PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

AIM, Zagreb, October 22, 1995

On the eve of his departure to the gala celebration on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the UN on the East River, Franjo Tudjman was forced to swallow a bitter pill which has lately become quite unusual for him. Namely, in the presence of the self-confident and as of late often strict Richard Holbrook, he renounced in the very inviolable premises of his Presidential quarters, the promise he and several of other high officials of the ruling HDZ had occasionally given at loud preelection gatherings, that Croatia would very soon conquer Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem.

One should say that the famous Croat conditional - "if not by negotiations, then..." - had again sounded quite convincing just as on the eve of operation "Storm", moreover it was striking that the Croat party was applying the same tactics as past summer in Geneva. They started dragging on negotiations with Eastern-Slavonian negotiators and even postponing them, and blamed the Serb party for it, with the obvious intention to provide a casus belli for its successful and highly motivated army. The war scenario prepared by Zagreb was, nevertheless interrupted thanks to a prompt and most probably synchronized diplomatic action of the USA and Germany, which was given such priority that the American Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, thought it appropriate to brag publicly afterwards how well and successfully it was completed. He said that it was "absolutely clearly" made known to Tudjman not to take military action, because he would risk integration of Croatia into Western associations by doing so. Truly enough, not long after that, a statement arrived from Tudjman's office that interrupted negotiations would continue, without any comment why they suddenly became possible, just as they had been, after all, when interrupted.

Christoper's warning was evidently and really "absolutely clear", but it nevertheless seems that it was not so much motivated by protection of Eastern-Slavonian Serbs, or rather that it was just in an indirect connection with it. Just a day or two before that, Hans van der Brook declared in the European Parliament that "military action in Eastern Slavonia will be necesary if the Serbs refuse to adapt to the offered peace solutions". Although it may be possible that contradictory statements of Christopher and Brook illustrate that communications between the USA and the EU leave a lot to be desired, the impression that springs to mind is that no principled peace position of Western mediators was decisive for checking Zagreb in its intentions. It seems in fact that the Americans were worried that the tripartite meeting Izetbegovic-Milosevic-Tudjman which they have taken almost complete responsibility for, and which, they hope, will yield best results which they do not wish to share with anyone, may go wrong and even prove a complete failure, due to a sudden and uncontrolled esclation of war.

Besides, a possible Croat military operation, even if short and successful, would disturb the desired achitecture of negotiations, in which no party should be weakened to such an extent as to boycott them out of shere despair, but not so strong either as to arrogantly blackmail the other two. Had Tudjman by any chance taken Eastern Slavonia in an operation similar to the "Storm", he would have appeared in Ohio too strong to agree to all compromises which the final solution will require. Trying to avoid this, it appeared to be the simplest for the Americans to shove the Eastern-Slavonian dossier into a drawer for the time being in order to have only B&H on the agenda in Ohio, and keep Zagreb in a stand-by position concerning Eastern Slavonia. Croat leadership, to be sure, sees things quite differently, it fears that the issue of Eastern Slavonia might remain open even after a solution, no matter how deceitful it may be, is found for B&H. In that case, the Eastern corner of Croatia would become a powerful trump card in the hands of Slobodan Milosevic who would thus, having extricated himself from the Bosnian labyrinth, obtain a new manoeuvring space and would not have to agree to recognize two ex-SFRY republics all at once, after he had refused to do it for years. Croatia would have to wait.

Nevertheless, it was forced to agree to have Eastern Slavonia put on ice even with these unpleasant repercussions in view, because on the contrary it could have been accused of sabotaging the so long awaited peace resolution. But, the Croat leadership believes, as stressed by the state media in the past few days, that the keys of the peace solution in B&H are in its hands. Therefore, it can go to Ohio quite calmly, because Zagreb will have the opportunity to approve the solution for B&H only after its interests in Eastern Slavonia are taken off the "waiting-list". This is probably the explanation for a radical change in the expectations of Zagreb in B&H which occurred in the past few days, especially concerning demarcation lines. Two negotiators with the status of Tudjman's special envoys, Hrvoje Sarinic and Miomir Zuzul, stated that Croatia would not disturb the fragile ceasefire in B&H, but that they thought that Banja Luka could not remain in Serb hands in the foreseeable future.

According to Sarinic, the Serbs would have to leave it, and they would then be "compensated for it further East". To the question of a journalist if he meant Prevlaka, he denied ("we would have to exchange it for something bigger"), so he probably meant Tuzla (with a remark that "our friends in the B&H Federation" still have to be talked into it). If this speculation was correct, it would prctically mean materialization of "Tudjman's line" drawn at the royal dinner in London, and that again would mean a dual, Croat-Serb division of B&H. It seems, however, that this is just one of the possibilities in the game. The other was presented by Zuzul who stated that, all things considered, the world would not agree to such a division of B&H, but that it did agree to the internal demarcation between two "entities". According to this demarcation and to Zuzul, Banja Luka would become part of the Croat-Boshniak Federation, but where a certain number of the Serbs would remain. The demarcation line would lead from Brcko, which would be Serb, and then go to the South, so that the "Republic of Srpska" would get only the region close to the Drina river.

A quick, almost instantaneous answer arrived not from Belgrade, as some could have expected, but from Sarajevo, more precisely from Fojnica where Alija Izetbegovic, from a gathering of his party, refused to have Brcko, Doboj and Gorazde become part of the "Republic of Srpska". He never even mentioned Tuzla as a "compensation" concession. That this stance was presented as a direct polemic riposte to Zagreb can be concluded on the basis of Izetbegovic's sharp criticism that there was not a trace that the Croats intended to dismantle their "Herzeg-Bosnia". And even more on the basis of his demand that Croat Army leave Western Bosnia a month after signing of the peace agreement at the latest, because it was annexed not to the Federation B&H but to "Herzeg-Bosnia". The latter had already been subject of disputes, it seems even of limited military incidents, and Richard Holbrook was a few weeks ago forced to make Tudjman and Izetbegovic, once again, pledge allegiance to the Washington Agreement. It was also decided that the status of controversial parts of Western and Northern B&H be resolved at a later stage. In Sarajevo they obviously concluded that it was impossible to wait for that any longer, because after Ohio there might not be any "later stage", and they therefore decided to clarify all open issues under the powerful American umbrella.

In that sense the Government of B&H, only a day after Izetbegovic's statement in Fojnica, protested because Zagreb allowed Croats from B&H participate as equals to Croat citizens at the forthcoming Croat elections, to vote and be voted for. Since the elections will be over before the beginning of the negotiations in Ohio, nothing can be done about that, but accuse Croatia for the policy of fait accompli. And not only because of the elections, as an announcement from Sarajevo states that Croatia, not only Serbia, will be asked to "pledge allegiance" that it is in favour, not against, united B&H.

MARINKO CULIC