SMALL SERB BARGAINING COUNTER

Republica Srpska and Succession

Republica Srpska is not a participant in the negotiations about succession, but an object claimed both by Belgrade and Sarajevo, like some embassy or a farm of egg-laying hens constructed a long time ago with the money of both.

AIM Banja Luka, 30 June, 1997

The question what belongs to whom, in the Yugoslav divorce was equally asked before and after the war. This speaks less of the nature of the question, and more of the character of the war waged. Briefly, the problem of succession of former Yugoslavia has not budged from the time of the first meeting convened to discuss it in Geneva in 1992 until the latest held in the beginning of June in Brussels. It is hard to believe that anything new will happen at the forthcoming continuation of negotiations in July.

It is more than evident that the public in ex-Yugoslav republics is following this issue with different amount of interest: the Slovenians, traditionally sensitive when it comes to the question of property, are so involved with succession that Miran Mejak, head of the negotiating team from Ljubljana, appears more often in Slovenian media than the omni-present Janez Drnovsek. The more you go to the south, the sadder things are: the Croats are preoccupied with integration of eastern Slavonia and health problems of their President, although they never fail to express fear that the Serbs might snatch away the embassies and the gold in Basel, in "post-student" Serbia they are engrossed in extinguishing fires, while in Republica Srpska and B&H Federation at least half of the members of the Government do not even know who is the head of their delegation in negotiations on succession.

How many Yugoslavias are there?

At the very root of the problem of succession of the SFRY is the question which offers no hope that a solution will ever be agreed on. Representatives of five republics (FRY, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and B&H, consisting of the delegations of the Federation and RS) are expected to give an answer to the question whether the SFRY dissolved into five states or was created by secession of four republics from the (present) FRY. Only after that they would roll up their sleeves and easily split the treasure. As it is, everyone is holding firmly one's own ground, so that the Yugoslav authorities, for the sake of inheritance, among other, at significant sports' competitions, are stoically enduring protests of fans who refuse to show enough understanding for aspirations of their leadership to be the only successors of former SFRY, and do not wish to recognize the old state anthem "Hail you Slavs" as their national anthem.

The international community, of course, got involved in the problem and nominated Sir Arthur Watts to be the mediator. It turned out, however, that the English aristocracy has difficulties in finding its way round the Balkan tangles, so that Sir Watts is for the time being mostly manifesting the tendency to share the negotiators' destiny of Lord Carrington and Lord Owen, who were after departure from former Yugoslavia good for nothing but retirement. The latest Watts' attempt from Brussels was called the Memorandum on Understanding pursuant which all parties should establish what is incontestible and proceed with the division. He soon realized that the only thing they agree about is that "that Yugoslavia" exists no more, which is not sufficient for anything except endless mutual accusations who has robbed whom.

One can do nothing but hope that the effort will not be completely fruitless of the by now former high representative of the international community in ex-Yugoslavia, Carl Bildt, who warned the negotiators in Brussels that "the solution of the question of succession is the key precondition for re-establishment of normal international relations". Referring to the conclusions of the ministerial conference in Sintra, Bildt added that "the international community will not want to continue to offer support if these negotiations fail", and demanded from the negotiators "to make essential compromises which are needed if solutions are wanted". And then, full of hope in the bitterly inimical negotiators, concluded: "After all, these negotiations are your negotiations". To whoever wanted to understand, Bildt's appeal looked mostly like a warning for the FRY, especially because conclusions from Sintra say that "the international financial institutions look upon resolution of numerous questions of succession after dissolution of former Yugoslavia as a precondition for normalization of their relations with the FRY".

At Brussels negotiations about the Memorandum on Understanding, the head of the Yugoslav delegation, member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts, Kosta Mihajlovic, protested as he said because of the "impermissible politization of negotiations". The demand that the provision that "all five states of former Yugoslavia are equal successors" be introduced in the opening articles, which the Slovenian delegation insists on, is impermissible involvement of political issues, says Mihajlovic. The head of the Yugoslav team was not in favour of resolving certain special chapters of succession such as the issue of division of embassy buildings, as proposed by Bildt and Watts. Mihajlovic was in fact troubled by the fact that the Slovenians, supported by other "non-Yugoslav" delegations, tried to impose the findings of the famous Badentir's commission from 1991 which did not mention secession but dissolution of SFRY, as the fundamental document for Yugoslav denouement.

Miran Mejak, head of the Slovenian delegation, which opposed Mihajlovic the most, claims that there are big differences "because the FRY insists that it is the successor of former SFRY, and that the other four states seceded from it". That is why Belgrade is demanding that everything financed from joint funds of former SFRY (previously FNRY) be divided, starting from 1945 and not 1991 as Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia (with the exception of members of the delegation of RS) want, says Mejak. According to his words, this demand of Belgrade is contrary to documents of the UN, EU and other international organizations which advocate the stand of Badintir's commission. "The aim is to ensure that the FRY, as the only successor of the SFRY become owner of securities in all facilities built from the joint resources which are in Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia and Bosnia. These may be hydro electric power stations, primarily those constructed from the federal budget in 1965, highways, oil pipeline, and partly even the Krsko nuclear power station and the Karavanke tunnel", says Mejak.

Possibilities of Denouement

Bozo Marendic, head of the Croatian delegation, was not very talkative in Brussels. He just told the journalists that he was "a pessimist concerning the resolution", which was interpreted in the Slovenian team as disloyalty, because allegedly Zagreb had reached an agreement with Belgrade to support the right to inheritance of the second Yugoslavia in exchange for territorial concessions (Kin krajina, eastern Slavonia). After returning to Zagreb, however, in an interview to Vjesnik, Marendic accused Belgrade of being the main obstacle in negotiations on succession, but also added that the question of succession was not "high on the list of priorities" of Croatia. "It is understandable that problems of the Dayton peace agreement or the Croatian Podunavlje and return of refugees are more significant at this moment", said Marendic.

Negotiators from B&H and Macedonia had a second-rate role in Brussels, although together with the Croatians served the Slovenians to begin with the division of real estate, regardless of the FRY, quite aware that this was more a political manoeuvre than a real solution. The head of B&H delegation, Dzemal Fako, complained against uncoordinated stands of the representatives of the Federation B&H and Republica Srpska, which was headed by the economist Spasoje Tusevljak. The Macedonians did not get excited claiming that, in view of the previous and new warnings of the international community, negotiations on succession would continue to be a failure until the authorities of FRY either decide to or have to ask for admittance in world organizations, especially the financial ones.

This is, of course, one of the possibilities of the outcome, for the moment the most probable one, because pressure of the world concerning succession is the strongest in relation to the FRY which is again greatly interested in joining the financial organizations. Participants of the Brussels negotiations assessed that the possibility of international arbitration is not completely out of the question either, especially because the world is increasingly convinced that the former and the present Yugoslavs can best be influenced by an imposed solution. Nevertheless, this procedure would be long and expensive for the international community, so that the pragmatic westerners would prefer to avoid it. The third possibility, perhaps the least probable one, could refer to the double role of Croatia which could at a certain moment influence Bosnia to take side with it and make it easier for the Yugoslav delegation to "get rid" of the stubborn Slovenians. Judging by the fact that this variant would be more of a beginning of a new entanglement than a way out at the end of the tunnel, it is hard to believe that something that was tried so many times before in other fields would succeed in the field of succession, which is the most subtle of all.

If we agree that the question of succession of former SFRY is the smallest common denominator of the Yugoslav crisis, the position of post-Dayton RS reflects in full the squint with which this Bosnian entity faces Belgrade and Sarajevo. Because Spasoje Tusevljak, head of the delegation of RS, although he declared on the eve of the meeting in Brussels that his stands were not identical to those of the Yugoslav delegation, was in fact the only one who supported Mihajlovic's efforts. At the same time, Tusevljak was formally a member of the B&H delegation which shows one thing: the destiny of politically and economically weakened RS, is positioned between Sarajevo and Belgrade. That is why it will be able to think about its survival solely from the aspect of relations which will develop between the B&H and FRY. It will not be able to do anything against the problem that the former most frequently did not mean well to Republica Srpska and the latter most frequently did not do well for it either in Pale or Banja Luka. Briefly, RS is not a participant in negotiations on succession, but an object, whether rightfully or not, claimed by two parties, like some embassy building or farm of egg-laying hens constructed a long time ago with joint money.

Ivan Djordjevic