THE INTIFADA TO UNPROFOR

AIM, ZAGREB, JULY 18, 1994

The two-weeks long "intifada" to UNPROFOR together with the blockade of all roads leading towards the "protected zones" and the heated parliamentary debate which is coming to an end, did not, as could have been expected, change the position of Croatia towards UN and its peace-keeping forces for an inch. Even after a barrage of the gravest accusations against the "blue helmets" that they were creating a new Cyprus in Croatia, it is certain that they will stay for two more months, i.e. for the duration of this mandate and it is equally certain that a new one will be voted afterwards, the only dilemma being whether it will be for three or six months.

True, it is highly likely that the new mandate might be somewhat stronger, which already happened (resolution 769 the year before last, which envisaged that the peace forces should come to the borders of UNPAs "where they coincide with state borders" or resolution 871 of last year which envisages like resolution 762 the return of the "pink zones" to Croatia and authorizes the peace forces to "when acting in self-defence" take the necessary measures, including the use of force"). However, more or less "paper" provisions are in question and the Croatian authorities managed to realize them without such rallies of exiles, so that the reasons are evidently somewhere else as claimed also by the Croatian opposition, which for the first time had the courage to say that the troubles and lack of information of the people were being manipulated. There is another fact supporting this, namely that the refugee rallies this time started three months before the expiry of UNPROFOR's mandate and not immediately before it as last time in March.

It is quite easy to reconstruct this timing. The street protest of refugees started some fifteen days before the extraordinary session of Parliament, which had only UNPROFOR on the agenda, and their function was evidently to bring the opposition back to Parliament. Its three-month absence from it could force Tudjman and the HDZ to call elections, which will perhaps be done but at their own choice, and in addition this is increasingly coming to the attention of the world public although there are no signs that Tudjman's position, reinforced by the signing of the Washington Agreement and acceptance of the plan of the "Contact Group", could be seriously called into question. This was said to the opposition in no uncertain terms. If it did not return to Parliament at this, allegedly decisive moment for Croatia, it will have proved that "egotistical" party interests are before the interests of refugees, which neither they nor "Croatian history" will forgive them for. But, although this was said from the well known embrasure of the main HTV News, or maybe precisely for that reason, the opposition did not respond and did not even, as was announced, come to hear the speech of Turkish President Suleyman Demirel.

From the ranks of the opposition - which is neither much more united nor courageous than so far, but which was more firmly cemented together then it could have dreamed of by the witch hunt methods of the HDZ - came the answer that Parliament was never asked about UNPROFOR's coming and that it was out of place to do that now, when things have taken a turn for the worse. The opposition convened a "parallel Parliament", with fewer absent deputies than HDZ's Parliament, at which it also called for a "more manly" mandate of UNPROFOR, but it accused not it but the Croatian leadership and Tudjman for such a poor and inefficient mandate. They remind that Tudjman gave full support to the Vance Plan, although he did not have to do that because it was not he, but Borisav Jovic who had signed it, and at the moment of signing Croatia had already been recognized by a first group of countries so that it could have asked for a more autonomous and more favourable arrangement with the international community.

In addition, the opposition demanded a discontinuation of "all political talks" with Serbia and FRY "until they recognize Croatia, until they terminate political, military and logistics support to the rebel Serbs"and "until ethnic cleansing in the occupied territory of the Republic of Croatia stops". Tudjman, in a way anticipated this demand by cancelling the announced meeting with Milosevic, but instead of being happy because of that the opposition should now ask itself in which way its stances at all differ from the official (HDZ)ones.

Both the opposition and Tudjman agree on the freezing of relations with Belgrade - although there are some warnings that negotiations with Milosevic are not a priori bad, i.e. only those at the expense of third parties are bad, and there is no sense in making the negotiations conditional upon the recognition of Croatia, because once it is recognized there will be nothing to negotiate about any longer. In addition, part of the opposition demands a break of all contacts with Knin which is some sort of diplomatic agnosticism, because if they do not wish to negotiate either with Belgrade or with Knin, who will they negotiate with at all. It is evident that the opposition cannot launch a counter-offensive in this way but is, on the contrary, condemning itself to the "rehashing" of official stands and to constantly dealing with the consequences and not the causes.

Thus, neither the authorities nor the opposition reply to what is really happening, why UNPROFOR is impotently staying in the protected zones, and the refugees on this side of the "line of demarcation", without prospects for their meeting taking place soon. Part of the answer really lies in the nature of their mandate, which is restricted to peace-keeping and not peace-making. When we know that in Cambodia at the beginning of the sixties peace-keeping also proved unable to contain the war and that the application of peace-making at the beginning of the nineties soon yielded fruit, it is easy to conclude what a change of mandate would mean. Why isn't UNPROFOR's mandate in Croatia turned into "making" - are the interests of the great powers in this case so different from those in Cambodia, or is it perhaps assesed that the charge of war passions here is weaker than there. It is difficult to believe the latter, but it is possible that it is assesed that the main problem does not lie in passions in the field, but that the major resistances to pacification lie in the top leaderships of both sides.

This is perhaps best disclosed by the fact that, while the Vance Plan was being created (the end of 1991) bilateral contacts between Milosevic and Tudjman had already taken place, among others the one in Karadjordjevo. If it is true that there they drew the line between what was Serbian and what was Croatian in B&H and beyond - about which the independent Zagreb bi-weekly the "Arkzin" is publishing interesting documents these days - it is quite clear that the two of them were not interested in UNPROFOR, which was coming here with a platform of unchangeable borders, the suspension of "humane moving" (agreed upon between Cosic and Tudjman), etc. UNPROFOR was therefore, already at the start condemned to being only kindly received - because that could not be refused - and kindly patted on the shoulder, with everything we have been witnessing for the past two and a half years happening behind its back (a brachial, but more and more evidently impossible division of B&H and the cementing of the situation in Croatia, where the reintegration of "Krajina" is most probably linked to some unfulfilled arrangement also in Bosnia).

It was precisely at this juncture that the Croatian opposition rose to its feet and demanded a break of relations with Belgrade, claiming that Tudjman had in negotiations with Milosevic always been the weeaker and more naive party, so that it was better to discontinue them. The opposition is basically in this way protecting Tudjman from himself and only a smaller part of the opposition leaders (the champion of Istrian autonomy Ivan Pauletta) or independent intellectuals (Ivo Banac) think that he should be unmasked. Pauletta states that Tudjman just like Milosevic cannot find a way to peace because the two of them already had peace and proved that they didn't know how or want to preserve it. Banac, on the other hand, says that the Croatian authorities, headed by Tudjman, had made so many "uncivil" steps (discrimination against the Serbs, the introduction of the kuna...) that they not only could not reach Knin but that they didn't want to do so because they "did not wish to deny the Chetnik supreme principle of schism and war" (which is like a twin to it).

Judging by all things it is already too late for such radical unmasking. Not only it, but also the demand for discontinuing negotiations with Milosevic are now beyond what the powerful in the world are planning with Tudjman and Milosevic. They are asked not to discontinue but resume negotiations and who wishes to replace them will have to do that by his own bootstraps. The world is hurrying to suture the stomach of the former Yugoslavia, irrespective of the fact that the operation is far from finished, while the Croatian and Serbian Presidents remain acceptable only if they do not hamper the final stiches of the UN players. It is on that basis that, perhaps soon, some sort of a fragile peace (or only not-war) in B&H will be created and just as fragile a reintegration of the "Krajina" into Croatia. The world currently lacks both the strength and will for anything more.

MARINKO CULIC