern republic rtma.lO pan of the Yugoslav federation? DEMOS an unwieldy seven oppOSition coalition, campaigned on a pled e to hold a referen um on IOdepc ndence. The elections we " re a compI"!Cated, tI )ree�round proportIOnal system ""hi h ve a &,a wealth of parties representa . tion in the Parliament. Slo enlas were the fiITST Ifee C " ns 10 eIecno " any of the six republics. They

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93

LAYlNG THE CHARGE

were testament to a successful and positive democratic transforma_ tion. In the second round of polling, Kucan defeated DEMOS Presi dential candidate,JoZe Pocnik, a former political prisoner in the 19SOs who had left Slovenia as a gaJlarbeitrr and gone on to become an academic in West . Rewarded for his defiant stand against Milo�evic, Kufan became Slovenia's first President - quickly giving up his Party hip in order to represent all Slovenes. DEMOS won fifty-five per cent ofthe vote and the reformed Communists seventeen per cent. This victory resulted in a jumble of political options because DEMOS included such divergent parties as the conservative Christian Democrats and the Greens. The Christian Democrats emerged as the strongest party, although they actually won fewer votes than the Communists or the Liberal Democrats (the former Socialist youth), whose magazine Mladina had led [he charge against the JNA In the run-up to the elections, the federal Defence Minister, Genen1 Kadijevic, who was half-Croat, half-Serb, made several visits to the Fifth Army region, which encomed Slovenia and Croatia. The visits fuelled speculation that the JNA would strike if the country's first free elections went contrary to the Army's wishes. On 7 April, the 'eve of the poll in Slovenia, Kadijevic travelled to Ljubljana. He open ly threatened to retaliate against any political party which called into question Yugoslavia's territorial integrity: Thou who today negatr all values and achievements ofdevelop mrnt in Ihe t1ections, who offer afralricidal war, redrawing Ihe borders and tearing aporl the country, must rM/iu thatlhis will be stopped. A high price warpoidfor ourfreedom, which musl be preseNiti and maintained by engaging all patrioticform. The JNA and the armedforces as a whole will still be committed to thepolh of reform ofsociety. It will make itsfull contribution to the d�I . opment ofdemocracy and those processes which make a ma1l1 Iift . more human and richer, but it will, according to its {om/l/utional role, decisively combat theforces which are digging up the foundation of the SFRj, and weakening its powers of deftnce and security1O. In Slovenia, Kufan pondered how seriously he should take Army's threats:

'A CROATIAN RIFLE

ON A CROATIAN SHOULDER'

so I knew how this paper tig" thouK,ht, what poweiful take to go L�lds in his hands and bow !title II would f.I means I", " . . . mood 11/ the Army {m/e, whIch was if ,"/1/S0ne, ,on 'he eu"hor r . JUpported by the Party and thefidtral bodieS.

Even

JNA threats against what it. caJled th� dangerous HDZ only served lral Branko Mamula, a cl?se to bolster Tudjman's popularity. . . friend of Kadijevic and for�er pCfence MInister, urge� the Croatian . Communists to use thei� maJonty m. the Sabor, the Parliament, to ban HDZ, which he said was poSSible under the electoral law prohibiting extremist parties. . Mamula told Ivica Ra�an that, ever Since the HDZ Congress, the Serbs in Croatia had been frightened of another genocide - of a �turn to the Second World War. He tried to persuade him that the Croats must speak out in defence of the Serbs. The JNA was extremely con cerned about recent developments - particularly about the return of emigres. some of whom the Army had been looking for and dealing with for years. He urged Rafan to stop the emigres who were being issued ports at the airport in Zagreb. Faced with JNA arm-twisting and threats. Ra�an responded that the Yugoslav military was to blame for allowing Milokvlt to go so far. lUtan told Kadijevic:

the

Wt are nol breaking apart Yugoslavia because wt are taking the democratic route, but it is Milafevit andyour refosalto resist him. �hould you make a tragir mistake and intervene in Croatia, 'WIth armyforce, you'llfirst have to liquidate me and my friwds, and thm maybe the nationalists in Croatia.

The JNA made clear its disdain for the weak leadership of the Croatian Commums . ts wh0 dOd I not stomd a chance 0f mounting " a eh�le�� to the HDZ . After one particularly heavy-handed attempt to t ldate the Croatian leadership, !
:: A :::� IN

He launched m ' ta a harsh, unpItasant lectur e on how they should not have allowed th . . efiormatloll ,I" 0 p(lrtle! along natlo nal lmes, how they can .t . a/low separatISm and how the army is strong enough to slo" su . . I'Ie said r �h ttild.ennes that elections should only be QUowed wtt. hm the jramt'lJ)()rk of the Socialisl Alliance He . .

95

ON A CROATIAN SHOULDER' "A CROATIAN RlFLE

LAYING THE CHARGE

allaciud nationalim in Croatia and thm aJ ulual: Ihf CIA; al! Wtst European (Ounlrus that want to rul( Yugollavia; and Ihf Valitan,

star abandoned. The Croatian the Communist red d , u gr n O back d what he wanted. Just yet" however accomplishe " Presldent had not a Croatian state. There was one problem was h" d earn of out 0freach sesSIon, SDS deputies boyconed the the Serbs. All five

.

IS r

Efforts by the Federal political and military esrahlishment to frigh ten voters away from the nationalist opposition failed in Croatia. JUSt

�

they had in Slovenia. In two rounds of voting, Tudjman's HDZ 205 of the parliament's 356 seats. The reformed Communists took seventy-three seats and the remaining places in the Sabor were ru... tributed among the centrist Coalition of National Understanding. the Serbian Democratic party (SDS) and six smaller parties. In fact, the electoral victory appeared more resounding than it was. The HDZ got 1.2 million votes to 994 000 for the refonnc:d

Communists. But Croatia's British-style flrst-past-the-post, single. member-constituency electoral system gave Tudjman's party an

absolute majority of the seats in the new Sabor, even though it had won fewer than half the votes cast in the country. Small parties were - the system favoured a mass movement, such as the HDZ, which was well-organized throughout the country. Tudjrnan',

weeded out

message: Od/ulimo sami 0 naJoj sudbini (We'll decide our fate ourselves) hit the target. Everything seemed to back-fire in the Communists' l"�u�

_

for masOfJni jNJkU 1 Maspok ' hort Goldstein, a liberal Croatian imellectual ..nd b Slavko 2 Term U5CU Y publisher. rv the Belgrade media was reporting that 28 Febru� -J' " 3 On thaI same day, I, m:.lSS movemem.

��;

" " d in front of the Federal Par,"lamem In protest U2.there Y lion 5erbs had ' one mil ' v Dom. LlJe n.... . Ca in ly ral e Sloven ....." the /JffJalsKoj: prilozi pOllijtsfi hf1)alsKog II BanKrt 4 HUde,1st, Darko, . . ' 3 oteka Dnront"', 1991) pp. 9-37. Blblh eb: }, (Zagr 9 -199O 8 " naf]a . " 1IlSdtfa p. 96. , sliOj wt . Kr! II Hr •

"

5 Hudelist, Ban

.

Al, 6 ,O'il 1. as" } },-}9 3, Cambridge Harvard University Press, RrtJO utrOrl

and Communtst ksa Thr Contrsltd COllntry: Yllgoslav Untty

5

1991, pp. 103-

127. rud"Jman pts from FranJ"o , 7 Faal Tribllne, 25 January, 1994 excer 6 b, 19 9. ska, Zagre Hrvat a tic a M , ations N Smoll I&as and 9. 8 Danas, Zagreb, 17 April, 1990, pp. 27-2 90. p. 1990, . April 17 b, Zagre s, 9 Dana 10 Danas, Zagreb, 17 April, 1990, p, 9.

campaign. One disastrous poster showed a huge picture ofIvica with the unfortunate message 'Nt' splattered across his chest, perhaps was his defiant 'No' ro Belgrade, but seemed more like warning not to vote for Ratan. The name-change and the fact

Ratan had guided, albeit haltingly, Croatia towards a m,uri-p"

system did little to convince Croats that the reformed c.om,m,miS!,

elected, would fight for their national imerests. Within days of the HDZ victory, a football match in the C! "'� capital between Belgrade's Red Star and Zagreb's Dinamo teams left seventy-nine police and fifty-nine spectarors injured.

horrified nation watched on television as the Serbian 'De/ye' l were quickly charged the Croatian 'Bad Blue Boys'. The poice . powered and crazed fans rore off the plastic scats hurling them III air. In vain, the announcer appealed for calm. The clash sured

usual fierce footbaU rivalry, and the chaos and destruction .,," ,.".. of fear throughout Yugoslavia. ,ill in: On 30 May, amid considerable pomp, Tudj man was fm,,,y gurated as the first democratically-elected President of . . wore a red·whitc-and-blue sash. The Iahovnica was displayed In

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97

Gr(at

TS OF A SLAUGHTERED PEOPLE' 'THE REMNAN

PART TWO, LIGHTING THE FUSE

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7 'THE REMNANTS OF A SLAUGHTERED PEOPLE' The Knin Rebellion, January-August 1990

ilan BabiC's poli ical education �gan be eath a mulberry tree iza

� � p�ents �ome the Vllla� of Velika. There. the garden of M . mstillets of distrust and fear, and esfab.. �s a �Y' h [e ned the h lS

III

twm � � Iished In h,s mmd an unbreakable link between his own survival and that of the Serbian nation.

In 1�90 my clousl neighbours were the most active people in flrmmg the HDZ party branch in my vi/lage. Theirfather in 1941 was the head oJthe UslaJe gO'Vernment oj/he village. In lhe lUmmer o/1941 he brought a group of Us/ale killm fa slaughter . myfamIly. Myfather WQJ 12 years old at the time, and escaped only buoltJt hisfamily ha tdfr om his homt. djl Whtn thil man came to kill the family andfound no-one af home, he took. a great carving kniftfrom our house. He wid it to make a g�h in the bark ofthe Mulberry ITu i" ourgaTdtn. TIN tTU hQJ smugrown large, but the jcar rema;"td And'Wt childr", who wtre hor" aft" tIN war wn-e shown IJx tru - and thot scar.

Babic was born in 1956 - fourteen y(:ars aft(:r th(: cutting of scar, and a full d(:cade after Tito's Partisans had victoriously - in . offiCial parlance of the post-war Communist regime - reunited Yugoslavia's nations in Brotherhood and Unity. But the p,,,i-ng 0(-m. scar (in Babic's caS(: literally as well as metaphorically) �nera tion to generation was typical of the atavism which would com(: to characterize the mentality of Serb nationalism, and, of the Yugoslav conflict itself: the deliberate evocation of atrocities thar -"" rO '"' ".d P long ed from living memory; a consCiOUSly-f, fed at least as much by rumour and myth as by h: ,:� � �J the use of the past as a weapon of conflict, and, later, of war; above all, in common with Communist societies everywhere, sublimation of individual identity to that of the collective - in case, the Serb nation.

:;

ide and Babic began to talk publicly about genoc the people ience of exper e real o t o ly not � n � was appealing e . . s of the Serb to b(: rawalso m whLch It IS the fate to a folkloric belief. rdians of e, sole gua the ayed abroad and left alon cked at home, betr . . memory. The summer of their own destiny. hvmg from d (: had s tie N all atroCi a deep impression on . the conscious.ness of the 194 ad burned IS Powers had mvaded and the Ax of that year, _" v Jma Serbs. In April ' H , [\ - s, sast - n (a - , the Croatla B osma d an roatla C . .cioned Yugoslavia. In Ia Croat t of State enden Indep the ed declar b Ante Pavelic, 's UstaSe movement, which, a Nazi regime governed by Pavc1iC outlawed terrorist group an been had 30s, and .on the 1920s - n was to create a �ure ' deciared -L�tentlO . living mosdy in exile. Pave1-ICS Lc Serbs were either racially Croatian nation state. In Usta�e rhetoT iction - simply lapsed Croats who inferior or - in an apparent contrad s, by converting to ortho� had betrayed the nation to foreign interest in the distinctive dressed orces, f Usta�e dox Christianity. PaveliC's embarked on a 1990sl, the in e re-emerg to were black uniforms that and killing the up rounding villages, Serb levelling killing spree, them loading after s sometime village, their in s sometime s, inhabitant . into trucks and driving them into remote countryside In the most notorious cases, entire villages were locked into the local Orthodox church, which was then set on fire. No-one knows how many victims there were; the figures are disputed. But there is little doubt that hundreds ofthousands of Serbs died either in concentration camps, or at the hands of the Usta!ie death-squads. Often, the victims were buried i? open pits, which, in the interests of preserving Brotherhood and Urury, were never spoken of in Tito's Yugoslavia - at least not publicly. :v.th the .revival of nationalism in the 1990s, mass-graves were . d lsln[ � fl"Cd WIth great ceremony and political symbolism. The method by,:hlch Pavelic sought to create his ethnically-pure territory was the . at:Lon . ofthe Serbs as a people. In a phrase which, even in 1990, an�i1 car:rl�d a d�ep and abiding sense of terror among the Serbs, he sought to at hird, expel a third, convert a third (to Catholicism)' It was �y or nationalist leaders to evoke the horror of 1941 and to �waken ' . ' . to In the Serbs, a deSlfe avenge the suffenngs ' of the past. The last time there was an In ' dependent Croatla, - they argued, the Serbs had only ..ved themselves from extinctIOn by taking up arms. The Krajina peopIe were the d escendants 0( those who surVIved by fighting backthe remnants ofa sIaughtered people'. The hlstOTLCal memory of an e

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Milan

t�

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LIGHTING THE FUSE

'THE REMNANTS

in.dependent .�roatian state that �ended as far east the Drina . SerbIa - made the Serbs, living River - Bosmas border With west of rivet, consider themselves the most vulnerable of all. To them, the the demand for a single state which would embrace all Serbs had Partic ular appeal. The word Krajina comes from the Serbo-Croatian word hvj meaning end, or edge. The name of the region, Vojna Krajina, m � Military Frontier. It is one of the great geo-strategic fault lines of European history, across which the warring empires of Austria_ Hungary and the Ottoman Turks ebbed and flowed. The Austrian. created the Krajina. They recruited Orthodox Christians who had fled the Ottoman subjugation of Serbia, settled them on the land, and employed them as a permanent defensive barrier against Ottoman expansion. In return, the Krajina Serbs enjoyed autonomy, being ruled neither from Zagreb nor from Budapest, but directly by the Imperial capital, Vienna. Thus Krajina embodied, from its very creation, two traits that were to burst on to the Yugoslav stage again in 1990, and with violent expression: a fierce pride in local independence; and aD enthusiastic resort to arms. But at the start of 1990, Milan Babic was a young provincill dentist in a town that most Yugoslavs knew only as a railway junctioa. Knin is a lonely dust-bowl of a place in the isolated barren wastelandl of Croatia's Dinaric mountains. Krajina forms the hinterland of Croatia's prosperous Adriatic coast, with which it had traded aad intermarried for centuries. Knin, and Krajina generally, nomically, integral parts of southern Croatia. The Serbs ofKnin spoke the western variant of Serbo-Croatian and wrote, mostly, in the Latia. scriprl. Croatia, in turn, needed Knin because it was the vital n.il-� road junction conneciing Zagreb to the southern coast. The interde pendence of Krajina and the rest of Croatia had been self-evident for generations. Each, without the other, was economically untenable. In appearance, Babic cut an unlikely figure as a warlord. Mia boyish round face, soft pale skin and wire-rimmed glasses gave him an almost cherubic expression. Babic was an unimportant, unremarkable figure on the fringes of C. )atia's ruling Communist Party. He had broken with the Party in 1989, determined, at first, to form a new' political organization. His ambitions were modest. He had in mind a local party to be called the Democratic Union ofKnin. Although pre dominantly Serb in population, many Croats also lived in Knin. � Party of Babit's early aspirations had no explicit national orientat�on. But a radical new alternative presented itself and Babic first seIzed �

were, CCO"'

OF A SLAUGHTERED PEOPLE·

" , finally' reshaped it to his own. design. ed their own party the preViOUS year the Even befI° th yfound Milo�evifs fiery words l a l on 9 Ju1y in the echo ofndred Serbs �ad he� th anniversary of six-hu the This celebration of " " Gazlmestan. C " ' C "sts. ThCit ommum roatlas by ized 0 was olV":l · D-n osov K f 0 battle the at this rally was diamerr.ic�y opposed..lt was that.the future er In YugoslaVia. But the mhi"''lI' ' the cOmmunities remaining togeth """" on Serbs led by Jovan of local group a by me was disrupted sho�d abandon. the Serbs the that crowds the told a clerk. He ncl cha shoul They � ia. lav .thelr energy IOtO . �ldentlty. ;:;- about Yugos i S lfltua and cal P politi Serb the stre�gth :·ng the p was arrested and jailed for three months, at Sibenik on Croatian coast. . . . ?,o�t His persecution stl;uck a chord WIth Serb nationalists throug OpaCIC to su of port egram te a sent � p Yugoslavia. Dobrica Cosic met m Belgrade, m December � 98�; prison. On his release, the . Opafic was still reeling from the shame of a pfls�n term a�d �OS.IC encouraged and urged him to Jovan Ra�koVlc, a psychlatnst In the town where OpaCic had served his time in detention, and with whom Cosic had been in regular since the early seventies. Ra�kovic was from Knin and had spent his entire life in Croatia, anending high school in Zagreb and taking his PhD at the University there. In Januarr. 1990, he emerged - anointed by the hand of his friend, Dobrica Cosii: - as the leader of Croatia's Serbs. He was a magnetic orator, and his long grey-brown beard, bushy hair and hypnotic eyes made him instantly recognisable. Among Serbs, he was a crowd-puller and me masses loved him. Among Croats he quickly acquired a reputation as a dangerous enemy. He was not, however, to last long. He was to be eclipsed by Babic, the man anointed by the hand of Slobodan Milo�cv1C. Early in February 1990 R.a�kovic and Opa6c agreed to turn a cul� dub, Zom, into a political party. Ra�kovic wanted to leave ��onal orientation OUt of the name of the Party altogether - to call It sl1TIply the Democratic Party, an early indication, despite his fire reputation, of the moderate nationalism that was to discredit O;� the e�es .of an increasingly radicalized Serb community. It was who Iflslsted that the Party must be a vehicle for the expres. . •. lion ofthe natlOn;u of the Serbs. The Serbian Democratic J)., _ ...� . . (SDS) was bornmterests in Knin on 17 February. e formation of the SDS brought Ra�kovic and Babic together fo r the fIrst time. Thell" " d"� merences were immediately apparent.

d "' ,nd it, then dominate I ,

nD-� ;;:

two

10

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LIGHTING THE FUSE

'THE REMNANTS OF A SLAUGHTERED PEOPLE'

Rdkovic firmly rejected any move to take the Serbs of Croatia OUt of the republic. In June, he addressed a rally oflO 000 people in Petrinja, a small town south of Zagreb, whose population was half Croat, half Serb. His [Irebund rhetoric disguised the fact that his demands were in fact moderate. Belgrade radio reported:

footing. They should along with the Croats, and on an equal Croat"a . 1 , na • y. Th·IS struck at the tlon;u mlnont starus 0f a o be reduced to the - [0 secure for the politics in of Tudjman's very raison d 'ttre e 's daughter, Ra�kovie own. their of state tian people a nation C T ud j man had produced no result: w ith talks the nUl".., later said Sa

Addmsing tlx crowd,jO'Van RaJl:ov;/... sad i that tlx S"bs il the Croatian people the right to tlxir sO'VnYign stair, hul thty {the Serbs] demand in thai stalt an equal positionfor the Serhian and other peoples. The S"bs do not want a stcond stolt in Croatia, hut they demand autonomy... The Serbian people in Croatia should he tnahltd 10 speak Iheir language, to wnlf their script, 10 haVt their schools (churs), to have their tducation programmes, their pub lishing housts, their newspapers.

Despite Ra§koviC's profile, the SDS was not, organizationally, ready for the 1990 election, and it polled badly, fielding only a hand ful of candidates and winning only five seats in the Croatian Assembly, all of these confmed to a cluster of municipalities -around Knin. Most Serbs in Croatia opted for a party that had no exclusive national orientation, the reformed Communists, now renamed the Party of Democratic Change (SDP). Despite the 'ancient hatreds' that were later reputed to characterize relations between Croats and Serbs in Croatia, most Serbs expressed faith in a party that was led by a Croat - the outgoing Communist President, lvica Ra�an. Tudjman's HDZ was a broad church. more a movement than a party, of moder2te and extreme nationalists. Tudjman spanned both wings. RdkoviC's SDS enjoyed a surge in popularity after Tudj man's election rriumph. Croatia's rural Serbs, in particular, many of whom lived in exclusively Serb villages and communities, were srunned by the scale of his victory and frightened by the tone of his subsequent pronouncements. In spite of the SDS's poor showing in the election, Tudj man none the less recognized Ra§kovic as the legitimate leader of this belligerent and alarmed community. In response, he looked for some conciliatory gesture to offer to Raskovi c, but one that would not alienate his own anti-Serb constiruency. In May, Tudjman and Raskovic met. Tudjman courted the leader of the Serbs with offers of government jobs in the new coalition. Raskovic had little or no inter est in entering Tudjman's government himself. First and foremost, he wanted the Serbs [0 be defined as a constiruent nation in the neW

.

�� ro��

_1

He [RaI10'llii] laid that il was wry dijJicult to talk with Tudjman k(Ouse he has some smltnces thai ht repeats allthe time. 'Croatia is an independmt country. I want Croatia to he indtptndmt. lYe waited nine centuriesfor this. 'Tudjman was tortured by one delu� sional idea, to be Iht Messiah ofthe Croatian peoplt and that he war going to give them afret Jlate. My/ather told him that this could mate a great problem, because the Serbs don't want it. He gave him the advice not to hurry with the new Comtitution and to wait a hit.

Raskovie's

were vague. He wanted autonomy for the had no explicit territorial dimension. There was to be no specific autonomous region; the Serbs were to enjoy national rights, as individuals and collectively as a nation, wherever they lived in Croatia. Even so, it was unacceptable to Tudjman's HDZ, which saw in Serb autonomy, however mild, the negation of their over the founding of a Croatian nation-state. So riding objective Tudjman did not wait, as Raskovic had advised. In June, his govern ment, two months after taking office and with the minimum of con sultation outside the ruling group, produced a draft constitution. Disastrously for Raskovic, it defined the state of Croatia as the sover eign state of the Croatian nation. It made no reference to the Serbs. Under Communism they had been a constiruent nation of the repub lic of Croatia. Now they were dropped from the constirution. Ethnic o:c1usivity was to be written into the basic law of the state. It was a �amIfo1er blow to Raskovic. It strengthened the hand of Serb natlonalists much more radical than he: those who wanted territorial autonomy, and, finally, secession from Croatia. 1."�djman blamed Belgrade for initiating and manipulating the �aJlna �erbs' rebellion. He saw Ra§kovic as the wilful agent of an insurrectIOn both inspired and sustained by Milo�evit, and as little �ore. RaskoviC's final humiliation came in August. Tudjman's office, 10 an apparent attempt to discredit Ra§kovic among his own ers, leaked the transcript '[0 the Croatian weekly Danas of what was supposed to be a private conversation, in which Ra�kovit had confided demands

Serbs, but this

-

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LIGHTING THE FUSE


to Tudjman that the Serbs were a �crazy people�. and that he had nothing in common with the �communist MilokviC The leaked conversation ruined Ra�kovit's reputation among the

to turn the Association of Serb Municipalities . · g. He sought -Id m bUi h at,' he sal-d, ng a 5erb assembly. 'By t . ational entity by convem nto through the ounded f we which region g � in ted the self-govern . we ous autonom an mto If me · nSlorm rra r to es n illl municip ,,""". tion of _ e Th ts. ' n ng h natlonou . sovereig s er b [5 ) the preserve regIOn to Iea er, and _ kOV d Its lauy till , nomlf . h S " n ru� 25, July on Assembly met event that was to mark the start of open, armed hos ;ouoced the and the Ktajina Serbs: the August 'referendum' Croatia ty betwccn nty. on Serb sovereig

�'.

Serbs. But ifTudjman thought he could destroy the Krajina rebellion by destroying Rdkovic, this was among the most crass of his many blunders. It had, if anything. the opposite effect. For. while Ra�kovic and Tudjman were talking in Zagreb, Milan Babic was laying the groundwork for the real insurrection of the Serbs, and not, as

Ra�kovic had advocated an 'uprising without weapons's, but an upris ing armed, supplied and directed by Belgrade, the purpose of which

was not to secure for the Serbs autonomy inside Croatia, but to take

the Serbs, and the land on which they lived, out of Croatia altogether.

Within the Serb leadership in Croatia, Babic now led an assault on Ra�kovic. By now he was number two in the SOS hierarchy, and

Mayor of Knin. He began by building an alternative power-base, tak ing advantage ofthe Ra�kovic-Tudjman dialogue to buy time. In May, he established the Association of Serbian Municipalities. One by one, Babic toured the areas in which the Serbs constituted a majority ofthe

population. By mid-summer a handful oflocal municipalities, neigh

_

:;;

;;

_ I:

'

�

ation of th� extent to whjc he had lost Tudjman's ftrst serious indi� . the KraJlfla Serbs came lfl early July. WIth conrrol over the dispute and a man already trusted by Milan Martie, a Knin police inspector in Belgrade (by-ing Ministry Interior Federal the Babic, wrote to and his officers would he that it inform to Zagreb) in his superiors Croatian police, in particular the of unifonns new the wear to refuse strongly associated Serbs which shield, chequered Iahovnica hated the with the atrocities of the NDH. BabiC's SOS had evoked the terror of those years repeatedly during the election campaign and after. The re

But by no means all the Serb-populated areas backed BabiC's rebel

i SDS emergence of the symbolism of an independent Croatia was, n fas ian Croat of too, re-emergence, the of rhetoric, certain evidence the against genocide towards predisposition a it, with along and, cism, Serbs. Tudjman's insistence on the Iah01lnicQ as the symbol of a sover

impose his authority. In Korenica, for exD1lple, the SOP fonned a majority on the local assembly. They did not Babic's Association. Instead, they invited Tudjman's local government minister,

Martie's letter provoked what seemed, at the time, a comic inter lude in rhe mounting tension. Tudjman sent a three-man delegation

bouring Knin, had signed up to his Association: Obrovac, Over, Vojnic, Oonji Lapac.

lion. Many were interested in dialogue with Zagreb, and were far from hostile to the new government. In these

areas,

Babic used force to

Slavko Oegoricija, to visit the region. They wanted to talk about inter nal investment, and about plans to develop the tourism potential of the Plitvice National Park. a vast and beautiful lake-land wilderness whose spectacular waterfalls were one of the most popular and suc

cessful tourist attractions in Yugoslavia. Babic pre-empted the meeting by sending forty armed men from Knin the night before Oegoricija was due to arrive. In the weeks that followed, the SDS staged a series

of rallies in Korenica until the SDP deputies were drummed out of office. By BabiC's own ission, the local leadership had to be changed three times before the SDS finally secured control of the

municipality. When it did, another chunk of what Babic was to tum into the independent Republic of Serbian Krajina had fallen into place. The Serb demand for autonomy was acquiring territorial definition6. In July, Babic completed the second phase of his exercise in state-

eign Croatia, and his insensitivity towards legitimate Serb anxieties. were grist to the mill of BabiC's Party. Guided by Belgrade, the SOS consciously revived memories of the 19405. Tudjman had handed them one of their most powerful propaganda devices. to Knin on May 5 to bring the rebel Serbs to heel: the Croatian Int�rior Minister Josip Boljkovac, his deputy Perica Juric, and Ante BUJas, the Commander of the Sibenik police, within whose regional c�mmand the Knin municipality fell. The trio addressed a meeting of runety of the Knin police, in the town's police station. They we� received with silent, imive hoS[ility. Across the republic, Serb policemen were losing their jobs: sacked to be replaced by Croats in a am-flsted effort by Tudjman's government to redress the national . 1mb�ance 10 a police force which he said was sixty per cent Serb, but was lO fact no more than tv.renty pet cent Serb7. , W,Bo�kova c spoke first. He had been a partisan during the Second orId War, and fclt some sympathy toward the Serbs. He was

?

LIGHTING TIiE FUSE

conciliatory. He told them he

was prepared

'THE REMNANTS OF

to forgive them for the

breach of discipline that the letter represented, and to find a solution through dialogue. The Knin police had not sought forgiveness nor did they believe they had done anything to be forgiven for. They made no response. Boljkovac argued that the question of the new national sym

bols was a matter of trivia, of secondary importance. He reminded them that one of the first acts of the Tudjman istration had been to increase the salaries of the police. Some officers were eaming ten times as much as they had under Communism. At that, Martie took the floor. Martie was not a physically-impres sive man. He

was

short and round, and wore a clipped little mous

tache, which, coupled with his puffed up arrogance and cocky swagger,

would have made him, in other circumstances, an easy figure offun, a backwoods' Napoleon in a smaIl town in the middle of nowhere. Martie said he was insulted by this latest contribution from Boljkovac, which was, he said, an attempt at bribery, an effort to persuade the Serbs to sell their national dignity for higher salaries, 'Gentlemen', he told them: . . .you ha'IJtJorgottm omJact. Ya, it is niu to liw �//' to haw

a good COT. HOWl'fJU tlMn is som� thing which monty cannot buy. What cannot IN bought is OUT Suh dignity. Hi- would Tot1m- go hungry. m long as � aTe togetlxr with OUT Suhpeople. Wt will eat potatoes and husla. hut we will he on the side ofOUTpeople. Hi- will remain human.

goodpay. to haw good clotlNs.

Juric spoke next. He was more aggressive. He told them they had committed one ofthe worst criminal offences against the constitution of the republic that was paying their salaries, that this was unforgiv able and that they would face the consequences. The meeting erupted.

According to Juric. 'They all jumped up like devils.' Boljkovac grew nervous. A crowd, thousands-strong, had gathered outside the police

station. The three visitors were trapped. The purpose of their visit was was to get out in one pica:.

forgotten. and their priority now

Boljkovac spoke again. 'Gentlemen', he said. No response. Then 'Friends!'. Still nothing. Finally, desperately, since the term was never used in Croatia's new nationalist political culrure, he appealed to them as 'Comrades!'. Then, according to Juric, Boljkovac lost his nerve.

'Let's promise them anything,' he said, 'as long as we get out of here alive. These hang us!'

are

Chetniks! You don't know what that means - they'll ",Ij

A SLAUGHTERED PEOPLE'

had begun with the an ignominious end to a visit that on a group of rebels authority Zagreb's stamping of purpose cO I they now, so clearly, s seriousnes the with regarded not till h w re s author of the defiant the Martie, for triumph a was nted. It the hour. By the end of the meeting of hero outspoken the Ietter and " · very uves, · secunty, thelr . ed controI. These three, thelr h had establish , ndingly granting occasion condesce He rose to the w re in his hands. past the waiting crowd and out of town. It was escort security a hem official delegation from Zagreb was to set foot in he last time an territory had been taken out of Croatian Croatian Knin. A part of to fol1ow. was more h jurisdiction. Muc

�:: I

:::.a : �

:

Events were gathering pace: so much so that even Jovan Opaac, whose Serbian culrural society had given rise to the whole movement and who, less than a year earlier, had spent three months in jail as a dangerous radical nationalist, declared himself shocked at the direction in which Babic was moving. In May, he had sent a 'very

dramatic' letter to Ra"!ikovic pleading with him not to approve BabiC's nomination as Mayor ofKnin. Babic, he said, had struck him as a man

who 'desired power with a pathological craving'll. But Ra�kovic was already in political decline. Milan Babic, increasingly dismissive of Ra"!ikoviC's ineffecrual and

vague notions of 'culrura1 autonomy', had been making friends in Belgrade. On August 12, on Mil�eviC's instruction. he met Borisav

JoviC, Serbia's man

on the Yugoslav Federal Presidency, and. at that

time, its President9. The Federal Interior Minister Petar Gr�anin was also there10. Babic asked them for guarantees: first, that the Croatian flag would never fly above Knin: 'because under this flag our fathers, our grandfathers and OUf nation were murdered'; second, that

Croatian police should not be allowed into the area; and third that Serb policemen in Croatia should never be forced to wear black uni formsH.

�

e next day, Gmanin haughtily rebuked Tudjman's Interior . ISter Boljkovac, M m in a telephone call. GraCanin warned him not to try to wrest control of Knin police station and impose a new force, com� men loyal to Zagreb. Milo§evic's men had now explicitly

�

O!

ken Sides ill the conflict. Milan Babic returned to Knin certain that e had been given the green light to build a Serbian state in Croatia.

On August 17, two days before the scheduled 'referendum' on Serb autonomy, Knin awoke to a frenzy of rumour. Croatia had declared '°7

UGHTING THE FUSE

'THE REMNANTS OF A SLAUGHTERED.PEOPLE'

the referendum illegal and had undertaken to prevent it12, and was now trying to move in on Knin once and for all. It was the first USe of force by Croatia against the Krajina Serbs and it failed.

now firmly installed ' Interior Minister the previous month, Tud�'m"" into action. men his ordered and chief himself as police ' ()'IJtr tht po/itt Ita/ion. I mud the order to the their rijltS. Wt hrokt into the warthouu whert talu to jttmm WtTt stored and ga'Vt arms to the her arms for tht politt �

rally took I ru

That morning, the Mayor of the neighbouring town of Obrovac frantically telexed Babic to warn him that a Croatian police formation was about to descend on Knin. The Croatian Interior Ministry had

sent three columns of police vehicles - from Zadar, Sibenik and Karlovac - to make good Tudjman's promise to queU the Knin rebel lion. The telegram warned that the poice l station at nearby Benkovac,

which, like Knin, had a Serb majority, had been disarmed. An attempt had been made to do the same at Obrovac, but had failed. The Serb police there had distributed weapons to the people the day before. The Croatian police had deployed seven armoured vehicles for the opera tion, from a total of ten at the Interior Ministry's disposal for the whole repubic. l It

was

the heaviest show of force the Croats cou1d

muster. At the same time, three Interior Ministry helicopters took off from

Zagreb, bound for Knin, loaded with police reservists. JNA jets, sent on a direct order from the Chief of Staff in Belgrade, intercepted the helicopters, first buzzing them from above. Perica Jurie, the Deputy Interior Minister, was on board the lead helicopter:

Th�jtt slT�am thrnJ} us toward tht ground. W� haTtty managtdto stay in th� air. Thtn thry hlodud our radio (onnutjom and w� (ouldn'/ �tn (ommuni(a/t with �a(h olhn: Afttr a few minut�s tht MiGpilot (ontacltd us and his ordtr was tltry short: tithtr 'W� rtturn dimtty to Zagrth, or they would shoot us down. HIt had Ont minutt to do so.

The helicopter raid ended in farce, with the federal authorities able to claim, plausibly, that they had intercepted the flight for no other reason than that the helicopters had, deliberately, or

strayed from their scheduled flight pathl3.

SO

it seemed.

In Knin, BabiC's defence committee was meeting. All afternoon,

Serbian Radio Knin was feverishly broadcasting reports on the events

at Obrovac and Benkovac. The Mayor of Obrovac had appealed to the

JNA to intervene, to prevent the Croat police from moving in. Early in the evening, Radio Knin announced that Babic had declared a 'full state of alert'. Shops and workplaces closed. The streets filled with people. Radio Belgrade reported: 'the people are demanding arms and are being given them.' Martie, the hero of the show-down with

,08

;

ptoplt.

An hour later, Knin Radio announced that Babit had declared a There was chaos and panic. People took to tate ofwar' in the region. outside the town, convinced that they were woods and e hills armoured assault. The beUs of the Croatian inent imm an fleeing

•

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Orthodox churches rang out to warn the people. Air-raid sirens were sounded. In Belgrade, the media announced that theJNA had moved on to the streets of Knin and taken control ofpublic buildings, includ ing the railway station and the post office. Roads were blocked and telephone lines went downl4• Babic was nowhere to be found, only appearing from time to time

on Radio Knin by telephone, but not disclosing his whereabouts. He,

too, had taken to flight. There was a frenzied exchange ofphone calls between Belgrade and Zagreb, between two nationaJ leaderships who plainly hated one another. Croatia's Interior Minister Josip Boljkovac telephoned his federal opposite number, Petar Graz:anin. The Croats accused the federal authorities of using the JNA to thwart the legiti mate law-enforcement bodies of the Croatian republic. The federal authorities and the Belgrade media accused Croatia of launching a genocidal attack on the Krajina Serbs. Both sides knew that they were edging closer to the brink of civil Waf. And each side behaved as �ho�gh it were more intent on self-justification, more intent on prov109 lf the aggrieved party, than on avoiding the precipice. the helicopter reinforcement grounded, the Croatian police formations did not continue their advance on Knin. The Croatian Interior Ministry later claimed that they withdrew in order to avoid Ioodshed. Serb leaders, both in Knin and in Belgrade" (singing . tncreasing1y, the same rune) claimed that the armoured columns had bee . n repulsed by a spontaneous uprising of Serb people who had seized weapons from the police stations in Benkovac and Knin and mOunted road-hi . ' ocks by Cuttmg down trees. Croats dended the events of Ausu.st 17 as the Log Revolution. d It was a revolution. At the very moment Babic had received his tel rom the Serb Mayor of Obrovac, appealing for military help, the

l� Wl�

�

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UGHTING THE FUSE discredited SDS leader, Javan Raskovic,

i

arrved


:�:��,�::i�'�

at ' Kn in

headquarters. He asked Babic to go with him, i r

Benkovac. to appeal to the people to stay calm. He was shocked at speed with which events were moving, and opposed to the teson arms. He suggested lying down in front of the Croatian police

cles. Babic told him there was no time for meetings and

fif'O�',�:�

protest; the time had come for the Serbs to defend tI

'Ra�kovic remained speechless,' Babic said.

Ht didn't know what to do. [Then} one ofmy associata arriWd Dufan Orlooit, who worked in my poliu - and told mt that the [Croat] Spuial Form W(T't approaching on the Lihl road. 1 told him 'Stop them'. He lifi. That is how thefirst barri(adts wmt up.

Babit later denied that he had declared a 'state of war'. The JNA

denied that its troops had taken to the streets, though not that troopt

had been seen. The Garrison Commander issued an implausible and. in the circumstances, almost laughable statement late that night:

1 amrt in the most wpansible way that the army did not go oul

on to the struts and that tht nNVS broadcast earlier on concerning this dots not correspond to the truth.

The confusion, amongst observers present in Knin. the statemc:m continued:

.. . couldhafltbun caustd by about two hundredsolditn who went oJJon Itaw. Owing to a train bting latt they had btcome caught up at the railway station and its immediate 'Vicinity whilt waiting/or the train.

; �:��

There is no doubt that the Krajina Serbs enjoy ed l th" and political guidance of the Belgrade regime. It is a : �

sheer quantity of arms that they possessed when hostilities . the following year, that a programme of covert had

Y�'��:�'I�;::�

place; and that individuals in the JNA and the Ministry were engaged in arms-smuggling with tacit But there is no evidence that the JNA actively engaged in the rebels as an army as early as August 1990; that would come . For now, the Army was still commanded by the old, Communist officer corps. Babic had been received warmly "0

Bdgr:tde,

Maroc

r�

:z::e

tO

will

vague assurances. But neither he nor and given certain absolutely. Even Tudjman quickly JNA the d e trust Army's behaviour. In a te1evized the with on satisfacti is e said: Th� i�ht my is not, and that later c li b u p � re the

�

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be involved in the destabilizatIOn of Croatia.

a revolution of sorts had taken place. Croatia had N:�: the less,least a show of force. for the first time, to try to stamp

.. . or at . used Iore.... . And It had been thwarted. Th .e Kni n .Its will on the rebel regions. curtain had fallen across 'on was barricaded. An impermeable the rest of the �pub from areas SDS-controlled atia. separating li The Krajina Serbs had drawn more closely under the protectton of tgrade, and under the contrOl o Slobodan Milo�evic. Babi�'s , nascent 'state within a state had acqUlred, for the first ttme, a defiru

� a:-

�

rive border, to be defended and, soon enough. to be pushed forward ever deeper into the territory of Croatia. The war in Croatia. one which was to spread fac beyond the borders of that republic . had

begun without a shot being fired.

1 In 1991, HOS, the military wing of the extreme nationalist Croatian Party of Right (HSP), the political successor to PaveliC's Ustak. wore all-black uniforms n i a deliberate evocation of 1941. i onali st poet Matija Bet.kovit. Kniinmt 2 The phrase is thaI ofthe Serb nat

Nwi1lt, Belgrade

15 September, 1989, p. 3. 3 Sub nationalists argued that the Latin script had been forced on them. In Knin, however, while the official signs are now exclusively wrinen in Cyrillic, the graffiri appeared mosdy in Latin. 4 Rdkovi died, a broken and disillusioned man, in Bdgrade, in July 1992. 5 Thompson, Forging War (Article 19, London, 1994) p. 157. 6 Degoricija also visited areas that had already atJen to SDS control. In the sum m� r of 1990, he visited Lapac, where the radicaJ Serb nariQnalist David one of BabiC's closest lieutenants, was Mayor. Degorici ja addresd se . . I public meetlng also spoke, demanding recognition of the cyrillic alphabet, the Serh l a n language, and separate Serbian schools. Degoricija ed tha� t�ere ere a hundred people at [he meeting . . 'At one point I said � . y, if thiS IS so Important to you, we c an remove all road-signs in Larin pt and rep[�ce them with cyrillic signs, but how shall we employ people, at are your Ideas for the economy?" He said: "We will feed on the leaves, =cthe rss: but w will be Serbs!" I said, "Well, David, this is a strong eco ; mdeed and everybody laughed.' (Interv iew with Degoricija, MlY, 1 4 7 Serbs were . ' trad"monaily, d·IsproportlOnately represented, both in the police fa d st�te security services, including in Croa;;� the officer corps of the JNA stoncally, they had been the poorer, national ups, more TUral of the two and more dependent on st1lte employment and a:.med service,

t

Rut�t,

�astovic

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LIGHTING THE FUSE

"�t��

even more so in Krajina, where Serbs had been settled for the ofdefending, and polieing, the frontier of the Austfo-Hunganan Chapter Eight of this book: 'You've Chosen War'. 8 According to Opaeit, Raskovic ignored the advice. 9 The Presidency, since Tito's death, rotated on a one-year basis by lie. Serbia's representative BorisavJoviC on 15 May, . Drnovkk as head of the rotating Presidency. Stipe vice president. 10 There has been sperulation as to whether Babic met MilokviC ally at this stage. There is no evidence that he did. Babic says he met Serbian Presidem for the first time in December, 1991. It seems lik.eJy MilokviC, who was sriU keeping a certain perwnal distance from the rebels, would have deleg1lted his with them to mit himself to them publicly by meeting Babic. It is typical tics not to commit himself to anything or anyone (at least not he has to. II Croatia had never profXJSed the adoption of black uniforms for . police. The impositions, to which Martic and Babic objected, were imaginary than real. In fact, they were deliberately invoked as a "",'O U which to begin an armed rebellion. 12 The 'referendum' was organi e h SD nd h d Serbs to ta ke the Zagreb government. It invitedzonly b Y '� . . � '! ; s ': idency qualification all Serbs born i : : 'l �� paper there was no specific question put: the : � : � read, simply, , . autonomy: FOr/Agai nst' 13 Juric later denied that the helicopters were insisted that they had been intended as no }NA, 10 demonstrate pubicly l that Serbs in the dispute. Others, I I Manolic, say the helicopren bound for Knin as part of a force that would try to storm the police there. 14 Tanjug 17 August, 1990.

Jovit "�'h":�� :� � ;

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8 'YOU'VE CHOSEN WAR' The Arming ofS/()'/.)(nio and Croatia, April 199�Januory 1991

pounced the very d�y the �ew com he Army wasted no time. �t . government in Sloverua came to power. Its Immediate target

T��

weapons stores of the Slovene and Croatian Territorial ence (TO) forces. The TO embodied a central plank of Yugoslav � invasio� could be deterred by. the pres defence theory that foreign flse up to fight a guerr illa war to would rhat army civil huge ence ofa and, costiy, ultimately, unsustainable. It was occupation r oreign f rende a citizens' army in waiting, and it rested on the principle that all �

citizens would act. But the TO owed its allegiance not to the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) but, dangerously, given the political hue of the incoming

governments in Slovenia and Croatia, to the individual republics1. This had never presented a problem under the monopoly rule of the

Yugoslav Communist Party. But during the run up to the Slovenian and Croatian multi-party elections the JNA High Command had come to fear that the TO, now had the makings of separate republi can armies, at the service. potentially, of secessionist governments . The JNA was a Communist army, inseparable from the ideology on it was founded. In the slogan-rich environment of Tito's Yugoslavia, the JNA had marched to the cry 'ArmiJa Je rodima u .

which

&t!olurijt

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'The Army was born in Revolution!' And it still did. Its generals were confident that the collapse of Commun ism elsewhere in �tem Europe would not spread to Yugoslavia. They argued that then C��mu nist revolution had been indigenous and not impose d on an u n willi ng population. They even believed Communism would to �e former Warsaw Pact countries. If Communism were to m. their own country, the Army's place in society, hitherto a tiable, would fall with it, as would the privileges enjoyed by eel y officers. To a Communist fumy, multi-party pluralism present m�re than a threa t to its own position. It presented a threat to the �f �e state. On 16 May, two days after the new government erua a� �n office, the JNA began to disarm the Sloven TO e The re b . D c tt � �c s new government was not informed. The incoming efen e I ms ter, Janez Janb, was, after all, the very man whom the

�

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"3

LIGHTING THE FUSE

'YOU'VE CHOSEN WAR'

Yugoslav authorities had jailed only two years earlier for pu'bli"hi.. military secrets. The Slovene President, Milan Kocan, claimed that heard of the mass confiscation of weapons only informally.

it bifort the elec/ion. We kn� when we d thought aboul W, ha that we wouldn't know whom 10 trust, and £_ minislrlJ nc " .1 . . {ame to , o,/ organlZlltlon " dJ 1 'U rel="nofollow"> a n� .o;In that bUI to haw that WI would . an command. In three months we our bUIlt under Id befolly :::y 0/20 000 armedpeople. And 1MJNA didn't knO'W.

The mayor ofJeseniu called and said they'daskedhim to hand in 1M arms. So didthe mayor ofSIO'/Jet/gradtl. I immediately tried to find Gmeral Hotevur, the commander ofthe SItl'fNne TO. He said that they were replacing 1M WW2 artm with nroJ ona. I 'W4J satisfied. I had no reason to disbelieve him. Bul tM next morning messages (amefrom many municipalities that this was not at all what was happening - that all the anns had to be handed ill. J {ailed General Hotevar again. He told me thaI he had bun ordered to move the armsfrom the TO stores, that he had an qrder from Belgrade to conceal thisfrom the Slovene leadership.

Kui::an ordered the TO to surrender no more arms, and increased poice l protection on TO weapons stores. However, republic had, according to Janh, already lost about seventy per cent its weapons stock-pile. The }NA's disarmament programme came to a halt. A stand-off had begun between theJNA and the . that was, within little more than a year, to transform itself Slovenia's national army. The dispute between Slovenia and Yugoslavia's federal instinuions had acquired a military dimension2, The crisis further widened a split in the Slovene government, which was, in any case, a broad and unwieldy coalition of parties united only by their desire for greater autonomy for SI<,.,ni,•. J""" ,,,,'>ted '� . an use the existing TO strucrure as the basis on which to force independent of the JNA. Kocan was more cautious. He reluctant to commit Slovenia to a secret, and illegal, ",ns-pn"","" ment and smuggling programme. Relations betweenJarua had been cold3 since lama's imprisonment; Kocan had been head the Slovene Communist Party during the attempted suppression the 'Slovene spring'. Now, JanSa did not trust Kui::an: 'The dis"""" ment of the TO showed us that Kucan wowd be too soft, that would accept everything he had to, that he would wait, and behind', he said.Jama's calculation was that the TO - a force men - now had fewer than 10 000 weapons between them. The fall had to be made up. As Defence Minister, Jan�a initiated a buy weapons abroad, smuggling them into Slovenia in smill q",nri." Igor Bavi::ar, Slovenia's Interior Minister, took part in the tine operations:

Slovenes acquired only small ar�s, and th�se In the beginning, the the JNA stepped up Its campaign September, In s. quantitie m �mall Federal Defence Minister Veljko Kadijevic The TOs. the agam t nced that there wowd be no republican military opera£ions or outside the control of the Army. Slovenia then dismissed the mmander ofits own TO, who had already demonstrated his loyalty October, the }NA took control of the TO head to Belgrade. On 4 quarters in Ljubljana. The show-down with the JNA united Kocan's government, which earlier had been reluctant to commit money to the project, behind Jama's weapons-procurement programme. Kui::an now learned of, and approved,Jan§a's plans. Knowledge of the project was restricted to five or six leading of the government. In December, the first anti-tank weapons arrived - shoulder-launched Ambrust missile systems. They were stored in barracks at Kocevska Reka and placed in the possession ofthe nascent Slovene Special Forces. A referendum on sovereignty had been scheduled to take place later that month. Anti-Federation sentiment was running high. Jama, and his deputy, Jelko Kacin, decided to gamble on a show of defiance and a display of strength. The republic, they decided, would openly declare itself armed and ready to repel any attempt by the JNA to interfere with its new democracy. Kacin flew to Kocevska Reka in a police heli COpter. A Slovene television cameraman was waiting for him. There, Slovene troops fired two or three Ambrust missiles at an old and obsolete tank. The film was broadcast on Slovene television two days later. The Slovenes were raising the stakes. .

an�;� :U

Not for the last rime Slovenia had blazed a trail that left Croatia struggli�g to catch up. The disarming of the TO in Croatia was ccom�lished quickly and efficiently . The incoming government und Itself with no armed force capable of acting independently of e Ai. except the police. According to the Croatian representative o � �deral Presidency, Stipe Mesic, Croatia had no more than nfles, all held by civilian police, only one armoured personnel canier4 and no heavy weapons of any description.

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'YOU'VE CHOSEN WAR'

UGHTING THE FUSE

With its TO disarmed, Croatia decided to turn its dom'''"q>ol'' force into an army. The task was two-fold: not only had the

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be supplied with weapons; it also had to be d,-S'"b,i Traditionally, Serbs had been disproportionately represented in state security services as well as in the officer corps of the ]NA. had been a persistent source ofgrievance to many Croats, who

the imbalance, Serbian hegemony. Across the republic thousands Serbs now found their careers suddenly cut short. They were lined, demoted or sacked. At the same time, as part of its drive to

Io,�;;;

a national state for, and of, the Croatian people, the relml,li,", Ministry ran a recruitment drive to bring young Croats into the

Thousands responded, many of them zealous young n"'o,uli,b

responding to what they saw as the challenge of the day: Tudjman's yet unspoken call-to-arms. They were hurriedly trained and, in

cases, promoted to positions for which neither their

of Slovenia. It used the network of . t dWarfed that ' . OpcflltlOn tha fund and orgamze gun-runmng operto . d abroa alists n natlo n atia Cro by truck and, in countless small were brought in by ferry, . aoo�s Arms • d to as those mvo ved relerre method a car , b private cons1gnments Y the Yugoslav ing, arm was Croatia While ant'. led hi ) . ,small four-whee . ce (KOS was wate ng. Army unte ntelligcnce sem Spegelj believed Croatia was sufficiently armed and cem By . down the might of the JNA once and for all. In an rgan�ze .to fa � Belgrade, General Kadijevic, who had already accused ..te�ew Ill 1941, of fascism and genocide rekindling the fires of . Tud�man 0f , ' and explicattack on Croatla, ng blisten a ed agaanst the Serbs, launch C " to di e sar m Cro�tJ.as e u lor to , cim fITSt e � � � . idy threatened, fO.r th. . mg, he drastically detenorat was ugoslaYla Y III li,e;S. The siruanon po 'bility: said. Civil war was now a pOSSI

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ence qualified them. Belgrade accused Zagreb of mobilizing The recruitment drive promoted an atmosphere ofn,"oo']-"'''h�i'"ty and intolerance in the police. It explains, in part at least, why so

Serb policemen and civilians, who might otherwise have been suaded to live in an independent Croatia, ed the rebels when war began in earnest a year later.

The task of arming the new police force - or Croatian N"tio,nal Guard as it was to be renamed - was entrusted to Martin Spegelj,

JNA's most senior Croat officers, as Commander of the Fifth District, an area encoming all of Slovenia, and most . Furthermore, his commitment to Croatia's

Co"'ia.

doubt: in April, he had publicly attacked me JNA for

view - disarming the TO. This combination of military

sound national credentials made him, in Tudjman's judgement,

ideal candidate to nurture Croatia's fledgling defence force. Spege1j proved himself more radical than Tudjman could

predicted. He secretly toured the country, establishing within Army barracks a cadre of reliable Croatian JNA officers, who an alternative command structure in readiness for the day when conflict with Belgrade would begin. He set up a network of

0"'''

patrols, arming Croatian civilians and training them to 0 a defence force for eaeh municipality. He ran an �m'-"nuggl� u6

I

The biggeJt dangerfor the countrys inte�ity and 1eCUrity c�meJ from the intenJive. u:orll. towards Jetting up purely natIonal armus. They are drtvlng the countryfurther towards the abyss if i cannot and will not become another afratricidal war. Yugoslava set up outside the army will be ormations f armed All lLbanon. duarmed Those responsible for Jetting them up will be held able before the law. Since, under the law and constitution, thu comu under the competence ifthe armedforces, there will be no negotiations or compromiJes. Those who try to oppose the army byforce will be thwarted byfom.

police reservists, in addition to those brought in to the

republic's Defence Minister. Spege1j, a bear of a man from stock, with the weather-beaten face of a hardened drinker, distinguished military career. Now retired, he had been one of

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In Zagreb, KadijeviC's remarks were taken as the signal of an .

impending military coup. In s cret, General Spegelj now unveiled his plan to an increwdulous c: and pl3J.nlynervous meeting of Croatia's small defence counci1.Spegelj argued that the JNA was too weak to launch the war that Kadijevic was threatening. The JNA was made up, he said, of eighteen- or nine teen-year-old conscripts, the majori� of whom were non-Serbs, and wh� would not be prepared to fight. Spegelj argued that the Croatian police should lay siege to JNA barracks in Croatia' and cut off food, . 'Watc!" and e1ecrnclty " supplies and telephone lines. The garrisons, he said, w�re. by JNA convention, all physically separat fro the logis m ' ed tics units on which they depen ded. If the two were separated for long _.ough the ga ..... ' ITisons wou1d Tau en apart by themselves. Thelf the e nd men or blo °ffi� could � then be invited to transfer their loyalty, t or 10 Vldually, to the new anned forces ofthe Croatian republic. _

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LIGHTING THE FUSE

My idea was to put the JNA lip against a wall and say IfYOIl want to taRe our weapons, there'll be a war right n()'ul. /fwe had diJQrmtd tlu JNA thm 1m 'W()uld haw gained 3000 artillery p;ec(1, 1000 tanh, ammunition for two years of war, and 700 000 small arms. With this change ofpower, there probably 'l/}(}uld not have bun a war. Tudjman was stunned. The meeting fell into silent disbelief. No one ed Spegelj's plan. Tudjman dismissed it out of hand:

It was clear to me that it would bepolitical suicidefor democratic Croatia. Wt had no possihility at that time ofdiJarming thejNA, no possibility ofcrushing the insurgents ;n Knin. Had we accepted that plan we would havi bun (ondemned by the world as outlaw u((Jsionists who wanted to O'WTthrow tIN (onstilutional system.

The political and diplomatic case won over the military. Spegelj believed that Tudjman was being naive. Spegelj knew the JNA well enough to know that his arms-buying pro gramme would not go unnoticed. He knew that the defence estab lishment in which he worked was riddled with people still loyal to the idea of Yugoslav unity, and hostile to Tudjman's increasingly seces sionist government. Spege1j knew he was surrounded by spies; but he did not know who they were. In early October, 1990, Colonel Vladimir )agar, a JNA officer at Virovitica, near the Hunga rian border, ed JNA counter intelligence. He reported that Spegelj had tried to recruit him into a secret nety,lork of Croat agents who were distributing weapons to Croatia's growing reserve police force. The JNA counter-intelligence officer, Colonel Aleksander Vasiljevic, ran a security check on)agar. He was the son of a close, life long friend of Spegelj. Jagar and Spegelj were from the same village. Jagar's mother had died when he was a young boy, and he was raised as part ofSpegelj's own family. Spegelj loved and trusted Jagar almost as though he were his own son. Jagar's betrayal would be all the more damaging as a result. Within ty,IO days, Vasiljevic had recruited Jagar as an agent. At the same time,JNA informants in Austria reported to Vasiljevic that a consignment of 20 000 kalashnikov machine guns were to be delivered across the Hungarian border some time between the 8 and "a

'YOU'VE CHOSEN WAR'

October, at a crossing near Viro.vitica. Vasiljevi.c placed the area . oder heavy surveillance. The operation was so sensItive that he com anded it personally. He was foiled by the weather:

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II was afoggy night. wryfoggy. w� saw the two lorri�s crossing

fr ove om Hungary with tlu licenceplates that 'IJ)( knew �hat th� r would hav�. A" h� same time they hrought ahout30spmalpolICe there. and tINy escorted th� whir/e with heavy security, with a police (or at tIN lNad of tIN (olumn and one behind 'he second truck. The area was swarming with Croatian policemen - Vasiljevic esti mated bety,leen ty,IO and three hundred officers. He was stunned to see, among them, four or five of the highest-ranking security officials in the republic. The ty,IO trucks were not checked by the Yugoslav customs officers on duty6. lnstead, they were driven away, escorted by twO police cars, one leading, the other following. The two trucks disappeared into the fog. . The next day, Vasiljevic instructed Jagar to seek an urgent meetmg with Spegelj. Jagar telephoned his old family friend, and told him he: had information that he could not divulge on the telephone. SpegelJ told him to come to his house in Zagreb. When Jagar arrived,Spegelj answered the door with a pistol in his hand. He signalled to Jagar that the house was bugged. Josip Boljkovac, Croatia's Interior Minister, who had responsibility for Croatia's police force, including, officially, its recruitment drive, was also there. He waved his arms frantically at Jagar to warn him not to speak. Jagar had found the �o me� in a state of acute paranoia, tiptoeing around the house, mouthlll&: thelT �onver , sation in silence. Eventually, the three left the house, III BolJkovac s car, where they began to talk open1y. Unknown to the other two,Jagar was carrying a surveillance device. Their conversation was being recorded. VasiJjevic had ordered )agar to encourage Spegelj to talk as much as possible about the smuggling ofweapons, and to disclose details of the arms-distribution nety,lork. Vasiljevic wanted to knowwhere the para militaries were based, who was in charge, where the weapons were stored. He needed a detailed breakdown of the operation in order to plan a JNA campaign against it. Jagar had a delicate and dangerous task. He had to tease the infor mation out of Spegelj without arousing his suspicion. He did it brilliandy. Over the next six weeks Vasiljevic was to gather more than "9

LIGHTING THE FUSE

a hundred hours ofaudio tape from Jagar, including material in which Spegelj appears to describe secret 'liquidation squad s' whose task would be to assassinate senior Serb officers and kidna p their families7. Whether such a plan ever existed remains a matte r of conjecture. What mattered for now was that Vasiljevit had suffic ient materia1 on tape to produce the convincing and startling case that it did. Vasiljevic an¥d }agar went funher still. They hid a video camera in jagar:s ho.u�e. Spegelj was fUmed trying to yersu ade a colleague of jagar s toJOI� the secret network of officers. Spegel j knew that he was under surveillance. He �ew that he , as almo st certainly being : bugge�, but not once dd he suspect hiS truste d young friend of i . compliCIty. ��sil��vic kept the Federal Defence Minister informed throughout. �adlJeVlc heard the first audio tapes in early October. By the begin nmg of December he had produced a repor t for the Federal Presidency, the JNA's supreme commander. One of its was Stipe Mesic, a man whom KadijeviC's report direct ly implicated in the arms-smuggling programmes. KadijeviC's report was marked 'Top Secret'. The accusations it levelled at Croatia revealed the extent to whic h the }NA had inft.! trated the covert weapons-distribution programm e. It accused Croatia �f importing arms from warehouses in Hungary, under the cover of an Im�rt-export company in Zagreb, called Astra . It accused Spegelj, �ollkovac, and �ther of Tudjman's government of direc t I�volvement, JaYllg l out a case for their immediate a.rreSt and prose cu tion u?�er federal �aw. It described detail the building of an iUegal . paramilitary force III Croatia an armed wing of Tudjman's ruling parry, the HD�. The }NA had also uncov ered Spegelj's plan to surround and dlSable }NA barracks in Croatia. Although, the docu ment said, there :ns enough evidence to arrest and prosecute the leaders . of thiS planned lllsurrection, the political conse quences would be too great. Instead, Kadijevit's recommendation was that the Federal Presi?ency issue an order to disarm all paramili tary formations. This, he saId, was the only way to avoid civil war. �

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The Federal Presidency session at which Mesic was to be confronted took place in mid-winter, 9 January. The atmosphere was electric, with both the regular Croatian police and the jNA on full alert in a volatile, rractious stand-off, each knowing that by now the Cr�atian countrYSide was bristling with weapons that had been secreted or stolen from }NA warehouses or smuggled across the Croatian-

'YOU"VE CHOSEN WAR'

Hungarian border. Zagreb was seething with rumours of an impending military coup. . . istrust, joviC presented the In an atmosphere of intense mutual d . allegations from the Kadijevit document He proposed that the }NA be given a free hand - that th� paramilitaries sh�uld be dis�ed, by force if necessary. To the surpnse and fury ofJOVle, the Bosman delete Bome BogiCevit objected. The resolution failed to get the five - was rea�hed. g-.< - -On. A compr.omlse under the constitutI bvotes. it needed disarm The paramilitaries should be given ten days to ��Iuntarily. It DrnovSek Siovellias and MeSIC secured the majority it needed. Only had voted against. . But Mesic had succeeded in inserting into the resolutIOn the word ·illegal'. This was the loophole by which Croatia was to avoid act!ng on the Federal Presidency's order. Mesic returned to Zagreb, knowmg that Croatia did not have the slightest intention of disarming the police, or the reservists that Spegelj had recruited and armed over the previous six months. Cr�atia would, inste�d, embark on a t:n-da� . \Vlth the }NA, argum that he only ,illegal game of brinkmanship .� � paramilitaries in Croatia were the rebel Serbs m KraJina. For seven days, no weapons were surrendered. On January 17, the US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmermann, met JoviC and told him the US would not accept any use offorce. A democratic solu tion had to be found through peaceful negotiation. The Army was not to be used to round up the paramilitaries.}ovic was furious. It proved, he wid Zimmermann, that the US was in league with the German conspiracy to �pand its influence south to gain a warm-water port, by desrroying Yugoslavia. And he reiterated what were to become the mainstays of MilmeviC's argument: that the borders betw�n. the lsmte republics were istrative only; that if Yugoslavia were (� d an� na lOns, the only that and grate, the borders were no longer valid; � . }OVlC federation. the from secede to right the not the republics, had later conceded that Zimmermann's intervention had been an impor tant factor in the }NA's reluctance to move in with force on the Croatian police. The next day, JoviC met MesiC.. He told him that if force became necessary, every member of the Croatian �overnm�nt wo�d find himself on trial, accused of plotting armed Illsurrectlon agaillst �he state. Mesic agreed to go to Zagreb and try to find a compromise. Milosevic, according to }ovic, did not trust the Croats, and urged Jovic to order the Army into action immediately, to arrest Spegclj and Boljkovac. Bur there were still twO days to run on the ultimatum.}ovic

LIGHTING THE FUSE

'YOU'VE CHOSEN WAR'

kne:w that Kadije:vi� would not act without se:eking further political authority from the: Pre:side:ncy. On January 19, the day before: the deadline for disarmament was due to , Kadijevic showed the Spegelj film to Jovic. Kadijev ic was convinced that the: Croats were: not preparing to disarm, and that the: film was the evidence the JNA needed to arrest Spegelj and the others involved in the arms·distribution . plan }oviC telephoned Mesic. MesiC said he needed more rime. He asked (or two more: days. JoviC agreed . Two days ed. Kadije:vic told JoviC that the Croats had not handed in any weapons. Me:sic telephoned Jovic from Sarajev o where he had been attending a con ference. He repeated Croatia 's position: the only illegal paramilitaries in Croatia were the: Krajina Ser b re:bels. Jovic told Mesic: 'You've chosen war.' Milo�evic began to pre:ss Jov ic for a change in the Fed eral Presidency's instructions to the JNA. Milo�evic, according to Jovic, argued that if the Croats inte: nded to sece:de, then Se:rbia sho uld not try to prevent it. Instead, Serbia should use: its hold over federal institutions par. ticularly its control of half the votes on the: Fe:deral Preside ncy to protect the Serbs in Croatia . MiloseviC's position was tha t the JNA should not fight the Croats, but should withdraw (rom places of Croat majority to areas of Croatia wh ere: Se:rbs predominate:d. At the: same rime, Milokvic made it clear to the Sloven es that Serbia would not try to pre:ven t their secession from Yugosla via. On the night of 24 January as the Federal Pre:sidency gather e:d (or the second time in a month to demand the disarming of the Croatian police, MilokviC held a sep arate meeting with Sloven e Pre sident Kutan. The two reached an easy agreement. According to Ku tan: _

_

II was oiNious al lhal muting that Ihe StrOs wou ld not illS;sl on kuping Slown;a wilhin Yugoslavia... We SI()'f)tnes said Ihal we wanud the nght 10 hav e our (J'/JJn stale. Milaft:'Vif said Ihe StrOS wanted the mognit;on of Ihis righlfor Ihome/ves, too - Ihal is all Serbs in Yugoslavia in one Jlale. My reply, of COUT U, W05 Ihallhe Serbs also had Ihis righ I, but in the same way 05 the S/()'f)enes , wilhout hurling Ihe righ ls ofolher natjom. Milo/e vi, replied 'Yu ofCOUTU, this is dear' and with thai weflew home to LjUb ljana.

There we:re no Serbs living in Slovenia, and there wa s, from Belgrade's point of view, no distinction to be drawn bet ween the

. nallo and [he Slove:ne republic. The same was not �ru� for ;erb.Slovene agreement, when it was made: public, I� fu· Croatia. The _ -1 he Croats. To0 them , it read as though Kutan had gJ-vcn riat cu [ . Slovene

. Milo�evit � :re h d to partition Croatia. . ing his optl�n,s : aster tactician, was, as always, ke:e e t MiloSeVlC, �

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e had not yet aband0ned the goal of preservlOg YugoslaVlas open. H . . . 'lling to d0 so I 'wnal mlcgn' ty, but he had signalled that he was W J to "" OVIC: According arise. need ( e h d ' ""uI sho Wt Ihought Mi1o�eviC and I, Ihal lbere waJ no rtason to ktep . , 0m In Yiu osla'tJia and we thought the Army should Croatia by1 e Strb tern'Ionts. But the Army could not ha t withdrawn to Ihlg' � stand Ihis becalm they still bt/it't)ed thry Jhou" t.J end u d't:. J unueT Yugoslavia.

This was the primary d'I�er� nc �t the beginning of 1991, between � h Command of the Yugoslav u Milo evic and �the : c �� l� s the enerals, the unity ��Yugosla,?a Peoples Army. . or K . was sacrosanct, for Mil��eviC it was negotiable, a bargammg chip m h his hold on power. Over the his perpetual effor w�to wrench theJNA away from its months that followe�' . . . hlstonc �urpose, which was to preserv• the Yugoslav state, toward a . wholly different goa1. - that of protecting the Serbs outside Serbia and '_1 . of{.orgJng a new terntoflou entity. Gradually t.h e: Yugoslav Army would . . . _" . :l rv ; objective, and, eventuaJ..LY, 10 Its become 10 Its over·n'd"Ing milit . . ' . . ethmc composmon and Ideology, the army of Greater Serb"la.

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. 'Today may have changed the: On January 25 Jovic wro�e 10 h'I d' l� entire cou of Y s nd he sis' He and Kaclijevic had pre:t fi a nal atte�pt to force the Croats into pared on � ast ; � w hIC "h a corner m u the'y would have to disarm. This was how the stage was set. " Milo�evic te:lephoned ]OV1C to urge h'm I again as Supreme Commander �fthe Yugos1av Ar toact to prote:ctthe serbs ofKnin. ::erals would not move without the a ovi old il eVl. s Jexphclt � � aut � t e e:J Presidency. Milo�evic instructed Jovic to � �nvene aO�. :er meeting of the Presidency to give the Army the . pOlttlCal authonty �t ne'd d Jovic scheduled the: se:ssion for two p.m. " hed (.ever pitch. Tudjman addressed a 1n Zao· crreb, tenSiOn had' reac . . special session of Parliament. He told them he was prepartng to go to Belgrade that very day. S0 acute was the paranoia that many delegates

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UGHTING THE FUSE

'YOU'VE CHOSEN WAR'

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to d him he would not come back alive. Tudjman consulted hi. . ministers. Many of them agreed. A trip to Belgrade was too danga ous. In the e�ent of aJNA crack-down, Tudjman would be vulnerab1e., . Only SpegelJ told him he thought the trip safe. Croatia� fe� were well-founded. The Army High Command had made detailed preparations for a military takeover of the eountr)t That night, the Army was placed on full alert. There were tr movements in Croatia, further fuelling the rumours of an impen roup . d'ttat. A secret document, drawn up by the Federal Def..,.nng . ee M'mistry, was circulated to every major Army barracks in Yugosbvia, and rea to JNA commanders across the land. It was called A Report

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ConctmmK. the Actual Situation in the World and YugoslO'Uia and the Immediate Tash oftm YugoslQ'/J Peoplei Army. It welcomed recent

developments in the Soviet Union, including the slowing down of the ref�rm ovement, and the growing strength of the � conser , vative Sovlet-onented faction in Soviet politics. It also welcomed t�e increased obilization of t e Soviet Army because , it said, 'It � . limItS the West s freedom of actIOn and scope for influenc ing world , �vents . It �ttack�d the West for ing 'disintegrative tendencies' III the SOVIet Ullion (and, by implicat ion, in Yugoslavia), and accused Western governments of having plotted the overthrow of socialism in eastern Europe in order to extend their own influence:

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The for democracy expmud in urtain nrdes in the West is t� ansparent demagogy, htcauufor them democracy is only that whu h (ornsponds to their aims and inUres/so . It atta�ked .th e w�om it regarded as agents of Westem imperial � Ism - by ImplicatIOn, the governments of Slovenia and Croatia who ' were seeking greater autonomy or independence,

Yugoslavia ran exut only as a state. Ifit si not a stall then it u not Yugoslavia, hut so"'.eth�·ng else. That whi(h some in Yugoslavia off"tT as a (onfodtTatlon ufiUlual1y not a state, nor ran it he... Our hasi( taSR must be to create the (onditiOnJfor thefunctioning oj . mrans, first of the flderal state. ThIS all, the liquidation of all �rea(hes "!a�e in. thefield ofunity ofthe armedform: ie disarm mg and hqUl�afmg allparamilitary organizations in Yugoslavia, Implementatton of this task will infli(t a pfJWtTfol deftat on nationalist-uparatistpolititS...

, coup in every respect except one: rv milita 0. • J -print 1c" It was a blue The Generals were ready to alone. ..red to act was not prep.... he the Slovene TO and t of the ArmY might recencly_,equired take on the ' Slovene and Croanan . . ' was ready to arrest the " e,. It nouc Cro2nan r WI . a to cover wanted It But law. martial nose: roents and ·Imr_• . :l: ry t aJI.�to a mwta l;rv . . · J what amounted g<>"'"'of constltu .... .... , "'onal lc6 veneer . ency. authorization from the Federal PreSid (J'Ier. S? It . u ht the Presidency session. He repeated his deter ressed d s:o Ka JeV1c a the Croatian paramilitaries. He asked the . ' nation to d'ISarm the JNA 'm Croana. nu . authorize armed intervention by Presidency to . that the propos" learmg Drno�ek, � The 51oven. .. .. ,... presentative'..Janez . L' d a UlIOUS row WI'th e l ' provok , wanted ic KadlJeV would t th majority him and announc behind th door in a sto ed out, slamm � � JoviC press conference. a hold to na Ljublja to back 109 that he was going . _ 1 was put t0 the proposll1 S Jevlc a " d " d K , resume I Wh,n the session ' the 0f armed 'Illterventlon, vote. It was deadlocked, On the question . get d to a il ' . It f � from BoSllla , Serbs had lost the of Bogicevl . . men, lc s Mllo�eV nly the five votes it needed to secure a maJonf?' - ? ontenegro and ( the representatives of Serbia, Kosovo, Vo�voiJna was not tive, representa an voted in favour. (Tupurkovski, the Macedom that suggested to retur ed persuad been present.) Dmo�ek who had ? . , PreSidency the ile Wh seSSIon, the into brought Tudjman be waited for Tudjman's arrival, Kadijevil: sprung the surprise he had been planning for months - a final 2ttempt to terrorize the Bosnian delegate to vote against the Croats and Slovenes. He made what

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seemed an innocent suggestion: that the Presidency take a brnk to watch the evening television news. The Croats sat in a separate office in the Federal Presidency build ing. They watched the news in srunned disbelief. Belgrade television was broadcasting Vasiljevifs clandestine 61m of the Croat Defence Minister's arms-smuggling activities, together with a heavily doctored audio tape ofSpegelj apparently disclosing details of a plan to attack �d disable the JNA in Croatia. Belgrade television devoted forty-five millutes to a grainy black-and-white ftlm in which the Croatian Defence Minister argued that Croatia was already at war with the JNA. K�dijeviC's last attempt to win over the Presidency was a spectacu lar piece of showmanship and manipulation, and a ringing conclusion to t.he wholeSpegelj affair. The film had been released to Belgrade TV, was controlled by Milo�evic, deliberately to coincide with the esldency session as a way of frightening its into compli ance. But it failed. The Bosnian delegate was not impressed. He did

�hl�h

"5

'YOU'VE CHOSEN WAR'

UGHTING TIiE FUSE

not change his vote. The Kadijevic plan was still deadlocked. � would be no Presidency endorr;ement of a JNA crack-dawn OQ Croatia's paramilitaries. Kadijevic lost his nerve. He would not order action Presidency - his supreme commander - had explicitly voted and Tudjman left the room. Between them Kadijevic would call the Army off alert in the prosecution of a handful of people who had been morning in connection with the arms-smuggling operation. also told Tudjman that he intended to have Spegelj arrested. returned to Zagreb the next day declaring that his courageous nll",,, CO the enemy capital, undertaken at great personal risk and, despite the mortal concern of his ministerr;, had saved Croatia from invasion. Spegelj went into hiding. Croatian television broadcast the film his clandestine meeting the day after Belgrade, describing it as an out rageous forgery. When he heard about it, Spegelj initially concluded that he had been betrayed by PericaJuric, the Deputy Police Minister; Spege1j had used Jurie's car on the occasion when the film was The two men met in secret.Spegelj wore two pistols in his waistband. He told Juric there were only two people who could have colluded produce the fIlm: 'One of them: he said, '] trust implicitly. The is you'. Only when he saw the fIlm did he realize that he had betrayed by Jagar. The camera had �n hidden in the television �tin Jagar's living room. In retrospect,Spegelj now ed that Jap had, on that night, insisted that he sit in a particular chair. so that the camera could film him face on. Croatian police dynamited Jagar't house in the village where the deception had taken place.Spegelj's own house. in the same village, stands less than a hundred metres from the ruins. Jagar. a Croat, was never to return to Croatia. It was not, in case, what he considered his homeland. That was Yugoslavia. was disappearing beneath his feet. JoviC's prediction that 25 January would be the day that <1>,"'11'" the course of Yugoslav history was prescient. But he, more than other individual (with the single exception of Milo�evit), knew was really raking place. KadijeviC's indecision, his refusal to oM wiim; out political authority, played into Milokvit's hands. Jovic had ofSpegclj's arms-smuggling and distribution programme since October. It had taken nearly four months to reach even this i""o"d,,· sive compromise. Throughout that time, the federal authorities once mounted a serious effort to prevent the arming of the either by taking control of the border crossings or instructing the ,,'

i Yugoslavia could not be decided: f ·l kvie had already oms. M 1 0- I:zed, then the Croats, like the Slovenes, would be au __I . 5
ent1 cust

:

�A TOs levels of comman� .uP. to the.highest, when t�e e dat :; on : � � Its JNA had the while ies, miniStr They d to the republics' defence ed of

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,

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were of the supreme command. united at the level . ",preme command. They then helr rough t angcabIe th mter<:h were h· hly integnted - the officers They the rest soldiers, ime t full were officers highest the only . careers. n . TOs AImy units were fully-active units The TO- kit were resefVI,rs. Most of the . TO Units were 0ften based on the partisan the place. The was stored all over . , .,lon; so a b-Ig ,actory 0f a ba[[... th e SIze being brigade a iples, princ b · de have often it would and ity, icipal mun a or unit, d have its own TO . i DSZ - Dpumarodna odbrana 1 weapons' stores in the workplace itself. 'DND popular self t/ndlwna samOZilltita,' was Tito's doctrine, which means: 'general of the armed forces. defence and society's self-protection'... the socialization j..witjsutra, i radj Abo their doctrine was: 'Moramo u sprtmati ZD rat kao da (t Ii .u mir kao do (t trajati stotinu hiliada godina' - we have to be ready for war will last one u if it will break out tomorrow and work for peace as jf it own

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hundm:'l thousand yean. 2 It is not clear on whose authority the JNA was acting. The Commander in ChiefoftheJNAwas, constitutionally, the eight-member collective Federal Presidency. The Slovene representative, Janez Drnovkk, had been President

ofthe Presidency until 15 May - rwo days before the disarmament of the TOs began. He knew ofno order to disarm, and later claimed that only the Serbian representative, Borisav Jovit, who assumed the Presidency of the Presidency aite.r Dm�ek, knew anything. 'My term [as President of the Presidency] �Ired on 15 May. On 17 May this disarmament was done. They had w:utcd for my term to apire. Only JOvlC was informed about it and, for the �ide�cy, it was a foit uccompli. They nevcr voted on it. I , of course, was :lglllnsr It, and demanded a Presidency meeting to discuss it, hut the others were against me.' J Klbn ha� .had his doubts about the appointment of Janb and his ally, B �' to poSmons of such sensitivity. and had expressed them to Prime M tcr Peterle when he was forming the Government in 1990. Why, he }NA eterle, arc yo� �ppointing a man with such a record ofconflict with the iii ' . Defence MlOlster? And Bavtar, who had a personal history of con wlth the police, as Interior Minister? Peterle had told Kufan not to . un mln� his ministers by expressing these doubts in public. Kufan, despite hili .,sg.lV\n , acce pted the appointments. 4 An u � . n hkely cla·m, Since Croatla - was, by August, sendmg columns 0f 1

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"7

LIGHTING THE FUSE

armoured vthicles, including seven APes, to try to regain control of 5 Kadijevit gavt his interview the night before Serbia's first free It was widely seen, at the time, :IS a whole-hearted SPS. 6 There is little doubt that the arms-smuggling operation could h,,� >_ stopped. KOS's strategy was to allow the operation to continue. 7 $pcgelj disputes this. He sa� the film and audio tapes were make him appear to be arguing for selective assassinations. advocated this, and that the audio rapes were tuen from a had once givtn in which he had been asked to discuss 8 Kadijevit said he had evidence that MesiC had accompanied Budapest to buy weapons.

9 'IF WE DONT KNOW HOW TO WORK, TO FIGHT' W AT LEAST WE KNO HOW Month The March 1991

Derisive

M

arch was the decisive month. Milo�evic set the country on the coUfSC to waf.

silence of Bulevar Revolucije. Scattered fires burned Parliament. Gusts of wind whistled through Federal . front of the were screams as police stalked Belgrade There ashed windows. rians at random. pedest g arrestin and beating up

Tanks broke the

::

The city stank of tear-gas. A seventeen-year old srudent, Branivoj Milinovit, lay in a pool of blood, shot dead by a squad of fifteen policemen just a few yards from President Milo�evic's office. The

police were intent on revenge for a colleague who had been stoned to

death by angry protesters. It had been a chaotic frightening day, during which the Serbian

regime vented its anger on the hitherto quiet streets of Belgrade. It 9 March, the day on which it became clear that President Milo�evit would not hesitate to use force against his own people in order to preserve power. Just four years after promising Serbs in Kosovo that 'no one will ever dare to beat you', MiloilcviC sent tanks into his own capital The grim night-time parade stood in stark contrast t� the dawn of democracy elsewhere in eastern Europe. In fact, the dis playof force was planned well before the anri-government onsrrat1. n, which supposedly provoked it, got out of hand. ? sav then President of Yugoslavia's collective leadership, ed nngmg of the Presidency asking for approval to " l y tanks even before -o -to the f1(st outbreak of violence. the stage for bloodshed had been set earlier. The Interior stry, acting at the last minute, banned a city-centre protest . Iga1n t govern ment control of the media. Hundreds of policemen yed, with dog , horses and armoured vehicles. They set up � bl around SerbIa to seal off the capital But the ban was Un d 10 ' the certain knowledge that it would be violated. By noon on a 000 ople, mostly ers of the opposition �� 1tader' U ra�kovlc, and his nation alist Serbian Renewal was Saturday,

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Movement (SPO), converged on Belgrade's central squllt, Trg Republike. Dra�kovic was nicknamed Kralj TrgO'Va (King of the Squares) for his ability to draw a crowd - a skill at which he surptssed even Milo�evic. Dra�kovil: was one of the principal targets of elaborate state-run smear campaign to discredit anyone who challenge MilooeviC. Among a plethora of wild and absurd ","".., tions, Belgrade Television - state run, and immensely powerful shaping public opinion - repeatedly accused the. charismaticin Dra�kovil: of secretly plotting to destabilize Serbia, alliance with the revived 'Ustak regime' ofPresident Fnmjo 1:U,ljrn". of Croatia'. Belgrade Television was firmly in Milo�evifs grip. It was the ideal. tool for stirring up hatred against 'the enemies of the S" b;'", "'''Pie' - first Kosovo's Albanians, then the Slovenes, the Croats, ana. nn'IIJ•• the opposition in Serbia itself. After his overwhelming victory Serbia's first free elections in December, Milokvic continued to the media as his personal propaganda machine, refusing to opposition any airtime. To the anti-Communist protesters, Belgnode Television symbolized Milo�vifs total control over Serbia. From the balcony ofthe NationalTheatre, opposition l"d""oaIeI di for freedom ofthe press as the police moved in. Drukovic cut a ing figure with his great mane of black hair and flowing beard. called for the Bolsheviks to step aside in favour of radical """,!�. � demanded press and broadcasting freedom, and an ni dependent ciary. The police tried to disperse the crowd with water-cannon salvoes of tear-gas canisters. Dra�kovic urged his followers to and bellowed 'Charge! Charge!' seconds after rows of police, clad full riot gear, surged forward. The demonstrators tore apart grabbing iron bars and sticks for the fight. In vain, D�kovic to the security forces to rally behind the people the The police beat a retreat. For a few hours - in demonstrators seemed to have won. They smashed w;ndo�•• •ca� I not a single pane of glass intact in the Serbian Presidency, the ing which housed Milo�eviC's office. But the opposition didn't what to do next. Hijacking several fIre trucks. the euphoric stratars massed in front of the Serbian Parliament. Upstairs, tion leaders tried get in touch with Milo�evic or anyone from Serbian Government. Milo�evic was at Dobanovci, the military compound Belgrade. He knew it was time to take action, and Borisav - President of the Yugoslav Presidency and C"m'm'nd�,··in-CIU" .

to order in the tanks. As the demonstration lling h'm te , y the: w more nervous. ss�Ah�en following the events closely. They � � rals had alsovicbeenwanted The) the Army to avoid e ' KadiJ ! nera . turning _ diVl'ded• Celice h reveaIs owever, ation, convers taped A force. into �othB� Adfic, the hulking Chief-of-Staff, cursing at the I g them to beat the demonstrator s. Gene . police anddorinderin majority needed a ' vote f the elg. ht the Army Jovieone, 't sen most by he phoned those he thought . Presl�dcncy . One On . ruter mterventi tacy m d I ili " or s deman . . u-.y to rivesMi1o�evic' , VOJvodma and Montenegro all Kosovo from resenta the Vasil Tupurkovski ofMacedonia rang he men' �&wokviC 'place we need to get th� Army on �o 'Vasil, begging: vote. to theinfifth sto.p. what will h.appen power of n rati demonst a � to thetostabi cbe streets lity and secunty ofthe detnmental very be will Bclgnde.1t ' began in the morn calls the says politician Macedonian The . muntry ing, several hours before the demonstration in Belgrade got out of calls from Jovic every haif-an control. The calls became frantic: 'I gotJovic tells me: �Vasil, I have five noon hour requesting a vote. At about Give me your vote because we want to later recalled Tupurkovski. By his own , Jovic started phoning 'at eleven or twelve -at the time when they began to attack the Defence Ministry.' But his memory is faulty. At midday, the crowd was nowhere near the Ministry. Bogie Bogicevic, Bosnia's representative to the Presidency and non-nationalist Bosnian Serb, also gave in. But he insisted later tbat)oviC never mentioned the word 'rank', asking only for the Praidency's approval to secure vital buildings. Despite their yes votes, both Bogicevic and Tupurkovski were wary of Jovie's tricks. T"P"'ko",\ci,

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� :: :nks roll�d thr�ugh the streets, the police raided and shut

bera! station, B-92, and Studio B the only Belgrade OOiCYlSlon StationradiO not In. government hands, which' were both reportina: th d :strati on. 'The de. Serbia requested the pat:h o; y unus �rshipty ofofpolice . thelead . SlOce majori units are engaged ....,, ... _.

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UGHTING THE FUSE

'IF WE DON'

in Kosovo,' said a statement from the Federal Presidency, exl']>;";' why the JNA was caUed instead of the police. In parliament, DraSkovic realized he was about to be arrested.

Ont oftht stCurity mm asktd ifI had tattn anything all day. Ht told mt I would arr;w too laltfor dinntr and that brtnkfast 'W4U wry bad in tht Ctntral Prison. Ht ofJtrtd to buy mt a II1ndwuh., yogurt and {igaretttJ. Hi! name was Nastr Orii. (Orii, a membn f orm, was lat" to achit'IJt Ttnown as ItOlkr ofthe Strbian stlUTity ofthe Muslim dtftndm in tht tintem tndavt ojSrtbTtnjca.j

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ng to stand by, silent and menacing. The students the release of Dra�kovic, and the .P� d mands: they wanted � thC1 � of Belgrade Tc:levision, and Head the , ;uSw Mitevicnterior Ministe r, whom students blamed � �ogdanoviC, the day. preVIous the the violence of week te�s �f �housands of B c:lgr,ade's liberal elite next the ()ver b' srand. SinglOg Give Peace a Chance , they re·created, ,...de their last t� lerance t�at had once been the ha.u 8ccCingIy, the atmosphere ofwh . e life, but ich had disappe d from public life mark of 8c:1grad seemed transformed. People would stop by aDder MilokviC. The city blankets �o the srudenrs, br�ving freezing tempera to bring food or mghI professors, wrtters, and actors would tura on Tcrazije. Each platform on the fountain, which the demon a from crowd ICIdress the makeshift podium, and the focal point of a into turned d a IIIUOn h 1beir city-centre vigil. Mi1o!evit was infuriated by the Terazije forum. Prominent nation .... intdlecruals, such as Matija Betkovit, Head of the Writer's Union, deserted him. Speakers read tc:legrams of from other citieI in Serbia, where local protests were being staged. A message 6I:m Zagreb was greeted with loud enthusiasm. The crowd jeered at Patriarch Pavle of the Serbian Orthodox CIan:h when he begged the srudents to abandon their protest. MiIoIevic had persuaded the frail seventy-seven-year-old priest that 1IoIcnce. was inevitable. Pavle believed a rival gathering organized by MiIaIevr, would march on Terazije3. But at the park on the conflu tace ofthe Sava and Danube rivers, the U�e, the people bussed in for rally were too few, too old and too tired to fight. Pavle returned to �nts to ask f veness, saying he had been deceived. 'Paunls �_lktl", ChJ/.drm oorgi n Tuozijt: read a headline in Borba' the inde.,-... It .::> Belgrade daily. In the conviction that Y ugosIaVla > must be pulled back from the Walt f �atastrophe, tens of thousand turned out on TeruL..� /:" ut few were aware of the speeds ofwithpeople ... their coumrv which >, . Ient IlW"Ulng tOWards VIO Uapse. 0n 11 March, a speech to an co . *_____ �&�.cy session ofthe Ser b>Ian ParI.ament, which he peppered Wlth __ . S of pIans to st ..a..-..._ tion age > -style revolution' Milo�evic a RomaOlan ___ that he Was shaken: "

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Drdkovit was taken to jail. Milo�eviC's brutal tactics came as a shock to Belgrade. It was one to read about tanks in Kosovo, but quite another to see them on street outside. To make matters worse, Milokvic was in no mood compromise. He saw no reason to concede anything to the oPI""I'" which was scrambling to make capital out ofpublic outrage. ing televized speech, on Saturday evening, was a warning blatantly obvious as the tanks that he was to remain the un,jl''" I leader. It was also probably an attempt, cleverly devised, to prepare public for the declaration of a state-of-emergency. Today tht biggnt aslt/ that our country and ptople haw W/U tndangtrtd in Serbia and Btlgradt. Peau wasjtopardiud Peate is tht baJ;c condilion withoul which tv.! cannol sucwifully solve any singlt probltm lhat Wt haw. and Wt hQ'/Je many. Thtrifort, Strbia musl oppou thtforus of chaos and madness using all constilulional means. I am Ihus asking and demandjnt Ihat allcilium ofSerbia contribute 10peau and the eJlablilhmenl oforder, by abovt all exttnding aid to state organs.

In other words he was calling on the people to side with the was the last straw. On Sunday rught 1000 srudents from Grad, the biggest campus in Belgrade, broke through police headed for the city centre. The police, in helmets, gas-masks and seemed better suited for all-out war than controlling unarmed Under clouds of tear-gas, they used their batons to stop the But, around midnight, from donnitories all over the of srudents reached the centre, Terazije, in front of the The srudents took Milokvic by surprise. That first cold

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LIGHTING THE FUSE

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diktatfrom the northwest about the diJuJJOciation ofYugoslavic into as many staW as there are republics. Serbia would then � to abandon the political ideal with which it enttred into the � ation ofYugoslavia. The deputies of MiioseviC's

Socialist Party

Communists), occupying 194 of the

250 seats, wildly his speech. Unnerved by the demonstrations, Milosevic took steps

the damage. The regime was afraid that the student m,,,,.. ,

would inflame all of Serbia. The Serbian President de<:ided to

representatives of the opposition and sr udents. Zarko Jol"nori� twenty-six-year-old srudent and politician, who was part of a which met Milosevic on March 11, was ushered into a huge empty but for a big table in the middle. 'It was luxurious and a tsar.' Separated by the vast expanse of the table, Milosevic at first

ally ignored the group, then warned the srudents that they were ing into the hands of the Ustase and Albanian separatists. should not destabilize things at a time when we are trying to

resurgent fascist Ustase forces, Albanian secessionists, as well other forces of the anti-Serbian coalition which are endangering

pIe's freedom and rights.'

KNOW HOW TO WORK.

emergency session of the Federal . . called an law. JOV1C not the demonstrations hut the discuss to 12 , . �..nnI for Mareh __ PreSidency order t� d"Isarm �ara-J � out the January 25 . c o . He made a late-rught televlSlon fiIilute r .a.rrr Cfoa,'Ia and Slovenia . . _ It:. 'es III tpJll tan summonmg the PreSidency . It was ment, publicly " \y "Imp\ym " g that ....unce . lears, ommous pub\"Ie , ' heighten . ..J...I;berate alternP to •as Commander of the Armed forces. ' 1"ng in his capaCity ac he was now rose. rature 'J'be political tempe way gripped Terazije. They d'itat was under r Rurnoun that a coul> . repeat his attempts (which to ng planm was Jovic unded. were well-fo ederal Presidency to approve a mili f the get to y) Januar .... failed in ing that had taken place over the week takeover. 'With everyth last chance.' said Jovic, 'this was our Drnowek, Slove�ia's representa:ive on Fearing arrest, Jancz the sessIOn. When Stipe MeSIC, boycotted IOtlDng Presidency, the Federal Presidency, the usual at arrived ti Croa a's representative, alarmed to find a group ofJNA was he sessions, Presidency wnuc for him into a milituy bus, ordered They there. im h for waiting o8ioen

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which was waiting in the forecourt. Mesic took this as a sign that he

... being arrested. He climbed aboard and took a seat at the back of me bus along with other of the country's highest ruling body. He spent the journey, wrapped in his overcoat, head down,

pipped by fear. The entire group of politicians was taken to TopCider,

repeating that he did not have the authority to do anything

the Presidency's emergency meeting place in the event of war. When

country? You are behaving like the Qyeen of England when you the power of a Russian tsar.'

joke. 'Don't be angry now, Veljka, I was just checking.'

The students put forward their demands. But MiioseviC

a line that was to become his trademark. Looking at him Jokanovic asked: 'Are you currently responsible for anything in The Serbian President sat imive. Spiky-haired Jokanovit

ifhe had watched the news the previous night, 'It could h,� pn'" a civil war.'The atmosphere was tense. Milosevic hid his

vuln,,.!"!

Tihomir Arsic, a young actor popular for his rendition ofTito, permission to open the window for some fresh air. The room was

denly filled with the demonstrators' chants of 'Slobo,

paring him to the Iraqi dictator who had waged war against world and brought isolation to his country, Milosevic pretended hear. Jokanovic showed him the picture ofMilinovic, the during the demonstration. 'Is there anything human left Serbian President turned deep red, but said nothing.

DI A few streets away, the Belgrade power-brokers were pn .. '34

they arrived, Mesic, from the very back of the bus, asked the waiting General Kadijevic, 'Are we under arrest?' The General was irritated, replying the Army would never act in an

unconstitutional manner. Mesic, though still nervous, was now able to

'Ibere followed a bizarre scene - filmed and later televized in a JNA

�

on entitled Who BetrayedYugodavia?- in which the country's sat round a bare table in an Army command bunker in sub � �peratures, some dressed in military-issue furs, others shiver .. 'W h cold, and discussed it whether or not to impose a state-of �hroughout Yugoslavia. Macedonia's representative, Vasi l 1trled .vski' :-as in no doubt about why the meeting was being con n thiS extraordin ary and inappropriate location. The Prt.ide brought to TopCider, he said, to be intimidated, to 'bt.nble ore the military'. 'It ry cold. It was scary: later recalled Mesic. 'It all showed they te us to capitulate. '

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'35

LlCHTING THE FUSE

W HOW TO WORK..

'If' WE DON'T KNO

In JNA barracks, on the outskirts of Belgrade. tanks were up their engines - waiting for the order to move. With Drnowek absent, JOvlC hoped it would be possible to through a sme·of-emergency, which would give theJNA the ity it had long sought to impose a MiloseviC's political neck and disarm the Croatian that he could count on his allies, Nenad Buein of M""" n"gn, Jugoslav Kostic ofVojvodina. He only needed twO more Votes Sapunxhiu, from Kosovo, who had just been released from and Bogicevic, a feUow Serb, might cave in. But he knew that take a lot to make them crack.. Kadijevic did his bit by conjuring up nightmarish images from . Second World War. 'In Yugoslavia all possible enemies and united Yugoslavia have emerged on the scene, Ustde, Albanian, beloguardist and other factors. We are fighting against same enemy as in 1941"'.' The first two votes came as no surprise. Mesic and Tupurkovski of Macedonia immediately said there were no for declaring a state-of-emergency. Jovic was irked by suggestion that the Serb leaders wanted to strengthen their positions following the turmoil on Belgrade's streets - rather disarm paramilitary formations in Croatia. Tupurkovslci saw J ovie's anempt to push through what amounted to a legal d'i/al: It Waf aproposalfor a Irgal takr()'IJtr. Lrgal brcauu it �uld' a vote ofthr pwidmey, and it had thr prerogatives to do thai, a take()'IJ(f brcauu the army would have bun the main actor,

he"':

mainfoctor ofthat situation.

Tupurkovski was an immensely popular political Macedonia and throughout Yugoslavia. He was known ovski (Jumper-man) because of his preference for casual . and affable, he had a common touch. His habit, despite his status, was to ride public transport, rather than take adva?t,age black Audis or Mercedes favoured by most of Yugoslavtas leaders. He voted against Jovie's proposal, and then asked for to request warm clothing for those who had come unprep:ued meeting in such conditions. Sapunxhiu, the delegate from Kosovo, was next to declare Frightened and ill, he voted y�s. Jovic now had four votes. Be '16

. The entire decision

his stat�-of-emergency rna: t� ;;recevic. BOglcevit remained sil:nt. Like a deer on � WJth B headlightS of an on-commg he seemed ·nthe L. � " nI .-� °ght short-tempered J °

;-r one.

. ...... ru

.... , Ilv

OvtC h,k,n by screams from the H _�1� . , ""up, and vote. t-":"" . . . . . fOr hi m t� hurry Invoked the consmufrom Serbia BOglCCVlC iS counte.mart • :t.. h r . ' l basis for action. He balked at endors'a o· . on finding a [c" . tlng JnSlS � tion. the Iegally-e1ected governments 0f byed d " which iaI � Proce u Jovic insisted that the Presidency had the authority die SIX republics. nts of the declare a state·of-emergency without t�e governme . only was an mter othefWIse of said which rule any said � .h.l; H at could be changed by the Presidency itsel£ BogiCeviC, �, stood his ground. He refused to cast a vote. Mter a long silence, he said: 'I can't vote'. . Outraged, Kadijevit warned that theJNA would seize the weapons . DO matter what the politicians decided. 'The JNA has deCided to take ower, regardless ofany decision made here, to stop the civil war. We arc ping to do our job.' . . . . . 'Kadijevit, your personal army will lead to CIVIl war, said MeSIC. 1 am not going to dance along with you lot any more; said kadijevit storming out of the room. The debate went round in circles. Mter half-an-hour, Kadijevic came back to warn of impending war. Regardless, he said, the Serbs wuuId fonn their own army within fifteen days. jcMf warned the dissenting of the Presidency that he woaId resign on the grounds that he refused to 'implement the deci ..... causing the disintegration of the country'. It was clear that they could not agree on anythin g - let alone the fUture of Yugoslavia. Bur, no matter what Serb leaders were deter' mined to have their way. car,

,

:fn;� �

,

-

AI Commander-in-Chief, Jovi{:

Kadijevic to Moscow that night �Defence M.in.ister DimitrisentYazo v. The oth�r of the

hree were kept the dark about the mission. T ? . months earlier, iral Mamula had gone

�:�;�:.��::::� :t. 10

to Chatham London, General Blagoje AdZit to Paris, and iral o M scow, to try to assess how the interna· l �, � � to a military coup in Yugosl avia. 'On ; the Army �ecld . ed UK and would not be opposed,' RUSsla welcomed the plan, although mad e it clear that not the move publicly.

10

•

)::.!��:

III

:o:

'J7

W HOW TO WORK .. .' 'IF WE DON'T KNO

LIGHTING THE FUSE

'We were interested in their assessment as to whether the would intervene if we tried to disarm the paramilitary units There was no question - the West would not intervene,' said Word would later leak out about the mysterious trip to Kadijevie came back believing that President Mikhail would not last long and that, jf they cou1d hold out just a 1 Communism would be shored up in the Soviet Union. The next day, 13 March, the students believed briefly that had won. Dra�kovic was released. Looking out at the huge on Terazije, he demanded: 'Freedom for Serbia.' But Drukovie realized that he had been stronger inside prison than out. In a get the students off the streets, the Serbian President agreed Mitevic and four other editors at Belgrade Television. The Minister Bogdanovic who two days before denied he was even sidering offering his resignation, also agreed to step down. agreed to organize a parliamentary investi-gation of police actions March 9, which could have punished the violence. Over the next three years of war, Milo�eviC would never again shaken by a mass protest. The brutal police reaction signalled although Milo�evic had reluctantly allowed multiparty electioN! Serbia, the last of all six republics, he refused to tolerate opposition. His victory was bolstered by the ethnic i since had boycotted all official Serbian institutions and the elections. The Terazije demonstration turned into a giant high school students. On March, MesiC, the Croatian representative, this time by his Siovenian counterpart, Dmo�ek, remained locked in with jovie. They insisted that anyjNA action would plunge try into war. The Presidency again refused to endorse jovie's emergency, joviC and his allies were livid, He and K �d J they would take steps to allow the Army to act. The blocking them;Jovic was unable to deliver on his promise. But, with this eventuality, he had crafted a fall-back plan: if the P""id" refused to him, he would break it. An hour later,jovic television, putting the plan into action. Blaming 'prevailing the Yugoslav PreSidency which do not care about th ' independence and territorial integrity of the country',. Head of State declaring that he was 'not prepared to a party to decisions which contribute to the destruction of the countrY. ordered, Buein and Kostic followed

�::'�::

1990 14

� l::::: ;:�

;:�:�:�:�;�

along � -J ", S l· d,nrv cIoWI1 from the n

with JOVK, although with consider-

pomp5 Presidency created a power-vacuum e��ring of the disrn Th .bly " s Icadership hoped - and expected - the JNA would fiU. which Sefbla so thar the only body with the constirus.gned p--is .... ... ely J.oVL had cc 1 to preven t an Army crack-do,VTl would lx: unable to authority O night of 15 March, a statement from the Supreme Dona! tuncnon' n the Army would consider what. measures to take Conunand said: 'The . . g mter-ethRIC ' d at preventm · acmed after ' recommendations aJffie y Presidenc with a the by down voted were civil war I

e;

confli�� andvotes ' majority of

.

' ugosl�via is finished', and The next day, Milo�evic declared : Itself bound by federal conSidered longer no Serbia that announced Serbia's secession from Yugoslavia. bodies. In effect he was declaring : (I have] said In an address to the nation he

... ordered the mobi/iwtion of spuial reservists and the urgmt formation of additional Serbian militia units. Yugoslavia has mlmd into itsfinalphast ofagony... The Republic ofSerbia will no longer rtcogniu a single derision reached by the Presidency IIndtr lxish'ng ,ircumstan(ts became il would bt il/tgol.6 Milo�evit threw down the gauntlet to the Federal Army, announc

ing that he would form his own special forces and carry out decisions

�ing the legal federal instirutions. In short, he was prepared to do �Iy what be had accused his rivaJs from the Western republics of �'. He put the finishing touches on a plan to throw the country mto disarray. . That day rebel Serb leaders in Knin, the cemre of Krajina, declared independence ITom Croatia on the grounds that jovie's resignation p�f that Zagreb and Ljubljana were destroying Yugoslavia. okviC hoped that Tudjrnan would send in his special police units to put down the inSUrre . . . . . n and a ctiOn, promptmg Army mterventlO . Poln . ted. � cy, but he was d1sap ftlte-of-eme 'o_n S ' 'b"'as obedi �nt assembly, where Milo!eviC's Socialists had a comfo_ b, ' . ••• e two-thuds maJority, Voted to remove the recalcitrant . Sapun xhiu ITom h . iS · seat as Kosovo's representative on the Federal "-' nqldency But the P resl'dency - now comprised of Mesic, Drno�ek, T• •_" . .. ki · ' and B ,... "ll YS ' . "c - refused to accept Sapunxhiu's resignao�lceV1 tion, saying the Parliament had no powers to remove him from the

�

'39

'IF WE DON'T KNOW HOWTO WORK.."

UGHTING THE FUSE

Presidency. In time, Milo�evit would get his way.. In place of Sapunxhiu, a former officer of the World B he appoLnted the loyal . Sejdo BajramoviC, head of the Kosovo veterans associatIOn, who ran a bingo hall in his s�are time7. . , . While the publtc was reehng from shock, Serbla s mUOlclpal lead

ank:

•

.

ers were attending an important meeting. Before dawn broke that morning, the republic's local police had carried out an unusual task. They phoned all 200 of Serbia's mayors and informed them to expect an urgent message. Soon after, each municipal leader was

handed a telegram summoning him to the Serbian parliament at 6 p.m. The Mayor of Valjevo, Slobodan Ojukic, the on1y �pposition mayor in office, described how 200 black sedans made quite a scene in front of the Parliament. But it paled in comparison to the confu

sion within. Everyone believed the secret meeting had been called in connec tion with the vacuum caused by Jovie's resignation, and, of course, to

co-ordinate steps to fill it. All day Djukic had speculated ab�ut �i family ous possible schemes at hand. When he said g�dbye to that morning, he had even suspected that he might be placed under

hiS

arrest while in Belgrade. But Bora PetroVic, Deputy Speaker of the

Parliament, immediately tried to dispel speculation of any plan to declare a state-of-emergency. . . 'It seemed that those politicians who had called the meetmg di d

not have a dear agenda, or any agenda at all,' Ojukic said ofthe meet ing. Djukic later recalled that the speakers started mumbling nonsen� about the economy. The mayors jeered in protest. 'You, Comra es. said Jovan Cvetkovic of Svetozarevo, 'dragged us hundreds of kilo

�

metres to this meeting to tell us the same thing we can read in our own newspapers.' They were furious that MilokviC \vas not there to meet them. The outraged city leaders started to walk out. Cvetkovic led the

revolt.

1 aslud tht chairman what it was all about - Yugosla'fJia was dis

inugrahng and Wi wert suppostd to uui1Jt somt important in/ormation, but nobodyfrom the extcuti'f)f bodies was hrre. 'Where is Mr Milofroil, when is thl Primt Ministrr"

Finally, the Speaker of Parliament, Slobodan Unkovic, said be would urge Milokvic to meet them. The meeting was adjourned for an hour. It was at this covert session that Mi1o�eviC made clear that he

ready to drive our [he Croats and Slovenes. 'I understood after the

va� . ready to fO.rm a Yugoslavia without the ting that he � :: Catholics', said DJu kic. That everung, and over the next week,

Milo�evic laid out his vision for the end ofYugoslavia:

Tht brtak-up ojYugoslavia is in qutstion hm. It is /rut that the SIO'fJents wont to stude. It is trUt that tht Croats want to studt. Bllt I think that tht Muslims do not have any reason to stetdt from Yugoslavia. Somt ofthtm ha1Jt bun indoctnnattd, but most oftIM MUlliml wantgood. tolerant, eulturtdand1 'WOuldsoy rivic and friendly rtlations with tht Serbs and othu nations in Yugosla'ilia. After all, thry all li1Jt ;n srwral rrpublics. TJuy Iuroe no reason to dutroy Yugoslavia. Milo�evic outlined the possible steps the Army could take. Asked by an irate Cvetkovic what Serbia's strategy was, Milo�evic answered that the strategy would not be broadcast on the radio. His next sen· tences would echo throughout Yugoslavia:

Ifwt ho1Jt to, we'ltlfigh . J hopt thry won't be so CTazy as tofight against us. BecaUlt if'Wi! don', know how to work anddo husiness, at least 'Wi! know how tofight. TIx army has the comt;tutional authorization and obligation to dift?d Yugo�/aviaJ constitution. 1don't doubt tlxArmy will carry out fI� CO�sfltu/jonal authoriZAtion btcause tht Pmid enry stopptd fimctom�g. This is nol a coup - becaust the army will bt acting � comfflutlOnally ifit diJarms fht HDZ tomo rrowg. Milo�evic had finally taken . off his gloves. The new govemment line � clear. Yet his opponents in the Presidency fought back . Mesic In. f r ]oviC as Command � er·in-Chief. He appealed for 'reaso n' e IndlVlduals in the Arm y' to refrain from using force which Sald , would preci • he . .... ,,[e . a CI'vi! war. 'But my I'nf1uence . ph on the Yugoslav Army (even as Its Commander-in-Chief) was the same as my influ. ence on the Fi . millSh Army,' laughed MesiC later. on 18 March, the representatives of the four Yugoslav republics th..... remn . ' ants of t he PreSidency, found themsdve i.mmense s alone at the Pal ace of the Federation. entire b It was deserted - virtually the lIreallcracy had d'Isappeared. The c encaJ be found ' . .Jwas nowhere to so t he PresIdency �em D bers wrote their own press releases. iploma� and reporters lT lled round the building. Tupu u rkovski

��

I

'.'

'

.

S[aJl

1F WE DONT KNOW HOW TO WORK...

LIGHTING THE FUSE

'

hoped that they would somehow break the ime with the INA. which, like Mil�evic's proxies, was boycotting the presidency. 'The Army has always obeyed the constitution and, I suppose: t��y will . continue to do so,' he said doubtfully. On Monday KadlJeVlc boy cotted a meeting of the Federal Government of Ante Markovic, who threw his behind the remaining Presidency aware that his fate was inextricably linked with that of the other federal institutions Milo�evic was trying to commandeer9. The next day, the Serbian President apparencly had no choi�e but . to beat a retreat. The fires of protest had died down, but Mllo�evlC was still reeling. He had never before beenjeered or screamed a�. While he showed no feelings for anybody - he counted on the adonng masses. The students, whose predecessors during the mass demonstration in 1968 had made peace with Tito, had turned against Mil��vic. They hated him. The intellectuals, who had helped transform him from I. floppy-eared Communist apparatchik to a Serbian national icon, aban doned him. Nationalists ed liberal intellectuals to take a stand against Communism at the Tcrazije dem�nstrations. The . realized Milo�evic was usmg them for hiS own personal power because he shared their beliefs. It seemed like a cement wall was beingbuilt up around him. He weak. Milo�evic tried to lower the temperature by consenting to unprecedented session with 200 studems and professors at Belgrade University. He squirmed in discomfort. as students, who had become his staunchest opponents, controlled the agenda. They demanded know what he planned to do ,vith Yugoslavia. He repeated virtually verbatim his message t? the Mayo� Meeting. The audience fmally understood It was obVIOUS YugoslaV1&, . as they knew it, was fmished. But he pledged that all 'Serbs would in one State'. •

n Ithas not o{{u"d to us to diJpult tIM right ofthe Croatian natitJ. to seudrfrom Yugoslavia, ifthat nation decides ofits ownfire wl�1 in a refermdum... hut 1 want to make it complrtely elrar that �t should not occur to anyone that a part ofthe Serhian nation �dl h� allowed to go with them. Because the history of th� Serhllln nation in th� Independent Slate ofCroatia is too tragic to risk such afate again1o.

While discarding hopes for settling the dispute with the Croats order w save Yugoslavia. he baldly dismissed 'all nationalism as '4'

" ,""on', and any division along those lines as medieval'11 . He en" mln ap aced to forget how he had come to power. vain, the students appealed for him to understand that the future rested on transforming it inw a democracy. Neboj�a MilikiC, (Serbia o student, boldly told Milo�cvic that his resignation would pave the y for the fall of his nationalist counterpart in Croatia and the build ing of democracy:

rn

:.a

i only one national inteust, You have to undersland that there s that Serhia and Yugoslavia hrcome democratic states . . . TIMpeople and tIN leadnl will not try to escapefrom thatkind ofstate. Ifyou resign tomorrow, Franjo Tudjman would 10J( all within 15 days. He huilt his myth on you12.

l o�evic realized his attempt to impose a state-of-emer Shaken, Mi gency had failed. He could not work within the system. He decided to scrap the boycott of the Presidency, ordering his Parliament to block Jovic's resignation. MilokviC recovered his political balance after secret talks with Franjo Tudjman in Karadjordjevo, Tito's favourite villa for negotiations and huntingl3. Word soon leaked out that the two Presidents had made a pa� w�e strolling through the serene grounds of Karadjordjevo. MilokviC has never divulged the details of their discussions - while Tudjman bragged how he had doubled the size of Croatia. Convened to avert war, the two men agreed on a plan which meant war. They discussed Serbia's demand to oust Prime Minister Ante MarkoviC. The Croatian President wanted in rerum the sole authority to resolve the status of the Serbian minority which a week earlier had declared independence fro m Zagreb. The �o leaders also discussed the partition of Bosn iaHe� na. Tudjman � said he proposed either the confederation or par tltJon of Bosrna. ' 'Th"IS partltJon had been staned with the CroatSerb' greemem of 1939 when the representatives of the Croatian and er people agreed to create the r Banovina Hrvatska'• he said in rere rence to the S porazum (Agreement) between Vlat Croan ko Mal:ek of ' Serbian counterpart " nd his , Dragi�a Cvetkovic. Cvetkovic "''',d a C . matlan ban()'I.Jma . wh"Ieh IOcluded much of Bos Slavoru"a - a " nia and bout th'If'Y per cent 0f the ter"ntory and populat" Vugo,l,v"la. ion of M"I l ose ViC ' " was IOterested "10 whateve r deal would maximize hi. gn"p on power. Tud'�man . was IuIIed .Into belie ' vmg . that hiS dream of •

�an� Ian

"

"

'43

LIGHTING THE FUSE

'JFWE DON'T KNOW HOW TO WORK.. .'

an independent-and-enlarged Croatia was within reach and that � could be avoided. He could not contain himself and afterwards boast� ed to a handful of trusted associates that Croatia would be 'even big ger than it had been under the Macek-Cvetkovic Agreement'. In fact, according to Mesic, Tudjman even believed that Croatia would get a chunk ofBosnia as well as part of Srem and Vojvodina, in northern Serbia. His exuberance rings true.

t�e

Tudjman {am� bacl. in a good mood, wry satisjitd, r�d in tlu/au saying tV"ything was JiM. The JNA wouldn't a/facl. and that Croatia was going to be bigger than it has ev" bun. Milo/tV;, had agrttd II was a gmt/anm's agrummt.

By contrast, Milo�evic denied that any such agreement was ever reached. Pragmatic as ever, he kept his cards close to his chest, never divulging what he and Tudjman had decided on that day in the first of a series of secret encounters designed to carve out their own ethnic states.

Tudjman told me he wanltd an independmt Croatia. But we

simply (auld not agru

-

he wanltd to destroy thefodera! in;titu

tions and I (auld not agrtt to that. I suggested as I had before thaI

wt'

should (hange the constitution to allow ulj-det"minalion.

There has bun sptculation that we dtcided how to split

YugoslQ'f)ia: I can Itll you now if we had decided that there (ould haw done it immtdiauly.

I believtd

country.

we

that the btst solution was for all to /iw in ont

;

The agreement between the two lC2ders however did not I"" I" ... Just onc day later, Serb rebels moved to take control of a

station in Plitvice national park and took the fi" " ,o'nb,,-,,,;u,lti,� 01 the war. Within four months, backed by the Yugoslav People's Serbs would be fighting a real war to build a country of their own.

t Belgrade Tdevision frequently broadcast films ofUsta�e leade, in 1941, woven with scenes of Tudjman and the newly-elected C;,o."" Democratic Union (HDZ). 2 This is one ofa myriad ofexamples when lovie, in league with Mil""� adopted a legalistic approach to justifY the abuse of power. 3 Ev n Radovan Karad1it, then President of the Serbian [)""",,,,,iq ""J

e

addressed the students, who booed at his seemingly irrelevant . of Bosm.a, the time of Pamsans and ehetnl'ks was over. In 'act, "IT was Just ,hat . . , rema!"" being re-born. v ,Q smb STUff" 'I jUgtJ " 'O'VljU, ' , '10 h'IS book ",0 S I 4 Kadijevie as quoted by MeslC . Zagreb 1992, Globus. . . . 5 The Serbian Communist preViously had used the reslgnanon ploy when Du3'an Ckrebii: stepped down in protest against the Yugoslav League of i Ocrober, 1988. Communists n 6 The normally obedient Kosovo representative had not, as Mil�eviC had expe<:ted, resigned fTOm the Pres�dency along with others. . 7 BajramoviC was also a lraglc figure. He died 10 1993 after the Croats failed to hand over the corpse of his only son, a JNA officer, killed in Mostar. 8 Vum(, 15 April, 19919 MarkoviC criticized the Army deployment in a rather short-sighted statement, saying JNA units should be used in disputes between nations and republics, Borba, 10 March, 1991 10 Borba, document: 19 March, 1991. 11 Jbid. 12 Ibid. 13 Karadjordjevo i s 125 kilometres from Belgrade 330 from Zagreb. It was surrounded by hundreds of forests, wheatfields, sugar cane, and a lake. Tito last visited in 1980 to celebrate what turned out to be his last new year. Despite his fondness for Tito, Karadjordjevo was an odd choice for Tudjman, since this was the location where Tito had begun his crackdown on Maspok. -

THE DESCENT INTO WAR

10 THE DESCENT INTO WAR Croatia and the Serbs Februarrfune 1991

B

y the spring of 1991 the Krajill
town of Pakrac in Western Slavonia. Rebel Serbs, loyal to their self

proclaimed Serbian Autonomous Region, seized comrol of the local police station and the municipality building next door. They jailed those officers who refused to submit to their authority, among them many Serbs. Then they announced that they would, from now on, tab

instructions only from the Interior Ministry of the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina. Another piece of Croatian territory had fallen into rebel hands_ Serbs formed the largest community in Pakracl, but the town- l.i.U its western Siavonian hinterland - was a kaleidoscope of interming ling national groups. The town's boast was that it had twenty national minorities: Czechs, Poles. Ruthenes, Italians, Slovaks, Hungarians and others. For weeks a hidden campaign of terror had stalked Paktac

harassment of Croatian officials. machine-gun bursts in the night, threats, and intimidation.

When news of the takeover of the Pakrac police station reached Zagreb, Tudjman did not hesitate. He could not afford yet another Knin. He ordered that the renegade police station be retaken by force. Perica Jurie, the Deputy Police Minister, assembled a force of200

men, trained in anti-terrorist operations, in the neighbouring town of

Kutina. Some would travel on foot, through the woods; others, crammed into the backs of civilian trucks, lying flat, and covered. on top and at each side, with flack-jackets, and then rubble. The trucks

travelled separately, rather than in convoy: several Serbian villages by along the route: Jurie did not want to alert the rebels that an inter vention force was on its way. They co-ordinated their arrival time. At 4.30 a.m., they entered the centre of the town. The rebels were caught unawares; they had erected no barricades. The first commando unit of twenty men stormed

municipality building and arrested the Serbs inside. Some of thero. according to Jurie's later, were found sleeping off the

up a command post for stormd · ki·ng session. Jurie set . ' of a heavy- nn was shooting - machine-gun There door. io n next . " e �tat . . he pouc ong t . l station and nelghbounng houses. But the -•om the poice ndnfle fi.lfc fi a · . quickly reinforced by armoured police was ,quad . . ' mterventlon rr d no suuere men d J an uncs ce resistan little up put . 1es. TI 1e rebels vehlc k . hundred and eighty men were arrested, and the rest too A ties. . 1 ua cas rr d phYSIC _...., uere town had su The town. the around hills 'to thc wood-d and roofs. But no-one . windows and pock-marked walls . damage. broken k fieccly executed. On, per operatI l led or injured. It was a text· was ki of , 20 000flood a refugees g reportm The Belgrade press erupted, been had Serbs eleven that claimed and Serbia strOng, Pouring into de gra 1 e B · s 1 e anon Th · -clrcu ma nest. · od ox �. � . killed. including an orlh page on front e on t dlt SpecIal a m re�rted � � daily. Vtlrmje NfJVOSfi, It said the priest had been that the priest had been killed; on page two, Jovan wounded, and on page three, it carried a statement from him. in but waning now Croatia in leader SDS the ormally f still Ra�kovic, political influence, told a rally of Knjina Serbs that Croatia had that "

�

�

day'dedared war on the Serb nation'. In Belgrade. the President of the Federal Presidency, Borisav Jovie, agreed to a request from the Defence Minister Veljko Kadijcvic for armed intervention. Kadijevie sent in the tanks. The JNA intervened in Croatia for the fIrSt time.

JoviC issued a statement. The Army had intervened, it said, in a dis pute 'between the two national communities'. Belgrade painted the dispute throughout as an ethnic conflict which only the Army could prevent. Zagreb insisted it was a conflict between the legally-elected Croatian Government and illegal paramilitaries. It was to become a familiar pattern of events: Krajina Serbs provoking the Croatian authorities into conflict, the Army stepping in to 'separate the two sides' and, in effect, protecting renegade Serb areas from the Croatian authorities' attempts to bring them back under Zagreb's jurisdiction. Under a cloak of impaniaiiry, the Federal Army was now another step closer to becoming the army of Greafer Serbia.

By four o'clock in the afternoon, the Croatian special forces had . estabhs hed theif control of the town. The JNA tanks rolled in later that evening. There was chaos, with the Serb rebels fIring into fhe t?WO rom the hills above, Croatian police establishing defensive posi �ons m and around the town and the JNA under fire for the f1fSf ' tome, caught in the exchange. From Belgrade , Jovle sent the leading JNA Counter-Intelligence officer, Colonel A1eksander Vasiljcvic, to find out in person, what was } gomg On. From Zagreb, Tudjman sent Croatia's epresentative on the

:

;

LlGHTING THE FUSE


Federal Presidency, Stipe Mesic. The two met, by chance, in the Pakrac police station late that night. Vasiljevic, according to Croatia's Police Minister Degoricija, was as 'messy as a pig, covered in mud'. The Croats t�k this as evidence that he had been tramping through the woods �th the run-away re�els, and accused him of instigating. . and organizing, the whole rebelhon1. In everything the Krajina Sem. did in the early months of their rebellion, Tudjman's men saw only the hand of Slobodan Mi10�evlC. The Croatian police regained control of the town. The Federal Presidency ordered both sides to end their stand-off by pulling back. The crisis ended, but nothing was resolved.

Deputy Interior Minister, Slavko Degoricija6, ed of Koreruca, Bosko BozaniC. But BOZanic told him h S rb Mayor contr no �l o�er Marne's men. They had come from Knin t h had their will. . . lind had imposed . . time, the Serbs were bct Degoricija scnt an intervention unit. ThiS . force ith w met force p«pared . ' and • d at fiIve 0 cIock on the lef ·_1 umts arnve The Croatian policc SpeCI"41 end B wee � stcr E 31, � : �t MartiC's men had erected moming ofMarch the park, the column of les mSlde i m Two walt. in lay barricades, and nute firefight. A rocket a ftfteen�mi was There . ambushed vehicles was Croatian policemen, but of coach-load a at fired was grenade propelled failed to explode. The Croatian police units outnumbered and out gunned the rebels. In the battle for control of the local post £fice, the first casualties of Yugoslavia'S wars occurred, one on each side: Josip Jovit, a policeman in his early twenties, and Rajko Vukadinovic, a local butcher�turned-militiaman, from Korenica, in his thirties. This Croat and this Serb were the first to die in Yugoslavia's wars of secession. While the rest of the world was still pre-occupied with the after math of the GulfWar in which a multinational force had evicted Iraqi troops from Kuwait, this first spilling of blood sent shock-waves through Yugoslavia, further polarizing public opinion in the two dom inant nations. In Belgrade, the extreme nationalist Serbian National Renewal Party accused the Croatian Government of 'warmongering' and warned that 'the entire Serbian nation', in Yugoslavia and abroad, was behind the Serbs in Croatia. For the first time, the Serbian Government formally recognized the existence of Babic's self� declared 'Serh Autonomous Province of Krajina'. The SPS, Milokvit's ruling party in Serbia, sent an 'urgent delegation' to Knin to assess what 'forms of aid' Serbia could make available to the Serbs of Croatia. In Sarajevo, the leader of the Bosnian branch of the SDS Radovan Karadzic, called for an armed force of the Serbian �ople t� be set up thr�ughout the Serb lands ofYugoslavia. He goaded the fed . eral authontles for failing in their constitutional duty. The Plitvice ",ents had, he said, represented the 'greatest defeat the Presidency for o( Y"gosiavia whIC · h has not even been able to ·Implement .Its own .. deCIS lon to disa rm the ml·1·Itlas · '. I -Ie said . . . the Federal Army no long" mstlUed the kind 0f trust th at ·It had earned when it had saved Knin firom armed interventl. On by the Croats the previous August? The Army responded. In Belgra de, Jovic convened an emerg,n,y . meetmg of . the 1"ederai PreSidency. It called for a four-point plan to . d,ruse t he tension at Pli tvice:

Martie's next target was to shake 200 Italian tourists from their beds with the rude discovery that war had come to their secluded holiday resort. .rhe Croatian coast attracted ten million tourists a year, pro viding Yugoslavia with twenty per cent of its hard-currency earningsl. There were few spots more precious to the tourism industry than the Plitvice National Park, a vast terraced lakeland, connected, lake-to lake, by cascading turquoise waterfalls. Plitvice lies to the north of Knin, in the Serb-majority region of Lika. The main town, TitOVl Korenica, had, initially, resisted the SDS, electing, instead, a local authority led by the reformed Communist party, the Party of Democratic Changes (SDP). A series of popular rallies, stage-man aged by Babic's �ople, finally chased the town's moderate leadership from office, to be replaced, evenrually, by SDS hardliners loyal to Knin. In late February, an angry crowd of Serb nationalists staged another Muting ojTru/h rally, this time at PlilVice, to protest against the set ting up of a Croatian police station in the park'. They accused of trying to 'appropriate' the park, and called for the resignation park's managers. Within days, Milan Martie had sent a force ofarmed militiamen, mostly civilians in combat fatigues, to impose, by armed might, the will of the demonstrators on the park. The park's managers were removed and replaced by others, loyal to Knin. Some of the workforce \V3.S dismissed. On March 30 the Croatian government responded. It called the Plitvice uprising 'the most extreme violation of the constitution and the law of the republic of Croatia... [which] threatens the sovereignty s' of the republic, the constitutional order and the rights of the citizens , The Plitvice rebels were warned to rerurn the park to its former man agers and staff, or face police intervention. They were reminded ofthe precedent set by the Croatian police intervention at Pakrac.

CTOatia's

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UGHTING THE FUSE

1. a/ul/ and IIn(ondilional uasl-jirl.

2.jNA to mSllrl uasl-jiu s i uS�(tuf.

J. withdrawal ofall poliu unilifrom olltsidl thl arm. 4. combat-rladinw to bl raiud among certain IInits ofIhl Yllgoslav PeopldArmy.

For the second time in as many months, the Army was on the streets of Croatia. By the following morning, 1 April,jNA-armoured units were positioned at all main bridges, public buildings and road intersections in the area. But the JNA was still not offering the kind of assistance that the Serb rebels were expecting, and were eventually - though not yet - to receive. Korenica's mayor, BOZanlC, had, in the early hours of 31 March, sent an urgent telex to Belgrade, pleading, with the over-state ment that is characteristic of SDS leaders: 'We are completely surrounded. Take urgent steps or we will all be liquidated'. He com plained bitterly that the Army had not arrived until eight hours after the shooting had begun. As the Croat forces were establishing their control in the region, he was on the phone to Radio Belgrade's main lunchtime news programme, declaring that:

TINArmy hm arriwd now. bllt we au totally dissatisfied wilh i/. We (onsidlr such a delay IIna(uptable in such a critical silualion. � have twopeople dead and many woundd. lifefiel unproteeld and al exlrune rilk. and we are calling on the wholl ofthe dlma era/ie Yugoslav pllb/ir to mist ilJ voiu agaillst the IInprludenltd ttrror ofthe Croatian (omlabll/a,y. Indeed, it was the Croats who praised the Army's involvement. The only part the JNA had played in the conflict was the ferrying of the wounded to hospital by helicopter. Otherwise, the Croatian police were left to do the job they had set out to do. Twenty-nine Serb rebels were arrested, eight of them, according to the Croatian Interior Ministry, wearing the uniforms of Serb special forces, the remainder, civilians in combat fatib'Ues. On the 1 April, Tudjman rejected the Federal Presidency order of the previous day to withdraw his police force, declaring that a polict: station would be established in Plitvice armed 'with all the force necessary to keep peace and order'. There followed another round of brinkmanship between the Croatian and federal governments, tra�S Iared now, for the first time, into a stand-off bet'.veen armoured uIUts

and the Croatian police on the other. JNA 0n one side . of the he Anny to act -f I the .. y to authOrize t .. enc - d ed the Presid Ka lJeYlc ask . • Orne. - ht, mg Th at 1 OCat 13.00 by a".n w;thdr lice h,d not . CroaDan po by d mne. were replace they but out; pulled forces . the Croatian spe...,...ial of GOSpl�. y lice officers from the nearb town I of Kijevo, fifteen miles village The edge. knife a on was a a ly by Croats, but surrounded on all \ populated exclusive . . from Kn-Ifl, "''' enclave wlthm an enc1ave) . 0n 1 Apn-I, the 'd by Serb viJlages (an nervouS. A bomb had exploded on the outskirts of the Vl llagers OTew 0' the •. , but rocNng - no d amage or mjury, •m the early hours, causing ._. �II n. fth elr SituatIO ousn 0 ss precan the of � inhabitants into conSCIOusness e. the villag nces to entra the at Th erected barricades men of mil Knin, the Serb authorities began to compile lists of throngs of that boasted They fight. to g n \villi were itary age who . III the "" ake combat for to olunteer f?rward coming were Serbs � , young rally that the of the Plitvice events. Milan Marne told a protest President of Serbia has promised to send arms"). He said if the JNA did not take action against the new Croatian police station in Plirvice, then Krajina 'would drive them out in the way it sees fit'. Thirty thou sand men had volunteered to defend the Krajina Serbs, he said. Hours later, in the dead of night, a series of explosions in Knin destroyed a _

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bakery and a cafe, both owned by Croats.

Plitvice sem ripples of alarm throughout Yugoslavia. It hurled the Slovenes one step further down the path to secession. For them, the intervention of the JNA was a dangerous foreshadowing of thing5 to come. President Kutan believed that it proved that the JNA was try ing to redraw Yugoslavia's internal borders. He announced that he would immediately ask the Slovene Assembly to adopt a declaration of sovereignty because, as he put it, in the event of a JNA coup, the Assembly might not be able to meet to declare anything. The next day, 2 April, Franjo Tudjman followed suit. He addressed � Croatian Youth rally and declared himself in favour of reconsritut LOg Yugoslavia as a confederation of sovereign republics, each with its own armed forces. BUT, he said, if Slovenia unilaterally seceded, Croatia 'would not stay a day longer'. And it would not allow an inch . ofCroatmn ' terntory to be taken out of the republiclO. It had been a tumultuous and portentous Easter weekend. The louds of war had closed in on Croatia and, briefly, the storm had roken. Mainland Europe suffered its first casualties of war since . 194811 . The pOsitions . 0f both sides had hardened. Yugoslavia had ta ken another - and, on the part of some ofthe players, wilful - lurch

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LIGHTING THE FUSE


tOward war. And 200 bewildered and frightened Italian tourists arguably the first western Europeans to wake up to the tragedy tha; was about to unfold, had spent twenty-four hours in the middle of a pitched battle, only to be driven, at eight o'clock in the morning, OUt of the sudden war zone, and back to the holiday resorts of the tourist season had begun, although the Dalmatian coast. The ind�stry was having its worst rear for three decades. �e foreign . hohday-makers were largely obbvlOUS of what was happerung in the hinterland. But an atmosphere of foreboding had settled on Croatia. There seemed a terrible inevitability. Full-scale war was less than three months away.

er their nationality, the do/ljad were, th( old Ottoman Tu,"�-', whatev. ved, barbarians. se lers belie set Siavonia on edge. The SD� immediately h' plirvice events region be annexed to Serbia. Across the entire the demanded that ' dcs went up, and came and towns, barTica illages v Serb " in O'T'I!at p1runs, . . and fear that . the SuspICion as a barometer of o-own, nsing and falling d ' f SDS orgame paranol"d rhetonc hold, stoked by -'was now taking . . to those "ready iO • ' , mltror IOrmiOg . were OIzers. Armed village patrols . nee in Croat-populated areas. It became dangerous, and , 'tn t """ ' ht, and ' Jar1y at OIg long d'Istances - partlCu pI ces impossible to travel ear being f stopped of the of because roads main iduarly off the men. masked often and armed of y an illegal patrol Radical HDZ activists did what they could to provoke conffict. In s, Jed by the middle of April, a group of highly�placed HDZ member per advisors, whose closest udjman's T President of one Sw:ak, Cojko sonal fortune, from an Ottowa pizza company, had helped fund l chief Tudjman's 1990 election campaign, called on the regional poice and Slovene mixed German of was Josip Reihl-Kir. Although Kir had who moderate a was He . descent, he considered himselfCroarian to front-lines, rapidly-forming the of sides both on irelessly, t worked remove barricades and restore murual trust. Now, Srn:ak asked Kir to lead him, through the cornfields and along the country paths that criss-cross Slavonia, to the outskirts of Borovo Selo, a Serb�populated village near the town of Vukovar on the Danube. Kir was against the excursion. He knew that it would inflame the local Serbs. But, under intimidation, he agreed. From outside the village, 5rn:ak and his companions fired three s�ou1der-launched Ambrust missiles into the village. 'They're crazy,' Kir later confided, in disgust and disbelief, to a colleaguel2. One rocket hit a house; another landed in a potato field and failed to explode. It was later exhibited on Belgrade television as evidence of Croat aggression. Petar Gratanin, the Federal Interior Minister, took the unexploded shell, with great showmanship, to a meeting of the Federal Presidency to wave it in the face of the Croat representative . MesiC and demand an explanation. MesiC could offer no . d' erence. It was, 10 by , Isputably, an unprovoked act of aggression, . . " OCtremlsrs 10 MeSlc ' . s own party, deSlgned ' to provoke ethOic confllctl3. The three rockets caused no casualties in Borovo Selo. But it gave the Serb vilJagers l' every excuse they needed to strengthen their derences. Kir cont' , , lOued h'IS palOstaking efforts to restOre confidence between the Serbs and Croats.

1991

One of the men arrested at Plitvice, and subsequently released, was the Secretary of the Vukovar branch of tht': SDS, Gor-m Hadiic. His name meant ittle at the time. But it was soon to loom large. BabiC's l rebellion was spreading far beyond the confines of his Kninshl Krajina. The plains of eastern Slavonija, the flat, vulnerable, fertile ter ritory, that stretches towards the Danube valley in the east, and whose cornfields had filled the bread-baskets of central Europe for genera tions, were now stirring to the strains of Serb and Croat nationalism, This land had been farmed, for centuries, by national communities too numerous to count. Croats, Serbs, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenes. Italians, Hungarians and, until 1945, Germans, had lived togetber on this southern rim of the Ausrro-Hungarian empire. The clash of the two great empires to its north and south notwithstanding, Slavonija had enjoyed a tradition of peaceful co-existence for hundreds of years. But the twenticth ccnrury had brought disruptions to this delicate multi-national patchwork. New tensions were to manifest themselves in ethnic conflict. The real divide in Siavonia was not between Serbs and Croats. It was between the old settlers and the new. The starou dioci of all nationaliries could date rheir presence on this territory to the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. After the creation of Yugoslavia, in 1918, they were shaken by two successive waves of immigration from other parts of the n(w state - first, after 1918, and then after 1945. TheJlaroudioci spoke disparagingly of their new neighbours, the doJljaf; (newcomers), refugees from further south settling in the homes of German or Hungarian families who had been killed or expelled after the World Wars. Slavonia had regarded itself as the southern extremity of central Europe, living under the civilizing influ ence of Viennese hegemony. Those who came from further south were from lands that had been, for cenruries, under the yoke of the

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Tw? weeks o� height�ned tension followed. Kir rurned his family� home mto a fortified police command station. He knew that his co mitment 10 negotiate with the Serbs, to try to defuse tension Wh _ . ever new barncades appeared, had put his life in danger from Croati extremists. A permanent police guard was stationed at his house. e took to sleeping in his uniform and boots, night after night. SW'ak's jau�t had lit a slow fuse. Then, on the night of 1 May, came the event which, arguably more than any other, set Croatia irrevoca_ bly on the path to open war. Four Croat policemen, from Osijek, learned that a farm road into Borovo Selo had been left unguarded. There was a single barricade on the road - a few agricuhural vehicles blocking the way - but it had been left unmanned. The first of May was the traditional workers' holiday. The villagers of Borovo Selo had put out flags, Yugoslav flags, carrying the Communist five-pointed star. The four Osijek policemen drove into the village in the dead of night, past the unmanned barricade, deter mined to remove the Yugoslav flag in the centre of Borovo Selo and replace it \vith the Croatian flag, carrying the symbol the Serbs hated - the red-and-white checkerboard shield, the iaho'l.micQ. It backfired tragically. The Serbs of Borovo Selo had not left the village unguarded at night. The Croat policemen ran into a hail of gunfire. Two were wounded, and nvo escaped. The wounded men were taken prisoner. Discipline had broken down in Tudjman's police force. The influx of so many young Croats, promoted to positions of authority which their age and experience did not warrant, had weakened chains of command and ability. In Osijek. Croatia's third city and capi tal of eastern Siavonia, Kir had lost control ofhis own force. Hardline HDZ officials had gained the upper hand in both the police and the civil ismtion. Precisely who gave the fateful order for what came next, on the morning of 2 May, has never been properly estab lished. But it ended in tragedy. The nvo policemen who had escaped returned to Osijek and described what had happened to their colleagues. In the morning, a bus-load of Croatian policemen assembled at Vinkovci and set off for Borovo Selo, determined to rescue the wounded men. They drove straight into a massacre. The incursion the previous night had put the entire viUage on alert. Serb militiamen were waiting in force. They were stationed throughout the village, guarding road intersection" and covering the main streets from roof tOps. Between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., when the Croatian police bus entered the village, the waiting

.. opened fire. Twelve Croats were killed and more [han Serb miiiflamen ndedl4. twenty wou caused a sea-change in .Croatian public opinion. The Selo Borova zed beyond all reason. The within' was now demoOl . Serb '.enemy pandered to the worst that campaign a launched . Croanan media C h b· ' Rad·10 and te eVlslOn roatlan 0 !a. 'Serbop ian . excesses of Croat '1 . _' or, uec. as 'chetOl� o avoOla s r S b £ 51 h e t to er ref to inely, n, rout . .� of hs bod the photograp begatly 'terrorists'. Zagreb teleVISIon carned �uen that they had been evidence autopsy claiming men, twelve le f the d to death, and subsequently mutilated. The newspapers did to ofthe vocabulary of horror. They said the police oot stint in their use eyes had been en had died at the 'bestial hands' of chetniks. Their been had th cut. �ne r e roats t and died they uged out before . the that t �roatlan clear s h It lte q t absurdly, rted, � Zagreb daily r�p� . � the police, ex-secret notOriouS RomaOlas of VlCtlmS l were poice to escape punish country own their from away Running Securitate. ment, numerous agents of the Securitare crossed the Danube and found shelter in the Serbian state secret police. Thirty of them were killed in 80rovo Selo. They were professional mercenaries and their bodies were taken to the Danube and thrown into the river'15. The extreme Serbian nationalist, Vojislav Seklj, appeared on Belgrade television boasting that his 'chetniks' had taken part in the Borovo Selo events. Rilo BogdanoviC. a close associate ofMilo§evit, and until March 1991 Serbian Interior Minister, later itted that the Borovo Selo Serbs had been armed by Serbia. Goading the Scrbian opposition, BogdanoviC asked:'Where was Ihe opposition [then]? Ifwe had not equipped our Serbs, who knov.'5 how they would have fared in the attack by the Croatian National Guard on 80ro\'0 Selo?' In Zagreb, Tudjman's ministers gathered in a state of shock, for an emer ge�c}' session of the State Council. None had been prepared for loss oflife on such a scale. Their mood reflected public opinion. Many began to push Tudjman for an immediate declaration of sovereignty . t�e Croatian Parliament. Tudjman resisted. But the idea, to which r. dJm n had dung for months, of reconstirulin Yugoslavia g as a con � cratlOn of sovereign states had lost the confidence of his ministers, . ho now behevcd that Serbia - and not just the Serbs in Croatia determi ed to block, by bloodshed if necessary, Croatia's progress � fuu sovereignty . In the early hours £3 M ? 1 ay, ·rUd·J1nan made a public address, broadcast b Croat!an . radIO. Its tone was both solemn and alarming. For . the fiIrst Y time he was aIemng · the people to the likelihood of war:

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Wo! havo! o!xptrimwl tho! most tragic day in the short hiltory oftho! nroJ dem()(ratic outhoritits, a year cifitr thr victory of young dtmofrary in Croatia. Wto artjacing, I may say, tht btginning of optn warfarr agains/ /ht Republic ofCroatia.

He identified the enemy: dogmatic Communism in the JNA had united with Greater Serbian imperialists to defeat democracy and

establish 'Serboslavia'. He blamed the Government ofSerbia for send ing its officials into Croatia to ann and prepare the republic's Serb

call

minority for military insurrection. He sounded a cautionary note, ing on the Croatian people to ·be patient and not to answer the calla of those [extremist Croats] who want spontaneous resistance'. But he

acknowledged the radicalizing effect that Borovo Selo had had on

public opinion with a final call to arms, promising that if all Other means of securing Croatia's freedom were to fail, then Croatia would mobilize to defend 'every inch' of its territory:

Ifthat nud arim, ifone will have to stand up with arms in ones hands and difend tho!freedom and sovereignty ofthe Rtpublit of Croatia, thm we shall do so. We shall embark on this only wlun t'Wry othtr avtnue is closed. But we will not shy awayfrom sac rifiul ifnud be. Rut assured that the Croatian govtrnmtnt, tht Croatian Asumbly and I personally, will lakt all tht mtaJUTtS ntussaryfor difending thtfreedom, dem()(racy, inttgrity andS(J1J ",ignty ofllu Repllbli( ofCroatia. With the precedents of both Pakrac and Plitvice already "",bl;sh..i the Army moved into Borovo Selo. By the afternoon of 3 May,

formed an �rmoured ring around the village, guarding, in particular.

the approach road from Vukovar.

The Serbian Government responded tersely and swiftly to

Tudjman's open accusation that it was fomenting insurrection � plotting war. 'All responsibility for the bloodshed in Borovo Selo liel

with the competent bodies of the Republic of Croatia, in particuIat

reasoD the Croatian Ministry for Internal Affairs, which without . carried out an organized attack on Borovo Sdo.' The Government was attacking not just individuals, it added darkly. but

'the entire Serb nation', Serb leaders grew increasingly critical of federal authorities - in particular the Army - for failing to defend Serbs outside Serbia. The Federal Presidency met on 4 May, under pressure from '56

.r.er snt'ak e r, :ut

. ent and on Serbian television. It In the Serbian Parliam e the twO 51'des 'In d'tsputes separat to ne interve to

'.' -ed the JNA there were many such conflins. 5erbs and Croats. And w · I... �t een , IOns 0r "Iay, Scarcdy a day ed without further intImat � g hout JV ro u '" . ll ' e h bomb a : mont owmg the 10 t was ," ,"gulf Siavonla ,h, waf t a l V OVC'I nk from a owner cafe of a house in Lipik; ront dcstrO}'Cd rhe r 0r ; a ga�� block at road � m�n ked . by unidenrift.e� mas. was shot dead Jek I S O ncar g d m b Erdut, U m l ation l -' , police istr forry anackcu ' . were drowned out by those prophesymg tion modera of Vi had worked who ir, ss. Reihl-K readine y militar doo I: d counselling trust between Serbs and Croats began , mon,hs to promote mutual . lor Ie was . He grcw convmccd at h'IS li' hopeless was task to see that his a transler I' lor ovac M" B k ' , to J 0 lruster Pohce asked He , dWger. In ' , save me. l kn.ow the situation 'Please vac: Boljko begged He Zagreb. � We are lOSing control down hfe. my lose to going am I well. very here . them, Kir told here.' Hardline HDZ activists had taken over, among Boljkovac, Gojko Sm:ak. They had consistentl� under��n.ed his effor�s to find a rapprochement with the Serbs. BolJkovac Intnally told Kir

aurhonz

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not to be 'childish', then, in late June, finally recognizing the threat to Kir's life, he agreed to withdraw him to the Croatian capital. But it July, a day was too late. Kir was murdered by HDZ extremists on before he was due to leave Slavonia. It is a striking commentary on the direction in which Croatia was moving during those crucial weeks leading to the outbreak of full-scale war, that Kir's moderation, his conciliatory approaches to the Serbs, had cost him life, while

1

his

S�ak's activities, stoking tension and provoking conflict, were to win him one of the most prominl!nt places in Tudjman's government. As Minister of Defenc�. he became one of the mOSt powerful figures in the republic.

The events of spring were a watershed. After MilokviC's secret March meeting with Tudjman at Karadjordjev both leaders decided o, that Yugoslavia was finished, and that three, or more, successor states would emerge. Where the Serb and Croat leaders differed was on the question of which territories would fall to which new state. Croatia's war of independence, when it came, was not about the Croats' right to that had already been acknow ledged by Milo�evic. lt was about w Ic h territo · Croatla nes ' would be allowed to take out of YugoslavIa. , 10 W t ar of was to be a land-grab berween two mutually, though ac y, recogr uzed new states. Both presidents pIayed a double-game, saying for pubhc, ' , ' one thlllg

1991

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THE DESCENT INTO

LIGHTING THE FUSE

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and especially international, consumption; and doing the op . Tudjman rep�atedly S!r�ssed the inviolability of the repubJjc . ?ers, de�andmg recogmtlOn of Cr�atian sovereignty within its exist l �g frontlers; but he secretly conspired throughout to deny the right �o Bosnia�Herzcgovina. Milokvic, similarly, argued that rubhc sought to defend the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia

'

whole; but he was already pursuing a plan to let the Croats as Slovenes go, but to keep Croatia's Serb�majority areas

Yugoslavia - and by force if necessary. By March, Milo�evic was lon�cr for Yugoslavia; he was for what amounted to a Greater Serb' as h1s man on the Federal Presidency, Borisav Jovie, was later to i

Miltlfroic and I decided we would limit our military activities to thost territories in Croatia where the Serbs wanted to remain with us. We wouldprottct thl'mfrom the Croatian authorities and from the Croatianparamilitary units. We knew we would have to withdraw the Army from those parts which obviously couldn't remain in Yugoslavia, and to close our eye.! asfar Q1 the arming of the Serbs was concerned.

�

But Plitvicc was a turning-point of sorts, one that the Croatian leadership still did not see, or, if it did, did not it to. According to Jovic:

Tlu arm>: slarttd 'hon�ng its opinion. It realiud that tlu only role that 1/ had, at that lime, WQS toprettct thatport ofYugosllltJ;a wlure tm people saw it as their (lV.1n army, where they did not haw tofight with thepeople. Basically, that iJ tmline ofthe Serb �erritory in Croatia. From that time onwards. we startedprepar Ing for the duision [of the Federal Presidency) thaI was to be �dopte�.in May - the decision to Ust tht army 10 protert the Serbs ifJer betWl'en the Croat and the Serb III Krajlna, and to act as a bl sidn. In Knin, the cradle of the rebellion, the intervention of the Army was, at last, a sign that the Serbs would get the they needed from Belgrade. Milan Martie could now prepare for a war in the knowledge that the ]NA, under the guise of defending Yugoslavia, or of separating the two warring national factions, would protect hit rebel territories from the legally-constiruted authorities of the Croatian Republic. The mutual suspicion that had existed \)
WAR

n to evaporate. Martie itted L _Is and the JNA bega ' h J{r.oJ..lOa reI.)<; . ed: c , , relationship With the JNA hang · er Pli(VIce, that, aft

his

thejNA at that limt, but IpeNonal/y There were COlitacts with ' ;11:. !uerent to what waJ prrtty md rt;cipat( in that. Thl'jNA 1 n � '! d'd the JNA among lJ . '<7 a""rtfi' patrio Srrb a ftw om . '. · wasgef� was ml L ppmmo r· C roafla thai saw evu Mtlof when . · .IT. . .,. .. OpI un. {But} · tnlltary Krajl1la, ht rmstd hIS VOIU Ihm, and m toward.! 'f)( ssi a r<7urt ling . .o».. our dt.tenu. J saw .It . ·r. s ga'l.lt /IS , wiapollS fior v .., (ertam wa /e In peop so a ' d 'd an t, II . our on wert thai nnel TSo pl' A "" commg.. · p" prtpa�efor war. It me�nt we would be po/ice ,;rcles, gOl signolJ 10 logutl: .and matenal htJp. [t (.ame getting weapons, and other m mtllttlry offiurs �ho wert nIh" jromjNAgarrisons nea�bY,fro htlp we art la//l.Ing about came The Yugoslavs or Serb patriots. Serbia as many would like to from not , nearby jromjNA barracks ses nearby. ehou war many put ;t. There were

among Belgrade's foreign corre It had become a standing joke in the English language, to spondents that there were too tew ways, that Yugoslavia had say 'pulled back from the brink'. It had seemed e and pulling back. precipic spent more than a year approaching the Yugoslavia so fre rom f es despatch The phrase had turncd up in news

quently that, on newsdesks all over the world, editors began to suspect their correspondents in the field of crying wolf. But, by the end of May, as the country entered the full heat of high summer, there was little to joke about. And there would soon be no more pulling back.

1 Serbs WC:� forty-six �r cent ofthe popub.tion, CrootS thiny-six �r cent.

2 Vuiljcvic

was furious and s(:r�:lmed accusations at Mesic; MesiC screamed back, enjoying, for once, the up�r hand. 'I am your Suprcnlc Commander: he ydled, citing, to Vasiljevic's irritation, his hip of the Fe?er.U Presidency, 'and I order you (0 sit down'. The two then sat down and �Joyed a m�.a1 of beans together, along with the Federal Interior Ministcr . u t G�allln and the Croatian Interior r-,'! ioister Josip Boljkovac . Before eallng BolJkov-ac hastily swapped plates with Gr�anin, explaining to Mesic as they �rove together back to Zagreb afterwards: "They might have been trying lson me!: 'What if they were trying to poison me?' Mesic asked him. o�ac replied: 'Well, Stipe, there Olre casualties in every war!' FinanCIal Timts, 27 Jun e, 1991 . 4 It was the stntegy of Croatia's Interior Ministry to extend and strellj.,tthen . il � � network of . particularly 1: . .III Scrbpouce across tIIe republIC, stallOns . . popUIated areas Th { be StaI« esc WOIl I I . le d b\' rhc officcrs recrUIted smce the . cJe t ons, .. . (l as part afTUd" ffians campaIgn to de-Scrbl:lm1.e the CrOOltlan pollee J

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LIGHTING THE FUSE force. It explains why so many of the conflicts, in the months thu led to outbreak of full-scale war, a:ntred on the control of poia: l stations. 5 Croatian Deputy Interior Minister Ivan B rezak, on Croatian

30 March, 1991.

Degoricija had replaced Joot as one of the deputy interior isters. Jurie \ViS sacked, blamw for the ca.suallies at Plirvice. 7 See Chapter Seven ofthis book 'The Remnants ofa SI''"gh"",,1 "''"PI.: 8 Belgrade Radio, 31 March, 1991. 9 This was much to Milokvi('s fUr)" who later told Babic: ' dismiss that fool [Martie]?' Martie was, however, later t0 t', , loyal lieutenant in an internal battle between MilokviC and Mi1�ev�, trying to asse" contTol over Knjina, changed alliances times. 6 Slavko

,:,�� ,�:1�,,:!,

Radio, 2 April, 1991. Northern Ireland, whi h is not mainland Europe, or the Colonels' coup, whi ch was not a war, or the SOlliet invasions

10 Zagreb

11 Excluding

c

Greek Hungary and Czechoslovakia. 12 Zlatko Kramarie, Mayor nf Osijek. 13 One ofSuhk's companions on that night B ranimir Glavu later boasted that Subk had given him a good thick flack jacket as a reward for his ticipation. Su�ak himself, though never publicly itting his role affair especially after becoming a minister in Tudjman s ?"'�m'""", it obliquely in 1992 when, during an election rally, he demonstrated hit nationalist credentials by boasting that he had fIred the first shell against the 'aggressors'in eastern Slallonia. 14 The figures were announced by President Tudjman. Both the Belgrade and Zagreb press initially reported inaccurate figures; no two newspapen agreed on a death toU. 15 ViUl1ik, 7 May, 1991. The claim is ridiculous, and not ed by IIIIJ evidence. But it is typical, in tone and content, of the reporting wl'i;"h�'" dominate the Croatian news media and inflame opinion by spreading temx.

to

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11

,o'�'''''i

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,"�,'":d

OF TH E DEAF CONVERSATIONS

andered The Last Chance Squ MarjulIt 1991

ug Thm

and summer the leaders of Yugoslavia's . hout that spring " " to try to resoIvc theu Id a series of meetings . republics hc . presof ing cucus travell A the furore of the country. " erences aboUt "a 'dcocy met to . " = to the road. The Federal Pres took " S t mmi u . " s "·d nnal C . ... - the republics prcsidents, and foreIgn and delcnce . cxtended seSSJQ.. 0 n at ers. b mem offiCIO ex eight the as well s "In attendance as . . . minIster " " C the k a nom ers !Ong decls le the all ions, occas � least half-a-dozen . " 10 one room, to ace, face-to-f together, gathered were . enore country the via. Each time, the main players used " 'doISCUSS'the fumre ofYugosla " . pOSitIOns elf grievances and reassert th opportuIII"ty to reiterate their . progress no d-take, no gIve-an There was no negotiatIOn to speak ed r e high-p the ismissed ? Croatia's President, Franj Tucijman, the deaf . They were Yugoslavtas last gatherings as 'conver:ations and missed opportuntty to aVOId war. The rock on which the discussions foundered, ttme and agam, was '

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the stark contradiction that quickly emerged beMeen twO central arti cles of the Helsinki Final Act: the commitment to the self-determi

m.tion of nations; and the principle of the inviolability of borders. Unity is the holy grail of modem Serb nationalismj all Serbs in a single state. Milo�vie did not dispute the right of the Croats or the Slovenes to secede. But he insisted that the Serbs of Croatia had the same right to secede, in turn, from Croatial, and that the break-up of Yugoslavia would necessitatc a redrawing of the bordcrs1. The inter nal borders ofYugoslavia had been drawn in Despite the failure of the presidential roadshow to find common

1945.

�o�nd, Slovenia, closely followed by Croatia, strengthened its nego t1.atl.ng position by forging ahead with independence preparations. Its fe ndum, in December 1990, had produced an overwhelming vote r: for IOdependence. On 19 May, in the highly-charged emotional atmosphere of the aftermath of Borovo Se\o, Croatia held its referen dum. The result was a foregone conclusion more than ninety per ent for what amounted to outri ght secession). But Croatia had prob ms that were nOT shared by Slovenia, and problems which made the �roats take the road to independence with more caution, and less

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,6,

S OFTHE DEAF CONVERSATION

LIGHTING THE FUSE

haste: the Krajina Serbs boycotted Croatia's referendum; there polling stations in the territories they controlled�. As Serb and Croat leaders spent the months of summer articulating mutually-incompatible visions, future to each other, it was clear to the leaders of the c n nationalities that, if Slovenia and Croatia seceded, they would he as marginal peoples in a rump Yugoslavia in which the Serbs enjoy an ovenvhelming numerical superiority, In the summer Bosnia's President, Alija Izetbegovic, and his Macedonian part, Kiro Cligorov, breathed temporary new life into the presidential summits. They proposed what became known 'asymmetrical federation' as a modd for the counrry's
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when, all along, all Tudjman and confo'd"'rion plan rical ia. met ation of Bosn �...,." -,..d'scU . I SS �as the cantoniz 'c wanted to zant cogni y fuU yet not but ted, Milo�V1 dejec baCk 'O S",,)'evo ' the word 'canton' had not l:z.etbegoVi' c went to t,ake place, He said out was ab ' d that the ethhe ltte but of what nce prese st not m his lea at , d use been been presem 'between the I·mes', In r h'Is republic had o n " d . io . ns, IV nle iS l Ud'Jman delegatlo vic and � d'Iscusse.d, by the Milo�e fact, \.t had been lines but behind his back. not between the ' . presidential caravan was the public face ofthe illW h ile the uaveiiing the · C YugosIaVla, itutional furure lor m ' '" .'gree a const aimed talks ofbi-lateral fated atte P ave l ; series a held e Croats alld SI n...,, n priva ' , These had e from the federatIOn. escap 'oint ) their ng .l: nat l _ at CO_OIUJ d cautl. �n. selle coun hs, mont early the in had, begun in 1990. Croatia the Croatian e becam later who �i�, Biland ' advisor Du�an . l1ud·Jmans g, at h sue meetin one d bere remem de, Belgra in deputy representative on a ang 'H . to d h walt, e nee t Kucan upon ss impre to which he tried rest the stage, stage by b·�. Bilandtit told Kucan, 'lf you take it slowly, . roatla, C as U we of us can come along - Bosnia and Macedonia, as s; Slovene the for easy Wait for an anti-Milosev1� coalition.' But it was plain it made dy a1re had t � they had no Serb population, and Milokvi . that Serbia would not fight to keep the Slovenes In YugoslaVia. In April, Slovenia and Croatia signed a t defence agreement, promis ing murual assistance and the sharing of intelligenceS, Tudjman was to renege on the agreement the day that the JNA rolled across his terri tory and into Slovenia. The Slovenes had left the Croats far behind in almost every respect. Mter their December referendum, the Slovene Government had embarked on a six-month plan to prepare the legislation and the executive orders that would enable the country to implement full independence by the summer of 1991. By J\me, they were ready. On �5 jun:, three days after the Tudjrnan-Milosevit-lzetbegovic meeting 1Il Split, the Slovenian and Croatian leaders met. The meering revealed to the Slovenes just how unteady the Croats were. According to Bavr=ar:

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Ths i muting was orgalliud 10 (o-ordinal( all the thingslor Ihe 26th ifjllne, At thaI moment we decided that we will do if together on the 25th or 26th, We got to Banski Dvori, alld Tudjman was there, and his m illisters, We told him what we woulddo with the (Ustoms, the folia, airports, boulldaries. Thty

E DEAF CONVERSATIONS OF TH

LIGHTING THE FUSE

wru slmelltd to Stt the lewl ofour organization. The Croats, whose referendum had been held only the month, had not even begun their preparations for full "'"b... Tudjman, embarrassed by the disparity, pompously tried to his republic's unreadiness. Rupel ed Tudjman, even at late stage, still bluffing his way through the meeting. Wr rxp!ainrd to Tudjman t�at wr had our nrw laws ready, and . �hat wr would Idlt to co-ordmatr the datesfor our dularatiolU uf mdrpendena, hrcallJe TlIdjman saidthat they 'WIlnted tf) go out at the Jame time as us. This waJ a more or len suret agrummt. Tiu deadline 'WIlS 26 june. We decided to do it on 25 junr, and Tudjman said that wr should do it on the same day at the same time. Thr Slovenr ddrcation was surprised ahout thtfoet that tIN Croatian government did not have anything ready. There war olmos! a conflict brtwun Tuqjman and ont of his ministers, . FranJo Gregurit, breause Tudjman said 'Wt have roerything rtady too, all thr laws, rotrything is pupared'. And Grtgurii said 'No Mr Pusident, this is not trur'o The (wo sides agreed to co-ordinate thdr declarations or;o"�� dence. But the Slovenes left the meeting convinced that the head d wi 'h couJd not be trusted. Slovenia would press a \ unilaterally, regardless ofCroatia's readiness, and \ : ,: ,; u ramifications their secession would have on the rest ofYugoslavia.

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On 2 1 June, four days before Croatia and Slovenia were to their independence, the US Secretary of State, James Baker occupied with the need to deliver his promise to bring peace to Middle East in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm through Belgrade. The GulfWar, in the words of the ,h,'n-p�.,.a George Bush, had established the United States as the 'respected undisputed leader of the free world'. All sides in Yugoslavia'S set great store on Baker's visit; all sides wanted to see him. He eleven separate meetings in a single day: one \vith each of republics' presidents, and a series with the Federal Government, whom the international community were still putting great faith. l was common with the governments ofwestern Europe, US poicy the unity and integrity ofYugosJavia should be preserved. The content ofBaker's meetings remain a matter of great

give the respective leaders about what What signals did he ers y contrO� 'states would tolerate? According to Baker's own recoUec-L rh, Ull1ted CJean' st about 'Its eady d-c United States was au day, the . .. oon5 of rhe prevennng war chances of . I should go and try andput down a The qutS,Ion was whether I Ihtrt was thought would happm if we at o/wh "u will, , 1 I y" "er, mar but wefilt nal'lJ( rnt We wrr k. brea t/III p((lc 'a anry.'thing other thaI t even ed ofno a((us d be woul we t r rffo the make h , ifWt didn't littlt had wry wr that willing to try. So knowing/lI11 wdl ort. rff wrnt and made thr (honer ofsu((ttding, wr •

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Kocan in Belgrade, and asked him Baker met the Slovene President up the idea of independence. He give whether Slovenia was ready to recognized onlypeaceful self Act Final ki warned him that the Helsin He said the United States force. by on sec:essi not detennination, and of independence. Kui::an tions declara ral unilate ize would nor recogn and that it was not pos far, too gone had things that told him frankly been. had it as ia lav Yugos e preserv to sible When he met the Serb leadership, he told them that the US would continue to press the Slovenes and Croats not to go ahead with inde pendence, but that, equally, the US wouJd not countenance the use of foree to prevent declarations of independence. These were the same mixed signals that the US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmermann, had been issuing for months. United States policy on leCession, during the crucial months that led to war, was neither one thing nor the other: for Yugoslav unity, yes; use of force to preserve th�t ur�ity, no. And to the Slovenes and Croats: for Ielf-determlOatlon, yes; unilateral declarations of independence mould negotiations fail, no. Baker's meeting with the Montenegrin leader, Momir Bulatovit, must �ave made him yearn for the familiar and relatively simple dynamics ofthe conflict in the Middle Easl. Bulatovic said Baker was, . ac the ourset of the meetmg, 0bvlOusly ' confused about who he was talk.ifig to and why. W�n lme tM rBa"er L I Salt' I '�ll J. e me what YOII want/rom fill. He, "' I � (onfused about hI)'W to starf the fOllvrrsation with me, lin I they brought h' book. l lookrd into it to sa 1m h'IS brh ' ,'.llllg r. . whot It . about Mon ' . sard tel/rgro. [ peekrd mto It alld there Wl'rt jllst ... .._ 1mel: · •'""'" '

ONS OFTHE CONVERSATI

LIGHTING THE FUSE

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- tIN Jmallm rtpublic in YugoJla'/.lia. - a poJsibtefifth '/.I01rfor Mesic. Milosevic's pJacemen on the Federal Presidency had blocked automatic Succession of Croatia's representative Stipe Mesic as dent of the country's eight-member collective-head-of-state . the constitution Mesic should have become Yugoslavia's p � May. By the time of Baker's visit, technically the c�� already been without a president for six weeks. It is a measure

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little Baker understood abouT the distance Yugoslavia had travelled that he still thought mat securing me succession of would somehow defuse the crisis. Bulatovii: continued:

I said I'd be happy ifMr MesiC gell t1eclrd bUI I'm not going to

'/.Iolrfor him. Bak.er Jaid ifwe didn't '/.Iotefor Meric, there 'WOuld be agreat (risi! and war would flart. [ agreed with him thai war would Jlar!, bill I didn't expect Merit's t1tC1ion would SlOp it.

Baker's meeting with Federal Prime Minister Ante M"k<>l remains me most difficult to fathom. According to me Defence Minister, iral Branko Mamula, who was Kadijevii:'s most trusted advisor throughout the crisis that 1«1 to war, Baker told MarkoviC to 'wrap the Slovenes gently on the les'. Markovic has been silent about his role in the run-up to ten-day war; neither man has confirmed that the phrase was Baker's visit took place five days before the outbreak of war. that day, two ofTudjman's closest ministers discovered, sonal s in Belgrade, which neither ever divulged the Federal Army had decided to respond to Slovenia's declaration by force. Du�an Bilandzic remained in Belgrade after Baker meeting. An old friend, whose identity he has never warned him of the invasion plan. Bilandzii: went back to immediately. and wokc Tudjman shortly after midnight on the ing of 22 June. Bilandtic says he raid Tudjman that the Anny planning to attack Slovenia in five days time. Tudjman, according

si,';';;;; used.

BilandziC. laughed and said: 'Oh, DuSko, don't worry so. I have agreement with Kadijevic and Milosevic. TIley won't break it. impossible. Kadijc\·jc has promised that the Army won't intervene politics.' Bilandtic then told Tudjman the name of his source Belgrade, an officer 'very high up' in the]NA. Tudjman luuugh� to believe him. Stipe l'vlesic, party to the conversation ;

DEAF

left him despondent. d· an's complace1]cy

lence. Tu � . ._...A by in si a lifetime in the J �ter Martin Spegelj, after. . ffUUU . an's Defence M ml nt"'rsonal s In Belgnde. He, . 1'udJrn retamed cIandestine r •

" : ' VISit JNA. had also s on the day 0fBakers the Army', plan of rned toO, lea

H ' Rn l eW lhejJV fAl was goillg Belgrade, some 0).�them were Sabs. intelligmer sourus ill

to (I/I(lck.jive days before independence.

[had n then phoned Tudjman and ents, and Kilto yed Ihe s,()'I) � . fi' i . I not :r' 1 111)m . r. u.1'7' d' an sat'd euJedJ1re Y' " ol g fo us 111 (ommOTl dIJen " was 'II is 1I0t in Ihe Croatian interest fo ,,g�" . , . �ju 'i. M. . nta lind SerbIa. Sl()'IJ( een hetw W(lr a m .

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the two presid.ents had come the agreement 'ous that . . . ' n Kufan was fu rated at theu meeting In re-Ite and r earlie onths m . t . wO to only , ' ! less than a week . ns Presidential palace at Banski Dvor I UdJma � C ' roatlan prest' dent. '] raId h'1m , was now being flouted by the. ler, earI Kl i:an said later. this was very shortsighted,' l

replied thai Sooner or later IheJNA would OPPOlt Croatia. But he t opening inwl'/.l uld w it if1i(/ (o � if Croalia ed an armet! � nol ready were tINy saId He . lamory own armed (onflict in their J1�1d Bul e. r t all iJ whirl, armJ enough ha'/.lt didn't jorwarand u.. him thai helping S/O'/.Itnia is the SlInle thmg os deftndmg Crootla.

to the in stages closing adviee of his Defence Minister, Spegelj. It was the bitter in resign to soon the dispute between the two. Spegelj was protest against a president whom he blamed for blindly leading his

On the very eve of war, Tudjman was still paying no heed

country into a war without first preparing an adequate defence.

1 Though, of course, MilokVic never conceded the same right of national self-determination to thc Albanians of KosO\'O or the Muslims of Serbia's

i sue of Serb rights to Sandtak region. l\'lilokviC had risen to powcr on the s rule KosovO's Albanians, even though Albanians comprised more than ninety per cent of the province's populatio n. . livc2 !hIS, despite the f:I.Ct that only about 200 CKXI of the Serbs in Croatia d In the Serb-majority . �reas, about a quarter of Croatia's total Serb minor 'ty. Most of Croatia's Serbs . lived in Croat-majority areas that Milo�evic had . no lnte t1on of 'defending'. � mety-thrce per cent of those voting ed turning Croatia into a e lg and . tndependent· country, with guaranteed cultural autOnomy for ' the er and of olher nationalities in Croatia'. To a second

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UGHTING THE FUSE

question, asking whether Croatia should remain part of a federal Yu,,,,,... , 92 per cent voted 'No', The rum-out was 82 per �nt, 4 In August 1990, the Krajina Serbs had held a referendum of in which more than ninety-nine per cent, according to the o"."; to stay in Yugoslavia, 5 According to the Croatian Defence Minister Martin Spegelj, who tiated the agrtement �vith his Slovene coumerpaT(Janez Jarga.

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pART THREE:

THE EXPLOSION OF WAR 12

EUROPE HAS DAWN ED' 'THE HOUR OF july 1991 Slovenia's Phoney War, jUlieous vote ofits . declared ifselfindependent by a near unanim . lovenia I. : rally maJUng 1991, umlate June, 25 of evening " amenf 0n the . Puu ' I ... to the international borders 0f Europc Since y_;uta . C ang"s �t h l me fi dence that day. all>V declared indepen . Cman.a _._' �ecesslOn2. es had pre?ared weII lor Sloven the , Croats Unlike the , . ind�pendence leglsla�lon with executive orders, They ha,.l backed their would, on the 26 that bodle � creating and staffing the Independent c, and the port traffi air the , June assume control of the borders and Hungary, they Austria Italy, with s auth�rities. At the frontier and replaced rds, and flags noticeboa symbols, removed the Yugoslav Republic of Slovenia. nt independe new the of heraldry them with the They ordered federal police and customs officials off the premises. They also began to place border posts along the 6oo-kilometres fron tier with neighbouring Croatia, an act that the Federal Government had, the previous day, declared illegal. At the formal celebrations the next day, Colonel Milan AWntijevicJ was, by his own 'in no mood to drink Champagne'. Conspicuously, he had been one of the few member of Parliament" to vote against the declaration, and, though the other MPs Irt handing him brimming glasses, and Slovene TV crews tried to atch him sipping discreetly, he was the only member not celebrating. It was to be Yugoslavia's last day of formal peace, Aksentijevic knew U did the Slovene leaders - that the Army had been placed on alert. Belgrade pre-empted Ljubljana. On the same day as the independ ence ,declaration, the Federal Parliament met, and agreed not to re e Slovenia's secession5. Milokvic was playing a double game. �lZ one hand he was encouraging Slovenia to secede on the other han Belgrade was accusing it of unilateral secession'. The Federal , rnment, headed by Prime Minister Ante Marko also met and vic lIIued a deeree 0f en . " orcement, fi the purpose the of which has been _.L.' Jeet of flerce MIO . . controvers y ever SlOce. Without The a was JNA . Supreme . Commander and the state without a preSident because Serbia had block.ed the normal rotation of Croatia's Stipe Mesic to the

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THE EXPLOSION OF WAR

head of the Presidency on the grounds that he had publicly declared himself against Yugoslavia. The decree's were clear enough. . It, ed . the Defence Minist�r and th� Imerior Minister to 'dep . empower . the frontIer unitS of the JNA wIth the aim of safeguarding tho s ... �te > firontIer: t the border-crossings _'6. �?at is less clear is what � Markovtc Imended by the decree. He inSIsted, almost immediately . when fighting broke our, that the decree had never been intended to authorize the Federal Army to use force against the Slovenes. whatever MarkoviC's motivation - almost certainly pressure from

lr we had a daily orrven strange hlll ;n 10 r/aJI ofWl e stafflhat ltd the oper h T . Army ion w;lh the . l com�unicat hourry "f{ed to each W e IISl1aI � f us. wah t (onl(lc Iy taI > , 'n comtant . atlons we" I the operae h 0111 a phon the (nKr g talkm ultimatllms: olberWUI>ng 011. gomg while they were

11 ma'Ysollld

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Army - two of his most senior ministers used it as the
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Ihe Generals did not regard it as >a war. They he beuin "'. ning. At t > d poI»ICiOg actIon. A.nd, as rced it - as a I>Imlte ded it - and resou Slo�ene autho�ities in advance �f wh�t they they informed the mg the accordmg to theJNA, dlsclos - includmg, > . were planning to do rprepa lS at th lorce ' e. A ta to k were prec·se routes that the Army Units Slovenes the (as country' ring neighbou a occupy m o 'invade and release its invasion plans the day before D-Day. not does ) tested p plan that was in the event put into That at least was Plan A, the Plan B: the entire Fifth Military a had also effect. But the jNA move against Slovenia. The elite to ready by, g standin District was in southern Serbia, had been Ni� rom f , brigade e Airborn 63rd with a military deployed at Slovenia's Cerklje airforce base along to take positions whieh police battalion; they had precise phns about well TO was Slovene the that and whom to arrest. They knew f invasion the or provided B Plan large. and ed equipped, well-organiz of Slovenia, the military defeat of the Slovene TOs, the arrest and imprisonment of Slovene leaders and the imposition of martial law on

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the republic. Plan B was never to be implemenled. As his independence celebrations were getting under way, President Kocan spoke to General Ko�ek in Zagreb, and asked him not to undertake any jNA operations in Slovenia on that day. Kutan feared it would enrage the people at the height of their celebrations. Kokek was able to reassure him that no action would be undertaken that day. In fact, the plan had been laid to re-take control of the bor der-crossings and the airport in the early hours of the following day. On the 25 and 26 june, Plan A beg-an. A force of 400 federal police �nd 270 federal customs officers were taken to Cerklje air force base Slovenia and, from there, by helicopters, to the various barracks in . ovema and Croatia, from which they were to be desp;ttchcd> Fewer than 2000 JNA troops were deployed to accompany them. It was scarcely the assembling of an invasion force9. > > Early on 27 June, the JNA began the oper,wons whLch the SIOvenes were late ' . . . . r .0 cI . as the IIwaSlOn . occuand torelgn . . laractcnze pabon of theIr newIy independent country. The. JNA ofhccrs . in command of t h e operation believed the whole thing would be over m

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EUROPE HAS DAWNED' 'THE HOUR OF

hours. They did not expect the Slovene territorial defence to try to oppose them by force; and they were not equipped, or sufficiently armed, to light a war against the Slovenes. An anti-aircraft unit from Karlovac, in northwestern Croatia, lclt its barracks at 1.30 a.m., tasked to reach the Slovene border by 3 a.m. Its movement was spotted by Croatian police, who informed their counterparts in Slovenia. President Kocan was getting ready for bed when, by his of the affair, he found out that JNA troops were on the move. He been working late, on a speech.

trucks, mostly - but had not mma deered articulated vehicles.and cO In . d them some areas, JNA armoured orden> �0 defenthe yet recelved . shed blmicades as!'de and carne' d on. Tank. I vehicles ha� �::P:a fr�cks ncar Ljubljana and could be heard heading had left Vr a.r o t Jan�a said he had already spoken to the second s the l � �he Vrhnika barracks, General Vidmar. 'General tow . coardrnman d0 then sal'd 'It was not someth'mg he for a while, and : Ill waS r Vidma rO1 0qr'uiet the tanks were k Jan�a said. '1 as ed. him"Bthen' k"where , , had cont aIrport )'. Jan,a then, ( rm d after a silence, he rephe headl. n�, and' hi ne) Presidency (Slove the that . 'II , said . , aceordIng to ' s own iOn . reSS agg thiS resistance to . . shou1d order armedmain the graVIty �f the declof aware fuUy rs, playe the of each To g seemed to last an eterOit)'. In fact, , they h,d to take' the meetinmost $Ion ' SI'Ience. o�these were e{l m and es, it lasted only a few minutrcm rks by saylllg alter= there w.ere at th b�ief s � Janb concluded hi. . ce the hlston�vo . sacnfi op c domg, so and, In, give to .por , natives: either tJves, a�terna twO the re ese 'T resist. to or , ndence h indepe ? runity for to deCide b�cause he said, 'now it's up to you the (Slovene) PreSIdencythere was SIlence. you the Supreme Commander.' And then According to Kutan:

1 was having a shower when the phone rang. II was my chiifof (abinet. He told me lhe tanks had left Vrhnil:a barracks {in

Slovenia} and said the war had slarted. 1 immediately mild Gmeral Kolfek in Zagreb. but couldn'l get him. J asked to speal: to

anybodyfrom the Zagreb command, but nobody answered. J called

Ante Markovif in Belgrade. woke him up. told him what it was

about and told him he was responsiblefor the order which was released then by Cenerol Kodijevic.

MarkoviC expressed surprise and appeared not to know what wu happening, even though, that day, his own Covernmenl had issued the decrees on which Kadijevic and Gratanin, as Defence and Interior Ministers, were now acting. MarkoviC ed the Fifth Military Command in Zagreb and told them to speak to Kuean. The V"put)' Commander, Andrija R�eta, called the Slovene President. ' you so annoyed?' he asked Ku/::an. 'The troopS that have left the racks are not even armed. Calm down and go back to sleeplO.' Kufan exploded. He shouted down the phone mat he regarded the JNA inter vention as a declaration of war against Slovenia. Rareta tried to rellSSUft: Kocan that the Army had a limited mission - to secure the border crossings and me airpon and no more. lftheJNA had intended to wage war against Slm'enia, he told Kocan. it would have acted in a wholly different way - by mobilizing all the units from Croatia and Slovenia. Kutan went to his office. He caUed the Slovene leadership together. and, at live in the morning, convened what must rank as one of the most decisive sessions, and certainly the least loquacious, in Yugoslav political history. He asked Jama, as Defence Minister, to give an of what was going on. Janh's report was brief. He spoke in short dramatic sentences. The 13th (Rijeka) Corps of the JNA was 00 its way, he said. TIle Slovene TO had erected barricades - agricultural '7'

III

are

1 b�/jeve that l"IJerybody was conscious 0/how important th( deci

sion was, fflerybody had ill mind the viaims claime.d by war, because nobody knew at that slage what kind ofwar it would be. and/or Ixrw long it would /osl. Everybody war occupied with fIMir own thoughts. It was a long silenet. I interrupted it by say

ing 'Does anybody want to speak?' There was silenet again. Then

1 said 'Then 1'1! speak. I suggest war:

we

/ace thefoct that we are at

There was silence again. 'Do I take it from your silence,' Kuean asked, 'that we have reached a consensus on this?' And that was it. The order went out to the territorial defence units to begin resisting the JNA. Kocan made a television address in which he announced that his republic would 'respond with measures to this act of aggression'. The Territorial defence unitsallhad, said, been ordered (0 'use weapons to .defend the sovereignty ofhe Slove nia'. �u�slavla, after almost year of teetering preCIpice, had, at last, plunged headlong into war.on the edge of the Siovene temtOrt
III

'73

OPE HAS DAWNED' 'THE HOUR OF EUR


S�ovenia. Electricity and water supplies were cut. Telephone lines Weft

dlsconne�ted. Igor Bavcar telephoned General Ra!:eta in Zagreb and , arned him not to t to resupply the barracks by helicopter. Rakta . did not take the Implied threat �eriously. In the afternoon of27 June.

�

ry

Slovene forces sh?t down a helicopter over central Ljubljanal2. The . p �l ot and mec�amc on board were killed. Aksentijevic, trapped, with . . h iS troops, inSide his barracks, was stunned by an escalation he had not expected:

I realiud that this was not a rl'lJO/t or a po/iti(Q/ demonstration, out that it was war. I think that was the momtnt whtn we (radltd within. We rea/iudthat they wonted to kill us, to shoot us, that there waJ no Yugoslavia and that there was 1/0 more lift together with them. The shooting down of the helicopter was a rurning point in Slovene public opinion, too, the moment when most Slovenes realized

the enormity of what their Government had decided on their

and that there was now no turning back. Slovenia declared war on

not the other way around. Slovene television 'milked' the fliet for every ounce of propaganda value. ThroughoUT that first day, .

JNA,

dramatic pictures of the 1968 Soviet invasion Czechoslovakia, to complement Kucan's explicit call to arms. and R�eta exchanged an angry telephone call, Ra!:eta, near to carried

shouting at Bavcar his disbelief that the Slovenes had dared to fire on a target so exposed and unthreatening as a low-flying unarmed helicopter. To R�eta's disgust, Bavea! appeared, as General put it, 'triumphalist'.

The United States, after James Baker's half-hearted efforts Belgrade the previous week, made it clear that it regarded Yugo,u.. , : as Europe's probl em. Europe happily rose to the challenge. 1991, was a bright confident age: the twelve countries ohhe EU'"I"'. Community were soon to become the European Union. The

European market was due to come into effect the following year wor�d's bi�est single unrestricted trading block. Integrationists . talkmg posItIvely about a common foreign policy, and a . ' security policy; mechanisms were already being devised. The Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the most celebrated opponent

omnn,""c

further European integration, had been deposed less than a

earlier, her downfall this very issue. Yugoslavia, the first '74

,,,noa "onw·

age, presented the historic challenge that ost-Cold War of the p a phrase that purpose. 10 prove its singleness of Eu roP needed . J ques Poos, Luxembourg's Foreign Minister, ' ac aunt him would h Europe has dawned'. of age e 'Th de ared Commun!ty ha .stated its position the previous e uropean ForeIgn MinIsters had agreed, on 23 June, k. A meeti ng ofEC d�y after unilateral declarati.ons of. i�depende nce. �he d reiterate John Major, r, . Mmlste Pnme British the fi ht1�g erupted, ration together in e d e f the hold to is e z pri first . me VIew. 'The The Twelve th�n I�sued a second draft statement, Yugoslavia,' he said. ion of consnrunonal order and respect for the calling for the restorat the country. The JNA, of course, had sent the itorial integrity of t rr these twO objectives. The in precisely, as it saw it, to achieve of Europe's Ieaders began to Some crack. unity ofthe Twelve be�an to . . . , as UOlty, they had or f ort p ugoslavl p Y u s lT the m see that, inadvertently, to use force. given a green light to the Yugoslav Generals of the EC troika, the three the of one was Jacques Poos

1n

�

E

e : recognize

?

not

_�

t:nks

group of foreign ministers which consists of the last, the current and the next presidents of the cornmunityl3. He and his Dutch and Italian counterparts, Hans van den Brock and Gianni de Michelis, sailed into the Yugoslav maelstrom the day after war broke out. From the begin ning, international mediators - and this was a pattern which, with few exceptions, was to characterize their efforts for many months behaved as though the war had no underlying strucrural causes at all.

They came - in the phrase of many a subsequent mediator - to 'bang heads rogether', as though the conflict was caused by no more than some ill-defined, but frequently alluded to, Balkan temperament, a south Slavic predisposition - either cultural or genetic - toward frat

rici�e. They behaved as though aU they had to do was to persuade the lligt:rems of the folly ofwar. They failed to reco nize that, in some g clf'Ct�mstances, the resort to war was far from irrational. It was, for PresIdent Kucans - , Government on that fateful night a profoundly . ratIOnal, a d indeed the only, wa to achieve what the wanted. y � The trOika arrived in Belgrade on 28 June. Their first instinct was to preserve the JfafliS qllo.. 51 . . · must revokC Its ovema IOdepcndence dec. I aratlo n'' Belln' .,- ade must send the JNA back to barracks. The Serbs . ., . must. also be pe!Suaded to agree to MeSIC s assumptIOn of the P"B sldency f the Fede ral Presidency. � . y the tIme the trol· k a a mve ( I 10 · ,Zagreb, to meet the Croat and SIovene leade . rs' It . was aIrea( Iy late In the eve ning. President Kutan d . rOVe across the mOUntalO tracks, the m;lin highway being blocked,

tJ:

;

'75

OPE HAS DAWNED· 'THE HOUR OF" EUR


mostly �Y his own forces. At Tudjman's presidential palace, Bans ki Dvon, dinner was served at two a.m. Vasil Tupurkovski, Maced Onia" rep�sentative on t�e Federal Presidency, who had spent most of the . trying to find d�y In Sioveflia for a ceasefire, arrived after mid flight to find a room . full of between twenty and thirty Croats . Slovenes and EC offiCials. There was no structured discussion ordered neg�tiatio�. The troika had asked Kutan and Jama to re� the declaration of Independence. The Slovenes, sensing that the 'war' was going their \fly, refused. The troika left ncxt morning believing they had secured a three point ceasefire agreement: the Slovenes and Croats would put their independence on hold for three months; the JNA would return to bar racks; and Mesic would be elected to take his turn as President of the Presidency, thus giving the Army a Supreme Commander, and the coun�y a Head of State. But the Slovenes had not really agreed to . anything, a�d were .certamly not ready to give up now, just as they ensed the tide turning favourably in their direction. The agreement, � In any case, left unresolved the question at the heart of the conflict: that ofwho should control the border-crossings and the airport? Jan!a . said the results of the first troika-intervention were so disappointing that they were not made public in Slovenia for fear that they would damage morale, claiming that the people there had placed great f.Uth in the idea of Europe.

:

TJu troika dmlandtd that wefruu all measum ofindepmdLnu f!r ?O days, a"d to rrooM tlu proclamation ofindepmdmu tJun. Thu was IlI/a(uplablefor us, buausL WL hadpractically 'WOn tlu war by tlun. IfWL had a(upttd we would have 10 giw baCk all the �apons (onfiualtdfrom the INA, andgive ba(k tht airport and everything Lise we took O'Wr.

The troika learned their first cruel lesson in Balkan realities: agree me".ts arc not what they seem. The fighting did not stop. .I hat weekend, international public opinion did, indeed. rum. '�'c1evisi�n pictures, beamed around the world, suggested a plucky little nation - in the tradition of Czechoslovakia - westward-leaning, democratically-inclined and struggling to liberate itself from a reactionary unreconstructed Communist monolith which, twO years after the fall of The Berlin Wall, was still ready to use force to impose . its will. Markovit now distanced himself from the Army's actions in ,,6

force would be . e l'n th""... Government expected that . Slovenla. 'N. o-on development of events goes far beyond the deCl, ·The d. ion at the the sintat ' " """d h'e sal r rnment on. reguIatmg e ' r h • ederal Gove of s · g that the l"Umy L , \0 ' the Sion statin was ovic Mark . ' tication' . . own authonty. borders.' BY Imp ' ItS on acting was ncy, PreSide ctioning absence 0f a fu JNA's the of er a , memb anovit Negov Marko · or lace On 29 June, enera1 ' ' e ml'Ic 'deClslv cease hostil·ltIes cr, warned Slovenia to __I sta , .... . ll ....ne, " 1 war. a , f 0 CIVl b g " country. he said, was at the eglOnm �Inry' acnon. The compounded the grow' ing "ImpreSSIOn 0f an fU L my ' e1Y remarks , nm His ' .orelgn r h " B e ntis even th ay, d trained. The next oIfth, 1-h and unres statesean of s Europ cauTIou most one ofthe 5ecretary Douglas Hurd, ' " . The time ' s 'm 51oveOia · ' action Ie er«.l mn cd conde to lled compe felt men, a keep ' could you ons, when Comm of House , has p" sed,' he told the. . . . S. C1tIZ Its g �� . . st2te together by shooun Serbia finally with On 30 June day three ofSloveOias ten-day war, hold federal Yugoslavia drew its supp�rt for the JNA's attempt to of the constitu defence the for council the of session a At together. tion, Borisav Jovie, on Milo�evic's behalf, pulled the rug from under the feet of the Yugoslav generals. General Kadijevic told the session that Plan A (a limited action to l ed. There were now two options recover the border crossing) had fai of Slovene secession; or recognition implication withdrawal and by of the Slovene rebellion, crushing the and invasion scale full B: Plan joviC, to Kadijevic's astonishment, in effect vetoed Plan B. JoviC recalled:

;

'

,

I remembu �" thai day b((aust it was a day whm I first announced our new policy. It was wry dear 10 mL thai Sll1'/.Ienia had seceded, ond thai it 'WOuld bL useless to wagt: war thert:. ThL ollly thing I thought which wt: Ihould do was to difmd thL Sub populated territories in Croatia buame thry wanled 10 stay in Yugoslavia. Concerning SIO'Wnia, J said thaI wt: could not use a war option in SIQ'/.Inlia. Ilaid we should allow SIIJ'/.Imia to leaw Yugoslavia andpull the jNA ouf. I proposed that the Federal assemhly should recogniu SIO'lJme seussion, and agru to a division ofasuts with SIO'IJl!1Iia, and a territ()rial delineation. Thert: war no diJcusrion about my proposal hecause everybody was ahsolutely conjimd and stunned. They thol/ghl it inconuiv a�/t that ally Presidency "umber (ould talk ahout the disintegra tIon o[Yugoslavia. '77



Mil�eviC knew that to get the withdrawal from Slovenia that he -..vanted, the Army had to be brought back under civilian COntrol. The Federal Presidency, out of action since 15 May, would have to be recon stituted. MilooeviC told JoviC to stop blocking the election of Mes� as President of the Presidency. When the EC troika flew back into Belgrade later that day, MiloS'eviC, ever the master tactician, was able to present this as an important concession. He told JoviC to 'pose SOme conditions ... so that it won't appear that we accepted this so easily.' Late into the everung, the troika sat with Milo�evic in the Federal Presidency, painstakingly trying to extract from him a 'concession' he had already decided to make. Meanwhile the Federal Presidency were assembling in the same building, a few doors down the corridor, and preparing, finally, to elect Mesic as President. Mes� himself had come to Belgrade on the understanding that his election would now go ahead. Finally, close to midnight, the Federal Presidency met formally, in the presence of the three EC foreign min isters. Jovic made great show of opposing the election of Mesic. 'How can you force us to vote for a man who has openly said he wants the break-up of Yugoslavia?' he demanded. He asked for a formal guaran tee that Europe would respect the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. and demanded that the troika press Mesic, as President, to work to restore the constinnional order, including the rerum of Slovene bor der-crossings to the Yugoslav federal authorities. His position could not have been more disingenuous. Only hours earlier he had announced, in the dosed session ofthe Council for the Defence of the Constirution, that Serbia was now in favour of Slovene secession. Every Yugoslav in the room knew it. Only the hapless troika seemed oblivious to what was going on. When midnight struck, the Presidency of the European Community changed hands. A domineering van den Brock forced an obviously reluctant Milo�evic to clink glasses with him. Jacques Poos handed over to Hans van den Broek. 'You see,' said van den Brodt, 'this is how democracy works. I will chair the meeting now because I have taken over. Similarly, you should elect MesiC.' In return, he promised: .... and I will make a public statement saying that Europe s the unity of Yugoslavia.' With a great demonstration of reluctance, the Serb agreed. In the small hours of 1 July. Mesic was finally elected Head of State ofa country which, in the eyes of those who elected him, no longer existed. A comprehensively out� manoeuvred, but determinedly optimistic EC troika declared that further progress had been made. '78

Slovenia before to regain control of . A made one last attempt JN y could be denc PreSi ral Fede The: . ed the newly-constitut the wil of . t. On 2 July twenty-four hours after the electio. n .Imposed upon I ' had been camped III ., JNA armoured unit, which a C MeSI [ ' d to ' , tne o ' h Croatla WI[ d er b ' or nias Siove C 10rest near. the Koko'vski . ts position, Just before dawn. It came under a barragc move from l units tying in wait. The JNA sent ue by Slovene TO of rocket fi " rce. It ran 'IOtO a ' to relOlo y C roafla red column from nearb on armou d soon as it crossed [he border. The JNA ordere hail 0[ fiIre a�� non JNA fled. A then ne forces, who , strikes against Slove atr1.. wh0 had . lined up severa_Il "JUOlor ranM later officer d ' comrnlSslone ' from thelr ' a , ' InSigni h e t d pe rip venes and refused to fight the Slo ' d'ISguS," . . uniforms III l BlagoJe AdzLC, J.NA Chle� of But hostilities had resumed. G.cnera . boss, the Defence MIOlster VelJko Staff emerged briefly to eclipse hiS lavia's armed intervention in Slovenia. He Kadi e:vic, as leader ofYugos ion and said the JN� .",,-,ould wage war televis de Belgra appeared on wrlclzed th� federal until it had regained control of the country. He ill make ew authorities for trying to restrain his forces, and said: 'W '. possible as shott as is us sure that the war that has been forced upon Belgrade left vehicles d armoure A column of 180 tanks and other heading north, cheered on by Serb villagers as it ed. The convoy never reached Slovenia, nor was it ever intended to. Its real mission was to take up positions near the Croatian border with Serbia for the coming war against the Croats. The: JNA lost the international public relations campaign. Hans Dietrich Genscher, 's Foreign Minister, had chosen that day to visit the Slovene capital; Kutan and he had been in regular tele phone throughout. He boarded a train at Graz in Austria. News ofthe fighting reached him as it crossed the frontier. According to Bavcar: . •

.

]

Ctmcherl visit was of utmost importantt in tht senst of moral s�pport btlause a"y contaa or commu1lication with majorpoliti CIansfrom other countries meant r((ognition, giving legitimacy to us. As regards Cmscher, thert was an incidmt whm they (Tosud tIN tUn1lel, an alarm was soundtd a1ld tht train puIJd back to tht Austrian side. Our poliu in order to calm down GeflSchtrs escort, showed him the arsmalofanti-aircraft missiles on the train. IIWa1 moughfor them to ordn the train to tllrn back and htadfor Austria again. '79

OF 'THE HOUR

THE EXPLOSION OFWAR

Gensehcr ac��sed the JNA of '.ru�ning amok' in Slovenia. It had order to retain its position of forsaken all political control, he said, power and to preserve old strucrures. Douglas Hurd ed the refrai. He told Parliament the JNA had hastened the disintegration �f Yugoslavia. Italy said it would 'act in solidarity' (whatever that meant) with. Croatia. a.nd Slo�enia, unless the JNA respected the cease6re. to this mternatiOnai gallery, and consciously casting himselfin Playmg the role of the leader of a small nation brutally crushed by a militari tic Communist monolith, President Kutan appealed to the intern: _ tional community, saying that he expected a 'brutal attack, any time now'.. In the Un.ited Stat�s, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, C�alborne Pell, urgc� President B�sh to sup port Slovene and Croatian .mdependence f I Yugoslavias 'renegade army does not cease its wanton aggression'. The Republican leader, Bob Dole, went further, calling on Bush to 'compel' Belgrade to 'halt its violent crackdown on democracy and human rights.' Within two days, the Federal Presidency had reasserted control over a humiliated JNA. On 4 July, as part of a ceasefire package, the Presidency ordered Slovenia to hand over control of the border-cross in� to the ]NA, and to withdraw Slovene forces to barracks. It was what the EC troika had wanted - the restoration of constitutional authority throughout Yugoslavia. But federal Yugoslavia had ceased to exist. The Slovenes did neither. They took advantage of the ceasefin: to strengthen their barricades. In Ljubljana, the buses and trucks that had act�d as makeshift defences were replaced by tank traps made from cms-crossed iron girders, and surrounded by barbed wire. It di�n:t matter. �e. Slovenes knew that they had international public opinion on their Side. More importantly, they knew that Milokvif's men on the Federal Presidency would now block further JNA inter vention. Indeed, that day, MilmeviC's party, the SPS, formally recog nized Slovenia's right to peaceful secession. Menacingly for Zagreb. . was not, of course, extended to Croatia. the same nght m

_

The secession of Slovenia was, in effect, formalized at a summit meet ing on the island of Brioni, Tito's idyllic retreat in the Adriatic, on 8 July. By the time the delegates assembled that morning, the alliance that had been born between Serb and Slovene leaders on 24 January. wh�n Milo�evic and Kuhn had first agreed on the rights of the nations to secede, now came to maturity. It was not difficult for van den Brock, who presided, to flOd a formula on which the main play ers could agree. At lunchtime he sent a handwritten note to the

EUR01'E HAS DAWNED'

. t-control of the borders, a withdrawal of Slovenes �ropos�gand a three-month cooling off period. The three to ia. ment were to be the EC, Yugoslavia, and Sloventhe trOOpess to : � that d him parn �, lt amounted to tacit recognition. It .please . For K. document commuOicated to his newlyonal i at intern (S t fi �stOfiC a handwritten note scrawled by the Dutch mdepende�t .count.rvJ was Foreign MJIlIster. a session of all .the �e1e��es at eight p.m. Van den Broek convene� point proposal, sa)'lng: This what the EC H resented the four-itI5'. Only Ante Markovit, who saw dearly that or leave ba� Take itspe d en ?f Yugoslavia and the death of his own the p�posal ir theher, ted. Van den Brock, exasperated, called efforts to hold it toget objec ovic and Kocan together. Markovic spelt out a break. He brought Mark Van den Broek asked Ku�an �hether his objections to the plan. table to the Slovenes. Kocan said they MarkoviC's ideas were accep go back to the orig were not. 'Very well,' said van den Brock, 'wed,will Broek stormed van inal proposal.' When Markovic again objecte ng den 'What a Kocan: to accordi , English out of the room muttering, in people! What a country!' Van den Brock brokered an agreement between the Slovenes and the Federal Presidency, under which Slovene police were granted con trol of the border-crossings, provided all customs revenue was rurned over to the Yugoslav federal reservesi the JNA were withdrawn to bar I1lcksi and the Slovene forces were 'de-activated' and withdrawn to base. The agreement imposed a three-month moratorium on the imp/�mrntQtion of Slovene (and Croatian) independence, but not on the declarations of independence themselves. Markovic was isolated. He had little choice but to accept the agreement and place his faith in the three-month cooling off period and the talks which, the agree �ent stipulated, would begin on 1 August to resolve the outstanding ISSUes between Slovenia and the federation. Markovic had been out manoeuvred by a tacit alliance between MilokvK: and Kucan' by whO ICh Slovenia would be allowed to secede so that the JNA could concentrate its efforts in Croatia and later Bosnia. . . " representative on the Federal Preo.un.ng the BnOn! talks, Slovenia's c siden y, Janez Drno�ek, approached Borislav Jovie, his opposite . awal of number from S rb'la, and oposed .lOform IlY a total W\thd � � ' . . ) �� ' theJNAfrom S�oveOia. OVIC was sympathetiC. Neither man raised the . ' . . qUestIOn In the formal seSSions. '!'hcy knew that It' would never Win the agr eement .of the Federal Government since it amounted to comp!ete secesSlon, and "Its '"troduction, at this delicate stage in the

�

IS

,8,



ne�otiations, could scupper the whole Brioni accord, Dmoviek Jovu: agreed to leave the question ofJNA withdrawal for larer. The Federal Presidency met ten days later on 18 July, and that the Army should withdraw within three months. The four

bers under Milo�eviC's control were certain to vote for this, D, ... ,", ,. agreed to resume his place on the Presidency to guarantee the

�

fifth vot�. It was not nec�ssary. Ne ther the Bosnian nor the . . Macedon an represe tatl�e raised �bJectlons to the withdrawal whco the word temporary was Illserted III the resolution. But they all

:

�

that it was not a temporary withdrawal, and that the departure

!NA meant tha� Slovenia had seceded from Yugoslavia, and - alarm.

Illgly for Croatia - h�d seceded alone. Within a day, the JNA had . ":Ithdrawn the troops It had sent to Slovenia during the ","-(1., ",":: fhct. A full JNA demobilization followed. Slovenia, as its P",,;,I... had been sure it would be, was, after all, free to go.

But not Croatia. The only member of the Federal P"";,I,",, vote against the withdrawal of the JNA from Slovenia was

Mesic. He knew the implications for his own country if the SI,,,,,, ,,,

gained their independence and the

Croats did

not. It was in order

avoid being left behind that the Croats had rushed through indepen e �ce declaration months before they were ready to act on

�

The BnOll! Accord dealt the fatal blow to Croatia's alliance

Slovenia. There was no love lost. The Slovenes said it was no than the Croats deserved for having failed to enter the war when the

JNA had sent the tCOOps into Slovenia two weeks earlier. According to Dimitrij Rupel:

Thrrt wtrt two fluorits abouttlu conntctions betwttn thef o r mer YugoslO'U rtpublits. One was that SIO'Utnia and Croatia were the Siamm twins, that thry belonged together. I think that this was also the 'lJi('W oJthe Valican and the Germans. Hit didn't ohjtct to Ihis 'lJiew btcauJt wt' knrw that on our own, we could not haw (onstilllli!d the rritical mass to be able to leave on our own. But with Croatia, we were almost half0/the country. But the other theory, which I think ;J much more true, ;s that Croatia and Strbia are the Siamese twins. Thry had the same lan guage, and they had the same heart, which is Bosnia Herzegovi1/a. They are bou1/d together by Bomia.

�he

Brioni Agreement was hailed as a triumph of Euro� d iplomacy. It was nothing of the sort. It left every important item of ,8,

th cooling off period: it nending the three-mon . . . , . tiOn u nresOlved, r U1 d not ten eignty; It ..l'
-

0

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0

0

0

24

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later - in Croatia and Slovenia. Serb and Slovene leaders were, by the end ofJune 1991, indeed, well before it, united in their central objec tives, and in their opposition to the federal strucrures by which they both felt consrrained. Kuean and Milokvit were, in an important

sense, in cahoots; it was the JNA generals who were outside the loop. They th ught they were defending the territorial integrity of � YugoslaVia. They did not know that that integrity had already been

�

f�raIly trayed, and by the very man who, publicly, continued to cast himself III the role of its principal defender. The Slovene experience

��

tore e heart out of the JNA. It emerged from the ten-day conflict hated at home and abroad, vilified by the entire democratic i hum world. And, crucially, when the JNA went to war in Croatia in the

weeks that followed, its withdrawal from Slovenia meant that it was no longer able to do so in the conviction or even the pretence that it '. . ' , was defending Y ugosIaV!as ' " IOtegnty. The JNAs metamorphoSIS, Illto t e y o the Serbs, progressed apace . V;ugoslaVl a was al!>O rearing the heart out of the proud, confident,

h Ann �

.


new Europe. Two weeks after declaring its for the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia, and warning that the use of force would bring no reward, the Community had rurned about-face. When Kocan's Presidency, in the small hours of 27 June, opted for war, it W2s gambling that the old Yugoslav federation had no fight left in it. The g'.tmble paid off. Slovenia had opted for force and had won a great prize. It had t'.tught Europe a lesson that the peace mediators never once took on board - that war is sometimes not only a profoundl y rational path to take, especially when you know you can win, but is also sometimes the only way to get what you want. Despite this, successive peace-makers continued to dose their eyes to the balance of forces in former Yugoslavia and behaved as though all that was nec essary for peace to prevail was to persuade the belligerents of the folly of war. The Slovenes had demonstrated that war was not always folly. Belgrade knew this, too, and was to act on it in both Croatia and Bosnia..

1 Except for the reunification of . The declaration envisaged few immediate changes. There wer� to be no new ports, and no immediate: introduction of a Slovene currency. Twenty thousand federal troops, stationed in Slovenia, were given until the end of 1993 to withdraw from the rublic'. terotory. The legislation established a Slovene central bank. and transferred customs and air-traffic control to Slovene competence. Fixed property belonging TO theJNA was to be transferrcd to Slovene state ownership by the end of 1993. 2 Neith er Slovenia nor Croatia called their actions 'secession'. They prc ferred the term 'disassociation', on the grounds that Yugoslavia had been

founded as a voluntary union of nations. 3 Later promoted to General, .Aksentijcvic was to have what must rank a5 one ofthe unhappiest wars in the entirc JNA officer corps. He was no narion alist. He believed ionately in a multi-national Yugoslavia. But, despite: asking permission to rcrire after the withdrawal from Slovenia, he went on to serve in both Croatia and Bosnia. He was thus present - indeed a pivotal member of the JNA command - at the outbreak of war on three separate occasions, in three republics; surely a unique record of service to an army tlat WllS, by the time he left it, exclusively Serb, the antithesis ofwhat he had spent a distinguish ed military career promoting. His wife and family arc: Slovene, and continue to live there - in a republic where he is still formally considered a war criminal. 4 Aksemijevic was the MP representing the Army, which had its own rep resentatives in each of the republics' parliaments. 5 I�em 4 of its conclusions declined to recognize the legitimacy of Slovene

secessIOn:

The Federal Government and all the Yugoslav institutions, including the security agencies and the JNA need to continually take steps and measures forced upon them by the unilateral acts, in prevention of the alteration of

'THE HOUR OF EUROPE HAS DAWNED'

on the frontiers of rs, d·!sruption of the border regime . Iav borde . bl'IC, ones, approrepu the Yugos mto customs lav gos . nverSIOn 0r the Yu the SFR)' co ' and to to YugosIaVla, belonging ' rtv . .... pro "d / r '" Uti d . ' , n 0r customs " 1 _ d _ po'auo u eCISIOnS, ; optIOns t umlater a b m o c to I devices _11 Iega rsc to .;,w mike recou . her partIes ' splTl' ng to impose ones will on ot,fl' . e'h .. aV!'our a and .... ' M mtary '" m S' .()'tJema, l mdCoI'j'lct "" Th
rod 6 .Arrnija, Na papc, House · Belgrade, 1991, and containing the full N d an mg ' l ewS Pubhsh nt orders and decreeS. " and Federal Governme I'l am�
��Idisagreement about how many land border-crossings

part of northern ! 8 There was

territory. At the time, the most frequently reporte? there: werc on Slovene e comes. from the JNAs ,n " . TIle figure of thirty,-fiv sev . ...... r was twenty num'-Ighly restncted scope' 0r'Its nt ofwhat it called the h u o c 'al ffi !C� � , � u en subseq Tht Truth ahout thtArm�d Conflict il'l S/(J'()(nia. 27 June m sslon 10 ovenia V�e r�leased by the JNA in T/x Truth ah()ut thr Armtd ,h""' are es ugur The 9 . (Aflfl . . "jct in S!�l'Iia •• ' �tllS It . h D_ ' ' K""'"�an's ofthl: conversation. It IS consIstent W 10 Th1515 , ' mterventlOn h JNA ' e " d t oonSI er not dId he that insists he h h' , 10 W IC " I Iy to c;u - ,m h'1m, a n>lth·mg more than a policing action. I was ttymg acrna . ' I ' hat therc 1' m ., the President of Slovema and trymg to exp am t ..ssmg h adw 'r h _C pIans I we ad OUIer her pl.ns but to control the border, because � re no ot . ' ' d -c action a I me n e lov an S to Croatla from units thc all moved ave h we would ' (D_ ' . would have been completed in a totally diffnent way. lY'>eta ) . 11 The s of this meeting, given by Kocan, Jama, and Bavtar, wh.lle broadly consistent, differ in one telling respect. K�an and JanSa both .clalm the credit for first insisting on the use of armed reSIStanCe. Bav::�r say� .It was Bocar who fust broke thc silence and apparent nervous mdecision of _

�

��

L ,

the gathering. . 12 The JNA said the helicopter wa carrymg bread. although G��eral s R.aJeta later itted that it had lx:en ordered to take off to check oondl\lons on the road between Vrhnika barracks and the airport. 13 The European Community, like Yugoslavia, had a rotating Presidency, each country holding the office for six months, from 1 January to 30 June. The Presidency rotates alphabetically, each country being listed a�cording to �he name it has in its own language, which makes the rules govemmg th.e rolanon more impenetrable than those governing the Yugoslav Federal PreSidency.

14AP, 2 July. 1991. 15 According to Ku::an's of the session.

AND DJRTI WAR' 'AN UNDECLARED

13 'AN UNDECLARED AND DIRTY WAR' TheJNA in Croatia Ju'rDeumber 1991 t the 18 July Presidency session which ordered the JNA to with. draw fro?, Slovenia, S�pe MesK, Cro�tia's representative, $Cnsed . disaster for his own republic. The vote stnpped away any vestige of

A

pretence that the JNA was engaged in the defence of Yugoslavia. It was, now, openly and incontrovertibly, fighting for territory for the Serbs outside Serbia. Z�greb saw Slovenia's phoney war for precisely what it was: a Serbian-Slovene pact to facilitate the secession ofSlovc:nia, humiliate

the jNA, and destroy what was left of MarkoviC's Federal Government. It had succeeded in all three respects. The JNA - no longer, in any sense of the term, a genuinely Yugoslav Army - was now

free to turn its attention to the growing tension in Croatia. And, after the Slovene fiasco, it badly needed a morale booster.

J?e JNA intervention in Slovenia brought Croatia's President FranJo Tudjman into conJlict with his increasingly dissatisfied

Defence Minister Martin Spegelj, for the last time. Spegelj agllin . presse� TudJman to declare war on the JNA:: At a meeting of the state council, the day the Slovene

war

erupted, Spegelj urged Tudjman to

order the Croatian National Guard to surround the federal barracks in

Croatia and arrest leading of the military. This time

Tudjman's ministers were with Spegelj.

Ewrything walpupared 1 wasjust waiting/or the signal In the state council muting, Tudjman spokeJor 95 minuttS andsaid that I had dangerous inttntions. Mesic backed me up 100 per (tnt... He Anew rotrything because he was living in Belgrade. He saw tm war coming. About ttn otherpeople spoke and thry either said they werefor me or that they didn't ha'Vt a view because they wtre not experts. Only one other person ed Tul/jman. At 5 a.m., Tudjman had had mough. He collected his things and he wanted to leave without a decision. But I insisted that he make a duuion. He was afraid to reject theplan and rom more afraid to acupt it. He wanted to decide in semt, by himstlf J wouldn't leaw it at that and I offord my resigT/ation. ,86

.

Croatian radio. and television ned hours later.

- In - robust ns'. Spege1J, 5 gel)' reslg retired 'for health reaso .L O . k' wat he had Pun 1- eu c old bolsheVIst tnc to cover up po ItI. . ..1 I' , as a . anno

.

•

'good

.

dismlsseu hea.lth, . " . ' _I division , _ a was not In a posItion to take , � on was that C roan ' 1,0 CU ., ca.t . s �ud)' man h d d�ne fro� the . He placed hiS faith, .as h� � JNA militarily e ng mternatlonal wmm In on . military readiness but ng, not on ru �n d e�ndence. not 10 Its wm uld Croatia wo . He believed . ....t> mternatlonal gh throu only but over the JNA military victory thro u ed g. . the world want he , table inevi e . Even when war becam . recognJllon. n It. chose had not tia Croa that e, wledg ackno to d to see, an F - r ' d- n d1-d eve., ung he " u summer of 1991, ranJo u �ma Throughout the war. . . . could to avoid all-out right of hiS own Party thiS looked like weak the To his critics on ose. purp of eness of Serb strength and singl ness in the face August, Mart�C:s f�rces steadily extended the and July TIu-oughout One mumclpallty after another fell to the territories they controlled. forces of the Krajina Republic) dur Marticevci (the territorial defence between Serbia and Croatia: ing that summer of undeclared war each of these occasions, the On Dalj. and ni Glina, Kostajnica, Okufa ready to step in and 'sepa itaries l parami Serb the JNA stood behind of the Dalmatian coast resorts tourist The factions'. warring the rate were filling up with legions of the dispossessed: CroatS who had been .

�

� '

forcibly removed from their homes or who had fled the Serb advance. Whole communities decamped overnight, carrying what could be car ried, and leaving everything else behind to be looted, or destroyed. Martie's officers began to claim the best properties for themselves. In

villages abandoned by Croat civilians, the names of Serb paramilitary commanders could be seen scrawled above the door: their handwrit kn claim of right to the spoils ofwar. Croatia's forces were no match. The Croatian National Guard,

which Tudjman had formed from the ranks of his police reservists in

May, was badly organized and poorly equipped, though there was no shortage ofvolunteers. In contrast to the armoured vehicles and heavy

�ea�� that was increasingly available to the Serb paramilitaries, n s forces found themselves running around the battle zones in �udJrna m mandeered grocery vans and customized tourist buses. The two

$I es were hopelessly mism atched. O� 1 August, Tudjman's critics moved to try to unseat him. In the . Croatlan parliament, ng ht-wlng deputles from his own Party propose d a declara, - future Ion 0fwar. Tud- argued that Croatia's Jman agam

R' ARED AND D1RTI' WA


'AN UNDECL

de�ended not o n.defeating the Serbs militarily, but on winning inte r. . . national recogmtlOn; a declaration of war would bring universal demnation from the democratic world; it would be suicide fo

�

fledgling state.

He �rned t� opposition for . Fearing a coup . rlght-wmg natiOnalists, they gave it. A coalition of li·,be'>!" democrats and former communists, was hastily formed and

swore in a Government of National Unity under Prime Franjo Gregurie, who belonged to the liberal wing of HDZ. The hard-right nationalists were isolated, and - in

ifnot on the battlefield - brought to heel.

But the Krajina Serbs, and the INA, were to force Tudjman war whether he wanted it or not. The INA began a series "( __

�:

movements through Bosnia-Herzegovina in preparation for an on those territories which the Serbian leadership in Belgrade consid�

ered rightfully Serb. A day later, the day of the abortive coup againat the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachevl , Milan Martie issued an ulti marum to the Croatian police at Kijevo, near Knin: leave the

within forty-eight hours or face attack. The Croats refused.

Kijcvo was a Croat village surrounded by Serb-held territory.

.

March, the day of the battle at Plitvice, the villagers of Kijevo barricaded themselves in. Martie had come to regard Kijevo "' ", irri

1

tating anomaly - a Croat village in the 'Serbian Republic of Krajina'.

It was also a security risk.. It made communication between Knin and the Serb villages that lay beyond Kijevo dangerous, sometimes impot'" sible. It meant that those villages could not be properly secured for the

coming war against Croatia. Kijevo would have to be wiped off the map. The unforrunate distinction it enjoys now, is that it was the

victim of a process that came to characterize the wars in Yugoslavia: lillmjt ttuna, the 'cleansing' of the ground.

For the Croats, Kijevo became a symbol of resistance. Tens ofthou

sa.�ds of Croats had already lost their homes; what distinguished KiJevo was the level at which the dispossession was planned and exe cuted. On 20 August, the day that MartiC's forty-eight hours' u1tima� rum to the Kijevo police was due to expire, Milan Babit announced

that the Martieevci were now an integral part of the defence forces of

federal Yugoslavia. Martie himself told the Belgrade daily, Borba, that his men were now acting in full co-operation with the JNA. He con

fidently announced their intention to seize the Croatian port city of Zadar. 'The interests of the Army and of the Serbs coincide,' he said. 'We both need a harbour2.' ,88

new unity of purpose was a young . . I yer in this iSlV dec The P recently arrived in Knin. Ratko Mladie was a C � e ant ten south-eastern Bosnia. In the Lieu 0 of BoZinoviCi ' in the om fr Pri�tina to Knin, where he b from Ser he was posted rner f early sum . 0 Staffof [he Knin Corps of the JNA. Immediately on ef f rs. The instant becaJ1l� Chi rna act with the Krajina Serb leade he 0 de cont l a v arn distrust · · mmg rema any s ve d · hi remo i ieevc Mart with the port h s e . k the JNA. Ratko Mladic trU� and the Knin garrison of npween Marne bet le-Iong .. mentaI·Ity. He was a li' the KraJlna Serb understoad ding defen from his allegiance . . who now switched. . CommuOist '. st ' agam s S b er the ctlOg ,. he saw It, of prote . to the task as · . I aVia gos Yu n, ratiO hiS gene of many so Mladlc, like nt Croatian faSCism. nd :-"orld War. Whe.n he �as two ye�rs Seco the by d n shape king part o� a PartISan raid on the VIIkilled while ta old his hther was village of the Ust.rle leader dentaHy the home, Iage 0f Bradina, coinci uttIe outS!·de the meant 1: name s MI d' a Ie DOW, for . Ante Pavelie. Though, would later achieve he d, move he which in circles Ii 'ted military the Commander of the Serb Army in in mational notoriety as was his remarkable ability to Bosnia. His strength as Commander So enthusiastically did he inspire loyalty among those he commanded. trust, even the adora the take up their cause that he quickly earned

:lJ �� 1;91

:� �:

tion, of the Krajina Serbs. On 26 August, one week after Martie's ultimarum to the Kijevo police, he and Mladie, acting together, Struck.. In a twelve-hour bombardment, the village of Kijevo was levelled. Martie was filmed by a Belgrade television crew while his troops ripped down a sign post - in Latin script, of course - at the entrance to the village and

triumph.antly taking command of the area. Martie's subsequent of the cleansing of Kijevo was chilling in its clinical matter of-factness:

1/ was at action belwun tht poliu alld Iht army and in two

days Wt liberated KijM1O. The army prO'lJidtd tht htavy weapom Qnd1prO'lJidedthe infalltry. Wh(1j Colonel Mladif camt to Knin, Wt saw that we could trust the Army. From thm on we suggtsltd thatptople [who camtforward 10 vo/rmt(erfor military urviuj should volunteer in fht army and not the police. That arrangt mtnt then existed through the wholt war. To bt honest we sumed to be superior 10 the Croatiam. They wtr� running away. We didn't care about the victims. We wanltd to hhtrate our blocked villages. Of(ourll thert Wtrl aftw burnt ,8,

'AN UNDECLA

RED AND DIRTI' WAR'


hl)UstS, thal:r Iht way il �s in Ihut aclil)ns with artillny. We thl)ughl ;1 Wf}uldn'I lasl ll)ng and Wt Wfft right.

The action had the full backing of Belgrade. With the C""''''

and Slovene representatives now a1ways absent from sessions Federal Presidency, Yugoslavia's collective Head of State W2S under Milooevic's control. In MesiC's absence, the Vice assumed the Presidency. The Montenegrin representative,

Kostic, became Yugoslavia's acting Head of State and S�;;;:;:

Commander of the JNA:

Wi had in Knin, thi Knin corps, om of Iht strongm and best tquippd army unils Ihn-t, and it is not an txaggtration to say that in thmfirst day! oftht war fhiJNAprouad the Serhsfrom physicolliquidation and prrotnud a maJfivt exodus. Objtetivtly sptaking, ifWi had not encouragd thisjNA corps in Knin, tht Croatian po/iu, with their arms and roerything, could havt takm it tasily.

Kijevo set the pattern for the rest of the war in Croatia: JNA ing an infantry that was part conscript and part recruited Serb volunteers. It was the very alliance that Tudjman warned against in his late-night address to the nation after

Selo. As he saw it, Communist militarism had ed forces

Greater Serbian hegemonists. He still hoped to avoid war against JNA; a war he knew he could not win. But that hardly mattered In its cleansing of fGjevo, the JNA had declared war on him.

Franjo Greguric convened a late-night session of the G'w� m n �� The pressure to act was now too great. Tudjman's reluctance to dragged into open w;u could no longer be sustained. On the Kijevo was cleansed, the Croatian Government announced a mobilization and declared a 'war ofliberation'.

Though Kijevo captured the headlines, it had coincided with assault in Eastern Siavonia. On Croatia's border with Serbia, the of Vukovar came under sustained artillery and mortar fire: for the time3. Vukovar's crisis headquarters, established in the: 'o',,"-"'"'�

hospital comple:x at the beginning of the month, now moved to basement, as did most of the sick and wounded being treated there. Croatia's counter-offensive took two weeks to prepare. On September, the Croatian National Guard laid siege to JNA and installations across the republic. Electricity, food and water

nected. The Zagreb one lines were discon . . ' .... -'. . he caplt 0f t elence 0 ' rISe d ro \ s all d on all citizen city Iluthontles were in barbed wire, ed wrapp and s ' on ,"rder 'f " . 0'e o ,_ _ , p' mad across the 5ava aa....-tra ' ma. '\0tersections of the roads. Bndges T . _ I A......! at the . lO - II but one 0fthe pa-�Barricades were erected blocking ..... RjYer were mlOcd s sandbagged. were Window s. highway the �aJ'or ' __ 'es on ... wreaking ' ed low over the City, scream r-jets fighte JNA ena . gI here of d. atmosp An mpose M r.o� Y'.ght-rime black-out was i tenO . mnists in of th-colu fif reportS ru . tense paranOia ,ook hold. There were IR there was ugh l?o corner. evc nd aro� � building, sniper nests . or injUry by smper-fire wlthm the confines death ,"'orded I r e , " .-y not a smg , 900 000 citizens began to walk the stree� "m lear lor ofZagreb city, its a el t, on was conflic low-lev of s month after last, at their lives. Croatia, . ing t republic-wide war foo arc, fro� Gospic in the south, Fighting erupted across a broad . Itself, and then eastward capital the of south just Karlovac, rth to to yukovar in eastern Siavonia. maUy, f and, ni a Oku1:: Pakrac, :rough . . . at all III To the extent that the line of confrontation established Itself those early days, it ran roughly - though with important exceptions « and teleph cut OU, plit:S we _ , � . .

Iiong the line that Milo�evic and Jovic had identified in May, when they issued their instruction, through the Federal Presidency, to the JNA to start protecting the Serbs of Croatia. The JNA was POW openly fighting to establish new borders for a Yugoslavia without

the Croats. Serb forces, together with the JNA, now controUed between a that quarter and a third of the republic's territory. The front-ine l

emerged on 14 September gave them three disparate blocks of terri1Or}', linked to each other only by territory in Bosnia-Herzegovina: the &nt, and most established of these, was the territory around Knin; the ICCOnd was in central Croatia, around the town ofGlina, from which the Croats had been driven in July and August; and the third was in eastern Slavonia, and Baranja which shares a frontier with Serbia. . Beh lOd Se:rb lines the JNA was free to group and regroup as the :ands ofbattle required. Behind Croat lines it was immobilized. In if. ::;: ery �mportant town in the republic, the JNA was trapped in cks, Its guns trained outward, surrounded by the Croatian N ' �al Guard, guns C:; trained inward, in an explosive stand-off. In southern Croatia, the stand-off quickly erupted into a battle tha destroy ' ed much of the town. The JNA . garrison there tried to �Its way out, while reinforcements grouped outside the town monar and art!'Ucry . The result was a three-day

.,..:

'9'

R' ARED AND DIR'IT WA

'AN UNDECL


exchange of fire that left scarcely a building in Gospic habit,bll" ;,. the fall of the barracks. Two hundred JNA men, mostly '�ru'"'''' taken prisoner, and the barrack's commander was killed:

Croatian Guard officers said he shot himself in full view ofrus

the forecoun of the town hospital; Belgrade Radio said. mOre vincingly, that he had been murdered. The caprure of Gospic was a strategic blow to the ambitions

Krajina Serbs. 1t halted the expansion, westwards, of their territory.• prevented them pushing west, towards the coast, at therefore, dealt a mortal blow to Martie's

I

tion to take Zadar, the Adriatic port city that was, in the eyes nationalists, the western-most point of the Serb lands, and the

outlet to the sea. Gospic was also a great morale boost to the It sent a shiver down the spine of every besieged JNA :?,n""',do. 1 the republic, who wondered whether he, too, would suffer the fate the unfortunate Gospic general. The Croats retaliated. In several cities there was a systematic paign of terror as Croatia began to lose the war. One night in September Croatian mi l itia rounded up and killed twenty professors, judges in Gospic - loyal Serbs who had decided to

; � ��

Croatia. There were also incidents in Zagreb, Sisa k ' "d ' But many struck local deals. In Osijek, in eastern i : did not wait for the barracks to fall. It pulled out on 17 �: withdrew to new positions to the south and east of

city.

where, for the three months that followed, it played a vital role bombardment of Osijek. The Commander at Vinkovci did

��,�"?'

week later. At Jastrebarsko, south-west of Zagreb, where m"J"� . stationed one ofthe largest single deployments oftanks, the

Commander, Radovan Ta�ic, struck a deal with the local

warning him that: 'It would be a great pity ifyou were to b,ii" woo yourself the destruction of your beautiful town'. His meaning was lost on the National Guardsmen besieging his barracks. Tdit

after weeks of negotiation, allowed to leave, taking his 600 (again, mostly conscripts) and his heavy weapons with him4. people watched ruefully as a huge column of 160 tanks, dozens armoured vehicles, surface-to-air missiles, and anti-tank ,",lanri"'�

craft batteries, trundled out of their barracks and south Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the knowledge that the hardware would be put to good use elsewhere in Croatia.

Circumstances deeper in Croatian-held territory were more cult. The Commander, Vlado Trifunovic, at Varaldin, nea!

'9'

. The to Belgrade for help, but got none der, appealed bor t. He an pmen . . h equI IS an . dung " to let him out Wit Po nnmed "'ot re dete d d. en ere we surr He nt. eme forc ats Cro lines to expect rein from Serb far to ed and releas rms toO unifo JNA was d of their I :ppe ' .. . S" men were n clothes. By handing over dozens His 200 . civilia in home own way novic had averted make thCJr d vehicles [0 the Croats, Trifu and arm of many of the lives the cost have 1 ndoubtedly ofunks that wou°� . ' s an d. H'15 action cornm • Lottie hIS under ripts lem consc U Of _L n, _ _ most treaso ' ' d lor was tne o' de, he n h,'s return to BclOTa .avtd their lives. 0 e years to twelv nced dure, sente exhaustive appeals proce and, � 19 , Kafkaesque trial horrified liberal 95 The . , .Ul J'ail Ifl anu_ summer of 19��, th� Belgrad.e regim� had ders. But in the that It had which to base the mlhtary IflterventlOn �� a �text on ·king h·IS stn was · novll: ·fu as T Tl even was, �y .'-_, ordered and which ' 1funovlc r fT d re ' 0 requI d h a de Belgr its way. � . . . deal with the Croats, on to JustIfy JNA mterventlOn. He heroic and suicidal last-stand his men up as sacrificial lambs to :. punished for failing to offer

h'

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��r an]

�..1

"

the slaughter.

. . s proVIded the JNA Wlth a None the less, the siege of the barrack whose a pretcrt of sorts. Belgrade ordered a sharp escalation of war whose but garrisons, ..ted purpose, now, was the relief of the JNA a build to which on territory over-riding war aim was to secure the and tanks 9 of columns t\yo September 1 On Serb state in Croatia.

armoured vehicles left the federal capital, Belgrade, and trundled down the Brotherhood and Unity motorway towards the Croatian

border. Foreign journalists, roused from their beds to foUow the col wnn, reponed that it stretched for more than six mil!:s, and contained

at least a hundred tanks. mostlyT-55s and M-84s, as weU as armoured

penonnel carriers and trucks towing heavy artiUery piecesS. Like the fOn:e which had taken the same route, two months earlier, towards

Slovenia (only to be turned back) the column was again cheered by

� Serbs who lined the route, throwing food and cigarettes to the

bewildered conscripts and mostly reservists in the ing trucks6• b param�t�es and the JNA had already secured a triangle of W:�n �e oil-neh fertile comer of north-eastern Croatia From . s.r-a.:. It stretched west, to the outskirts of Osijek, and south, to e Bor 'gh! Selo, a suburb of Vukovar. The towns of Vukovar and its nel bour Vink ' ovCI, . now stood 'In the way 0f further expansIOn Into . eas Slavo�a. They, and not the besieged barracks, were the target of thi ",m S 1atest Impresslve dep Dyment. The JNA surrounded Vukovar, , ug In for the start of what was to become a two-month ,

lnd d '

I

'93

'AN UNDECL

ARED AND DIRTY WAR'


bombardment that would tum a pretty Danubian town into symbol of Croatia's struggle for national liberation. Stipe Mestf Vukovar would be 'Croatia's 5talingrad'. Serbs loyal to the 5DS rebels had, to some extent, begun a of 'self-cleansing' as early as the spring of that year. The Serb

of Vukovar, Slavko Dokmanovic, said he had stopped coming to

city long before the war had begun because he feared for his Barricades had been erected months earlier by the inhabitants Serb villages on the outskirts of the town. Mortar attacks on

urb ofBorovo Naselje had begun in early July; the city centre jected to sporadic bombardment from early August onwards. By end ofAugust, only 15 000 of the town's original population of50

were still there. Those who were left retained the ethnic mixture had characterized the town before the war7. Serbs and C,v.t" ,uJlr.., alike in the bombardment that followed. On 14 September, the day the Croatian National Guard had

siege to the JNA barracks, Serb paramilitaries had launched a assault on the southwest ofVukovar from the dii,""i",n ofN"I!'.Ja", Two thousand residents had fled their homes and, sought refuge ' city centre. They had reported that some eighty civilians had killed. Bodies had piled up in the streets. The dead had been by the advancing Serb forces, and buried in mass graves in meadow land at Negoslavci. Croatia had not heard atrocity

this. The war had entered a new phase. On each of the fifteen

that followed, between sixteen and eighty wounded were brought the hospital. On average, three-quarters of them were civilians8• . 4 October brought the fiercest single attack to date. It

d:';PJ�:' �

artillery, mortar, and air assault. Two bombs were on the hospital. One destroyed the Department , Operating Theatre, though much of its equipment

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moved to the basement. The other feU through several floors, explode, and landed on the foot of the bed of a wounded man, survived. Ninety-two wounded people were brought into the on that day alone.

The Serb-JNA attack brought territorial gains. The road . . Vukovar to the village of Bogdanovci fell.JNA units took up along it, depriving the town of its last land�route out of the

foo'!]>,"

siege was now complete, save for a dangerously exposed which was overlooked by Serb gun positions in nearby woods. . Vukovar crisis committee claimed that at least thirty route to try to flee the town, were killed by snipers. '94

le ofVukovar began living in . ' f October the peop g UlJO bc:gU crisis commit 0 At the housin up to 700 people. The lters, sh -p �oof bunker camrno? � erating from a nuclear �m Itself ch whi nbutlOn of food, ized the dist tee, � hospital ' oTu:ln . . etOwn-cen,r.. the h l)'<;r at the numL_ mum to a mlm . hene I supPI-,cs thus keeping . medica ' as I s ter, h e on comm water and at any one time. Each . on thc scree's d ne aSSlg one nurse of C-IV!-lians and r onc docto OSSI'ble' h d at least d arme r.r as waS . with er each shelt ded provi Guard Croatlan N tiOnal to it. The protection. writ large: the JNA attack was that of Kijevo The pattern f - , 5erb rt to the IOCal suppo ny infan and e hcavy weapons Og th roVld J 5erb'la proper. But a P ,ogether \v1th volunteers from iii. r::t. m ranes, .... .r. firepower overwheimlng . r "'m.'g ... ed·· the failure, despite re ... . . striking Ieatu attack on The ss. .ke commensurate terntonal progre. su.... -. nonty, to m ugosIaVla fy tIOn 0 ' -'·d ,he shambles to which the dissolu . o var reveal... Vuk f 1 leve The . g force ry's once-proud fightm had reduced the count . pts, was conscn and s officer . l-On, particularly among non-Serb . w;;_se r, 1e, lace 0fbart to which the conscripts, m the C 5o was the deOTee . g h o· hi elr t h get t Id ' n cou they tha ed mplain co s � disobeyed orders. JNA officer . as mped sl JNA the In Morale s. vehicle ed � boys to leave their armour Incapable weeks went by and Europe's fourth-largest Army proved red and beleague of handful a with town small a ering overpow of ilI- equipped Croatian defenders. In October, with the JNA's assault on Slavonia hopelessly delayed by the surprising resilience of Vukov�r, the acting Defence Minister 8lagoje Adzic, appointed General Zivota Panic to command the

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Vukovar operation. Zivota Panic was Commander of the First Army District, and he was now charged with finishing the Vukovar opera tion off. Panic and Adzic went to the Vukovar front together to assess

why the operation had stalled so badly. They were appalled by what they found there. There was no clear chain-of-command, and no demarcation of tasks between the various units deployed. There was,

hy Panic's own , 'chaos'. Many soldiers appeared not to know who their Commanding Officer was. There was desertion from the

ranks, particularly among reservists who had been mobilized and sent to the front with no clear idea of why they were there and no notion of what they wer e trying to achieve. Tens of thousands of Serbs were mobilized to fight in a war that was undeclared. Throughout the republic - in particular in Belgrade m n Were hiding or fleeing the country. One reservist could not decide W ether to a group ofdeserters or remain with his unit so he shot

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'95

'AN UNDECLA

lliE EXPLOSION OF WAR

RED AND DIRTY WAR'

himself. Another took a tank from the front and drove it aU the to the Federal Parliament.

When Panic assumed command of the operation, he integrated paramilitary groups into the command structure of the Volunteers were recruited to replace those who had been m "b!i,. i od unwillingly. A single command strucrure was put in place. unwilling to submit themselves to it were removed from the th,,,._ .. operations.

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On 3 November, the headquarters of the Army's First Guard Brigade announced that the ' final operation' to drive

forces out of Vukovar had begun. The next day, the Federal carried out sixty-five sorties against Croatian positions in Vukovar

elsewhere9• Ground troops advanced to within a few hundred yard. the town cemre.

On th: same day, fifteen artillery rounds landed on the ".rn;... town of Sid, in Vojvodina. on Croatia's frontier with

where some of the artiUery attacking Vukovar had been d,plc'l".d. one was injured. But the outraged Serbian Minister O<.f"..; General Tomislav Simovic, none the less felt compelled to call

the international community to condemn the attack. As

g i norant ofwhat JNA forces were doing in Vukovar even as h' he addressed the Serbian Parliamem to denounce the attack on

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dies, embittered against both Zagreb and the international commuruty, who had continued to try to talk Belgrade into finding a 'negotiated

This attack is part of tIN fasrish' policy. Tht attituda of tlx Croatian armdflrus au such that whmt'Utr 'LW' ha'W spolm about ptau and truu thty how acid in tht worst way... Thtu will probably bt blackmail in The Hogut today regarding the blockades of Vuko'Uar and DubrQ'/.mik by the Yugoslav People's Army. Thty may tvm make theforther course ofthe talks condi tional upon liberation or withdrawal of theflrus that art Jur rounding thue two towns.

lettlement' as their town had been reduced to rubble. Something of their mood transmitted itself to the Croatian population generaUy. The commanders of Vukovar's defence conceded defeat. The JNA representative in Zagreb agreed to surrender talks. Both sides agreed to an evacuation of the town's civilian population, and the 700 sick

He then vowed not to submit to international blackmail. With Panic now in command of a disciplined operation, the si� tion in Vukovar grew desperate. The town's defenders rurned their bit terness against their own side. They accused Zagreb of deliben.tel, sacrificing Vukovar in the interests ofwinning international sympathy.; The town's military commander, Mi l e Dedakovic, went to Zagreb to

appeal to Tudjman. He told him that Croatia's willingness to agree

ing this war,' he is reState: 'I am runn ' .. t and Head of · en d sl .d 'a d hen J order that mlhtary operatIOns around ... Pre al S have , � ; a millimetrelO: for e you will not move even 'VukoVU should stop. tability, diplo respec al ation intern as tiU chasing Tudjman, who � ities. ry prior milita eigh outw ed to . . 'deraoons Scontinu ed. On lO foUow mg ftght mane conSt and -to-h hand . . r, twO weeks of In Vkava fM·I 1ovo Brdo. The 0 ict distr re -cent town U JNA t k the N�mber, . fall of Vukovar, long predicted. was �d in d�array The Croa� re� the JNA captured the suburb of mber, Nove 16 nomment. 0n the ast precarious access . ed Vukovar 0r Its Je. Th,t d'priv NaseI· G_-,", ....v . pu cornfields. There was now no e f, tpath through the rout� along th she\ukovar. In terror, 700 civilians now left their ...y an or out f � bystreeted' ra '''be u be' . mg n � the hospital complex ... and fled into s. proces 10 the yed destro also was use, Vukovar . street and house-by-ho ce, reSistan f pockets few a for save town entire . . Byl7 NQVembe,, ,h, III Serb-JNA hands. The al lcself, . was ' most notably that of the hosplt y-brokered repubduring Croatia's thirteenth JOternatlOnall d al Guardsmen Nation n Croatia Those fell. r Vukova wi;:'ceasefire, � the fall of Borovo who had not smuggled themselves out before which to risk a Nue1je were now trapped. They had ont': night left in Serb lines, through death-defying dash, under cover of darkness, Vinkovci. of town ring ICJ'OSS the cornfields and into the neighbou h�d exhausted small in day next the Many did so, and gathered there

to

internationally-brokered ceaseflres was losing Vukovar the war. Tudjman exploded with rage, and told Dedakovic to who

and-wounded from the hospital. It would be supervised by the EC monitors and representatives of the International Red Cross.

In the three months of the siege and bombardment that ended on

20 November, the hospital treated 1850 wounded people, most of them civilians. This figure represents serious injury only, and therefore unders�tes the true figure. Those with light wounds were encouraged �t to fISk the journey but to Stay at home. In the same period, the ukovar police had rtgistered 520 dead bodies for transportation to the only available burial ground. Of these, 156 had been Croatian . N �onaJ. �uardsmen , and twenty-four, policemen. The rest had been . ans, IRcludi. ng eight children. These figures do not include the '97

'AN UNDECLAR

ED AND D1Rn' WAR'


hundreds of bodies that remained uncollected during the last the siege, when the intensity of the bombardment, and the pO"""' " of advancing erb a�d JNA forces, made movement through

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streets .almost Impossible. In the three months since the lNA . begun Its attack on the town m earnest, Vukovar received one

. of international aid. It was allowed to deliver medicine to the he,... and to evacuate 1 1 4 of the wounded. n 19 November, at eleve':! o'clock in the morning, as voko... . C(lSIS headquarters tried, unsuccessfully, to make with

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side wori , the JNA entered the hospital complex, the last bastion Croat reSistance. To the terror of those inside, they arrived the international monitors who were to supervise the evacuation. IeRC truck, carrying medicine for the sick, arrived at six in

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evening. By then, theJNA had begun to evacuate the civilians sick-and-wounded, without international supervision, and in

vention of the previous day's agreement. In the centr Of

JNA officer arrogantly replied to the protesting ICRC that this was Yugoslavia, his country, and if the ICRC

was welcome to leave. The unsupervised evacuation proceeded.

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�o,:"" ands of heavily-armed Serb men, many wearing mSlgma, fresh from the battlefield, were roaming the streets Vukovar unchecked, as weeping ashen figures with dark rings

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their eyes made their way out of the shelters. Many had been ground for three months, while the battle had gone on over heads. On 18 November, they saw a different vUk0

people and animals littered the streets. Grisly skeletons still burned, barely a square inch had escaped damage. � teers, wild-eyed, roared down the streets, their pockets full of IN_ tre�sures. One group grabbed a Croatian man and banged his

agamst the wall accusing him of fighting with the enemy. He that he had not fought at all. The JNA began to separate the from the women and children. The latter were asked to

whether thcy wanted to be evacuated to Serbia or Croatia. Those chose Serbia were allowed to leave, or were given transport out to�n. ose who asked to go to Croatia were taken, by bus, VOJvodma, where they spent the night in schools and sports halls.

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next day they were handed over to the Croatian authorities. The men were not handed over; and many of them - more three years later, at the time of writing - arc p nd later Serb militia refused access to all but � ha , ful

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suspected mass-grave site at Oveara, outside Vukovar. Among

reporter from Croatian " a thirty-one-year-old .

• GlavaSeVlC• ua.ome the vOICe . 'Ja in Croatia, had L.. ... SitU di whose voice,

VukOvar�tu ::Onicling the destruction of his home-town d is Ii�e doubt �at �, y de!' C�te and exhausted tones. There k of. Vu I ng notonery pondi corres the n and a, �I g a"P ed in Croati ,

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ed out for execution were taken to a . " · who were not singl . ) · a · 0n thelr Those men nva r odmao . Sremska Mitrovica 10 vOJv at centre .I--n ..., ... tlon carry·ing was . and any property they were . stnpni'd r - naked .... IOto overcrowded -1.., were " ed herd were beaten. They were confi,scatcd · Many slept on the they wed, follo . " for the weeks that _l1S whe�e . nriwn CCJ.L tiOns. Some roga ted mter repea to cted subje were y Man floors. of reward for informing on the others. ered the inducement were y in Januar 1992. They were released var's hospital, Dr Vesna Bosanac, wh�se The director of Vuko done so much to keep th� p ace gOI�g had courageous example . e so ethmg of a herom� III Croatia. throughout the siege, had becom . � CIty Itself now stood for In the m�� She time to personifY what the quently, she was vili tality that war fashioned in many Croats. Conse the 'Dr Mengele of her Sed by the Serbs. Belgrade television called d Serb civil wounde to nt treatme Yugoslavia', accusing her of refusing When them. on ents experim medical and of carrying out

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Vukovar fell, many Croats feared for her life. For a week, nothing heard of her. She was not on the convoy of women and children that reached Croatia after Vukovar's fall. The International Red Cross made urgent appeals in Belgrade. The hated doctor was spared the t..te that Sini�a Glavakvit suffered. She was released after a

was

month in detention.

It �ook the EC monitors three days to organize the evacuation of

tbt: Sick and wounded. Several times they were loaded into JNA

ambulances only to learn that the hand-over to Croatian authorities been postponed because of continued fighting on the road. ally, the two convoys - one JNA, the other Croatian Government m - rendezvoused in north-eastern Bosnia. Five hundred wounded,

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rna;;y of them barely conscious, were stretchered out of their JNA ulances and transferred to the waiting Croatian vehicles. An crowd of lotal Serbs turned out to scream abuse at the 'Ustafia � m� erees' am

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as the wounded were carried past '

ali er ions had been inflamed by a badly judged piece ofjourn sm

y a reputable news agency. On the day Vukovar had fallen, '99

R' ARED AND DIRTY WA 'AN UNDECL


Reuter's Belgrade bureau had reported that Croatian Guardsmen had slaughtered forty-one Serb children in ",.,.... , -, b they fled the city. The news spread like wild-fire across me '« .. ulated areas of Croatia and neighbouring Bosnia. Western new,

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nizarions, anxious for some 'balance' to include in their "':0""'

what otherwise seemed an impossibly one-sided sequence of also gave the claim undue prominence. The story turned OUt to nonsense. The claim had been made by an unnamed JNA Co,)",.. ,

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a Belgrade photographer. Reuters issued an unqualified nventy-four hours later. But the damage had been done. f

now screamed for the blood of the injured of Vukovar, as the hand-over of the wounded took place. A single line of JNA held them back. Even now, the JNA could presem itself to the

television cameras as an impartial force intervening to separate 'warring factions'. The bodies of Vukovar's dead were barely cold before the organized, for the Belgrade press corps, what it must have

was a public relations triumph. On 21 November two bu,;)",""

reporters were taken, as guests of the JNA, on a tour of the

town. 'We'll give them lunch right here,' said Colonel Milan JNA spokesman and future Deputy Commander of the Bosnian forces, as he paraded through the bombed-out remains of the 6 " Dunav, setting the Army a challenge to which it ro" Marc Champion of the evem in his despatch:

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captured the a

'Massacred civi/ianJ this 'Way� said the army offim; waving his arm in the dimtion of a court yard opposiu Vukovars ravagd hOlpital. DounJ ifjournalists wae alnady huddld in the gau wayfora look at Exhibit 2 ifa lourorganiudby thefldn-alarmy in an altempt, rangingjrom the grot�sqll� 10 the obscene, to gif)( its vmion ofthe siege ofVukovar. 1 don't su why nothing is being said abOIl! the neddaus being made of children'sfingers, or the forty children killed near /xrt' {said Col GwroJ Insidr the (ourtyard.. 'Wtrt 33 corpsts. Next door wn-e mofY than SO, lined up in rows and open to thepOllring rain. 'Thtytrrr Serbs who were massacred in the struts, ' laid Col Miodrag Startrvit, authoritatively. Many had mdical tags tid to their ton identifying them aspatients who had died in hospital-As/ted how hr kntw they were Serbs, he shruggtdll.

a souvenir of . given JNA ballpoint pens as rnalistS were jou 1'he visit.

their

ovnik from Montenegro for the attacked Dubr l . . ober, theJNA r of the pretexts that the On 1 Oct Neithe . e h,d ",pected It. o-on N . (int ume . ction of Serb populaprote the ia ) where in Croat . was USJDg e. se ' D ubroVnJ· k. ,Ied ID _ . 1 app c/U> barra A edJN esieg fofb . . ) rele e h t and s, bOn town had no JNA gamliving therel1 and the ,. Serbs w le . 1'hett wert c: king. )t Sits . on was a sitting target, npe lor the ta . But Dubrovnik . . the southern extremity 0f . at land l coasta of Strip . a thin . . .n! the far tip 0f ) ' B 'd e oSnJa a few miles ! and, les IDSI . )ts h I·nterland, ,·ust tia Croa . ntenegro. Herz.egovina and Mo a land-blockade rom M�ntenegro t� t C': port sed impo The AImy . strip of coast whICh IS Bosma·He!"'l.egovmas only ofN eum, that nny ' announce d that ad10 ing, Belgrade R _.et to the sea. Early next morn ouu ' b ' d th·IS aroun s ues at today of aim the is 'the surrender of enemy for.ces they were, as such forces, Croatian , October toWn'. On 2 and 3 off tapers that territory n Croatia of strip us precario defending that JNA lming an of overwhe face the in rout a suffered egro, into Monten assault. The handful of Croatian National Guardsmen protecting Dubrovnik's himerland turned on their heels and fled. There was no

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other course of action available to them. As the Federal Army marched through the prosperous region of Konavle it destroyed almost everything in sight. In village after village, every house was flI·st looted and then put to the torch. On 15 October, the Federal Army entered the resort town of Cavtat, south of Dubrovnik. They met no resistance. The people of Cavtat resigned themselves to what amounted to occupation of their

town. Though this meam that Cavtat lost all with the rest of

�roatia, the JNA did not allow its Montenegrin reservists to run riot

III the way that they had done in Konavle. Cavtat was neimer looted nor burned.

. CIty of Dubrovnik itself. Be(;ause Croatia had not expected the Army The Army spent the next nvo weeks preparing its assault on the

� an:ack, the city was left practically undefended. A handful of ro aban National Guardsmen, equipped with a few fu:ld guns and :ortar launchers, now found themselves charged with the defence of e . anCient city. Dubrovnik is a city built to withstand a siege. Its :;c�� t �ortified walls were again called into service. They were almost . . •.

t Its Citizens had by way of defence. O n 2 7 0Ct OL ucr, alt .f"er a SIX . day bombardment, the JNA had brought '0'


'AN UNDECLAR

ED AND DIRTY WAR'

their gun positions to the very edge of the city. As though to go.ld.1.O trapped citizens below, a Yugoslav federal flag was Zarkovic hill, a few hundred yards from the Hotel Argentina, the EC monitors and foreign journalists gathered each night in basement restaurant and bar. The Hotel Argentina quickly . itself as one of those extraordinary war-zone hotels whose ment and staff take pride in maintaining normal service despite collapse ofall normality around them. From the ,,,,,,,.d te",,;, ,of,i; Hotel Argcntina, shielded from federal positions by the hotel and exposed only to the occasional federal gunboat gliding past, the journalists, and the white-uniformed EC follow the progress of individual artillery rounds frred from as they screamed low over the hotel, and then, in a low red roofs of the old town, before slamming into targets into the bour area, particularly at night, when the shells would glow a orange, the colour offm: in the night sky. The EC monitors, y'u _; down in their hotel, would the time teaching journalists to ogni:ze the subtle differences in the sound of ordnance artillery (outgoing) here; SO-millimetre mortar round (;0,<01";''1111 therell. On the day of the Yugoslav federal flag's menacing 'PI=""'''' Zarkovic hill, Federal Commander, General Pavle Strugar, issued ultimatum to the Croat defenders: he demanded that the Croats over their weapons, and that all military personnel should leave city. He guaranteed a safe age out, adding that he expetted response by eight p.m., that day. The]NA had Dubrovnik in the palm of its h",d,Z'gn,b Inn;d
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yed in the JNA le had beenb destro ome in Konav uf.l' whoswhoe hcoul I' lid ' WLt' h �he arLty so LC sym ldusk claim e efor _..a._nce andd MeslC" todIdtherthe JNA Naval Commander. that he 10au·" esse . er repILed that he had disposs . The. Command . -' to procee to Dubrovnik Acu wo..u1d a Lf the flotill moved on, hS'eIO'UIjO Is and that,respo let noavesse to J h er worUlt, In ot nd. act and tile os h .....! uus was H e 'U Sf! ante. the upped "" Mesic of the watcr. Presid . and thcreLd be bIownenout tfthe oslavta ency ofYug l Federa 'd _z-- aU, PresL had of the. armed forces, althoughIavheArmy fore Cornmande, in-Chief the Y ugos over l contro hLs that than once, l over the F'mllls rumy. 'J am your ' d, moresame tdnurte h t aboute m'mandeasr'hishe contro to the JNA gun-boat,0 'and 1 radioed back . . Supreme 0sink my shi' .' The on board -many f them 1 bntLes � � � defy you to the shLp s bar - clapped and cheered. The fedi g bold after hours m of his crew and en, responsible for the safe age lJupscap � rain eyes. d' h t 109 was now comman e sh'LP,GodroUed h'LS Only nd unsure who knows. 'Only wearily, replied, t�� who was in charge, he God knows'. with iral Stane Brovet, Mesit fmaUy established radio ordered that the JNA conduct a Brover Minister. Defence the Deputy that no arms search of each vessel and, once it had been established were. being smuggled to Dubrovnik, it should be allowed 1 broke unhindered. On 30 October, after thirty hours at sea, S/ovijo the naval blockade and docked in Dubrovnik, bringing goodwill, and ftcious little else. Mesic left twelve hours later, the plight of PDubrovnik unchanged. MesiC's antics at sea served a purpose. Drawing attention to the plight of Dubrovnik worked wonders for the international reputation oftheJNA. Whatever had motivated the JNA Command in ordering the attack on Dubrovnik in the first place, there seemed little doubt that straightforward malice played an important part in motivating the troops. Day after day, the men on the hills fired artillery and tank rounds into prosperous tourist hotels that lined Dubrovnik's mod em seafront.theThey dropped mortar rounds into hotel forecourtS and tched, with impunity, as the fire, ignited by the explosions,jumped ;: Ian� ear to car destroying evcrything in its path. leaving a charred sca� of twisted metal and broken glass. The refugees who had ured IOtO Dubrovnik, fleeing the advance meanwhile cowered in !;; �. basements, first bombed out of their ho�es, now bombed from m Ir Piaces of refuge. There seemed little or nO military rationale to h ofthe bombardment inflicted on Dubrovnik. It was the revenge 0

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THE EXPLOSION or WAR

RED AND DIRTY WAR' 'AN UNDECLA

of the poor �ys from the mountains on one of the richest, westward-Ieamng parts of former Yugoslavia. It oulmin,,,,, i November, on the systematic destruction, by wire-guided

every last yacht in the harbour of the old town14. The e" """\ 1 i� Byron had characterized as the pearl of the Adriatic, was the' setting for such an orgy of vengeance. The nc 'm ,,jJly-'n "';' ;;;

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Tdegraph - surely the most cautious O� f � � B� ' it" : � � i:n' : ',1 : � � � � � 5 splashed a front-page headline that read: Like the Advancing an Rome, the Federal Farces General Milan Gvero, the JNA spokesman and the man who minded the grotesque media tour of 'liberated' Vukovar, tli,.....

reports of Dubrovnik's destruction throughout. The Croats wen: ting fire to piles of burning car tyres, he claimed. And, ,b,""d1:,. g;"

the abundant evidence to the contrary, 'Not a single speck of dust has fallen on Dubrovnik'll!o.

The Federal Army did not succeed in forcing the surrender Dubrovnik's defenders. After November's riot of destruction, siege-lines acquired a semi-permanence, and the battle settled seemingly endless low-level stand-off. Events in the Hague

Belgrade overtook the ambitions of the Monrenegrins, and, in 1992, with the truce in Croatia now fIve months old, the reached agreement with the ]NA.

,d ''''. '' "'' ria Th. JNA wirndrnwru from Dubm'mi\,', hint
from the .last of Croatia's coastline was brokered by Tudjman Dobrica Cosic, President of the remnants of Yugoslavia, on September 1992. In the war in Bosnia, the interests of the fonner

coincided. Serh and Croat leaders were now meeting in secret to the partition, between them, of Bosnia-Herzegovina. When Federal Anny withdrew from its siege-lines around Dubrovnik. observers believed that it was part of a Serb-Croat deal in which

Croatian

quidpro quo was

a commitment to withdraw

;�ro�m��:�

Brod in northern Bosnia, thus facilitating that town's the Serbs. Certainly Brod was of much greater strategic

the Serbs than Dubrovnik's hinterland, guarding, as it east-west land-corridor that linked Serb-held territories in

Bosnia to Serbia proper. Concomitantly. Croatia was much interested in de-blocking Dubrovnik and liberating Croatian

ries around it than in holding Brod. This remains the most pb,.....

ation, after six months of block. rovnik's final liber on ofDub was also an early pointer to the . It t. .panan rdmen t bomba interrrurten L_ and Croats which the Ser� in war a .. and ia: Bosn e a in of Bosniaon foe ...... of th w tn"t' f - at effect against the comm d to t>. ' rate . .... ..� e. �,ltl-ethntc stat 0< ' single mu f{erzCgOVlna ..., 0

rendered all of eastern Siavonia vulnerable. fall f Vukovar villages of Ernestinovo 0 '(be . the Army had moved on. The h ithin a week W

ad swe�t Vukovar aSI°de. fell to the juggernaut that aDd Laslovo a? mtense �mbard began and nded surro.u Serb forces .

fedcraI and ofTenjski Antunovac. The CIty of OSIJek took a ment of the village .ng from JNA artillery and morrar-flre, day after day. ba single conclusion. Laslovo protected the �e rationale pointed to a the Croatian town ofDjakovo, a vital supply route road from Osijek to population.
they believed inevitable - it had been completely surrounded.

At the same time, President Tudjman, under international pressure, agreed to the dc-blocking of the JNA's Marshal Tito barracks in Zagreb. Tudjman's critics were furious. They accused him of playing

into the hands of the enemy in his bid to win international

�bility. As the Federal Army was making its next push deeper mto eastern Slavonia, Tudjman was handing over hundreds of tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces that, in Croat hands, could have been mobilized in the defence of Croatian territory. Tudjman again faced a threat from the right. Croatia buzzed ith rumours of a coup. . w �udJma� had two of his most prominent critics arrested and �ed WIthout trial - Mile Dedakovic, Commander of Vukovar's and Dobrosav Paraga, leader of the extreme nationalist a of �g t. Paraga had claimed, implausibly, to have � . . 10 rmed men 10 hIS HDS mIlitia. He boasted that his men had bo the brunt his of Croatia's defence. Neither claim was true. When ty called, a few days later, for a mass demonstra tion in Zagreb to protest . against Paragas , detennon, the rally that they claimed would topple 'Iiud' DeVe . Jman attracted only a couple of hundred activists Paraga r enjoyed the . . ' . popul� r In Croatla that hIS oppoSIte number III Serb ,. ia, YoOJIS I •. av "e�eIJ ' was to w,on. ' '" r Cderal troops and Serb paramilitaries penetrated the outskirts of

�,

�: Party �

0


'AN UNDECLARED AND

Osijek. Arkan, the feared leader of the Tigers and police entered the provincial capital and afterwards threatened to town. Panic, still in command of the operation, had orders Commander, General Blagoje Adzic ·the Army Chief of continue. Panic recalled the day:

Tht mom(1/1 Vukovarfoil. Croalia losl tht war. Buauu ,"" ",,,,,, how marchd to Zagrtb wilhoul any probitms. Osijek. was 10ntd. Wt mUred Osijek. W( had ordm 10 take Osijelt a"j ZlIpanja Ihe mommt VukovarfoIl, and 10 march towards Za� with two coillmm. along Ihe Drava and the Sava rivas.And (ould haw a((omplishtd thai in two days. But thm I was (tT� 10 go back.. I lalked 10 jovi{, and Koslic. And I also tallced to Pmidenl Mi/ofevit. It was his dtCirion, Milo/rod's decision 11M it was approvtd by tht rump prtSidency. He simply said 'we htnJe nojob thert ill Croalpopulald areM. We hO'Ut toprolicl the W areas', andthat was the line. AndI toldhim ijthe tMIl was topro. tecl Yugosltl'Uia we shDuld goforthtr. Btcause it would h4w Iwn . emy. The Croals hadjld Vink.O'IXi, Zupanja. and Osijek.. WIn Vuk/XIarfoIl, Croatiafoil too. And we could have marchd ellSily on. But Presidenl Milafevit said, among olhtT thinp, lhat tilt must stop. Alld that was the ordtT.from tht dtftnu minisltT aruiI juS! obeyed. We prolected fht Serb artas, and that's whtTe the liru is Jxre today.

Ad1it, the Yugoslav General who had pressed for the use whelming force to keep Slovenia in the federation, was still keep something resembling the old Yugoslavia together. He was ed again by MiloieviC, now firmly in control of the rump

Presidency. By now, [he collective Head of State consisted its - three from Serbia, the fourrh from M,mt'n'� ',

�

On 24 November, one week after the fall of Vukovar, addressed a panic·stricken Croatian nation on television. He

Croatia had succeeded in 'internationalising' the conflict and that war was not, despite the claims of those who were plotting a . he overthrow the Croatian Government, a lost begun the war against the largest Communist Army in

virtually nothing, and had succeeded in building strong while. at the same time, pursuing successful diplomatic In fact, two things had happened during the First. Croatia, having begun the war largely ,o6

DIRTY WAR'

had appointed General Antun Tus to take ugus�" Tudjman .,.ny. In A Tus had been dismissed . As a Croat, orces f ed ' ,-m . f Croanas In three momhs, he May. In Force Air Federal the derof C mman of volunteers and reserve assembly chaotic g-b'g a ra . L • ...1 tumed" "... disciplined fighting force. When he had taken commto men ' . d of a Nationa _Iice l Guard of . ,...,. Croatian armed forces conSiste e th d, n . ma By orce. f police October, reserve large wgetber with a . (our bngades, ' e a system f Into thury-fiv a orces f available . 'mbled all . . ' Tus had ass B D y function. ecember, he It l mi specific ary . des, each with a briga . ' ed, across 000 fighting men under arms, orgamz claimed to have 250 . ades brig y . , . . the republic, in sixt . ractlc, mhented from TudJrnans former At the slime time, th� of blockading barracks, had yielded Defence Minister Marrin Spegclj, reward. In September, the surrender of the Varazdin garrison had pro· vided Tus with the hardware to form his first tank brigade. Soon,]NA

_° .. °

prrisons were falling to Croatian forces like dominoes. At the end of September, Tudjman had claimed that seventy JNA installations ranging from full garrisons to arms and ammunition stores - had &Den to his forces. The evidence, despite PaniC's confident llsserrion that he could have been in Zagreb in forty-eight hours, is that Mil
bad won all theywere capable ofwinning ,vithout an endlessly bloody and costly con£l.ict. At the same time, there were importantJNA victories that gave ter ritorial cohesion to the new Serb emity in Croatia. In September, the JNA took Petrinja, a town that had had a population that was half Serb and half·Croat before the war. The fall of Petrinja redrew the . �nher of.the S �rbian Krajina along the natural barrier of the Kupa River, and Just t hlfty·five miles from Zagreb. (Serb forces then turned . guns, unsuccessfully, on the neighbouring and larger town of Sisak, which the Croats manag ed to hold throughout the war) And ha owed by the fall of Vukovar, the JNA pushed the Cr ats ou . the un), thus forgmg what proved to be a vital land·bridge between � largest Serb enclaves in Croatia - that of Knin Knjin a and the -tory around Glina in central Croatia. secondly " ' cIaIm ' l ' Tud'Jmans to have 'InternationalIzed the war was just i 6 d n ate Novem r, MiloS"evic agreed to [he deployme nt of lntem na peace·keepmg troops in Croatia. He did this largely because e : o s were to be deployed on his , in a way that was consistent �ntral ar aim, which was the partiti � on of Croatia lnto Serb. d.� oat entities, the redrawing of borders between

�lt

:;;�

�

�

:ti�

/

:� :� :

�

;

THE EXPLOSION OF'WAR

Croatia and Yugoslavia, and the eventual secession, by the S,rl>-_

14

ulated territories in Croatia, to the rump Yugoslav federation. i end of the year, Tudjman had won his country's ndependence.

��

1 The twO events might, indeed, be connected. There is that Kadijevic's secret trip to Moscow in Mar�h h 'd� ih �;m ,o �� would only be silf"e for the JNA to launch a :�� : Yugoslavia, ona Gorbachev had been deposed a nd , the Kremlin who would block any western attempt to oppose 2 AP, 20 August, 1991. 3 Although Vukovar had been subjected to sporadic shelling since J� 4 Although weeks of protraCted local negotiations had taken place, relations had been relatively Wolrm, Ta�ic finally left under the auspices EC-brokered ceasefire deal that applied to the republic as a whole. Chapter Fourteen of this book: Yugoslavia a fa writ. S AP, 19 September, 1991. 6 Many had no idea where they were going. AP quoted one when asked where the tanks were going, replied 'I don't know ' beat the Croats', 7 According to the 1991 census,. V,dro= WI" ,,3.;' P''' " m C,""" .,d37� per cent Serb, S The records were kept by the hospital d l� = �o' V' ' " ' �� ; �: credible because of their disionate precise they are modest claims given the inrensity and . They also conflict sharply with the dramatic and exaggerated l ported by Croatian television. 9 Tanjug, S November, 1991. 10 The of Tudjman's encounter with Dedakovit is recalled

':;' �Z��

��2:3�:::�

Mesic, to whom Dedakovic also spoke. 11 The Indrpendent, 22 November, 1991. 12 Dubrovnik was 82.5 per ant Croat, and 6.7 per cent Serb. 13 For a graphic oflife under siege in Dubrovnik, see Mec PfYjudiu and Plum Brandy, Michael Joseph, umdon, 1993. 14 The destruction of the harbour area provided some of

graphic television oovera� of the war in Croatia. It was captured by respondent, Paul Davis, and his Colmeraman, Nigel Thomson. It did shift the climate of international public opinion against the Yugoslav

and the Serb leadership, 15 Daily Tdrgraph, 13 November, 1991 16 Gvero said Ihis 10 Michael Montgomery, a reporter then with the

Telegraph,

17 The Macedonian representative, Vasil Tupurkovski, slOppc:d Federal Presidency sessions during the Croatian war, as did Bog;t the member for Bosnia Herzegovina.

A LA

CARTE Plan on's ingt Carr Lord September 1991-Januory 1992

yUGOSLAVIA

was a victory that was far from complete. The war had left a his country under occupation. And it had almost cut Croatia in

Carrington took on the task of br�nging pe�ce hen ord Councli of ForeIgn to Yugoslavia, the President of the EC work towards a compreto him . . rs, Hans van den Brock, told Min iste . ' h accepted C ' arrmgton . s mont two . settlement 'withlD benslve pc,ce B roek's en that remark van to later d was , and the ' b n those be ould tion disinte via's Yugosla of � � at the problemS . . , retrospect, ,ab olutel nd,cul sl a o�s ID was, y �n � � RIOlved so quickl , It be gOlDg t to was difficul how of t ignoran tty e r p that 'we were all a ith aristocrat w English likeable and urbane an is Carrington to whom, in dass man a him, behind career ic diplomat hed distinguis conscious Britain, the word 'statesman' naturally attaches itself.

W

L

beli��

He had been Mrs Thatcher's first Foreign Secretary and had taken most of the credit for steering the former British colony of Rhodesia out of civil war and into independence as Zimbabwe in 1980. Two years later, he took personal responsibility for failing to prevent the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands and resigned

&om the Cabinet, relinquishing, on a point of principle, the job,

which, for most of his life, he had most coveted. The political obituaries of the day declared him a man of unimpeachable integrity. He went on to serve a term as Secretary General of NATO an d 'WU now enjoying semi-retirement as Chairman of Christie's, the �don auction house. From the beginning, Carrington's involvement 1ft th� Yugoslav conflict had about it the feci of the part-time amateur; he. did no� �ve up his day-job. In keeping with van den Brock's RllVe con Vlc:r lon that a constirutional future for Yugoslavia could be , rd w It h in the time-frame of his own six-momh Presidency of

D

:mm�nity. Lord

Carrington divided his time between the

_ Ufo �Pltal. and the gilded opulence of Christie's West End on rooms.

�wi�n

arringto� convened his first session at the Hague on 7 September. . cn.mon ious gathering, He recognized, after his first meet ;, u� �man and Milo�evic, that, in the absence of an internationa . lly-brOr..t:red , . _.I.l constirutlOna 1 agreement, the two largest nations . �"""IU try to 1mpose a so1utlon . on the rest ofYugoslavia by force:

It i ng

"'9

CARTE YUGOSLAVIA A LA


Whm Ifir!! talked to PwidmlJ Tudjman and Milofroit il . .... . ih qUltl (lIar 10 ml Ihal both oj thlm had a solulion whc mUlual1y salisfactory, which 'Wa.s thai thlY Wtrl going 10 up hltwun fhlm. Thty W(fl going to corot Bosnia up. The [arIas] wouldgo to Strbia, tlu Croat [arttu] 10 Croalia. And IINy weren't worrild 100 much, lilhtr ofIhem, about whal was goin 10 happtn 10 Ihl MUllims. And Ihty didn't rtally mind aho

� corw

s:.�

SIO'f)(nia.

.

;

Slovenia already had d,/aclo independence; neither the Serbs the Croats were concerned about the consequences of Carrington knew what that meant: to try to put Yugoslavia together again would be, by now, to shut the stahle door after horse had bolted. So. he began from the assumption that had already broken apart. But. very early, he also saw the of immediate recognition of Siovenian and Croatian He insisted that independence should not be Yugoslav-wide constimtional settlement had been acceptable to all the repuhli�. In this single respect for all that he appeared semi-detached and only to the project, came closer to producing a constitutional which might have facilitated the peaceful dissolution of - or at least a less bloody dissolution - than any of those after him. Carrington picked up where the failed hetbegovic-Gligorov had left off: he recognized the six republics as the constiment units each the former federal state, and produced a Plan that would them as much sovereignty as it wanted. It was, as it, an attempt to draw up foreign policy, economic affairs, a common currency, defence, on. Each republic would choose which institutions it would pate in.

It ulmtd to ml that Ihl right way to do it was to aI/ow lhou who wanltd to bl indlpmdml to bl indlptndtn/, and to lIJJociPlt themsl/wS wilh a unlral organization asfar as lhey wanttd 10. Thosl who didn't wanl 10 bl indepmdmt, wdl, Ihry could Sla] within whal had been Yugoslavia. In othtr words you could do ii, so to .speak, a la carte.

But what became known as the Carrington Plan failed for the

that - . It.

�t

the

ov Plan failed: Milo�evic was

ligor Zetbegovic-G 1·

achieved what he thought was a breakbe Carrington and Milo��vic together, a10ng .",?th the .. . ro ght Tudjm� y agreed to diVde the ister VelJk KadlJeVic. The �Defence Min twO work�ing groups: the first, and more .'Imporfedetalcomreren,....e into . -a: ry; 0 work on the constitutIOnal future f the count would , ese a;d r-t of th · · g aboUI an end to the b nngm on ntrate conce . d Would .-:I the seeon nng, had esca . a which since .the 7 September gathe . Croati tn g . � bn meetmg, all preseO[ agreed three pOlnt� 0f clrtmarically. At that proceed. According . . 1 which the peace conference would pPl!op e, from . . . minutes, these we� . CO the session alliance of sovere.ign or mdependent or tion associa loose a n O 4.

��

�

.

�

'

A.

..pui>fi". be made for the protection of comB. adequate arrangements to guarantees and possibly s�cial sta rights human munities, including s. area ain lUI for cert C. no unilateral changes in borders. It seemed that MilokviC had at last, under international pressure, .greed that the republi�, and not the nations, were the legitimate Q)QItiruent units of federal Yugoslavia. Four days later, the working groups went into session. The task of Ihe working group on institutional relations was to find areas of com mon interest, around which pan-Yugoslav institutions could be built. The di$CUssion immediately reverted to the sterile exchanges that had dominated the Presidential summits of the spring and summer of that JICU. 1!'e minute of that session recorded: 'The basic position of Sloverua was ro accept only very limited common institutional urangement'. Croatia was prepared to co-operate in many areas, but . only on � lOt�r-governmemai basis - in other words, provided such �ratJon did not compromise its independence. Both these posi � ��e uncompromising. But they were not, in themselves, incon ��t With Lord Carrington's a la carte design for Yugoslavia. Serbia's . poIItlon was. The mmut es recorded the following: •

•

SnbiQ could n°t QC(�t fhI .L · groups contmumg " proc((d wofl
THE EXPLOSION or WAR little more than

interstate

relations. If this was n"

;:�:�� :

f

tht othrr rtpublics, tht right (ourst would bt to rl�: rtpuhlics wishing it [indtptndtnct), after having settled

question of the succession of Yugoslavia and after agreed on border changes. (Emphasis,

predominated; it also wanted to be considered the sole successor state to the old federal republic. Agreeing to a volun'

�"

Carrington none the less persevered. By the middI" ,fl:Jc,oI.."

war in Croatia was now unrestrained (see previous Carrington was under growing criticism for his eagerness to

�:;:':�� I��:i;.�:��

the destruction of Vukovar and the si�ge and Dubrovnik. On 16 October, Carrington distributed to the leaders a detailed seven-page proposal entitled A'7ang"m'�h

Grntral Settltmrnt.

.. The Carrington Plan was overshadowed by the unfoldi"g .,f ' Bosnia and the intervention of the United Nations. But

greater recognition for what it tried to achieve, not least stands as testimony to the extent to which the international

nity and the other republics were prepared to go to meet Serb . eties and aspirations. The Plan guaranteed a ,vide cultural and political rights to the Serbs outside

Croatia and Bosnia where they formed a majority, the Serbs under the Hague proposal, entitled to use the national emblems

£lags of their choice, the right to a second nationality,tly hdd that of the republic to which they belonged, and an education .. ,h,,,. , which 'respects the values and needs' of the Serbs.

granted the right to their own parliament, their

:��X��t

ownn

structure, including a regional police force, and their

4

�.

orher words. Serbia not only wanted to annex those Croatia (and, by implication, Bosnia-Herzegovina)

In

mon ground with those who had ordered

. . lg the first and most fundamental ...as reJectil a � that Serbi Plan. .. gton ...... °f the Carnn October and 18 October to make berwC(:n d ene ha clue to his thinking came from the One ppge his mind? . cha n . Rupel, who observed that the rij Dimit nister I I!'--te Foreign M' tiro Serb'Ia ""' not the ssion of the d�lcgates . � . . . _ orreatest . obse , but the natJonal mmontles Withm thelr own � .. of .. .... o--Croana at all . . ...K The ,ticular, the status of the Albamans ill osovo. �' a nd, m p a . e f�ut laVia ugos Y ugho thro equally . on Plan applied . ia also, of III Croat w� erbs S the to d g autonomy grante . g of group the workin one g Dunn ians. ...,. granted to the Alban .-. republics' Foreign Ministers, Rupel had, _ons, � II." onded by the . ' one I n't concern SIovema f since It dOd mischie of largely for the sake . : tion vo ques Koso the d raise r, wq or the othe

�

by authon.)

solution would thwart both ambitions.

YUGOSLAVIA A LA CARTE

0'

It did not satisfy Milokvi�. When the Presidents of reconvened in the Hague on 18 October, Carrington began by

each of the republics' Presidents in turn whether they accepted . graph one ofArrangemtntsfor a General Stttlemtnt. Milo�evi� . did not. Lord Carrington asked whether this meant that Serbia changed its position since the meeting twO weeks earlier.

Milo�eviC had agreed to the three points of principle. Mil"'''

. Th

�

•

Tht only thing that really bothtr'td the Ser�s �n Tht Hagut was tlx queltion ifKosovo. I" olle ifthe (om mISSIOns they ltarttd to ts/I. about how to regulaff theprOblem ofminoritiel, the Srrbian ".in/wity in Croatia -at that time it was only Croatia under dis nwion -andhowpain/ul it waJfor them, tIN Strbs, to /iw under Croatian rolt. Thm, 1said, we should delign in thil new arrange mtnt tqual rightsfor all millori/i(l, inclllding tht Albanians, ha. J()f)QnO'lJit [the Serbian foreign Miniurrj really got mad, that W/U rrally somahing I lhouldn't haw laid. It was the end of OIJrfriendship.

Milokvit had risen to power by exploiting the plight of the KO$oVO

�; he had cemented his power by centralizing the state, and abol

iIbing the autonomy that the constitution gave to Kosovo. By . ctendi�g to the Albanians the same rights that Mila;eviC was cleJmndlllg for the Serbs of Croatia, the Carringto n Plan struck at the undations ofMila;cviC's power base. He could not accept it, and, fOr . ng that the price of doing so was growing international isolation ;s �public, Mi l a;evi� stood alone against the Carrington Plan. loyale h d not expected to be alone. He had counted on the slavish ° Serbia's ally Montenegro. The surprise of the 18 October on Was the poSltJon . . adopted by Montenegrin President Momir D... OVi. utUat c. The sesSI' n had bccn delayed by more than an hour � beca� o f h'IS lat arnV'.I.I: he had been attending an all-night session � oftho Montene '" ' ". m ParIlament - of the , convened to d iSCUSS the merits Camngton Plan. The ",pI- P..... lament had deCI-ded not to take a poslhon

1974

= : � _ty

"3

YUGOSLAVIA A LA CARTE

THE EXPLOslON OF WAR

on the Carrington Plan, but rather to leave the decision in the �f Bulatovic personally2. When his rum to speak came, including Carrington and Milo�evic, expected Bulatovic ,iom"lYl;': low the Milokvic line: Montenegro had been reduced to than a satellite of Serbia since MiloseviC's 'anti�bureaucratic tion' had installed Bu1atoviC's pro-Belgrade regime in power Bu1atovic dropped a bombshell. He said simply: 'I accept the of the Hague proposal.' Mi1o�eviC's claim that the Serbs formed the legitimate state to federal Yugoslavia rested on the assumption that a eration would survive the secession of those republics which leave. He had taken for granted the loyalty of Montenegro, public opinion was known to be strongly pro-Mil�eviC. Montenegro, Serbia's claim to be the sole legitimate successor could not be sustained; there could, by defmition, be no nunp r..llo Yugoslavia unless there was at least a second republic with federate. Bulatovit's rebellion left Milo�evic and Serbia Bulatovic's for the Carrington Plan shocked and angered equally, it shocked and delighted the other Presidents around table. Bu1atovic said the Carrington Plan represented the ""'<ella of ending the war and of redeeming his republic's damaged tional reputation: w� thought th�plan was quite enough. It made itpossiblefor us ttl realiu ourown intemft andto have the intereSll ofthe othm . takm into . It was an excdltnt means toput an md to lbe war, a war which afficted us also in Montenegro, because 10 per unl of our population was mobiliudfor that war. I had hem under enormous pressure. During a visit to the Unittd States, t'!? had treated me there as a savage who is this person whose n/J uns are attack.ing and deitroying Dubrovnikf Wt never IIUdtti Dubrovnik. ami, really, we could 110 longer allow ourselves to haw . our people die in 'tIain, to have Montenegro acqUIre Il1I unftlVDurahle international uputation. �

Bulatovic had, in fact, been tempted away from the Bel�. by the lure of EC money. The lralian Foreign Minister, �laruu Michdis had once asked Stipe Mesic. Croatia's representanve Federal Presidency, how Montenegro could be coaxed away .. loyalty to Belgrade? 'Buy them! Buy them!' Mesit had lchdit won't cost much they have nothing down there.' De M �

�

W;� �

latoviC an EC development-package amount ��sed . h B it and oUars. De Michclis sat between Milos�v millions 0 S . But good speaks Enghsh ic MiloSev r; 18 Octobe s: hcli De Mic to ing ord Acc . JuIttoYit speales 1talian enct I aslud to mut Bulat()'tlit briifly, 'J'r 0; fix (onl'e a..r.- lhe start ,r o,r . U I insisted thai Montentgro a.dopt a posttton J rY, Id UIC ed q A al -_ t t e , d h h e at was mterest told mt that he J and Bulatavic ;a (11Jn egro that was me Monten did. He told 'd tf,O IhaI Andso ht . r011 the other halld he was VJ'nI interested and �a" ... _, In d '-.1 . flTtJtt ,. rtlations with the Europtan Commumty. 'evtlo"mmt 0 d r in tttmOnltts no/ural channel to Europt. He considered Italy Montrntgro tions for the proxr:amme of ntgolia wert AI lhal time theu M (ln� y Ital i belWttn �n/�negro. . An 'm.porlanl on (tt-of"tlt m varIOUS proJects, for IlTt ,oll bill 40 Dr 30 about �mme, Montenegro, a country of600 000 inhabitanlS. 0

0

•

Carrington was warned by many not to set much store on ....toVit's rebellion against Milokvic. 'Bulatovic will have his throat cut for this', someone in the hall commented. Henri Wejnaendts. the Ducd1 ambassador to . who was Carrington's aide, later claimed 110 haw: had a conversation with Milo�evit in a gents' toilet where Milolevic had contemptuously dismissed Bulatovit's rebellion. 'Bulatovic,' he told Wejnaendts. 'will not stay President of Montenegro for longl.' The next day, Bulatovic came under a volley of political nre. The Belgrade press accused him of treachery. Serbian newspapers were full ofaitical headlines - a warning that MilokviC would not spare even Montenegrin brethren. Opinion in Montenegro, as far as it could be appeared to turn sharply against him. There were demonstra1iOnI In Podgorica. MilokviC's travelling 'Anti-Bureaucratic revolution' � to the road again. Bulatov ic was summoned to Belgrade for a tenes of meetings designed to break his will to resist.

�,

A � ofenormous attach came on my htad tifter I accepted the CArrington plan. T�e was a series ofunp leasant meetings ill Belgrade. Tht enlire J'rels n Belgrade label led me a traitor. And some [ofMilafevii:S men Would directl y ask me whether I was a spy, wheth I had . er 'WtI1Jed monryfiom a fiomgn country. The next days were very . e:rplO·S/tie. TIN media 'WOuld say I stabbed MilofMlir in the back.

/

0

CARTE YUGOSLAVIA A U


Bulatovic was finally forced to agree to a referendum On He knew he was bound to lose. Montenegro, brow-beaten mission by a Serb bandwagon that would certainly have COSt

his job, had he continued to resist,ed Serbia in backing an ment w the Carrington Plan that rccognized [he ,,"""0;' of

imate successor state, consisting of those territories which choose secession. On 30 October, Serbia and Montenegro sent their ,m"ndn..

the Hague, insisting that a clause be inserted in paragraph

ing that the federal republic of Yugoslavia continue to exist who did not wish to secede. The Serb-Montenegrin om,,�tIoi amounted to an outright rejection. Jt \'VaS strengthened by the Montenegro's referendum, at the end of October. In responac question asking whether Montenegro should stay in Yugoslavia

\'VaS,

predictably, an overwhdming vote in favour.

Carrington declared that the amendment was 'totally

able'. He saw in it MiloseviC's ambition to carve out a new entity, comprised of Serb-populated areas in Croatia and He said:

!��'h::a'�

[ think it all tame down as usual to hadtome to the conclusion that Grrater

.h�'��;::�

was important, and that ifhe agreed to (hapter which was Croatia grtting their independence, and Bosnia '

��:�:�r:

E

wing impatience and irriration with the . whose gro disguise. Vance, a former US Secretary ; , longer ; o � her th,n aga�nst, LO� d �ide, ratffi alon work I promised to Id somethmg to 0 er that camngton d va ce had But "n O O O't ,"--on force. peace-keeping a international troops to be deployed for . ed appeal ..-h d wanted '�lue he�mets' deployed along he beginning.. It , as always, played a with Serbia and Bosma. Serbia � CroIbl,5 bo d n of hand �he very out te reje men iC's � � publiC, Milo�ev . I was an mtemal nslsted they what in on ign interventi . f ent could be oreign deploym f that saw they atter. In private, . It was a question of choosing the right advantage their med Cf!Us Vao�e to Belgrade and, in �ovember, moment. They welco in the mternatiOnal peace process shifted from gravity of the centre to the UN. Milokvit had decided the previous month to it UN troops. 'Ihe right moment came at the end ofNovember. Milo�eviC's calcula tioa was two-fold: that the JNA had achieved most of its

�'''''''oN croa:; : m : ;0 � � �I� m :d� .. EC

alituy objective in IIoriAv Jo';',

At thtJt point the war in Croatia was undtr (ontrol in the sen1/' thou all the Serb territorin were under our (ontro/' all, Ihat is, e«tpt wltral Siavonia. Slobodan and I after many conversations tkriJed now was the time to get the UN troops into Croatia to protret the Serbs there. WI' saw the danger - when Croatia would In rreogniud, which we realiud would happen, the JNA would

wanted it, t/xn thil would not be pOlliblefor him. Ol);""";" / don� think thrrt was any conuivable reason bnauJe none arguments about the rrtenlion o/"Yugos/avia made Jtnse.

IN regamtd as Qforeign army invading anothrr country. IMd betterget the UN troops in early to protect the Serbs.

The peace process never got beyond that fundamental

block. Gradually, imernational public opinion turned against Though Milosevic was not yet widely seen as the instigator of,

guiding hand in, the war, he was now identified as the main

to peace. On 8 November, an EC summit in Rome ""","om'" trade sanctions against Yugoslavia, including an oil embargo. the Foreign Ministers were determinedly even-handed: EC would apply to the whole country and all sides but they were

�;<::�:��;

be lifted for all republics except for Serbia and cnd of November, international dissatisfaction with Lord progress had produced a muhi-track peace process that

could tum to his advantage: Cyrus Vance entered tbe fray " rho· � sponsored peace-maker, appointed by Secretary General ,,6

Croatia; and that international recognition of

Croatia's independence was now a maner ofweeks away. According to

So we

, In�mational mediatio n was now moving in three distinct direc Carrin�on's Hague conference, to which aU parties were JIfthen . Y commItted, and which stressed the importance of a com d p slv::' ttle�ent for all p ts of the country; Cyrus Vance's plan . � "' . ps III Croatia wh '" e Ioy. ich enVIsaged a UN-mediated solution Ctoalla alone and wh'IC h dOd I not address the other republics; and • "':-1 -u, COm. mg from , n°...w and 0Illcn::asmg 0 Iy confident player on the llti lterna O al tage Chancellor Helmut Kohl of recently-reunified y. , s to borrow Lord Carrington's own meraphor, � _ onil! med i ation a. la (arte. Each of the parties to the conflict

�� •

�

�

,,?-s �

"7

yUGOSLAVIA A U CARTE


was presented \vith a menu of peace processes from whi ch to Bosnia and Macedonia continued to place their faith in Carrington; Serbia favoured the United Nations and its envoy, Vance; Croatia was under the wing of . In early December the pace of events shifted up a gear. visited Bonn and met both Kohl and 's Foreign Hans Dietrich Genscher. Public opinion in had strongly anti-Serbian from the beginning. The German news had given prominence to the Yugoslav conflict throughout. considered itself the European country most intimately ,vith Yugoslavia. It had a large Yugo.;I'" g,u""h"il�' ")m'muru�, � powerful Croatian lobby. Tudjrnan returned to Zagreb ", .... , vinced that was his country's saviour. He told C" vision that 'has no hesitation about its decision to Croatian independence'4. Two days later, Vance's work in Belgrade bore fruit. The announced, had agreed the basis on which a could be prepared. Croatia, buoyed by 's a: nent recognition, had dropped its demand for UN troops deployed along its borders; Serbia had dropped its oPIp"'itiol foreign intervention. Both sides had agreed to what Vance 'ink-spot' deployment - UN troops taking control of a nu,nb" ,. puted territories to be agreed by both sides. Mil�eviC ,oJ,rub" with good reason - that a UN-protected ceaseHre would existing lines ofconfrontation, which would, in ,i,ne, ,"m,,�o,�1b selves naturally into new, defacto, international borders. But had to persuade Croatia's Serbs to accept it.

UN":;:�;�:�7:

had been pushing for recognition ofCroatian ,n'"'''''' independence for months. This fuelled Serb paranoia �bout ambitions in the region. Veljko Kadijevic, Branko Kos�c and JoviC all talked menacingly about the rise of a Fourth K:i German drag narh OJltn. There is no evidence that the more calculating Milo�vic shared their anxieties. But he them whenever it suited his purposes. By the end of November, the destruction of Vukovar, the . ment of half-a-million Croats and 230 000 Serbs from thelf the occupation of almost a third of Croatian territory by Serb lars and the lNA, and the apparently pointless vindictive bombardment of Dubrovnik, pushed German public opinion edge. To Bonn, Lord Carrington's peace efforts - stalemated

�:p::;�

rMito�evic's intransigence - began to look like ntn because 0 y 100 m " ,"" .01 r: r m . ac..";on. The arms embargo Imposed b the UN screen lo . had ia former YugoslaV all against er • .,.okeSeptemb it on 26 &oc:wit)' ounc military superiority. (Bosnia was to preserve their huge ,,- _1 ..--1 them ' ) n even more than eroana. resolutio this of ffects DPt"""': o the e tD luffe! fr rn for international policy. a dilemma pose would bargo 1 ..- this. em ........ I the West was not ready rnment would argue that 'r gove man . Bos . -. ' , then they should at least allow them to get arms. .J- fend BOSOIa h'l ' CO gil:' S ed in favour of lifting the embargo, w. I e EU countries 1'be U other agamst. When were ground, the on Ia, ·th trOOps .. RUSS� WI notably Britain and the United States - argued that premost IIIlC$ ' _ I opinIon 'cion would de-rail the peace process, poli t1Ciil ....nm: recogOl co was m te ous. Bonn partles, mam three all � PI Gcnnany, across �� d de-ra�e had dy - by rea iU been process peace the that . Genscher was convinced that recognition would halt ;s military advance through Croatia, and t at Milo�evic was . continuing to take part in a peace process c h�� no IOtentlOo ofhon task. Three years in order to buy time to complete hiS ffi l hta ry t: unrepentan Genscher was

.

C

.

•

-zued BeIgrad BeIgrad�

�

ouring liter

•

.

�

This was obvious rightfrom Ihe starl. II was obvio/l.S lhat they WQnltd to use the nego/jations only to mhanu their situation hy ",iiitaryforus. I rame to this opinion '/)try quickly the Serh lead mhip wanud to gain time, in order to conlinue their military IUliom, and to alhiroe their military goals... It hecame more and more rlear that afurther delay ofrecognition would (onstitute an mrouragemmt to (ontinut the war.

resolved to force the issue at the forthcoming EC �gn Ministers meeting in Brussels on 15 and 16 December .
� r�ogni

I'rocesn � �

"9

yUGOSLAVIA A fA CARTE

THE EXPLOSION OF' WAR

astonishment and irritation - did not even send its senior Minister Douglas Hurd to the summit. His deputy, Douglas went in his place. It was a signal that Britain had decided not up more man a token fight. Lord Carrington also attended the summit. He warned
I said vrry strongly lhal Ifilt that the timing ofthis was wrong. Ipoinltd out that tarly recognition would torpedo the conftrmcl.

There was no way in which the conftrence would continue aJttr that, It would make no ume af all. And that ifthey recognized Croatia and Sll)'I)Cn;a then they would have to ask all tIM othm WMther they wanltd their independence. And that if they aslwl the Bosnians wlMtlMr tlMy wanted their independence, lhey inroitahly wouldhave to sayyes, andthat this would mean a civil war [in Bosnia]. And Ipllt this as strongly as Ipossihly cOllld

��:

The meeting lasted most of the night, with buUd<";" the other eleven towards recognition. In the end mise was reached that swept away what was left of Lord peace conference and the carefully laid legalisti plans that been drawing up to consider applications for independence, On morning of17 December, the eleven succumbed to :�:t:�>O�,7 : all :;:': an ultimarum from and agreed to invite republics who wanted to apply for recognition to do so within applications had to be submitted by 24 December. These would be considered by a five-member Arbitration Commission, under chairmanship of Judge Robert Badinter of Fl1lnce. The, �::: Commission, as it became known, had been appointed in l'I to draw up a set of conditions which each republic would have to isty before being granted EC recognition. The Commission Wall report its findings on 15 January. Even this compromise did not satisty Genscher. Croatla. was means certain to quality for recognition under the Badinter c

seeking indepenostceminly demand that republics . .. _ . romontl ' ,..bich would alm c national cs, and lor n protectio e have adequat of its own frontiers. So Genscher made � should te control . 0f the Bad"mterit delTlonstranY fmdmgs the regard .,wd not ould errn� " �v cIieaI' that. G g, and that intended to proceed, uni0n 'SSI as bmdI I ComITl 'th recog",· tion, whatever the outcome. Genscher seemed ,� _lIy W1 Croatian independence a jatt. accomp'" by JIlQ- i.' ed to make he had driven a coach-and-horses through the � ChristmOas. T<0 d0 so'.,ocess , and rendered the .deliberations of the .......;ngton peace p of little more than academiC value. He got what """':" ��r Commission sing a new song: Danlu Deul!lhland. In lO _.J Croats began ,.m wanteu. be . a popu Cale e on the 0Id City quays! "d " ar 1 �' " Split, of city me Adriatic port . Chanc�ll Kohl Genscher r Cafe to name its � waterfront changed . declared it a 'great triumph for German foreign policy . Lord Carrington was furious: t

me that there was no point in continuing with the a fter that. When two cOllntnes had got their indepen crmference dence, lhey had nofurther interest in the proceedings, and I don't mppost tIM Srrhs had mll(h inumt in it eithrr. The only incentive tot' had to get anybod y fo agrll' to anything was the ultimau rteognition oftluir indepmdtnce. Otherwise there was no carrot. Youjust threw it away,just liRe thai. II seemtd to

Two days.later a defeated Lord Carrington took to the road again, visiting each of the main capitals in the country. Bosnia, which had consistently cautioned against early recognition of Croatia and Slcwenia, now caught in the dilemma it had most feared: its choice was now to Slovenia and Croatia in seeking independence and, by so dOing, risk provoking civil war against its own Serbs, or to *>'

,.

was

tn51de a rump ia dominated by Serbia and, by so doing, � the same fate,Yugoslav ultimate ly, as Kosovo, Vojvodina and Montenegro which had been brought under the te control of Belgrade. J.I!:. � rep. ublics applied - Sloveniacomple , Croatia , Macedonia and Bosnia _ a. ��en the Badinter Commission ;.;;c.cguvtn submitted its report in . new year, It did ,"deed impose conditi Croatia could not ons that !be,et 1t recomme nded that only Slove . nia Mac and edon ia be granted . � t!�n. !he EC ignored it. Croatia got its indepe ndence. � orua did not. Its recog nition was vetoe d Gree by who ob ce to th: �ame of the country on the groun that ritorw amb ds i�plie it ter d itIOn towards Greece's northern province of the same� own

yUGOSLAVIA A LA CARTE


name. Thus the EC's first confident experiment in common policy-making ended in shambles, the Com unity's own formulated legal and diplomatic mechanisms shot down by fashioned political expediency.

m

The United States did not the EC in

Scowcrofr and Lawrence Eaglcburger, . had not done more to restrain German abortive mission to Belgrade, six months earlier, the

and that it should be left to the Europeans who had, in any to the challenge with enthusiasm and naive optimism.

��

Milo�eviC agreed to the deployment of UN troops in because he saw, in it, a way of achieving what he wanted solidation of his military gains in Croatia. He now ; unexpected obstacle - a rebellion from within the

� �:; �

Krajina Serbs, a leadership which he had nurtured a nd which now, for the first time that mattered, refused to do h is

The Vance Plan, which had been unveiled during the last

weeks of 1991, called for the setting up of three areas to be

d

United Nations Protected Areas - or UNPAs. These woul roughly with the three chunks of territory held by Serb =,j." � forces. Upwards of 10 000 UN troops would be deployed UNPAs, for the protection of the people there. In return, the ' would withdraw entirely from Croatia, and the Serb would be disbanded and disarmed, surrendering their weapons to the JNA before withdrawal, or, if they preferred, to the UN

who would store them, inract, at locations inside the UNPAs.

sides would agree to a ceasefire that would, in effect, freeze the ing from-lines. The United Nations Protection Force (or FOR, as it was to be known) would therefore form a thin blue separating the Serb-held areas from the rest of the republiC. The also contained a provision for the rerum of all refugees to The leader of the Krajina Serbs, Milan Babic, set his face

the Vance Plan from the beginning. He now found himself in conflict with Milo�evic. For Babic, the war had been waged the right of the Serbs in Krajina to stay in Yugoslavia. The the single most visible symbol, and most potent guarantor, sovereignty in Krajina, Withdrawal of the JNA looked to him

e

•

tlY\dg

James Baker, had determined that this was not an American

aim.

�ys

Jlrelide}ncy NA,.;:';��

Croatia. President Bush's leading foreign

betrayal of his most fundamental war

. the peace', Babic argued that h war and lose to 'Wln t e to repeat the pattern. . to force the Krajina Serbs . waS t 'Y'ng Babic. Babic was break to Y, Milo�evic resolved. nua' nd ofJ a lav Federal At the e the Yugos with g Beigrade for a meetin , oned to High the Command en), placem loyal Mjlo�evic all ,..rnrn eviC's men MilOS: Serbs. an Bosni the of leaders ( " the the rump on ent tive repres 's Serbia Jovic � to reassure. III the event of a that guarantee a Babit IIeP' .-I PreSI ency _ gave _-=a.by ... ...... .to defend the the JNA would redeploy , anack 0n I("J'ina, �rian . cr -ed a resolutIOn to thiS eueet. ncy Preside l Federa The h if that Bosnia seceded not budge. He argued, in turn, i y announced had recentl as the Bosnian Government ",," Y"gosIavia v . ·· · · Irect th no d s S b er WI lOa J l'U
:::;:!

In the Serb n:

minds t, it had been the historic misfonune of the warrior �

��t�d .

d·> '0

•

0

�

came

Bomia's war later that year - was raised as a vital issue.

It 2ppeared to }ovic that the Krajina Serbs were afraid of an Yugoslavia iadependent Bosnia and that theywould be cut off the Bosnian that aDd vulnen.ble to a Croat attack. So Jovit made clear Sat. were committed to doing the same thing as the Croatian Serbs, so would never be cut off. In other words, the corridor would

from

Ilways exist.

The leaders ofthe Bosnian Serbs

�

Radovan KaradZit and Biljana

PIavIit - were called in to reassure Babic that they had no intention of IIIowing what they considered the Serb territories of Bosnia to leave �via. Should Bosnia go ahead with its independence ecl a tiOn, th y would follow the precedent set by Babic himself and wage

d

e

• WI;f to redraw Bosnia's borders

ar

. In the north-western Bosnian city of BanJ2 Luka, Serbs were the dominant national group. They depended e northern corrid r as much as the Krajina Serbs. The role of the ? :an �er� leaders In the breaking of Babic provides a small but IOslght: Bosnia was already locked into Belgrade's strategic �_-,- . about the redrawn borders of what would become a greater 'ilaDl8J} Srate.

;:,.�

=ng ng �e meeting - .... .au

dragge

d on for seventy hours, Babit being required to . . most of I' t, -.u - ,most Wit hout a break. HIS ers accused

m....- e'S men of Milo&evi applying

old-fashioned sleep·deprivation tech--,-... to break '" BabIC� 1 . After one short interval, Babic kept reso ve the Belgra.d e leadership waitin g for two hours. When he fmally "3


arrived, the JNA Chief of Staff, General Blagoje AdUc, ''''p "", fury. Tempers frayed. Branko KostiC, acting President Yugoslavia, who was chairing the session, takes up the story: Babic's minisfrrfor rrligious affairs 1 can't rtmtmbn- his but he had a long long beard - told Adi:ii {who for somt -

loathed him} 'Shill up. Mr Babic is a Pmidtnt, and (an when ht turns up'. Athit who is Iwo metrts tall and """"/"

up andfaud this littlt ministerfor religion who was beard and mid' 'Shut up or 1 will strang/�Y Y'u � R�ligion Jaid 'OK (omt and Jtranglr m�: � , i

fIIf

;�; :::'�;: :�!:.

towards him andhad10 br slopptd At lhispo,n/ / . II.. u"ht i ,, ";;; .

10 (all a brtak.

Jovic then tried intimidation. He told Bahic: 'If you doo't

this, we will be forced to get Tid ofyou.' Babic knew that ,h,. y••....; secret service was not beyond the occasional tactical

";�::'''�:.�;�

thought struck him - with good reason - that his Milosevic might cost him his ife. l Babic - according to JoviC pale and said: 'What do you mean?' 'Oh, don't worry,' Jom 'We'll do it legally - through the Parliament: Where persuasion and intimidation failed, a combination ieal guile and brute-force succeeded. Milo�eviC's men played in the Krajina Serh leadership. Babit had brought only his

ministers to Belgrade. Milan Martie - the Police Chief Commander of the Krajina Armed Forces - was known to be to the JNA position. Mile Paspalj, the Speaker of the Parliament, was also loyal to Belgrade. Behind BabiC's back Jovic that he endorsed the plan. Acting on instruction, he meeting of the Krajina Parliament in the middle of ".,i�·· Crucially, it was ro take place not in Babit's stronghold "f in Glina. JNA troops mounted roadblocks around the town. refused to recognize the legitimacy of the session, and did not The Parliament voted to dismiss Babic from office and replace

with Goran Hadtic, the secretary of the Vukovar branch of the It also voted to endorse the Vance Plan. Babic declared the Session invalid. But it was tOO late. He successfully marginalized, and had now lost the Belgrade patron. Milokvic publicly denounced Babic in an rer to the mass circulation daily, Vdernje N()'/)o$li. It was a attack on his former ally and the first of many occasions on

I Serbill�I'Dlitt
...

twmty-fWDAlb""i",1S ",," I'WI)polim",."

'wert ki/ld.

RdXrad,', ).m,,,,,y 1091,

5

AfNA,�Id;" tm;",

bi, aWl-ai.r,,,,}:. u'rapOlt all Dllb,,,,,,,ik,

,W/"II'" f99f.

IJ

7 Srr"i"" Jo/dirrs rsrorli"g "'/,llImi CrMti"" prisowrs �f'Wwr "firr th'fofl of Vi';'�I"'r. Nrx.'",n!>,r 1�91.

Cynu V"nrr, UN Iprm"

""VO)', dis(Usus pro,pUII/arp,.,(l v.:irh JUifa]roii, Ip'in,� 199.1_

11 BDJnian Serb ,oldim with t",,lilion,,! Serb (liPS, i/l II" positiomfrom whi,I, Ihq !'a'Vr bDmbardtdSarajl'VOfar th",>'t!lIrs. spring 199-1.

II r:lhni( d"IIII,iug in Hijdji"", IIpn"

1992. IId:"n, Snhparamililaryjighfm ilSUJlJf tl

MIIS!i", mllll. 1)(J'Villg Ihrot"" him 0111 oIIljirst-:/loor 'window.

yUGOSLAVIA A LA CARTE " WOu1d u>< �VI\.

public condemnation to destroy those who dared

. . lenge him uary, all obstacles noW removed, Cyrus Vance formally Febr 12 On General the deployment 0£12 000 to the UN Secretary recorrIlTl ded _keepers. Two days later, UN Security Council Resolution F 1J1'I 3 ", , proposal to send the second largest international 74 endo d · e an "I mtl 1 pcrt' od 0f one year.. ng force ever deployed,lor eepi _k . . to supervise the ccasefire and begm dlsarmmg the Serb thdrawal of the JNA. On 8 March, forces from and oversee the .r more than thi ty nations began to deploy under the Command of 10 ch:U

�;

�was

tia.

\�

�

I�s

mili

General Saush Nambiar of I?dia in four sect�rs of the republic. For reasons that, even at the time, seemed ludicrous, he set up his Command Headquarters in the very eye of the coming storm - at Sarajevo. In less then a month, the new stOrm broke, over Bosnia.

1 Arrangementsfor II Gmeflll Srt/lement, paragraph 2.5. 2 The Serbian parliament. in a dosed session, rejected [he Carrington

Pkn, 3 Henri Wejnaendts says in his book L'Engrenag( ChroniqufS YougoJlaves: jlliJ/d 1991-Aout 1992 (Editions Deno;:\. Paris, 1993) that the brief conver Iltion took place in a gems' toilet. Milo�evic denied it, as did other ol the Serb dcleg1lrion. '" AP, 6 December, 1991.

/6 (RiXht) K
romm/md.·, oflh" Homill" S�rhP,',,·s. rrl'i"u;i,W ,hr;'-

11,(1,,1111<'1 in Op�'(ltitn Gom!:.lf. lip,i/ J�'I4

BEFORE THE DELUGE s Whelmingly backed by Muslim and Croats. As

PART FOUR: BOSNIA

. . ch was over staged their own � , Vih'I who four months earlier had 5, b er 5 the This formally confirmed what -._� �''': -' ed the poU en masJ(.

15

�teady, boaycott of a huge gulf between Bosnia's pare t. the existence

BEFORE THE DELUGE July 199G-March 1992 The march to war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was a terrible procession. It gathered speed when war erupted in n��:::::: Croatia, bur might have been prevented if the European had not recognized Croatia as an independent state in January,

Bosnia's President Alij a lzetbegovic then faced a stark choice _

to seck recognition or remain in Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. The

o� � � � d �:�: forged ahead and the US reluctantly f '�dl �:! :': . : � : : i that recognition would mean peace. For the B ;: t ::

war. Their leader, Radovan Karadzic had threatened that if were recognized as an independent state, it would be stillborn

survive a single day. The Serbs moved and war erupted. The predictions were fulfilled. Their eyes burned out of holes in black ski masks.

stretched over flattened faces. The Serb gunmen looked

ragged

haphazard, but their barricades went up with military precision.

half-day later, [he Muslims blocked off Sarajevo from the ,"" d" "

put them in a sandwich - the Chetnik barricades - because more numerous; said Sefer Halilovlc, an ex-JNA officer and Chief of the Bosnian Army, who also complained that his

we

leadership was slow in approving the counter barricades. Roads were blocked, neighbourhoods cut off from each other.

dawn on 2 March, 1992, Sarajevo had been transformed into a " � acing labyrinth. Serb leaders claimed th" b,,,,i,,d,,, w'" 'f,?" ' C erected in retaliation for a g:mgland-sryle attack on a Serb party, in which the groom's father-in-law was shot dead and Orthodox priest wounded. 'This shot,' said

who was Speaker of the Bosnian Parliament, 'was a aimed at the Serb people.' Muslims accused rhe provocatively brandishing Serb flags in the city's old Rascarsija.

��;�:��:,r

Serb leaders uscd the wedding attack as justification for the cades. In fu.Cf, they were an early precursor of the calamity , follow. They came at the end of a weekend referendum on

,,6

. % independence referendum was one of the conp,ttes. .... aIrt mum , . . C com ' B by the Badinter CommiSSion lOr osnta to receive . U1ated S�I .,n on5 diti P to bring the sides closer ition. It was not designed n recog . . .a:..JnmaflC uent recognition. subseq ize to legitim but t, emen u lID . sc;. b ' L. at B'IStrl'k, had d IsapkanJ'ac, in his city-centre arrac� _. .. Ku Cenero . g to use the JNA �orces refusin by s leader Serb . , ted the Bosnian , to partition Sarajevo, H� called Izet��?VJc and :;:,his command disaster. Karadzl� refused JCarad!ic together in a final attem�� to avert to go to the Holiday Inn. refused Izctbegovlc cy. Presiden the togo t0 statIOn, , , eaeh man at t e Ie eVlSlon 1bey evenrually agtted to meet It was a armed militia. twenty some of .:companied by a bodyguard no but exchange, agreement, heated a recalled waste oftime. Kukanjac

-r-..-��I

h

i '

IJIlid 10 Ihtm wry roughly: that thty wtreplaying with ptOplts

IMs,

that Ihry should Iii down and talk and that wt had had mough oflhat nationalist;c bthaviour. Sitdown, talk. (omt 10 an IIgrttmtnt. 1fnof in your infertlt then in fht interest offht�ople. They wtrt shaking thtirfists In each others/aces. 'You did Ihis! You did that!' until I had to in/ervttlt. lutbeg()f)ic blamed Karadi:.itfor tht barricadtI of 1 March, and said fhl! Strbi were trying to takt control ofSarajroo. He was a/so alleging that there fJJn't troop mO'lHmtnts/rom Pale to Sarajrvo. Karath:ii, for his part, blamed ]ufbeg()f)jifor the plot that was to be implnnented lhat night in Sarajevo, alld thy e exchanged accusatiom as to who . rUUlvtd whom, when find how. There wtre other peoplt in that room, fbert was thick Imokt and fM argummt wos rtally Ixated

,�eir bodyguards mingled in the corridor outside. A month later " -, were at wac with each Other. �reed to set up t patrols, comprised of Bosnian police -, " A , who persuaded Serbs and Muslims to take down their . . L -.ru:aae s The enslS was averted, but the events of that week end had been a d' ss , Strb re ,�hearsal , It seems,' said Izetbegovic, speaking of the leaders, at they were not qui te ready for war.'

arwt.l�ey

In Bosnia,

t

Musli

ms, Serbs and Croa ts, the three main communities CiICb form . !;\I .J sepa

had rate polit'Ical panics . th m e run-up to the republic's first •

"7

BEFORE THE DELUGE

BOSNIA

free elections on 9 November, 1990. The victory of nationali t in the elections in Croatia and Slovenia, the previous sp � sou�ded �arm bells ��ong Bosnia's Communists. It playmg wIth Yugoslavlas borders would lead to civil war, and cized Serbian and Croatian leaders for engendering fear Bosnia's inhabitantsl. This was more than a scare tactic aimed serving power, "or the next year, the balance of fear helped to pone a war which all the national leaders warned would lene republic soaked in rivers of blood. The Muslims wert: first, establishing the Party of Demo", Action (SOA) in Sarajevo on May 26, 1990, as a 'political Yugoslav citizens belonging to Muslim cultural and historical tions'2. A prominent Muslim intellectual and lawyer by lzetbegovic, with dear blue eyes and broad cheek bones, parry's flI'Sf leader. Of the six Presidents who came to Yugoslavia's fIrSt multi-party elections in the was the only one who had never been a Co:nmunist. Communists had done their utmost to make him a martyr. Second World War, Tito's partisans had cracked down on and national groups, lzetbegovic was arrested [0<' Ix'n. nationalist group, called Mladi Muslimani (Young served three years in prison, a light sentence executions that took place a year later when the to forces with fellow activists in Mostar. broken and lzetbegovic was under constant police next forty years. In 1983, along with a dozen Muslim intellectuals, I::' �� jailed again, this time for plotting to overthrow the state, rity men came to arrest him at his family flat, seizing scores leners and photographs which, it was claimed, proved his role conspiracyl. During the trial, Izetbegovic was a compelling his keen mind instilling respect, and silence falling over the whenever he spoke. But he was convicted of
�

':'�:�;.�

��':;.;r�;�i

�:

two

,,8

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three communities in ped down on each of Bosnia's cla followed by a case be often � p litical trial would ',u lim ,j� � ","''';l M , A e , else in Yugoslavia e anywher than More Croat .... a S erb or a " dly emorce -, d ' ' was ng.. _-hO .... -.. ng , e 0[ Brotherhood and Unlty ' � um ' ' B nctlons .L.o. .J d fu osma were an _ lIU's institution All , , .. oVln rzeg . _He rotation of h nat the Ona (key) kljut l the to ording e cl y ac , JIoon"stne fiJled ' g PorLt1� ' at cnSI " �, the �umber 0f death and the ensum • After Tito's tned to susregIme oSOJan B d wounde the as d __�1 trials increase � , -";., n. repressio rough � 'pelfth Ddl only served five years of his fourteen-year sentence. In releas,ed and,' ,t\vo years �ater, h,e was t,he November 1988, he was His danty of vIsion made him an Impressive Preside t of the SDA. war came, his stature diminished visibly. when figure. But, tired and b�mbli?g, ill,-equjp�ed to deal appeared Within a year, he around hun , HIS rapid deehne seemed raged ich wh ct i wiIb the confl n ideal. 10 minor the destruction of the Bosnia Serb and Croat nationalists point to the Islamic Declaration, an eso • document penned by Izetbegovic, in 1973, as proof that &cmegovic planned to create a Muslim state, In fact, it was a work of ICbolanhip, not politics, intended to promote philosophical discourse *DOng Muslims. In it, he excluded the 'use ofviolence in the creation tJi. Muslim state, because it defiles the beauty of the name of Islam'4, A more significant indicator of IzetbegoviC's orientation was lilam Im»mr Eau and West, first published in the United States in 1984, � then n i Yugoslavia after his release from prison four years later, 'I'biI book mapped au[ his vision of an Islamic state in the modem lftIddS. ln it he charts a course between Islamic values and material � " arguing that the benefits of secular western civilization are �t mean�ng unl�ss they are accompanied by the spiritual values --.u predomlllanc:ly LO Islam ic societies. � and Croat nationalists were able to play on the widdy-held �on. that Muslims had nevcr been a separate ethnic community w:re Simply Serbs or Croats who, in the course of five centuries of "'"' w-man domination, had SUccumue L . ·d to pressure or temptatIO ' n and _d to Islam" They saw t\em , 1 LO ellect, as Serbs Croats ' or who « b.d _. L � " io&UC() away theIr tN,e 'Identity _ ' and adopte d the trappin of an gs eari-I. . . " -"'r
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BEFORE THE DELUGE

undisputed claim to a separate republic6. Izetbegovic saw 0.",,,,, . homeland for Muslims, but one which also included Croats. The Muslims, he said two years before the war, did yet not comprise a big enough majority to make Muslim state.

We are not on the road to a I/ational state, our only way out is towards afree civic ullioll. This is thefuture. Some people may want Ihal (to make Bosnia a Muslim state) hut this is 1/01 a r(alistic wish. EVI!II though the Muslims art Ihl! tnOSl IInmerom nalioll in Ihl! repuhlic, lhere au not tnough oj11m" ... they would have 10 (ompriu ahoul levenly ptr unl of lIN poplilation7.

National dreams - the emergence of ethnic parties and did not reflect ancient hatreds as was claimed later by the fru.... international community while it struggled to comprehend the But the popularity of exclusively ethnic parties did serve to the weakness of republican institutions when confronted by national idemities. They also illustrated a tradition of separate munities growing up side-by-side. while preserving - at least in their distinct idemities. A fundamental difference among the national groups was the coUective perception of their historica1 rience. The Serbs, for example, regarded the Ottoman p,,,oo
fdl"", ".,.III

the Knin party of the charismatic Jovan Raskovic. A rrist, Radovan Kar-aM.ic. heavy-boned ,vith a huge mop elected SDS president. Kara&ic was a poet and I - ' . . Dobrica Cosie, the father of contemporary Serbian Sarajevo society never accepted him as a member of the urba n But he was bright and witty. He was an outsider, born and . l� he Montenegro, before mov!ng to Sarajevo as a teenager. Nor d

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himself as a leader until Cosic encouraged him TO turn to . the SDS's inauguration, at which both Raskovic and Izetbe�oVlt guests-of-honour, Karadzic tOld the audience that Serbs 10 must have equal rights - cultural. religious and economic. He '10

.

against the Serbs must be redressed and he

llttcd wrongs com n freedom of political organization, elections and

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to res . " o years later his Party's troops would expel hun _shanng � . of people and destroy mosques and other relics in of thousands m.�--I� es of a MusI-un presence III Bosm3. toerase all vestig ff o rt .. , lorm[0llowed SUlt, - , SDS was bunched , the eroats ' Soon :u,ter the Z L-k 1 e the SerbS, hc Croats were . HD the of braoch . . • Bosman announced tn S eptember that the SDA . ted when Izetbcgovic parity, and that the next government the rinciplc of national f, ed on the basis of one-man one-vote. lzetbegovic was . 0to pl'y the same game in Bosnia that Milo�eviC had in IftCIIlpong . 'I - - dUal - hts were ecu ed _. fig s (I'll and -IndIVI � � miDd (or Yugoslavia. U�le� guarantee Serb dommatlon would vote majority mrough instirucions, mroughout the country. In Bosnia, the same principle would give the Mutlims - the republic's largest ethnic group with forty-four per cent olthe 4.35 million population - the greatest authority. A key difference ... that Miloo:vic was striving for changes which subverted the very piDciples on which Yugoslav�a was found��, wher�as Izetbegovit's . proposals applied only to Bosma. The republic s constitutIOn, however, .... each of its three groups constituent nations, which meant that no .;or decision could be carried out without concensus. Despite the growing tensions, the three national parties, meeting behind closed-doors in Sarajevo, agreed to form a united front against their main opponent - the Communists. For its part, the reformed Communist Party was trying - with no success - to cool nationalist feftn. It warned that tensions in Croatia were spilling over into the border regions of Bosnia and condemned the formatio n of village puda by the Bosnian Serbs9. Th�re was still hope that an electio n in Bosnia might reflect the ctmuri.es of �o-existenc e among the main communities. An attempt eral Pn e M�nister Mark ovic to launch his own civic party, and n:a e natonaJjsts, seemed a ration al choice. The indefatigable rema�lOed henomenally popular despite the constant obs 'p tide. by Serbia. Croatia and Slovenia. Opinion polls said most QIrbed wO�d vo e for his Federal Government. which had already � taIfid yper-I �atlon and made the dina r convertible. But his sucL..... • economlc proOT mme and contag-iOus oprimism never transaI �'. a .." into " . r ' · c VlSlon. HIS attempts to compete in elections in . IIoenia an Serbla ....... mercly In fu - d Scrb nauo nate ..... he had hsts, - na who argued �S not stood .10 elections in Croatia and Slov . enia' allowing ts tO WIO . there. At The same time, the obstreperous republics

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blocked his efforts to caU elections at the federal levd. On a rally in the Kozara mountains in north-western Bosn ia thousands of Serbs had been murdered by the Ustak Second World War, Markov iC announced the creation of'an of reformist forces to build a new and prosperous Yugoslavia'.

thousands of people turned out to cheer for Ante Markovic. On same spot, two years later, Serbs would carry out unspeakable . against their Muslim countrymen. Three ofthe most notorious

tion camps were built in the Kozara region. Muslims were ,",,",led and their homes razed to the ground. The elections were a test, not only for MarkoviC but also

Bosnia-Herzegovina's future stability. They failed on both Despite vocal from some of Bosnia's most �pul" m'",'"

actors and writers, Markovic lost. Of the 240 seats ' the Parliament, Markovic's League of Reform Forces won just

��:�;��:

His only allies, the (reformed) Communists of Nijaz a further eighteen. Ominously, most of Bosnia's electorate

ethnic lines: Muslims rallied behind the SDA; Serbs, with per cent of the population, solidly ed the SDS; seventeen per cent, voted for the Bosnian branch of the

two rounds of elections, the SDA won eighty-seven seats, the seventy-one, and the HDZ forty-four. Thc nationalists had

show, taking neady ninety per cent of the seats. They were

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in the coumryside, with reformists and

the cities. Despite public rivalry, the nat ionalist leaders band together against the Communists in the event of a effect, the elections constituted another Bosnian census. The

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of these national options laid the ground for the war that foll.. The three national panics had secretly agreed before the

to form a coalition government - bur even they were surprised

magnirudc of their victory. Fashioned after Yugoslavia's inefficient Bosnian model had two places each for Muslims, Serbs and

rotating Pn";;'j,�,,!,

and one for a Yugoslav. The SDA candidates captured the most

Fikrct Abdic, a local hero in the far north-western comer received I 010 618 votes, compared to 847 386 for

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and rotund, Abdic was adored by Muslims in the d region of Cazinska Krajina, which he had enriched

from Agrokomerc, the huge state agro-industrial combi�e. fortunes had plummeted in 1987, when he was jailed for ;"u;"g '

million dollars in unbackcd promissory notes. His ers

framed by jealous rivals in the ruling cal scapcgoat C eI ' lJI:_ lore d r�e SI?A, shorti� e III . When he e . lSt a ugoslavlas sed hll dls�l Crillcs CcJIIU1u 1 n � . � � a ear boost. . ti rec did won s )all stint iO Abdlc but PartY al, crimin uar .. 'te-c hi nw by 1990, had crosS(:d ethnic lines. In __ � ularity, which, hiS for ... allure for Serbs and Croats. little vic held . CSJIltraSl, Iut , who did not have enough Abdic , deal alOed S" I . . c:xp un In an I , as H.ead of . he traded his righ�1 POSltlO � SDA, the , . . hp man, A Delimustafic, as hiS tTt' for naming han0xc , n.....-.: ... ·ncy In e 1.... ' . b'Iggest I 'lCtocgovlcs ecome d b woul � u: . ster. L,ter, Abdit j V uRi n r ---. ka KraJ..l�a 'JOd�pcn�ent �f the r:st of _ declaring Cazins . _;nt a Muslim natlonalist, EJup GaOlc was being . Despite . ..,..tom 8osma. I pna PIa�l.C. Yugoslav ticket. The SDS'S 8'1' '" elected on the ---'-d . . . ' .. .. ' S.t]epan elected the Serb representatives. mel Nikola Koljevic were seats. Both HDZ candidates, 1(1;", J", I and FrnnJ'o Boras won thc. Croat IUJ..I ' I ' a WhI' le Boras 8 Ierzegovtn OSOJapreservmg to dedicated Kljujic was tia11. Croa ter Grea a of ed dream Jzetbegovic became President, th.e Serb KraJI�OIk waS appol�ted Speaker of Parliament, and Jure Pe\Jvan, a Croat, was named Pnme

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Minister. The uneasy coalition would last just over a year.

In Croatia and Serbia nationalism reigned. The fires were being

IlIIJbd and would soon spread to Bosnia. No-one made any effort to

UIIIlpromise. Serbs clung to their right to remain in Yugoslavia, Croats to leave what was left of the federation, and Musims to sover l eipty. On 27 February, 1991, Izetbegovic told Parliament he was pre J*ed to fight to secure Bosnia's sovereignty. 'I would sacrifice peace

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sov �r jgn Bosn ia-Herzegovina, but for that peace in Bosnia Iiaugovina would not sacrifice sovereigmy .'To the Serbs, this was • war cry. At that same session, Serb deputies refused to discuss a dedan.tion of 8osruas " sovereign , ty, which had been proposed by the SDA andHDZ. �OSlavi.a descended into war in the Spring: of t99t, AJija . - 1If'hose c a �d hiS Macedonian count erpart. the wily Kiro Gligorov �ul"VJ.va1 through four decade s of Communism had earned him the ntckname 'the �ox, - scrambled to put forward a propos for al the futu sh ape of the Yugoslav D rc federation which would satisfy evcryO e Th . e chan ces of SUccess, ' aIrcady shm ' grew remote after auue evit ' � TUdj man's March 1991 meeting in Karadjordjevo. . n received word of what the scheme had 'cooked' up at

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BEFORE THE DELUGE

BOSNIA

Tito's old hunting lodge: not only did the Serbian and C'o"'''' 10 of Ante Markovic, but they had " ''''''0 t:rs plan to get Bosnia as well. Izetbegovic implored the Croatian I"d".hi, " him exactly what was in store for his republic. Stipe """'.ICn� laughed and ""g "n Presiden representative "ld song by the name of 'There is no more Alija.' After repeated armed incidents in Cro ti , the SDA and the declared meir full s�pport for Zagreb in its battIe against the rebels. At the same tIme, the 5DS condemned C o tia's assault breakawdY Serbs. Throughout Bosnia, villagers began to stand at night, often armed with hunting rifles or old guns, and identity pape s. ,, In Western Herzegovina, adjacent to Croatia and o",,,h,,lm;,; Croat, the HDZ announced that its would come of their kith-and-kin in Croatia The red-and-white checkerboard banner was already flying. Bosnian flags were Allegia nces had never been in question here. Even before the nationalism, Croats from Western Herzegovina were the extreme. After the Second World War, Serbs would say ,h,,, '"",, grows in western Herzegovina except rocks, snakes and Ustak', Each community raised the stakes, pushi ng the other '0.",,, i abyss of war. 'Th oughout 1991, even in the beginning of 1992, side thought the other wouldn't dare. And there was that terrible political game. Until fmally we found ourselves at the point rerum..' said Koljevic, a grey-haired professor of English W�")., '" quoting Shakespeare in an Oxford accent was chant trast to the crude and violem politics of t�egime he Indeed, the presence of a psychiatrist and twO professors Bosnian Serb leadership did not prevent it from espousing ,,,,•• oil most destructive notions to stalk the political stage of late century Europe. The SDS began to undermine Government instirutions, staging a boycott of Parliament. The Party repeatedly declared Izetbegovic was not entitled to p eside over the Serbian his leadership Bosnia-Herzegovina ed because and Croatia in their wars against Yugoslavia. This policy, they would leave the Serbs scattered across several separate stateS,

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ming b f contcntion was Izetbegovic's losso alics, Bosni av l repub os Yug world. Of the � l'i� h It move d Igne Al· onW N h e t in active ---.dS _ 1_adY the most GUP--- . a W2S ;w" . O · · T k ey In to lur t I S I n V a e. figur r . had been a majo � TIto · and was about over 'In 51ovema nearly _t, .U1 which n h t e war was . 1 - whe . ns 0f·Indepen aratlo 199 I t:c d · h elr t mg follow . ...... JI1 Croatia III earnest . . 0f ISIamlc 0 the 'oin J IO -o,n l1<'goVl" c asked to . - IzetL._ Id wou rely knew su he h whic srurc = h s i ...,. . �: . It was a fool ,"m I'<_ . es. � e hIS Serb and Croat opponents. The goniz " an to e rv _ --I se . In Belgr �c, Radovan p:I� y was immediate and predictable request as proof that ,-even our gl�mlest forecasts, � [Ook the a-Herzegovina to become an t Izetbegovic wants Bosm say � thc secessionist aspira Despire are being fulfilled'. . _"Ic repu lic, · h s would not reI·InqUls b er 5 n a B m os d, . t e Muslims, he warne . 0f h bOnI 13 in YugoslaVia . .. their right [0 rem ain rengthen the coailtlOn between st to Serb obstruction seemed tactical - they were �u�su Muslims and Croats. Yet their alliance was unnerved by SuspICIOns ly consmnt was Sarajevo goals. iag different its back. A scandal behind scheming were Zagreb and Belgrade that wu c:aused when Tudjman, unable to keep quiet. itted that he and Mi&oJevit agreed that a t\¥o-way partition of Bosnia was the best way 110 resolve the Yugoslav crisis. The Bosnian Presidency warned that this woUld cause civil war and urged the JNA to protect the central Yugoslav republic. Othenvise, it said, Bosnia would h ve to unde ake measures to defend itself, by building-up the republic's police. The alliances seemed set, bur, behind each other's backs, the part· DCl'I were scheming - trying to see whether they could get a better deal. While Serbs and the Croats discussed dividing Bosnia between ethnic kinsmcn fought each other in C o ti , them, and Belgrade at the same time tried to strike a deal with the Muslims. In the lU�m�r of 1991, Serbia launched a surprising move get Bosnia to to retnam Ln a new Yugoslavia - one without the Croats and Slovenes. 1bcy argued that the Belgrade Initiative, as it was called, was the only prevent war in Bosnia, because if the Muslims were to secede Yu�laYla, the republic would have to be divided. Serbs and " s hv MUlum · . ed cheek bY JOW . I - any d IVISlon would me an war. '. . ' ..-. .Y 1-..1. 'lSV -''''' l "'• • . C' at first, mdlcated to Serb leaders that the idea was worth ' ..·1denng. . But he soon IIIert Milo!evic's attempt to divide complal11ed that the prop osal was Bosnia's Muslim leadership and thereby h's o� COnt ol � over Bos nia. Further, Izetbegovic accused the. Serb. O [tyIng to d Ictate who ruled the Muslims. e bone AJtOther hug

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BEFORE THE DELUGE

Indeed, there were prominent Muslims who believed the extricating themselves from Belgrade would be far Miloievit's next move was to try to side-line

leadership by making a deal with a wealthy Muslim . ZulfikarpaSic, whom he saw as an alternative leader

made his fortune in Switzerland after the Second World returned to Bosnia for multi-party elections, funding the 0'->'" '''''' fell out with Izetbegovic and formed his own tiny splinter

Muslim Bo�njak Party (MBO). Serbia gave the Belgrade high profile. Bosnian Serb and Muslim leaders appeared for an

Serbian state*television. Banner headlines trumpeted a dcaJ. ZulfikarpaSic as a great victory. Bosnia would remain in they declared. A crisis had been averted. But the b�'i>no"

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substitute for Izetbcgovic. He was an outsider, completely

mass , and the fanfare in Belgrade could not mask the

MilooeviC's scheme. Had it worked, the B�;�� :�::'

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postponed the war for a while, although probably i. I nott gether. Moreover the Muslims would have been consigned to an

tain fate as second-class citizens under a Serbian nationalist That was Belgrade's last overt attempt to seize the

poiti,,] l

rive. Mterwards, with each ing day, the preparations

became more determined. Serbs in Bosnia began declaring

Serbian autonomous regions (SAO). At first, these SAOs laughable. The idea, for example, of proclaiming an SAO, or

scopic stateler, out of Romanjia, the exquisitely beautiful mo,un'" . region east of Sarajevo, seemed ridiculous. SAOs, but checkpoints manned by Serb gunmen drove

serious the Serbs were. The war in Croatia had made the pattern familiar. The Serb

ership insisted on the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina into

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regions as the best way to avoid an all-out civil and absurdity of this proposal was obvious - any partition certain recipe for war.

In September, Ihe SDA accused the SDS of violating the agreement by declaring the autonomous Serb lands. 'The

Serbian autonomous areas in Bosnia-Herz.cgovina, prevented the .

tioning of the republican Government and, at the same

attack on t rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina,' an SDA insisted that the Serb leaders either denounce the '

barricades and autonomous regions or it they party policy. Izctbcgovie's party hinted that the Muslims

_ 1 ated. On 14 October, 1991, the Serbs shattered > (words eSCiU r o ..,. 'ept the fractlous -. which had somehow k cons.ensuS . > 1 e ' . - {ragI > SDS > ... During a stormy overmght seSSion, funenorung. �ent h SDA e . t b . an . d .e th orward f put � ' led a inst proposals , position es WIthin BosOJas and sovereignty ga �b raJ e publie's th HDZ o� � Ur spread that a bomb had been planted in the rurnO A YugoslaVIa. building. ' .a_ mbly C ,..th at mght,' sal>d lorget c tten many events' but I II never lorgo have 'I L ,r, 1991 , 14 and 15 0f 0[[Ol.)l.; the en betwe night 'c 'The peo �uslim �le: The issued a death sentence to the ..... the of the WIll senously monished the Muslims. to take Sab leade r ad Vla: osla people to remain in Yug >

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YOII wonl to taki Bomia-Hrrugovina down. tht lam( hig�ay of lng. Do btU and luffiring that Slovmia and �roalla are t�a'l/e/ � Into hdl, rz,:gO'1Jtna IMd nol Bosma-He will you that 1IDf think. lInd do not think. thatyOIl will flOt perhaps lead the Muslim peo ple info annihilation, btrawe !he Mwlims cannot deftnd then � uIws ifthae s i war - How willyOIl prromt roeryonefrom brIng

WId in Bosnia-Hrrzrg()'lJina�

Iutbegovit was shocked by KaradziC's words. 'At that moment I hid the feeling that the gates to hell had opened and we were III burned by the flames of the inferno.' Izetbcgovic addressed me A.cmbly:

H� words a�d manners illwtrate why others rejilJe to stay in this Yugorla'IJla. Nobody elsr wants the kind of Yugoslavia that

Mr KaradZii wants any morro Nobody exceptperhaps the Serbs. . 17m YugoslQ'l/ia and the manllm of Karadi. ;t are simply hatrd eoplrr of Yu 0slovia, by SIQ'l/mrs, Croaff, Maud onians, f, am, Hunganam, MUllims, b y Europe and the world. J �nt fo tell the ci/iuns of Bosl1ill-Her:ugovina not to be afraid, because. Ihm willbe no war. . Thrr ejorr, slup prau/lll ly. . ·,· As Prtsrde l1f (oj tht pmidrncy) of Bomia�H r r:uu I am sor 6()'lJina, ,." ' Ih'H SlllIall JItopl '.1 thaI m . .on I mllsl talk for the Muslim H. e. I so�emnly stair that Ihe Muslims will not atta ck. anyone. otut'tler, Just as solemn/ > y J stille Ih{II the Muslmu will . dl' erend ,h,mU/'llts > > wah rrr ..eat delerl/1l11alu e m alld survive. They will I/ot tIisa'Pprar as Ka . radi... IC sal'd lne " y callnot dimppear.

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'37

DELUGE BEFORE THE

BOSNIA

In his scathing denunciation of the Serbs, lzetbegovic also t.actical manoeuVfC. He praised the 'stabilizing effect' ofINA units in Bosnia. The Army was rapidly rurning into an .u-S."b l and Croat youths ignored their call-up orders. as Musim singled out JNA reservists for wreaking havoc in the were frequent incidents involving reservists from siege 10 nearby Oubrovn.ik. Ten days after the clash in mosque was damaged by a bomb in the south-western """" ofTn.!; in the hinterland �verlooking �ubro� The pa�� of military had been drawn, mterwoven wIth eplsocles of political violence. At two o'clock in the morning of the fifteenth, Kraji!nik adjourn the session. The Serbs walked out leaving SDA and deputies to continue their deliberations. Those who favour of Bosnian sovereignty and also rejected the Belgrade Initiative. Under the menacing pall of KaradfiC's was a false victory. The next day General KadijeviC ': Sarajevo, and agreed with the Bosnian leadership to set u\ j and army patrols throughout the republic. As the men Izetbegovic told Kadijevic: 'I leave Bosnia to your heart Ten days later, the Serbs declared their own Parliament, remain part of Yugoslavia. Any illusion that the nationalist was still functioning had been destroyed.

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:��

The slide to war in Bosnia gained momenrum. The Serbs first separate plebiscite on 9-10 November. Izetbegovic Serbs oftrying to destabili7£ Bosnia even further by posed republic-wide referendum. 'It was a one-party course, the result was a triumph - the per cent - I can't help thinking it was On 30 November, an SOA congress re-elected President. The Party urged the international i diplomatic recognition to all six Yugoslav republics, Bosnia would not remain in a Yugoslavia dominated by the order to keep Bosnia secure, the SOA called for the despatch keepers [Q areas patrolled by Serb gunmen. In his closing Izetbegovic said he and the leadership had rediscovered the the Muslim people, characterized by tolerance towards eV"'Y',hi''I! ' every human being. In December, the European Community, under pressure - which was championing Croatian independence each ofthe six republics recognition if they pledged to adopt the >38

Croatia smouldering, Izetbegovic was . s. With eW state n - n. He was afral-d 0f protectio to secure a promise - ..---=-ria r lor Bosma the US would hc1p that ve tc belie � oslav my,and appeared to . . . g d evcr glVm yug dellie has n ingto Wash -Lcbe . even though �( ma Bos r ato be recogOlzed, tranSlorm - cIefend ., W'Ith Croatia about ion. of the quest out was usly obvio n tees). Iav federatio _ guan.n e. The Bosnian ..... of �c choice but to seek indendenc �V1t: ha n:1 said they would declare their own state if they te Serbe had reve:a y Y lavia. He was apprehcnsive. He said he would ugos ill stay · _ 1..1 not - h _ German Foreign M100ster Hans D-Letnc the e a d persu to en h , w b ut ovcma ory Croati. a and SI ,0 recognize . Gentcher not f · · " to d he even a.ue mber Nove e ill vic met Genscher face-to-fac the obsta last onc of d cleare ps . t. His silence perha the subjec � . I�. . . del to recogrutlon meeting the two speCial EC rresenta On }9 December, after . "in's Lord Carrington and the Porruguese Ambassador Jose · ... aves, Bfl. Pr sidency) who had. rraveUe(I Cutileiro (Porrugal was holding the EC � plan, IzetbegoVlc went to their present to capitals s round the republic' c to tell him that Djurdjeva Vojislav er command sector JNA 1bc local be had decided to seek independence. The grey-haired General lookEd at him, and asked if Alija intended to declare a civil war. For DjurdjCV3C - independence was a declaration of war. The JNA seemed 10 believe that lzetbegovic might change his mind. Top generals made ICWCtal trips trying to threaten - and cajole - him into keeping Bosnia in Yugoslavia. lzetbegovic had not given up on the JNA. Even long Ifcer th:.u meeting with Ojurdjevac, hctbcgoviC nursed hopes that at Icast the JNA would defend Bosnia. . �t the next day, the Bosnian Presidency voted to seck EC recog mtto:". two Serb reprcsent"dtives voted against the decision. On television, Izetbegovic explained that for Bosnia there was no �ce but in.dependence. It was eifher that, he said, or being part of n.:;:m Serbia. There s no more Yugoslavia, he said. He expressed \'�a hope for a cantollised Bosnia- Herzegovina becausc the demo. paphic eli�tn'butlon would leave huge parts of 'each national group . living m n:ut5lde Its designated cantons. On the main news bullctin, in re a �dressed to the Serbs, Izetbegovic said, except for the Sec:ond orld War, Bosnia's ethnic communities had lived together quite acefully � for centuries. The equality of nations should still be . r Of I

YUfs

The �

L. Bosnia, the SerbS had a great advantage over the Muslims and >39

BEFORE THE DELUGE

BOSNIA Croats: the JNA. By e ly Army had witheln "'" Slovenia and Croatia, mostly moving to Bosnia, where the military industry was based. With the withdrawal, a vast

ar 1992, the

military hardware was concent�ated in Bosnia According to : . theory of defence agatnst foreign arrack, cultnrated since .

The mountainous ccntraJ republic was with Stalin in the safest place for the JNA's backbone. dtic went to Belgrade to request that all Bosnian Sem. . 109 10 the JNA throughout Yugoslavia be transferred to

1948.

K:ara

order to transform the TO into an army. Borisav Jovic, right-hand man, said the Army would stay put until a tion had been found. Karadzic told us:

�l�ti��:

The entire Serb population WQl behind the Army and they wtrr lounting on the Army to deftnd Yugoslavia. The Serbian regime secretly carried out a plan which ,n,kil'" Bosnian recognition. In January

1992, Milo�evic issued a secret order to "" tt"".r.�

all JNA officers who had been born in Bosnia back to their

republic. By the time the JNA made its formal withdrawal Bosnia in May the vast majority of the officers who

1992,

there were actually Bosnian Serbs. They wen: nOt ci,i""..

Yugoslavia, which, by then, was another country. Belgrade planned ahead for the moment when Bosnia would be ceoogm ;, said JOvlC:.

Milafroif and I 'Wtre talking about it. We did not talk ' '' mJ.... elu. IV, instruttd the Gmeral Staff to udeploy troops ••,' . .. tranftr all thou bom in Bomia to Bomia and withdraw born il/ Serbia and Montenegro to Serbia and Montmegra. Ten days later they told liS it had been done very efficient" although the Army was very rductant to acupt something IhtII clashed with its internal rules. We did not waitfor the intl!rn4lional recognition ofBomia to redeploy the troops in Bosnia. the time ofrecognitionJ out of 90 000 trooPJ in Bosnia, I eighty-fiveper emt ofthem werefrom Bosnia.

!I'�

Backed in this way by the military, the Bosnian Serb took steps to pre-empt international recognition and

Bosnia-wide referendum. On 9 January, they declared

0f Bosnia-H

erzegovina, proclaiming it part of the said it was the only possible leadership � The Serb Serbian R eran . . cu I on. 1v f a 0f Its self-styled republIC borders . The . 'Yug05ce agalDst the Muslims . aces where t hey · _&.o... ..... autonomous regIOns and even p1 sed th to, they Serbs wanted the if out, pointed . ic KaradZ CIJCO p� onty· ut . a mln sixty-six per ccnt 0f Bosma. t:Lke conrml in ubl'

��

�

m

�d

aware that there .was going 10 be war Nmuse � would not leaw YugoslaVIa. 'fXTJ well that Ihe Srrb Iwllon ieJ had to be difined As ve. err;lor T le o e (ouldjor(t Ihem to � ow. to foll ul had nobody resptcted thiJ, a conft

IwaJ (onstantly

�:

was swinging to�ards recognition, t�e Aware that the pendulum . war noisier, �Lng that B.osm� would be . aw.ash Ln Bosnian Serbs grew l o�evic, by contrast, dId not consIder It such a slgmficant blood. Mi the demented Roman Emperor event. He joked to Karadzic that Caligula had declared his hOrse a senator, bu� �hat it had �ever be�ome . one. He said the same apphed to Izerbegovlc, who had LnternatJOnal recognition but no statc. Using rhe same rationale he would use often in the future, Milosevic explained that it would mean nothing. He had corre<:t1y calculated that the international community would not defend what it had recognized as a state.

&. the Lisbon talks on Bosnia's furure blueprint opened, 'canton' becamc the new catchword. Every Serb and Croa[ politician in Bosnia teemed to have

a copy of the Swiss constinnion in his office. The talks �ed a week before the referendum on independence. All the DI.�o� al leaders - even the Serbs who opposed it - knew that the ma�ntywould vote for Bosnian independence. This meant that inter �tlonal recognition would follow soon. Each side warned of the

:ren�ng doom - but made no arremp! to compromise - despite tone to the

contrary.

Un
recogn i ze th ' . external borders of Bosnia. They also endorsed . e CXlstlDg the f,ormatIOn of national territorial units within Bosnia. The first rep· because .It comby the Serb and eroat parties mi. ..ed t hem to the preservatlO . n 0f a B OSDlan state. The second agreemetlt remarkab�e . 1t was a complete turnaround for Alija betbe gtlVIC �,ho unttl then, had rejected any division along L K aradi.lc and h'IS C roat counterpart, Mate Boban' enthusiasti� '• . "e1comed ] Iz .e ,begoVl' C" s concession. resented a compm . mIse

>UteS.

Wa�.

ethnic

,

'4'

BOSNIA

BEFO RE THE

No sooner had he given the go-ahead, than Izetbego ic v his mind, When he returned to Sarajevo, the Bosnian Presid ent to row back on the agreement. He sought to broaden its base

ethnic to geographic and economic. The SDA denounced it, because they saw it as a parrition of Uo,,,,;,, despite his reluctant 'yes', Izetbegovic, too, was any division of Bosnia. opposed

to

Of all the international efforts to prevent the war,

,ann"��dl ��:::: ,

a settlement, the Lisbon Agreement has been the most

��:�

Disappointed envoys, Serb and Croat nationalists, harp on it as moment when Izetbegovic and the Muslims cast away the for peace. There is scant reason to consider seriously the claims that a partition could have been executed without

A precise territorial breakdown had not been agreed in detail. Later would become clear that for every claim to a town by one

munity, there was more often than not a counter-claim by another. Stories instantly sprang up about why the Bosnian leader changed his mind. This behaviour, possibly the result of a decade prison, was, however, typical of him: lzetl;legovic was as

by one argument as he was by another. There were later that \¥arren Zimmermann, the US ambassador to him to abandon the agreement. But Zimmermann, a

of human rights, was under instructions to . reached by the three sides. He said that he had

that if the Bosnian President had made a commitment he

uphold it. Zimmermann, who left Yugoslavia three months later western embassies recaUed their ambassadors, later resigned from State Department partly in protest against US policy in Bosnia. Just two days after the Lisbon Agreement, the Serbs and

they had the fIrst February, pulled out their maps. On eral secret meetings in the south Austrian town of Graz. Both

26

1992,

im' later defended the talks, denying any conspiracy against the M"l saying that the EC mediators had (Old them to hold bilateral ings. Karadzic told Josip Manolic, one ofTudjman's most trusted sors, who was representing the Bosnian Croats, that the Serbs

;��:��

have ::t land-corridor across northern Bosnia. 'Without the any solution is out of the question.' According (0 Karactl:ic, talked extensively in of population transfers. 'He proposed the Croats living in Serbia go (0 Croatia, and that the Ser b , Krajina, Zagreb and Itjeka go to Serbia. He suggested that on,,,,.,.

could be exerted to make them leave,' KaradZic said.

DELUGE

n in the excitement and confusion

ks were forgotte The Lisbon tal Serb barricades which paraland the subsequent erendum the �fi almost a hundred per cent �ure that

(ftet

Serbs were e o. 'The . Yugoslavia. The Croats and the Muslims were ,sed Saraj v st y wanted to 3 m that they wanted to Jeave. lt was dear IbeY d per cent sure unclre h a h knew that the ' .. ",Jo . ive ' said KaraU4 almost surv not Bos�a cou1d that new Serb then An outrag�d Serb deputy told the rawlllg near. d was . astar d on the . he b'Irth 0f a Mus['1m b ..,., e are witnessmg t : nt"w iarne l r ' r- . lathers. grand e h iand of our terntory f t first serious incident of fighting the lic, repub the ' 0f In the nO IU ' the war In ' (Own ofBosanski B rod. D unng ' eIy erupted in the lat itnrned « an euort ' 10 , od r B rom e , . ac.-:. I t d at h e had already launc . . Croati,a, the JNA 'UTOd , the tWlO Clty acro" in SIaVo"'ki B acks barr ged besie . to defend the referendum, S erb VI agers set up bamcades. the After ver. Ri the Sava trans' block uoops and weapons from bemg . , They were seeking (0 ' our In 'd b ge ast I n c h t was It ia, Croat from ported over the bridge · ia with the rest 0f th� worId,' �al'd As�m hands. It connected Bosn . committee which the Brad CflSlS Pohara a journalist who established 'The bridges at Brtko and town. the of defence the of charge took Gradi�ka was in Serb Sarnac were already destroyed, the bridge in One day before t�e closer, got hands, also at Novi. Each day the Serbs moved the barn they case in that Wllt started we made the decision fire.' to going were we that bridge, the to cades any closer Pohara went to the Croatian army in Siavonski Brod and asked for

wa

•

0

_�

moce arms to defend the city. 'I said war was inevitable, we had 300

weapons and I asked for more. We got some 50 rifles morc and about 200 hand-grenades, which was funny. We got a couplc of thousand

bullets. For us i t was a lot. Thc war started in Bosanslci Brad, and I iU agrce.' The Croatian Army had moved am sure the historians w on Brod. Unnoticed, the war had begun. .

1 AP, 26 June 1990_

2 SDA does not include a national

illegal at the time.

attribute such as Muslim because it was

i.,5�anilOvit, Raj�.o, Upotreha NepT/jardjn: Po/ititkn SIIdjenjn u jugoslnviji d:a?1), A�enCIJa Valjcvac, �aljevo 1993, p. 1 6 1 - 7 1 .

(I

4

Jl, Srccko M., Bosmn I Bafll jll(i U hrvarskOIll polit�kom diskurSll, Ens mus,.p. 33 (Pro . slIlac 1994). a Srccko �., Bomin i Bomjrei U hrvtlfJJ:om polit�J:olII diskurSll, pp. 33_ 1 J , rasmus (Prosmac 199 4) 6 Ethnic Alb · amans, the "ourth biggest group in Yugoslavia, were nevn

��

BOSNIA

granted the statuS of nation on the grounds they had a home-state In ' bouring A1banill.. They remained 11. nationality minority. 7 Start, 7 July, 1990, p. 34. 8 Tanjug 17 July, 1990. 9 SWB: 4 OCtober, 1990. 10 Osloboclje nje, 1 1 November, 1990. I I GlI.nit (680 783 ''Otes); Pla\'�ic (557 2 1 8) and Koljevic (541 K1jujic, (464 174) and Boras (408 750). 12 TlI.njug, l 1 July, 1991. 1 3 Tanjug, 1 8 July, 1991. 14 Warren Zimmermann, Fon:ign Affairs (MarchlApril l995), p.16.

16 THE GATES OF HELL The Olltbreak of War in Bosnia 1-IOApri!, 1992

ith exhaustion. was creased w 'k Police Chief's face for the unseen of waiting vigil, r night of holding ht earlier forry of his ortnig f a than n their toll. Less enemy, had tae s and cars, weapon talkies, walkietaken had _ _11 Serbs ° <011_" � warOlng, no was ere 'rh °k . r Z f v � Ol � a out and , ion stat the of out walked One day they Just left. Now, for sure, they said, no explanation.

h Z N�lght

YO; �

T

_

he

. . were coming back. .. , mIlitiamen from SerbIa proper walted to I the station cell, four twO in the morning sneak their fate. They had been arrested at found armed ,;ith automatic ing around town. They had een . for strangulatIon. The Pohce used weapons, knives and a metal cham Chiefwanted to get them out of town, and safely. He phoned the JNA

�

�

counter-intelligence for help. His greatest fear was that their presence here, in Zvomik, would provide a pretext for Serb paramilitaries to attack. It was 8 April, 1992, two days after Bosnia's independence had been recognized by the European Community. A police scout came into the station. Two thousand armed Serbs _roe massing outside the town and were on the way. he said. 'The

future ofZvomik is nO[ decided here,' the Police Chief said. The town had less than a day left before its majoriry Muslim popuJation would be driven out. The Serb paramilitaries and JNA units massing outside Zvomik . � not nee� a pretext. On 8 April, they began shelling from the other side of the river - from inside Serbia proper. Thousands began to flee - two thousand alone heading across the bridge to Mali Zvornik. The

:: d.ay, Ar�, commander ofthe feared paramilitary unit, known as

�

TIgers, Issued an ultimatum to the Muslims of Zvornik - who e �p sixty per cent of the town's population - to surrender. When led to respond feU f: a I to the surrender call, Arkan moved in. Zvornik on 10 April.

JOIl Maria Mend ' .

I I'

S

.

.

.

! h UNHCR' most officw/ mfor;:; \IiugoslaV1Q,. WQI visiting MiloJl'vit Bdgrade. 'Milofrvit I 11((",

me,

as

umor

/1/

hI' dId throughout the conjl ict, that he didn 't have any '<S

THE GATES OF HELL

BOSNIA

(onlrol.over Ihe BO� T ia71 S�r�r, but he wo�ld try to use his mor al . f � aUfhorlly. .. HIS ojjt(lalporlf/On was that i Bosnia was indtptn_ dmt, thm the FderalArmy would move out. Ohviously what he didn', /(/1 me... was that a gre�t port 0/ the command of tIN . . Federal Army �s gom? to stay m �olma as a Bosnian army. AI that mommt thIS wasnt as cI(or QS It was lafl'r in utrospeu. '

Mendiluce left Belgrade with a promise that Milos:eviC Would everything in his power (which, of course, was limited to.

�;�:;�

moral influence he could exert) to the UNHCR's IT Bosnia. To return to Sarajevo, Mendiluce had to Zvornik. He chose the wrong day.

'Whm I arrived at the bridge {over the Drina which uparatts Strbiafrom Bowia] I could h(Or explosions 0/artillery and mor 'arjir(. Tha( was great agitation on th( Sahi(ln side. Almost a kilomelre/rom the bridge thae wer( militiamm andJNA soldiers, all along th( river. The whole area was militariud. I insisted on hemg allowed to cross Ih( bridg(. They let me at my own risk.. I W(1lt over 10 the Bomia side. Thae was a big artillery hom bard1l1m/ {o1l1ingjrom the Serbian lide 0/the Drina. I even saw f1l10lu (oming r01l1 the {{Innons on the Srrhian side. ' f

to

The Serb and JNA forces who held that part of town were

find an outsider bearing witness to their storming of the town. '1 was detain({1for two hours. I rtaliud I wal at urious ris!. I could Set trucnfull 0/dtad bodin. I could Stt mi/itiamtn taRing mou corpus 0/(hildrm, women and oldpeopltfrom tlu;r houses and pUffing tbr!m on truch. I saw at leostfour orfivt: truchfoil o/corpus. Whm I arrived the cleansing had bun done. ThtTt wert 110 people, 1/0-01/� on the SlrNtl. II WaJ allfinished They wtrt lootillg. (haTling lip the cily after the maJsacre. I WaJ (onvinetd they wtre going to I
not kill hltn They let him go When he crossed the at 140 kilometres an hour mto Bosnian-held t",i«'''' Thcfl! he found the victims of the cleansing. Five thousand sheltering: in a narrow valley. Thl!y did

line he did so

'When Iarrived ill the car I war surrounded by 1000peaplt. Thty 246

usi" with such dtspu;r hegging ·Save usf Save tr O'11 all to calm them dowrt.. There � all hour tryiTw 0 d Im:ref,ior ", I I . t llded childr(ll on fh(floor lookmg fer.', tlJa I or tadpeorl., wou Io "'"d lird artd w� could br!ar tlu lourtd of1II0rwen ts OJo/uft/� tt"i'J' rijitd -ohs . mg. fire approach

��)

_

tar

Serbi: paramilitaries and JNA m pression that both " .l Mend.i m t ik is corroborated by the Zvorn of e captur the . I in p ng . were�� \ aJU ar . I' " Iav > ....u ,:,dCj, VOJIS :umh tary leader " r a p a.list nation ex. "�'me , . " Th 8CCOUflt 0f the _ e : ' 'l:L Ued Its llucratlOn shortly after what he ca wbo went to Zvornik . d e, he sal ,' . ned III Belgrad" k operation was plan Z..., rru '

took pari in .it. �lIt the I�tcial units and Ihls SIde [Serbl' al· Thtu were L helt (ombat units (fillle from oe t r . / Il1Ilt� ,0; the Ser. Ian j - spUta ��ret " pcliet units - thno-calledRul fo a small td Infmor Ministry if&Igmde. Tht army (IIgag ItUIj degru - itgave artillery u:here it was mtde�. The �pera , lion had bun preparulfor a IOllg tllne. lt waS1l t carrurl out In any kind 0/ nervous fashion. Everything was well-organiud tlnd impltmmld form The Bosnian Scrb

Arum's 'tigers', bloodied by their experience of eastern Slavonia the pRVious year, in which they had pioneered the technique of ethnic cleansing by terror, had moved into Bijeljina, in nOrlh-eastern Bosnia, on 1 April Bijeljina and Zvornik were ofvital strategic importance to the Serb war effort. Together, they represented a hinge of lerritory that linked the two main chunks of Bosnian land that the Serb Rltionalists considered theirs - in the nOrlh-west, Bosnian Krnjina, around Banja Lukaj and in (he east, the west bank of the Orina, south

� Zvornik and down the eastern and southern flanks of Sarajevo to

eastern Henegovina. Eastern Bosnia was most important to Belgrade because it bordered on Serbia. Arka� o�dered a campaign of harassment against the Muslim

�latlOn

III Bijeljina. His ' ti gers' took up sniper positions around to",:n, patrolled the streets and fired bursts of machine-gun , rounds Lnto the aLT. . They h I down Ivlusllm leaders, and earned unte< ' OUt summary , ' crushed a token resIstance. exeCutLon ' s. l'hcy eaSIly S d' slr.eet-battles left at least two-dozen dead. Pictures raJevo and, for the first time, &ras President Alija Izctbegovic � d t e scale and nature of the crisis that was closing in on untry:

e

re':��cS

his ::

BOSNIA

THE GATES OF HELL

It WOJ unhtlitvohlt almoit. Thr civi/iam bring kil/d, pic/u Jhowtd dMd bodiu ofthe women in the .truU. 1 thought it 'W4Jrts photo-montage, 1 (ouldn't beliror my tyn, I couldn't btlitw � " 'Ll WOJ pomfJlt.

Izctbcgovii: was und�r growing pr�ssur� to act decisively. though completely unaware of the role that the JNA had played almost a year in Croatia and was about [0 start playing his republic - Izetbegovii: rurned 1O the genera1s for help. It was, as later itted, likc putting thc fox in charge of the chicken With Izetbcgovii:'s naive blessing, the JNA rolled in on 3, by three o'clock in the afternoon, occupied the town. The c terror continued, with JNA complicity. It would result in the almost all B ijelj ina's non-Serb population. Yet again, under of separating the 'warring ethnic parties', tbe JNA had ,u,eo••d..:! i occupying a chunk of territory which, under its protecti oo, '0'". "" be incorporated into a separate Serb state. Izetbegovic also sent a t delegation to Bijcljina [0 ·inv..'� alleged atrocities there. Fikret Abdii: and Bi l jana Pla\1ii: were, tively, Muslim and Serb representatives on the republic's .011ec" Presidency. Jerko Doko was Bosnia's Defence Mini ster, and a Their enquiry led nowhere. According to Abdic:

in

�

��;�!�

Bijeljina WOJ practically empty, 1 met with thr local authorities. they told me whnt hod happened, hut thae warn't a JingleMuslim there, JO we couldn't dimIJS the probll'm OJ a whole. MUJlimJ didn't anroxr our appeal. They Wl'T"I' too Jcared to come out, and Jpl'Cially Jcard to talk ahout it 01/.

n

Plav�ii: didn't hide her own interpretation of eve ts. greeted Arkan with a kiss. A few weeks later, a senior . Department official, Ralph Johnson drew a blank when he

Milo�evic about Arkan. Milo�cviC looked him in the eyes had never heard of him . After a six-hour war of neIVes, M"ot...

itted that he had heard Bi ljana Pla�ic's bodyguard.

the name before

�

this man

'Atkan'

On 4 April, Izetbegovic bowed to pressure from the Croat scntativcs on the Presidency, and from Ejup Ganic, the man . establishing himself as hetbegovic's dl' ji:uto deputy. . alarmed at the flight of Muslims from north-eastern Bosma, President issued a general mobilization of the Bosnian

something should be done,' Ganic said cIear then that place, and had aiready been transthe over all e 1dCI". '� anny. The exodus from eastern Bosnia had O . Int � . ere committed" and we said we hav� to defend our...-..I atfQCInesw . we had. . . ......' th the resources " 1IDl .SlOn the Bosnian-Serb leaders, who mSlsted that ted ia 'nfur I ' WI. deo .aws '"-. d he b'I" I lzatlon call . They . .� , and Croats would hee t " mo -, d e a d'Irect appe;.u: 1c rna Kara
. 1t W3.S �

IN:C�::nik

_ _

_Iv M uslims

i; had iJSutd a genl'ral mobiliza . that Jzetheu()'IJ 6 � ."n/ .. Wlxn we oe thu would that we knew and liS . for l Jh(){k. a e '" . IJDrl ,aI, I·t waJ a 6 '· " I. nease, WIthdraw IZI'thegovf( 1md Sat'd, 'nl kad a war. Iphoned ' You kntlW the SerbJ will not your troops. He sa d he tlx madl pllhlle, to had alrrad! hun could not do it became the ({III ,la form f kInd o d Jom� ; to mall which I rtplild that he Jhouldfin ft. do would 1101 he Bllt latl'. it DetaUJe it waJ nrorr too

�

,:;1.

Krajjjnik, with whom izetbegovic enjoyed a warmer personal rela tionship, also ed Izetbegovic. 'I IUked him whether he knew whal thh mrant. Thr Serbs were still serving in thl' Army, hulthe MIIJlims and Croatr no longer did. Now he W(lnted to organize a territorial deftn(/'. Who did he think would serve in thiJ II'rritorial Ileftn(/" /Igairut whom7 Af4imt lhe Sabs' I beggrd him to rmind thiJ dl'eiJion. I told him this may lead to war. luthl'g()f)ii told me he waJ Jorry hut there 'WIllS nothing IN could do. Ifolt he W(lJ undrr a grlat pUHurl. '

Koljevic and PlavSii: immediately resigned from the Presidency and declared the rump Presidency illegitimate. That night, (rom his head . 10 the city-ce ntre Holiday Inn, KaradZic, looked out across a Cd)' at he knew he was at war with. He began 10 fed trapped.

�

l:s"

he atmosphere in Sarajevo wa s Ihat of terror. Tht JlreetJ wae M. �d and, from our oj}im ill the Holida /1m, we (ould see us;1m Grun Beret mipm plaad 011 topy if high bllildings. . E�thlng waJ blo(ke d and we (ould 1I0t lell'ue the hotel. So we . Walled 1 1/ the mor . ntllg to Jee whal would l)(Ippm. ' 1

. 'Ibc _dnext smo�nlOg, Serb paramilitaries laid siege 10 and then 'h , e araJevo porIce aca ' demy on the �outhern ;]49

edge of the city.

BOSNIA

THE GATES OF HELL

o"'>di�

The compound sat high above the city and enjoyed a ,o'n strategic position. It also housed a large stockpile of arms and nition. The military priority of the Serb forces was to move

from their positions on Vraca hill and enter the city from the from where they would cross the river near the parliament and cut Sarajevo in half at its narrowest point. With the pOlli" "'_ emy in Bosnian hands, they would have a well-armed enemy at backs. It had to be dealt with first. It now became the first POint conflictin Sarajevo. Unfil S April, most of Sarajevo's citizens - Muslims, Serbs, Jews, Yugoslavs alike - had clung to the complacent conviction war could never happen In their city. They regarded Kara�'s warnings of impending disaster as the ravings of a unrepresentative fanatic. There was a strong element of

urbane middle-class Sarajevo's dismissal of Karadzic. Many

were fond ofreminding each other that Karad1ie was not one

he was not even Bosnian. He was an urbanized peasant Montenegro, the first in generations of his family to be ,d,""'te

Sarajevans who had known him as a young man would ,«.� "1<""

youth unfamiliar with city ways. They would say he had the city 'still wearing peasant's pointy shoes'. On 5 April, they to take him seriously.

The previous day's mobilization call shook Sarajevo out ofia; placency. A small crowd gathered in the west of the city and march down the main highway towards the city centre. As they gressed, the crowd swelled, thousands of Sarajevo citizens

nationalities ing the throng 10 protest against the madness

nic division and conflict in a city in which the nationalities were intermingled and whose proudest boast ,vas that, for centuries, it been a model of co-existence and mutual tolerance. Serbs, C,','" It Muslims alike carried Yugoslav flags and portraits of Tito. Korie. a (wenry-seven-year-old ant, was among them.

years later, working as a journalist for Reuter's news agency, ed the atmosphere of the day:

Wt 'WeTt thn"t b«ause'I.IN thollght tlxrr was stilltime minds, to save Sarajroo and Bosnia Qj aplact Wherl MUJlims, Str6s and Croats could live togethtr as they hadfor 500 years. lAte in the morning several thousand ojUf decided to make au: way 10 one of 1m barricades on the otmr sidl of the VrbanJII bridge, behind the parliamtnt tower.

to dxmglptopk�

The ,0(0 was

to (TOSI fhl' bridge to Grbovica, to show that the to the ptople - a/1 lhe ptopIe. 0d stl'/1 bet0nv .

city

Parliament fore. , gathering. in the � of the procession der� , As the 1ea Salvation Comm\ttce , the demonstrators nal 'Natio Iared a . . �,.... dec ' UnWltrlOg1y, they ' Grbav\ca. bridge, and Into g.oou" n�ht, 0ver the .-ung p the hill towards the besieged police academy and into . wen: movtng u at thc head 0f the processIOn ns. Shots rang out. A man S rb foot. The crowd carricd on. T ose at the front could s c n the men moving abo�t beyond th.e 1.IOC of th� t�ces. They tee uniformed ldlOg. More ries runmng from bUildlOg to bUi paramilita me Serb crowd The panicked de. and dis hand-grena a threw someone Unknown to most of the demonstrators - for whom the •

= :.u ft ::u. persed.

�

prospect ofopen war still seemed preposter��s - Sarajevo had suffered

ia tint casualties of war. Suada Ollberovlc, a twenty-one-year-old

medical student from Oubrovnik, was the first to die. She was shot in Ihe chest as she crossed Vrbanja Bridge and was dead on arrival at ICotevo hospitaL Samir Korie had been with her at the start of the

aonstration. but lost track of her as the crowd moved towards Grbavica. His memories of the day are worth recording in full. They are a �minder ofhow ill-prepared Sarajevo, where the nationalist par ties luad polled badly, was for what was about to befall it; and they give me lie to the idea that the war ,vas fuelled by 'ancient ethnic feuds'.

Manypeople will te/!YOII now that they saw the war coming then, but I didn't and 1 dOIl't think SlIat/a did either. For Slim/a, a Mw/imfrom the 10'f)I!/y city ofDllbrO'l.lnik on Croatia's Adriatic CDast, tbe USU( was more than abstra ct. Htr parents had bun Irapped in DubrO'l.lnik since Oaober oj 1991 when Serbs laid siege to the city during thelT war with . "a. Refugers in Iheir own town, they had hun drivenfrom I rhome by rdentlm St'Th shelling and were livillg in an hotel. . A� Q medIcal student schedu/ed 10 graduate in M av SlIadtl could etlslly have lIayed away . " rom the demomtmlroll that day. She fi Warnt ' J'v /;."m Sarajevo . She wasn't even Bomiall. But myfrirnd .�. traged by tJu ' " -"O/l . dIVuton oII.!rn (/ty she had come to 11II(J1J) and low years ojschooling. Anti herfomily was alrl'a ti dy r/ "a"ino . r "ce for tbe /::III . d D.I ,r ethfile hatred that lay behind the '-"icades. It Was not an an l'rV �... 1. I renumber Suada standillg there that Iftorrri"v . h L0 -' "VUJU o fJJl/ lKr blonde haIT ' all(/ spt lT K/ ' mg bit/( ryes, laughing.

�

7:.five

'5'

BOSNIA

THE GATES OF HELL

Tht ptopft around UJ, most ofthtm young, Wert: good-humoured and tag" 10 mai:t Ihtirpainl in aptaceful way. I was aboul fifty melm .from Ihe bridge whtn a ftw sholJ maybefiw or six - rang out. Ewrybody hegan to run. Once 'Wt got 10 t()'/)(r bthind a building I was incredibly angry. It had nrotr ()(tu"ed 10 me lhal Jomtone would Optn jirt on a group ofunarmed demonstrators. SlTangt to say, war slilldidn't seem inevitable. It was only aftw days lat" that thtre stemed no turning batR, that we began to sptak ofSuada as thefirstpuson killed in tht Bomian war. What had seemed a random aci of violtnte, a great ptrsonal tragedy, slowly took shape i" our minds as Ihefirst incidtnt in a for grealer drama: Europe's worst war infiftyyears. J

pie and injuring dozens more. Bosnian militiamen stormed the build ing. Frightened hotel staff and guests cowered in the lobby as shots ricocheted off the walls. Six men were arrested and dragged off to an uncertain fate. But KaradZic, his daughter Sonja, and his headquarters staff had long gone. Did IzetbegoviC's mobilization call cause the war, as the Serb lead ers insisted? Far from it. KaradZic and Kraj�nik had never hidden their determination not to live in an independent Bosnian state. They knew they had the suppon of the Belgrade regime. and of a Serbianized JNA. They knew, too, that ifthe partition of Bosnia could not be negotiated, it could be achieved by force. They gave lzetbegovic the choice MiloSevic had given all his enemies: you can have peace, but only on our tenns. A few days later, Mom610 Kraji�nik, now President of the Parliament of the self-declared Serbian Republic risked his life by driving into Sarajevo for a last meeting with lzetbegovic. They met at Kraji�nik's old office in the Parliament build ing where the massacre of peaceful unarmed demonstrators had taken place. It was late in the day and already dark. The air resounded with the pounding of artillery and mortar rounds echoing off the sur rounding hills. The bombardment of Sarajevo had begun. Kraj�nik arrived first. He found the building locked. He rang the bell. No-one answered. He waited in his car. The streets of the city were deserted. Finally lzetbegovic arrived with his bodyguard, who were carrying automatic weapons fitted with silencers. 'We had been sort of friends,' Izetbegovic recalled. 'We had served together in the parliament after the 1990 elections: Kraj�njk, conscious that he was on enemy terrirory, and that news of a meeting \vith the Muslim leader would be received badly on his own side, asked hetbegovic to kC(:p the mC(:ting a secret. Iutbcgovic agreed. KrajiSnik then told him that he could avoid war by doing a deal on Sarajevo.

At the Parliament, the National Salvation Committee continued to address those demonstrators who had ignored the volley of sniper-fire from Vraca earlier in the day. Speaker after speaker emerged from the crowd to call for the dismantling of the barricades and to denounce the leadership of all three ethnic parties, and to call for a new round of elections. The event was broadcast late into the night on Sarajevo television. General Lewis MacKenzie, who had arrived in Sarajevo less than a month earlier as the UN Force Commander there, noted, as he drove back to his residence that night, the pools of blood that still lay in the street where the victims of Serb gunners had fallen. That night, under the combined cover of darkness and artillery bom bardment, the JNA seized control of Sarajevo airport, and placed tanks and armoured vehicles at the terminal building and on the approach roads. Karadiic had warned that if Bosnia-Herzegovina won inter national recognition as an independent Slate, it would not last a single day. It would, as he put it, be still-born. On the afternoon of 6 April, the European Community recognized Bosnia. (The United States fol lowed suit the next day.) KaradZic kept his word. He proclaimed the independent 'Serbian Republic of Bosnia and HerLegovina', later to be renamed Republika Srpska, and announced that it would come into existence that night at midnight, wi th Sarajevo as its capital (current ly under enemy occupation) and himself as Head of State. Bosnia, he said, had disintegrated the day it was recognized. The People's Ass embly and National Salvation Committee were still meeting in the forecourt of the Parliament. From the upper floors of the Holiday Inn, Serb gunmen opened fire, killing at least six peo'9

W, always had at th, back ofour minds th, div;r;on of Sarajruo .0 Ihe StrbJ could have thtir parI and Ihl.' Muslims Ihl.'irs. Thi. if no ucret. We considered that SarajtVO sho/lld be rplil into two cifill -twins. 1101d1utbegovif that the war (ouldItop ifWI.' could coml.' to an agrecml.'1lt on Samjl.'Vo. -

lzetbegovic refused. Krajisnik gave the President a pen, a souvenir,

as a token of goodwill. hctbegovic accepted it. Kraji�nik rurned the key in his offICe door, and, without clearing his desk. left. As they said '53

BOSNIA goodbye, they agreed to meet again in a day or two. through the blacked-out streets to the Presidency.

;��:��

17 T I S KJDNAPPED THE PRESIDEN May 2-3, 1992

west, to the Serb-held suburb of llidZa. A burst of narrowly missed his car. He resolved not to return to " "i''''' after the war. The two men never met again until Lord them around the same table in Geneva eight months later. they were sworn enemies.

Bosnia that day, obscuring President law bla nketOf cloud covered . £: ' dow 0f the view of hiS country ITom the Will . . IzetbegoviC's from back him three days of carrying AliJ3. pr p light aircraft . " twin- . o "._ -nervous, al1Xlous to be already was He ';ons in Lisbon. c negoua" L.:.td Rome, an lor in ' h dan our-an refuel to --H'ISPlane had stopped kJGIe d h' IS Duty Pr' me M"100st:r ZIatko an Sabina, � j he, his daughter . . dfj' had tried to telephone the PreSidency budding In lines to the city were down .. He did not know that there morning, the greatest Single bomb�rd�ent to date, that bid begun, deliberate targeting of many government bU!ldmgs and the

A

1 Reuter, 4 April, 1994.

a-btIi

�. �

die

�

cllmucrion, by sabotage from within, of the city's ce�tra! post office .. cdephone exchange. Forty th.ousand phone hnes had been "IIIocked out, including all those servmg the City centre where govern buildings were located. It was 2 May, 1992. Unwittingly, the was flying into the eye of the storm. He was about to be

:;:�

- 1

not back to the scat of his Government, but into the hands

afhis enemy.

A few minutes into the flight, the captain announced that permis to

land at Sarajevo had been refused, be<:ause of heavy fighting the city. The plane was to be redirected to Belgrade, Graz. The captain asked the President where he wanted to

was out of the question. Gmz was tOO far. He chose plane banked steeply to the left and headed northward. the flight-deck received new instruc tions. Air-traffic control cleared the plane to land at Samje \'o. There was still heavy fighr But the President was free to land there at his own risk. The pilot the message to the President and asked him, again, to choose .

�:

is friend said that his years as a political prisoner in the � ha or�ed 10 lzetbegovic the habit of consulting no-o ne but FIC� w h this H dilemma he indulged in this habit again For . mtnutes he sat ' In nervous SI'1cnec, alonc with his thoughts. He . nett , her his daugh' . er, nor Lagumd-" z.IJ\\, nor the flight crew. "y h, ,," 'saraJcvo'. . "';"0 ';"'o; , was under JNA control. Though conflict had comc

;

'54

'55

BOSNIA

T KlDNAPPED THE PRESIDEN IS

to the city four weeks earlier there were still no clear lines of frontation. Naively, given what is now known . tions theJNA had made for war against Bosnia,

'��,:,�;:,: �;�

�:::!�

still regarded the Yugoslav Army as a neurral force that.

standing berween the Serb militiamen and the people tJ drive from their homes. The second ofMay destroyed that

General MacKenzie had sent an UNPROFOR armour ed nel�carrier to the airport to escort the President and his party the Presidency building. Its Swedish Commander waited for an and�a�half beyond the scheduled arrival time and then. in,"Pi io reTUrned to UNPROFOR headquarters in the city. By MacKenzie's own ission, no�one at UNPROFOR knew the President was, or whether he was due to reTUrn to s��... day. When the plane landed, lzetbegoviC's eye scanned

,;i;b

expanse of tarmac for the distinctive white�painted vd'ide. force. He saw only the distinctive green vehicles of the JNA began to set in. He feared not only for his own security but that of his daughter, his Deputy Prime Minister, and his Nurudin Imamovit. As the President's party stepped on to they were surrounded by thirty men bearing JNA insignia.

instinctively drew his gun, which was immediately taken The party was ordered into the terminal building.

The second of May had seen a serious escalation of the war in Sarajevo but elsewhere in Bosnia. It was the day that Serb consolidated their hold on B�ko and Doboj in the lic, driving the majority Musim l population from theif securing the vital east-west corridor from Serbia to the

lands in Bosnia and Croatia. It was also the day that Karad1it's tried to implement, by military might, his plan to divide the separate Muslim and Serb quarters.

Karadfic always made plain his ambition to partition S.",j,.., had a vision of a city divided into Serb, Croat and Muslim

was sharply a t odds with Sarajevo's centuries-long tradition ful co-existenc� and cthnic intermingling. Without shame, he advocate to journaliSlS and diplomats alik� the need to build

. through the heart of the city. He wanted a Berlin Wall through

in which every district, every neighbourhood, every stre 't' ," ,dq'''''' ment block was ethnically mixed!. his mountain n Pale, KaradZic would happily spread out his maps ofthe city

In

anyone who was interested the route that his proposed wall

I ' City, the narrow winding streets of the tl ' me east O f The eXtre h the broad boulevards of the nelghit v together \ ... , wn (O Ims ' l usI rs, were for the M Och old ;;'-i .-y Habsburg quarte ' 111 1 . net..._� nthcentur ... ' ' most 109 . dvor IOCIud n MartJI of west ·0 m L_.ft .... . flil the htng to ' _ 1 ' IOIl-"'St c.._ rUC� ts. Eve"", _--I Croa , 'J : th-cenNry industrial and commerCiAl . cnTle " " ' s ,., city d exc1ub Ite h .... a . to be 10 of the residential capacity - was most of its nd that the s a . ground _ �..ided on the d""" L.� ' ThIs was 5etl>'> y UI b 'It was n by ee b had . city n tiwd es on which the moder . . • • I.. �d and VIllag mosdy by rural Serb commuOltleS . Ka raUl.. lated . popu y " , ,n the vast . C d,vising ' plan whICh wouId cram .... :w apologtes lor . , ..,.de no 0f d sector crowde most st smalle the into . . fthe clt}' s peopJc . ' ' way,' h'5 deputy, ma)Ontyo . h t IS III hve to lims 1 Mus the habit of the me fC)WO. t �s like to live on top of once memorably declared. 'They , Pla�J(: , t:t:....na .. ...,. space. need Vve Serbs culture. s their It' h �r. anot . "s _ -1.0.'1C L'ISbon, KaraUl.. c: ic was returntng lrom On 2 May, as 1z,th
I)Teposterous

'.

I

•

•

?

�;:.

�

:

heigh". Artillery- and tank�rounds slammed into the red-brick facade of the city municipal headquarters. Further west, a second armoured column moved in from Serb-occupied territory near the airpon, apparently closing in on the district housing the lCltion and the distinctive twin-towered headquarters of SaraJevos daily newspaper Oslobodjtnje.

tele�sio�

In Croatia, Serb and JNA forces had proved themselves almost of capturing urban tcrritory without first reducing it to �le. They enjoyed overwhelming firepower superiority; but they not have the infantry 10 follow up artillery attacks. The pattern

iocapable

did

repeated itself in Sarajevo. Both armourcd columns were halted

by a relatively small number of Patriotic League, the recently-formed now

armed wing of the SDA2 and Bosnian territorial defence wit!:: nothing more than shoulder-launch�d anti-tank llUssiles. At Skenderija , they immobilized the lead vehicle in a street ., narrow that it blocked the age of the rest of the column, which Was then forced to retreat. The second column also dispersed in dis IIhy at the fir st sign of resistance. It was a half-h eaned effort, but it was not wholly unsuccessful. FOf

�rped

'57

BOSNIA

IS KIDNAPPED THE PRESIDENT

the first time it brought the Serb front line into the h,ut 0""'_ It gave KaradfiC's forces control of Grbavica and part of the bouring district of Hrasno. Further west, they now' urbs of NedzariCi and Mojmilo, as well as a strip �

�::�.�,;'!;;�

tory near the airport. Furthermore, me suburb of Dobrinja,

city's most prosperous districts which had been built 'p'cifi oolly the 1984 winter Olympic Games, and which had attracted Sarajevo's young professional people, was now entirely '",T"'moI"

Serb forces, cut off from the rest of the city - a siege within a The inner-city front lines established by the Serbs' bungled . on 2 May held firm for the rest of the war, and formed me dt /a(/o partition of Sarajevo: thus Grbavica and NedbriCi from now on, find themselves part of the self-declared ' Republic

of

Bosnia-Herzegovina',

separated

Government controlled districts by a Beirut-style

from

which rival armies (and former neighbours) faced ""h .,of',, ;n • • stant, and often deadly, stand-off. It was a tine that divided cohesive inner- city communities, and separated parents from children, a wholly artificial and arbitrary military barrier overnight, became, in effect, a new frontier between enemy

But there was another reason why the attempt to cut the had failed. The JNA in Bosnia was not yet acting wholly on

side. Many of the old Yugo-centric officer corps remained

Serb nationalism and would not take orders from Karadfit. cipal culprit, from KaradziC's point of view, was General

Kulunjac, the Commander of the Second Military District JNA and the most senior Army officer in Bosnia. In April,

had asked Kulunjac to place his forces under the command

Bosnian Serb leaders, and to help cut the city in two.

J insisttd, in late April, that KURanjac reltase aI/ the .""J"�.

pa,,:;'�:t':;.;:,:;;:;_

tht army, and, ifnot, to dividt SarajtvO into two fighting in the (ity itsrlf Kukanjac JOidhi! (ould n a military optration which, ht said, did nol corwpond to he JaW I1J the army's role as a buffir between the Serbs tht Mmlims. Throughout most of the republic the JNA had been

,""ceo,,!

convened into a Serb nationalist force. The transition . hapless Kukanjac by. He did not know the script, nor the . was expected to play in it. He now found himself trapped, In his >58

•

, with the 400 officers and men of his headt 'k cks at B-1Sn hlovlc, the Cammander t lines. Sefer Ha mmen _ d gove n _ """ behi ._ . - s �rs,os . TO now ordered his mcn to 1ay Siege [0 Ku�nJac the military hospital at ffi J the B man o cers club, and n b e negotiat ing phased ;ecks, �..(he ea ac � � nj had, for \ . now determmed that MariJlndvor. dovlc l the CIty. Ha rom f JNA e m f 0 would only be allowed to leave if they surrendered 1fitbdnwal n.JA forces n TO. . ns to the Bosnia the J ..... we2pO 1heir descended into chaos. Shells n f downtow Sarajevo had random. The town hall, the at apparently and quendY .

•

j'M

�laJ

�

Th��

� �ffirbce� rcraft attacked the television transmitter on the summit of attempted armoured .inv�sion had brought the Mount H:m. The League, the terntonal dcfence, allan to th

.ere

nearby apartment blocks were on the Hotel Evropa and

Green berets, the Patriotic

.

.

e

under the COotfO] of a senes of mdependent .ueets. The city was now .

Bomian militias not answerable to a Single command structure, some well organized paramilitary units, others no more than armed gangs of pre-war criminals. . . At his Command Headquarters In the extreme west of the City, Genenl Lewis MacKenzie was not aware of what was going on downtoWn. In his diary for 2 May, he wrote: 'a relatively quiet day. Only a couple of hundred rounds of heavy machine-gun fire in and out of the old city. But the firing continued all night so t wasn't able to get to a colleague's flat to ,vatch the Spanish Formula One Grand

PriL It was just as well - the flat ,vas parrially destroyed by artillery _ during the afternoo n'. MacKenzie was expecting the delivery of a

pdr;age from Canada, which he had been told would arrive at me post

aSia: that day. He sent an istrative assistant into town to col lect it.When me officer rerurned he told his commander: 'I have good

DeWs and bad news'. 'What's the good news?' the General asked. 'I

bmd the post office.' 'And the bad?' 'It's

been blown up'.

Tho P" ,d I ent s plane had flown into the middle kukan' of the chaos, and

��

•

J c had seized the opporrunity that it presented. From his a;' b barracks, he ordered the airport commander General Th�evac t? detain the President 'for his own safe ty'. tIDdr: e PreSident'S party were now in the airport director's office the �d �a rd. lzetbegovic insisted on being allowe to return to d ' 1u rd Jevac refused. He told the President that he had been tld ldc:ft s 13ke him Lukavica,toa erb-heJd and his delegation to the JNA barracks at ' age on the southern edge of the city, about VI il

��

'59

BOSNIA

niE PRESIDE1\'T

ten-minutes drive from the airport. Djurdjevac said General had n i sisted on a meeting with the President rhr're,

� :::;t��

hert�grMh.ii

'I said that � can mut, hut only in tm pmjdr ry, Kukanjac insists WI' go to Lukaviea. I said thur is no go to Lukavica and ta/k.. They saidI had to go to ; them whelhrr I was thrir hoslagr. I laid Ihem I was "0' go"'" Lukav;f(J unless I was bring/arced. He s(Jid, thrn, you b",,, J. ,, '

Izetbegovic had asked to be allowed to telephone the Pn.ut... tell his staff where he was. Djurdjevac refused, telling him telephone ines l were dov,,". Then the phone on the airport desk rang. It was a woman calling from the city to find out the plane her daughter had been booked on earlier that day ' By chance, she had called the director's direct line. I up, walked across the room to the director's deskand s , � telephone'. According to Lagumdzija:

�� :

Tm Pmidrnf fook tm telephone, m said "G,.,j �'''''ng M'ad.., Ihis isAlija Iutbl'f!"lJje, 1m Pmidrnt ofBosnia on fmphrme: Thm was a briefptluse. She was confused. HI' said 'Yts, Th(Jts right, Alija Izttbegovic, the President ofBosnia. C""'"J'" please hI' so kind, I am hI''' at the airporl, silting in tht 'iffict, and 1m Army won'l lrt us go. Wt art ktpt herr. C"'-}"O please fall Iht Pmidrnry and Irll Imm lhalyou 1(Jlhd to I (Jm htrr, al tht airport, and ifyou ran'l reach thr P,u'lm., pleast (01/ Radio and TVand inform thrm. Thry insist muting wilh Grnrra/ Kukanjac, at Lukavica. Yel, Kukanjaf, yd. Thr WfJman couldn't hrlirvr hrr roN. Pmidrnl said 'Thank you wry much, yrs, yes, thank YOI4 thank you Madam: The woman was as good as her word. She rang Sarajevo and told them her improbable tale. And that's how the city that its President had been arrested. Meanwhile, Kukanjac w:lS on me phone to Belgrade. He Army Chief of Staff, General Blagoje Adtic, that his mcn port had hetbegovic and asked for instructions. Ad!it President of the rump Yugoslavia, Branko Kostic. Kostic was that Adzic had itted, on an unprotected phone linc, that the had arrested the legal Head of State.

IS KlDNAPPED

tively and raid, "B/agoje,you know Ihal Ihry didni arrjllsl looking aftrr him for hsi own pmonal ",.rrSI h':�� 1 �dZii said Wo, no, tMY ormud him!.-Hr did nol .. /)(r slow to puk up what I WQj Irymg 10 soy... I ft;'Y . �_ 1Il _,Ie oc WOJ rat t ' to lift fter I IhI' "Look a him well, bui llU Ih'If opportunlly 'J'. "'d� L. " f(J barra( Plotlnde ofthe . .n( '1 ""Cltd. mst �

�dt.it

.

�us

President's captivity as a bargaining chip auth rity to use the JNA barracks in Sarajevo came ti tions to de-blockade [he slavishly pro-Milokvic Kostic of the ccing Head of State,

� ;:�

:

Montenegro. President �nd his daughte� were ordered into At the airport, the . lmamovlc the bodyguard lOra a second. They and a oae cu LagumdZij a tank behind, and driven wue �rted by a tank in front and he now considered himself that protesting Izetbegovic , tID Lukavica age. host , Scud HadZifejzoviC, the Sarajevo television news anchorman, was .bout to end the evening news bulletin with the closing headlines when his producer barked inra his car-piece that the programme was being extended. 'President Izetbegovic is on the line,' he said. 1ntuview him.' The news had reached the television station that the President was being held by the JNA at the airport. There had begun a frantic round of'telephone calls to try to trace what had happened to him. The tele 'lilian station is in the far west of the city, and its phone lines had not been affected by the destruction of the post office. It also had a direct &ae to the Presidency, which was nor routed through the post office. The y functioning phone-line our of the Presidency was the one the building to the television station. The only way 5 fellow Presidency could communicate with es,dent, and with the outside world in general, was on live tIeJnis Ion. There began an evening of what must rank as one of the aordinary pieces of current-affai ext broadcasting in the his f t rs . _, 0 the medi u m For the first minutes, HaW:lTeJzovu,: \vas not clear what was .1. ''' ' ..,;_ on. He asked 9""-"6 . th.c PreSI'dent a lew C open questions while he colh ' ' th°ughrs questions about the talks in Lisbon, the events • the Ci th at day. Then he said: ' __ 'Mr President, where are you'. ' Lukavic -.. In a.'

�

CIODnectlo� ,

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Ieaed

�

f� '

.

,6,

BOSNIA

NAPPED THE PRESIDENT IS KID

Hadzifej20vic was stunned. Everyone in the city Lukavica was a Serb stronghold, one ofthe main bases from wn.... attacks on the city were being commanded. 'And what is your status in Lukavica?' '1 think I have been kidnapped.' A panic-stricken Ejup Ganic was called to the phone in Presidency, and put through to the studio so that he could talk to President. lzetbegovic immediately told him that, in his �h"",,,,,G. would be acting President. HadZifejz.oviC, by chance, knew Djurdjevac well. He had served his national service under' ' d �:: .�� been a journalist on the Army newspaper. 'He was a very t , dier, the Russian type, you know always shouting. But I I knew he liked me, so I saw my chance,' HadZifejzovit h asked the President to put General Djurdjevac on the line and the vision anchorman began to negotiate the President's release.

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'During thm /a/Iu, Djurdjevac ignored Gani,. He -I'm not talking /0 you, I'm talking /0 Hadiijejzcvit". 1,,,,,,;,/;; gjV
To Hadzifejzovic's astonishment, an unexpected � ; ;; ' i;l;"�' the studio - Fikret Abdit, a Muslim member of the r the north-western Cazinska Krajina and a rival oflzetbegovit. made his way, that day, by car, from Split on the Croatian through central Bosnia, to Zenica and from there to understood how he had made the journey: he had had to Bosnian, Croat and Serb checkpoints. Abdit was known to be the Bosnian Serbs, their Croat counterpans and the INA, and to little interest in an independent Bosnian state. In the Presidency, Ganic, and the HDZ representative Stjepan regarded AbdiC's arrival with alarm. It was, they concl�ded, that an attempted coup was under way. Abdit had arrived to Izetbegovic and install a quisling regime that would take Herzegovina back into Yugoslavia. Ganic co '� d� ' � o�, nv'n� ; : : �: ; � � : : � � � Cabinet Ministers who were already in the P i ,; man, Dclimustafit, the Interior Minister and AbdiC's for a change ofleadership. Bosnia must not be allowed rod" . open war with the INA for the sake of one man he Slid.

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had been " tho previous eight or nine months, . . h� �:Wh0, 10 ')lIth"",,,':ead. g figures in the establishment 0f the Patrlotlc League the J in , , "ge. He accused Delimustafic of attempting -_ of . , .. ""'oded WI h la �1 osn ' B hmut�ehaJlc I a '" ect, of treason. M ... e at, and, in eff a (OUp d'l of being an agent 0 .. ..,g< [JNA staflc counter ed Delimu . . •• 10ng suspect '" .L.. . ce KOS. His insistence now on u�dcrml�mg lzetbegovlcs mg h thro In success S rb us miracul Abdic's � . _ .�� IDtdJigc�P and m MahmutcehaJlcs mmd firmly conviction Jooden't the Ianted ..L_l.nn mts p ...,;:.. th e L c: gmmng taken place had been planned Irom d a h ' what ..--. ,� ..,t de. . and one that still holds curltls an attractive conspiracy theory, . S · " was to be IIftCY among government circles tn . araJevo. Izetbegovlc h me to be killed 'm bot were nJac; Kuka for exchanged � and pped ..... . ls would pr operation. Th Vlde a pret � �t .for the • bungled exchange . JNA and Bosnian Serb forces to mvade the City and cut It In half. Abdit: was despatched to S�rajev� and give� clearance to throu�? . . • Serb checkpoints despite betng a leadl�� figure tn lzetbegovlcs . tDA. He would make his way to the telcvlslOn station and stand by tID announce his assumption of the functions of President. AJija Delimustafii:, meanwhile, would prepare the ground for a new gov· 'tmment. According to other government ministen; he had been brief· ill his staff to expect a change of leadership all morning. The idea that this was an attempt to replace him, had also struck heIbegovii:.1t explains why he immediately appointed Ganic to dep .me for him; he was pre-empting any attempt by Abdic to assume f"Wa'. The Defence Minister, Jcrko Doko, a Bosnian Croat, was &.patched to the television station with instructions to keep an eye ... Abdii: and stop him from making any public announc ement that wuu1d. undermine hetbegovic. Abdit later denied that he had any �bon of usurping the President. But he was furious that the �nt ha� appointed Ganic. who officially '"VaS not even a mem· he ru ling party. Abdii: spent the evening in the television sta fIoa t, cowed, made no publi c contribution. If this was a coup . It had failed for a variet y of reasons: a chance and bizarre call to the duecto ' . ' r 0[ the airpor t that was Intercepted by the Iabn' � the failure of the armoured colu mns to cut the city in half· llim.e:facr s determi nation to save his own skin and his refusal to offe; ....n __ up as a sacrificial lamb; . to and Mahmu'tcehajic's cabinet room � Deh.mustafit3. 1

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night, in his room

. at LuItaVlca, · the PreSIden ' t did not sleep. In

BOSNIA

THE PRESJDENT IS KIDNAPPED

the Presidency, neither did Ganic. The next morning, hi,.W,.,""" and afraid, he made his way along the street that was now sniper alley w the headquarters of the UN and into MacKenzie's billet. He pleaded with the UN Commander to vene. He said lzetbegovic was the only leader who carried the authority to control the militias in the city. They had su,,,o"';; , i.d

JNA barracks, and without strong leadership the situation to get out of control.

MacKenzie drove to Lukavica with the EC representuivt city, Calm Doyle, a major in the Irish Arm�. He found an . crowd besieging the gates of LukaVica dema nd mg that handed over to them. What happened next reveals

I",tb",,';

MacKenzie understood of the conflict in which he had embroiled. Having found an English speaker in the

Canadian Serb, he stood on the hood of his vehicle and ,d
try to negotiate lzetbegovic's safe release. The bemused the less gave way.

Djurdjevac kept MacKenzie waiting for twO hours.

answer questions about the President's whereabouts or

Finally, exasperated, MacKenzie stood up and ma�e for Djurdjevac relented and led the Commande� mto an

·"' ·rIht road. Ln wt o.J Qtrt "Wtrt o.J vthicln silting 011 Iht nil-d N()Wn ouI .r . ked 'IlI.l hty wtTe JUnmng -' inf ortloo I r lhtmm the o y 'J �les, mon ' been pt.o(�d on Ihltr who hal ' people h ' -h ao :. Wtrl Wit T here '1. . chest andplied hktjirtwood along Ihe their on crossed d, n " " """ Ihitr Q I mean, II. was droasla/lOn and surrea,-ISllr if tht road. So id o imokt and wim s parki oil. ng on Iht f/rut. A j;h bla(k douds 0/ . lot ofJutl and oil spill all O'/Jtr tht pIau. And II wos a Vt')' Vtry

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This was not, however, the deal as it was understood by the in Sarajevo, far less by the Bosnian militias on

Presidency

the ground. What Ganic thought had been agreed was a simple one fDr-one swap - Kukanjac for lzetbegovic. Ganic, having been

!IppOinted acting President by Izetbegovic the evening before, had cer

IIinly not agreed to the evacuation ofthe entire headquarters. Nor had

lie been informed that the President himselfhad given it his approval.

When MacKenzie led a convoy ofJNA trucks into Kukanjac's bar -.. it struck the Bosnian militiamen laying siege to Kukanjac that by had been tricked. The Bosnian territorial defence was desper ..,. undeNquipped. On front-line positions around the city. TO

_ were defending barricades often \vith no more than one AK47 '*-tat three. It quickly became characteristic of Bosn

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room. A dishevelled exhausted PreSident IzetbegoViC was

phone. He was talking to General Kukanjac, who, like the was held captive behind enemy lines. The solution seemed The President replaced the hand-set and said that he and

had agreed a swap - one-for-one. Almost immediately Kukanjac called back, to change the

. the deal. lzetbegovic and his party would be swapped for barracks - 400 men, their vehicles, weapons and MacKenzie told the President it was impossible for the l �:',;it " a handful of vehicles and officers in the city, to supervise

voy and guarantee its security. lzetbegovic said he wo�d sibility, and the order down to his militia in the City

JNA convoy safe age out of Sarajevo. . MacKenzie agreed. They assembled the vehicles at the President's party made the journey into the

Kukanjac's Bistrik barracks. was on that journey �hat day: realized how seriously the war had escalated the prevIOUS

It

a couple of days tarlitr, bUI now llu (ily and llu rd httn Iwe bloclud Theri wtrt lanlts burning, Ihtrt wtrt enginlS Wlrt

•

ia's war that wbile the Serbs enjoyed an overw helming superiority in military hard� � b\1t lacked the men, the Bosn ian forces had men but no guns. . voluntee,: complained having to wait until their comIn-arms fell In battle befo re getting their hands on a gun of their � They were not now prep ared to sit back and watch a huge con ent of weapons and ammunition drive calmly out of the . city, ...,. to find Its �y into the hands the Serbian forces against whom figmng an uphiU battle. l pqcKenzie's convoy - carr}'l.ng the preSide . nt, h . daughter and iS a ( he bodyguard Ima mov � ic had ) agre ed to stay behind as u r re ached Kukanpe ' '5 barracks. He f -. ound the General in an d "nking coffee withJusufPu�ina, . n a Deputy Minister in Government who had responsibility for policing. This Ma K z. e, .l who took it as a sign that the two sides were co ro·..,. .· u�� l . >«InFc told M aeKenzlc he needed three hours to load MacK enzle ' ' told h1m he had one hour. The r a""",, _ plan was that now numbe ring some seventy trucks - would leave the

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BOSNIA

APPED THE I'RESIDENT IS KIDN

barracks and drive to the city-centre front line near

Izetbegovic and Kukanjac would travel in the same UN JNA trucks carrying 400 men, their weapons, equipment and �:' . i": 'o , nition, would follow. Before crossing the front lin � ritory, the convoy would divide. Izetbegovil: and :

h :; � ::;:�

another vehicle and be driven to the Presidency. Vc'",,,l and his seventy trucks would then proceed to Lukavica. Serb territory. Mter an hour, MacKenzie, Kukanjac and lzetbegovie

into the courtyard of the barracks. The ground was strewn carded equipment for which there was no room in the trucks. " ' :� were clambering aboard the convoy, bristling with arm :,: : , : tion. The vehicles lined up and prepared to move. At d

!:

MacKenzie's walkie-talkie crackled into life. His office at quarters told him it had just received a message from President Ganic: the deal was off. Only Kukanjac was �obe ",:bo for the President, as originally agreed. Everything e lse their trucks, arms, ammunition and equipment - must stay,

evacuation negotiated separately.

MacKenzie walked across the courtyard to the lzetbegovic countermanded GaniC's order, and insisted the srill on. Pwina, the Police Minister, said he would gu"''''

convoy's safe age. MacKenzie resolved to go back to his headquarters, instructing them to infoml Ganie President himself had pulled rank on him, and had given the The convoy inched its way, painstakingly slowly, out � barrack gates and into the narrow twisting side streets

;:;��

MacKenzie's small armoured car in the lead, Kukanjac in the APe behind. It had got about 500

I�

minutes when the shooting started. M2cKenzie stopped the convoy and ran back to a po , i a...

where he could sec the ambush site. Bosnian militiamen until the President's vehicle was out of sight, and then hui convoy in half. Its tail end - 2bout a third of the vehicles inside the Bistrik compound. Paramilitaries were looting the gunpoint. MacKenzie's eye scanned the

dead bodies, a Volkswagen Golf straining under the 102d of AK47s piled into it. MacKenzie found a Bosnian TO spoke English and said that President lzetbcgovie h2d convoy's age. The TO officer replied: 'My President c

rize anything. He's either dead or kidnapped: ,66

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. back to the President's vehicle. Sarajevo television . Zie ran ,.. .acKen .. . g, on ftlm, the chaos there.Jovan O·IVJak, the Clprurin was �_man of the territorial defence, had arrived to try to . Commandef . President was even m the vehicle. The 1)epU� the ther he � lIne ed him to stop the ambush, and allow the convoy to �denr iljak was powerless. He screamed into his radio hand ClDfttlllue. ut nders further down the line. Disembodied voices ., at comma ., ' d: '� pemste l eII them to Iet the convoy egovlc d back. Izetb tOmorrow.' 'Tell the President that talks further ,.... ere will be . . ' h .� . e anonymous question, . t of the VOice cracklI;U out .... .. are . . _ tomo.. ." .... _ . , t d d. PreSiden emande the that? is hell IIIck. 'Who the MacKenzie asked Izetbegovie to show himself, to prove to his He opened the hatch in the roof of the own militias that he was safe.

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APC and Izetbegovic emerge�. ·It's a bad anal0sr: MacKenzie said .... 'but it was like some kind of second commg. It had a very aiming effect: Bosnian militiamen clambered onto the APC to welcome their President home, oblivious to the fact that General

ICubnj2C was also inside. In a matter ofminutes, it was over. SixJNA soldiers were dead, and teIa'Il orhen wounded. Bosnian militiamen had made off with ran lICked weapons and ammunition. More than a hundred JNA men WItt still trapped in the barracks, their evacuation to be negotiated IIpIrately. Mter twenty-four hours as a captive of his enemy, hetbegovei was free, home, and furious. He stormed into the �n� buil�ing where he refused to shake the hand of Ejup Omit, hiS appomted deputy. 'Was it really worth nearly getting me Idled: for the sake of grabbing forty rifles?' he demanded. Who gave the order to attack the convoy? The JNA blamed Gallic, t �ey had already characterized as a Muslim extremist. There is &bJyevtdence to the claim . The command is much more to have come from Sefer Halilovic, who W2S almost certainly ODe of the urn'dent! I -ti d e VOICe · s at the other end of General Di�ak's wallci: ki.e: To some lewd extent the question is academic. Given the JIRvious aruaety and tension that had seized the city durin g the �_ twenty-four hour s, the prospects ofthe convoy making out it � , were almost . . ne gr Igi·ble Ma�KenZle f a iled to grasp the IOtenslty CIf'-nat had taken p l�ce the prevIOUS day, or the effect it had had on the tnood of th . . e mlittlas patrolling . . the streets. lnCIdent Sour ed rcIatIOns ' . u.;:twe en the Bosnian Government 1... •• Mac Ke . "" ' who recorded in his diary for 3 May' 'this , ,, ,,,,, d," h2s been .: ." y 0fmy . .. life'. An Operation 0f wh· Ich he was In charge had

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n�arly cost the lives of a Head of Stat� and a JNA Gen�ra1. officers had dicd. MacKenzie blamed the Bosnian P';;i � deliberately sabotaging the convoy. He never forgave Bosnia's

CLEANSING The Summer of1992

THE

This was also the day lzetbegovic finally understood the the enemy that was rang�d against him. It represented the end

delusion that the JNA was a neutral force. Kukanjac, who laboured under that iUusion, was sacked within days, and officers who knew whose side they were supposed to be Kostic inelegantly put it: 'It was Monday. I was in Belgrade General Adzic UNA Chief of Staff] called me in the saw from his tone... he said that this arse-hole in Sarajevo

blew it all. Alija escaped, the column was cut in two parts,

casualties there... We sacked Kukanjac because we had to restore dence in the Army so that the people in Yugoslavia would t ,,, th, ,) were sending their children to people who knew w ,,.. � Kukanjac was not the only casualty. On 8 May, last

Yugoslav Generals - thirty-eight in all - were removed in a

the Army which completed the transition which had begun earner. Under intense international pressure, B�lgrade ordered

JNA to withdraw from Bosnia later that month. But the pwU-o",' cosmetic because by now most ofthe soldj�rs stationed in Bo.ni. ,. nativcs. They did not withdraw. Belgrade had transformed them

P"',""UlIy:i

a Bosnian Serb army 80 OOO-strong. They inhe�ited the U1DI ammunition the JNA left on 'withdrawal'. The JNA moved key factories (such as SOKO aircraft in Mostar to

which it feared would fall under Muslim or Croat control. was replaced by a General who had proved his mettle in the Croatia: Ratko Mladic.

.

1 San.jevo in 1992, did not have distinct Serb, Muslim, or bourhoods. There was one exception. The old Turkish quarter, B almost exclusively populated by Muslims Elsewhere, the 0' majority of the city's population lived cheek+by-jowl without

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were m.'"�d'ifr�":"�,�:��:;' ,

nationality. 2 When war uuptcd in Bosnia, the re tion to the JNA. there was the Bosnian TO, t he Bosnian Serb MUP, the Patrioric League, the Gr«n Berets, the terior ministry forees (MUP), Croatian MUP, Bosnian Croat , Croatian army, Serbian paramilitaries such as Arkan's 'Tigers, Chetniks, the White Eagles, the Ye!1ow Wa� ps, etc.. . He . 3 De hmustafic soon afterwards left the City III d is grace and fear. e th out the reSt of the war in Austria and never spoke publicly about 2 and 3 May.

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arrived in Croatia by the thousand with tales which, at first,

world did not bdieve: tales ofh�rassme�t and torture, of mass and deportations, of the burnmg of villages and towns, of sadistic, gratuitous cruelty so base that they found themselves

� �' of fabrication to �iscredit �h.eir enemy. Then, in May, a new

tc:nn entered the internatiOnal political vocabulary, a term that has

proved the enduring I�xicographicallcgacy of.the Yugoslav war: etni(�o

iJIlnrje,

ethnic deansmg. It had been practJsed the year before

m

ero.tia; in Bosnia it became the defining characteristic of the conflict. The columns of refugecs that spilled into Croatia in April and May

1992 wefe not fleeing the war zones. They had been driven from their

bomes on the grounds oftheir nationality. They were not the tragic bi product ofa civil war; their expulsion was thc whole point of the war.

In a systematic campaign, Serb paramilitary hit-squads swept through northern and eastern Bosnia in the spring and summer �d, municipality by municipality, seized control of the region without, m most places, encountering real military opposition. Som�times the cleansing was orderly and achieved without resort to open conflict. The village of Ora�ac, just south of Bihat in north-east+ em a, was one such example. Serb paramilitaries first surrounded the Yillagc and then closed in on it. There was token resistance from a of armed Muslims. Five were killed in gun battles and the ell in less than twenty-fou r hours. Two hundred Serb paracs enteRd the village while other . s blocked the entrances and House by house they ordered the people out into the main street. _ _men were separated from the women and children' and the --n -= and children '. aft er be'109 robbed 0r thclT · money and JC':wcliery, 1Itrt' L...... allOWed to go free - north, towards Biha c town - whi l e their � W�r� looted ' blown up or bumed . The men - 180 of them "at "-C ... 1..n to the vi lIa ry sc · h001, and held there for two days. OK. the seco d d y ge pnma a a Serb officer, whom non e of [he village men kne IIriwed w' ..a...-.. .with"a liSt of six nameso 0ne man D - ubravko HandZic - was _ " rando . m and given the lisf. I[ contamed the names ofpromi:..... local M Usli s. Han dZiC was ordered to point them out. They weR '"",to ,",, d m the Rst. The ir fate was never discovered.

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BOSNIA

THE CLEANSING

A common characteristic of the cleansing operation was this tematic elimination of community leaden; - prominent J>«>pl., U� . lectuals, of the SOA, the wealthy. The existence of names was in itself an instrument of cleansing. The instilled in neighbouring communities, once news of the spread, encouraged many of those who feared they might be to flee even before they were attacked It was the conscious tlOn of an articulate oppositIOn, and of pohtical moderation. also the destruction of a community from the top down. After twO days. the men of Orasac were separnted into groups. About seventy of them were inte�ed in a disused repair plant in the neighbouring village of Ripaf. They were open-sided storage depots with sheet-metal roofs and slept · bare concrete floor. They were SUbj 't to t 'ndom caprors, some ofwhom were fonner : : he until they could be safely moved ro one of t the existence of which was eventually revealea crew in early August. Elsewhere, the cleansing was violent and accompanied by killing. On 20 July, the village of Biscani was singled out for a ing sweep. Here the paramilitaries entered and began a that left dozens dead. More than a hundred more were and marched out of town. The paramilitaries argued amongst selves about whether to kill, or detain, the survivon. Two men shot dead in cold blood. The others were beaten with clubs butts before being driven to the detention camp at Tmopolje. Humiliation. terror and mental cruelty were almost deployed. Captured men would be told that they were to � the following day. At dawn they would be taken out, con�nced they were to be killed, only to be thrown imo a new . They were forced to sing Serb nationalist songs to entertain ing tormentors, and to avoid being beaten. Th�y w�re told that wives had been raped and then killed. that theIr children were Frequently. they were forced, on pain of death, to perfonn against each other - mutilation, p�ysical and sexual. and, o ual killing. They were forced to dig mass graves and c�llect the bodies of their families and neighbours. Sometimes, grave detail would themselves be killed and thrown on .,,' nl"," '", "., " ... ies they hadjust delivered. The technique had a clear porI, of the that went far beyond the sadistic beyond, even, the desire to send

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jpg. It designed to render the territory ethnically pure, and to was' by instilling a harred and fear that would endure, that . n, _.".. ccrtat li �.

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Serbs could never agatn ve togethcr.

K:�2ind C had founded his ne� independent .state at midnight on 6

. Ethnic cleansing was the Instrument whIch gave t�at state ter . were two areas where the campaIgn was most a1 definition. There ntrated: north-western Bosnia, around �he city of Banja Luka, . In northern BosOJa there were 700 000 and 'n the Drina valley valley the Muslims formed an absolute Drina the M ms; in most of Clearly population. ethnic cleansing could not be rity of the t. overnigh .dUeved .. The cleansing of the tOwns and CIties of northem Bosnia pre ICIlted a different challenge to that of the counrryside. Here, whole communities could not be rounded up so easily, because the three .bonalities tended to Jive side by side, as in Sarajevo. Here, the lives of the non-Serbs were rendered unliveable. They were sacked from their jobs. They were harassed in the street. Their homes were attacked and their businesses blown up at night. In some areas, rigid mttictions, that were hauntingly reminiscent of the early Nazi curbs on the activities ofJews. were imposed on the freedom of movement of non-Serbs. At Celinac, near Prijedor, Musims l were forbidden, by • decree issued by the Mayor 's office, to drive or travel by car, or to make phone calls other than from the post office. They were forbid den to assemble in groups larger than threel , or to leave without the pamissio.n of the authorit�es. By August, Musli m households began 110 Oy white flags from theIr balconies: it was a signal that they were prepared to go quietly and make no trou ble. In �is way, wholesale robbery became an organized part of ethnic ng. Every major population centr e in northern Bosnia acquired ...w..- �hese months a 'Bureau for Population Exchange'. It was � -r ...mlsm. They . . laCI, the agents of thiS , ' . were, . m form of ethnic ..1- _ _lOg -u - et h n Ie cIeansmg by eventual consent. Most Muslims and Croa ts rtoderin t allo"."ed to leave without first sign ing documents sur peopk Nre nghts lo their property. Hun dreds of thousands of . I �ve up the�r �omes, cars, business premises, money. ' for thm Itves at the hands of idea and the Serb local2uthor p �tary terror squads. Frequently, the privilege they even paid for of b lng ro?bcd. The y would, as a final indignity. be . a fee go for LOg drtvcn out of town, robbed, and Ia Croatia or sent into exile vemment-held areas of Bosnia 'l'here Were two . main routes through whi ch the refugees fled or

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THE CLEANS1NG

BOSN1A uring Croatia. were driven. The flTst of these was into neighbo through walked the m"u"tU ds thousan of tens , V�egrad and Foca t of safety. Some died place a found they until end, on days for often in organized
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refugees themselves. to return But to assume that the refugees would be able the war, of point whole the miss to was fighting had ended would never being waged deliberately to ensure that they s that Baroness Chalker, in Geneva, would not addres ence she said, was a maner for the London confer '7'

.

Fo�l

s Hurd had scheduled for the following Seaerat}' Dougla

rIn the meantime, the world �ad a humanitarian, not a politi :��iS on its hands, and it called for a humanitarian, not a political

. response. ' C nd themselvcs the unwitting al aid agencies lou The internation July, havin� been assured by the In ing. c1ea to ethnic �� lICComplices these Muslims were leaving vol �t t rmes auth Scrb � local Bosnian elsewhere, UNPROFOR troops amilies f With reunited unnrily, to be of the cleansed from north 7000 escorted rs id-worke a CR and UNH western Bosnia across the Serb-controlled UN Protected Area to the ciry of Karlovac. Only on arrival at Karlovac did the UN workers realize the scale of the terror from which the refugees were

�

Croatian

fleeing. The refugees, now no longer cowed into silence, spoke openly about their ordeal. They had been forced, thcy said, to sign documents surrendering theiT homes and property. UN officials c:xprused outrage. 'We're becoming collaborators,' one worker said.

1t', blackmail. The choice we facc is either to become agents of

ethnie cleansing, or to leave tens of thousands of people to continue

Imng their nightmare.'

8y August, the demands of the Bosnian-Serb authorities had

puwn more brazen. The Mayors of Bosansk.i Novi, Sanski Most,

Bosanska

�pa and Bosanska Kostajnica, drew up a list of more than

20 � Muslim and Croat names, took it to Topusko in Serb-held

�

Croaha and presented it to the UN Civil Affairs Co-ord inator with a d that the UN lay on a fleet ofbuses to take those listed out of IIe.L The people had been encouraged to gather each day in the 1IDWn &quares .10 antiCipatI. On afUN transport. They were waiting there n ' the erb delegation said. The Civil Main Co-ordinator ..&.__ _k s head 10 despair. '1 know these mcn personally. I work with UICln every day I've _-, to tell them that what they arc doing t n. <;u . conIIitutes a Crime against . h�mantty, · a war crime. But it doesn't get . Iiuough. Wi. Th cc:y �e aCllng With complete impunity.' cn roatla slam . . med the doar on refugees, circum stances deterion.ted furth ""nil ." 80 . e Str. for the desperate Muslims still trapped in SElIa. nCIf escape ;. roUte now Ied south IOto Govemmentcentral B OSElla. ' Columns 0f t . hOSC ucclO " . g the cleansmg would to the rno untalO ' roads. Those . h W it veh · Ies soon lost them to pil· IC . Serb rn:" Jtlamen at chec u kpomt ' s
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BOSNIA

THE CLEANSING

Government terriwry at the from-line village ofTurbe, juSt Travnik, they had often been walking for days. There they . legions of those who had come before them. Travnik, once a Bosnian city, and the former seat of the Ottoman Turkish Bosnia, had been home to all three nationalities. The summer turned this beautiful ancient town into a vast refugee e;�� delicate ethnic-and-social mix torn apart by the influx of sessed and the gradual exodus of local Serbs and Croats2• So much for the women, children and the elderly. For the was worse still. Rumours that the Serbs had several mass camps in northern Bosnia had been in the air for weeks. But the news media was preoccupied with the siege and bomk .. " \.,,,,, Sarajevo. Then, on 9 July, the journalist Roy Gutman, of the York paper Ne'Wlday, put a call through to a Musim l \",d" hd,oda in Banja Luka the previous year. 'Please try to come here,' the pleaded. 'There is a lot of killing. They are shipping Muslim through Banja Luka in cattle cars. Last night there were train wagons for cattle crowded with women, the elderly and They were so frightened. You could see their hands through the . ings. We were not allowed to come close. Can you ' It's like Jews being sent to Auschwitz. In the name please come.)' Recent military advances by the Serbs had succeeded in land-corridor, running east to wesr"\ linking Banja Lub to Gutman was the first journalist to take advantage of the. new His flfSt report was on 3 July, his detailed series a trail that would rouse international public opinion about the of Bosnia's war. On 19 July, Newsday published Gutman's first about the camps. He had been allowed to visit Manjoca.

:

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Heads bowed and hands dalped behind their back, tM MwJjm prilonm lined up bifOrl their Serb (aptorJ. One by one tINy lat tnI the metalltoal and thm knelt to ha'Vl' their heam lhawd An ord" walgiven that (auld not be heardfrom 200yartiJ away. and each group 0/twenty Ihm retllrned all the double to 1M shds

ill which tho!y lived ill near darkness. Guardl at the entry JWunl their rubber truncheons as if in anticipation 0/bo!atingr 10 cottle.

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: Gutman was refused permission to enter the 'h d ' _ Muslim men who had been released as part of a i programme. They told him of the random beatings they had '74

al deaths that they had witnessed. Th� Bosnian�S�rb

. ;:� anjata a prisoner-of�war �amp. But
... the

testimony ofthe eight hand-pIcked prISoners AIftIy even from the ' , ' ... dear' interview under the constant lOtlml'datlOg to ed allow een ... hod h guards, that many of th� men detained there were -.e of the pn. son ' d arms; others sal'd .-- bar n t S Some said they had never carne a fles but had ed and surrendered them when DOl' ri e o ...." h' ",·i1it ries had entered their neighbourhood and issued ..... b pa a the atum. the surrender ultim unleashed a media fr�nzy just as Karadfic and G n's report for EC-sponsored talks (Britain now held . London in anged on �he advice of idency). Allhough this was �ater . y at mat urne to make their media spin-doctors, It �vas theIr polic . 1benuelves as available as poSSIble to the mternatlOnal press. At a press conference, they angrily denied the existence of concentration camps. 'J'here were, they itted, prisoner�of-war camps, as was normal practice in any conflict. In at least four live telcvision and radio inter YicwI, Karad1ic, fluent in English, challenged his interlocutor to come personally to Bosnia and see for himself that there were no concen Inrion camps on Serb territory. He invited any journalist who want ed access [0 the alleged camps to visit them. It sounded like rhetoric. But ITN and the Guardian had the wit to take him at his word. In doing so they scooped the world. Roy Gutman, meanwhile, upped the IDle. On 2 August, Newlday carried a story under a front-pag e ban Da' headline in two-inch letters that read THE DEATH CAMPS OF For the first time, the Serbs were accused not just of mua detentIOn, bur of organized extermination:

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The Se b conqu"orJ ofnorthern � Bosnia have utablished two COll untratlon camps in which more than a thouland civiliam have IHnr e�cuttd or ltarwd and thollsandl more are being held until a«ording to two riuntly uleaudpriso nen infertliewed

':'Ndu,

� J ewsday. TIN test i m on" J "l ,rtlu

. two IUNJlWn appeared to be thejim eye . . or :1 What Intern al/anal hllman rights agenCluftar " '"ay k systematIC. slaught er conducted on a huge scaleS. Wftnru a«ounts •

G . rska camp. �lOting the f a J.Xty-[hree -year� old man whom he called only 'Meh � Gub. n::YdOeSC( o' " lbed how Utman then d . '-tim o escn'bed condi. tions at Oma

PIiIoncrs

more t han a thousand Muslim and Croat ere held in m,, - ' e'K"� w,',hou, ,n " " e,',. -.u "'" 0' '� ,'" ,,'on , '""

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BOSNIA

THE CLEANSING

adequate food . It contained the entire cultural and poo"" , l ] "••• • town of Prijedor, east of Banja Lub. The camp was loca ted In ' mer iron-mining complex. 'Meho' had been held there for a week 'in an ore loader inside a cage roughly 700 square feet other men'. The cages were stacked four high and separated 'There were no toilets and the prisoners had to live in their which dripped through the grates.' The International Red been trying for two weeks to visit Omarsb, but had been access by the Bosnian-Serb authorities. Four days later, on 6 August, Penny Marshall of ITN

:: i::�:��

what was probably the most memorable single piece, the entire conflict. She went to Omarska with some E including Ed Vulliamy of the

Guardian who wrote:

;:��!��ii,f�z:f:�::��: �(J::��::��

The men are at vari " ' bones oftheir dbows from thepencil thin stal h to their arms There is nothing quite like the sight of the prisoner d"p.'OI,' to', lalk andto convey some trrrib/e truth that ''' ''' ".,y," who dares not. Their stares burn, they speak only w"b ,Ib,,, I'm.- J fied silence, and eyes inflamed with the articulation ojs/ark, luted, desolatefear-without-hopt!'. There were, it rurned out, four large detention camps that international nOToriety. Trnopolje and Manjafa were tnlnSit

where inmates lived in appalling conditions and were subject to dom heatings and the sadistic whim of their guards. But in and Keraterm (a former ceramics factory on me outskirts of there was evidence that the prisoners were separated into based on interrogation. They were intimidated into giving against each other. Mter this screening process, mey were

'h, ...

one of three categories - A, B, or C. Into category A went .. were judged to have been leaders of the Muslim community, or

!,!,

unteers for one of the Bosnian militias or the territorial dd'n,,,: of these were killed. Category B consisted of men who were into the territorial defence. And category C was all me rest."'''· ...

transferred to Trnopolje or elsewhere where they were held could be 'exchanged' for Serbs taken prisoner by the Go'.""" forces, or for Serbs living on Government-held territory who to cross to the Serb side. There were, in addition, countless smaller, more temporary,

,,6

er these will that at Ripa�. The total numb of such as leadefanS erb ' Bosm . .:- c(:nt:res, the er wheth l d I-t is doubtfu __ known an to any less come ar f all, them of n io t loca _ '" have kn0\YTl the . d killed In each. an ed detam e peopl �,. '"old of n mber ..... en of the ommlttee RelatIOns ..,essrn t the US Senate Foreign ts had On 18 accoun ted that detailed epOlt which sugges . d a S"[' .lU r to the and world receive . able to the Governments of the western Its ive. y's exclus Vulliam . all's and ''aUons long before Marsh _ ''''N . .lng campaig a stanh d b U'"·ted n ' su c-cleans ... that the ethm . . findings wore ' abnow existed an exclUSIvely Serb-mh there als go _ ." d � -" au . ' ueve h IilD r y per g sevent covenn and , Serbia to uous J contig ieed regton, 'm territonl . L �ad a accom h !,Ken ThIS vma. erzego ma-H ofBos ofthe terrirory e selectiv and 'random g includin rocities t a � bY Wl' despread � . meu aSSOClll to the th ea d believe e W ... es massacr ed IciIli gs and organiz of the Muslim village population far � :�h forcible removal bombardment of cities'. In the camps, the from toll death the Most damning of all ed killings were 'recreational and sadistic'. ; i me report concluded that:

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The United Nations did not respond in a timely manner to early reportsfrom thefield about a/rocitin in the prison ramps. The US state department also had early reports ojR.illings assMiated with theforcible trunsftr ofpopuia/iollS but did not follow up on the uports. Thefailure to respond rif/((fl systematic defects in the way the international community and the Uniud States monitor human rights crises. Had the world (ommunitY/Mused tarlier on the alT(!(;ties in Bosnia-Herugovina, many lives might have been saved.

When did the international community know about the scale and nature of the refugee crisis? As early as May 1992, a Bosnian

Government agency called 'Save Humanity' was coUecting eye-wit � . testimony from those who had fled the cleansed regions. A

SaraJcv -based lawyer, Zlatko Hurtic, began to collect evidence � almost Immediately. By June he was distributing dossiers of eye-wit to journalists, aid agencies, diplomats, almost anybody � uN wo.uld listen. Mohammed Sacirbey, Bosnia's Ambassador to the , claImed to have told Boutros Boutros-Ghali personally about the Utnps as early as the middle of May.

=

In lattApril 'We

Jlarted giving information to the UN, including '77

BOSNIA

THE CLEANSING

BoulroJ BoutraJ-Chali thaI thut 'tOtrt concentration ca",/'S. Thtrt was a metting with tht Strrtlary Cmtral around 15 May. We wert worritd about doing thiJ atfirst because 'lOt thought li"u thty would rtact by Joying 'lOt wert scart-mong"ing. All we had wtre tyt-witnm rtports. But 'lOr oursrHJtJ had no idta how bad these camps wrre. But Boutros Boutros-Chali and tht othm didn't laRt us strious/y at the time. In july we submitted a more precUt lisl ofcamp loeations.

JeIlSC

On 3 July, the UNHCR circulated a report to the IeRC, lJ)\IP�1O FOR and the EC-monitoring missions, concerning abuses at camps. On 27 July, it also circulated a report, specifically Omarska. George Kenny, the US State Department official resigned in protest at American policy in Bosnia, later accused of :J. cover·up. The State Department policy at the time, he amounted to 'Let's pretend this is not happening'. The question is important because it reveals a recurring
summer months 0f 1992, while everythmg (i r d ring the �:� in � his chapter was taki�g place, the world's media conc�n· exclusively on the siege and bombardment of the City, cIcso'l t al ost .. «I ro h much more decisive battles and campaigns were being . even thoug a problem partly of access.. partly o� LOforma.,.ged elsewhere. It wasSerb . leaders very well. Nlkola Koljevlc once . But it suited the to a group of jou�nalists that the focusi�g of international capital had allowed us to get on With what we had to -"tion on the OSnI:J.. B " rn . do in northe Carnngron went to SanlJevo and met PreSident Lord April, On 23 }zetbegovic. He was b�iefed by th� l!N Commander there, Gener� MacKenzie, who, by IllS own iSSion and through no fault of hi S own. knew virtually nothing about what was happening outside the c:tpitaI. He saw only the relative microcosm of repeated failed cease· fiR agreements. He had grown exasperated with both sides, and would, eventually, though not yet, come to regard the Serb side as much more flexible in its approach8. He now offered this advice:

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I told Carrington th(lt we [Iht UNPROFOR commanders) thought lIN Bosnian pruidency was committed 10 coercing the inlernational community into intervming mililarily, and was therefort in no mood to honour a crasifrrt - We recommended that Corrington advise the pmidmt thai he would not rtceive mili I,",! interwntion and conuquently should ntgofiate a solulion Wfth Dr Kamdi;it and the Bosnian Serbs.

li':�t�::

Carrington was blunt with Izetbegovic. The beleaguered President recalled what the peace env oy had said:

�

,: � advised me to slart to IItgotiafe 10find fht Jolulion �:'e tlJel�forus wert attacking us. Iloidhim Ihal it was im""s.

Before the war, there was a saying in Bosnia, 'Goodbye Bo'n;� going to Sarajevo', that referred to the sense of separateness thai' capital enjoyed from its rural hinterland. Sanljevo is sides by high ground, and there is something in the

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capital's peculiar looking, self-contained. The i t ,lS 'nward. .

ilia the rest of the republic now had an adverse pIo« of sepan,enesS from "

Ca ing/ n

rTheIr demand, thor ' 0b'leellv ' , e was fo destroy Bosnia as a lOUnt ry He aiked me 'Wh at WI'/1you do?, 1 told him we wo1i1d fi.h lk. Carrington paused. He looked me in the and said' Q at maus ""U thO k you (an .Ir.lg r m . hl bacH Do you know what u art talk r mg aboIIt, Mr l'Utbegovltr . Do ' you know what (Ire you Ii. hling againstr told Do YOII know what weapon Ihl'1J hav ry e?' 1 1m 'tUt' had no -J 0ther (' ' but tofi. JL Vue g hl back or ca",j 10 / u laU. If"" , , ,,, art/ 1 e, 'tUt' r ' U,at WI'll ell ' her be captured or killed. Wt have no S w , e.

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(hoiu, no altrrnative. He laid me 'You, Mr IUlbegOfJif, are lUll aware who you are dealing with:

MacKenzie was right in his central conclusion. lzetbegoviC's egy was to try to force international military intervention. He that the logical consequences of Serb and Croat territorial was that Hosnia should be wiped off the map, and that the two-million Muslims should make up their minds whether Serbs or Croats of Islamic faith and, inevitably, second-class in a state defined by ethnic identity. By the end of the Izetbegovic was calling for an international policy that became as 'lift and strike' - the lifting of the arms embargo against " co.. try, and the use of NATO airpower to compensate for the Serbs' whelming firepower superiority and the entrenched positions forces now enjoyed as a result. None of the major powers thought it desirable. Western obfuscated with talk of ancient ethnic hatreds, Balkan savagery, 'warring factions'. When it came to ceasefire violations 'all sides guilty'. This was true. Bur it was hardly the point. In this ceasefire around Sarajevo could only assist KaradziC's forces in implementation of the plan that is described in t : �'� was more likely to remove the Bosnia story from the,��:;�;�o::�= of the Western world. Serb and Western interests converged again on the issue Sarajevo airport. The major governments of the Western world agreed on the need to mount a huge humanitarian response to : ate the suffering of the dispossesst=d. By the beginning otf ;: became clear that if Sarajevo were not relieved soon, large n': people wou.ld start starving to death. Although there was food the city, its acquisition and sale were rigidly controlled by marketeers who had organized a cabal among themselves to prices high. On 8 June, the UN Security Council approved a take control of Sarajevo airport and begin an airlift aid. At his own request - and with huge enthusias:m ,: - ' O . ' RJF was relieved of his post as Chief to u MacKenzie of Staff TU (Croatia) and made Commander, Sector Sarajevo, his task. noW, take control of the airport from the Bosnian Serbs. At the time, the Bosnian·Serb leadership protested ,;,,,", Men had died defending the airport. It was sovereign Serb they argued.To leave it undefended except by a battalion of'bluc !oj mets' would be to render it vulnerable to a 'Muslim' takeover, "

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ee In fact in private, both KaradZic and Koljevic more co'··en to reach n'gotiations to ach'leve It, than th Bosman ' '. hel. .ve III t � _ ie, to idea the to opel"lt1 MacKenz According be to . out I"" _ ment turned originated Wit' h KaraULIC . h' t VV'¥rn "" If 'l l d hat carne Imse over rt the htnd ��ad proposed to New York that the Serbs open the air � that the UN take over the w�?le city with a "green line" run Dr K "! But KaradZLC w.as as .concerned as anybody �ga;own the middle. further ng the starvation o� .SaraJevo: It ,vould . haveMargaret . pU1 t Preventi mcludmg leaders oppoSitIOn � d c:ills by prominem intervention. Would the world � .....teher and Bob Dole - for military _ . s arve to dcath'. Kara=IC . �aJ ,," capl opean Eur a watch � Idllystand by and . a major . con . h�e makin look It alrpor�, thc vacate to � , planned happily cession and throwing the burden of responSible behaVIOur back on to the Bosnian Government. On the evening of 27 June, with his ancmpts to open the airport sral1ed because of the failure of repeated ceasefire agreements to last than a few hours, MacKenzie received a bizarre phone call. The Praident of , Fran\ois Mitterand, was on his way to Sarajevo, due to land at Sarajevo airport that evening, and had requested a UN into the city. It was madness. An airport landing strip is, by its very nature, the most exposed of terrain Nothing had landed at Sarajevo for weeks. . There were no runway lights; the control tower ,vas out of action. The Itrip covered in shards of shrapnel - and, if the plane were not shot down by one side or the other in the belief that it was coming to raupply their enemy - its tyres would blow out on landing. The air· port road the most dangerous road in the world - sniper alley eva-yon� called it. To drive along it in broad daylight was to take a ��nsk; to do so after dark was suicidal. MacKenzie advised the ' ht to Iand elsewhere, break for the night, and come the l;R5ideor' flIg DQt day. It did. twenty-�ighth of June is St Vitus's Day - the anniversary of the s d.efeatJng the Turks at Kosovo in 1389. In 1914, Archduke Fi erdlnan d of Austria had come to Sarajevo on this very day as � Bosru rate geSfUre of dcfiance to Bosnia's Serbs who wanted to take etC'.� �ut Ofth Habsburg monarchy and into a 'union with the Serbs .;JC,ula. The hi�Sto nca..L . _ . resonances were powerful. . M I· tterand Intend ed to VISit . . only the Head of State. MacKenzie was � never considered that the President �. 'I'd of would visit and talk with only one side in the conflict.' MacKenzie . �. . c:GUId not pOSSI'bly ,OT agreement on the aJrport, and were much ,

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THE CLEANSING

BOSNIA impressed on Mitterand the importance of also seeing the ers. 'I could juSt imagine the Serbs' reaction' if Mitterand sa. 'Th�y would take their fury Izctbegovit, he wrot� in his

�ary.

the only permanent International med iator present in " caj,,,,, _ . Mitterand agreed to shake hands with Karadzic at the

before his departure. MacKenzie informed Pale. Ka� K oljevic turned up together at the appointed hour a nd � ::b accosted the French President on the apron ofthe airstrip.n hands and exchanged a few words. As always, Mitterand's

didn't alter. His eyes showed no flicker of recognition or ' m"" ... gave the impression that he scarcely knew who they were.

MacKenzie had predicted, shots rang out. A tank at the .'�''''" ' of the runway began to blast round after round into the

al.ready

,,, tered Bosnian Government-held suburb of Dobrinja.TI ,,, . ,ou" Serb soldiers suddenly appeared, displaying light wounds to MacKenzie, exasperated, dismissed the whole show as Someone fetched an over-sized flack jacket and dropped it

Mitterand's diminutive frame. He did not flinch, but, for the fmt that day, he looked his age. He was anxious to be off. He had

unimpressed by his hasty encounter with Karadzic, and, while battle lasted, stood stoically in the lee of the tenninal bui]d;� ended after a few minutes. He boarded his plane, and took off,

:��::;:

His mission was successfuJ in that he appeared to d: the world that a milituy intervention was not necessary

ity and progress to Bosnia's chaos. A bold and heroic gesture type Mitterand had self-promotingly made appeared sufficient. It created the momentum MacKenzie wanted. The next

promised, the Serbs lined their tanks and =nou",d IPe<.,(,,"",� up on the runway and left the airport. MacKenzie ran up

��

Within days a Canadian battalion had arrived, diverted from

keeping duties in Croati:!., and began to secure the airport. The began and was soon transporting more than 150 tonnes of food medical supplies a day. The international community

collective sigh of relief. The crisis at Sarajevo, international opinion seemed to feel, was over. The opening of Sarajevo airport marked another central

istic of the West's response to the Bosnian war. It was, almost beginning, treated as a humanitarian crisis. Western dealt with the war as though it were a flood or an

siastically addressing the symptoms of the conflict, ' . any real effort to challenge its causes. Mitterand's visit, and hiS

.

�ter With

and ingratiating Radovan Karadfic, was a a grateful

g o e lims were herded int� a tkfinin � �, �� June, more than 200 Mus. . , gh ru t at PnJedor. a few hours drive '{ba K rm detention camp . ernte t ma Therwere beaten for hours. The other pnsoners heard daY roo J'evo l!2 S . Then they were mach·lOe-gunned. fiofP iOto the night. . amS ate her pns. . thelt � among the dead. The ot lay wounded mOfOlng, the least 150 at ed that '{'be next estimat They bodies. e of their . had to dispas r '-d d out. lU __ I bY then, It before the world loun s month was died. It "

bid

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late.

summer, Serb forces had under their control nd 0f 'hat fateful. . , ... �, the e hat they of the republic s terruory, and most 0f w _thirds ou the vital for the north, ab �e fiercest battles ha� been fought in wan eld ter re, Serb-h therefo (and, �wes, !orridor linking Banp Luka . · Th e corn' la r. h b· er S prope Wit . western Bosnia and Croatia) ntor}' l0 , . 'y · lOant o d h was pre a, IC h· w Posavm of � dot ed through the region ed south, deep lOto ter Croat. Twice. Croatian forces had penetrat necessity. ritory the' Serbs needed. But the corridor wa.s a strategic Serb unbroken s, contiguou no be could thcre corridor, Without the laritorial unit. 'The corridor is the very air we breathe. It is our life as • nation,' the Banja Luka Serbs said. They threw their best units at it. •

Serbs only consolidated their hold on the corridor after IeCret wks with the Croats. But it remained vulnerable. At BItko it .. only five kilometres wide. It is the Serb state's Achilles heel.

Ia fact, the

The second main area of conflict was in the south-west, in Mostar.

Kand!iC's early ambition had been to draw the border of his state

along the Neretva river, and down towards the coast. The most ambi tious Greater Serb nationalists asserted that under this plan, even Dubrovnik would be incorpornted into the future Serbian state. This

plan woul� have partitioned Mostar along the river: east Mostar ;:Wd be 10 Republika Srpska. But in May the JNA withdrew from r east back of Mostar, and on 17 June Croatian forces drove the Se bs off the east bank and Out of Mostar altogether. .JUt there remained four vital areas where the initial Serb onslaught su�ceeded, due to the unexpectedly effective resistance of the lo a t:!osman defence forces in the early days of the battle. In eastern . 80s thi majority Muslim population retained control of � � ca, . e �a and Gorazde. These became islands of enemy terri d .c P w;.;hlO what the Serbs considered their country. As winter e ended, . eezlOg the front lines, it became clear that these three

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BOSNIA

'enclaves', as they became known, would be the Serb mili... "" for the spring offensive. They had to be neutralized as a threat, and finally cleansed as unwelcome ethnic stains on wise pure Serb tableau. The fourth area was the unfin'i'h'd b�;;':: Sarajevo itself. Karadi.ic remained resolved to partition the negotiation if possible. by force if necessary. But that could the end. lzetbegovlC's dilemma was now acute. The only dten...'; defeat by the Serbs was 'liberation' by the Croats. He was foundly distrustful of his 'ally' in Zagreb - and with sound 1 The ban on public gathering was l ast imposed against K�",,>•• • Albanians in 1989. 2 For a graphic evocation ofthe horror and despair that K<"re'.. ,"l i

long marches into �ile, see Ed Vulliamy S�aJom in Htll, Simon London, 1994. 3 Gutman, Roy, Witnus to Gm()(id�, Shaftesbury: Element 1993. 4 Fighting for control of this corridor caused some of the of the war, cost thousands of lives, and frequently dominated p.""dhi

the Geneva peace talks. 5 Nrwsday, 2 August, 1992. 6 Vulliamy, S�asom in Htll, London, 1994. 7 Figures supplied by UNHCR, Geneva.

8 See MacKenzie's memoir Ptaultupr, Douglas Mcintyre, 1993, for his growing disenchantment with the Bosnian Government particular, his animosity towards Ejup GaniC. 9 P�aultup", p. 2 1 1.

19 'WE ARETHEW1NNER nce The London Confere 2 199 ber um De Mar

S'

1

. ment and . the British Govern by n(erence, hosted . . . Loodon C0 on B osm3 it summ UIona mtern the most ambitious organizations. ed in .calling for the r w')' countries and � L n by u_ !bon u and the restora on 0 tern.tory taKe . of ethnic cleansing �� wake of revclations auvut deten�iOn camps m �--Hdd in the Serb aggresSiOn. Under the ..er after speaker condemned _I �: . JIoInia, speaJ\ to save ke action . would ta unity comm . l ationa the intern illusion that h could afford to take the mor01 h'Ig ground. Bosnia, the participants the confere?ce as a breakthr�u�h. A (�me Western powers hailed to deal wah the Yugoslav CrISIS. The tIde of work h d been established ability to been turned and confidence restored in the West's resolve, ti nal in�erna of display � �de leadership. Despite this new . London VlctOry 10 a scored had toO, Serb leaders believed that they, b � ce f would it that advance in knew ip �� The Belgrade leadersh . COSIC. DobrLc� la, YugoslaV new the of President The ism. ... ofcritic tIM:: nationalist writer, who had taken office (our months earlier. had bcc:n told by 3 British minister that Milo�vlc would be called to . But Milo�viC was jovial on the flight to London. Turning to his hdOnnation Minister. he asked: 'Do you know why we're travelling to London? Because we afe the \vinning party: The Minister was confused. 'But we've got sanctions, petrol is rationed. The economy is ' � mess. 'Forget the queues. we are the winners,' Milo�evil: said. turn109 round to continue his conversation with the Montenegrin President, Momir Bulatovie. ?ncc in London. Mil�vic seemed more interested in settling scor s with the newly-appointed Yugoslav Prime Minister, Panic, than in the Conference itself. They argued publicly and . d the s�enes, Milo�evie even threatened to punch him. Milokvic n.d -PlCke� both Panic, the Belgrade-born millionaire (rom ta C i al or ma, and COSle, seen as the spirirual father of Serbs. His plan .... to let the Unlikely pair nav igate while he waited for the storm to . E�rlier that year, he had approached COSIC, who exerted consid e Influence behind the scenes, and asked him to head the ,

T;

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'WE ARE THE WINNERS'

BOSNIA

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unrecognized Yugoslav state, which Montenegro, and had been formally (and April, 1992. 'Together we can save me nat ion,

27

It was an ofrer �osie could�'t resist. In Ju ne, the writer rode . . . battered taxt to his own presldennaJ Inauguration. His hean healing the divisi?ns among Serbs and securing a place in Serbian

tory. the elderly Cosie wanted to appear above political struggle.. would not dare to risk a direct challenge to Milokvic. Serbia Montenegro were facing increased isolation. On 30 May, 0"''''I!
first time instirutions

in the Orthodox Church, the university and even factories

Panit was

political establishment in Washington, he

to end Yugoslavia's quarantine. But if Milo�evic believed that political novice would simply follow orders, he was

Surrounded by a team of his own American advisors, Panic tried run Yugoslavia the way he ran his California-based ph�",! �� ' company. At one point Milo�eviC even a�ed to consider

proposal that he (MilmeviC) should take a job in the US politics. It is remarkable that MilokYit: even tempted to assume a new life in the US. But he soon his mind, and a simmering feud between the ebullient mi Dio""!' and the arrogant politician finally erupted in public during London Conference.

bizarre

retire altogether from

�

. � : :� :� : With his signarure glass of Coca-Cola, Panic was a"� air in marked COntrast to the dour authoritarian politician s f

e

Milo!eviC's men, but not enough to satisfY th Serbian President. also included several of Cosie's appointees, and a

couple of'

dent and genuinely qualified ministers, for sensitive ";,moh-" ",,10 I justice and minority rights. Panic took the premier's

job out of an unshakeable

could succeed in the monumental task of ending the impressed foreign dignitaries with his message of co-existence Balkan communities - but, in fact, revealed only the vaguest edge of what was

-' ra B CJg

lephone erb "'gc '_... ' He (rom ' ad ed elf .aae, Panlt �:ed ��y help. 'Just men,' answcre� a voicc . thr��gh the ,.bether h� ndo that YugoslaVia was still aLcllOg the not seem to realize . . . : Planlt 1d\vith ma/tnd. mcn and bs 1JoIIU&fI 5er

the British Prime Minister John Major the C nference. . g ia's fatc, already under UN sanctions. If ofSerb ... �, n m pI ..... Operu · ted a gn ught, they would condemn themonsla their hah =Serbs failed to .

,�.. "

.

If'Wl do notget co-ope:atioll, t�epressure will. inexorably increase.

Milan selected as the man who would deliver left of Yugoslavia from the Balkan wasteland. Through his

His Cabinet was a strange mix. Under pressure, Panic picked

,

tcfyes to complete isolation

against him.

tions with the

de, he was informed that the Serb assault Hone

n " " ,n _ UI"ng d"pitc his pledges to the contrary. .ru .. .. ntlO , was co the town, completely unaware that 11 . tc s hi· atde to 1 1 cut ete y for three months and was comp 51 nder 5 u , "ue_u " m li . Reaching the town via t rary w;o. \ orld IIId �n the outs'd ... l e n 5 er d omma e b er ' " 1 d aske a OCiIJ . himself.

happening on the ground in Bosnia. On 'J J�'P '

In the way ofagreeCondemnation, iso/alum. Partlts who stand more rigorously tvtn s, sanction tven tougher mnrt (an eX"ecf � . . reco a ern(ltio ill No �TIIl/on or roIe. po/iud No trade. No .a d. � � Lonomic, (ultural, poizl/cal and diplomatIC uolatlon.

�

!

..

At the Conference, Panic made a strong impression - clownish,

enuic, but committed to ending the war. At one point, Milo�evic liked to speak. Panii: scribbled something on a piece paper and held It up in fr nt of the Serbian President. It said 'shut up' in English. r.nK: then show the paper to the Acting Secretary of State,

o

of

ed

L.wrence Eagleburger, former ambassador to Yugoslavia and once a 6iend bodan Milaievic. Panic went a step funher. his heavily

ofSlo

also

In - he

rusty told the ICIt'ented English - his Seri)()-Croat was Conference that Milos iC was not authorized to speak. On the second day, the EC by the Dutch - put forward a

ev

urged resolution, lambasting the Serbs. The Serbs saw the draft and IIbreatened to abandon the Conference. The British worried that if the doc:um draft

ent were not proposed, the Bosnians and the Dutch would out. I �it went ahea�, Russian leave instea�. . . � MlO lste r Andrei Kozyrcv, and his deputy, Vltaiy Churkin, per fect man r endeared him to media ri d to calm down the Serbs and keep t m !Iizabe withdrew to their separate rooms at t Qieen 1'h Centre. was a hu e row. Miloscvic insisted on leaving. Panic wanted

�

The

the Serbs would

� t e English and relaxed ce. The Serbs t� ll ere g

ne

he

he

the at the

WE ARE THE WlNNERS'

BOSNIA

to stay. Finally, MiloSevic agreed to stay, but only if Pa w: C to shut up. Panic tried to tough it out: 'It might be best us go back to the Conference and others don't: he said. middle of this exchange, no-one noticed that Kozyrev had the room to propose a compromise: Major would read the aloud, but the Conference would end without debating it. 1hc reluctantly agreed. Major hailed the Conference a success for providing a sive framework for the first time since the conflict erupted. know what needs to be done; he said, 'how it needs to be whom it needs to be done.' The participants had agreed to sanctions against Belgrade and station monitors along Serbia'. tional frontiers, including the Danube River though not on frontier \vith Bosnia which was controlled by Serbs on both Lawrence Eagleburger announced they had secured an from the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadlic, to allow monitor all heavy weapons around the towns of Sarajevo, Gordde, and Jajce within a week. The Bosnian Serbs had also to withdraw from 'a substantial' - but as yet undefined land they controlled. The UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali plans to deploy thousands more peace-keepers to protect voys for Bosnia's civilians. The fmit winter of the war was ing, and more than 1.3 million people were expected to ro" .." side supplies of food, clothing and shelter for survival. agreed that a peace-keeping force could be cre t'd bY th, . Council to maintain the ceasefire and control 14 September, Security Council Resolution 776 Bosnia. , as the single largest troop contributor, took of UNPROFOR II, as it was to be called, while Britain " tho ... largest held the post of chief-of-staff. The participants work towards a ban on military flights. In October, the Bosnian air space a 'no-fly' zone. The warring parties agreed [hat a settlement must [ion of Bosnia-Herzegovina by all the former Yugoslav respect for the integrity of present frontiers unless al agreement. The declaration also called on parties to:

��:��;:�

S

also,-"c.-._,

- dose Ib" ,,,�b'>m'nl' d"''''';'"",a",p' ",d!r,"nl ;mm"d," ; ,""� 10 lhe inlemational community. . .... - rejm as inhuman and illq,al the expuiJion ofci'Vilian ,,, ,88

ordtr to a/ler Ihe efhni, character 0/any tli/llSJ'· righl ifreturn. n fion and Ihe Co am( workfor peace la/h. ;l1 Geneva, ;ncllldi�g the '? Ifill. - elt�Dhs as Ihe sucaSSlO7/ of j"king groups (on JUch Wiles war. . · ""lIon .OJr 'a'Vf·0/I and examine Iheproposal'jiora warcnmes Inl Yuga eT fo"" . ..,ttal. . me�,s. lontlI l.reatltS.a d � . ; rtJpt'1 all inldTIal ou rm t?Unlnes· 'g wl m / h othtr I rtJ/ort trade and f ,:: s righls oDser'l.ierS. 10 AOS01JO. erlJlas O1JtrWbeIm_ aespalcb human · rr . sO/lthern pro'IJl�ce; POj'IJOd·ma, Ibe 1I0rlh. ern 1 AIDanian ittg�. m; h" , elhnic patchwork mcludes 346 000 Hungarta . rlnu w a wllh negro and Monte straddling Serbta inui SondiPi, a rtgion /6rge Moslem population.

.'

L"l·r bomtS in " I"rn m 1

ra S:

�;

_ -

despatch of inter�atio?al media Mil�evit repeatedly refused the the et �.lc Albantans I� Kosov?: o starus future ... to negotiate the

�

r . us. Pall1c Serblas Illternai affa III e interferenc tIping it constituted and e Security on Conferenc the rom f monitors of despatch IIIc:bd the Co-operation in Europe to Kosovo. A year later MiloSevic would .,a them. In their final declaration, the Conference participants urged the -.ring parties to lay down their arms, or risk lasting isolation. If. .. Serbia andMontmegro do illtelld10fulfillhese oDligalions in

dud as well as word they will mllme a mperted position in the i"ttnlalional commllnity. . If they do no! comply the SeCllrity Council will be invited to i ."uy stringenl sanetiom leading to their lotal international so. ""ion.

1'1le text was harsh. World powers were threatening to completely leIl offSerbia from the outside world. For the Serbian President how tier. �e Outcome was bener than expected. The declaration did not the use of force to punish the warring parties. This was an . . 1IIDuId nt omiSSion and a victory for Serbia. Stinging words alone not penalize the Serbs. At London Conference, the Bosnian Serbs - and particularly " R dovan Karad�it - emerged from under the coat-tails of ", ' � at. ,po <" III Belgrade. This clearly worked in Milo�eviC's favour. "';'.,he alone had had to bear the brunt of the international ... . .. ; " wrath. As Karadzic willingly basked in the attention of

::;:::; �

,8,

'WE

BOSNIA the media, the burden of responsibility shifted, almostt i ",,,,, .. on to his broad shoulders. MiloseviC's close ally recalled:

Looking at it cynically, thr London altthr tfficts ojtIN war... Until tlNn, bring slruck offtIN agmda twrywhtrr... was at thr ron/amu tablr as the prrsidrnt Panii was that m primr minister.. You """"H'�'" Conftrrnu rndd with John Major saying r..d A.'. Ponil/or a /Narrfol solution to the problrm therr - with all the cards in his poe/ut. �:d ::' ; ;t: thl Bosnian Slrbs with Karadt,i, applarrd,;' ; t ��: .. . ojfhl c0nftrmu, but thlrr anyway

::

��

At thc very end of the Conference, thc former Labour Secretary and SOP leader, Lord Owen, was apPointc 'd d : � : Carrington. At first the Serbs were extremely upset. P� ! had called for the use of air strikes tl? stop thc Ultimately, he would build an extraordinarily warm rel>tionlhi " p Milosevic, winning his total confidence. But as the Conferencc wound up, MiloseviC was o� foolish antics of Panic, who had had the temerity to ask70� to be sent to the borders between Serbia and Bosnia: Two

- when he had finally tircd of Karadzic

-

Milokvic

�

...J.d

watered-down version of the same thing, and was ,., partial easing of sanctions. None of MiloSeviC's coterie could that Panic had dared to propose murual recognition between

and Yugoslavia in a twelve�point peace plan he presented Conference (the plan also included the recognition of all

Yugoslav republics within their original frontiers. and the talks with ethnic Albanian leaders). .. MiloseviC stormed off to the airport, leaving for B,J,.. KaradZiC's plane. The Bosnian Serb delegation was forced ride with Panic to Serbia the following day. It was the nnll....' .. home. Asked if he would allow KaradZic and his colleagues

plane, Panic turned to an aide and said: 'Who are they?' He agreed, but forced the delegation to sit in the rear of the he and his team travelled first class. After the London Conference, Milo�cviC's henchmen took

.

ARE THE WINNERS'

They were

upset by Panic's tendency to say whatever

, ofP�e. d days after returning from London, a no� . Just three hea int ifs devotees, the MP O his bled. AI; onc of MiloS"ev t

t: 'We have embarked on l � �e Federal Pariamen ' vo�� ::ii.kc,,,� eVl.C' man. Ifwe place f rther confidence

th an i'rresponsible , u ade W! on an even greater one. p 'll g kin bar em �: we be .. biJn . office thanks to from the m ID an ged ro stay d h c Federal Parliament. Arriving in Belgrade Paru � e �es ro (he emerged as the months later, Panic had . a",m,n' six s p1P, oJeviC Mil , • magnate OppoSition. Even the West ' pharmaceuticals t-ot- ofSerblas ' . • s magnate. . pharmaeeutlc;,u � y '.n d hopes on the eccentnc p n ed to the vic, appeal Milo�e clashed with \,..05 1 c:' wh0 ad also -" il M d, ret;wate ' oS"eVlI. . . 1 ectlon , t not to stand for re-e Sablan Presl'den was OSIC " ' C 1 h (" ater, s mont lew A political casualty. PaniC � the first

J,fonte�? -e�

:

.

\

. �

ber, Television Belgrade, �n-up to elections on 20 Decem , unleashed a ,:ave of propaga da n weapo � )tilokvi't s most important lan �er the for se �ra l. genera in sition l op'p e . tpinst Panic and th. ? ed �iloseV1c bolster PaRlc, on attacks VICIOUS wlth President. coupled .l.ng to CIA agent, eo��plf IDd spread the notion that his rival was a ln � rare tel�VJslon lllt�r� Kosov ."ay a gi�� and ons sancti UN , ? tishtcn . � n 'fiew. Milo�eviC sa.J.d that Panic s helmsma was In Washington. With coaaiderable electoral manipulation and gross abuse of the media, the

��

�

Sc:rblan President took fifty-six per cent of the vote. Panic. running on • slogan 'Now or Never' took thirty-four per centl. The distoned a d isolated political landscape of Serbia provided n inik ground for the smear campaign, which encomed not only Panic but the West as well. By December, there was almost no�one left in Serbia who was not angry that the West had imposed sanctions lad afraid ofwhat it would do next. Instructed by Belgrade Television, fI:abs believed that their kinsmen in Bosnia were fighting for the sur�

¥iYaI. oftheir nation; it was not a land�grab. By contrast, 'Muslim fun� lllunentalists' and 'Croat fascists' were waging a war of aggression. Scenes of Muslims being expelled from their homes were never . It was easy to build on collective memories of Serb suffering the UstaSe in thc Secon World d War. ter, w henbloodshed and destruction rendered the prospects of a � . _. -b-hethn . IC OSllLa much more remote, another of Belgrade's dark .r"" '"t' eSles was fulfilled.

:::

B

.

1 Of the 250-sea

'" ' , t PaT\'lament, M 'l Io�evlc s Soclalists won 101 seats, and, '9'

BOSNIA together with their ultra�nationalist saTellites, the Serbian 73, they had a comfortable majority. main opposition headed by Vuk Dra�kovic, took 49 seats, the centrist 7; the bulk of the remaining seats went to smaller parties

The

Muslims.

20 THE HOTTEST CORNER

and the UN Soft Areas The Fall ofSrebreArlica. pnl 1 993

'

in a remote wing Efindic climbs the three flightsinofthestairs heart of Sarajevo and

A ��e �osnian Presidency building . VJ. .1 e �d attic room. He teases a barely audible short�wav eac . ...

cn a cramr -

'e ''' ', and _ 'mto Ul c aml>1>lar vOice 0f 1y the l 'Sara One, Sara One,. 5udden ign s ... call .

'

J'umping from wave�band to wave�band, he Issues

Jbnhim Betirevic, the Srebren�ca toWn's

�

ra io op�rator, answers his call. �e thiS, twice a day, for more than SIX like speaking en have been from his bunker in Srebrenica, Ibrahim, p.m., 3 and . m., s at 9 a military plight of the precarious the about message� coded i g defences. It has been surrounded by Serb forces for almost a

� �� CWO

>

)'til. for months, the local Muslim defenders have been fighting a 10s

iDs blttle as the Bosnian Serb Army ha� moved in to close the noo�e

tighter around the town. It 15 mld�March, and, through thiS

tircle __

tenuous radio link, the military commanders in Srebrenica

iDfOnn Sarajevo in code that they have run out of ammunition. They

annot hold out much longer. It is the start of a devastating series of

CftII,ts that will humiliate the UN Protection

Force,

destroy the

Vma:..()wen Peace Plan, fatally undermine the credibility of the UN Security Council, and threaten to split the NATO alliance.

Sn;tnnia\

l two-hour's drive from Sarajevo in bener days, sits in Drina Valley, surrounded, like so many Bosnian [Owns, by high It was built on the site of a silver mine2 - the Romans called

JiIOUnd.

�

ntium. When war broke out, in April 1992, the town's Muslim

. had tried hid to make an agreement with local Serbs, and, at first, SerbIUc cecd� . eir negotiations had been disrupted by the arrival of

� T? �;�� es fro� Ser ia itself - the very men who had . �

IJelJlOa and ZvorOLk now moved further up river. Naser yo�ng policema n and former body-guard to Slobodan -1.UOIeVtC r3.lsed a m'1>ltia > and staged an uprising at the end of April, t tion. l the Serb forces Out of Srebrenica after three� a week occupa� t Was one of the few places where the Serbs suffered a defeat in of the war. The battle cost hundreds of lives and left territorial defence forces in control of an island of

Orit, l Ul,-_ .

�

'93

THE HOTTEST CORNER

BOSNIA territory in the heart of the 'Serbian republic'. This, and t"O enclaves, were proving a military and security . On 7 January (the Orthodox Christmas) forces surprise attack on Serb positions to the north, killing Serb and burning their villages. The Serbs rounded on Srebre ruc ing �r�ugh �h� neighbouring B�snian-held villages of Ce KonjeVlt PolJe In February and, In March, closing in on the itself Thousands of Muslim villagers, many already refugees. hinterland fled as their villages succumbed to the onslaUg ht

�

poured into Srebrenica town seeking refuge, but the town was crowded, the most recent arrivals had to sleep in the open air. At the same time, the Serbs imposed a ban on the already quent aid convoys entering the enclave3• By March, they were

ing small windows in their front line, through which trails

were fleeing to the Government-held town of Tuzla in They brought tales of intense suffering and hunger. The called this 'ethnic cleansing by starvation'.

In February, a group of Srebrenica citizens arrived in They had smuggled themselves out, through Serb lines. under of darkness, and, at great mortal risk, had trekked across the tains on foot, and into the capital. They demanded a meeting . Government. Their bitterness shocked Deputy '

LagumdZija. They told him that while the world's attentioa focused on Sarajevo, the plight of the eastern enclaves, where

tions were much worse, was being ignored. They demanded every Muslim who died in eastern Bosnia, one Serb should

rested in Sarajevo and executed. Lagumdzija was no n; was genuinely committed to a multi-ethnic society. He

�":;:::�

them for their demand that innocent people should be

for the crimes of others, but promised more resolute for

200 000 Musims l under siege in the three eastern enclaves. Lagumd1ija, in an attempt to tie the fate of Saraje vo to th." .l, enclaves, announced that Sarajevo would receive no ;",>"' d.'"....� aid, until the eastern enclaves had received at least one delivery. airlift was being suspended, and road convoys would be turn� He was putting the whole city, in effect, on hunger strike to

the plight of eastern Bosnia. In March, after hearing the news that the Srebrenica defendett run out of ammunition, the Commander of the Bosnian army. Halilovic, warned the UN Force Commander Phillipe Morillon a Serb offensive was about to begin, and the Muslims in

'94

O.. n

same time, a to defend their territory. At the

."eIC in no P SltlOrking for the World Health Organization, had :-� doetor wo "�C uormed Morillon the encIave, . and lJ Bri �' O he mountains .into .L I......I ver t hat the h c over. and t no Wit street the 10 living . - ands were thous � cbtt to die from hunger. Morillon now began a -

ning

begin �t we� that first disturbed, and then infuriated, his bosses in n '(5 of acno s

go to 5rebrem" ca h"Imse1£. ric h resolved to New a convoy of th�e vehicles across forested took he M ch, n . traCks, beyond the Serb front hne at Bratunac, and later O IIICJUfltalO memoir of the war: recorded in his ,en

Y�l :C

and, after a (ouple oj hOUrI, I WI mplforward though Ihe trm, wilh the UNflag so thal lhe car d d to get on 10 Ihe armoure d :a who we were. When we land misunderI B ians would not thm Bosnians appeared valley, the deftnding a little hill did you gel throught 'How there. were we that king amazed Ihe path - we were down miner the laid y l personal 'J one asked. ifferent direction. exp«tingyoufrom a d At that moment a large explosion signalled the lorry had hit a mine andhad turned OVo'r into the ditch.

:d 700

'

Morillon's party crept into Srebrenica in the dead of night. They

bmd hundreds of people living in the street, and dozens still pouring

iato toWn. It was cold. There was no wood left in town. People were iluming plastic bottles for a little warmth and the smell clung in the CIOId night air.

The next day, Morillon met Orit. He told him he would do every

thing possible to secure a ceasefire, and get humanitarian aid through.

He �en got into his vehicle to head out of town. Oric had other plans h him. Efenruc, back in SaT2jevo, had sent Orit a coded message:

'Whare:'er happens, prevent Morillon from leaving Srebrenica until be: pnmdes security for the people there. Do it in a civilised way. Use "Ornen and children'. M rill�n now found his path blocked by hundreds of women and . they n Sltt the middle of the road. He was now as trapped as He tried to negotiate his age out. Oric would not lirlIked mally, Morillon, trying to win the confIdence of the people, n to the balc ny and made the public promise that was to ? ? blunt � /n. the followmg weeks: 'I will never abandon you'. One be hLS party, the Belgian aid worker Muriel Comeis, l then lritb M , recalled

� ��.

..:: �;

:

BOSNIA

TIlE HOlTEST CORNER

We 'Were in the hospital, a�d 'We heard the crackle ojthe louQ... ipeaker, and wmt to the wmdow and thue was Morillrm: 'y. are now under theprotation ofthe Unitd NahOllJ. · Wejust b 011 out laughing - it was JO absurd with him standing there and� the feop/e watching. Branko the in!(�preter could not keep II straight[au. Up went the UNflag. Ene. OUT doctor, said 'This it it. Wt are in big shit: there ofhis own

ility to help them, to save their lives. I ·t is my responsib �ted, I or theoretical debate now. We just have ophical . r ,or philos . _at ente d d twenty trucks a day, sen planne to iluce Mend ' lives. ve their .. .. between I()(X) and 1500 people on evacuate to empty ' IPO't OI them

later, Morillon, becoming. in t�e view �f his advisers. . ed with the fate ofSrebrentca, and hiS own pronuse obsess ngerously dl abandon it, set off again. He had been horrified by reports of elling. He annou�ced th�t he was going.to. Srebrenica with voy offive vehicles, With or Without the pemnsslOn of the Serbs. pea.ce·keeping conve�tion is to act 0r.Uy �th the consent of all ·cs to a conflict. Morillon was breaching It. The gesture was to

�;Pdays

of the ordinary had taken place. He made himself scarce. He

�sh

vehicles to arrive. But he had been spoued. The vehicles did come. At four a.m., he walked back into [Own to see 11. refugees, hundreds-strong, gathering in the town centre. The

:: out to be the most flamboyant gesture to date of the impotence of"the UN force in the face of Serb intransigence.

Anxious to create the impression that he

was

tion and not as a hostage, Morillon behaved as though nOfrung , sleep asking to be woken at [\vo a.m. He then tried to sneak left on foot, undetected, and waited at a pre-arranged place

tion was becoming farcical. On 13 March he was finally allowed leave, after promising to go to Belgrade to demand an end to

assault. Morillon succeeded in persuading the Serbs to let an ';,1 """ay; But the convoy leaders were not ready for the reception

-.�ff-Ik,;;a;

receive. When the food and medical supplies had been

��;��::

there was pandemonium as hundreds of desperate women and dren stormed aboard the trucks, piling one on top o� �;

efforts to leave the besieged town. Six people died from � on the drive to Tuzla. The UN again found itself assisting w>1'"'' cleansing. The bombardment of the town did not let up.

At the beginning of April, the Serbs issued a surrender through the UNHCR. The Bosnian Army was given a lotry-oil hour ultimatum. The most senior UNHCR official in

Yugoslavia, Jose Maria Mendiluce, anended talks

the

was; ;��;= in

Bratunac, from where the assault on Srebreniea 'Either they surrender and you get all the Muslims out a . the Serb Commander, 11ie, told him, 'or we take the town In Mendiluce started making plans for the evacuation of a� 60 000 people. It was to be the biggest single act of ethruc the since che conflict began, and it \V3S to be carried out by. With Mendiluce made no effort to hide the moral repugnance )' out. he approached che task he was now expected to carr n whe denounce ethnic cleansing worldwide,' he said. 'But rat despe thousands of wotnen and children at risk who want

>;;

'96

:;r

Morillon got twenty-fIVe miles from his base in Sarajevo, to the

tIJIIm ofSokolac, where the local commanders detained him for seven

boun. They turned back three of his vehicles. Morillon soldiered on wiIb two. Further up the road, a[ Zvomik, his progress was halted .

- this rime by hundreds of women and children blocking his

They clambered aboard his two white UN vehicles and ripped aerials and jerry cans. They sprayed [hem multi-coloured with His humiliation was complete. H e limped back to the t.""nIT"n't-heid Tuzla by nightfall, a blue-helmeted Don Qyixore. workers there said he was grief stricken. Like many of them, he been to Srebrenica, knew the condition of the people, and felt responsibility. His closest colleagues began to worry . his state of mind.

� Ilfficials in New York and Belgrade began to worry, too.

had saddled them with a responsibility they did not want know how [0 respond to. It was clear Srebren ica was going be I:kfeued. UNPRO FOR, through MoriUon's well-intentioned was revealed as a paper tiger. The UN now found itself in - even conflict - with important sectors of inter. . pUbhc opinlon, · most notably the Amencan State .

��C�� )R

cOuld do n thing to stop the Serb offensive; so its ? . a �ublic relations campaign to take the heat out of was pu�hc outrage. As the Serb advance continued General mVited to Bel , . ' g�ade for ceasefire talks With General · ' and UNPR ORs most senior civilian official. Cedric �F · · ... "Y. a d ... IStmg \ ushed and highly regar ded Irish lawyer who had

��'m�

'97

THE HOTTEST CORNER

BOSNIA .

19705.

. The UN Security Council, responding to internarion a1 about Srebrenica, had mandated UNPROFOR to deploy a of Canadian trOOpS - about 120 men - to go to Srebrenica

regular deliveries of aid. General Mladic would not let them To Thornberry's acute embarrassment, Mladic, the Bosni an commander, never hid his intentions. The Canadians would allowed to go to Srebrenica when his Army's m · :

��?;�:��:;

plished. The US State Department was again ; f or ,a the arms embargo. Thornberry was under pressure to produce

.

Dr ofMidicine, KaradZit, the Profwo� oflittraturt, Ko�e:vjt, the Biologst, i Mrs Plamif, and t�e geo/�g/St, Pr�ssor LukIc. And 1 . womitr, will they condemn thIS atroCIty? Or wtll they bttray theIr MiIIlalion and condont il? And I thollght ofthe many Serbs that I hlow around this country. and I wonderui: do they want the his ttIry ofthe Serb nation to include this chapttr, a (hapter in which tJNjrarmy dTO'fJe innocent peoplefrom vil/agt to village to tlillage _tilfinally they are cortlered in Subrt1lica, a pIaufrom which IlNTe is no acape, and where theirfote is to be transported out like Cllltle, or slaughtered like sheep?

schoolchildren playing on a football pitch. Louis Gentile was

UNHCR official in the town. He telexed his head office in that day:

�':�::::::

General Mladic had issued an instruction that no new w personnel were to be allowed in. Those already there " stay, because they knew that if they left they would not be

They used their vehicles as ambulances during the rm",-""' ftrestorm. Gentile's telex described their behaviour under danger as 'inspirational'. Larry Hollingworth, the British UNHCR field officer, wI,"" '98

s the front page

k p1IS� dJi/dml and the crlu ofthtlr mothm. My thIrd thought wasfor

On 12 April, news reached Sarajevo of a short. intense attack that killed f1fty�six in less than an hour. Some of them

intention had been to rotate personnel on a two-week shift because of the stress of working under constant bombardment.

the

wasfor tIN commander who gaw the order to M fint thought 1 hope he burns III the hotlut (onltr of hell. My ucond dJDu. ht wasfor the soldiers who loaded tht breachts andfirtd tht Ihaft their sleep jsfo�everpunctuated bl tht scrtams ofthe

��::,

There were sixteen international personnel in the town gone in with Morillon on his first jaunt a month earlier. The

Bosnia

, ....' 01� racti he chose words that � PI a careful measured fOne ofVOice,that world the around broadcast ..:: w!�� be ofevery newspaper the next: day and printed ... .

reporters in Belgrade that General Mladic had expressed his for and co�operation with' attempts to deploy a Ca f)adi, ' n Srebrenica. Minutes later Mladic talked to the same '" Canadians, he said, would go to Srebrenica 'over my dead

Four/un dead hodirs wv(found in the school and humanfluh dung to the schoolyordfmce. TI.:'g",und';";, IiH unIty soakd with blood. One child, about six ytON of age. bun duopila/td 1Jaw two ox-carts (fI'/J(Ttd with badia. Idid 1IfI lookforwardto dosing my ryes 01 nightf rfoar o lIN images. J will nMltr he ahlt to convey the horror.

�

�

'progress'. His public information officer, Shannon

those of my family'.

famous

in as £Io ng beard had made him hair and. .. of the most hazardous and difficult convoy nee . . ' ' . ble good humour m · " tl' plO wn for his panen! , Indelatlga III ... a1 kno "" ,0eIenring obstrucrion. He, too, departed from the 1aou nr _II US�d by UN 0ffio;us, L._ of �� ' -' sness no�;,wy merry and blameles blame all can you sld until any blame to � ce is never

made his reputation as a civil rights lawyer in Belfast in the

1lais was the last thing UNPROFOR wanted to hear. It was grist .. the mill ofthose in the Clinton istration who were urging the

f �M��'�� to press for military intervention in Bosnia, to which ;

.:;;

was implacably opposed.

1 4 April, Srebrenica's local authorities summoned Gentile, and . to

1a1 W� � m e. smuggle out a message to UNPROFOR's headquarters Il ld � C:C�mander told me that they had decided to surrender.

.

ClIelQlduwas n0t Hmp)' . ' I the $hel/'Ing m the centu ofthe town but .o.L� . l,Jf:lr L.' d -l fittished. er. :}ensl'lJe I'mes had collapsed. They looktd desperate and

�

nder request was too sensitive to make on the radio. It L� na Ve !}Cen . Intercepted by the Serbs . and been a green light for '99

THE HOTTEST CORNER

BOSNIA

a final devastating push. Gentile took the

to That night, Serb forces pushed through the south and east of the town. They stormed the village

��!:

on the southern edge of town. The Bosnian defen iv< " s

as they were, collapsed. The push brought the Serb ri very edge of the town. From their hill-top positions,

almoet

street was visible. Ibrahim Bei:irevic radioed to Sarajevo coded messages - that the town was hours, rather lapse. The

..dio r

_

'''�.�by., 6.,.

ell room in the Sarajevo Presidency f

sileO!. Bctirevic was the thirty-year-old father oftw" young
>E'en"""111

metallic crackly voice answered back. And then, as an said of the Canadian soldiers: 'Whatever happens here,

sure they are all right.' It was a moment of extraordinary generosity from a man who felt his own chances of survival ing by the hour. UNPROFOR had been talking up the prospects of a days, despite all the evidence that General MJadic had not

�:�=

est intention of halting his advance until Srebrenica was n a military threat. The surrender request was a bolt from t

threw UNPROFOR's officials in both Belgrade and S.,ajo,., . tail-spin. No-one knew what to do.

�::

UNPROFOR's dilemma was acute. For two reasons, the implications of a surrender were immense. First, for the, the peace process, which UNPROFOR ed: the E

the Croats had agreed to the Vance-Owen Plan which wu

show in town' and the Serbs were rejecting it; the

i��':G�::

n put Srebrenica and the territory around it in a Bosma or Muslim, canton. How could the UN on the ground istering a surrender that in effect handed the ,,,ri",'1 Serb control, even if the town itself remained populated by

about the arms embargo, how could UNPROFOR, while was debating whether to arm the Bosnians, justify actively . them on the ground? UNPROFOR's concern was that It

inevitably fue! demands for military intervention. Officials ' ately began working on a way out of the mess. For now, though, they were agreed on one thing, the n.", m, reach the ears of the press. A British aid worker who had

,,!

a

......"g. th� roan;� i

�

1�

:m :C

�

lt�

talks at Sarajevo airport. General Mladic. and his Bosnian CDWlterpart Sefer Halilovic met face to face. Both men referred

apenly to what had taken place as a surrender, as did the official radio

� of both sides. Only the UN persisted with the fiction that ... talks represented some kind of'breakthrough' towards 'disarma Dent'. Mladit was an hour and a half late. When he arrived he told Morinon there was nothing to discuss except the t�rms of surrender citbe Bosnian Army, which he was now prepared to dictate. Because

� �nian Serb Army was a very humane fighting OUtfit, he said, chilians - that is to say women, children and the elderly - would all

be a1lowed to leave Srebrenica and go to 'Muslim territory'. He would � to a helicopter evacuation of the 500-or-so wounded. Men

� lID

And, secondly: wi th the Americans pushing for a debate at

3�

billeted at the UN headr and was now . month earlie that .. 1:sts h a group 0f·Joum_.... . Wlt inner d .,I>r<"'" Sara '" ° was having than J that rather them inform to base 1 I "" 0ned his ot1 "" . . Be teeph I, t e HOu "day would check Into the press hote h he , auf<e table, he said casu dinner the to . ed return he When . Srebrenica has surrendered. jan. {or a blind panic up there 1be ' After a moment of stunned silence, the .,. ws what to do.' te telephones. The news was out. � bled for their satelli �rs scram I headquarters in New York. a so paniC in UN There was · Iatest IS Ia. Th spin-doctors took a day to fiInd a fiormu UNPROFOR's of events would be presented to the world not as a n ..corrunate rur , ament agreement . as � but a 'disarm ing got what e wanted, finally April, General Mladic, hav On go to Srebrcmca. It set off.the ny compa let the Canadian . � �� . in route because It was gomg, lty difficu no d2 and experienced task was ?ot to secure the safe ng. esse e, to do MladiC's biddi to receIVe t�e surrender ?f begin to but s, convoy piIIIgC of aid spokesman m BoInian guns, and, in the words of UNPROFORs to secure the and &.njevo, Barry Frewer, 'to assi.st with eva��tion, . lintrip so that medical evacuatIOns can begin . On the same day Cedric Thornberry and General Monllon con

.

�

tJ.ng age, on the other hand, were combatants, and would have consid red prisoners of war. They would be the subject of sepa . � natJ.ons. These were his , he said, there was little else to

� ��on advised Halilovic to accept MladiC's , since the sit _ -.m was 'hopeI ess' and there was an urgent need to begin the evac :: � �BUt the previous night, the United Nations Security Council

� �� Srebrenica a 'United Nations Safe Area' (see page 303),

ER THE HOTfEST CORN

BOSNIA and, although no�one in Sarajevo knew what that mea nt . . rnade It ImpoSSI'ble lor " Its UNPROFOR to broker an meant emptying the place of its Muslim population .. lasted from mid�day until two o'clock the noct marrung. ten-paragraph 'd·Isarmament' agreement was signed para ' whieh provid�d for the freezing of existing front li nes: were not required to pull back from their achieved lines.

be

�

'l!'"""",,

was agreed, with effect from 5 a.m., that day. The

� A

the Bosnian Government forces, and provided for 140 Canadian troops to collect the weapons. 1lUs had to within seventy-two hours of their arrival, and would be ""''''''' Bosnian Serb liaison officers. The Serbs had agreed to allow

copter evacuation of 500 wounded. But these would be UNPROFOR in the presence of two doctors from each side

•

vent what General Mladic called 'war criminals' - in other " ·u."

" of military age - using the med-evac as an escape route. copters would be required to stop for inspection at the ',,'b-I,.I,h.

. �:�" :��

of Zvornik, regardless of the condition ofthe evacuees. Thornberry and Morillon had been news coverage from the Sarajevo press

ticular. to the prominent use of the term

n . ' ' .J Of 'h' , � : !, � �

mation officer, Barry Frewer, an intelligent and likeable

;'��

(;,��

from the Canadian Army, had been onished by them for get across the words 'disarmament' and 'ceasefire'. Frewer, in

uncharacteristically, shown his irritation with the penistena:

journalists in reporting a surrender. Thornberry and Morillon indulged in a skilful piece of news management of their own.

The airport talks broke up at 2 a.m - 8 p.m., in New York.

Sarajevo journalists - conftned, by the curfew, to their hotd -..... .. informed of the outcome until after 5 a.m. -just too late for

York Times and the Washington Post to squeeze th�

editions. The United Nations press corps, on th� other h" d "'... .. " nished with full�and-detai[ed briefings as the ",,,i"g pn>g<" complete with quot�s from General Morillon, radioed,

his armoured vehicle at (.e airport, to the UN h",d'lu,"''''' Sarajevo, and relayed, from there, to the UN in New York. the Sarajevo correspondents had called their newsdesks to agreement, the New York correspondents had already despatches about this remarkable UNPROFOR-brokered

through in Bosnia. The unfortunate word 'surrender' did not prominently, not, in fact, at all. JO'

OR, international public efforts of UNPROF

sified as the evacuations i the and the outrage inten desp te outrag ' " few days. Aid workers described how the . .......t was ver the n�

•

people clamounng 0 . wen: mobbed by .desperate. helicopters �-" lUI 0f W d a vast � nbe offiCial desc · One UNHCR e the on beard wher s field sport the down the hillside to ,, h bb!Jng y Itrar b· ar an m ake o ' d had ha told of how h: O . landed, and e go, to som : wire d be f bar 0 r side of a COil from the othe to pluck he said, who had lost an eye, offered , man ne . n illght. ......" �'''J. O uatio th� evac rd . I.. aboa g�t d ifit meant he coul cbe 0ther eye d the world, and con'inued to be broadcast aroun . con scenes a. The Amencans . agend news ional at intern the '" omiO to d ure. up their press after the surrend�r of Sr�br�nic�, the UN 16 April, the day e of Intense tnternatlOnal out l met in an atmospher •.;.f)' Counei . � __ ' d ' a a Umte 819, whIch declared Srebremc It ed Resolution the Plan n -Owe Vanc.e the se of 'safe area'. (Aftcr the collap t m�an term :' the t .) Wha areas other was later extendcd to five the ed in avoid usly studio was ' left vague. The term 'safe haven Resolution, since this had a precise defmition �::h; who law and implied immunity from attack for all i that iately immed saw s official s Nation United refuge there. that ation organiz an for dangers hidden d containe 819 '" ju,;·, ... . Tharoor .. resolutely, wanted to take no side in the war. Shashi

:::::::

:� : � �

" II�'"'

' t�:!:::�·j.

.

,

DDO:d that

Tht difficulty with tlx soft arMS conrtpt al thai point in llu Bosnian situation was that it lookta as if tht atdaration O[lOft ."as would tHtnlially htntjit only ont sidr in tht ronflict, and wollid rtquirt mtans - and Ihis is a very important point - thaI �.u.-'tttpn"s do nol have. Tht saft artn uSO/lltion tlNrtjort, to us, CIIrrua tht risk that il would ht unimplrmmt(lhlt.

�

Srebrenica and, later. Sarajevo, Tuzia, Bihae, Zepa and ' wer� declared 'safe'. But there was never any intention, in tenns, to render them safe, since this would have involved

:::7:. � mt d .Nations abandoning its position of neutrality. The tcrm :ea� (like 'protection force') quickly became a cruel misnomer.

areas were among the mOST profoundly unsafe places in the

. Creation of thc 'sare L areas' represented an 'Important pOlOt 0f JOJ

BOSNIA

THE HOTfEST CORNER

departure for UN involvement which, until then, had bt-en solely to the provision of humanitarian aid and the pn"",,;,,, .� olTlces' for a negotiated settlement. For the first rime the ' al community had committed itself - morally. if not in an practical sense - to the protection of one side in the war Y other. The safe areas declaration mixed < eI,''m'n" with elements ofpeace-enforcement that p :�

�:;:;:;

:o::f,::�:,:;'I:

000, of whom "","''"DO 37 Serb.

"1! �r�:-�".�,��,,:; �;:::', con\'oy

e

seventy-five per celli wer Muslim and

v word for sil er. s ince t he waT began had only emered in NO\'embc:r

worlds: it failed to provide the protection ' appeared to the same time it aligned the UN, symbolically, with one conflict. It was also the biggest single step to date down

which Western statesmen had vowed at the begi,min. fliet, that they would not take - the path by drawn into the conflict in a series of unplanned, unth"u,1hi incremental steps.

In seeking a short-term 'solution' to defuse a long-term

United Nations saddled itselfwith a responsibility it was not to honour. Boutros Boutros-Ghali called for the deployment

additional troops to police the 'safe areas', but member contributed 7000. The night after the Srebrenica 'di"",.,. agreement was signed at Sarajevo airport, General Morillon commanding officer, Lars-Eric Wahlgren, gave a news co,nr... UN headquarters in the Bosnian capital. Asked what between the people of Srebrenica and the guns of their General Wahlgren replied that Srebrenica was

'p"o�""d I

blue flag of the United Nations'. General Morillon added further attack by the Serbs on the people ofSrebrenica

):::�� :��!i��;

tute 'a declaration of war against the entire world'. The 'disarmament' plan was never fully implemented.

:

remained in control of an organized defi n' c "O "' in � though armed only with small arms a nd � with the Serb heavy armour, proved a c onsta , nt besieging forces. In July 1995, the Serbs completed the taSk . begun in 1993. They captured the town and its 40 000

It was the first of the six safe areas to fall completely to Serb The UN's inability to prevent the capture of the town, and of one of its own safe areas brought closer than ever the a full UN withdrawal from Bosnia, and the lifting of the arms go against the Bosnian Government. UNPROFOR called t�e of Srebrcnica 'totally unacceptable', and demanded Serb ; di The Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadtit replied: 'W;th What withdrawal? How can we withdraw from our own 304

305

LAST-CHANCE cArt

21

p:.utition of their country. They said the Plan ' the ethnic , it m . Lord Owen b'merIy ng - an accusatIOn e h 'c cleansi lzerbegovit, unde r intense diplomatic gh, hou h t By the Plan changed u r � , press , il iwy ' .. I I d an , h' y part IS b y, own a mlsapprova . onal ... mternati ' to Id never accept It that the 5erbs WOll confIdent felt --'eo...,,,," he c o�e it would never be imple ented. . therel" leader, loved the Plan. Mate Hoban, the Bosma

0;;,.",«1 �� '-;.I rt

LAST-CHANCE CAFE i The Rse

and Fall ofthe Vanu-Owm Plan JanuarrMay 1993

cou

'l � ]hen Lord Owen returned to Belgrade on 23 April he V V the Srebrenica crisis had given him a new weapon in paign to persuade the Serbs to accept the Vance-Owen

aftermath of the rout of Srebrenica, the Security Council a resolution which tightened already existing sanction even abrainst rump Yugoslavia. B l de's assets abroad were to be

s e gra and transhipments through Serbia and Montenegro banned

comprehensive set of mandatory sanctions yet imposed in UN The plan to divide - or, as Lord Owen insis e , to Bosma in ten provinces was first proposed in Geneva

td

recognized Bosnia within its f ontiers but granted substantially devolved powers to each r

provinces which were defined, primarily, on ethnic grounds: the provinces would have a Serb majority, two Croat m'jo,ilJl ' a Muslim, and one mixed Croat Muslim. The tenth

a

Sarajevo - would retain power-sharing between all three

groups. The republic would retain a central government. powers would be minimal.

The Serbs rejected the Plan because of the distribution ritory. It envisaged the handing back of huge swathes ofland

the

had taken by force in months of war, which Muslim majorities but which had been 'cleansed'. Most nr.I., 1l

valley and large parts of north-western Bosnia were to b 'Muslim' sovereignty under the Plan. It denied the Serbs the unbroken land mass they had fought rhe war to create. that under the Plan the Serbs would be forced to live in isob«,d p

e

ets of territory with no secure landlink either between each to Serbia proper. Vancc and Owcn argued that that � the to ensure that Serbs continue to live as part of a muln-ethlUC since interdepen dence, under the Plan, would be unavoidable. The Bosnian Government, initially, also rejected the Plan. .

J 6

0

be

d '

Croat map.

h gave the conceal his glee when he saw the what they \vanted: their provinces formed large, blocks to C�oatia proper and stretching into the very heart They signed up to the Plan i mediately. Their

rri,00"1, ,,",,a �r ..

:':::;': ��: I

m

f ' ' 'he Geneva peace conference gave rise to the joke that O ; , Bosnian Croat defence force, nOw stood for nc you, Thank n' Owe ance V only the Serbs needed convincing. Owen met Cosit in a state villa on Botiteva street, in a leafY

'�

� .I

three

grounds that the powers alloned to the ccntral government so weak that the ethnic provinces would, in effect,

�"�;;;';i;

m

HVO, Va e Owen!'

' ::�i: and �

Vance and Owen had worked on the plan for four senting it to the sides. It

the early

his position and accepted

of Belgrade just Sleps away from Tito's

grave.

Milo�evit,

According

Bulatovit, 'the meeting went like this - Lord Owen presented

Plan, he knew what we wanted, our interests were, and •.,..."h,o.;ng us thaI the Plan did not clash with our interests. After hours,

what

Milo�evit said: "Okay, I'll go along with the Plan.

have convinced us. We'll invite the Bosnian Serbs to listen to brought about this remarkable change of heart?

Lord Owen insisted that Milo�evic had been moved by the interthat was lining up against him. He knew how

dam

the new package of sanctions would be to an economy already by the cost of waging war, which had, for the most part, been �y inflationary funding. 'This clear econo i decision,' Id 'He not want fmaneial sanctions. We should have fi�anclal san�tions months, even years earlier.' ooCV\c had, unnl now, trusted the Russians to veto a financial . . Russia had asked the Americans not to force h at the Secur ity Council unti l after the referendum on Russia's to place on 27 April, since a perceived anri Would fue! for Yeltsin's national ist opponents.

� Mil

late�.

was a

did

mc

te

take

to shore up Yeltsin's power-base, had tt . f O � pursue it. that, in the meantime, Srebrenica o' OO dan " 'Id.. P ,,',, � erously close to tailing. On 16 April, Owen , h dM ilokvit told him: 'Look, you simply have got to ftot

�

�

and

J07

BOSNIA

LAST-CHANCE CAFE

stop Srebrenica being taken'. Milo�evic told Owen that he Muslim Commander there (Oric had �en Milo§evit's before the war) and that he knew that the local Serbs were by the battles they had lost to OriC's forces the previous Y"", '" hundreds of Serb lives had been lost. Mi]ooeviC told Owen Serbs entered Srebrenica there would be havoc. 'I have no he intervened with Mladic to stop them taking Srebrenica,' There is also no doubt that the financial � �"·io"L,,,,,o, lutio.1i powerful impact. The Federal President, Dobrica plained that they placed rump Yugoslavia 'in a kind of,,,,, ,... camp whose borders are guarded by the NATO airforce and the international policel.' There was a second reason for Milooevifs decision to Vance-Owen Plan. At their meeting on 24 April, Milok\
..

��:;�� "" ,

lained later. 'So they effectively had a veto - a pretty """,', f, me:rgovernmen[, incidentally, I have to say. But that was ,, that was on otTer.' concern was tcrritory which had been conquered third area 0fsed of their Muslim and Croat populations, but Serbs' clean surrendered [0 Croat or Bosman ' Government be wauld have to Plan: this amounted the to more than a under gnty il ) so ""'m ::�:[Ory the Serbs controUed2• �ccording to Milokvit, of Government forces
s� a

.

,

_

�

�

��i� Zvormk ..

}..fi/o(ttJj( COunted on Ihtfiact that fhe Vanu-Owen Plan (ouidn.r " i",'Pl . . tme1/lt!d in th

( way It was drolsed and Ihal fix Serbs gol

BOSNIA

LAST-CHANCE CAFE

enough ofa political chance, so to speak.jorfurther o�"'""""A thefurther drvelopmenl of that pnxm. He rather looud Vance-Owtn Plan as thefirst positive ltep, rather thUn form ofit. And, ofcourse, he wanttd to get rid OJ"bo" ',0",60.. ; soon OJpOSJihlr,

giv(!l that... units of the Croats Defince orantees wereMuslim lorus cannot enter the areas, OUIJI'de . or . /J .I (HVO) . t" whICh Serbs Itw. Only UNforus whICh CD""" .... .. "m , in ' i ' " an Srrb, . •.1. -perw/{/I s0ftty, Ihe softly ofproperty and tlK srcu.,;Jlgua;ant·;'zens (an bl deployd in those arias... II is certain l rity .o..fthe''d"allg•�r o'JFthe Serhian people heing uparated and divid t/Jllt . elimllla,,'d: ttl hal been expect thllt the pr()(edure envisaged by <1< 1 words, we do 1I0t /,, 01.1._ " h'Ighi)l be lised to pals de(lSIons W()lIld Plan J ,an tl-Owen I . tilt (" thIS not wOI�1d be becouse merely inttreslJ Serbian J,trimentnllO the under procedllre envuaged becollre a/so but air f IIl1 iIIl) i(a/ and Plan, all dttisiom would be pasred by consensus of :he bJ SIrMan side, and b((a�1J( without the agreement if I.he Serbian silk Bosnia-Herugovma would not he able tofi�n�tlOn at. al':.. right �y�1I topan d((/Slom ojslgnij Wtfle/ entitledto tIN Jflm.e nllllOn and mmt thatYOIl heed ollr categor ittl,,(efor the Serbian Plall. the iuJ stand and acupt This s i an iHlle ofeither war or pea(e and we are opting for fN'e... an honourable peact with guarantees ojYOlir equality and fr«dom. TIN o/lxr option is an IInneussary war which, now that tbt Serbian natjon in BOJnia-Herugovina has gained its equali Iy andfreedom and has the chance ofretaining most ofits ttrrito Fin, will bring nothing rlse bill adversity, suffiring and violence myou and otws. G

Owen was candid about the implications of the ''''rio""... had given Milo�evic: '} think Mi l okvic had just come to sion that effectively the Serb interests have betn protected in Herzegovina. There would be a Republic of Srpska. 1t would in Bosnia, but the Serb way of life would be protected'. was not at all the Plan the Bosnian Government thought

�ht

signed. It was in the nature of the Vance�Owen Plan, . leant itself to radically different - even 1t left - deliberately - many

three sides once peace had been secured and UN For most of that day, Mi1o�evic tried to cajole into accepting the Plan, The Bosnian Serbs resisted. By six

;��!��

:;2

the evening, they appeared to be wavering. and " � they insisted that the maner would have to be Serb Assembly, which was meeting that evening in

eastern Bosnia) about two hours dtive from Belgrade.

Milosevic, Cosic and Bulatovic met in the same

Boticeva street, in Belgrade, and drafted a long d,,,dy:''K'1OIl nearly 2000 words long, to try to persuade the Bosnian

��::::

to accept the Vance-Owen Plan. The centre-piece ofi"" that the Vance-Owen Plan was consistent with the S�

aim - which was a state of their own. By implication, mOlt the Plan which appeared to divide Serb territory would, never have to be implemented. It was written in a hurry later regretted its high-handed tone. It read:

i ��;

h igh im N =�� 'time " �� nght ar a'courageolls, "� 'j t '; � �; 'i '� '�� ' �� ' � ' Y,u fi : ; " � : "� � 'i :i ' �� he betaUJe mer ely�f 10 {)()() {)()() � of t : he han t ing open ;sslies which are iffar 1m importance t achieved so far. We simply wish to tell YOIl that you measured in YOllr demands. During our talks [with Lord Owen] we re(tiwd'fIt'J o:planalions and dejinitiom: ]'0

his Foreign Minister Jovanovic and told him to go to the Bosnian Serb Assembly. got a hostile reception. The Bosnian Serbs resented the that they were being big-footed into accepting the Plan �n teUing theif people fOf months meant death for the . In Bosnia. Biljana Pla�ic took the lead. 'Who is this "". thun.dered. 'Who is this Milosevic, this Bulatovic, this Id thiS nation elect them? No it didn't. President KaradZic, ha elected Presidcnt by this parliam ent. You can't decide. t? our constitu tion, the parliament decides these issues.' rejected the plea in rhe early hours of the o m m told Serbian radio: 'The deputies said that they would able to return to their cons tituencies if they accepted the p�n LO , Its present shape. We hope that the entire Serb mobilize all ' 0f ItS ' , fOrces to survIve'. . the fi I rst time, Lord Owen realized that Milo kvic had lost I

and read the letter .

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BOSNIA

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control of the war in Bosnia. The Vance-Owen Plan, t....t the fina�cial sa�ctions' package, had succeeded in splitting The mternatlonal temperature rose. A few days earlier

suggested to the Greek Prime Minister, Konstantin M i"·",,Jo. Athens should host a summit to try to persuade the Serbs Plan. Mitsotakis now called Milo�evic and invited him t• •

".,d

conference was scheduled for the weekend of 1 - 2 May. and Cyrus Vance clung to the hope that the Bij e l jina·p. Ili, ... rejected the Plan outright because it had been sprung on quickly. The Bosnian Serbs had been fed a constant diet ganda that was hostile to the Plan, and had even demanded resignation. Owen took the view that if public opinion had

..

pared in advance - even a few days in advance - then it

been far easier to persuade the Bosnian Serb parliament to jump that Milo§evic had made. Owen and and Tudjman that there was good reason to hope that the

Serbs were flexible; and all agreed to anend the Athens summit. When the Bosnian Serb leadership arrived in Athens

pected just another round of talks. It soon dawned on them had been - as Nikola Koljevic put it - led into a trap.

had signed up to the Vance-Owen Plan, except them. purpose of the summit became clear: they were to be

into g up to the Plan against the explicit instructions parliament. The Bosnian Serbs had walked into a pressure cooker.

summoned to Dobrica CosiC's suite in the conference hoed. they confronted Cosic, Mil�evic and Bulatovil:. Owen and mostly kept to their distance, but Mitsotalcis came an� wenl the course of the evening. From six in the evemng harangued the Bosnian Serbs. He said he had received secret

gence reports that Serb positions in both Bosnia and bombed by NATO unless Karadzic signed, and that ,hi. ",",. within hours ofthe break-up ofthe summit. He returned mcnt that the Plan would never have to be implemented. He out that the hostilities that had recently broken o" ' ( o " " ", ,. J> Croats and Muslims in central Bosnia made the .\ re even more unworkable. According to Karadiic the pressu ' pot after ' great that even the walters , Wh 0 were bnngmg III . S,rbt, to into the suite wefe trying to persuade the Bosman wen Karamic argued that a signature on the Vance�O Serbs recognize the legitimacy of the Bosnian state. The

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entity. They had declared the independence of a y such n blic n....elve hours before the Bosnian state came into awn independen� country. .M.om610 Kraji�nik was even H :. He �as reduced to tears KarndzlC. and KoIJcv than ,.t-line .,; iot< "' h" � nrde r ing pressure from Milo�evic and Cosic, whom he had u If die aryd affectionate regard. At one point in the held n great and Cosic �onfronted each other on the balcony. ik ra ji�J1 � K PreSident you know best that I respect you told Cosic: 'Mr lrljilruch but I have to be honest with you. I would ratherjump from "' to that stone ground than ac�ept this Plan.' -floor balcony on ... until four in the morning. Cosic, who was on dragged Tbe eering had two heart by operations, began to had and ies venr .

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.... They agreed to resume early in the morning. The plenary sessi�n with lzetbegovic, Tudjman and Mate Bohan - was due to begm . lO a.ro. They snatched a few hours sleep. The next morning, according to

'Vance suddenly tells them straight out that this is the last cafe, that the US air lorce is all prepared to turn Bosnia and

into a wasteland'. The three Bosnian Serbs retreated to a cor

... .. ,h. suite. There, they realized that they were not going to be to leave: Athens until they had agreed to sign. They decided

if necessary, Karadzic should sign the Plan, on condition that

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: Owen and Vance agreed that the signature would only be � subsequently ratified by the Bosnian Serb 'parliament'. � clock was ticking. The plenary had already been delayed. and lzetbl=govic announced that unless the Serb delegati on by one o'clock, they would leave Athens and return to their capitals. , Bulatovic and MilaScvic went over to the Bosnian Serb and told them that their time was up. Karadzic then said he :""' '''gn, BuJatovic desc ribed what happened next:

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� that moment Mitsoftlk.is appears on thl lune.from t k.�s Qut his pen, (/nd invite s lNr�' a

(/ pholQgraph�r from tIItotK. f{ r Q�� hQ WdI standing thm: ready to

..n",""' OdtIC slgnmg fhe dowment. Imm ediately after that whl who,,/(/,d ' n'f bti'It"IJt

taRe a photograph

hal had happened.

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1Il1ai.".,< it turned ou, was so af 'd ral

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' that Karad2lc would chang' on t he way IOtO ' the pIcnary session that ,.. .rqn. he had had a copy ,"d a photogr apher standing by. Ow en entered the room '

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BOSNIA

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limf'. J law lhal ptople wantd thil agrummt T·/os I /f beJigntd

to find 'a very very shaken KaradtiC' who had beating'. The plenary session was hurriedly called again, this time in the presence of his enemies. An excited Mitsotakis broke the news to the assembled . shortly before one o'clock.. Owen declared that it was 'a C " '-� day in the Balkans'. (He was right only in the literal plan to build a state within a state was, he said, 'dead and KaradZic left Athens rumpled and exhausted, but defiant, state was not dead and buried, merely postponed. O n , in

we

and radio interviews that afternoon, was triumphant, When pointed out to him that Karadzic's signarure would have to be

by the Bosnian Serb 'parliament' he was contemptuous in

missal. 'You might choose to dignify that body with the tam'M ' ment' ... said, 'but I do not... I'm telling you ,' he went on, and, me I have been in politics a long time, I know that M'il...,;. ·

board and that is what counts.' Cyrus Vance bowed out that day. He had a1re�dy '""0'''''' decision to retire from his post as UN representattve, and his

sor, Thorvald Stoltenberg, a former Norw�gian Foreign Mi'';'", already been appointed. Owen was delighted that his old

. (t lItf'eJ nn

ve even faster after they crossed the River Drina into c:US d . I was the fmt time any of these politicians had seen fO . Bosma. t ,• sa'd l of war. 'Everythmg was empty and devastated . . under Serb control, you kn ew that If a vIIterritory 'In the . it must have been uslim., bad been destroyed then snaked up MountJahorma, above the former th gI aming fleet Karadiic stood on the terrace of the Radovan Pale, - o otel, flanked by the rest of the Bosnian Serb lead

'fhe

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and Mitsotakis headed for the receiving line. The

President extended his hand [0 Biljana PlavSic, who left

i sit by a was a comic formality about this: the very fltSt v Premier to this rogue state. Even if Milosevic had come to _"'oe "h,m to endorse the Vance-Owen Plan they so ionately the Bosnian Serb leaders were keen to parley the visit into an of their mini-state. The guests, who included Yugoslav

and a slew of Serbian officials, reviewed the guard of a Serbian song of resistance against the Turks

going out on a high, 'There is no doubt we were buoyed up

..• '

I dtlcribtd ii, ralhtr u rtunate nfo !y,,:",� happy day. I mean, we had spilled G And Ijustfllt tremendously pltaJtd. ••

;'u�'��;.�;;:'n,:,;:;:: I looktd badt.

goodbye, and there wal Cy Vance sitting by Ihl looking yean younger, and Ijust thought t� m�ulj. what II derfol way togo oul. And somehow we let It slip awayjrom the nextfew weeks.

The next stop was the Bosnian Serb mountain stronghold long motorcade of sleek black, Mercedes limousines Belgrade. The mood was pbeat. President Milokvit and

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international ally, Mitsotakis of Greece, were c�nfide presence would sway the 'Parliament' vote. Or, If not, easily convince the Bosnian Serbs to vote 'ye�' and aban on sian to hold a referendum on the Plan. PreSident Mornif

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Montenegro was part of the huge pilgrimage to Pale:

On our way 10 Pale we ed Ihrough m''; ,, '. C�; plOp/l stood on Ihl roadJide, waving 10 us. J 3'4

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American square�bashing tune. Swooping low over the

:�::,;,�� F-16 fighter�jet seemed to heraJd what lay in stOre for

Serbs if they opposed the West. Just a few miles away the mountain from Pale, Serb artillery had been bombarding for the past year. lOOn as the debate began, any optimism the visiting dignitaries have fclt about their mission disappeared. The Pale leadership a mood of defiance, which went hand-in-glov e with fear about the Plan. Without question Vance-Owen be VOted down in a referendum. On the eve of the Pale session, . the best-known Bosni an Serb journalist, appeared to TV ews. He � looked at a blank piece of paper, signe it, d OUt PIS[OI n . � d shot himself. Wiping the stage-blood off his Jogo SaId the Serbian people would not commit suici � de. : was dearS. III th�,: Ka radzic - under extrem e pressure - had initialled the . A ens, h IS recommendallon ' was half�hearted at best. He the i ca tastrophic, but stressed the possible conse "iOCton., The deputies dismissed threats from the West Plan itself was more dangerous. The assembly was

Diogo,

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a motley collection of deputies from the old Bosnian priests in long black robes, officers in battledress and a war-profiteers in shiny cheap suits. In the first of his speeches, a confident Milokv1t. told that a 'decision in favour of peace is in the interest of the Serbs and of the entire Serbian nation'. He proclaimed granted the Serbs equality and libeny. His speech recalled the the old days, of the Communist chiefs whose authority WII lenged and unimpeachable. fu the night wore on, Mil� the kid gloves. He grew angry and hinted that he cou1d Bosnian Serbs. His threats had litde effect. The deputies boasted that wou1d never flOd their target through the fog cloaking kingdom. They even derided Milo�evic, the man who had power on a pledge to defend Serbs,. for his .attem'p�s to further imposition of economIC sanctIOns. Milo�ev:!c s ,ori"", sanctions was contemptible, they said, pledging to fight world if necessary.

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The decisive speaker was General Ratko MladiC, the Commander. In a blustering speech, he used a series of maps trate how much land would have to be handed over to their foes. When the stocky General took out the Bulatovit were concerned. Mladic was no could see that the General's strictly military� � � � � � � � � map showed the military situation on the grou nd. the demographic distribution of the Serbs. But the . ... was a transparency of the Vance-Owen p�nces, wh''', M n imposed on the map showing th fro li . ' Bosnian Serbs have to hand over huge "' "' Serb population would be left in � isolated and : � � ; ! � i : [ exposed the dangers implicit in the . ther and boasted that his men were not afraid ofWestem The session went on deep into the night. Suicide was as invoked, by those who argued for acceptance as well wert s favoured rejection. A slew of different amendment One deputy even called for another condition to be a tance - that he get three cartons of cigarettes. It was persu to s of argument Mito�evic employed all manner . ��d, wg they The Serbs could not afford to gamble everyth only to lose it all 'like a drunken poker player'. He w " "ll_lk,,,'" ring to KaradZic, whose fondness for roulette was w

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called Bosnia a 'monstrous creation', reassured the wh0 had Serbs had won. His vision was what he called the . . that the ltlon 0f t he 8-ill'kans ' - the fig 'remmpos . ht to al d politic If_determination. For the Balkans that meant a G�ater Croatia and Greater AJbania. Alija lzetbegovic would Gre am s Muslim state. Never mind Vance-Owen, he advised . ho -t ic Bosnia had been destroyed. fIluln-'-

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prf)'lJinm and Bomia Hffugo,(JI'na is hiSlor 77It tntirtprojl!ft of . .� stau dots not Alyo's o�d SlStt�, Brothen txisl. -"y umporary. A" b/ami( slaU no long�r tXU/�. It.1l ()WT'. Wt MW 10 u"de�sla�d . ;to Aftdrration will exut, whl(h Il not yet tqmlablt hut II WIll II. In tIN plaus where a Strbian h�uJe and Serbian land txist ."J whm the S<'rbian language If spoken, there will be a Serbian state.

effect, Cosie was urging the Bosnian Serbs to accept the Plan he, like Milosevic, knew could never be implemented . hand. one point, Milosevic seemed to have gained the upper sacrifice for one', nation everything except the nation itself, don't accept the Vance-Owen Plan you are going to sacri people.' The Serbian President sat next to Karad1ic, urging to persuade the assembly. that the deputies had started to have doubts, the hard-line . the assembly speaker, nicknamed Mr No, called

can

7Irt 'Wholt timt [filt (1 grtatpoinfrom with in, btcaUJt wt knrw Plan mtant dtslructron for our jXoplt. That's why at tht � wtrt wry dtUrmintd fo Jet that it was not ratifitd. nu II would not solw any probltms.

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Bosnian Serb d· ,-pu,.les went to thelT · club room, preventmg '", fi, � , >m on,,, on the grounds that only of the Serbian ill. pa f lo& . rtywere allowed in. It ... ,,;·.oo was a slap in the face. Milokvic · for �ours, while his erstwhile proteges persuaded the

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up the appearance of recomthe bu� th.�lr spee ches alwa ys ended with calls for stoic Nikol:'K lJe�lc, th� prof � essor ial 'vice president', reminded th of e erblan epIC hero Mi l oS ObiEt, the br,l.vest fighter

Pia

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BOSNIA

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at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Obilit had said there of beating the Turks - they were far too numerous, was nuned into salt there wouldn't be enough to seaSOn a 'w 'kUb . Obilie told his comrades before leading them into b ,ttk. drew a parallel. 'It wouJdn't be enough fot Clinton's boys _

not risk a desperate battle with the biggest SUper power.' � Out of sixty-five votes C2st, fifty-one deputies voted to erendum on the Plan. An alarmed Cosit told the assembly he had received

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and t h in the face of possible retaliation, e vulnerable �uld hardly appeared convinced of its wisdom, But he self h' ' d his client, Clinton, wanted the policy, But the a seem to have anticipated the resistance of .ci,, did not ' " ,;,; . were trying desperately [0 avoid intervention allie � s who Serb leaders would back the VanceBosnian hopin that

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the West would launch air-strikes that very n' � faced and exhausted, he called the decision _ is country.' what the next night and day will bring to th He rumed [0 Pla�ic, asking how they could avoid the

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Serbs with bombardment.'

Milo�evic was visibly agitated. 'He was not normal, This

seen on his face and on his hands; said Pla�ic. The S"b;.. P, never brooked any opposition. Opponents were there to

vented, removed or otherwise overcome. 'Later the ,,,.rr,bl) d very loudly, He didn't know how to behave himself in

beeau�e he never attended parliamentary sessions.' Silent and glowering, accompanied by an exhausted

MilokviC boarded his car for the long ride home. His response was swift. Belgrade announced it was

.

supplies except food and medicine to Republika Srpsn. Milo�evic forget Plawit's snub. She was prevented from frontier into Serbia, The embargo was short-lived, but \vas done. The Pale meeting \vas Milosevifs first publiC he had become the undisputed leader of all Serbs, It was he had failed to out-manoeuvre his political challengers.

The vote in Pale came just as the American

Christopher was trying - and failing - to sell 'lift and strike' to Europe. In talks with the leaders of ten nse countries and Russia, Christopher met a very cool respo

which caJled for the supply of weapons to the ]'8

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return, Washington tried to gloss over trans C istopher's differences. Another ke� mOment in a shift of US policy was , . ary read parts of Balkan PYesident Clinton and his wife Hill by Robert Kaplan, which describes the violent past of the

uagedy. The iron-willed biology professor, who was 'dlon'" I!>J. for her willingness to shrug off Western pressure, looked blankly, and said:

'What kind of a tragedy? It would be a tragedy ifwe ",,,,!,,,, And then he said: 'They are going to bomb tit h' � : ; And she said: 'Let them bomb the bridges. 1

ic air-strikes at Bosnian Serb targets, g of strateg

ul1chin the la UK objected because they had troops on the ground

For some reason the book had an enormous impact on convincing him that the inhabitants of the Balkans were

to violence6• Within days the Clinton istration had twO contradictory plans. It backed otT Vance-Owen and

strike', was never a more comprehensive plan than Vance-Owen,

despite criticism 10 the contrary, did preserve a mwti-ethnic within its internationally recognized borders. Once Vance rejected by the Serbs however, the US lost no time ditch It was cast aside ostensibly because of the Bosnian ... " m ", complaints, but also because of fears that it was unen . fact that it would have required at least SO 000 groundof which the US had already pledged half - was probably the

"'

embittered Lord Owen, on an American television as a 'delusion' the proposal to end the war by ' . " . You w ill not solve the problem at 10 000 f eet,' he said OUt that the US could help by contributing troops to the UN but not by bombing. �llapsc of the Vance-Owen Plan had taken the wind out of _ :. and Chr -.u; ',stopher had already switched tack. He wanted to "' 100 ;", and swc B osrua under the carpet as quickly and e a HecII poss e. In, congressiona I'bl 80s . l testim Chr ony. istoph er said the in •O " · was a problem from • hell'. He signalled that the US ' n , ;t; NATO allies !� by taking unilateral action on 'lift and II alone in taking actions in the former Yugoslavia.' °:U: � eve ' h er. On 18 May, he said it was essen to deal tially up to , Wit anCIent hatreds'. These were not the words of a

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c�untry �n::'ious t� get involved. He t�en launched the idea tamment . We will do what we can m concert with our friends to respond to the violence and contain the conflict' unconvincingly, to insist that Washington was not Muslims. He said that the US was not bowing out 'o' �p'l"dy believed in lifting the arms embargo against the Bosn ian and limited 'compensatory air action' in order to allow tilt: fight the Serbs on 'a level playing fteld.' At this crucial juncture, Christopher was uO'wittin,gly " Andrei Kozyrev, his Russian counterpart who �'� Minister's meeting of the UN Security Counci� to d the protection of the newly-created 'safe areas'. The US State deflected attention from Washington's own policy pouring cold water on the Russian initiative to deploy announced that the meeting had been postponed h«.�..; tbe ,� to implement the Vance-Owen Plan was by engaging against the Bosnian Serbs. He reiterated that the United prepared to commit troops when the parties agreed on a He put a damper on engagement on any side, po"nt"n!: 0"" atrocities on all sides'. On 22 May, the t Action Plan was put forward by Russia, , the UK and Spain. Billed as a recipe for it was, in fact, the closest thing yet to US acceptance state of play in Bosnia. The ceremony was like the clothes' because there was no action in the Plan. istration announced that it would send a ,""ti"gent ,,. •

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to Macedonia and traced the same line as President warning that the US would not tolerate war i it must not be allowed to become the fulcrum of . because that could drag in Albania and, in all . allies, Greece and Turkey. Britain and pushed It no-one had considered its implication. It called for the scaling of Bosnia's borders to P military from Serbia and Croatia, and ;, six Muslim 'safe areas'. The agreement was hailed by an alist Serbian leader as the 'first sober public statement The t-Action Plan put the flOal nail in the formulating the embryo for the next stage of peace talks: partition whose wen� dictated by the Serbs and mediated by Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg of replaced Vance as the UN's envoy.

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Clinton had done a complete rurnaround. He was . ing theIr state. He announced that he was looking and.salvag would give 'reasonable land for the Muslims', deal Vi,,!
the week. end

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IUdio, 30 April, 1993. envisaged a demilitarized :wne around a UN-monitored corridor. It prohibited the transport of troops or military n i this and ten other 'blue routes' which link ethnic provinces. and Croat troops would not be allowed to return to provinces their ethnic groups where there are Serb communities. Instead, .policed.by UN troops. While Aelgrade heralded this last-minute , .m ract It only applied 10 areas designated as Muslim where the In full control - province five, the area alon the strategic Drilla g

troops to be drawn the US. and possibly Russia. in each of the ten provinces within eighteen UN protect the minorities at least until then. SCI to be dem ilitarized under the plan. to the UN's failure to demilitarize Serb param ilitary troops retu of refugees. But the plan·s success hinges on the ClItent '�.''--··G'werernready to give \Jp their idea of uniting Serb-held territ Serbi�, and whether Croatia would Olliow the indep en.roat-deslgnated territOry. a table for peace :: ".<:.",," Cotime uncil approves the : plan endo�s Ih : :..: based on a C ll·npIemenl3t1on of the plan and le\"els of monrepon by Secrc!;lry Gcncnl Boutros llout ros-Ghali .

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BOSNIA

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Within 72 hours: wuring pani es dec are troops and �" � '" "" location of from lines and minefield and prepare for Ccasefirc: put in place and remains effective. Within five days: Heavy weapons to be: withdnwn from �>U"d ' under UN supervision. Within 15 days : All other sion. All forces separate from frontIli itored by the UN. Within 45 days: All forces return 10 their designated province. 10 ' nlltion with an agreed demobilization. ReSlOrlltion of infrastructure: electricity, gas, ��, Establishment of 'free age routes' to and from movement fOT civilians goods a.nd humanit:.ui.a.n aid. Establishment of a UN-guaranteed corridor inking l northern trolled areas with Serbia. Establishment of an interim centnll government in three each from the truee ethnic groups, with the ing every four months among the three parties. Establishment of interim provincial governments on the basis nic composition in each province with provision that none of ,h. du.. can be Icft unrepresented in any province. 3 From the text of a letter, signed by Milo�eviC, 8,1".",., ",d ::"';,j i mcmbers of the Bosnian Serb 'parliament'. 4 Though the Vance plan that brought 14' �OOO UN: �' 7'� . �� vided for the return of all refugees, and me d, � li; �, o ' fact neither took place. Ethnic cleansing of Croats from Areas continued well after UNPROFOR . not a was able 10 return; and, in many areas, me Krajina Serb army exchanging their military 'police' uniforms. Military vehicles were not, as the plan . but, instead, were pai nted blue instead ofgreen, llnd to the police. S Risto Djogo was known for his sense of humoUl" and to the Serbs nationalist cause. In lime more than a year COSt him his He was murdered soon afrer Milokvit against the Bosnian Serbs while in folk star Ceca, perhaps by her future the Serbian secret police. Djogo apparently knew too documents about what he and his leadership had done ordination with Milo�evic. 6 Elizabeth Drew, On thr Edge, The Clinton Pmidtnry, Simon lit

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life.

New York, 1994.

22 YOU R FRIEND A HUNDRED-FOLD SEWARE The Mmlim-CTOQ/ Conflict, 1992-1994

•

enters the beautiful city of Mostar, its broad til Neretva River steepen and rise until it cuts �anksheart of the

II

narrow rocky canyon

medieval Turkish town. At the narrowest :_�. ..'.h, river, in 1566, the Turkish Sultan had ordered the build shi ing whit� cobalt. 'It is one bridge: - a singl� broad span of . most beautiful bndges 1fi the world, the novelist Rebecca West A. slender arch between twO round towers, its parapets bent in the

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angle at the centre. I know of no country - not even Italy or shows such invariable taste and such pleasing results.'

keepers of the bridge became known as the Mostari

the

111> ;" ';' word for bridge is most. From them, the town that grew 0-( -

around the bridge took its name. The bridge - and Mostar itself

;.., tt"ymklOli" the very idea ofBosnia-Henegovina, a place where

,... __�

Orthodox and Muslim peoples lived distinctively, but and in mutual tolerance. It was despised by many Croat : ?c � : � ,(: rn � OUgh not by the Croats of Mostar} for whom it repre

reminder ofTurkish influence in what they viewed as land. It survived the fail of the Ottoman Empire. It two World Wars. But on 9 Nove mber, 1993 (four years to the the tearing down of the Berlin Wall) under a sustained battering by Bosnian Croat forces. its beautifuJ arch coUapsed -blue river pool below. In a war in which multi-ethnicity '' '_,If .L: en �my, the destruction of the bridge appeared to mirror the u1t:1-ethnic ideal of Bosnill II place almost defined by - between commun ities, between nationalities, . . r Ialths BOSOians there was no stronge image r of the coun' . to build.The Bosnian Government declare d a day

�

' ''>un'w·ni �".trymg

"o r a Muslim-Croat conflict in Bosnia were clear long . Serbs launched . . thel( attack agams ' t both of them to Apnl 1991 ' s hiS � ' own republic was falling under the hamm , er of Cro, ' " ,tl a , s President TUd'J man put out lee ers, via the CrOats

Ootb

CI

Government, to try to gauge whether hetbegovic 3'3

YOUR FRIEND A HUNDRED-FOLD BEWARE

BOSNIA could be persuaded to bring the Bosnian territori al defienc:e to open a second front against the Serbs. In

war,

few days after (he Croatian national guard had laid barracks across the republic, Bosnia's Defence �,"�,,,,,, Croat, proposed that the Bosnian TO be mobilized. But the Interior Minister, Alija Delimustafic, a Musli m Belgrade orientation was already well known, had already Bosnian TO on the opposite course. He had agreed to to use northern and western Bosnian as a base from against the Croatian national guard could be

1.,�,ii

resourced. According to Col Aleksander Vasiljevic, the

counter-intelligence:

Hr [DrlimllStalli] agrerd to estab/i;h t Bomian pa.i;" -JN patrols and checkpoints. on railways and roads to "'U"" ,_ and prf!'fJent armrd mO'Uements by, prO'Uidefor realJNA movements. P nudd to get through to Kninfrom Srrbia war thm. Ifthry had not got through we would able tofight. Bosnia was our corridor to Krajina.

;��; C�;:'�:;;� ':�:'::::;1:��

Tudjman had come full circle: when Slovenia had 'PI""Icd.

in June 1991, to enter the war to prevent the Ljubljiana, Tudjman had refused to drag his republic into the

now he, in turn, appealed to lzetbegovii: to bring Bosnia into to help defend Croatia. Izctbegovit, similarly, refused. But, three western republics had the foresight to act in unison,

said that Wt' wen IJqWn (omistrncy in this rtsput. Hit and ind�penden' Bomia-Herzegovina, ifit ucures comtitutiw nation in Bomia-HerugO'Uinafor the ,p" thert. {lzetbegO'Uifj pro(udsfrom the thesis that other hand hepro be pacified .. and.on the . . � Serh·Ian P lobk can eru gtJ'Vtna, a l f It Mus,.1m Balma, . r 80s",ahat tM rest of t ,-s . nitary state. The representatives ofthe Croatian people ,.",wm a. u they 'A:now a cannot agree to th·IS, hecauu H . . Bomla_ erugovm ,. 'l Lr rep. ruIe... t to 1)ect )orlty su e ma ' Jh h · a ul wo hty as a minority ina ion in Bosnia-Herztgov populat Croatian the . . "'" " ti'lltl 01" -" a e d 111 ,{" . . ls stat lIatlon constltlltlv 0; guaralltu a sting fJKr"t reque : Croatliln people there1. thr for ina gov nia_Heru /kIs "" ba« I .

�:;::;;';;

�::�:�.W��"�i.'�h�,,

,, cteristicallY inconsistent. While demanding

:: for Croatia within its existing boundaries, he Bosnia's territorial integrity. And while (he to republic denied the Serbian minority the stahis own of .. of 'constituent nation' he none the less demanded this for the

tin.ri,,"

of Bosnia. Croats of Bosnia fall into two distinct camps, geographically politically. One-third of the Bosnian Croats lived in western

"' 1" 0 " ", , notorious hot-bed of extreme right-wing nationalism,

.... C,.", formed dose to a hundred per cent of the population in the countryside1. Many western Herzegovinians had fought the Croatian war, and, in 1992, returned bloodied by their '"0< and ready for the war in Bosnia. But the majority of Croats lived in central and northern Bosnia, in towns and

....

role in the Croatian war, accusing many of staying in throughout 1991 and well into 1992. Croatian propaganda

three nationalities lived. These cenrral Bosnian by tradition, much less nationalistic and much more ic Bosnian state than to seek its parti• � �'' ''d '' ; ", '_mul �ti-ethn i ;'' ' , , . lly pu units. Of two representatives on the Bosnian Presidency,

active part in the destruction of Vukovar!. Tudjman, in any case, had never accepted the long-term . Bosnia as a state. He made no secret of his view that Bosrul. artificial creation of the Yugoslav state, with no historical

��::;;:�::�:�out,

of the war might have been different. As it was, the JNA take them on one at a time.

The Croats harboured deep suspicions about the Bosnian

the Commander of the Bosnian TO, Sefer Halilovit, of

From the beginning he promoted what he called ' among Bosnia's Croats, who made up seventeen per cent of the lic's population. On the very morning that Bosnia . open war, 6 April, 1992, Tudjman told a news conference m 3'4

�

ras belonged to the Herzegovina tradition; and Stjepan • � ""· the pro-Bosnian tendency. Tudjman, from the beginn ing, d the former.

th

a nd

the Croats of Herzegovina were already orgaby Croatia. The first substantial military

e encountered was in Herzegovina, th ree months' Croats ' her across the laced eaeh ot Riv The Serbs occupied the east bank the Croats the west, ' •, ..Otiti� '; i 'i ·�� thC City . of Mostar itself. It had long been part of 3'5

BEWARE YOUR FRlEND A HUNDRED-FOLD

BOSNIA

JNA strategic planning to regard the Neretva as the natural. a new Serb-dominated rump Yugoslavia. The more nationalists had even thought of Oubrovnik as the natu ral

omb"';';

future enlarged Serbian republic of

�:��":'��':��

�

On 17 June, the Bosnian Croats, fter the

, altogether and ]NA, pushed the Serbs out of Mostar swathe of Herzegovinian territory along the east bank of the was the first serious defeat the Serbs had suffered since th,. .... 1 The HVO now consolidated its hold on the territories trolled. Arms and other supplies were channelled, from through the Herzegovina HDZ. A former clothing store called Mate Boban, emerged, through Tudjman's patronage, U leader of the Bosnian Croats, quickly eclipsing the elected

tives, Kljujit and Boras. Boban founded his own state in western 'Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna' - with its own own armed forces. He imposed Croatia's system ofloca! Croatian schooling, and 'Croatian' became the 'official

flag

the Herceg-Bosna came to mirror, in almost every �tdiJ;",,,,,, ,po"' Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, with one im Muslims and Croats were, formally, partners in a military

� ::�

signed between Tudjman and Izetbegovic in June. On the east bank ofthe NereM, in the heart o the Turkish House, a museum depicting a typical ( � home from some unspecified period of Bosnia's past. On the main living-room hung an elaborately inscribed print verse from the Koran in both Arabic and Serbo-Croat. It

Beware YOllr tnenty, bill hrwort' your friend a hun,"d Bt'latlJe ifyourfritnd huonles your tntnly he mn hurtyou mOTto htmUJt he knO'Ws the tunnels to your heart.

By late summer, Mostar's Muslims were beginning to their Croat 'friends'. The HVO had made no effort. after trol of Mostar, to follow up thc victory by helping the to liberate Sarajevo, as many had expected it would.

r:'�'.�� ;

missed almost all Muslims from positions of ,::" life, and replaced them with HDZ placemen. He ]'6

>:,-

_

l tbCY�re

to Croatia, was more explicit. He set up his

town of Novi Travnik. The central Bosnian towns Vitez, Jablanica, Konjic were all, he said, part of Herceg0.._0" 1,,,," of these areas had a Muslim majority. Muslims, Kordic

..,ted, did not constitute a separate nation. They were Croats of Jalamic faith.

Croatian dinar had already, in 1991, replaced the (Bosnia - no more than a leopard-spot collection of ries by the late summer of 1992 - still had no c\lJttncy

:

, .mtO a one-parry, ethnic state. The Mostar studio of Bosnian ' - was sub'1ect t� frcquem harassI to SaraJcvo . which was 10 and was, from time to tlme, closed down. police, aTian Cro b -"t ted road-blocks around the city; Muslims found that ce moun . po not allowed to come and go freely His� about what he considered explicit the boundaries an was never central Bosnia, Dario Kordic, a cocksure in te His _ his �t2 . with an unshakeable conviction that

E' S : � � ' � ��:::-"�p:ro: II

of 1992, two parallel armies co-existed on the same the HVO and the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. A great refugees, 'cleansed' by the Serbs, further exacerbated �·ding Boban with fears to play on - fears that the

l dispossessed. : would be 'swamped' by the Musim What was to become a conflict as bitter as that with the Serbs on 25 October in the central Bosnian town of Prozor. It began dispute between rival mafiosi over who should take delivery of a

·

of petrol. This gangland squabble quickly acquired the 'ethnic' dispute, as each ofthe two anniesjumped to ofits own people. Muslim men, driven OUt ofProzor, took though most returned a few days later when tensions subBut the dispute had all the characteristics of open warfare, . ....Mfu,. shelling from outside the town, and gun-battles in the a few days the centre of Prozor was burneda and-shatwreck of a place. Only Croat businesses were trading. Conflict . In Novi Travnik, to the north. But SaraJ·evo radio 10y,1 . ' Izerbe . Govemment, fasc. goVlC would, from now on, say that Ism first entered Bosni an through the prozor (window). . . an immediate military disaster. A I� CO�peration between the HVO and the Bosnian Army, With . Intense mutuaI SUSpiCion, Ied both to desert their " the town of), Jce, to the non I-we I st 0fTravruk. · JaJce ' had by Serb forces sincc the beginning of the war and • SOme Shellin • . . g. Th ..." �'" · htest In , ... ,.vas not the SI19 d·IcatiOn at of Oct0 ber, however, that it was about to fall. Then, on 29 it did, not becausc of a Serh OllcnSlve, « . but because of chaos '

:�::':,�

1'7

BOSNIA

FRiEND A HUNDRED-FOLD BEWARE YOUR

in the Bosnian and Croat defences. The Serbs walked into 40 000 Muslim and Croat citizens of Jajce poured down towards Travnik. At the London conference twO months earlier, the had agreed to concentrate their heavy weapons around f( submit them to United Nations' monitoring. Jajce was one tmvns. When the Serbs marched in, no weapons had betn trated, and no UN monitors had been deployed. Few ofthose did so by mechanized vehicle, since fuel supplies had spasmodic. Their exodus, during 30 Onober and 1 N<w""b"" bled something from a pre-mechanized age: a great "''''n -- ".... as far as the eye could see, until the road disappeared into ested hills to the nonh - of weary people trudging aurumn mist, some on foot, others crammed on to drawn carts. It took most of them two or three days to seventy kilometres to the south, and, as they fled, the Serb continued until the Bosnian Serb Army occupied the .

�::�::� .

above the road down which they were fleeing. Anything like a military vehicle became a target. The refugees had to barrage of shelling and machine-gun flte as they fled. It was painful illustration of how Muslim-Croat enmity would Serbs. General Mladit was later to comment: 'I will destroy each other and then I will push them both into the Serbs could not contain their glee. As Bosnia descended into its first winter of war, the hardened. There was now no area of the country where Serb and Bosnian Croat armies had a territorial other. But, both, on the other hand, had unfinished Bosnian army. An informal tacit alliance began to take Kiseljak, a Croat town on the western edge of Sarajevo, nationalists, loyal to the Herzegovina Croats, took control with government and the HVO. They had been besieging Sarajevo, as well as with Muslim Sarajevo. For months, Kiseljak became a haven of peace, locked. Bosnian Casablanca, as the Croats there took advantage of their position 'in between' Muslims and Croats would buy from the Serbs and sell to Muslim who were. by now, operating a cartel system that kept black-market goods in Sarajevo artificially high. The result export of hard currency from Sarajevo, money that had betO . and saved, over years, by ordinary Sacajevans. Muslim

d�'��':::

"""-I""

3'8

and Scrb suppliers, all took their cut i� a� extortion . . d!emcn . fOld acroSS military Imes and 10 which the J(jselJak Croats that cut players. the crucial '" . for Sarajevo, J(jsclJak stood at the western gates of tely n LJnfo Serb ring-of-armour around Sarajevo was the where e ace attempt to smash through the siege from Any le. lnerab f rom that direction. By the winter of come have l y ld on Croat forces there had sound fmancial, as well cynical reasons for ensuring the continuation of the siege. The although formally still allies of the Bosnian Government, in effect. partners with the Serbs in the perpetuation of the

:\ !

co�e

April 1993, the winter sl'.lOd-offberween Muslims and Croats into all-out war. News of the defeat at Srebrenica sent a nf n"mou, flying around central Bosnia that tens of thousands " 'ug" ' ,. ,,, dUC to arrive within days. In Kiseljak and : : i ; � : :,: pockers north and west of Sarajevo, Croat ': : J to take preventive action. They entered the Muslim of AhmiCi, which \vas surrounded by Croatian-populated vil murdered dozens of civilians, including women, children in their homes. They then set fire to the houses. of the atrocity was discovered by British troops of the Nations Protection Force, and by international aid workers, on - a day after the g of the Srebrenica surrender agreeIt had happened less than a mile from the British base. The Co�mander, Colonel Bob Stewart, almost in tears with rage that he had known nothing about it when it was hap demanded access to the village In front of the world's tclevi . he screamed at an HVO checkpoint comma nder, who . tum whether he had permi ssion to enter the village: 'I don't of the bloody HVO - I'm the United Nations! I that this is an Rbsolute disgrace. Whole families have IIlassacred here. Who 's responsible for this?' The HVO militia drove off. a wave of forced evicti ons, murders, and rapes. fled v'Itez and headed for T'ravnik or Zenica claiming that toki·lers had give . n them three hours to leave 1O\ n or be killed. Or two Musr1m dOCtors, who had been travelling from to V·Ite z, were foun . d On thc roadSide, shot at close range

..:.. ::�:: �: ! : : :

��?'"

;�,�:,�S:;�,�

;

3'9

BOSNIA

BEWARE YOUR FRIEND A HUNDRED-FOLD

In Tmvnik, the HVO demanded that the Bosnian and disband. It said the Vancc-Owen Plan - which the Bosnian sides had, by now, both agreed to - placed '''_'L Croatian province, and required the withdrawal of all forces from the province. The Vance-Owen Plan was not the

, the rejec�io� by the Serbs �f the Vance-Owen national commumty S subsequent failure to cnforce the ·nter 1'be h finally, the outbreak of the Muslim-Croat war: all occurred weeks in April and May 1993. Together they forced the . f e w . �� 2 Government and Army to confront the new reality. A polit military sea-change followed: the Muslims began to fight

:n�,1

otherwise have hcked4• Travnik was now overwhelmingly a Muslim town,

=� "t

swamped by Muslims who had been driven from their northern Bosnia by Serb ethnic cleansing. These men,

had been interned in the detention camps that had so world the previous year - radicalized and embinered by ence - determined not to go through me same thlng at

the Croats. Within days they had driven all HVO units Tmvnik, although thousands of Croat civilians continued to Tmvnik and were not subjected to the virulent campaigns cleansing that the Croats were soon to inflict on Muslim

living in their midst. In Zenica, a stronghold ofh,,,b<�,,;e. and the town where the Bosnian Army had its strongest between the Muslim Mayor and the local HVO c:o n" , '

� �

had been aimed at restoring calm, broke up when HV O surrounding hills shelled the town centre. As in Travnik, the

were driven aU[. Muslim central Bosnia was now surrounded on all "O" 'OY' forces - a land-.1ocked island of territory, cut off from the Sarajevo and from the outside world. In addition, it had

:.e

with th c Croat-occupied enclaves - Novi Travnik, Kiseljak - in its midst. These constituted sieges within the

these, Vitez was the most problematical, since it lay on the between Zenica and Travnik. In effect, the territory of Izetbegovic's Government had now been reduc [0 a � n � 'k � :' : :C smattering of isolated enclaves - around T "' r ;v . ' ',,� .

�

Bihae, Sarajevo, and the three eastern enclaves 0 and Zepa. None of these enclaves was viable without the life- of international aid. Access to and from each was by the besieging Serb or Croat forces . The military and

wa;r

ity facing Bosnia in the s�ring �nd early summer of1993 country was gradually bemg Wiped off the map of Europe· increasingly likcly that the only future for what the Serbs J]O

()otO,ati

gradually be absorbed into one or other of the ki ng shape around them. that were ta states an Serbi and

enC

fall of Srebrenica

the Muslim-Croat fighting in central Bosnia; the conflict the publication of the Plan. But, in the spring of 1993, the Bosnian Croat territorial demands a stamp of legitimacy

�

�t called former Bosnia-Herzegovina was that each of

'; g ;n,,,, n,' •", Iave

Smjevo psychiatrist, called Ljiljana Orue, kept her sense of throughout the siege. In the summer of 1993 she described capital as one vast psychiatric laboratory. Sarajevans had ,· ....I!o< '-nian ·

,l=!�'

she said, from a collective psychotic delusion - me delusion world would, eventually, rescue them and their country. This persisted, she continued, despite all the objective evidence to contrary. It was, therefore, a kind of inverse paranoia: a persistent that everything is going to turn out all right in the end even ..,ogt> by aU rational judgement, it clearly is not. 'This collective psy 'Dr Omt insisted, 'in May 1993. After that, we knew we our own: 1be fight-back began in central Bosnia. The third corps of the

ArmyS formed two new brigades consisting mainly of men 'cleansed' from northern and eastern Bosnia. Many of them hardened by their experience at the hands of the Serb forces; had been through the concentration camps. In Travnik they the Seventeenth 'Ksaji�ka' Brigad e, under the command of Mehmet AJagic, himself a victim of ethnic cleansing from the . reg.on of northern Bosnia . In Zenica, the heartland ofMuslim a �ew force altogether Olppcared - the Seventh Muslim n us was explicitly Muslim, rather than Bosnian, in its orien I fficers were hostile ro Westerners, wore Islami c insignia, ' and greeted each other with the Ambic 'al-sallam , (peace be with you) . Their families attended Islamic educa 'cIo,,,, nd their wives daughters, increasingly wore and veils in , For � . " f , �t n.me, a strident, xenophobic Musli m nationalism ' , � �� In Bosnia: the politics of multi-ethnic tolerance, S '' 'nt enth Muslim Brigade argued, had led to the c � ".� � f l ;; people. It was time for Muslims to I _ '
�_

�z

r:��:;; �� i:::::�

;

J]'

BOSNIA


f,�' ��:;:�,��

'1.' 'Listm Sfip, I'm lIIrprisul, I wasjusl in HaugO'/./ina brolhir Ihm). TINy ha",! (amps own Ihm. Thty look He . Ibt m Nazi timn rom worst thty don I getfood and water, the /iXt .

Conveniently for those. in the Wf:$t. who argued

ing on the side of the Bosnian Government. this dence to the argument - frequently voiced in defence

�

policy - that 'all sides are equally guilty'. Bur this new cared nothing for international public opinion; courting � : � the capitals of the Western world. its officers and

'art abuJ(d.

J: ' Ihepeop/t in the camps were, and he said they were I oj e who and tOWnJ, and their :uhbollr!' from Ihe same viI/ages form(/' n ,,o . . were MIII/l1ns. Ihey Another bIg grollp there Ihat (mIyfiall/1 was . . Mlll/im HVO soldIers d·Ilamltd O'/.I(rmgh1 and senl there. esperially by the trralmenl Ihere. I wry surpriud, , this information, alld fold Tudjman. He answad thaI IIx othm had camps aS 1mll IITI

brought nothing to the Muslims except military defeat, and hand-wringing declarations of sympathy from ", they argued, had learned that patient negotiations in G...

� ;:::

Hague and London brought catastrophe; and that. in this tory would fall not to the just, but to the strong.

There was nothing of the multi-ethnic ideal among that They no longer spoke of Serbs and Croats. but ofChetniks

In mid-August the International. Red Cross finally gained acces� to

647" detainees in 51 camps - ofwhICh 4400 were held by the Bosman

In Zenica, from time to time, the Seventh Muslim to the streets, smashing shops that sold alcohol and

CIoats (a figure the Bosnian Government claimed was far too low),

and destroying the carcasses. They became, during the autumn months, a law unto themselves. frequently in

1400 by the Muslims and 674 by the Serbs. Muslim former prisoners held in Dretelj, a notorious camp south Mostar, said they were beatcn and woken in the middle of the

civilian police and increasingly feared by the civilian population. The military strategy of the Third Corps was to carve out

gle of territory in central Bosnia stretching from Tuzla in the east, to Sarajevo in the south-east. and Mostar in the immediate priority was to secure lines of communication

leopard-spot territories. The heavily populated Vitez pocket

about 60 000 Croats lived - was too daunting a target. So Anny began to sweep through Croatian villages in the hill, 'boII

valley that Vitez sat in. They burned and looted as th� the tactic which their Serb foes had proved so rewardtng previous twelve months. By early summer, the �y had . road of sons. around the back of the Vitez pocket linking Zenica and, beyond to Tuzla6.

::· �:�: -:; The Muslim Croat fault-line ran through the town

Throughout the summer and winter of 1993, this tc troops had based a company of men to provide a

logistic base for aid convoys running from Split. to hands so frequently, as the tide of military fortune flowed, that by the end of the year there was hardly a house left habitable. Over the summer grisly reports of maltreatment and . Muslims in Croat camps emerged. In Zagreb. Stipe recalled that he was first told of the camps by }020 HDZ activist. J1'

�

:'·0

��

and forced to sing songs insulting to the Muslims and � : �They were deprived of food and water. Many told of havtheir own urine f'dther than die of thirst. . .. statement from {he UN Security Council on 15 September ' " ' 'h, 'revulSion and condemnation' felt among {he internation : �� : :�when the existence of the Serb camps was revealed the � and urged the Croats to close theirs. lilustrated the tragedy of the Muslim-Croat conflict more �e central Bosnian town Yard. an unlovely mining and quarry m a pretty valley running north-south on the road from Sarajevo Yard was on the very edge of the Muslim -Croat war zone. the war.its population had been evenly split between Muslims C ats. w .,:: a h a sizeable Serb minority. The Serbs had fled, or n mOved our, at the start of the war. The local Croats and worked hard, through the summ er of 1993, not to become by the conflict that was tearing the two communities apart to of them. V:Ue§ could n . ot stay Immun . e. '-he con. fl· lct so polarIZed central . t h deSplt t� e best � efforts of thc local leadership, Yard soon . �:�:: g, e�hnlc hnes. � But it provides an illuminating insig ht into 0 ethnic conflict. VareS became � a microcosm of the Ilways ' the fi I l'St tensions came from outsidc - the arrival of

i��

,

aJ��

llJ

BOSNIA


thousands of angry and traumatiu:d Croats who had been from, or £led in terror, from their homes in Visoko, Breza. Zenica which themselves had received floods' angry and traumatized Muslim refugees during an earlier refugees brought with them an accumulated resentment fcar of, the group that had driven them out. In Yard the many Croat refugees not only crowded the town - it tipped cate ecllOic balance. The local Croat leadership, h",."",.

towns

:��

co-operate with the local Muslim leaders; and this soon b sations from the incoming Croat refugees that they v. �; � with the 'enemy' that had driven them from their opened up among the Croats. Then, in October, an armed arrived from Kiseljak, the hard-line Croat nationalist,

'";�:�C

caUy anti-Muslim stronghold to the south. The local

and Poice l Chiefwere briefly jailed, then ovenhrown. An

installed as Mayor. Muslim men were rounded u;

were raided and looted. Within days, almost the ��:�,�::!:� munity had fled to the village of Dabravina to the south,

waited and planned their reruro.

In fact, Vard could not be defended by the Croats. AJmost as they had secured control of it, they prepared to evacuate were twO escape routes - both led across Serb territory. Kise1jak Croats were on such good with the Serbs, this:

of present a difficulty. But the existence of the mile from the edge ofVares, did. It was a Muslim v
ulation of250. It lay on the southern escape route. On October, after a day of unrelenting bombardment ofSrupni

militiamen wearing balac1ava masks, or with their faces entered the village and dynamited, or torched, lagers unable to flee were shot, or had their throan cut. burned alive in their homes; others were gunned down " ,h.y .

flee through the woods. Some bodies were thrown on to the gardens of the homes in which they fell. By the end of the spree, the viUage lay littered with bodies and every house flames. Most of the viUagers fled. Scores of people were

of the bodies were never recovered.

For days Croat militiamen rampaged through . homes that had been abandoned by the fleeing Muslims. Muslims still trapped in the town begged the Swedish UN

Vare�

':':·��d�.!.d

lcted there to escort them safely to Bosnian-held did not ha\le the trucks to do it. Instead, the Swedes

JJ4

up and down the length of the tow n's main street,

","�o vthides ... l women and children camped nd nights on cnd, Musim

tpd, for days

:he proximity of UN forces their only protection. Then, of 3 Nov:mbcr, �he Croat M�yor we�� from house � :C;;; 'hours jill the 5 with a loud-hailer iOstructiOg all Croatian families to assem to� e strcet, and prepare to be evacuated before dawn. The h he told them, was closing in on the town from the � m Army. ."m west and south. th n 10 000 fled in a . singl� night. For a. day� the to"';1 lay Then the Seventh Muslim Brigade walked iO without fmng a :rr The M�slim civilians returned to their homes. Within weeks the that the Croats had abandoned were occupied by Muslim F.am

M�re �

�

.. from towns

villages occu�ied by the Serbs. The entire town . hcrn B� snJa, haVlng bc�n uprooted by Serb in non Rijeka, ciCma . elbnic cleansing. rcsetded Itse lf iO Croat homes m Vard. That is how Yard came to illustrate two key elements of the

and

)Iuslim-Croat war: firstly, the ability of radicalized outsiders to sow

tile: seeds of ethnic conflict in a community in which Croats and M"',m, had been content to live together; secondly, the fact that ethnic cleansing had crammed more and more Muslims and

a smaller and smaller territory, causing resentment among , .. '" Ip'o'pl" that evenruaUy spilled over into ethnic tension.

into

H.lil",,, · denied it.

: 9 April. 1992. important exception is j\·lostar, which Herzegovina Croats consid'h and which had a typically Bosnian of Croats, nationalities. Vance-Owen Plan, were drawn so large in Croats would form the largest proportion ld none the large Ser and Muslim t here wou Th _.. ·,· c e CXtensi n ss of the Croat pro\linces was thus intended, .:::'''''. to act as a check on the u:ercise ofCroat power inside these Zagreb's prompting, interpreted it as (art("'an(1x to '"""'''," rul. �n Muslim and Serb townS and re ions. BtH consisted at that time of corps - in Sarajevo, ·"t:;: � , ,od Central Bosnia. : � ;I t ;:.: war never s read as far nonh . : as Tuzla. Here, p 100 small 11 minority, and too distant from Henegovina, to �f the Bosnian even if their commanders had . i . alliance the conflict Units lncorpor-at d into Bosnian Anny.

_Om"

odol, , :� ; �:��:;�;��::�Io�the ve e :;,

mix Serbs,

lessstillbe

b

by

_

fiveg

In

were

Armyout held through e the JJS

the until, eventual y,

THE HMS INVISIBLE

be like walnuts in a Serbo-Croat nutcracker,' he . ) re going to the world was recognizing that the Serbs had won )4US �S b'elieved ,pd ne .�

23 THE HMS INVISIBLE

d»e

Tallu at Sea

Summer 1993

F

ar from the bloodshed, the three pa�ties - the Muslims, . Croats - met for a summer of talks In Geneva.

ing leaders slept in the swankiest hotels perched on ,h,,,.,o,,,, x Loman; by day, they argued over the futu e frontiers of Herzegovina. In late September they flew to the Adriatic British aircraft carrier HMS Invincible to settle the Muslim

r

warserbs' relish was paralleled by IzetbegoviC's anguish. 'I feel,' he

. ��kc a thirsty man scnt to find water in the desert.'The Bosnian d. nder considerable pressure. Washington had puUed the ,.i ' ent \.VaS u ftcSld from under him. He still clung to the idea of a unified Bosnia ut Muslims. Bur this priority had slipped from rug meland for the . He reluctantly itted that a tripartute paragendas. eSTern . . blc. meVlfa was pon of Bosnia

� W

ThiJ division willgiw Muslims a Bomian stall!. For Ihl! moment lhe idta ofn mulli-l!lhni( Bosnia is dl!ad. Future gtntratir)ns (an haftforsuch a slatt. Bul only nlhr thry havt soberl!d up.from tlNir stalt ofdrunkennl!!s.

for access to the Adriatic. It was the perfect setting for a

Summoning Bosnia's main protagonists for another round first since the collapse of the Vance-Owen Plan, the m"d;,,,on

Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg said: 'the destruction

and

now taking place in Bosnia - makes us both shudder for the

your country'. The appeal was dramatic. But, from the atan were anxious to distance themselves from the Plan 00""" a new reality.

After Washington had announced the 't-Action

Bosnian Government was reeling. Suddenly they were advised the hand dealt to them or risk being left with nothing. �""'. _

and shrewd. and his affable partner Stoltenberg, prodded main protagonists towards an agreement, whose were

by the Serbs and Croats. Owen maintained he was trying to 'painful compromise' not a partition. Despite the efforts to the Plan, the main adversaries knew the proposed Union

republics would d isappear as soon as, or even before. the · The Bosnian Croat leader, Mare Boban, called the Plan, the It is uncertain whether he had misunderstood the name of the aircraft carrier or was referring to the vanishing Bosnian union. On 30 July, a breakthrough was announced. All three

'!:��

the Bosnian Government, had backed a constitutional a Union of republics in Bosnia-Herzegovina - in other tition along ethnic lines. In remarkably similar statements. and Croats hailed the agreement as a compromise which nt an end to the war. MiloS-evil announced that the agreeme

:;:':

plcteIy affirms Republika Srpska.' For a member of the B delegation it was simple. The Turks (derogatory f

Izetbegovic had been backed into a corner. In June, frustrated by

his intransigence, the mediators had taken steps to weaken him - in 1be conviction that this would hasten the peace process. They re

ilmnted the Bosnian Presidency, and reduced Izetbegovic to his pre

constitutional role as The fITSt among equals. At their invitation, Flkret Abelic, the canny survivor, emerged from a long silcnce in the aorth-westem Cazinska Krajina or as it came to be known during the .... the Bihae enclave to challenge Iz.etbegovic for the leadership of Boaua's Muslims. The mediators believed that Abdic would cut a dea1 .ab the Serbs and Croats on partition. They were right. He was ready . do the job and ed a multi-ethnic Bosnian Presidency delegat ion tD Geneva to begin talks on the carve-up. A month later, dnving through the arches of the Palais des Nations, . delegation looked defeated and divided. Iz.etbegovic sat, hiS bodyguards, in a black Mercede provided by the Swiss s :ent. The rest o the delegati on arrived battered Honda, in a 611k.we by the rotund Silver-haired Abdic taxi. This was in stark in a . . • .. n . ot to the ImpreSSIOn of co-ordinated strength and brash conflA. ded by the Serb delegation which raced to the Palais. t>fu Progt"essed the fighting 1 � n : � ':��i on the ground intensified. The ' to take what they could before the fmal carve-up. The Mount Igman, ,",:,hich from the south-wes t overlooks "J .""j.,Th " e W,est threatened au-str ikes as Serb political and mili �layed cat-andmouse with the intcrnational community their p edge to withdraw from the strategic peak... While the __

G:::I�Y _

;:"

�

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137

BOSNIA

THE HMS INVISIBLE

;::'5

entire international community waited to see whether Serb � � " ',��:�;:-, promised, had pulled out of Mount Igrnan, Karad1i at 1 p.m. in Geneva, exhausted after a night of g

casino. Yet he out-smarted the West, or, at least, gave the world an :;�' ��,: for refraining from military intervention. In fiery b�:

� �

warned against air-strikes. 'If a single bomb hits a Serb will be no more talks. Vve would have an all-out war He played on the fears of NATO countries which had

Bosnia. And even went so far as to threaten that, in the event strikes, he would lose control of his Army, with the Bosnian Serbs would retaliate against the UN troops from

':��:�

triesl. It was a strange reversal - suddenly the international nity was hoping that KaradZic would remain in command.

Against the background of KaradZiC's ominous warnings. Izetbegovic openly advocated military intervention 'in the peace'. He said that the future of the negotiations, and the entire

process, rested on air-strikes. The international community took no action. There were strikes. Less than a month later, an announcement was m"d,tbo� three sides had agreed on the fur ore borders of their ethnic

In its final version reached on HMS InfJincihlt, at sea in tn, "'...

the plan gave fifty-three per cent of Bosnian (contiguous) the Serbs, seventeen per cent to the Croats, divided into two

and left the Muslims with the remainder. The Bosnia which emerged from this plan would be '""d-''''

Through special routes. the Plan granted the Muslims access sea at Neum, Bosnia's outlet on the sea, but is unsuitable as a They were also offered Bosnia's only coastline, the use of the seapon of Plod: and the border town of Metkovic which is mouth of the Neretva. They would also have a tenuous oud�

River Sava to the north. The Bosnian Government wanted

try [0 cover all of the republic - shon of that, it wanted land ing to every frontier. Eastern Bosnia - almost completely

by the Serbs - although it was mostly Muslim before the remained a major bone of contention. The Serbs, including . were not prepared to hand over any part of eastern Bosrua Muslims - this was Milo�eviC's bare minimum, which he

the security of Serbia. . llS Just one glance at the map, and it was clear that tl shaped and geographically disted state would have only a JJ8

val Sarajevo would be placed under UN istration of surVl. t�ri m period, and Mostar under provisional E C con I;'e n offered to build a tunncl leading out of Sarajevo, fal ' �. Kana . '5 inhabitants could travel to other parts of the state. to rhat the City ent also caJled for demilitarization of the Union, but The agrcem disarm Croatia and Serbia, whose armies were n Jan to ;h� conflict. Stoltenberg went off to the UN, in New York, � c iIro'Olv already on the ground. trOOpS in addition to the .. ",k and misplaced optimism that a settlement talks of mmer Af t er a sU . "lc rejected plan drawn the up on the hetbegoV d be reached, , con:inced were isappointed d Stoltenberg and i Owen Inwnchk before. GIVen a agreement an near so been never ..t t y had " h" b rmg J" INet 1m "Into the game, �'"to attempts ational boost by intern . state, the Autonomous Province of Western own his declared Abdie from the Bosnian Government Presi�ency. Bosnia and was expelled . and war erupted between Mushms 10 the emerged. ine front-l her Anot '

twO-y�

W;� ;000

10 000

;;She

Bihae enclave.

Whenever the Serb and Croat leaders resumed their poisonous courtship, it sounded the death-knell for the Muslims. Their conspir 'Cf defied

logic. but had its own strange dynamic. These sworn ene

mies killed each other on the battlefield while their leaders sipped whisky together. It began in March 1991, in Karadjordjevo. when Milokvlc and Tudjman discussed the partition of Bosnia. They estab IiIhed a secret commission, comprised of their confidants, to redraw

Yugoslavia's borders. The problem of Serb and Croat nationalists was DOt how the two communities could live together, but how they could e leparate. Th y agreed on something else. Bosnia-Herzegovina should be �ed-up, then they could have their cake and eat it, too: Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia. �he tightest secrecy, the two rivals had a host of meetings. 1n C oa 'aber .1 991 (the war had neither st'Mted in Bosnia nor ended in

r ti ) �' Croa kola Koljevic sat in a Sarajevo cafe with Franjo Boras, his

1he t nationalist counterpart in the Bosnian Presidency. Lamenting

sta .... . ��-of-war between the Serbs and the Croats, Borns announced t 1Ibo Id not �av� to be that way. After all, there were plenty of Serbs ilion: �d m�rned mto his family and they got along just fmc. What's e. �a,d, pcrhap� the two men could prevent a war if the two ;:n'�'es started talks. He suggested that Koljevic go to Zagreb to 1'h r e esldentTudjman. Croatian and Serbian Presidents had already discussed the

I�

COm�

JJ9

THE HMS INVISIBLE

BOSNIA

""hW",

division of Bosrua. By December 1991, MilmeviC had a gaining chip: Krajina. Milo�viC was not attached to "n; ,,"OIl even said mat Knin, the capital of me self-styled Serb

::,,

State,

belonged in Croatia - that it had nothing in comm n O with With Knin, Milo�evic believed he would always get the

secure in the knowledge that he had something that �',o'na "" survive without, a third of its territory.

Tudjman believed that population transfers - getting rid Serbs - would solve Croatia's problems. Karad1ic agreed Knin's Serbs should be moved, but not to Serbia - to the

of eastern Slavorua to Serb-held parts of eastern Croatia. The Serb patriot, was remarbbly who claimed to be a

great

about the fate of his Serb kith-and-kin in Croatia. said they were used to moving. Mter all, they had

'��t

With a

region, escaping the Turks centuries ago. His deputy,

lished a rapport with Tudjman. President Tudjman proposed sion on resettlement of the population, believing [hat this about an ethnically homogenous state. Now, there was not ment because, obviously, resettling, even if it's peaceful, does

a final solution and [hen that was not the main issue ","CO"", ,tho issue was, and still is, the territories. Koljevic and Boras had already devised a plan. An 0•..,,'"

Zagreb meeting, Stipe Mesic, then head of the HDZ. first phrase the 'humanitarian movement of population'.

The talk. was about creating ethnically clean areas, in other theproblem ofMuslims had to be solved, since it was Boros and Koljevii had already agreed on borders a.,,,, 1'"". selves. .... Tudjman had three goals,-first he wanted ruognition ,{en possible, and the ofthe ,..""..",,,,,/ " mm,'."y; he wanted to dividr Bosnia-Herzegovina, '/ ""''"'" ."", sion, and third in order 10 do thil, he had to k.eep '''.m''...... with Milafevii. The first meeting was a success. Tudjman told Mesit he

pleased with the talks. He even met Koljevic on his.own. ' said Mesic, 'they communicated with ease, and both sides at war: But Koljevic knew that the seeds of the new alliance time to take root.

. u hll! to how one muting with the Croatian leaderi I J the already exitling coa/jt�on in BOlnla h«aute, /p s lt a . e theMuslim le and Croaltan le already had iy t/)at /l '(' es' theirflags tied into k.nots, showing that they ",ade pub I ralli wert logether.

�ln�:1TOJ �

x months - even after war had erupted in Bosnia, ()ver the next si leaders me: in Mostar, Banj� Luka and Graz. 0n 6

.

Serb . . ooa[. and estine meeting at the Graz aIrport, Kara&lc made It land a C n l u_ L h northern Bosnta " In illoug insisted on a com'dor t that the Serbs valley. River Sava JWtvina, the

;'

Iftbey wanted war instead ofa negotiating table, let's lee what WfJuld happm thm. And so we liberated almost a/� ofPO.f(l'Uina except Oralje. I told them rep�ated� that �o solutIOn would be . tI((eptabie without t1 broad cOrrIdor In POiavI�a. We beheved then tlnd we beli�ve now that the bm boundary If the om naturally formtd by the Sava river. Karad1it and Boban agreed on some of the maps, but they also left questions open. The Croats asked for BItko - which according 1991 census was Muslim, Serb, and Croat. 'The Serbs refused they built it and it was completely Serb: said KaraclUC.

In this war for control of the rivers, Karadfic proposed the Neretva which runs through Hcrzegovina as a boundary. But Boban Mostar's main street, Marshal Tito. They pledged to take composition of territory and agreed to accept EC

- if they could nOt work it out between themselves - for western region round Kupres and to the north for seven tOwns in Posavina3. For adzic, the first meeting with Boban was very useful, because he recogmztd . "He hImself: a fellow nationalist in his Croat counterpart. more .Cr at than Catholic. His idea was [0 concentrate the o. . PO� tJon IO one part of Bosnia, so that they could protect ethntClty and not Catho licism: .,.�T"h . �re ' were constant s between Zagreb and Belgrade. In

�

Croa�

�a

��:�: what ;;:'�;:��alIia�c�.and

1 94, they agreed to open diplomatic offices in each other's ut was more important were the visits of Croatian to S rbia even Pale. It was a competition between the �

Croatia continued to pursue two separate and poliCies, their secrt!t collusion with the Serbs and their

J41

BOSNIA

24

�

formal allianc� with th� uslims. Th� fust gav� the two nations me power to determm� the fat� of the Muslims, but that Croatia would always be the weaker partner in that ol!;.... th� second was backed by the United States. In early

A QUESTION OF CONTROL Square Bomb and the NATO Ultimatum The Marlut

.

axes seemed mutually exclusive. By the summer - and the between Milo�evic and his brethren 10 Bosnia - the dynarnic:t

February 1994

once again shifted.

1 UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spilin,

.

2 The agrec:menl for Mostar was actually carried OUI. Hans former Mayor of Brehmen, bC'eame the firsl EC Mayor of Ihe in 1994. 3 According to parlicipants from both sides. should ge� the western ha,!k of Mostar and mo, s Neum,Capljina, Ljubu�k.i,Siroki Brijeg, PO" "J,."L;. a

H�::::��o��;, ;;:

even Kupres, which was fifty-one r-:r cent Serb not contest Krdevo, Kiseljak, Fojnic;l., Busovata, Serbs in October 1992), Travnik, Novi Travnik, and no word oftht Muslims.

it knew all there was to know about incom 'evo thought that no-one thought a single mortar round could But nce. ordna in an instant. The bomb that dropped out ofthe sJ...-y ife, l

S�J � much

_

p.m. on Saturday, 5 February, turned a bustling

city-centre

12.37 � t place, in the shad w of Sarajevo's Catholic Cath�dral, into a ? .

JIIanaO abattoir. It killed slXty-OIne, and left more than 200 wound�d.

Why had it sown such havoc? Som� survivors said they thought it

W strU k an overhead plastic canopy on the way down and exploded

c

jolt above head height, showering the market with thousands of red

IP shards of metal. It was all the more devastating for having been &led n an oth�rwise pcac�ful day. It was one of the great tragic aoaies that, frequently, more people were killed on quiet

o

1��;

of Sarajevo

than on days when the shelling of civilian areas was intense. This on quiet days people came out on to the streets. The fifth

sunlit, spring

was a bright, day. The market was packed. dropped Without warning. Raction was immediate. President Izetbegovic called a news con within hours and said it W'd.S a 'black and t�rrib[e day. We .,-_." feel condemned to death. Every government which s arms embargo against this country is an accomplice to acts of

�

...

as

mo,,',udch t?is'. The offtce of Prime Minister Haris Silajdfic, Amen an television

"" fa,. w exclUSive face-to-f ace interview �

news anchorman Peter Jennings, of . Izetbegovic and Silajd1ic s,bly shaken by the scale of the mark�t square massacre t afternoon, using the it presented to argue that now being pressurized by the int�rnational community hn a Serb-Croat 'peace agreement' which had the EU, that was tamamount to complete capiru

tb; ac::;. g .

�

.

opportunity authored

of the Bosnian state, and the dispossession . two mi l. lIOn Muslims. . was equally quick off the mark. He denied (a5 he always did when civilians were killed in large and S3J'd �e had ordered his forces to block all humanita Convoys untl UNPROFOR publicly exoner ated the of

I

34"

Serbs

J43

BOSN1A

blame. Only later did he develop

A QUEST10N OF CONTROL

�:;r,:� ��: �� .

a series o

had been planted by'the Muslim side' or fl : : or, more bizarrely still, that the bodies that were rushed from

ket square to the city morgue in the immediate aftermath bombing were old bodies that had been planted there for of the television cameras. ",· KaradiiC's denials always bore fruit. General Le <

::'�:,��

first given credence to the idea that the Bosnian l

of a strategy to bring the international community into the side, had taken to bombing its own people. He had

in May 1992, when a mortar bomb crashed intO Vase in the city centre where a queue of civilians were

Twenty-rwo people had been killed by that bomb. was in Belgrade at the time, because UNPROFOR relocated from Sarajevo to the Serbian capital, gave great

the view that agents of the Bosnian Government had bomb, though no-one ever produced a scrap of evidence the contention. Throughout the war, those who opposed

intervention and the lifting of the arms embargo conducted <>ci,,;,,j • pering campaign to spread the notion that the worst ,•

�:�:��:

committed by the Bosnians against their own people. The was never made publicly, because this would have

If there was any evidence, it never came to light. The ever, succeeded in sowing seeds of doubt among have been more resolute in their condemnation of the bomlOlll

of Sarajevo. No-one has ever proved who fired the market . UNPROFOR crater analysis of the impact site was trajectory ofthe missile had been diverted by its

. to head canopy; and, in any case, it is almost single impact the dire,-'tion of fire and the distance traveJkd. analysis is only accurate when several rounds have been fired

same position, since then margins of error can be narrowed. would say only that the round came from the north-east,

both sides had positions in that direction. The comm�n vation that if you fire a million-and-more mortar, rounds into a small city over rwenty-two months (as

,,,ill.,,y '!

Serbs did) - many of these mndomly lobbed into civilian areas

somewhere where crowds are swept away in the ensuing row. A walk down any safe Sarajevo provides visible evidence that nowhere was

or later one will land

344

mortar: the city's streets are

pockmarked

everywhere with

, ive splatter of the mortar impact point. The local people rand�m. dJc: di stln t

. nrs '5araJevo · roses' - the coIour 0f bloo�. By " J these impn barely walk more than a few metres Without 1994, you could february . . i ng one. ftASS ,.......

interesting tha� the stenle debate about who fired What is more the uses to which the UN were able to put the con d is rogue roun die y. So great was the anti-air-strikes culture in UNPROFOR h neW commander in Bosnia, General Sir Mic ael Rose,

=7he

rked without a break for the fifteen days that foUowed to produce

ment that would, as he saw it, make air-strikes unnecessary. If had been the slightest piece of evidence that the Bosnians had COIJunitted the market square atrocity, the world would surely have tcttle WO

�

liard all about it. There would have been no surer way to counter the llJUffients ofthose (mostly in the US) who pushed for military action iD the aftermath of 5 February.

The most plausible explanation of the market square bombing was Dt whoever fired it did not deliberately try to kill scores of people by lIDding it slap in rhe middle of the most crowded place in town. t.fortm are not direct-fire weapons. They are not accurate enough to � a direct hit first time. They have to be 'walked' toward their tar p. ln any case, the 5 February massacre was different only In scale hm what Sarajevo had sutfered almost every day for twenty-two Dlnths. Irs significance lay in its symbolic impact. Nearly 10 000 had died in Sarajevo as the undisputed victims of Serb bom

;��""'" most of them civilians, and many of them children. The

I in which most of them were buried in rows that wer e of "",;ity, se i d became the most potent symbol of Sarajevo's ag ny ,: � , City s lost promise: it lay in the shadow of the show- iece p sports stadium, built for the 1984 Winter Olympic Games. Was no controversy about who had killed them. The market bomb, desplte · t h e rnuddymg of the waters by KaraclziC's . · ...· 'hibl' cla l m that the l'Iluslims had done it to themselves, finally t e w,estern world say ' Enough'.

�

wh'ICI1 the Western world said 'Enough' that Lard Owen . Th _ " m every \'v ere were l:<WS AIestern capital · • for , �� p ;, I i I , � the skies above Bosnia to act to deter a repeat sq�arc tragedy. The Americans were pushing hard for interveorlOn. . They argued that the legal authonty to act existed In ' tl I e current UN Secu rity Council resolutions. The

the manner In '

":::?��,:�", III

ii

J4S

BOSNIA

A QUESTION OF CONTROL

French, too - uncharacteristically in Owen's view - were a more interventiOnist role for NATO. Even the ""ri".. foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd - always the first to PUt the on international intervention -was now bowing to wt,,, ,,,,,,,oi whelming pressure. Owen's concern was with the Russians. He believed K ,>zy ... already shown great flexibility in allowing NATO to police zone. The Russians had agreed to this only because the being done under the amhority of the UN, NATO was, ation, carrying out the UNs' bidding. The Atlantic alliance acting independently. The Russians had gone still further: agreed that the UN Commander in Bosnia should be '"'.... .1 in close air in defence of his own international !o',,"" 1 they be attacked. Again, the Russians had conceded this NATO only because NATO was able to guarantee that it only within the limits set by the UN. Owen knew that Russians would not accept was NATO acting outside the the UN, Yeltsin would not be able to sell that to his own

'

It says somethingfor their pragmatism that K(lZ.yrro. y,/,',i. .. Churkin had all acupted that thtTe was a I�timate NATO in helping the UN. So tllfomment ofthe " , thefirst thing. They were ready to acupt this, as long as , UN (ontrols. Then we (arne into the question ojdolt air whtTe the UN (ommandtT(ould (allup a NATOplant troops were under allack. The Russians bought that. So we (auld carry the Russ;(l1/s with us on NATO h,/pi", ,'''' 1/.1 What thty would ntver agru to was that the control ojths i procedllre.

;;::;;�;:

Owen believed that independent NATO action would international community down an cast-west fault line: th� would be forced to come to the aid of the Serbs. Much IS Russia's historic alliance and cultural affinity with the S fact, for Moscow it ,vas a question of slrategic and political Russia refused to allow Washington (and to a lesser exre?t dictate the new of conflict resolution and determllle

�

t further still: he became convinced of the potential for 'cc wen _ 1 conmct, 'Make no m'lstake,' he Sal' d, 'the great '" nite a glob;u " __lI.a'to Ig fII"I la. B ___ OSn r ove aligning Foreign Secretary, Owen immediately began a are . A IOnner British " III what he thought was a e, to try to rem exerCIs tion �limita toward military intervention. The day after the entum mom � � us Sarajevo was beginning to bury the first of its dead, as boIn to Rome and picked up Thorvald Stoltenberg. From there, ()wren flew to Belgrade. They drove across the Drina into north • twOBosnia, to the shattered town of Zvornik, for a meeting with .-em n KaradZic. On the way, Owen heard General Rose speaking BBC World Service, giving the impression that the possibility Ibat me bomb had not been ftred by the Serbs had not even crossed ""nind. '} thought to myself�Blimey, �e better be told a few things�, . lsrryofDefence... I hope the .-I I made a quick phone call to the Mm message got across.' Kar.l.dfic used the meeting in Zvornik to deny IIIP"nsibility and to stress that the Serbs would respond negatively to ., anempt to use force against them, Owen left convinced that any IiDd ofu1timatum would be, as he put it, a 'red rag to a bull'. The next day he: flew to Brussels to a meeting of the European Uoion Foreign Ministers where he advised caution, There he argued that NATO should not adopt an independent stance - that it ...... '''"'' no independent ultimatums, but rather continue to offer' to back up UN initiatives. Owen saw this as the only way of .."",,,,, the Russians in the peace process. a flurry of diplomatic exchanges. General Rose went ro and returned to Sarajevo determined to get the Serbs and i Government to agree to a ceasefire and a weapons with plan. NATO ambassadors gathered in Brussels for a meeting No�h Atlantic Council, scheduled for Wednesday, 9 February. Amenea s and the French arrived both pushing for a NATO � n'm a�Lnst the Serbs, The night before the scheduled session, , tned to have the discussion cancelled, by informing their that General Rose was working on a demilitarization and was on the verge of clinching it. A NATO ultimatum , •• argu�d, would only derail [he agreement by infuriating the d sh g [hem lll into defiance. NI 0 Secreta ry General Manfred Woerner consulted the .amb . assadors, and found that the British were isolated in their to NATO action. As one Western diplomat recalled: 'The repre�ntafve · I sald theTe was no need to hold the meeting

��

.

�

I��W

:::

�,"," "!'

T

347


BOSNIA

because General Rose had an agreement. We checked t/,"",. independent sources and fo� n� that this was not so. It wa. that a head of steam was bUlldmg up. At the meeting itself. British attempt to have it cancelled, we were presented with ing paragraphs [for a draft NATO communique]. The up with a version that said to the Serbs, in effect, ;Pl;;; : selves�, without any threat to enforce this. The British wanted everything to the UN.' On 9 February, two crucial meetings took place in Sarajevo airport, the commanders of the two armies were together by General Rose; and in Brussels, despite the Britain, the NATO council meeting went ahead as scheduled. General Rose had been working on the airport for days. He had drawn up a Four-Point sent to them as, in effect, a non-negotiablefoil accompli: first diate ceasefire; second, the ....nthdrawal of heavy weapons to t\venty kilometres from Sarajevo, or their surrender to UN third, the interpositioning of UN troopS between the two at key locations; and fourth the setting up of a t 0.'",,';' meet daily to agree the details of the Plan's implementation. It was not easy. The Serbs initially opposed the Plan. In ings with them, in the days running up to 9 February, K>nldlil Rose that the Serbs would agree to placing their weapons inspection, but not UN control. He argued that the B...... superior manpower (which was true) and that the Serbs superior fire power to prevent their front-line p"";ti�, �,�;�: " by Bosnian infantry. 'I told him to get lost,' ,- claimed them they were now operating in completely changed cumstances, and that inspection was not enough.' olonl : �� eighth, Rose met the Serb Chief of Staff Manojlo l\ agreed to Rose's Four Point Plan, and agreed to otttend the meeting the following day. Later that evening he met Jovan Divjak, the Deputy of the Bosnian army. Divjak was a flamboyant and pop�ar he was not as influential as his rank suggested. The Bos�an two Deput}' Commanders - Divjak, a Serb, and StJepan Croat. Their appointments reflected the desire of the Government to maintain at least the appearance of the High Command. Divjak rolled out the red ca t put it, 'to show him that the of the Bosnian itarily, intellectually and culturally on his level beeause we

1��:: �

an

� �

�;;i�:

�

eliStinguishe that evening and had a very relaxed conversation. I think ... 'di ner jDt}' n had a bottle of wine'. Rose told Divjak that the Serbs had

d military figure in the UK. We offered him a mil

their hea,,! wea.p�ns outsi�e a twenty kilometres' ev;:o withdraw the City. D"'pk promised that the Bosnian around duS. zone � D I:ould attend the meeting at the airport the following day. k was. getting above .�imself. He was acting beyond his ��t Divjaauthon ty. Izetbegovlc had already decided that his .,e

n

leg! 'mate

the meeting. lzetbegovic took the view �ent would notSerbsattend alone to take action: why

should the pres chat it was up to the the Boslian Government be required, w.hen all the onus was ! The market square bombmg had created an Side? 011 the Serb entirdy new international climate. The Bosnian Government sensed closer than ever to winning international military inter tbat it _tion. lzetbegovic feared that Rose was concocting a plan that would undennine NATO's new resolve and produce a compromise 1bat would obviate the necessity for air-strikes. He was right. Rose waited at the airpon. The Serbs arrived, the Bosnians did not. Rote was furious. He was under intense pressure to produce an agree .au mat would allow the anti-intervention lobby in NATO to argue 1Mt me threat of air-strikes alone was enough, and that therefore no �rum was necessary. NATO ambassadors were meeting that very .., I� Brussels, and Rose knew that this was his only real chance of J.ding �� what he thought would be a disaster - the bombing of lab positions by NATO warplanes while the UN forces under his were �eU w�thin range of Serb guns that would be, he , used In r etahation. stormed into town. He went to Divjak's office and demanded W?y the Bosnian Army had not honoured Divjak's promise r!::V10US night. Divjak told him the President had over-ridden e mande d that Divjak take him to the President immedi . PresI em lzetbegovic was in the middle of a television interview which he said: 'I think that a combination of talks only solution - talks alone cannot bring results, ' '' n "",eed' here Simult aneous pressure on the aggressor which ' Llllg ne tn to use force r . If there IS. enough pressure from the th. en t hey will hand back territory.' . 0,. ,'"".d , .pted the CNN meeting and told lzetbegovic that if he ,"� , IS a::my COmmand to the airport immediately he would the Bosman 1 G�vemment bee lore the entne . world. Accord.mg 'he (ROse said he would inform the international public eDCt: of

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A QUESTION OF' CONTROL

BOSNIA

that the Bosnian Government and Army did not want and that we would be responsible for the continuation of the and that the Serb side had agreed to negotiate and that refused'. Menacingly, Rose also hinted that there was no the Serbs had fired the market square bomb. He said the wodd .. not forgive the Bosnians for failing to seize this chance for lzetbegovic, chastened and intimidated by the British G, ,,,, his delegation to the airport and issued a grovelling apology 'misunderstanding'. Within an hour. Rose had the verbal agreement of both Nothing was written down, nothing signed. Rose said he that in the Balkans, signatures were, in any case, wonhless. menr was communicated to Brussels. The NATO ambassadors, meanwhile, were drawing up matum. Britain's reluctance was swept aside by the
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front�line positions. Again this was quite outside the matum and the airport agreement. The Serbs were with NATO. Despite General Rose's implausible op'cimj,", ]50

....� ..

be hurtling towards the first combat action in its history. led up with international television crews expecting a $IJIJevo Desert Storm bombing of Baghdad in 1991. at f he repe the scenes Rose's staffhad entered into intense negotiations Be . Serb leadership. T \eir priority was to persuade .the Serbs to ,"til convince NATO that the of the ultimatum had do enou h to s first demand was that the heavy weapons of both Rose' . . been me . I ' terntory 10 the ra iy 'neut .des hould be concentrated on the on i 5 t at Sarajevo airport which was controlled by UNPROFOR. rbS rejected rhis. General Rose then proposed five locations, considered and then turned down. Finally, as the wbi h the Serbs the Serbs were allowed to choose the locations closer, line grew . were to be concentrated and placed under UN weapons their which trol'. They chose eight - five outside the city and three inside. This jafuriated the Bosnian Government, who said the Serbs had chosen the very strategic heights from which the city had been subjected to bombardment for lWenty�two months. Ejup Ganic thumped the table with rage when he saw the map of the locations, and angrily denounced UNPROFOR for colluding with the Serb side to come up with a scheme that would block air�SlTikes without changing the IttItegic reality of the siege of Sarajevo. The ten�day ultimatum period brought the UN into a bitter public 4ispure with NATO over the definition of the word 'control'. On 9 ftbruary, there seemed little doubt about what 'control' meant. It did DDt mean supt!rvision, or monitoring. It meant that UN forces, and DDt the Serbs, would wmmand usc of the weapons. The Serb finger would not only be off the trigger; the trigger would be under UN lock and key. Bur, early in the ultimatum period, the UN interpretation of t constituted control began to slip. Soon General Rose's staff were . IDIlstlOg �hat the UN did nor have to have physical possession of the 10 order to exercise effective control over them. 'There are t methods of control,' Lieutenam Colonel Simon Shadboh IUd . . �u can observe them, yOll know where they arc, you can react . lIIlmedlate1y. Wc are qUltc con fiIdcnt that they WII! be under our con� bQI ' Th'IS, to the Bosnian Government, sounded like the deliberate down of the NATO ultimatum by the UN on the ground. through the NATO ultimatum period, not a single Serb &un had een handed over to the UN . On 15 February, UNPROiOR Stopp · ' · , ed ISSumg daily progress reports. 'We arc no longer in the -..,,uer ,- s gam ' e, the.lf spokesma said. '\¥hat matters is the overall n BUt thc Overall trend was clear. The Serbs had no intention

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of complying. They were going to take NATO to the wire. Four days before the ultimatum expired, John Major Moscow to see Russian President Boris Yehsin. Mter their Yehsin made public his fury with the US. He said that the Wesl take no decision in the Balkans without Russia's consent, expressed his satisfaction that Major agreed with him. The crucial intervention came the very next day. On 17 Yeltsin scnt a letter to the Bosnian Serbian leadership. [J"lM... l his envoy Churkin, the letter appcaled to the Serbs to heavy weapons. Yeltsin guaranteed rhat he would send l{u""," '''' to areas from where Bosnian Serbs had withdrawn. Mter negotiations, Karadiic and Mladic accepted his offer and, in complied with the NATO ultimatum. Within hours, the mititary vehicles were moving across Serb-held territory weapons either to be ,vithdrawn altogether or placed centration points where the UN could inspect them. Four Russian troops were moved immediately from their base in Slavonia where they had been deployed as part of the UNPROFOR force in Croatia in 1992. For Karadiic, it was a of sorts: 'It was very important that Russian troops were de;pold and that no important moves could be made without Yehsin.' For the Russians, it was a clear diplomatic triumph. had earlier been asked to send Russian troops to Bosnia, repeatedly refused. He agreed now when the stakes wen "' they had ever been, thus gaining maximum diplomatic a, establishing Russia as a key player in international efforts war. When the Russians arrived in Pale, they were greeted by of cheering Serb civilians as though they were a liberating General Rose was not consulted on the deployment of troops. 'h's news to me,' he said, 'but I welcome good rroopI whichever country they come.' Hours before the expiry of the line, as his officers hurried around the Bosnian checking sites where rogue tanks and artillery deployed or 'stuck in the snow', Rose declared that, as ed, he fully expected to be in bed, sound asleep. The would, he said, be 'just another Monday'. d rO The NATO ultimatum was routinely referred ! ten-day period as an ultimatum 'to lift the siege 0; ; ell f it was nothing of the sort. Even as the Serb guns became dear that the siege would remain as tight as ever. !he positioning of UN troops along the front line, particularly 10

�;,!::�

brought the eventual partition of Sarajevo - a key Serb war aim embryonic green line appeared, policed by interna e doser. An � a orces. \-Yhcn asked whether the UN was not, in effect, divid �on Sarajevo in the way they had divided Cyprus three decades pokesman, Pet�r MacFarlane, 5�jd, without a lier, UNPROFO � � only an .mtenm measure, pendmg an overall thiS IS 'But . of iron)': cment' . So. of course, was the original UN deployment in Cyprus 'ntcrim measure which had become a pennanent state of affairs. an us did Radovan Karaclzic play a bad hand very well. He had been teen, by the international community, to compromise on weapons withdrawal. His guns had fallen silent; me killing in Sarajevo stopped. The partition he so badly wanted was beginning to take real shape, and he did not even have to supply troops to defend the urban fron tier of his state - the UN were doing it for him. The Bosnian Government fdt out-manoeuvred and humiliated. Karad1ic, incredi bJc though it seemed, had emerged as the principaJ beneficiary of the NATO ultimatum to use force against him. But the bombardment did stop. The atmosphere in Sarajevo light ened immensely. People took to the streets again. The trams started to run. Businesses re-opened. UNPROFOR opened me new 'blue-route' ICrOSS the airport so that small quantities of commercial goods could come into the city. Prices began to fall. For a time it was possible to �eve that the city's agony was ending. It was an illusion. Osloborijenj� editor, Gordana Knezcvic. summed up the bewildered mood of the city in this period. 'It is as though,' she said, 'our death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment. It is hard to feel happy. But we do al least feel relieved, for now .' centre,

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35'

J5J

GAINING MORAL GROUND

25

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GAINING MORAL GROUND The Washington Agrument February 1994

S policy towards Bosnia ha� run hot �nd cold since Clinton office. In reality, there was httle Washmgton could do. The the Muslims and th" C... had seized seventy per cent of Bosnia and had been drawn ine l A rest. the for other were killing each and NATO countries , Bosnia into trOOpS send to ing was unwill (at best) about the use alent ambiv were d groun the on S trOOp fo nding the war was power. After Vancc�Owen, any proposal � � o�. The move to ply a disguised version of a Serb-Croat partltl m-Croat f"� a Mush create . ". the Muslim-Croat alliance - and d the thene streng and dshed put an cnd to their mutual bl� Government. It came as a surpnse. ' was an i The establishment of the t federation diplomatic in particular because it was a graceful _ , one of the by rmed perfo rs dance ootcd flat-f morass of thc and ed United States. If this fragile creation surviv lifelinc. It would new a get would ims Musl the small to isolated Muslim the delivery of humanitarian assistance attrac��e to San�evo, more holds, and perhaps what was even . . A�mmlstranon, It on Chnt the pro-intcrventionists within Bosman Government enable the delivery of weapons to the off half of an arms Croatia would no longer block or skim kin in Bos�ia. The only for this 'taxation' to be repeated by its tied up fightmg the Government Army would no longer be on the heels of the but free to face its Serb foes. It came major problem of EU action plan - in theory it solved the � a more nonn them gave to the sea for the Muslims and

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disted state. . cd at formally maugurat . Months before the federation was most but Bosnian, White House on 2 March, 1994, Croatian, d the scenes behin ing work were mats diplo tandy American . st 1. as early �s Au� deal together. The idea was on the table an, Clmto � s night over dinner in Zagreb Charles Redm . and e Mmlster, Prim sat flanked by Haris SiJajdiit, Bosnian the an was struck by Granic, his Croatian counterpart. Redm

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354

were interested in making a deal. But he said 'neither was h sides the tough steps to make it happen'. take ng to months of efforts there was no breakthrough. The next For the Croats and Muslims just got worse and the two sides n etwee fighting b more entrenche�. 'Bot? sides always had good excUSes. There beCame . y of provocatlons. Ihere were plenty of broken promises,' lent were p recalled Redman. Washington began to exert pressure on Zagreb to Stop its forces the Muslims in Bosnia. In �everal meetings with 6ghting against , . Redman, Chntons speCial envoy, and Peter Charles Tudjman, Galbraith, US Ambassador to Croatia, stressed that the Americans were committed to the independence and territorial integrity of

six

Croatia. They made it clear that for a state's territorial integ

rity was a universal concept which couJd not be allowed to be applied to one country of former Yugoslavia and not to another. If Croatia

wanted to grab its chunk of Bosnia, then it couJd forget Washington's backing for Zagreb's quest to assert authority over the nearly one

third of the country under Serb control. By visiting Serb-held parts of Croatia, Galbraith said he 'made the point that we understood the narure ofthe suffenng of the Croatian people'. The turning point came in January. Redman had lunch with some one he called a 'sen ior Croat' who explained how Tudjman saw him self .In �erms of Croatian history. If the president couJd be persuaded that t h iS agreement would confirm his role in history, then he might uch a step. Redman played on Tudjman's sense of destiny. an asked: where is Croatia going? The implication was dear. . . Croatla was bemg threatened with sanctions. Thc Croatian Army had about 30 000 soldiers Io d in Bosnia. Redman i down the Iine, C' · reb behaved or it could end up isolated Ither Z �ag iR1 '1tw counterpart Serbia . Next came the phone calls. ' n?t, by any stretch, a flurry of telephone calls or high-level ...: saId Redman. 'It was enough to know that this die initiative had ••__ "g �f the President of the United States as well as the U mon. l rnanaged to arrange a lew 1: calls or messages to be c: nOm key Europeans,' he added, apparently referring to f""! _ _ . any whiCh, from the stan m � 1991, had taken on Croatia as a dient. e US streS ' . . sed I. tS concern about ongomg ' atrOCItIes committed -_ 'Ilinst the MUSll msby th,Sosn· an Croats, wh0 - they aga. stressed m � backed b Zagreb. Galbraith secretly scnt ,... someone to visit sevn er-tegov' . mao 'w.e got a pICture of absolutely appalling

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35S

GAlNING MORAL GROUND

BOSNIA kept without belin. r.... conditions in which prisoners were being were hcatings, there which in , shelter SO uate inadeq with c He suggested that the a��se co�ld be war �imes, and that be considered war on"';... responsible for the atroCities might . the camps. The He went public with his condemnatIOn of clear. rnment ",,,i,,,dl • US efforts to persuade the Croatian Gove fears that were there b Zagrc In from within Croatia itself. rn Weste that shots the calling his henchmen were shock ne genui also was taken control. There the Serbs. were seen to be behaving like their foes, that Zagreb was upset.

was

The Croatian Government undersloodfirst Ihal lhis sorlofactitr ily waJ inhumane and w�ong, an1 ucond, thaI il WIlS vuy CO!tIy . . . to Croatia in lerms of lIs InternatIOnal reputatIon, to lis rtlah01U with Europe and tht Uniled Slates.. . . . . . . . . . thert's a strongfuHng hert that CroatIa IS a vlthm ojetm cleansing and a victim ofwar crimes. . The (onduct ofthe people that the G�nmmt was s�pporhltf in Bosnia was vtry dangerous Jor CroatIa. It was losmg mtmll ground in this owrall conflicl. politician, For Ivo Kom�ic, a long-time Bosnian Croat im-Croat Musl a on of the Croats' future in Bosnia hung ina. the Posav from s Croat His Plan was ed by the that kn� they se becau a, Bosni l Sava River Valley, and centra an Croatl ate a se�ar d create which ia nic partition of Bosn . e ItS borde�. In fact, in Herzegovina would leave them outSid d the frontiers of , two-thirds of Bosnia's Croats lived beyon with it at all. fy identi not id d and state minial nation t, Muslim and Serb which included an equal number of Croa had been who s cantons, offered hope to those Croat Croats from even and their homes (by Serbs, Muslims was It war. the of Herzegovina) at the beginning Catholic Church. l state. An The Plan envisaged a decentralized federa . lim 14 September, 1993, to create this Croat-Mus to and then a confederation with Croatia, failed , ... .. n was eve who ic Gran Mate ter Minis n , , Foreig p '; ," the II ; . n , adversaries as constructive and patient - and

th" ...

ister Silajdzic would reach an agreement, bu� then it imPrime Min f ell apart. Throughout t�e autumn, Galbraith saw that 1 ediatc y efforts, the bloodshed, destruction and suffering ite their feverish . been immense. There was not yet any for war had p s neW . !hi '" among the power-brokers on the ground. ent the agreem

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Throughout thn period, as they wert trying 10 reach agreemmt, Ihet( would be Jome new atrocity: a Bosnian Muslim viI/age was Jaughttrtd by the HVO or renegade HVOjactions. This would thm bring Iheir efforls to build afideration and lonfidtralion 10 a l(ruching halt.

But it showed the Clinton istration that there was room for

m:rnocuvre. It was enough to convince diplomats that with sufficient pressure - which the US could also exert on the Muslims - a confed

f irst step was for the Croatian Government to get rid of Boban and his allies. 'It was in December of 1993,' said Galbraith, 'that I was informed that Mate Boban would be taking, as it was put to me, a long vacation.' For the US diplomats, making it public that Boban and his cronies did not enjoy the of mOSt Bosnian Croats was an important dement in garnering public in Croatia. Within Bosnia, how �r, �ate Boban and his crew held the power. Kom�ic tried to under m.me It, by constantly meeting with Tudjman - fostering his relations With Zagreb. In early February, Korns;, presented his Plan to a Sabor asse�bly of eminent Croats from the diaspora and forme; ugos laVla ',"'ho gathered in Sarajevo. Distressed by the disastrous . ltate of aftairs 10 Bosnia-Herzegovina (and the fact that if the war . U ed there would be no Croats left anywhere but Western . :: �oVlna), the Sabor approved the Plan. the NATO ultimatum - after the Market square bombing an 5 e rua y Sara' r - for the Serbs to withdraw their artillery from around ' cU i ni red States was trying to push together Muslims and t f C 0, �r the time being at least, were sworn enemies. Another hI one from the United Nations, was aimed at bringing Czoatia � O r. � 3 February, the Security Council set a two-week dead.une _",,0< TOatla to pull out its regular Army troops or face the . -'-:-'i ces. The 1m prICit ' th reat was that Croatia would J'oin Serbia . . ...... UN sanctions and worI . d Isolation. • '" 'pparent SUcce ss 0f the NA1"O uItimatum round Sarajevo had · the int . ernatlonal commu . nity new resolve. On 16 February,

eration was possible. The

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BOSNIA

GAINING MORAL GROUND

Redman and Galbraith urged Tudjman to abandon the idea of a statdet in Bosnia. They asked him to reconsider the proposal

ate a federation - and finally a confederation. In return, the

promised to help (and hasten) Croatia's eco�omic, P."liticai and racy integration into the West. They also remmded him that ">, 01.. native was grim.

By coincidence that night, Gal�raith had already been ,c1 ,od,uIcd , . . message ��: Croatia give a speech to the general public. choice of ing the West economically and politically or

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nd Serbia's destiny - isolation, economic coua " ' .

warfare. Croatia could not expect international drawal from Croatia' when its Army

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in Herzegovina. The world c?mmu�ity wou1 no longe� expend resources to uphold Croatia 5 frontiers when It seeks to Vlolate

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anomer country't.

mn ... The Croatian Foreign Ministry lost no time in ," Galbraith. The leadership had been considering the proposals

ward by Ambassador Redman. Negotiations could begin. It breakthrough everyone was seeking.

ia .... n The entire agreement remained in the air until the pa , iS was Washington. 'I flOally decided that the best way to do th

It waS not entire!y convincing, but as long as it remained tvluslirns. ther it would be an Import'.lnt element of any settlement the Muslims even ifthe federation did not function as (I'Cngthcning srog< I.. one-year anniversary tILe By - celebrated in WaShington visaged. e� t c spicuous absence of Izetbegovic - few of the major Wl h he on eJe Feder ation (and none the ofthe Confederation) had yet of nts been plemented. There was, however, no ghti�� between the two sides . and there had even been a handful oft mlhtary operations against the Serbs. The Muslims had used [he four-month ccascflre from New Year's Day, 1995, to get arms. Croatia, and by virrue of this, the Bosnian Croats , let weapons through. The agreement continued to depend on the of Washington and its ability to persist in . exerting pressure on both Sides, so [hat they could see the bene fits of rbe alliance. •

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I It wurants mentioning that, striaiy speaking, the stated aim ofthe inter IIlrional community was not to secure Serb withd nwal from Croatia and that Ibe UN force not been originally d�ploy�d to upho ld Croatia's fronti�rs.

had

all of the parties and focus them on what was at stake. The

tions were carried out in a different way - it was very in'''n,i.�'.

Redman. In Washington, there was not a single fac�-to-face between the twO delegations. Redman and Galbrnth would

the document with the Croats, then Victor Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the Bosnian d, . the next room. For the US, said Galbraith, once the parnes

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even if in separate rooms, it was important ro keep them thoy
' said It was an unlikely victory for Prime Minister. 'Mr Redman and his This was the way the things wen:: sorted out - quite . really surprised by the speed in which Americ�n was stood that this was a good idea and that the Over the next four days, they negotiated on Kom�iC's proposal to create cantons. With a stroke

Muslim and Croat mini-states virtually disappeared.

,

In the next year Tudjman exerted pressure on rus p['OXle5.

height of absurdity. Those very politicians who had

up Bosnia now spoke out in favour of a common 358

359

TO THE MOGADISHU LINE

26

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TOTHE MOGADISHU UNE

The Battlefor Goraide April 1994

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In the aftermath pring 1994 brought unexpected new hope. ' �;� ;,�E had ' NATO ultimatum that the ol peace contr took them US and Russia between ring the broke in ss succe their of US, on the back off the deal that pulling after Russia ment; Agree Washington ns in the capital un.... suaded Karad1ic to place his heavy weapo adrift since their berg, Stolten ald Thorv and Owen Lord control. were now ,i,j,-lin«l.l ible, invinc HMS board on vours endea less e the coding of the great powers of a world that was sriIl, despit . a. f OV d : Bosm The War, stubbornly hi-polar, had aligne is h an� an, . envoy, Ambassador Charles Redm . urut.e �n their Deputy Foreign Minister Vitaly Churkin, iVISIon est d tion not to let Bosnia create a new east-w were kin Chur and an Redm h, Marc By the end of n withi was ment setde peace comprehensive to th", «pulbli< a they could extend the Sarajevo model troopS; ' sation of hostilities; the interpositioning ions ofbotb posit the heavy weapons. They were convinced that take to ade Belgr to were converging. Churkin rerurned ment agree n ingto Wash the the momenrum for peace that . d create NATO ultimarum had

S

elsewhere. They had been a constant source of dan upplied than Serbs, laun�hing raids from inside the pocket well osnian the B :afir or r Serb territory and, from nme to time, inflicting heavv . I losses on lfltO iegers. beS the Serb also by far the most strategically important of the Gor:d:de was the m n road between two large Serb-held towns led stradd . II thfee . segrad and Foca. Both had had Muslim the Orina valley - Vi

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in Thr big goalfor mr whtn I returnrd to Belgrade tte (l crasrjirr, bUI a (ompl just 7101 gr. arran 10 Iry was 10 bun �ad ofhostilities, somtthing along thr lines ofwhat in Croatia, the msation ofhostilitiel, and the UN troops. I think we really did have a chance. got to Belgrade things started to go wrong. t. was on the phon embassy ill Belgrade, Ambassador Redman told me that Gorazde hadjust been bombrd.

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was Of the three eastern enclavesl, Goraide . It was by far crack to Serbs the for nut toughest city had been three, and the Bosnian defenders of the

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ajoritieS before 1992, but had been 'cleansed' with efficiency and lit de military effon at the start of the war. In Gorazde the local Muslims

had held

out. The enclave now separated twO chunks of Serb-held

communication between them difficult, dangerous, territory making Il\d sometimes impossible without crossing into neighbouring

Montenegro. Furthermore, Serbs had identified Gorafde as the link through which Sarajevo would forge a land-bridge to Sandzik, a Muslim-populated region of southern Serbia and Montenegro, and,

&om there, to Turkey. The 'green transversal' as the ideologues of greater Serbia called it. would be the landlink through which Muslims

would push an IslamiC arrowhead into the heart of Europe.

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Nor had the enc ave been completely cut off from the rest of gov

ernment-held Bosma. For the first fifteen months of the war, Bosnian troops - and thousands of civilians - had been able to move in and out of the town by walking, over the mountains, under cover of darkness, through Serb lines. It was a dangerous journey. But it was undertaken &tquently. roughout 1992 and part of 1993, a regular mule train bad been d nven III nd out of the enclave from a base camp at Grebak, � near Tmovo. Soldiers a�d civilians carried food, medical supplies, . arms and ammunltlon along this route and, though the risk was 11ft , t the enclave alive1. When the Serb assault on Gorazde III early A pril, UNPROFOR officials played it down dismiss. . . lrIg u asa d · verslOnary [actlC I to pull Bosman trOOpS away from other . IDore I mportan t battle areas. Lord Owen thought differently;

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r om 'When '·f W(lJ bU l', ·' d11Ig · up and we wert urlder no

. 1& Strbs were Jl'flOIlS about taking Goraide. And I nroa '"ou td Ihat they were J a t er Goraide. II was a urategic imper,r, at1tJ1! aI most, •

for them.

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az -de began over tbe bUll · d·IIlg of a by-. Bosnian constructing a new road to make communications Isparate chunks of territory safer. The construction work

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BOSNIA

TO THE MOGADISHU LlNE

had been hampered by Bosnian Army raids from inside the Ironically it may have been the speed at wruch the peace moving that encouraged General Mladic to actwhen he . uncharacteristically, taken his eye off the ball after the suici de. Belgrade, of his only daughter. When he returned to Pale

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funeral, he learned that a comprehensive settlement that would

frozen existing lines of confrontation, appeared imminent. The standing question of Goratde would have to be settled before

happened.

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' � During the frrst week in April the Ser"b � � :: ; � � : � first it looked like a re-run of me defeat ( �� . earlier - Serb forces closing the noose around me town,

'gfrom ou,d,; closer by the day, sending thousands of refugees fl,,,i', there But itself. wert: tOwn the in shelter two seek to villages ' tant differences. First, Goratde, unlike Srehrenica a year '.""". ..

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in name at least - a 'United Nations Safe ruea' and cOulOd tection under successive UN resolutions. And second, the F,,� �:= Sarajevo had shown how effective the threat of air-strikes could

General Rose was against air-strikes. He mought them ' tent wim his role as Commander of a peace-keeping force. H" �I" that frequent resort to air-strikes would push UNPROFOR peace-keeping, to peace-enforcement. Peace-enforcement aligning oneselfwith one side in the conflict..

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strict neutrality. It was not the job of a F

intervene to alter the course ofthe war in favour of one use of air-strikes would turn NATO, in effect, into the Air Force and fatally compromise UNPROFOR's neutrality. cannot ' he was fond of saying, 'fight a war from white-painted

des.' He was frequently at pains to point out that he did no'' '.... military intervention in principle: as a soldier he took no posi."" it. But he insisted that if the international communiry opted out the war on the Bosnian side, it should pull UNPROFOR

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replace it with a force capable of fighting a war. His s � � that NATO had a supply of green camouflage paint . the the day when the mandate would change. He called wl,i."· between peace-keeping and peace-enforcement, be�en US dIsastro des and green, the 'Mogadishu Line', after the peace quenccs of United States's efforts to impose a he Somalia. In April, under immense international pressure, crossed it. Rose played down the seriousness of the Serb attack on

)6,

was that the Bosnian Serbs were purting pres wn judgement level and had no serious intention of taking the al tactic a the spokesmen, in early April, gave daily press brief His said. he JUfCk t' ned to take the alarm out of Bosnian Government claims of e;ig UIgs an imminent humanitarian disaster. Rose did not ns dead and doZ what he considered a little local difficulty derailing a peace plan

� poe � � �?ch he believed was closer than ever to achieving a lasting solution. But his own UN military observers in Gorafde, together with their 'Our

VI

revolted. On 7 April, a leaked document UNHCR colleagues, revealed that the s they had been sending to Rose's headquar ters were sharply at odds with the Rose was pre�nting to the

publiC. US Chief-of-Staff. General John Shalikashvili had publicly

ruled out a repeat of a Sarajevo-style ultimatum, arguing that the

weaponry around Gorazde could not be located with sufficient accu

racy to make air-strikes practical. General Mladic behaved as though

this were the green light he had been waiting for. The Serb bombard ment and advance sharply escalated. The UN monitors sent an urgent appeal to Sarajevo. 'The deam toll continues to rise and serious losses

of territory are occurring. If this is �not serious", as UNPROFOR teems to say in radio reports, I hope I don't see a serious situation develop,' one monitor reponed. 'The situation today is again very seri ous. We have repeated that our assessment of the situation is serious Ind that the continucd potential for loss of civilian life is very high,' the report went on. If is 'Very disquieting to hear radio reportlfrom the intematjona! medja that the situation if not urjous. From the BBG World SrnJiu ntws oj5 April we heard :An UNPROFOR asussment wid that it was a mmor attati�. into a limited area '. W e again do not �oncurwith thatposition. It is agrave situation. It needs to he rea"Z:d that the city emtre of Gorai.de isjust over 3kmfrom the Bosman Srrb armyfront line. l....oiok ng at a small!and mass on the SOuth ellsl ,orner a d · · IS · Il mmor · n saytng L mto ' It , a tt llc K Il limit ed . arta IS a blld assessm ent, incorrect andSbO'Wl abso!utely no under standing of What is gomg on hert. •

•

The UNH CR, who also had representatives in the town, reponed _ .a . " !at a ten-day Scrb " assault had killed sIXty-seven people and wounded 325 mOSt ' of'hem "I lians. CIY So unconc erned was General Rose about the consequences of the e assauJ t that, on 1 0 April, he was on his way [0 Brussels to I

Coraid

BOSNIA

TOTHE

address a NATO meeting. 'When I heard in Split that in attack had been launched with tanks from three differeni: into the Gora2:de pocket, of course, I flew straight back:

di'''<1in

Rose warned MJadic, by phone and by fax, to stop the attacks Gorntde, or face NATO action. The attacks continued. Af;" ...

and being granted approval from the UN Secretary General's envoy, Yusushi Akashi, Rose stepped on to the balcony of rus floor office in the Sarajevo Delegates' Club, and, through an window overlooking a communications cabin one floor below, he

....:

�:��:��::

� the order that led to the first NATO ground assault in th" f""J'-� year history ofthe organization. At 1622 GMT, two Force F16s dropped three bombs on a Serb artillery C I

The attacks continued as though nothing had happened. The day, Rose ordered a second wave of air-strikes. At 1224 Monday 11 April, twO US Marine Corp F/A-18 Hornets three more bombs on a group of tanks and Armoured Carriers that had been firing directly into

Gorazde.Thr Ji:::e '� ��!: �.�.t;:;,�I��

a truck were destroyed. Both sets of air-strikes were d' forward air controllers whom Rose

ground by eight British

to Gorafde under the guise of United Nations

They were, in fact, all men of the British Special Air What were the air-strikes meant to achieve? Rose justified action on the grounds that Security Council resolution 836

action to deter further attack, rnther than to defend a <e,rri'to�, �t I tect its citizens.

There was mormous preuure in the international (ommuni'l . indulge in air-sfriRll rather than in the sort ofdeturm,t aclivil1 that Wl were mgagtd in. This was oj (ourSt somethmg I UIIf

rllisting strongly because that would bring us in a slaft . here with the Bosnian Serb Army whm we were {met hm", ing to stop thefighting, stabi/iu the situation.

But the air-strikes did not deter. The guns stopped m"moall But NATO's pin-prick assaults did nothing to diminish the muscle at Mladic's disposal. It left his army intact and his resolve to continue the assault. rvIladic telephoned that screamed down the line for twenty minutes,

official would leave Serb territory alive. Mladic then plan he had prepared the previous August when air threatened against Serb forces seizing Mount 19man on the

MOGADISHU LINE

f Sarajevo: he rounded up edge 0 while his forces in the

UN personnel and held them north of the republic launched a and mortar attack against the Government-held city Karn d1ic visited Mladic on the front line at Gorafde and, va. their forces �grouped to continue �hcir assault, the twO men, ostcntan�usly pla�ed c�ess. lf It had been Rose's intent�on undeterred. nk es he could scarcely have carned it the very Idea of 3.J.r-st to discred . ff mote effectively. Around the world those who had cautioned military intervention from the beginning uttered a satisfied: , 'We told you so · The Russians, who had not been consulted, now set out to make IIUfC that NATO would not act independently again. To them, air IIb'ikes, however minimal, threatened to broaden the conflict. Vitaly 150

reJltJo5� r,S 'artiJ1ery !a�

�Sl

Churkin made his way to Pale.

If was a very dangerous thing. IfNATO had reatted in the way that they were urged to by the Bosnian Government, ifthey went into somt massive bombing in the Gortride area, or ofthe Bosnian Serb pOlitlom. fh,.re would have been all-out war with the UN and NATO participating in it. And ojCOUTU I WOJ also worrying aiJout reaction back home. which could have gone the wrong way and Ihm � would have had an international crisis on our hallds. I newT' thought we were about to go into World War Thru liter ally. but into major polifical strains, and a political crisis with long-term adverse repercuslions. Churkin believed thai if the western

. alliance entered the war on the � of the Bosnian Government, calls among Russian nationalists to �o the defence of the Serbs would become unanswerable. Bosnia ened to plunge the world � into a new east-west global stand-off. ditknc 15 April the Serbs began their final assault. The Bosnian es collapsed so quickly that twO British SAS men found them SUddenly on the front line. Both were injured, one seriously. collc:agues informed Rose in Sarajevo, and requested an urgent Rose called for close air , which UN . Council resolut ions authorized in defence of UN personnel. had to be authorized by Yasush i Akashi. who was in Karad1:iC. Rose telephoned Pale and found Akashi setlunch with KaradZic. Their conversation was taped ll1ade publi c. need air suppOTt now, Gener ' al Rose told him.

� �" ti;',

BOSNIA

TO THE MOGADISHU UNE

'How about Dr KaradZic ordering an immediate ceasefire immediate evacuation of our people?' Akashi replied. 'By the rime the message gets to the units on the ground

heard thaI something like thirty NATO airrraft were not but we c/ Gcmdde and that they were about to do a lot of round ar ing a bombing. The qUi'Stion I had in my mind was what {an 1 do? 1 had some «ry vigorolls conversations -u:ith Milafevu, and with the mosl seniorperson among lhe Bosman Serbs here, Mr KrajiJnik. 1 was also on the phone with Mr Alwshi in SarajNXJ and there was an arranglmen! which was worked out by which the plann would be ordered awayfrom Goraide, and there will be no bombing.

all be either dead or captured: an exasperated Rose responded. got casualties, we've got to use Blue Sword [dose air ]

them out. Otherwise they'll all be killed.' Akashi asked KaradZic what was going on at the Cora1de Karadzic ed Mladic on another line. Mladit said that British soldiers had been injured they must have

b�li,,,,,, th';;"� from

stated positions. 'Mr President: Mladic said. 'Do yo'"

not me? I am telling you the truth and they are highly agitated, turned to Akashi and said 'They were on the line! What were they doing on the front line? They are not to be there.' Akashi over-ruled Rose's request for dose air The wounded men had nOt strayed from their declared

They had simply been overtaken by the pace of the

later learned: 'The line collapsed so fast that they found right there. The front line went past them without them On

16

April, the Serbs announced that they had

mategic heights around Gomule.

As they had done

�'f��.

a year earlier, they now held Gorazde in the palm of,h"i,h.>d. wcre at the very gates of the town, and their attack ,0.,""...<1.1 afternoon, Rose again requested dose air . lbis

agreed. NATO aircraft took to thc skies. But the weather

They had to make more than one before they could idenrify their targets. A British Sea Harrier jet was ,"' >ok. by . .

�

to-air missile. The pilot ejected safely, and the plane The mission was abandoned.

Churkin persuaded Akashi to call off the air�strikes. In return, Kraji�nik promis�d three things: . to stop the shelling; to pull back Serb forces to a distance of three kilometres from the town centre' and or so � personnel who had been taken ho tage to release the . e agre�ment was reached in the early after the first air-Strikes. . everung, and was due to take Immediate effect. Talks would resume in the morning. None of the pro�ises was honoured. The next morning, KaradZi c mumed from Banp Luka. Yasushi Akashi returned to Pale from Sarajevo. Vitaly Churki� now found himself mediating not between Ihe Serbs and the Bo ruan Government, but, bizarre � ly, between the . Serbs and the mternatlona! community. It was a measure of the extent . the United Nations and NATO were identified in Karad1iC's 8Und Wlth for the 'Muslim side'. Karad1iC's behaviour infuriated Chur kin, who later recalled:

l�O

1D.whle�

Theygaw me thispromise iflhree things they 'fJ)(Julddo. They had Ifot released anybody. They had notpulled bacR a single inchfrom where th were standing. ? And the shtfling continued. ' . Koradtli wasprfXrastmatm g. After about two or three hours it k(arne dear to me thaifor reasons if his own he didn't wan to lome to an k' . 0 agreement. So I told hIm tlJnl Y .md ,r ofthe opportun itieJ thaI • lifi bel1lg missed, induding tlu ()"" nr tunity to have sanc..ons I ttd r rand J waI "ed oul ofthe muting. "�

In Pale, Churkin grew increasingly alarmed at the ,scola,,, represented. Karadzit had disappeared; he had gone to which was twelve hours away by road, and 'm�d �"d>< , phone. The most senior Bosnian Serb lead�r in town . Kraji"§nik, the Speaker of Parliament. Churkin said

..�:,!�

:

t�:::k;' �

reluctant to take responsibility for anything. C Milo�eviC in despair. 'Do ] have to take on the job �f Republika Srpska personally?' he asked the Serbian Churkin's concern was that NATO would respond to the the British jet with further air-strikes.

When the shooting down ()/fhe British aircraft

h�pp,,",�J"":

rejMrl1 started coming in... 1 don't know whether

;

�

Akashi, on .

the other hand, was more accommodating. He was at an! Straw that he could present as a sign of Cf"'kin Contmues:

4"d M.r

. Akashi said ' W , " WhY cant we 01 I"asl have medic �Q .! al ,....,.0" tiolf" and Karadtic wry •

eagerly said 'Oh yes, oh yes, let's

BOSNIA

TO THE MOGADISHU LINE

make that announctmtnt!' He undeTJtood that somethingpos� nuded to he announctdand he wallud to the waitingprlJt� and Dr Karadiif inviud me also to them. But I didn't 'UIQftt to them. And after their little prw conjerenct somejour7l4l_ ists came ovrr to mt and asked me some questions and I didn't mean to say this, bllt 1did. . . 1said Iwas very disappointed blCauu in one weekend than I INd i I had heard more hrokm promsts have bun auomplished. should more Milch lift. my all heard in

;:of/e, hut they have remained only emptyphrases. Neitheryou nor ptnonnd ha1Jl done any/hint. to use lhe mandate ofall those �lIr tsolutiom to protect the people ofGoraide and the credibility of r Nations. The result is obviously tragic. Semtory the United people hold yOIl respomible for this situation. This my Gentrlll, and there is not milch roomfor diplomatic hes blading, is cOllntry oraide f alls, I think that a seme ofmoral mpomibil n. l fG itatio you to leave theport ofUN Secretary General. command wol/ld iry you can do. leaft the is This

It was vintage Akashi. He told the waiting journalists:

Pmidrnt Karadtic and 1 agreed that all sides should rlSfrrlUI themselves to thr maximum from all ojJtnsj1Jl activities. In t. meantime we shall rNJif!'W the lalb and try to sign an as soon as possible in order to stabilize the situation. Karadiif agreed 10 an IIrgent evacuation of humanitarian pw sonnelandpoplilalionfrom Goraide. UNPROFOR is ready to . so tomorrow morning at 0800.

'�:::::�

;

That day, Bosnian Serb troops and armoured v� � :' �:� � , The � occupied the town on the right bank of the Drina. tinued unabated. General Rose secretly ordered his SAS men to leave the foot, undetected, in the middle of the night. The air-strikes their cover. The Bosnian Serbs knew their true identity,. not because the Americans had released video tape of the television networks on which the voice of the forward air could be heard, in unmistakable south of England "'''nn, ....M the attacks. The international aid workers woke the next find themselves - as they saw it - 'abandoned' by R.ose's . Mayor of Goraide, Ismet Briga, is said [Q have burst iOtoaid he learned that the SAS men had gone. The international were later evacuated by helicopter with, ofcou�, ation of the Bosnian Serbs_ Gorazde was being left to S In desperation, President lzetbegovic wrote to Boutra Ghali holding him personally responsible for the fate of the

�

in

place The so-called soft arla has buome the most �nsafe world. The organization which you are heg almosl � year free territory of Goraide a UN protected area to IhlS refer 836 Suurity COllncil Resolutions 824 and J68

Under intense pressure from the Americans and from the NATO General Manfred Woerner, Boutros Boutros-Ghali asked NATO to use its air power to deter further anack. The NATO Council met in Brussels_ It was almost paralysed by internal division, with the Americans pushing for air-strikes and the British arguing tII:!.t this was incompatible with the existing UNPROFOR mandate. US diplomats were contemptuous of the British position - which one US diplomat privately described as 'really wet'. The British chided the Americans for lacking the courage to put troops on the ground. The North Atlantic alliance - not to mention the so-called 'Special Relationship' between Britain and the US -was under strain as never befOrt. The Council announced that it would take 'some days' before response could be made to Boutros Boutros-Ghali's request. On 19 April a gang of about fifty Bosnian Serbs stormed a UN controlled weapons collection point inside the Sarajevo exclusion 2OOe, at Lukavica barracks. It was one of the locations designated by the. 9 February Sarajevo ceasefire agreement. They seized eighteen inti-air. craft guns while United Nations monitors under whose 'control'tIl . e weapons had been placed as part ofthe implementation of the S� : :�ceas�firc ag�e.e n:ent, looked on helplessly. Mladic seemed to be n� humli iating and defying t�e entire Western world. . to mternatlOn . ai By 20. Apnl, the death toU, accordmg bad aid workers �nsen to 313 with morc than a thousand wounded, in less tha� ;::e�ks, though Bosnian Government sources put the figure DlUeh g0" PreSident Clinton again demanded more resolute action NAT NAl'O reache . _ . com romise, d an Internal . L _ , infu nonethe� p . but one whICh, ... n' ated the SntiS " " . h I t issued ultimatum an to the Serbs "arning th &bed th that they would face further air-strikes unless they ful. .. ree condit'Ions: an Imme d"late ceasefire; a pull-back of troops A distanCeof " three ki]ometres Irom C the town centre by the morOing Secretary

A

'

In

by

CT.

COl

J"

BOSNIA

TOTHE MOGADISHU UNE

of Sarurday 23 April; and a withdrawal of heavy w"'p<>"", distance of tvVenty kilometres by the evening ofTuesday British bowed to pres�ure in the interests of NATO unity; protested that the ultlmarum set a dangerous precedent that beyond even that concerning Sarajevo in February. It required, first time, action only by the Serbs; it was directed, explicitly,

one side. The Sarajevo ultimatum, issued on 9

had

both sides to submit their heavy weapons to the British, who had from the beginning treated all sides regardless of the role each side was playing in the war, this

marum was, for the first time. singling the Serbs out as the strained Anglo-American relations still further. As the bombardment of Gora1de continued, Yasushi ru ", ••

to Belgrade detennined. once again. to 'announce somethin g ; ", u... to prevent NATO carrying out its threat. The United N"ri, Secretary Shashi Tharoor went with him:

Wi were ofcourse crmsciouJ ofa great amount ofpruJUre on • part of((rta;n NATO member ftaW and ofcouru oftIN MITD'I Secrt'fary General. 10 Set air action. Our concun was in =.!i�r' tht'judgement as 10 whtthtr that was nt'((ssary, whether . there was a ptactful way out..

On Saturday 23, NATO southern Europe Commander,

Leighton Smith, ed Akashi to ask him to authorize

on the grounds that the Serbs had not met condition one NATO ultimatum - there was no ceasefire. Akashi refused

grounds that there was evidence that the Serbs had begun ment condition two, the pull-back of heavy weapons (even

deadline by which this should have been completed had

ed). Akashi told Smith to give the Serbs more time. same time, general Rose despatched a company of 150

to Gora1de. Smith reported this to \"'oerner, who, fur ous that the =rubi!iti ve " n'd . Y NATO had been so compromised, inter . ;: : r. edly called Akashi in Belgrade. Akashi, in n t had made himself unavailable to come to the p hone. The announced that the Bosnian Serbs had agreed to a ceasefi�

i

�: :��:;

Sarajevo. and a pull-back of troops to a distance of thre' i ffi'od1'f The Ukrainian troops made it into Gorai-de without d were due 10 be followed by a company from each of the 37"

attalions. As they lined up on the tarmac at Sarajevo ai rport . 'sh b Bnn the French, who were supposed to command the to depart, rctdy . suddenly ordered to turn around and go back to bar were ". �rano..

Over the head of the UN Force Commander they had been ;::So d by the French Defence Ministry, meeting in Paris, not to pro General Rose appeared not even to be in command of his own al force. ulti-nation III 'The B ritish and Ukrainians istered an agreement similar to been carried out in Srebrenica the year before: demilita that that had pocket, ceasefire monitoring and the interpositioning the of . tion trOOpS between the Serb front line and the battered town. A peace of sons descended, though. again, only after General "'1" -

��

:;rUN

MladiC had substantially achieved what he wanted. It is questionable whether he ever intended to take the town itself - with the single exception of a munitions factory on the East bank of the River Drina

which despite Mladic's efforts remained in Muslim hands. Urban infantry had always proved costly and drawn out for any side in the Yugoslav wars. From his point of view it was sufficient to have the

n

� e claves cllmcied and, by and large, tamed. They could be traded

in the future, as pan of some ove rall settlement.

The end (for now) ofthe Goratde affair left unresolved the dispute that had so nearly torn the NATO alliance down the middle. The British and French announced that if the Americans continued to push for the policy known as 'lift and strike', they would withdraw their ground troops. They spent the months that followed persuading

the Americans that they were serious, by drawing up detailed contin pcy plans for an emergency withdrawal.

. The whole sorry episode no only pointed up divisions t within the IOlemational community. It isolated the Bosnian Serbs from their nat

: alli:s the Russians: and from their original patrons in Belgrade.

. �evlc, who had, before the attacks on Gorazde began, 'sensed that Russian help he was on the verge of clinching a deal that would Mil le to the lifting of sanctions, was furious with KaradfiC. t¥t: Ok �. told Churkin that Karadfic had kept him in the dark about 10 Gora 1de. Lord Owen said later that [he Gorazde crisis had the two rival Serb leaders further apart than ever:

�

�ts

�

n

For mt the mom th'IlIg about Gora:i;de was Ihe tolalptrfidy ofthe B . Serbs toward Churkin andMilofevil. [believe that rela' onl bet'!JJren Karadi:.if and Milofevil were never the samt aft COratdt'. 'J'er 7"ty wert sh(}'lJ)1/ up 10 he hare-foud liars. all the time

/srllan

37'

BOSNIA

27

Jaying tlxy wtren't after Gorai:de when they were. They lost the Jupport of the Runionsfor quite a while aftu tha t. Which they dmrved. It WOJ outrogeoUl what happtned ow.. Gorai:de.

The Bosnian Government drew a lesson too. Air ,,·il« ,,·· die h

grail of Sarajevo's war policy - had come and gone with no d o. the course ofthe war. lzctbegovic was, by now resigne t thing', he told a crowd in � all or 'We too will the he ght of the GoraZde crisis. 'We have learn�d our lesson. . only the lesson is: we have to be strong bcxause In this world

�;��

no

go for

i

is respected.'

the P��o The other Sr brcn a andZepa, had been defeated 1993, of r summe the in e offensiv Serb 2 Trnovo fell to a 1

mule train into

twO,

c

i

c

..

Goratde ceased.

'A DAGGER IN THE BACK' The Serbian Split June 1994

an embargo t first when Belgrade nserb \caders, i� seemed anot er Mach avel ian by . rn c the . ty i uO lOternatlQnal hoodwlOk to Milo�evic Looking into the future Milo�evic realized he had ittle l choice but years of isolation to endorse a new international Peace Plan. After and rising economic deprivations, Serbia was paying a steep price for

announced

A

�

i

�

against Bosnian manoeuvre

o m

two

its of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. By bac Milooevic hoped he could secure the lifting

king the Plan,

of sanctions

and end

Serbia's isolation. It would also give momentum to his efforts to get rid of Radovan Karadiic. For a year, since Karadzic had re ected the Vance-Owen Plan,

j

MiMevic had been quietly preparing the gr und for a split with his

o n

brethren in Bosnia. Under Milo�eviC's tight co trol, the Serbian media

l

began to cast Karadzic in a different ight. Less often was he depicted as a Serbian patriot, instead there were hints that he was involved in money-laundering and war-profiteer g. Milooevic was abandoning his nationalist rhetoric which had made

in

him the most powerful leader across former Yugoslavia. The Bosnian

Serb leaders now stood for everything MUokvic no longer did - the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Chetniks. and the other trappings of �ian nationalism. Serbia began to observe forgotten Communist holidays whi!e 'RepubJika Srpska' celebrated tradi tional ones. By trying get rid of his rival. Milo�eviC wanted a scape wh could be blamed for the murder and destruction, the

goat

o

to

to find

poverty and uncertainty. Otherwise he realized, his rule could be CUt

short.

�

ultimatum to the warring parties to accept the Plan pu by the Group (comprised of the United Kingdom, Fra �ce, and the United States) came a bit too early ha ;o evlc. I":Ie ended up h��ng to ru�h the ob; he would rathe ve s ly engineered Karadzlc s fall behind the scenes. Afte all, he did n lrho ?t wan.t Serbs to see him as the executioner of Radovan Karadzit, . IO thelr eyes was I a )ero. He wanted to expose Karadbc as a PDwer-hUngry b oodthirsty gambler, and then make him disappear

t

Rus . for

M:'t �

j

l

37'

r

r

373

·A DAGGER IN THE BACK·

BOSNIA from the political scene. In a land obsessed by its past, M'1o <",, dI � not want to be seen as a traitor in Serbian epics. This rime it would radically differ from May 1993, When Serb leaders spurned Milo�eviC's efforts to promote the v",,,-O,,,, Plan. At that time the embargo he had threatened then was doned within days of being announced. The fi";' 1,"�'l'i"""'ni"g

on 7 June from the President of the remnants of Yugoslavia, Lilie, whose remarks carried weight since he took his " " ""'...

'i�

from Milo�evjc. It was only a hint ofwhat lay in store for the Serbs. He said: 'ten million citizens of Yugoslavia cannot be hostage to any leader who came from the territory of YU'goolaoi neither Republika Srpska nor Republika Srpska Krajina,' in to the Bosnian Serb 'state' and its counterpart in Croatia. ]n l o�evK. words, Karadzic had no right to call the shots - only Mi The Serbian President was convinced that it would take just • days for the Bosnian Serbs to come to their senses. He boasted diplomats, 'Those who ha-..� confronted me have not long But they did, so day by day, month by month, Belgrade turned heat trying to break the leadership of the Bosnian Serbs. Milokvifs influence over the Bosnian Serb leaders had e�.p""" his tics with the military remained dose, at the very least Bosnian Serb officers were still on Belgrade's payrolls. Even KaradfiC's regime grew increasingly paranoid and isolated, a year he remained in power, the first Milo�evic opponent to do so. In the aftermath of the Gora,,".de crisis, the international process, after more than a year, was revived, appearing in a

guise called the Group. Owen, the EU m"di,uo,. ,,;il m•.� formation was necessary to involve all the interested foreign in particular Russia and the US. Otherwise a settlement be reached, much less implemented. 'You had to find a ""y ,,"'� ;mw Americans were involved in the niny-gritty of n"go"i,, then in dirtying their hands in a settlement which they and .' He was right. The main protagonists had - the exploited divisions within the 'international community' to reticence UK's the on or banked card, played the Russian ian Bosn im-led Musl the whereas embargo, arms . Its Ollt for a better deal in the conviction that time was on _

:r�

particular because of American . . in,,,,,,",h-";",,: The Group was reminiscent of n ": he t Power politics. The five nations gathered to dictate .. ",." former Yugoslavia - seeming to believe that the war-torn 374

ers and not botherin� to conceal their wish that the froTll their bord.

would Just go away. ]ts faltenng start laid bare the post-Cold rob1em ess - the la�k of leaders�ip and political vision. Talb on ar emptin . more exercI�e s 10. regulatlOg rela�ions among the Bosnia were . embers and posltlomng themselves In the new political order Group m the reg�on �r i�s inhabitants. about than of diSUnity, It was an attempt to co-ordinate divergent time a At present one imemational face to the warring parties. then and eWS

W vi

This proved difficuJt and, at times, impossible. In the months after the Plan was crafted, divisions within the Group were so deep that what eVer steps were announced usually represented the minimum common denominator, packaged as a new initiative. Meeting after meeting, the

Group issued statements boasting that its unity was preserved. Bosnia's main protagonists all complained about this new 'second

rate' creation. The Bosnian Serbs wondered aloud why they shouJd lis ten to lowly clerks, or bow to the will of this 'world-wide mafia'. Ejup Ganic of the Bosnian Government was taken aback by their lack of knowledge about the region. We sat with the new people from the Group over the map.

Some of them were trying to find Banja Luka in Romania. They had started from scratch and did not know anything. They did not know who lived where ... First we talked with the foreign ministers, then to their assistants and finally to their minions. But the US envoy Redman and his Russian opposite number, . Churkin, were old hands. They called the shots. The Group immedi ately started hammering out the new details of a Peace Plan, which prcscrved Bosnia-Herzegovina within its internationally recognised . frontiers. It earmarked fifty-one per cent of Bosnia for the Muslim oat federation and the rest for the Serbs. Thc Serbs wouJd have to d Over about a third of the seventy per cent of land they currently nt�olle d . The Muslim-Croat federAtion made it possible to give ara Jev� a better deal.lnis Plan envisaged bigger chunks of comigu OU temtory unde r the Federation's Control. late June, the !�aps were finished. But they were kept under tigh The parties were not allowed to see them Karad1ic, prr . �.. ry a � out IVh�t punishment Milo�ev iC had dreamed up for him o """ unced he'woold endorse the maps ifthey were in the slightest bit lCcep .., table, OUt oflove for our brothers in Serbia and Monteneuro But . • ' ..., n Condit"Ion that sanctIOns on Belgrade were lifted.' ThiS became ew Serb . a.td . cI l OTUS: sanctions first, and then peace. By contrast, the iators . InSiSted fir�t on peace thcn the lifting of sanctions. On 30

�

� � ?�PS.

•

375

"A DAGGER IN THE BACK'

BOSNIA

ksei Nikiforov, brought the maps to B"lg.,..

June, Russian envoy, Ale

By then MiloSeviC had already made up his mind. In Geneva, the Group unveiled the maps and gave warring sides fifteen days to 'take-it or leave-it'. After he saw proposal, a grinning Karadfic went off to see Lord Owen. 'I the maps would present a problem But there is no p",bl',m. won't be a single Serb who would accept this.' The Serbs to surrender thirteen towns, power stations, and factories, they had seized during the war. It whitded down their northem ridor - a route that had become so important that it was the of nationalist folk songs. Karadfic was 'too cocky in those .

observed Owen. Karadfic dismissed as 'humiliating' the maps

said were 'drawn so the Serbs would reject them and be blamed the continuation of the war.' The maps showed tw"o spidery states, with thousands ofkil"m... of proposed borders . The front-lines underscored that, war, the communities remained intertwined. The three enclaves in eastern Bosnia would be part of the Muslim Croat tion. Two of them -Zepa and Srebrenica - would be ed and by a tenuous link, to Gorazde, which would road link to Sarajevo. The Bosnian capital was to be placed provisional UN istration until its statuS was detennined. The Bosnian Prime Minister, Haris Silajdfic, criticised the for consolidating Serb military gains. 'They rewarded ge�ocide ethnic cleansing ... the solurion especially in eastern Bosma .has ous deficiencies and some genocide areas like Prijedor controlled by those who committed those crimes,' he said m "'.... to towns, which were mostly Muslim before the war but were under Serb control, entire communities expelled. Karadtic called the maps an 'American diktal in remarks frncturing the united m.nce - painstakingly put together he

-

-

who looked out for Group. For some interests of the Serbs (in the same way that the US the Muslims), did not put up a 6ght and ow d t e he corridor to be virtually cut. When Owen saw the maps ,h"u1i b ] n r h Serbs would not accept them. But be s " on. negotiati played, really a slightly tougher roIe i the so fed up with them that he just said let them stew.' re oic d at how easy it was to rum While the

reason Churkin,

all e h Owen said: 'He IC u ki n

Bosnian Serbs j e

the maps, Milo�evit began to publicly side with the on 6 powerful antidote to the Bosnian Serbs. In Belgrade, J76

to d the Russian Foreign Ministc�, Andrei Kozyrev, Serbian President � . anve �o a Serbian r n a lt e yes to the Plan . no 'fhere is . lomauc shuttle was d lp d laundu i e .. "
.

if they did not obey him. Lilic's earlier remarks had been only hint ofwhat was to come . Yet Ka adtic did not appear to take seriously of the warnings - from Belgrade or the EU. Instead, he rambled on

a

r

s

any

s

about 600 years of hi tory, infuriating Hurd. The Briti h Foreign Minister, said Nikola Koljevic, tried to persuade them to back the plan. 'You cannot say "no". A d please do not say �yes, but . But you

can say �yes, and

. This was something you don't like.' �

n

�

their

neat formula of how to respond to

Milo�vic summoned his Bosnian Serb proteges, including the anny and police chiefs, to Dobanovci, the military compound outside 8e1�de for a meeting of the country's top leaders. They set about deVlsmg a formula that would be acceptable to the Group but � convey their demands to negoti ate part of the package. 'The most lrtlportant discussion with President Milo�evit in Dobanovci was to ke hO\ � we could give our answer to the group so that it may SOund li ke "yes, and sai d ol ' K jevic. ",

'w,. Wt're talking around the r/(}{k ,' Pmidtnt Blliatovil: of ":1ontenegro later ed. "] spmt more time with Karadii t In �hatperiod than with my wift and (hildren. It was the derisive

pamt. ·

W� adviut/

10

10

Zii acupl the Plan, say that this �a;or VictoryKarad for the Serhs ill Homia - hut Karadzit wmlis toa

eneva alld thati when he said that the Plan was disastrollS. . Alall o/Ir ml'etmgs,fr0111 27jUlie to Allg/lst 4 whw we dmded a break air . ' . V (,(Moml( motIOns, L . we "ept repeatlflg I ' that ifthtl [the .

377

BOSNIA

'A DAGGER INTHE BACK'

Bosnian Strbs} rejut the propolal and decide to wage war agai1lS1 thi tnlire world, Wt' would not allow them to take us with the"" to drag UI down, too.

lime il Wf.Irk.ing against UI, that war is deltroying all theprospects o/sllch (1 multinationalBosnia that peau could save it. ThaI s why WI' drcidtd to acceptpeace t'Vm though in termI Wt'rt nolfair.

The Serbian President and his Montenegrin ally repeated the warnings they had used the year bef�re for the Vance-Owen Ptaa. Milo�evit, who had vowed that SerbIa would never bend to lntl:f national will, was now carrying out its bidding. He told the Bosniaa Serbs that he understood their objections, but there was no choice.

Milo�eviC told Karadzic: ' 1 thought Kraji�nik was the tOU" nut to crack, but 1 was wrong, you are much tougher than he ia," That night, trying to persuade them, Milo�evic made comment, the meaning ofwhich Koljevic understood only 10 if you don't want to talk this way we'll talk through the n

ann,,:� : �� ;:::�

Koljevic thought this meant an end to their private all-nig ht . He was wrong. By five o'clock in the morning, according to Bulatovic, they

Meanwhile in Pale, it was the Vance-Owen assembly revisited. pointed to the grim consequences if the Plan was rejected. Karad1;ii: 'The nation has to be prepared, for tears and hunger, if it rejects

the Plan.' However once again, he did not try to sell it, insisting l that the Plan envisaged - a life in Bosnia-Hertegovina under Musim

authority. Shrugging off threats from Belgrade, the Bosnian Serbs switched tack. At the end of the closed session of the Pale assembly the Bosnian Serbs wrote their response to the Group Plan on a piece of

:

agreed what to tell the Group: 'Republika Srpska' accept the Group Plan as the basis fo� n�goti'tion ' , ':, ""' � "" � "ti disputable issues such as the exchange �f terntones, II . . . guarantees for the frontiers, and the poSSIbility �f co�ederal ties Yugoslavia. In utmost secrecy, British and RUSSIan diplomats ''''''I' ated by the desire to thwart US effortS to lift the arms ,. helped make certain that the wording would be. acce�tab�e to ng It a ill calli international mediators, who, at that point, were st it or leave-it' Plan. Kraji�nik [Ook out his notebook and told his 'This is our agreement and we'll write the conclusi�n. 'When we read the conclusions the next day, not a smgle responded to what we had discussed and agreed during As the Bosnian Serb Icadersrup left Belgrade for an

paper which they placed in a sealed pink envelope. A spokesman announced that the envelope would be sent to Geneva and only there

would its contents be made public two days later. But it waS clear from the defiant mood of the assembly that their response

had fallen well short of the unqualified yes that the Group had demanded. Nevertheless Milosevic still believed that he could convince his disobedient proteges. On 27 July, the heavy hitters from Russia arrived

n i Belgrade: the Russian Defence Minister, General Pavel Grachev

and Vital)' Churkin. Milokvii: told the Russians that he held out hope the Bosnian Serbs would change their minds at their second assembly meeting. The Russians then met the Bosnian Serbs, and urged them to endorse the Plan. In the eyes of the Bosnian Serbs, General Grachev commanded considerable respect in contrast to Yeltsin and his other ministers, whom the Bosman Serbs saw as weak and vulnerable to Western pres

SUcc. According to Karadzic, Grachev prodded him, 'You must accept

.

meetjng in Pale, the parliaments of Bosnia and the " federation met in Sarajevo to endorse the maps. lzet�goVlc they an 'unjust and unfair peace offer' and openly itted that . certain were they accepting the Plan only because . t we . reject it. 'We should accept the Plan because by refuslO� I . explaaned: do a favour to Karadzic and Milooevlc.' Later, IzetbegoVlc

�

alt

the Thats why we acupted Ihis bad option (onJiderillg all t accepled we nalivtr being worJt. So its nol with delight thai thai ed realiz We ... Plan, /leither are we delighld with it /lOW

the Plan because if they attack you we will have to defend you, which Would cause problems for us.' It would mean, he said, a new political and, possibly, military confrontation in the Balkans, and a dangerous

Stand-off between Russia

and the West. Without changing his mind Karndzic said he left the meeting confident the 'Russian Army w" '"pportlng us. 'I'Ve knew that bef ore, but now it was clear that the . RUSs�a n Army had a sympathetic ear for the Serbs.' At the assembly meeting th· . e next day there was no change. The Bosman Serbs, as u Were in a defiant move. Milo�evic prepared for war against his ow former proxies. For the first time, unequivocally, the Serbian President publicly .

b;��'

379

'A DAGGER IN THE BACK'

�

lashed our at the Pale le�dership: ' obody has the right to reject peac e in the name of the SerbIan people. Public opinion in Serbia was confused by the venom unleashed on the people who had been previously portrayed as martyrs and victims. In a letter to the Bosnian Serb assembly, the Serbian Governme nt warned: 'If you reject the proposed Plan you are on the best rOUte to carrying out a crime against your own people. You do not have the

Thty rtjttl />tau in a moment when Rtpublika Srpska has ban granted half tht ttTTitory offl"!ltr Bomia-Htrugovina and when, by accepting peact, thty would lift sanctions.from thou, without whom tmy 'WOuld not e:xisl ... 7Mir duiJion 10 rejutpeact cannot bt according to any real cri feria in tht interm oftht peoplt but onlyfor tht benifit aJ war PTojilUTI and thou�ople who howguilty conscimus. Thou who fiar tht timt when peact will comt and all the crimts will bt revealed . . Countlrn timts thry gaw us a rtaJon to sron- tv")' /ink wilh them. Thty did nol kap a singlt ont of thtir promiser: from Sarajevo to Athtm; .from Athens to Gorault;from GoraUt to Parliamenl;from Parliamtnt to tbis last riftrtndum, which Ihty had told us w(mld not be htld ..

right to the lives of the citizens ofYugoslavia.' The Bosnian Serbs seemed deaf to [he thunderous condemnatioa from Belgrade. On 3 August the assembly rejected the Group Plan for the third time and called a referendum to be held

three weeks later. The reaction was immediate. That night Bulatovic was enjoying l

fish dinner in the Montenegrin coastal town of Herceg Novi. He got a message to ring Milmevic. Their conversation was brie£

'Unfortunately they rejutd the Plan, Wt' mustput intoJom thaI duision 10 dost tht bordtr. Do you agra?' Milolrou aJJud. I said yts. Ht an/werd, 'They made their decision, our duision s i taking tjject tomorr()'w. '

The Federal Government announced Milo�eviC's decision. On .. cept August a blockade went into force. raffic came to a halt. a handful oflines. telephone connections were cut. The Serblan media

�

�

�

The pitce-de-rlsistanct was unleashing Lilit, who, in a wide ranging n i terview, blamed the Bosnian Serbs for everything. Milo�eviC's hand

was plain to sec. His former proteges had become the universal SC2pe goats. But it was not so easy to wash his hands of them. Lili{: painted the Bosnian Serbs as the architects ofwar in Sarajevo and blamed them for a senseless attack on GoraZde2.

cri� �

exploded with claims that the Bosnian Serb leaders were ere IS DD and war profiteers. "They are against peace, now when . JOu regime the of alternative to peace' became the new slogan �alisD

who for yean; had sowed the seeds of hatred, whipping up . , . hysteria, insisting that there was no alternative to the war fOIsted

the Serbs'. . . The blockade was complete. Biljana PlaV5ic was the fust VlctlJl'l the new rules. The year before, she had also been first to be from crossing the frontier to Serbia. Even the steely aback by the slap in the face from her former protectors.

�

'Tht only thing wt hadn't e�pe(ted was that �t would li« to Serbia impose sanctions agamst us. No one saId that. No ontcouf, ha'lJt e:xputed lIlch a dagger in the back. '

'��::

The dagger plunged deep. Under Milo�eviC smear i nging become an art form. His statement led a host of st 380

£am

How many times have they promistd Ihat they would nof shtll Sarajevo, and perpetuate the agony of civilians in this city? How many timts haw tmy promistd to arrtit the bands and �aromi/itary IInits which are terrorising civilians and besmirch tng the honour oftht Serbs? - Thty wtnl bacll on their word oj honvtlT that tmy would halt tIM insane allaek on Gorault, which led to many people being killed and resu/ttd in the N ATO ulti mall/m and tht (SerbJ'l withdrawal to a distance of20kilomtlres .

�e Bosnian Serbs behaved as if the embargo were an embarrassing

lly quarrel, which they did not quiTe seem to believe was real. a , th y claimed. itwas a secret deal beMeen the two !eaderships. � .. dZlc tned TO use the split to his advantage; refraining from direct on Mi!o�evic, :Ind expressing pity. The poor Serbian President, W. Unng under the strain of economic hardship, was caving in to s� n pressure . They were implying that Milo�evic had weakened an en under the thumb of the W(:st. By contrast, the Bosnian Serb e W n:: St�ong and uncompromising - the people of Serbian myth. e Bosm an Serbs went ahead with the referendum. Despit e a

K::: � I

w:c� � e:u Th

3&

/\ DAGGER IN THE BACK'

BOSNIA

fierce campaign waged by the Belgrade media whelmingly rejected the Plan.

machine,

�

they over.

In Sarajevo, the Bosnian Govern,?ent �ted for a Westttn . response. There was none. Bosman Pnme Mmlster, SilaJdtic, corn. plained that even though the Serbs had rejected the Plan, the Group had remained silent. 'They should have said if the Bosnian

Serbs do �ot accept the Pe�ce Plan, t en this would happen: tighterung

�

the sanctIons agamst SerbIa. expandmg the safe zones and lifting the arms embargo.' But the divided Group could not agree what

to do. They chose the path of least resistance, imposing complete isolation against the Bosnian Serb leaders, who, they said, would be excluded from the peace process until they had accepted the

Pum.

MiloSevic, too, rook steps to enforce their quarantine. He then gave the go-ahead to a real border between Yugoslavia and Bosrua• Herzegovina; but real only in the sense that he was sending a message

to the politicians and, as importandy, to the West. There is strong evidence that the border remained porous. The Bosnian Serbs still received essential military supplies from the Yugoslav Army as weU .. their salaries from Belgrade. The central point was that MiJO§eyjf wanted to see a political and not a military defeat. While Belgrade carried oul its verbal blitzkrieg against the Bosnian Serbs, intemational mediators - Owen, Swltenberg. and Akashi

negotiated the despatch of moniwrs along Serbia's and Montenegro',

frontiers with Bosnia. MiloSevic finally consented to what the

ebullient Panii: had called for at the London Conference two yean earlier. In return, he got certain sanctions suspended - the ban OIl international air traffic, sportS and cultural exchanges.

For the West, increasingly frustrated by the successive failures ofall peace initiatives, ironically, MiloSevic became their linchpin Cot achieving peace and stability in the region.

At least for the time being, perhaps just to get rid of his ""lici'" anus belli, the

rivals, MiiosevlC took away the Serb

unified Serbian state on the ruins of Yugoslavia.

Without the guiding light of a Greater Serb

n��g�t:�'�;�=

confused. When they went to war against their believed Milosevic knew where he was taking them. . their sacrifices were in the name of Serb unity. It was me pnce MiioSeviC's promise 'all Serbs in one state'.

By breaking with his kin in Bosnia, Milokvic had b,,,,,y,d

slogan known to every Serb ramo sloga Jrbina spalava ny saves a Serb. All that remained ofthis harmony, and the ;'''",.... -

J8,

;

with which the Serbs had as a united forced embarked of purpose were rhe four ls scrawled in red paint or charcoal on war, upon the . . houses and nllned villages throughout Bosnia and Croatia. t burnt-ou

I The G-7, the seven countries with the largest economies in the world, the US. , Japan, , haly, the UK and Canada. 2 I.ili(· also blamed Karadzic for being involved in the kidnapping and suspected murder of twenty men from Serbia - nineteen of whom were Muslims. in an effort to spread th� war to Yugoslavia. Three years after they . \\'Cre dr�gged from a tram at Strpcl - despite Milokvic's promises, the fami those men never found out what haplXned to their loved ones that night 011 27 Febro:uy, 1993.

liei of

CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A t the time of writing war is still raginglon gest lasting siege in the fiS arajevo is still under siege tia's territor ,

y remains er of Croa twentieth century Europe. A quart rising comp Serbia lavia Yugos and under Serb control, and rump In all six re. rep s, s b u pariah lic al n o i t a rn r.a Montenegro - is still an inteduring those CruCial d hs mont in g ur the the men who held power �e1d the desti�y of the country in spring and summer of 1991, who te the calamity that has behllen despi ice, off in n their hands, remai " . their peoples. rums of Commumst Yugoslavta. the from ed emerg states new Five . response to Milo�evlC" Of these. Slovenia has fared best Its leaders, in , steered their republic slavia authoritarian attempts to centralise Yugo the connivance of the: with and ulty to independence with little diffic m�re to do �th t tha war brief . had . n Serbian regime. They waged a two millio 1995, mldBy lines. ront f television screens than with of living much ?igher thaIts? that th� people, enjoying a standarddeveloped a genuinely multi-partyofparlia former countrymen, had U-:U� opean at the doors of the E� mentary culrure. It now stood polib� into the economIC and from fully n draw be o t ready, almost, Its away d turne mainstream of the Western world, its back southern neighbours. slav republic, Macedonia, escaped the � The southernmost Yugo ast, a which threat ned -and sriIl � that many Cassandras had forec ct outside the fronners of former threatens - to carry the confli even !u�key, thus Yugoslavia by pulling in Albania, Greece, and a Mac . other each st again current NATO allies remains haunted byedom spectreS of � the and s bour predatory neigh . Greece rred e f e settled but d solved conflicts. It is a conflictisnotexclu ' i " ' l l l o sively He; ;�:�: X:;,��:;; j: that the very name Macedonia t( es republic impli its useby the former Yugoslav . ce, that most Balkan own northern province of the same name Gree ' region, imposed.a the in d frien countries, and Belgrade s onlyeffec t paralysed Europ,can l!mo",,"vily '''' against Macedonia, and in . Belgrade, meanwhile, relies .h t making in the southern BalktheansUN embargo. But Preslrrys�en Macedonia circumvent his countratrydethrou Gligorov has so far steered by the presence ofgh.UNHis coun stability has been bolstered first case of prevent ve deployment in UN history. -

\vaI'

IS

�;

to

i

J84

Four ye s �ter d�laring independence, Croatia had yet to gain control of�ItS. mternatIOnally recognized frontiers, A quarter of its territory remamed under the control of the Krajina Serbs. The Vance Plan, which envisaged the rerum of these territories to Croatian sovereignty, had not been implemented, It had, instead, frozen front them into what the Krajina Serbs regarded as the lines and turned l frontiers of meir new ·state'. The Plan had required the t ion interna JNA withdraw from Croatia, and me Serb paramilitaries to disarm. This was never achieved. As in Bosnia later, the JNA withdrawal from Croatia was fonnal real. It left behind a Krajina Serb Army which it had ath r atered,than cre equipped and armed. Although in 1994 some communication and transport links were restored with the Serb-held lands, Zagreb grew increasingly frustrated with the pace of change and embittered with the failure ofUNPROFOR to implement the of the Vance Plan. After earlier major incursions across UN lines into Serb held land in May 1995, the Croatian Army launched a successful offensive to overrun Serb-held western Slavonia. Croatia, despite the anns embargo against all sides in the former Yugoslavia, had, by then, buil.t a powerful army that was pitted now not against the JNA but agalOst the much weaker Krajina Serb forces. In Zagreb the resort to military means was applauded. It boosted President Tudjman's flagging popularity and fuelled speculation that Croatia would soon launch another offensive to recaprure the heart land of the rebel Serbs' 'state'. It demonstrated, again, that, in the ¥ug?slav conflicts. might, rather than reason, brings rewards. T�dJman remained obsessed with the symbols of statehood, and was d�lven by an almost Messianic sense of destiny that it had fallen to him to deliver the freedom his people had - in his eyes - dreamed. of for a thousand years But he proved himself much less enamoured of the e�elltial tenets of democracy which he claimed to have brought to Cr�ua . He has stifled a once diverse and impressive independent �:�Ia, .sile�cin.g all pu�il c �issent .and he has failed to win over the mlnonty In Croatia WIth credIble guarantees of human rights �et half of Croatia's Serbs, uncertain of their fate under Tudjman' ave left the republic over the past fIVe years. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia remains unrecognized and . 180lated 'fbe ' '. compnsmg S, erb'la and Montenegro in a sham federation. �Oior �art�er enJoys as much autonomy as Milo�evic allows. The fiISt. ashpomt road to disaster Kosovo - continued to Simmer Th InKoYugoslavia's sovo Albamans were the first to be brought under ' a

to

1'\.\10

.

;

•

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.

c

CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

Mil�eviC's heel. By 1995 the visual symbols of repression had gone there were no longer tanks on the streets. But the province remains a police state. Kosovo's Serbs remain disgruntled and nervous. Although they control all positions of power in the province they claim that Milo�evic did not fulfil his pledge to defend them and to make

which, they believed, would not stand by and watch a European country so recently itted as a sovereign member of the United Nations be wiped off the map. As the realization dawned that the Western world would not come to Bosnia's rescue, the republic's political and military leaders dug in for a long war to redeem lost territory. Leaders who, in 1992, could not believe that war had come to their land began to plan for military campaigns this year, next year, the year after that. Though starved of weapons by the UN arms embargo, the Bosnian Army had no shortage of foot soldiers. It

Kosovo Serbian. Minorities make up a third of the population of rump Yugoslavia. There is no sign that Belgrade is ready to make any concessions in their direction. Years of waging war in Croatia and Bosnia have taken a huge toU on the country. Milo�evic paid for the war by inflationary funding.

printing money that was not backed by real state resources. He unleashed a hyperinflationary spiral that won for his country the dubious honour of holding the world record inflation rate three -

hundred and thirteen million per cent per month - suring the

previous record holders, Weimar and post-World War Two Hungary. The economic ruin destroyed the wealth-base of Yugoslavia's once strong and highly developed professional middle class, and at the same time gave rise to a powerful new Clife - those

who got rich through war-profiteering and sanctions busting. While Serbian society was criminalised, tens of thousands of educated

people (Jed the country - escaping mobilisation or searching for a way

to make a living. With Yugoslavia'S destruction, the Serbs lost the one land where they could live together.

The fate of Bosnia-Herzegovina was the most tr...gic. The moun tains and valleys of this beautifu l republic were scarred with the charred and battered towns and villages from which at least half the population had either fled, or been driven, or been killed. The S� still laid siege to a host of villages and towns, as well as. �he capital . Sarajevo. The Muslim-Croat federation ?ave new vla�ility to the territories on which Muslims and Croats lived, or to which they had fled. That apart, the territory under effective Bosnian Governm�nt control remained a leopard spot state of disparate, disconnected uruts.

a Balkan Bophuthatswana. . and Serb forces still held seventy per cent of Bosman terTlwry� . maJo: �t where they held sway they had not only driven out the of the non-Serb population, they had also erased any ViSUal sym d that the land had once been inhabited by Muslims as weU asortho � multi other many and Sarajevo of spirit tolerant Christians. The '

�

cultural towns and cities was all but obliterated by Ser guns. 'rJiSastrously illThe Bosnian Government had entered the war d commutU prepared. They placed their faith in an international

J86

drew its infantry from the legions of the dispossessed, many of them embittered and humiliated with nothing left to lose, and everything to fight for. After the Washingron-brokered Muslim-Croat federation

agreement, military supplies did, at last, begin to reach this refugee anny and though, by 1995, it was still too weak to threaten Serb posi

tions, it was preparing to fight another day. November 1994 brought a false dawn in this fight-back. When the

Bosnian Army Fifth Corps broke out of the Muslim-populated Bihac pocket it scored its greatest single victory of the war, pushing Serb

forces back from an area of 250 square kilometres. In Sarajevo the people began to talk excitedly about a decisive tum around. This, they said, was Bosnia's Tet offensive. Their optimism was hopelessly misplaced. It took the Serbs JUSt two weeks to launch a counter

offensive and, when they did, it was unforgiving. The Bosnian Serb Army, ed by the Serbs in neighbouring Croatia, and for the first time 5000 rebel Muslims loyal to the renegade Muslim leader Filaet Abdic, rounded on Bihac as it had rounded on Srebrenica and Gorafde before it. The United Nations again asked NATO to use air strikes to defend one of its declared 'safe areas'; again the air-strikes did nothing to halt the Serb offensive. The Bihac counter-offensive �rther widened an increasingly unbridgeable divide in the interna Ilonal community: when, over Thanksgiving Weekend at the end of ovember the United States pressed NATO to escalate its action by

N

,

bombing strategic installations, the British and French finally broke �nks. They told the US that a move to strategic intervention would pit the UN against NATO. Faced with the choice, the Europeans said they would back the UN. In other words, Britain and were

Warning that a further escalation would break the North Atlantic alliance. The US decided that the unity of NATO was more impor �ant than the safety of the Bihac pocket. The Bosnian Serbs had again aced down the might of the entire Western world. But it was a viCTory that disguised the underlying trend.

CONCLUSION

Abandoned by Belgrade, the Serb statelets in both Croatia and Bosnia were proving themselves increasingly unviable, corroding from v.rithin, garrison societies with little or no economic infrastructure and in which every adult male is pressed into service as a soldier, called upon to defend thousands of kilometres of impossibly extended front lines, against an enemy that had been weak but could only grow in strength. By 1995 there existed two Serbian states, one to the eaSt, the other to the west of the Orina River, which, in Serb mythology, is the spine of the Serbian nation and not, as was the case now, a border dividing it. These two states are led by men who represent wholly different traditions v.rithin the Serb national identity: Milo�evic the authorit arian strong man willing to use nationalism when it suits him, and Karaclfic the true believer, the romantic, national hero of the Serb epic. Karadz.ic was the first Serb leader to challenge MilokviC's supremacy and survive. The two were, by mid-1995, locked in a battle for the loyalty - the very identity - of the Serb nation. The war had come full circle. The Serbs, who had launched it with a singleness of purpose that had allowed them to slice through their enemies like a knife through butter, were now divided. Milo�ev1C:, who had led them into battle with an apparent clarity of vision that had brought all Serbs together under a single banner, had lost way. Milo�evic, the instigator of Yugoslavia's bloody disintegration. and the guiding hand behind the Yugoslav wars, proved himself no nationalist at all. He now wanted peace, and, to get it, would sell short the very war aims with which he had led his people into banle in the first place. By contrast, both Croatia and Bosnia knew precisely where they

his

were going. Tudjman wants to drive the Serbs out of his republic altogether; Izetbegovic is preparing for a war ofliberation. & the Serb 'states' which are their respective enemies weaken from within. both former underdogs sense that time, now, is on their side. And they have learned - and are applying - the great lesson of the Yugoslav wars. a lesson the Serbs demonstrated in the days of their supremacy: that in the post-Cold War world there is no collecnve security, no international will to protect the weak against the s� the lesson that to win freedom and security for one's people �uuet neither a sound argument nor a good cause but a big army. VICtory, in former Yugoslavia, will fall not to the JUSt, but to the strong.

mili�

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS his book accompanies a five-hour television documentary series made by Norma Percy, Paul Mitchell and Angus Macqueen of Brian Lapping Associates in London. Their eye for detail and corrob

T

oration has helped unveil, at every stage of the narrative, truths about Yugoslavia's destruction that had not, hitherto, been known. It is based on hundreds ofinrerviews, lasting thousands of hours, conducted over

eighteen months with all those who played a part - some great, some

small - in Yugoslavia's tragedy. Brian Lapping has elevated the art of also to historical documentary making to new heights. Our

thanks

Michael Simkin for his relentless search through archives in London,

Washington, Belgrade, Zagreb and - in the most diffIcult of circum

stances - in Sarajevo; to the extraordinary effons of Bonnie Boskovie

and Lisa Gartside without whose patience and persistence in keeping track of, and co-ordinating our efforts to deliver the manuscript, this

c"erything that has befallen the region is always some one else's fau lt except one's own side. T�e war wiped out any habit of self-scrutin t�at Ser�s, Croats, Muslims. Slovenes might once have possessed. beh natIon has embraced a separate onhodoxy in whic h it is unique ly the victim and never the perpetrator. Many, but by no means all, of the interviewe es who contributed to the series, and the book, were speaking from an unsha keable convic . tio n that theIr nation is blameless, or their actions ,vitho ut fault. To . wflle �ny contemporary of the Yugoslav wars is to navigate t�e qUIck waters, not so mu h of deliberate disho nesty, but of a con � . . trived self-deceIt. This applies not oo1y to many of the comb atants, but also, sadly, to those ho ame with good inten tions to try to make ,,:, � peace . We have been navlgatlOg these waters, between us, for well over a decade. Eventually the aments grow famil iar; but rhey are still treacherous. Any errors of judgement this book contains as a result are, of course, our own.

;

bookwould not have appeared; and TO Paul Adams. Walter Erdelitsch.

Nina

Selma Latif,,':, Azra Nuhefendic, Danja Silovic, Milo� VasK, Vlahovic, Dina Hamzic and Bojan Zec whose assistance and advice was invaluable. Chris Wyld at the BBC and Qyentin Peel at the

Finantial Timl!S weTe generous in their indulgence of our obsession both in the writing of the book and in encouraging our efforts to

report the war itself. Our sincere gratirude to them. Finally to Dusan Kneuvic and Sheena McDonald, whose belief in the importance of telling the tale was a constant incentive, at every stage of the writi� It is a truism that war brings out the best as well as the worst in

people. We owe an immense personal debt to the countless colleagues

whose courage, dedication and determination to tell the tale as they saw it, regardless of the immense difficulties that stood in their �'/t

were never less than inspiring. Some have become friends for There is no need to list them by name. They know who they are,

PICTURE CREDITS

Greek Government 15; Antoine Gyori, Sygma 9;

Srdjan I1i'e 1, 3 , 7, B, 10, 13, 14, 16; Cary Knight 12; Tomislav Paternek 2, 4; Vreme 5, 6.

:!i

what they have contributed to this book. To work in former Yugoslavia s i to enter a world of parallel trUthI. Wherever you go, you encounter the same resolute conviction

J9'

INDEX

Abdit, Fimc >.i. 232-3. 248.262.263. ]37,

J\c:oOtn.y ofScicn«t �nd Ans. Scrl>i. 29, 30, )39,387

1I

Boban. �I... xii. 241. 307. 326, 327, 336. 341.

m

&gda,......;c Rodmilo Iii. Ill.138. ISS m

Bogim'iC, Bogit xii. 121. 125. \31, 136. 137,

Al"n;.;. &snia 329

Boljlwn<.Josip xii, 91. 119. 12(}; and Knio

AJwhi.ya....hi 364, 365-6. 367-8. 370 Alucnlijt'-it. �lil'll Iii. 52, 58, 169. 114.

Borov<> Sclo. Sbvonia 153, IS4. 154-S,IS6, 8m';tn
Albani.n. 24�n.6; KotQm 33, 3 Sn.7, 37. 77, 213, 2S9, 385-6: .nd An,i-Bure-uo",,;'

Bounki. Brod, Boini. 204. 243

Adbf, Bbgo)c �ii. 131. 137. 179. 195.206, 224.260-1.268

.i.-wikcs 319, 337-8, 345, 362, 387; ., b.nk f"r Gonidt 364. 366-7. 370

184n.3-4

Al.git. M.hm.. 331

",helli"" 10S-<>. 107. 109, IS7

Bo..... rranjo xii, 233, 325, 339, 340

'"

Boun.<. V�na xiii, 199

Bosni• •nd lI".ni.n, ""iv, 85. 92, 143. 162,

201, 204-5, 38&-8; po..ibiliry of_rion 221, 223-4, 239; background to .nd dccl

ReV(lly,ion 65-6. &7, 72 Andjetkovi<'. Rib .ii . 42

ion' 227-33, even" leading to waf 233-43; . 245-54; kidn.p of ou,h�.k of .... , "

lzetbcgovit 255-6, 2590-68; ethnic cleon.i",

'An,i-Buruuc"uic R.,,,,\ul;on' 60-72 "ron (Ztljko R.�n.'ovK) >:ix. 91. 206, 245,

269-78; war 219. 256--1,1 278-9.283-4; London confer.n", 285, 287; S",bmtica.

247.2"8

f• •.us' 303-4: and 293-303, J{}.l; UN •... V.nc.-Ow<:n Plan 30&-18; 'lif. and sttib·

nOli embargo 219. 280, 298, 320

348-'1. 354, 387. Itt �IJ. TO-. Cro.tian 207, 24), 355, 385, IN .IJD Cro..i.n National

A'm�:

BOIni,n 327, 330, 331. 332. 335".6,

JI8-19;' Action Pbn 320, 336;

Mu,lim-C..,.t. conllict 326-35; Summer 1993 pe= .oJlu 336-7. )38-9; Mme.

G"ud: Yuphv >« JNA

Squ:rn: bomb, S>r:I.je''O )4)-5; NATO and

Auoci.,ion ofSerb••n �Iunicip.hties 104, 105 -..}mrm,rial rcdt:n'ion' ']<j, 81. 162. 111H 1

A�"" Summ;' 312-14

B.bit, Milan xii. '»8-9. 100-1. 101; and Knin ",hellion 10+-5.107. 109-10. ]\0-11, 146; and ...�, in Cm.u. 188; "f'PO'i"on to V.nct Pl.n 223-5

S.dinl., Comm,osi"" 22&-1. 221. 227 B.jnmovit, Sejdo �ii. 1-10. 14Sn.7

B.kr. j.me....i, I6-H>, 222 Ihnjo Lulu, Bosni. 224. 247. 271. 2&3

346-8; and Four-Poin. Pbn ).48-50; Muolim-Crm! Fcdcnnon 354-9; banlc: for

Gorilik 360-72; and C""DCt G"",p plan 374-6. 378, 382. IN .I_ Croats, Bo6ni1n; • • 0.0.",.,,; Scm.., Booniln "'uslim Boutr05-Ghili, Bootr05 xiii. 216-11, 2n4. 288.30-1.3 68,369 Botani<', Bosko 149. 150

Bltko. BO$ni� 256, 283. 341

S�,"r, lK'" xii, 51>. 57.58. 114-15, 163. 174 B«irc�. lb...�i'" 293. 300 Bclgmle 39. 129-37

Brioni Ae<:o,d 180-3 Bnlain 137, 387; Ir>0; �nd London Conf.",nce .ndjoi 1 Action Plan 320; Ind calls (� NATO int."""ntion 346, 341-8. 350' • •"d

B.nko"�' Cre,.ti. 108 mllot. Bo.ni. 288, 303. 330, 337. 339, 387

and s,nk' 319, 371 Bro".I, SlOne xiii, \37, 203

Bdg"' . 238 Bdg....!. TV Itt Tole"" ,,,,, 8dg..dc lIijcljin., BUlni. 247-8 Biiandlit, DuUn xii. 16J. 1M Ilitfani. limni. 270

�

bml. for GOf1Mc 369.370, 371: ond

Broz.JO$ip ,,,Tito Rutin, N.nw xiii. 136, 138 i Rudimiro..;c. Bos ko xii.33. 34

39'

95-<>,101-2: Knin ",beDion 10+-11. 139; a"".rmnt f"'Ogl'lImn>< and drecu 115-22.

lIuj... Anre 105

INDEX

'lift

H"b,"";':, Ko.," xiii. 33. 48n_1 lIubl"''iC. Momi, xiii.M. 86. 165-6. 21l-16; ..,.I VlI",e-Ow<:n P1= 307. 310. 312.

123-7; Tudjm.n and M;[ok� I W ... talks 143-4. 157-8.213-4,139-40; Knin ",hel lion Iprcads 146-51; tcceuion 161-2 163-4, 165. 161ft.3, 16\1; .nd S\oovc cri,i.

3 1�-15. 316

":

C.nIwjev Dom lWIy 68.69

.-.n"",i...tion 239. 241

F'l>n 210, 211; ."d 218; inre....ri""i1 recognition ofindopc:ndcnce 218, 182. 186; war 187-208. 217;:and Hag

(."mg'''''' Loo-d 1\",,, xiii. 209, 239. 290; Ind H.gue Pbn 209-11, 212, 214, 215, 216,

217.218-1\1; and r=ognition of�

219,22&-1.221. 222;."d Vance PI.n 217. 218,222,225; and ",fugees from BoW. 212;.nd Booni. 204. 243. 323-4; talks with

C..�.,. Croa".101 (."n.b Knjin•• &.nio 232, 233, 337 220. 221; S:u-.jcvu visit 279-80

Serbs 3-10-2; Muo/im-Croal Fedor.ni"" 355-9. IN "'U Serb.. Cm.li.n

Croati.n Democratic Union IN HDZ Croari.n N.na.... Gu.rd 116; lenin ",hellion l 149. 150-1, 154-5; w;lr in Cm.!i� 187, 190.

Celin". IJ.osni. 271 C.ntral Comminces '" Communist Partin

C�aIk
Ch.mp,,,n. Marc 200

Ch.tnib (Serb munarchim) 76, 155

191-2,194, 195, 197, 201, 207

Bosni.n 230, 231. 324-5; .Ie�.ion. 232, HOin;. 234. 235,241, 242.243; and outbn:u of 249, 250'. luff.r ; and V.n",-Oweh

Crm",

Ch,j.ri�1\ D.mO<:f01I 94

233; hefa,.., oulb,..,.k of"". in

Chrill"ph.., W.rrtn 'iii, 318-19, 319-20

Churkin, Vi,oJy xiii, 287. 352. 360. 365. 366-8; ",d Conlact Group plan 374, 376. 379

Ckr
Plan 307.:J.OI!; H.",eg-Bo,n. 326; Muslim-Cmu
'clun.mg' 188. 194, 340; in Bosni. 246-7.

Clmto". DiU 319, 321. ,169

269-78.283. 294.296-7

1993 pe= t.lko 336; t.11
CoaIi""n o( "'''onoJ Understlnding 96 Cocnmine'< ofSerbs .nd Montenegrin. 33

375,316,378, 386 C"",kowit,J""",n �;ii. 140, 141

Communi>! Parties 31. 50; &.ni. 228-9,231.

�j" T
232; Croati. 87, 88-9; Kosoyo 65. 67;

Montcnexm 64; Serbi. 32. 4+-7. bOo 83,

De M;chclis. Gianni ';ii, 175.214-15 I�. Mik-j..t",b xiii, 196. 205

13�; S\oovcni. 50.53.54.56.80, 81-2, 93;

rugoWv

%X>',

xxvi, JO, 39, 53. S6, 64. 82,

o..gorici;'. Sl.�ko >:1I i. 104. Illn,6. 1"9 D ..limu>uflt. Alij. xiv, 233, 262, 263, 268n.3,

e'enn""

"""'

'"

COI1uiruuon xxvi. 32-3. 35n_6, 72; SI"""n. ."'.nd .... ,,'" n-8O; Boon;"" under V."cco..-.:n I....n 308; In�ba .svmmettical ="

(.u.r.'>On; ll.�u. Plan

Con,

C�i<' 1)"b,K.

DEMOS roiIi.ion 93. 94

�"", f""" JNA 175 dc'tntinn comJK 199.210.274-8, 3n, 356

l)ilhe
'

.., G,,,,,p rI." 373. 374-80. 382
Oi.d....vit, . lUifxiv, 67, 70. 71

xiii, 3(}-1. 340.04, 101,20-1; and

"""" 33. 3-1. 35n,7; Yug<>
285-(' ,291; .nd

V.nce-O...on Pl.n J08'

310. 312, 313, 3 17. 318

C"'.ti. 'nd Crom xxvi. 30. 47, 87 -9. 9

l8S. 388; em'grees 87 9()-I' ond Ko
2-3.

ion, 89,

war

I.ljogo. Ris'o 315. 322n,5

Djurtije>'K, Voji.bv xiv. 239, 259, 260, 262. Djultit. SlJ)bod.n xiv. 140. 141

'"

/)nt',mi,l (n."",I"'p"') 31. 53

Doboj. l!oIni. 256, 272 Dolto.Jerk<> xiv, 248, 263. J2�

Drall"",it, Vuk .iv. 34. 129-30. 132. 138 nrctc!j comp 333

JOJ

INDEX

Orin. volky 171. 293. J06. 361

c;.,nlil•• LoW. 298, 299-300 2:ro-1,239

D.�k.J"".�.iv. 79.S2. Il]. 125. 135.138.

117. 2IS�19. 22()-I. 238. 212. 373

GI..�. Sini..

1)9.18]-2

GLgor"". Kiro �iv. 162.233, 384 Glina. Cro1t;a 187. 19]. 207 G"...l:de. Bosni. 283. 288, 303, 33O,�,

Dubrovnik 201-5

k<:Jo;;t . Niju xiv. 85. 232 Du ...

E.glebu�"<•. L:I...,enc. X;". 112. 287. 288

Eas'ern Sl..-oni. _ Sla>'OO' ;

c"mji V.kuf, II.osnia 332 Goir... Croana 191-2

p"'nl....n' . _ ."denl Govtm....n' . Gra....nin, P<'>.rxi... 62. 67-8. 70. 71. 72. 107.

economy S3. 386

I::ftnd�. Munt 293. 295. 300 ekctiom 74; II.osni. 227-33; Croan. 89. 95�.

Cro.ti. 197. 199. 202: .""cti"n. >g<.i""

Yup",u 216: and rcwgnition of� ,ion, 21�12. 238-9; I\ooni. 241. 251; and

I I.:r.likwit. Scfcr xv. 226. 259. 267, 294, 301.

m

Herco:g-Bosn. 326. 327 He=govina 92, n5. 326, 356

Ilun!, Douglasxv, 177, ISO. 213. 346.3n

155-6. 259-61. 2U. 267, and ...., in BGsni. 268. 115

IIVO (Cro11 C"",ncil o(Oc f• ...,.) 326. 327. 318.319.330

Imam<>Vir!, ;\u/'Udin 256. 161. 265

int.Uccru.ls 30. 49. SO. 88. 142 In'ern>lion;o.! Red CTOfS (JCRC) 197.198,

Fre...«. H.rry 301. 302

/ncinnMt, HMS talks 336-1.138-9 199. 276. 218. J33

Italy ISO

1'1'1\ 276

c;.,....he•. I I"", I);elri.h �"; 179-SO. 218. 219.

228. 129. 23O. 2.n. I�etbe�. Aloja beromes Hosni.n """ iden' ll3;

194

n'.

Karadtio'. lUdovon xvi. 144".3. ]49. 223.

230-1. 282. 388;bcf"", ollfb",:o.Ir. ofW:lr in

Bosni. 226. 227. 235. 237. 240. 241. 242, 243; and ""tlm.k ofwo. 249. 250. 252.

253; .nd S. ... je"" 156-7. 258. 281; .nd ethnic dunoing 275. 278; .nd London

JB8;

Confe",,,,,,, 288, 2� .nd V.nce-O...cn

Pl.n 309. 310. 311. 312-14. 315, 311; warnl

"8.i"O{ .i...."ikes . ll8; lo1ks with

C"'a" 340-1; ",.clion '0 Morke, So,u.ft bomb 343-4. 347;.nd Fou.--Poin, Plan

Crolli. 95, \17-19. 120.122. ]24--5, 147; 'n,1 ,he ...'tnts ofMarch (1991) 131. 132.

withd,-,wo.! from C"""il 385; in Bosni. before ,he ..... m.239. 240; and ouob",:o.Ir.

Hurti.'. Zinko 277

Foor-i'oinf PI.n 348-50. 351 Fn"« 1J7. 288, 3lO, 371. 387; nll for NATO in .......nfion 346. 347. 351). •"d 'lif, .nd mikt' 319. 371

136.137. 138. 141;.nd Slovene moi, ]66, 170. 177, and Hague Plan 211: and

Knm ",btll;"" 108. lOll. II()-Il, ""d

Helsinki F,nal ",-, ]61. ]65

Hollingworth. Larry 298-9 liSP (I'uty of Right) lI1n.l. 205

Field ofBt:.ckbirds 75. 76

Croatia 95. 117. 120. 122. 123. 125--6. 141. 151:.nd events ofMarch (1991) 131. 135.

Basni. 238

135. 136. 137. 139, 142: .",l 'p••ad of lenin

237.238

eri.i, 170. 178. ISO. 18]. IS2; and WH in Croot;. 190; and Krojiru Serbs 223

tion. 94; .nd TO diQ,rrntrncn, lIS; and

amendments 79. 8()-1; .nd SI""ene elec

jog ... Vladimir xv. 118. 11�20. 126

HDZ (Cro.,i.n Dc""",,,..i. Union) 87, 88, 120; Congmt (1'190) 91. 92--3: .nd Cr".,i.n election. 95. 96; and Sbvoni. 153, 157, Boo.ni.n br.nch 231. 232, 233. 2).4,

156-7; nocnts ofMarch (1991) HI-2. 135-7. 138-9, 139-40. HI-1. 143: I... dunn: '0 a'.,;d wa. 161. 166; and Slovene

ruction '" M:ui
123. 12'n.l: .nd S\oovcni. 5()-1. 51-9'• • n d 'Yogurt R.mlut;"n· 62, .nd Slo
Hafne•• Vinlw xv. 65 Hogue Pl.n lO'r16. 211, 218-19

79. 8O;.nd . con,liru'iono.l .m.nd....n'. Croa,i. U()-I. 125-6. HS. 149-50. 153,

52-3. 54. 55, 57; and Sl"""ne ro...rirution.:r.l

IN..\ (Yugool.v 1\opIe'. Army) 51, 86. I 13,

H.dlifejuMt. Sen.d xv. 261-2

286-8.290-1 F.de".l p.. , identy 66: response ro Slo"ene

307.312. 313; .nd t Acrion Plan 312,

j.....barsko. Cro ..i. 192 Je",� (,9, 73",8

II.dbC. Goran xv. 1$2. 225

7-H. 78. 86. 142. 143: and Slovenia 82-3. 169-70. 172. 171r-7. 181; and w:u;n Cro1ua 193; Panr .. Prim. Mini....

Kacin.Jdko ..... 1I5 KoJjjevi.'. Veljko ..... 54. SO. 86; ond Sioveni.

336: Summer 1993 peace t.II" 337. 339'.

J.nh,J....1 xv, 55. 56-7, 114. 115, 172-3. ]76 J..hari, K.�,o!a n. 65

Gft.... Mibn JC\'. 200. 20-1

Fedo.,,] Go-ocrnmeD' (lklgrode) D'<'i. 64-5. 67. �I. 164; M1rkoovit •• Prime Min;!!e,

259-67. 268; Carrin8ton ,,;,il 279-8O; .nd 'hit .nd "rikt' 280-. •nd Val\Ce--O.,.n .., Plan

Grb.";e•. Sarajevu 251. 257. 258

Gutman. Roy 274. 275

Hosn;.n refugees 272: :ond London Confe'enct 2'87. in 8!J" Bri" ;n; Fronn:: G.rm.ny Europnn Union 377

1600.6

J.,t.",. Bo>ni. 288.327-8

Gre«<: 221-2 Gtegurit. fnnjo �iv. 11!8. 19()

m.i< 174-fl. 178. 1(1)-1, moni'ol' in

Jupp<. Ala;n xv. 377

Junt, Pc""" xv. 105. ]06. 108. 126, 146-7.

234--5, 237-8. 239. 2�]. 242, .nd "",brnlt of-.1' 247-9. 253-4: kidnapped 255-6,

Grache... P.vel )?9

GraniC. M..'e �iv. 272. 354. 356

"nd,,'co 284. 33(1-1. 360 ethnic .k.n.ing _'cbnoing' Europe.n Communi,), 214. 347; .nd 51O>'ene

�.)'mm.triul federation plan 162-3. 233: bc� QUtlm:o.lr. of..... in Boon.io 227. 233.

j> , Vic,,,,, xv. 358

153. 170

101-2; 5]",..,ni. 93-4

266.267

199

37()-2.376

EC .'" Europe.n Com,nunity

G.!br.i,h. Pcter ,,"v. 355. 355-6. 357. 358 G",,;t. Ejup xi". 233. 248, 35]. 375; .nd kidnap of12CI� 262. 263. 21>'. 265,

INDEX

348; and NATO ultima",m 3S0. 352. 353; and ba"1e fOr Gonl:de 365, 366, 367. 368.

371; .plit wilh SerlH. 371-1. 373--4. 381; and ComlCl Group plan 375. 376. 377. 37S.

rebelLon 149-50. 151. 156.157. 158-9; and Skwen. ori". 166-7. 17G-4. 116-7. 179-80,

m

Kav:r.j•• B�.n.n rYi. 67

1�2. 181, .nd war in C"",Ii. 181. 188. ]89. 19()-8. 199. 200-�, 105, 207, 217, 223. 324;

K�""terrn de..nrion nmp 276. 283 Ken." Mih,.\j xvi. 62. 73n.3

Kijc.... C..,.ri. 151. 188. 189

of,." ill Bos1l;' 227. 245. 246-7. 248. 249. 2.51. 258-9; and kidn.p oflulbegovit

Ki.e1j.k, HO$ni. 328-9. 330

Kljujr. Sljepan xvi. 233. 262. 325 Knin 100.151. t9(). ]91,207.34{l

Knin ...bellion 104-11. 13�; Iprtad of 146-57,

,loin, AClion Plan 320. 336 Joka".wiC. tulru xv, 134

158-9 Kohl. H
ioal orm ,,,,
KoIjevit, Nikob xvi. 233. 2�9. 279. 181. 282:

J"",noVlC. Vhdi,lav XV 311

""""'.1301';..,. ...., 75,a :m ri.. ofMi�44.

43. 70, it: .nd Slovene conotirurioruo./ <mend""'n!> 78-9. SO, SI;:ond C..,.lia 107 121 2. ]23. 115. 147. 149;.nd ,he event> March 099]) 130. 131. 135. 136-7. 138-9;

<>r

.";. 158, and Slovene ",," 177. 178. ]81-2; .nd ..ar in Cro.li.

and d,...ion ofYu�

;�" "
.nd V.nc""'O..�n Plan 309-10. 317-18;

talks wi,h Sem. 339. 340

Kolkk, Konrad ni. ]70. 171

Komlit. l\'o ni, 356. 357

Kordi<'. D.rio rYi. 327 Koren..... C",.ti. 104. 148. 150 Korit. S:unir l5{)..1 . 251-2

Kosovo xn i. 29. 32. 33-4. 35n_7-9. 2!!9.

195

385-6; Milosovic I';';' and efl"M' 36-7. 38. 39.40-1.44; Anti-Bureaucratic Rc""lu'ion

INDEX

INDEX (X_ (Om.) 65--6, 67-8, 69. 70--2; Sf Virus
Kosrit,Jugod.o.v xv, 136, 138 i Kozp". And.Ti xvi, 287, 288, 320,]46

KoniC, Br.lfllro xvi, 64. 190. 224. 1fb-l. 268

Knjin. ]00. lSI J« �1J(J Serl», Knjina

Knjlinil<, Mom<'iIo )
of"",r in Bosnia 226,249, 2S3-I; and

V.nce-Owen Pbn 309, 313, 317;.nd batde

for Go...td< )66, 367; .nd Con.... G.oup

pI.n 378

KruniC. &.tiro xvi, 61-2

Krimn. I"," m, 80

49. 50, 51, 53, 5S, 56, 58; .nd Kooovo 66,

Klbn, Milan m;.nd Slow:nc po�tiriution 68. 69. 70--1;.nd Slovene COl1.tiNtionol

.mendm.nrs 79-80, 8], 81-2. 93; .nd
gnmrr>< 11-1, 1]5; .nd s«u.i<m 122, 1St

M.nj>t.
l\I;ukovit, Ante mi. 74-5, 78, 86, 142, 14J; ond Slov
lW'orm Fottto 231-2 l\lorkoviC, MiJj.". xvii. 36. 4]-2, 43, 48n.5, 10 enh' 169-70. 172. 176-7, ]81; League of

l\1utit, Milan xYii, 224; and IWn ",bellion M.ntwl, I'I:nny 276

105, 106. 107, 108-9. ]]1;.nd .prnd of ",bellio" 146, 148. 149. IS1.158; .nd """

�hrti«vci, the 187, 188. 189 in Croari. 187. 188. 189

l\b.pok movement 87. 89, 97n.\ mcd;. 130. 155 ="'- prt:SS; .�lnUion musgn_ 198--9,270

'Mwings cfTruth· 60. 83, 148

Memorandum of .hf Serbi.n Acadtmy of

Scicn«S and Am N--30. 31-2, l4n.l Mendiluc<,josc' M.rio xvii. 245-7, 296-7

M«"'. S,ip" xvii. lIS, 120, 121, ]22; Ind

172-3,175-6. ]80. 181

eventS ofMarch (1991) 135, 136, 138, 1)9,

kidn.p of1...,.begoviC 259. 260, 264, 265,

SkIY
163, 165, 167, 183; .nd Sl�ne enii. 171,

Knbnj.c, Mi l u.in >C\'i, 221, 25H. 268; .nd 266.267 L.@." mdtij•• lJ..lroxvi, 255.26O,261.265.

Loiboch (m",in! group) 49 LOZir, T.ot 75--6 m

Lc;ogu<= ofRcfonn Fottto 231-2

�ag\lC of Communi... ,u Communi.t P.rties

liMral Democ"''' 94

'lift and ltn!a:'policy 280. 318-19

l.>.bon Agrttrmnt 241-2

Lilit, Zoran Mi, 374, 381 Ljublj.n. Foor 57, 58

London Conf.",,,,,, 285, 2S7-90 Lobr. Sonj. xvii, 85

... nch 259-60. 264, 369 Lub';ca b

Mucdoni.a and fol"""doni.n, u., 59n.3, 162. 22]-2,384

M.rK.n�ic. Lewis xvi i. 252, 259, 3#, ,nd

kidn>p oflutbcgoviC 256, 264-7. 267-8; and Carringt<>n ."i, 279; Comm.ndo. Sec,or Sarajevo 280, 18], 281-2

M.hmurtth.jic. Rusmir xvii. 263 Major,john 175.287,288.352 l\hmula, 8rmko :mi. 55. 'IS, ]37-8; and SI""""i. 50--1, 52. S3

141;.nd Croatia 147, ]53, 15%.2;...d

Prc
ocigc ofOubr
Mi.l�, Siobodan 1Mi. xxiii"",,;v. 41-2, 73".9,386. 3!18; and =Ml of&mi.an n.tionalism 31-2, 60; rue to JlO"'" (1987) 36-47, 63, 76-7; .nd Sl�ni. SJ-4, 79, 84', .nd Vojvodin. 60. 61. 62: and CommuniJl P=y .nd governmen. 64-5, 66-1, 74. 75; and KOJOVO 65, 66. 67, 68. 70-2, n, 289; II Fou"ecmh Potty Congre.. 85, 86: and Croatia 107. 112n.10' 121, 122, 123, l�l; .nd YUgoflav unity 122-3, 127, 161; oDd events ofMotch (1991) 129, n0--1. 132-4, \38,139. 140-1. ]42-3; «<",t tolb with

Tudjm.n 14}-4, ]57-8, 233-1, 23S. J4O; ond ••ymm.tric.ol fi:derarion plan 162; ond

Slow:nc cri,i. 169, 177. 178, 180, 183; con trol ofJ'rujdenrv 190; and ..... in Croon. 206,207, 217; I� H.gue Plan 209-10,

211. 212-13, 214. 215.2]6: .nd Vonce Plan 217, 218, 219; and G.muny 218; -' Knjin. Serb. 222, 223. 225; and Boonia wII r... 235. 236, 240, 241; ond before ,h. .... n in �ni. 245--6, 248. 286; .nd Londo Conf.",,,,,, 285, 288, 289, 290: and !'&nO! Pba 285, 287-8, 29Il-l: .nd V.nc�n

p<1lC<: ,a.I'" 336. 338: and Group pUn 376. 3n, 3n-8, 379; and 'pli, wi.h IWfni.n Serbs 31B. 371-2, 373-4. 379-8],

J()7-15. 3]6, 317, 318; and Summ.. 1993

Obrovoc, Cro.ri. 104, ]08

3"

Om....k.o detention
Odbor (Commin •• for the Dofence ofH�moo Ri,:hlS) 57, 58, 68

Opabl',jo,,"n xvii i . 10], 107 O...sac, Bosni. 269, 270

! rel="nofollow">li...:Mt. Zi"",...d 42

:-'lilovanO¥iC. M.nojlo 348

Orit, N.ser xviii, 293, 295, 304 OM, Ljilj.n. xviii, 331

Mitc\'.t. Dus.n mi, 32, 48n.2, 85; .nd rise of Mllokvit 38, 43. 45, 47;.nd

O.ijck, 51•....i . ., 154, 192, lO5, 206

Anri-BurDucnric Revolution 62, 69-70;

0","", gn....itt 198-9

Mi.so..ki•• Kon...ntin n';i, 312. 3]4, 3]8 .nd even!> ofM.",h (]99]) 133, 138

Owen. Lord Ihvid xviii, 290, 36]; and

�I,"<",nd. Fnncoi,28]-2

V.no;c-()wtn PI.n 306. 307-8, 308-9, 310, 31]-12, 3B, 3]4, 319; and Summtr 1993

!l1I.di<. R>lk" xvii. 18<}, 328, 352: and

� talks 336, 339'. and reaction 10 Market

V.nce-Owcn I'lan 316; and b>.nIc for S",brc"ic. 297, 198, 300, 301-2; .nd

Squo", bomb 345, 346, 347; and Con""t

Gordde 362, 363, 364. 365, 366. 37] ,'HI�J'nQ (m.ga�in.) 51-2, 53, 54-5 llion!Cn<> � !\1on'�ncgrim 60, 6)-4, 66.

Group pion 374, 376 P.kr.c, Westtrn SI.voru. 146-7

Panit, Zivo.. xviii, 195, 1%,206

Pani<, Mit.n xviii, 285, 286-8, 289, 19O-1

162,213--]6,286.385

""

Morillon. Phillil'" xvii, 29�, 297. 301, 302,

Porag>., Oobros.vxviii. 205

Mo.t". Bo.nia 28), 323. 335n.3, 339, 342n.1

Pmy ofo.mocra'ic Action Me SDA

Muslims. Bosni.n niY. 92. 227-30. 23]; <1«

Party of Democmic Chang<' (5DP)89, 102.

tion. 232, 233; befo", outb",.k of ""'. 226,

]04,148

23"-', 237. 242, 243; outb",... of"""

P,ny ofRignt (HSP) 1110.1,205

3()]-2, 304; UId Voncc-Owtn Pl.n 306.

Pucli.C, Anle niii, 90, 99

2�7...R 248. 249. .250; wffcr ethnic cle.nsing

Pupolj, M�c xvii i . 22....5

Pmioric k.gu< 257.259.263

256.257. 269-78.283; in Sreb"'nico 293--4,

JOiI; .nd 1....\1 Action Plan 320--1; .nd war

Pavlovit, Dngisa mii, 31. 32, 40-1. 42. 44, 45, P.,,]., P..ri..h 133

326-35; 5umm.. I993 1"" « ral'" 336. 337:

p••c....k.eping force. 207, 217. 222-3, 225.

GoraMe 361-9, 370-2

Pioneer Pork rolly. Belgrade 39

in C''''''i. 324: Mu.lim-<:...,.. conAiet

"

Ftkret AIx!;c 337, 339; Mutlim-CwlI fed

....ion 35H, 375, 376, 378, 386; b>.nlc for N.mbiiU. S.tish xvii, 225 N.tionl! Sil....ti<>n C<>mmitr•• 251, 252 """on.lill" xxi,'. 74: erooti.n 87, 88, 89. 92; MuiJim 331; Serb 29-30, ]]. 34, 35n.8. 39.

NATO 318. 346. 362. 387; c.lls fOf ito int... 60. 98. 142, 161; S]�"" 50

''
N , ..... 5lovcru.n Ar, mo",,n ,,, ' 49 "'nc.J"Y 274. 1i5 N....., Rrooj� (journa.l) 50 53 '

GO'dd. 36-1, 365. 366-7. 369-7Q

No.; S.d 60. 62

0\,;].... M,Ios 317-18

l'I:"!'k·. Army, YupI.v 288.362

Hi

jNA

!'I.die. B�jano mii, 223. 233, 248. 249, 2S7,

38O;UId V'�n Plan 311.315.318

Pohara, Armin xviii. 243

P�tvic N.tiona.l ""rk 104, 148, ISO

""'jra.. (f>Cwsf"'p
IWitil. lAs,... (""wsf"'f'
].....vin•• Booini.a 2SJ. 308. 356 I'oo.,j.oque. xviii, 175, 178

Presidency /u Federal p""idency l'roljak, Siobodan mi;, 93

prc>'I 31, 60, 215: in'em.tionol 200. 202, 274. 302.376

Prow" Bosni. 327

Prijcdor, Booni. 276, 283 F'ucnil<,jou xYi ii. 94

Pulin•. jusuf265. 266

397

INDEX INDEX 89, �an, I�;ca mii, 39, 82, 8-', 116,

in Croon. 233-4. 339--40: and rebdlion . 165; and 22 1 ion. ... oec and 149, 156; ....n. 177, 183;.00 waf in C Slm'Cne PLon 210, 211-12, 195--6;.nd ,lit Hogue Plan 217, 218; 21�, 216: ....<1 Vlon: '00 _, in BclgrKk Ir.iti.ali,,, 235. 236;

95, %,

crisi.

8 1Wok<wit, Alckiandar 33, 35n. 102

j. mii, 170, 172. 17. Ruel" AOOri 2, 10N, I\ 1n .•;.nd �,J",..... "",,1011l0. 147 Knin rebeLlion lOS, 107, n Arb «< o Zo:ljk .;t , \l:Iln.,.. 355, 358, 360. 374 RWmo.n, Chul.. xix, 354, 334 ...fug.... 269, 271-2, 278, 154. 157 Rcihl-iGr,Josip Ii:<, 153, 258, )10, 336, 373 IUpubllIY Srp$lu 241, 252. 341, 362; Roo<, Sir Michael xilt, 345, 50, 351, 352; .nd Four-Poin' Ptan 348, 349-3, 363-4, 365-6. 2 36 w C<>n for bank 36S.371

Rugow,lbn.hitn xix, 77 RUJXI. Dimi"ij xix, 213

31S. Runi. 131, 307, lOS, )73; st. �II# Sovie' Union

320, 346. 352, 365.

on 245, 2-17, 269, 286; .nd London Bo;" SrrbKnica 293; ",, ! 287, 189-, .nd .. u f on C 307; .pIi. with Pl>n w
80, 382Boonion � 371. 373, 379' (SAO) 146, 149, Setbian :&II""",m''''' � Itt SD5 Serbi.n D<moc",ti< Pury '"

n' (SI'O) 130, 149 Seroi.n R.ne.....! Moveme i.-Htru-g<Mn. «< S.,bi.n Republic of80sn Republih SrI"'" 387-8; .nd poIiIII · Serb.. Bosni.n 230-1. 386, 223-4. 226: .l« bili cee..ion of"'Of in 232,233; before outbreak

217Soci,bey, Moh.mtned m.

8

...r. lrell' 301, 30.}-4, 320. S, ViM', day 75 375, 382 "' mb 34 Swwcrof', 8...n' :We.li2 C Action) 228, 232. SDA (P.ny ofOcmo«:lh ,251 242 , , 238 2)4, 236, 237 lic Clungt) 89. 102, SOl' (P.uty of IXmOO'n. 362. 387

·

102. Ocmocn.ri< Party) 96, 101,

SDS (Serb,.n 104. lOS. 153; 23O;.nd Knin ..bellion 233,234, 8osni." lI...nch 149,230,232, 104. 148

236. 237, 238 3B4, 385. 386: Se,b.. wd Serb! """, JDO'i, n.tionalism Wo,ld Wu !1 68-9 ,90, 9':1; 39, 60, 69, �. 161; 29-30, 31. 34, 35n,8, 69: :ond Milokvi<' .nd Koaovo 33, 010, 60, 2; S, Vi",•• d.y 69-7 r-.de ilclg in 63; n.Uy , ,<spon.. to (1989) 75,76-7; 51",
138 ,13'f-40. 142-3:

Marth (1991) 129-37, 14.:1-4. 157-8, ICCf'CI ,11k. ",i,h C,o.ti.

,ion'

239-41,

8. Bosni. 233, 234. 235, 236wa' 226-7, 245, 242-3; .nd "u,bre.k of ·de.n.ing' 256, 247, 249. 250; carry out airport 27J-7, 283; .nd S....jc�o 269-71.

4, in Bosni. 251, 258, 283-

280-2; and w"u on Confe...""" 288, 325--6,327-8; and Lond nic. 293-4, 296--7, 289-90. 328; and S...b... and f!. 300. 301, 302. 304:

18;. .--O n PI:on 306, 308, 309v:mc._ me, 1993 pea<>< 'Iift .nd ,trike' 319; Sum mon 337-11; ISIIu !2lb 336-7; nkc Mountlg -Point Pl>n with C""',. 34()-1; and Four .... Ind NATO ultim."' 297-

,.d

3-18. )49, 350, 351;

e for Gon.lde round S=jc\O> 350-3; h.m 2, 373-', )60-72; opIil wi,h Serbi. 371..p plan 315, 376, ... G '",,1 Con .nd ; 80-1 3

2, 9;, Serbs. Croati.n 29, 91Kroji� M< ..I,. Sem., 377-80, )82

102-3, 191, 213.

, 386-, Scm., Kosavo 29, 33. 60-1

and M�

36-7. 38.39,46.213 101. \27, 3010, 385: Serb>. Knj;n. 99-100.

11; .pread of Knin rebellion 104. 104",r.rendum 162: on hoyc 57; 14&on ...belli 194, "';. 187, 188, 189, 192,

.nd _r in c,"

198. 205, W7. 919;

.nd lhgue Plan 2\2;

, 223opposi,;on '0 Vanee Pion 222

5

247 Sdclj. Vojid.v xi:<, 155, de 331, 332, 335 Scvtnth ]l.1u.lim Brigo

Shalih.hvli.john 363

Shulrria. Ali 67

Sid, C,oori. 196

Sil.jdtit, H.ti. >
Sim",-ic.TomiILovl% SkoIji, Jotc .n, 69

Sb,'Orti. 152-5, 157,190-1.192,193-6, 196-9,205,385

nd S1ovenc< 31. 47. 384; poIilici" ni• • .. S"" "lion 49-50, 51-2. 57, ondJNA 50-1, Cankarjcv Dom Rally 68-9; propooc

ronstiNrion2l. .mendmc:nt. 77-82; dcchtc _·.",ign".tt 82-3, ond Fou"co:nlh P>m' Cong..... 84-6; .kaions 93-4; :arnt.mcn; 51-9;

ow 161. 162, 163-5, 169, 180, 182; "",r foll m ..co,..ion 169-74, 17S-SO; and H.gu.

1""Ilr.rnlmc 1l3-15: sccession 122-3,1 51,

g

Pl.n 111; in..tn.tional recognition of inde penderK. 221. 222

Tcmlorial Dofcnc.: fore.. '" TO Thuoor, Shuhi)O<, 303, 370

Thornberry, C.dric "", 297-8, 301, 302 Trgnt (pallmilitoty) 245, 2�7, 272 Ti,o xiii.)O(\', JDO'i, 30, 45, 87, 90

TO (T.rriroria1 lX�n« fOfCCS) 113, 127n,l; HOIni.n 240, 248-9, 257, 259, 265, 266. 293-1, 324: St..:-no 113-15, 171, 172-3,

m

Tn._nik 214, 327, )2S, 330, 331 Trepr. minel"$ 65, 61,68, 69, 73n.7 T'gO\te..;.o;. Ljubinb "", 45, 46, 76

Trifunovit, Vlado:a, 192-3 Trnopoljc dc,(nbon camp 270, 216

Tudjmln, Franjo xx. )O
125, 126; ..c..., ,.11:. with MiloOc� 143-4'

370 ' Smi,h. Leighon 5o<;,li" P.n�·(SPS) 134. 149, ISO 5<>ci.li" you,h org.nimion. Slovenia 49, 50,

157-8, 233-4. 235: .nd Ipreod o( Knin

,�bcl1ioo 146, 1�7, 150. 15;�; .nd Cro.';.n ..ce..;on 151. 162, 164; .nd 51""00. ..«..ion 163. 166-7; aCII '0 .void

"

Solevi<'. Miro,I... xix. 33. 36, 38, 39, W-l

$ovid U"ion�. 124, 137 ,,,ah. Russi.

war 186-S; .nd wor in Croll" 190 196-7, 204,205,206,207; .ndH.iI". Pt..�

Spegolj. M'rlin xix, 95-6, 124, 126; and Cro..i.n Nltional G"",d 116"-17; and JNA

209-J(), 211; ulkt in ComlJny 218; .nd

1 1 7-18, 119-20, 167; resign.tion 167, ,,...,

SI'O (S.rbi.n Ren""..! m"""ment) 129-30, '"

Srcbn:ni.:-a 283, 293-303, 304, 308, 330, 376 Sttm.IY MitroYin detention a.mp \99 Sumoobt. Jvon.n, 31. 31, 40; on
SI'S (Social.i." P.ny) 13-1, 149, 180

:'>liI...rn. 31-8,39-40,42-4, 44-6, 47

SU""'"T1ik. J.ncz D, 57-8, 82

SUnliit,Jovico 73n_3

S,<W .... Bob 329

B<>Ini. 2(}4, 312. 323, 324-5; talkt wj!h Setbs 340-, .nd ;\lullim-CI01' Federation 355,357,358

TUI"',kovoki, VaI� "", 125, 1)1, \35, 136, 139, 14\-2,176

Tu" An",n xx,207 Tuua, Boonia 294, 303. 330, 365

UN (Uni,.d N·.,ionl) 218. 280, 333, 350, 363; "''''' embargo 219; V.occ Pl... 216-11,

·uf.

218,222-3, 125: and Londoo Confcrenu: a"'''' 301, 303-4, 320, 362. 387, 288; and NATO ulhm.nrm )50: uitim.nrm '0

S,,,lttnbcrg. Thor>'aldxx. 314, 336, 339,347

f.tU
SIli.k. Gojlw "", 153, 157, 356

S",·... Slip< xx. 47, 64. 71. 1600.13

T",<. D."'d "". 57 T..it. R,""'·.n 192

.

.. 365; Jd,J,. UNHCR: Croo"a 357; bos .g

S,mg", P.vlc 202

USHCR 246, 363; .nd ethnic d••n,ing 272, 273. 218. 294, 296-7

UNPROFOR

Uni,ed Kingdom st/ ll,;..io Unil.d S""I of Am.rica 121. 307, 31S-20. 387; ,nd 51",'.". c,i.i. 164-5. ISO; rc

ni'ion nf "CCIsion. 222; ·.nd B",ni. 239. 252; ."d ..hnk dun,ing 277. 21S; ond arm• •n,b"g" 219. 29S, 320. 377; coil, fo,

'.I'''',i<>" 480.2, 131. 261-2. 278

TeI"i.i"n Ilclgro& 38. 45, 47. 125, 130, 138,

NATO in,er"",;"n 3�5--6, 347, 3S()-, .nd Mu,lint-C",.. f.
T."zijc fOfUm 132-3, 135,138 1440.1.291

399

INDEX .nd .,riko:· (NATO ,""I.) )57-S, .nd 'Ii" Go"'1<J<, 369 for � I»nl �nd 371, 19. 318Ptm«rion UNPROFOR (Uni,ed N.rloo. 353, .nd Foc«) 223. 225. 256. 28S. 329.

5",bn:nic. 297-S. �,hnic d�.n.ing 27),.nd ", .. Mar\lo.o Sq, '� $liga in"" , 3().1 m. 300-3. ; 2 )51m ,,, him, .. bomb 34-1,.nd t-:ATO .ri.n Fucim) 117. .....,rality 362, UllIe (Cro

90, 91. 99

....1I,Jen B..,.k.lhnPD', 175.

'"

178. 180-1. 209.

225; ....d Va""'. Crru5 lOC. 216-17. 218. 3]2. )]3. 314 V.ncc-O_n l'LIn 306. lOS. 3. 225. 38S V.nce Plan 2]7. 2]8. 222.2. 330. 'en Pt.n 306-]S. 319. 32\n V�nc.-o"

335n.4

V.,.Win garrifOn 192-3.207 V."'S. BOllli� 333-5

.nd S]""en;' 52. 55. V..iljevi
Vidm... Tonc ""i. 173

VinkoYci. Croatia ]92. 193. 197

Vi..,jiC. 5""'0",,, 53 Vi..,1. Bosni. 319.330. 3}2 44. 45, 65. 67. 68, Vlb,i. Azoom "n. 36. 37. 38. 72 . 196. 199 VojYodin. avi. 32. 44. bO-3 l90. 193-6. 196-201, 206, .. ....'u Vuktn.... .C '"

Wahlgren. t.=-£ric J04 W<jn..nd... Henri xxi. 215

Western Boom., Autonomous 356 Westem Herzcgm"in. 234. 369. 370 W""""" , �h"f,ed 347.

!'J<win« of339

Ydt';n.lIori.351 'Yogurt Revolution' 60-3 Yugosl.v Pl:opli. Army !N JNA

Z.gn:b. ero.ti. I'll. 205 58. 59 Z.vrl. F",nci xxi. 52. 54, 55, 57. Zenic-.8"",i. 330.331.332 ?...., Bo.n;. 283. 303. 330, 376 121, 165, 242 Zimmmn.nn, W..",n xxi. n. rm 93 ZSK-Porty of Ikmo<:",tic Ikfu Z"lfik>.rp:liii. Adil xxi, 236 297 Z."rnik, Bosni. 245, 246-7,

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