AN OFFERING IN AN ENVELOPE

Summary:

While the statement of the so called Ministerial Summit on the fate of the negotiations on Bosnia is awaited, it may perhaps turn out that the proposal aimed at reconciling the warring Bosnian sides, provoked tensions among the members of the Contact Group and conflicts between Belgrade and Pale.

Is the fate of the newest peace plan similar to the numerous ones that have previously been signed and that never brought peace. During the war, 14 cease-fires were signed in Croatia, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina a total of 77.

Has a turn of events taken place at the Pale Assembly, from the envisaged NO to a conditional YES. Although the great majority of world diplomats are interpreting the Serbian answer as a refusal of the agreement, official Belgrade claims that the Bosnian Serbs have shown cooperativeness,and that they have opted for peace. In the process, the official media and Milosevic's Socialists keep repeating that all the nations have the right to a state and to a confederation.

Speculations are heard in Belgrade that Karadzic had two speeches at the Assembly in Pale. One for the public, in which he said that the Serbian people must prepare for a state of war since they have no friends in the world who would support them. In his second address, at a closed session, he said something completely different. Among other things, that the Serbs are not as alone as it might seem. Allegedly, the confidential address was decisive for the conditional YES to the peace plan.

Stakes are placed on the possibility of causing a split within the Contact Group.

In addition, rumours have it in Belgrade that the top man of the Yugoslav Army, General M. Perisic supported the "hawks" at Pale, for what he was reprimanded by Milosevic, and according to estimates, due to which he could be removed from office.

In any case, according to reactions from Belgrade, in his reply Karadzic did not cross the line estabished by Milosevic. For the time being, he has the support of the state of Serbia.

AIM, BELGRADE, July 22, 1994

The maps after the 51:49 "formula" made up by the so called Contact Group for Bosnia have been presented to the warring sides as a principally American proposal, since Charles Redman, the American representative for Bosnia is the one who speaks most of it. The plan was presented to the warring sides in Bosnia in the form of a so called "peace ultimatum"- considering that they have been warned rather sharply of the potential political and military consequences in case it is refused. After Kozyriev's rather long talk with the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, the latter however thought it appropriate to commend the fact that the proposal "does not have the form of an ultimatum."

Playing, therefore, on verbal differences between the Russians and the Americans, the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic left the impression, after his meeting with Kozyriev in Belgrade, that he was ready to come to an understanding about everything. It is possible that Milosevic took into consideration the Russian promise that after the signing of the Geneva documents they would represent Serbian interest in the subsequent negotiations. The conflict between Karadzic and Milosevic could be reduced before all to the question of how far can Karadzic allow his gambling impulse to lead him.

However,when the last round of negotiations began, the weekly "Vreme" indicated that the Serbian side could overplay its hand once again,searching for a hidden meaning in the clearly formulated requests, something that has happened on numerous occasions in the course of the negotiatirons, from the Hague to the present day.

The statistics on the cease-fires to date show the endlessness of insincere negotiatirons: from the beginning of the war in Croatia to its stabilization at a level of a low-intensity conflict at the beginning of 1992, 14 cease-fires were signed. From the outbreak of the war in Bosnia, March-April, 1992 to May 1944, 77 cease-fires were signed, out of which only two were party observed. Immediately after the announcement of the lastest proposal, diplomats in Geneva, who have long-standing experience in mediation in the Balkans, began saying under their breaths that the conflicting parties would say neither "yes" nor "no to the peace plan until the set term.

Before it was announced, some analysts guessed what the Serbian answer would be, proclaiming it "uninventive" in advance. It is more than certain that pressure from Belgrade was exerted on Karadzic, although it is not certain what it focused on. It seems that Milosevic understood better than Karadzic that the time has finally come to shown a higher level of constructiveness in the negotiations than up to now.Answering the question of whether he expects pressure from Belgrade to accept the offered plan, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs said that it was only natural that " the plan must be seriously considered together with Belgrade and all the Serbs." As far as official Belgrade is concerned, it refused to openly comment the plan of the Contact Group, accentuating the need to think over everything very thouroughly. In line with this orientation, the news of the reactions on the new plan on Bosnia soon lost their relevance in the state media, and were broadcasted somewhere in the 15-th minute of the news programmes on state radio and television, after the reports on the harvest and stable dinar.

Most of the observers pointed out that General Mladic could be particularly sensitive towards the newest peace proposal, considering that the so called corridor connecting Banjaluka and Knin with Belgrade is seriously "becoming narrower" and increasingly subjected to international control. Along those lines, it was speculated in Belgrade that General Mladic received the support of the Chief of General Staff of the Army of Yugoslavia, General Perisic. General Mladic did not attend the Assembly session at Pale, which only reinforced such speculations. After that, the assumption based on various news from circles close to the Army was heard, namely, that President Milosevic reproached sharply General Perisic for encouraging the "hawks" from the Republic of Srpska, which could lead to his removal from office.

Speculations on pressures from Belgrade were also inspired by the fact that there were endless delays of both the beginning and the end of the sessions at Pale. The beginning of the session was delayed for six hours, something that was interpreted in the beginning as a maneuver in order to wait and see what the decision of the Muslim-Croatian Parliament from Sarajevo would be. Later on news came about the red-hot telephone lines between Pale, Belgrade and Geneva, due to which the session was delayed or frequently interrupted. Some "well informed circles" even claimed that Karadzic himself rushed to Belgrade by helicopter a number of times in the course of the session for consulations.

Judging by the course of the session at Pale, the "Serbian drama" was not in all fairness easy. Contrary to the "fateful moment" a year ago when the Vance-Owen plan was buried with Mitzotakis, Cosic and Milosevic, this last session of the Assembly of the Republic of Srpska at Pale, which considered the proposal of the international Contact Group for Bosnia, was held almost entirely behind closed doors, since with the dramatic words "we must be ready for air-raids, we must shoot down as many planes as possible", Karadzic actually plastically potrayed to his representatives, in a fierce sounding speech, a no-win war. This time, according to the statements of numerous reporters ( many large and small television stations were present, for instance, with the exception of Vucelic's RTS),the door was definitely "shut more tightly" than usual and no one among the representatives was ready to say anything.

Somewhat later, the journalists were shown the famous"pink envelope" with the sealed decision of the Parliament from Pale, but nothing more than that.

Some well informed circles claimed that the President of the Republic of Srpska, Radovan Karadzic actually held two speeches at the Assembly session. He held the first during the part of the session open to the public and clearly suggested a Serbian "no" to the Contact Group plan and announcing the proclamation of a state of war, general mobilization, and a shift to war economy.

In that speech (later interpreted by some reporters as " a manuever", intended more for " domestic use"), Karadzic mentioned Churchill, and called the people to "blood, sweat and tears", indicating between the lines that a referendum on the new peace plan would be organized, claiming almost resignedly that the Serbian people in the Republic of Serspka were at this moment completely alone, without any real friends and support, with the exception of God from Heaven.

Studio B broacasted the news that the Russian President, Boris Yeltzin sent Karadzic a letter trying to convince him to accept the plan and promising him Russian support in the subsequent negotiations if he does so, however this has not been confirmed by any other sources. The Belgrade media were quite restrained in their manipulation with the statement given in the course of the week by the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Koziriev, leading Serbian public opinion to the conclusion that Karadzic had not definitely shut the door. If he had some kind of promise in his pocket, why did Karadzic mention God as the only ally to his representatives? Perhaps he was aware that he was gambling, not with the ultimatum of the international community, but with a friend's patience.

According to the claims of some reporters, after this fiery speech another one in a rather different tone, followed behind closed doors. In the second address he probably said that the Serbs were not as alone as it was publicly claimed and that the entire issue could be considerably diluted by a more flexible answer which could even cause a split within the Contact Group. Allegedly, this speech was a turning point in course of the session leading, after bitter debates, from a defiant "No" to a "Yes" under certain conditions, or to neither "yes" nor "no", depending how the Serbian answer was later interpreted.

Judging by the reactions heard in Belgrade after the Pale Assembly, it seems that Karadzic actually did not cross very much the line drawn by President Milosevic - he left the possibility of interpreting the text as a "Yes" in one manner of reading the inarticulate answer. In his first reaction, the Vice-President of the Yugoslav Government, Zeljko Simic, drawing on Kozyriev's statement, insisted on the fact that both warring sides have equal rights (to a state and to a confederation), something that is continiously repeated by the media and the officials in Belgrade, pratically paraphrasing the content of the already famous "pink envelope" in which the Serbian answer was sealed. Although here no one takes account of the threats anymore, the existing possibility of things getting increasingly complicated could becom very dangerous.

On Thursday (July 21) the statements of the American State Secretary for Defence became sharper so that the previously voiced American threats on lifting the embargo on the import of arms for the Muslims and of intensifying the sanctions against the Serbs could easily be depicted in them.

A confederal union in Bosnia could be suitable, at least on short-term, to the President of Serbian against whom the church, the Serbian Radical Party, the Democratic Party and Democratic Party of Serbia are now hoisting Karadzic up the flag.

A confederal union of Bosnia and Herzegovina with two confederal legs towards the East and West, with a high degree of international protectorate is, it seems, acceptable for the Socialist Party too, since such a confused frozen state hides the fact that the Yugoslav war cannot be resolved on the existing grounds: for after all, such constitutional solutions exist nowhere in the world, nor do such borders exist anywhere ( the German border before World War I with a corridor near Gdansk was small potatoes in comparison to the present Yugoslav delimitations). The dishonest negotiations on Palestine and Lebanon lasted even longer, and the state of neither war or peace suits the largest number of the protagonists of the Yugoslav disintegratiron. For such interests, Karadzic's career is a petty offering.

Milan Milosevic