SPECIAL RELATIONS LEFT ALONE

Serbia and Bosnia

Madeleine Albright has said nothing about the project initiated by Slobodan Milosevic and Momcilo Krajisnik. It means that they can go on with it

AIM Banja Luka, 3 June, 1997

Can "the sound and the fury" which accompanied last-week's visit of Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, to Yugoslav space change the course of affairs? Can "harsh words" and "open talks" (which were nothing but diplomatic euphemisms for threats) change the situation which lasts for more than half a decade? If The USA and Europe with the help of NATO troops, political and economic ultimatums, have not succeeded for two years of work "in the field" to stop the tendency towards dismemberment of Bosnia, are the words of the Secretary of State really sincere or is it just politics? Large-scale world politics.

It is, therefore, hard to believe that - once dust settles down - "the other Bosnia", land of confidence, understanding and above all united, would suddenly appear. Just as it is hard to believe that certain learned men really think that simplification of historical trends they sometimes advocate is possible. Because, if "experts on the Balkans in (US) administration and other places" agree, as the Washington Post writes, that for instance Radovan Karadzic is the main obstacle to resolution of the "Bosnian issue" and that everything would be resolved if he were removed, it means that only 5 per cent of their knowledge is used. If that had been true, it could be said that if Radovan Karadzic had not been born, or if he had been, say, killed in a traffic accident in 1988, nothing of all this terror would have happened? Of course, no expert would ever be serious about anything of the kind, but when they do say it, they obviously do it to obey their employers-politicians when need arises.

If in the context of the "great action" of Madeleine Albright and session of the NATO one looks at the destiny of the Agreement on Special Relations between FR Yugoslavia and Republica Srpska, it can rightly be said that consequences will not be too great. In other words, it seems that "special relations" will continue in the direction planned for them by those who created them.

And a lot of things have been happening which illustrate this. A small piece of news appeared recently in the central TV news program of Radio-Television Serbia: every evening, at the very end of the weather forecast, the announcer reads what the weather will be like in Republica Srpska. This piece of news can be useful for those planning to travel across the Drina, but everyone is aware that it has not been put back on the TV daily news program for that "banal" reason. Everything in the Balkans is politics, weather forecast and sports even more than anything else. After all, that is how it all began in the beginning of the nineties.

The Croats as a Model

After signing of the Agreement, it seemed that Krajisnik has gone to Belgrade more often than he did to Sarajevo, and that every now and then new evidence was launched that "blood was thicker than water".

The "Croat experience" is, although quite discreetly, often referred to to corroborate the cause, since with silent consent of Sarajevo and understanding of Washington and Brussels it has developed to its present "level". And only now, both the Bosniacs and the world community have realized that the Croats are not in favour of multiethnic and united Bosnia. Stipe Mesic reminded of it once again when he, like a cheated mistress, ran to the Hague to report that he had wished all the time to save Franjo Tudjman of temptation and sin, but the leader kept locking himself up with Slobodan Milosevic in Kradjordjevo, Tikves, Geneva and who knows where.

The offended Mesic revealed to the south Slavic public so many notorious facts that the integral text of his testimony in the Hague could remind a Serb reader, for example, of an article carried from the Feral Tribune. The man who had once boasted of having revealed state secrets to the CIA when he was the president of that state, and that he himself had "destroyed Yugoslavia", showed to the Serbs that their leader and president, Milosevic, had not staggered and wandered around in the past years, but pursued a consistent policy, which again presents Milosevic as the most serious and dedicated worker on the Serb political scene.

Tudjman is praised for his skill, and in the public opinion of Serbia and RS, the role of anti-heroes the Croats are playing in the Federation is closely followed with secret admiration. Every anti-move they make is given space in the media, apparently without bias, and assessments are carried, like the one from Vjesnik about an American professor of international law and a lawyer representing B&H in the International Tribunal in the Hague, Francis Boyle, who warned the Bosniacs that in six months the Americans would come up to them and say: "accept the Muslim bantustan or nothing". According to this American official, if the Bosniacs do not accept the offer, they will not survive.

European Trends

At the moment, however, a time-out is running. Carl Bildt is leaving, the NATO is threatening, Madeleine Albright is trying to demonstrate once again, in the "Bermuda triangle" of world politics, the American power and resoluteness: Dayton or nothing! That is what things are like at the moment. But, after all, has not the former American mediator for this space, Charles Redman, once declared that something will certainly have to be changed in the Dayton accords. And will not the wrath of Madeleine Albright be satisfied if "fed" with a few deliveries to the Hague Tribunal and return of a few Serb families to Kostajnica occasioned for tv cameras? Something of the kind will certainly happen, but it remains incontestable that neither NATO nor Bildt have managed to interrupt dismemberment of Bosnia. Elections in September last year have just confirmed this trend. This year's local electins do not seem to be too promising in the sense that they can cause a complete change for the better either. After all, the assessment of the investigative branch of American Congress is that "hardly any significant political or economic component of the Dayton accords have been implemented".

It has not been noted that the American Secretary of State, in her "sharp" conversation with Milosevic, had denied "special relations with RS". And Boro Bosic, co-chairman in the Council of Ministers of B&H, having returned from Washington about ten days ago, said that there had been "no discussion" about the Agreement between FRY and RS.

Belgrade daily Gradjanin writes that there are no obstacles for the inhabitants of RS to get double citizenship, i.e. that of FRY, which they badly want. Completion of local elections in Bosnia was determined as the deadline for resolving this issue. A former diplomat explained to the wondering public what this means. "Countries in the world which are concerned for interests of their citizens, tolerate double citizenship", in other words that in societies so interconnected and intermingled "it anticipates modern European trends towards lifting of barriers to free movement of people, goods and capital".

Abolition of customs is from the same "arsenal". For the time being, it seems that Biljana Plavsic has stopped that, having rushed to Belgrade and demanded postponement, since customs duties form "the largest portion of the budget made by RS".

What is in fact happening? President of Serbia who will, all things considered, when his current mandate of office expires appear as president of FR Yugoslavia, is applying a civilized tactics and waiting, as former Karadzic's advisor John Zametica says, "for America to abandon one of these days the stupid rhetoric about brotherhood and unity in B&H". This course of developments is confirmed by Boro Kesic, expert on the Balkans from the Board for International Scientific Investigations and Exchange in Washington, in his evaluation that "after Dayton, America has very naively started to believe in the possibility of reintegration of Bosnia... Except that war is no longer waged, which is a great success, nothing else has succeeded".

These "development trends" are the foundation of Milosevic's optimism concerning the Agreement on Special Relations. Even if nothing comes out of it in the foreseeable future, the president of "all the Serbs" demonstrates a true statesman's "control of the game" and care for his compatriots. And for a man in his trade, this is not at all bad.

Petar Reljic