A CACOPHONY OF PEACE PROPOSALS

AIM, ZAGREB, November 20, 1994

Has the concrete wall of a state of neither war nor peace in Croatia finally started to tumble down? After the government of the "Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK)" had rejected the Zagreb agreement on water and electric power, as well as on the opening of the Adriatic oil pipeline and the highway towards Belgrade via Knin, the assembly of the "RSK" nveretheless, agreed to continue negotiations. It all happened in a jiffy - the "yes" was uttered hardly a day after the "no" was heard.

Thus, in a shift which occurred literally overnight, the scenario made in Pale which forecast that at this moment, "representatives of the people" would come out on stage, in other words, those who reject the "capitulatory" demands of Belgrade, although an even superficial comparison of the stance of Knin with that of Pale almost excluded the possibility that anything of the sort could be repeated. It is true that in Knin the faction which is in favour of a closer cooperation with Pale has gained in strength, or to be more precise, with that part of Karadzic's policy whose starting point is the stubborn rejection of the Contact Group plan, because Martic, and since recently, Babic, as well, assess that consolidation of B&H, as a loose but permanent temporary solution would cut Knin off for ever, which would then fall into the hands of Zagreb, even if the latter did not insist too much on it. On the other hand, Knin still depends much more on Belgrade than on Pale, which is best illustrated by a recent statement of Mikelic that the majority of the exchange goes on with the FRY and just a symbolic remainder crosses the border with the "Republic of Srpska". And now that Mikelic is mentioned, it is not insignificant that he personifies the type of the authorities (neo-Bolshevuk, republican) which also communicate much better with Belgrade than the authotrities in Pale (neo-Chetnik, monarchist).

If the fact that the latest events around Bihac imposed on Knin the sour prospect of becoming "military border-land (krajina)" again is added to this, the unpredictable "Republic of Srpska" - which will only have to be fought for, for who knows how long and always "for nothing"

• provided more than enough reasons to make the "RSK" look around with more attention and cautiously weigh out where and how it would proceed. It was, therefore, decided in the end not to discontinue the negotiations with Zagreb after all, especially since it all coincided with the events which promised a sudden and sweet profit welcome both for Knin and for Belgrade, and not harmful for the belligerent Pale either. The negotiations can undermine the fragile Croatian-Bosnian alliance which has become somehow reinforced by their joint taking of Kupres, but immediately afterwards ran into thin ice around Bihac, where Croatia had publicly boasted for the first time that it would help B&H, but soon had to give up that idea.

They say that courage left Zagreb when the Head of the General Staff of Croatian Army, Janko Bobetko, who had left for the USA several days ago to procure a permit for military action, received an explicit demand that his units remain in their barracks, which also meant that Washington inisted on continuation of the Zagreb Croatian-Serbian negotiations. That the latter is not just a tactical manoeuvre, the US Ambassador in Croatia, Peter Galbraith made an effort to show by inviting even the heads of Croatian opposition parties in order to soften them and spare Tudjman the criticism because of the "futile" and "humiliationg" negotiations with Knin and Belgrade. The opposition obeyed Galbraith just partially, who was at first considered to be a true friend of Croatia, but this affinity evolved in time and turned into sarcastic grumbling that he has become the Croatian "governor". Drazen Budisa (HSLS) and Savka Dabcevic-Kucar (HNS) demanded that the last week's session of the Assembly open with the report and discussion about the negotiations with Knin and the situation around Bihac, with the implicit thesis that the Bosnians were betrayed, and the Serbs credulously enabled to benefit again, and even with loud accusations of some of the HDZ deputies (Muhamed Zulic) that "Turkish Croatia" was heartlessly sacrificed, although the best battle-tested Ustashe originate from there (if the Bosnians knew how some people in Zagreb "defended" them, their appeals for help would probably become quite scarce).

The demand of the opposition was rejected at first, and only after loud protests and interruption of the session, it was accepted as the second item on the agenda. But, since the first item was the never-ending issue of abuses in privatization - which was, by the way, initiated by the HDZ itself, but just in order to appear innocent - it was clear that it meant postponement of several days during which time anything could happen in Western Bosnia, including the fall of Bihac (although it was quite clear that the Serbian attacks on this town had no such objective, but, with a silent support of the international mediators, just to punish Dudakovic and send his units back to where they were last summer, with an insurance weight around the neck of the Fifth Corps of the Army of B&H in the form of a militarily reanimated Fikret Abdic). That is how this "Bosnian coup" of the Croatian opposition ended, additionally breaking the Croatian political scene to pieces, while the relations between Zagreb and Sarajevo are regressing back to the form of an unpleasant alliance, which they mostly were after the Washington Agreement.

Zagreb willingly ceded the care about Bihac to the "ambulance" teams of the UN (unwillingly accepting to cede its air space to the NATO planes, as well), and so much retreating was enough to enable immediately two audiences at Milosevic's for the Croatian "semi-Ambassador" in Belgrade, Zvonimir Markovic, which preceded the decision of the Knin parliament to change the stance of its Government and accept to continue negotiations. Zagreb responded equally fast with the announcement of a return visit of Granic to Jovanovic which was previously cancelled without a word of explanation, so that one can almost say that the relations between Zagreb and Belgrade are going back to where they were when Zagreb could not make up its mind whether to open its diplomatic highways towards Sarajevo or Belgrade. For diplomacies accustomed to spread between not two, but if needed, several sides, this is a normal state of affairs, but Croatian diplomacy is still in the initial phase of acquiring knowledge and experience, and it could easily squander an old alliance for the sake of building a new one, or even, instead of gaining two desired allies, make - two enemies.

But, one cannot deny that, learning by throwing itself straight into the swift current, Croatia has not learnt several good swimming strokes as well, especially in its competition with the rival it did worst with so far - Belgrade, that is Knin. Two of its ultimatums - last summer before the UNPROFOR's mandate was prolonged and now on the eve of the Zagreb agreement - thus proved to be quite efficient in drawing out, directly from the international mediators, something that could not be obtained from the other party by negotiations. After Knin persistently rejected the agreement on water, electric power and other, Croatia put an ultimatum that it must be achieved by November 21, so Owen and Stoltenberg had to jump in the game and offer their version of the agreement which Knin could not reject so easily.

Besides, by the mentioned postponement, the Croatian leadership prevented the Croatian party to be the one to possibly reject the agreement (although it is almost impossible that the parliament would have voted it down) and left the Knin parliament to make the fisrt move. Had Knin persisted in its negative answer of its government, it would have taken the entire blame for a failed agreement, and as it is, Zagreb has earned one point at least, because Serbian hesitation created the impression that the agreement suits better the Croatian party (which is correct only to the extent that a new step has been made towards reintegration of Croatia, but it still is not clear how long it might last). Of course, Croatian diplomacy could have made this small pirouette only because Milosevic needed to prove his "peace loving" not only in B&H but in Croatia as well. Therefore, one can say also that, in this case, he has achieved what he had intended to, and that Zagreb and Knin, each in its own way, just fulfilled the ideas of his plan. They both, indeed, did it torn between two options - Zagreb whether to turn towards Sarajevo or Belgrade, and Knin whether to negotiate with Zagreb or unite with Pale (where they are again in a search of a solution how to finally divide B&H, so that there are rumours in Zagreb that Karadzic has offered Tudjman such a division past Milosevic and on account of Knin).

Therefore, even if these combinations were treated as different variaties of a peaceful solution (which some most certainly are not), we would get the worst possible cacophony of peace proposals ever, and the worst possible uncertainty what might turn out. Dusan Bilandzic who happened to drop by Zagreb recently, expressed it best in a short, astonished sentence that we were now "equally close to peace and - total war".

MARINKO CULIC