GAMES ABOUT RENEWAL OF YUGOSLAVIA

AIM, Zagreb, June 22, 1995 In a short time, twice in a row, the Croat state leadership expressed sharp opposition to renewal of Yugoslavia, so sharp that traces of trembling and nervousness show as if impressed in fresh concrete. Both times, statements were issued by the Council for Defence and National Security, as some kind of an informal directorate which is composed and convened completely independently by President Tudjman, and which gathers the very top of state, military and police authorities in the country. When this powerful collegiate body issued a sullen statement several days ago on the occasion of the gathering titled "The Balkans and the European South-East

• What is its Economic Future?" held in Paris and organized by Boris Vukobrat who gathered economists from all the states of ex-Yugoslavia, it became clear that the supreme authorities took out the heaviest ideological artillery in order to make it public that even idle soirees of "Yugo-nostalgic" persons would be considered as a challenge to Croat independence.

The Croat media did not report about the Paris gathering. An intimate lamentation of a correspondent of a Zagreb journal reached this space, saying that he had reported about the gathering, but since noone there had uttered the word Yugoslavia in the sense of something that should be reestablished, it did not seem interesting to his editors. And since there was nobody and nothing worth attacking, they preferred to remain completely silent about the gathering. Only after the Council for Defense and National Security published its statement, so did the mentioned journal, this time through the pen of its Zagreb contributor, and discharged a few arrows at the Paris gathering, revealing that Vukobrat and the others might not have openly advocated renewal of Yugoslavia like some time ago Branko Mamula in Italian press, but that the Paris gathering had no political background could be believed only by "suckers".

And yet, this dark "background" was not revealed, probably because the author thought that it was unnecessary to deal with anything that notorious, although it is even more likely that he simply lacked texts from the site which would enable him to conjecture any accusation at all. Therefore, everything came down to "denunciations" of participants at the gathering from Croatia (Branko Horvat, Stipe Suvar...), and it was left to the imagination of the readers to add what they could have done at such a destructive and dangerous gathering that even the highest leadership of Croatia what forced to issue a statement about it. The state leadership, on its part, supports such stuttering dosage of informtion, moreover the journals are just repeating the "model" news as the supreme leadership had formulated it and then repeated on several occasions. Apart from the Council for Defence and National Security which spoke about it twice, President Tudjman himself also commented several times on it, most recently from the tour around Australia where he established that at the "margins" of the international community, ideas have appeared about renewal of "some kind of South Slav, Balkan or Adriatic confederation", but that nothing can return Croatia back to the "Yugoslav or Balkan hell".

What kind of "margins" he was talking about and who is dangerously walking along it could not be heard from Tudjman, but the Secretary General of the HDZ, Zlatko Canjuga, threw a new bone to the inquisite. Namely, he mentioned another project about renewal of Yugoslavia, this time formulated at the Harvard University in the USA, which has allegedly already been distributed to all former Yugoslav republics. Again, not a word could be heard about what it actually refers to, so it is theoretically equally possible that it is a serious project ordered by the White Haouse, as it is possible that it is just a seminar paper of a group of students. But, after the broadly carried and critically dissected text of the journalist Flora Lewis which was also published by the most influential American journals such as the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune (the fundamental idea od which was stated in the very first sentence - "After all, the only solution for Yugoslavia is Yugoslavia"), Canjuga obviously believed that nothing more ought to be said.

An eminent journalist, an even more eminent university... - isn't that sufficient to disturb the public, although immediately afterwards pacifying assuarances followed that all that has no prospects at all, because Croatia will not allow to be drawn back to "hell". Indeed, this game of warm and cool was hardly begun out of simple intellectual idleness. The fact that Croatia is threatened by a great danger which is at the same time completely harmless, suggests that the HDZ has started on a pre-election manoeuvre aimed at presenting the Croat surroundings as unreliable and dangerous, and at presenting itself as the only party capable of resisting and saving Croatia. That the bugbear of Yugoslavia has been let loose for this reason is proved by the fact that at the same time a campaign against direct election rivals has started, primarily against Budisa's Liberals who were accused of not only its lukewarm patriotism as before, but also of direct engagement on the side of those who are paving the road to the old "hell". Therefore, the recent meeting of Budisa with the leader of Bosnia&Herzegovina Social Democrats, Nijaz Durakovic, was used as crucial evidence that Budisa too (it is a notorious fact about Durakovic) was in favour of "unitarian Bosnia", which is, it is claimed, the same as being in favour of "some form of Yugoslav association".

This is an interesting, in a way even a precious allegation which revealed "short legs" of the HDZ in a single stroke concerning B&H. Namely, if a unitarian (meaning whole) Bosnia is a road to renewal of Yugoslavia, than the ruling party in Croatia in fact admits that the only way to fight against its renewal is by dissolving B&H. Mr Budisa obviously spotted the contradiction and returned the hot potato to his HDZ accusers by a counter accusation that by having insisted on the confederate links of B&H with Croatia, they have actually enabled establishment of the same links between B&H and Serbia. But, the ultimate effect will not be what Zagreb and Belgrade are hoping for, he warns, but renewal of Yugoslavia which Franjo Tudjman is getting goose bumps from. That realistic prospects for what Mr Budisa says do exist is justified by the mentioned journalist, Flora Lewis, who does not advocate renewal of Yugoslavia in the attacked article out of any kind of nostalgy, but because she considers it to be a realistic final solution for the complicated crossword puzzle of interests in this space.

Moreover, she quotes a high Croat official who admits that "Zagreb would support the idea of the Bosnian Serbs joining the Bosnian Federation which would have special links both with Croatia and with Serbia, because that would in a way prevent the possibility of Bosnian Croats being outvoted by the Muslims, who could tend towards fundamentalism in a smaller republic". Mr Budisa, therefore, aimed well and simply returned the accusation the HDZ directed all around it, recognizing sinister renovators of Yugoslavia behind every corner, back to the sender who is most concerned about it. But, there is not much use from it. The text by Flora Lewis in the part where the mentioned Croat official is quoted was not carried by any paper in Croatia, and Mr Budisa is not at the head of a party which would dare react more sharply because of such unfounded accusations.

The real problem for Tudjman's party comes from the other side. Zagreb independent biweekly, Arkzin, published a few days ago, referring to sources in the State department, that President Clinton had decided to put an end to the B&H war at all costs, in order to avoid waiting for the elections with it on his back, so that he was even ready to negotiate with Milosevic in order to achieve his goal. Allegedly, the USA have even given up the Washington Agreement in order to make manoeuvring easier and they are ready to accept creation of "Balkan Benelux" which would consist of B&H, FR Yugoslavia and Macedonia. Croatia would remain aside, as it wishes, but it would also be left without any rights in B&H, even in Herzegovina which it has practically already absorbed. This would make the great noise raised in Zagreb against the renewal of Yugoslavia truly convincing, but with a completely different background - Zagreb protests not because it is drawn into the former federation, but because it is left without the bonus it can effectuate only within it.

This could account for the decision of the Croat Defense Council to join the Army of B&H in deblocking Sarajevo, which was uncertain until the last minute. The consternation of the Herzegovinians that they could not only remain in B&H, but even be returned into Yugoslavia probably did its bidding.

MARINKO CULIC