Tudjman Lectures the West

AIM Zagreb, 1 June, 1999

Croatian president Franjo Tudjman was silent about NATO intervention in Yugoslavia for weeks, and then there were two public statements which caused great attention, although in NATO they are trying not to notice it. Tudjman indeed is not a man whose opinion on key political issues in the region is very meritorious, because in the past years he has given it in an incontestable way and it does not recommend him for future statements. But, nowadays, when the situation in the region has become so complicated by NATO intervention that it seems immensely more difficult to get out of it than it was to get involved, the fact that the man who directly produced developments in this region is avoiding to state his opinion resembles more burying one's head in the sand than a principled stand.

A few days ago, an interview with Tudjman appeared in Italian La Stampa in which he gave the most extensive and the most systematic assessment of the war in the neighbourhood so far. It is very easy to foretell that this interview, mildly speaking, will not cause enthusiasm of the western Alliance. This especially refers to the part in which he presented the view on the indictment of the Hague Tribunal against Slobodan Milosevic, because Tudjman openly says that the motivation of the indictment is political and not judicial. The indictment has come now, says Tudjman, because it is obvious that NATO attacks have not yielded expected results, that is, that they have not forced Milosevic to leave the scene. This is an attempt, he continues, to strike Milosevic by means of the Hague Tribunal as the real culprit for the policy of Greater Serbia, but in fact there is a wish to achieve changes in the country. It is interesting that Tudjman argues not only about the manner in which the campaign against Milosevic was launched, because he says that NATO bombs have just reinforced him and Serb extremist circles, but also about the starting points which preceded it. He says that Milosevic demonstrated more realism than other Serb politicians at the time of expansion of the Greater Serbia cause, as it was confirmed especially in Croatia where he quickly realized that it was impossible to cut off more than half of its territory.

At this point, a feeling of nostalgy clearly breaks through for the times when Tudjman and Milosevic were re-shaping the map of the region on their own and without much disturbance from the international surroundings. Therefore, the story cannot be brought down merely to well-balanced Milosevic's estimate that it was necessary to withdraw from Croatia, because the plan for partition of Bosnia & Herzegovina was being created all along. The same nostalgy is also felt in the for the second time already repeated idea of Tudjman that the question of Kosovo could be resolved by partition into the Albanian and the Serb part. It is true that he tries to appear as a realist, because he says that "it is necessary to start from the reality, from demographic reports, but also from strategic interests... It is necessary to find a framework within which it will be possible to create conditions for coexistence so that the Serbs can satisfy their ethnic demands and ensure existence for themselves in the part of Kosovo where there are more of them present, while in the second part of Kosovo, broad autonomy should be guaranteed to the Albanians".

It is clear, however, that division of Kosovo, even so indefinitely indicated - with precise demographic demarcation, but with no clear stand concerning the future status - may become a precedent for further divisions on the territory of former Yugoslavia. On the other hand, NATO intevention has become so obviously problematic that even from Tudjman's limited aspect useful advices may come. He warns that Kosovo in Serb collective memory has the meaning of "the cradle of Serb nation", because over there are "the most important historical Serb monuments, Orthodox monasteris". And regardless of the full irrationality of this collective psychology, "now all preconditions exist for the Serb people to celebrate this war for the next six hundred years" - "the western world must count on it".

Tudjman manifested similar sobriety concerning the issue of Montenegro and its possible secession from Serbia. "I do not exclude", he says, "a temporary secession of Montenegro, but again one should be a realist. Historically, majority of Montenegrins are oriented towards Greater Serbia. Ever since Vuk Karadzic who in the last century imposed a common language to the Serbs, the Croats and the Montenegrins, all the way to Radovan Karadzic from our time who is also a Montenegrin. Ever since Punisa Racic who killed Croat leaders in the Yugoslav monarchist parliament in Belgrade, all the way to Milosevic, a Montenegrin by birth. Therefore, one should not delude oneself too much".

The curious opportunity to show that even Tudjman can be a cool and useful advisor was lost for good by his opinion that greatly brings into question the policy of Western countries in this space. The international community according to Tudjman "has never sufficiently realised that the recent developments on the territories of former Yugoslavia are not just the result of Milosevic's or somebody else's personal policy, but that causes should be sought in unresolved questions of historical heritage, in the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, the Habsurg monarchy, Yugoslavia, but also in the conflicts between Western Europe and Russia".

This, of course, is not the whole truth, because the international commmunity sometimes made the impression that it respected too much the complex historical heritage, while national leaders, Milosevic and Tudjman most of all, ruthlessly used the worst and the most perilous parts of this heritage. But lately, the Western countries appear as if their senses for the space in which they have found themselves have grown numb, and they have resorted to rough geopolitical engineering which produces the effect of an elephant in a china shop. That is how, which is a paradox, it happened that in a manner of an expert for Eastern-European small nations, Tudjman was given a chance to give a lecture in history to those who were until recently his mentors, explaining to them the complexity of conditions in which Eastern European states were established, different from Western ones as salt and pepper.

In the West, they do not seem to be able to get used to the new situation and they have so far ignored the lectures coming since recently from Zagreb. Nevertheless, if speculations that Milosevic will not be the only one who will be subjected to investigations of the Hague prosecutors can be interpreted as an echo, then there has been one. Whether by accident or not, on the same day Tudjman gave the interview to La Stampa, an article appeared in the New York Times in which it was claimed that there were electronically registered information of the American and other intelligence services which prove involvement in war crimes not only of Milosevic, but of Tudjman as well. Allegedly most of the evidence refers to Bosnia & Herzegovina, and it was underlined that "the starting point of all Balkan war crimes is not in Kosovo but in Bosnia".

This influential daily asks "if jutice is blind why should Milosevic be indicted, and Mr. Tudjman should not?". And the journalist signed under this text, asks why in the case charges are raised against Tudjman we would not be able to predict a slightly comical re-run of what we are watching now? Izetbegovic declaring from Sarajevo that the indictment was politically motivated.

MARINKO CULIC