KARADZIC'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO NEGOTIATIONS

Peace plan on the agenda again

AIM, Belgrade, December 8, 1994

Summary: US Contact Group representative said in Belgrade that Bosnian Serbs did not have to sign anything, which meant that the plan based on the principle "take it or leave it" had been abandoned. The entire peace process is now returned back to the beginning and negotiations, maps inclusive, are beginning all over again. Pale has all reason to be satisfied with the developments. What will Sarajevo say?

It all happened as if in a badly written and directed vaudeville. First, British and French foreign ministers, Alain Juppe and Douglas Hurd, visited Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, who promised that he would do everything possible to make the Bosnian Serbs accept the Contact Group Peace plan. Then Karadzic's foreign minister, Aleksa Buha, found himself at Milosevic's, and said that if Milosevic's interpretations of the peace plan were correct, adoption of the document could be considered as a basis for negotiations.

On Tuesday evening, a Contact Group representative, Charles Thomas, stated in Belgrade that Bosnian Serbs "need not sign anything for the time being".

"The Bosnian Serbs are not expected to unconditionally and a priori accept and put their signature on the proposed maps of distribution of terriories, if they are not satisfied with them", Thomas said to news agency "Beta".

That is all the leader of Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic, needed, so he hurried on Wednesday already to say that he was ready to accept peace and continue negotiations about the Contact Group plan. The leadership in Pale also expressed expectations that the members of the Contact Group would come to Pale and discuss everything.

Such developments could be described as a triumph of the doctrine chosen by Pale. One should, perhaps, remember that the Bosnian Serbs, apart from the conflict with the whole world, entered a sharp conflict with Belgrade for the very reason that they had refused to sign the peace plan offered as an ultimatum "take it or leave it", and that the main stumbling block in that plan was that very same territorial separation from the Muslims and the Croats. There is no ultimatum any more, and the peace plan is just a basis for negotiations that Pale is expected to accept just verbally, according to Thomas's explanation.

Thomas also said that the next phase should imply "negotiations of interested parties, either direct or indirect, and seeking solutions for the remaining controversial issues in respect to distribution of territories and constitutional solutions". Implementation of the plan would, as he stated, begin "only after solutions acceptable for all parties in conflict are reached through negotiations".

At this point, the whole "Bosnian pot" is back at the beginning. The Contact Group, namely, had already once proposed a plan with borders drawn according to the principle "take it or leave it" for the very reason that "interested parties" were uncapable of reaching an agreement. Generally speaking, the international community was then already frustrated with the conflict in Bosnia to such an extent that the "five great ones" decided to take matters into their own hands and solve the dispute the way they thought best, and then force the warring Bosnian nations to accept the solution.

But, Karadzic was not willing to accept the offered solution, and the change of attitude reflected in Thomas's statement shows that united forces of Belgrade and the world did not manage to organize a sufficiently great pressure on him and his copatriots. It is not difficult to guess that the Government in Sarajevo will receive this change with bitter disapproval and that it will be the one to be dissatisfied now, since it claimed that it was not completely satisfied with the plan rejected by the Bosnian Serbs either.

It is true that Thomas assures that neither the USA nor the Contact Group have changed their stance towards the peace plan and that it is just "formulated more precisely". He said that "the word confederation is not mentioned anywhere" in the recently adopted text, "that is, the possibility for the Bosnian Serbs to enter into confederation with Belgrade".

In the same statement, Thomas also said the following: "Participants in the negotiations (the parties in conflict) will have to determine solutions on their own, and we will not interfere with any of the aspects of their negotiations. The Contact Group itself will assist in negotiations, but it will not give any suggestions to the representatives of the Bosnian-Croatian federation, nor to the Bosnian Serbs in respect to territorial, constitutional and other solutions".

Although it is true that confederation is not mentioned, but constitutional arrangements are, and therefrom, confederate or any other type of mutual connections and connections with neighbouring countries are topics to be agreed about by the warring parties. And that is exactly what happened just before the first plan of the Contact Group was reached, when, just like now, Pale and Sarajevo held irreconcilable positions.

The key role in the change of the attitude of the international community towards the peace plan, i.e. its abandoning of the ultimatum "take it or leave it" model, was probably played by great military victories of Bosnian Serbs in the region of Bihac, where the forces of the Government in Sarajevo are facing total defeat. The world could choose between two possibilities: to force the Serbs with military means to accept the plan or to reoprn the negotiating process. Threats with air strikes did not succeed, none of the Western countries are ready to send their troops, so only this possibility was left.

All the actors in the performance will, of course, have their own interpretations, but the only one, and rightfully, who will be satisfied is Radovan Karadzic. The international community will say that it has succeeded in returning the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table, although they had agreed to do so before, had the already drawn maps not been offered as an ultmatum. Slobodan Milosevic will try to explain to the public in Serbia that his just efforts for peace have born fruit and that events have taken this course just because Karadzic and the international community have accepted his (Milosevic's) attitudes and advices.

Karadzic will victoriously explain to his copatriots that their just struggle for freedom and their own state has resulted in a victory and that the international community had to admit in the end that the maps the people had rejected in their referendum were unjust. In order to prevent anyone from believing that the Serbian agreement to continuation of negotiations is a sign of a change of stance, Momcilo Krajisnik, on Wednesday again, said that Pale would never accept Bosnia as a state. They both consider the confederation to be a "fait accompli" and are getting ready to draw new maps, but none of them mentions percentages any more (49 vs. 51 in favour of the Muslim-Croatian federation). There are even certain indications that the Serbs, after their success in Bihac, could even insist on more territories.

The fact remains that between the two versions of the Contact Group plan, the one with the "take it or leave it" ultimatum and the latest one, thousands of new victims were killed. If things might seem to be going in circles on the political plane, the tragedy of fratricidal slaughter is continuing on its way down the oneway blood-stained street.

Dragan Janjic