Zdravko Tomac, Ph.D.

Are we at long last witnessing Serbia's totalitarian regime beginning to disintegrate? Can Milosevic stay in power with the help of the police which, in fact, are nothing but a military formation of the ruling Socialist Party, and the help of his coterie and win the elections scheduled for December 19, despite the fact that the economic and other sanctions have finally begun to take effect, so that in the Belgrade papers one can already find statements such as "...people fear living in Milosevic's state more than death". As his whole wystem is beginning to cave in, Milosevic will no longer be able to remain the master of life and death in the Balkans without receiving support from the outside, that is, not only from his true and tested friends, but also from Moslems and Croats as well. Can the blood-stained Serbian gambler, having squandered dozens of thousands of human lives, keep on using the same trick to cheat his naive opponents round the table, including not only international, but also many Mosle

m and Croatian politicians. They all keep making the same mistakes, believing that it is possible to come to a political compromise and a just peace with Milosevic, believing he could change. By taking such an attitude towards Milosevic, who is incontestably the greatest criminal in the Balkans, ultimately responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and for organized genocide and systematic killing of civilians in the besieged cities in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, we are helping Milosevic to remain in power. Why, then, would citizens of Serbia vote Milosevic out if even Moslem and Croat, let alone international, politicians acknowledge Milosevic as a partner in negotiations and accept his terms which in reality mean the legalization of a part of the goals which he has achieved by a genocidal war of conquest. If the international community were to spell it out to the citizens of Serbia that Milosevic is a war criminal and that the sanctions will not be lifted unless he steps dow

n from power and renounces his concept of forging a Greater Serbia, the situation in Serbia would essentially change to the advantage of Serbia's democratic forces. If Croatia were to declare equally explicitly that it would make peace only with a democratic Serbia, under the condition that Serbia recognises Croatia within its internationally recognised borders and gives up its policy of creating a Greater Serbia, and if the Moslems were to do the same, they would assist those powers in the international community which have had enough of the British-Franco-Russian support for the creation of a Greater Serbia and assistance to the criminal regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic, however, reckons that the events will not take such a turn. What he is banking on is that not only his allies, but also his enemies, will help him by their naivety and get him out of the corner once again.

What exactly does Slobodan Milosevic hold up his sleeve?

1) The visit to Belgrade by Fikret Abdic, who prior to that had signed and agreement with Mate Boban and had held lengthy talks with President Tudman, was the fist trump Milosevic has played in his election campaign, and which considerably strengthened his position. By making this well prepared and timely move, Milosevic has not only strengthened his position within Serbia and in the World, but has also weakened his opponents, the Croats and the Moslems, with the latter being precipitated into a bloody internecine war which could mark the beginning of the end of Bosnian Moslems' existence as a political nation in the area. Milosevic is well aware of the fact that many politicians in the world subscribe to this idea, althought they have been shedding crocodile tears for the Moslems' fate and only verbally condemning the genocide against them. The Croats have not looked sufficiently far ahead when they voiced their support for the Milosevic-Abdic agreement, because it is obvious that Abdic's experiment served

as a trial balloon for Milosevic's and certain world politicians' purposes. For, in case Abdic's concept of co-existence and reconciliation with the aggressor works, it would be and indication that yet another Yugoslavia would be viable under the guise of a "global solution" for the crisis. Therefore one should not dismiss as unrealistic the following scenario: Following the establishment of the Autonomous Region of Western Bosnia, a number of other autonomous regions are established in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. As the second step, these small states and autonomous areas demand, ostensibly in order to function properly, that they be put under a "common umbrella " within a sort of a Yugoslav of Balkan confederation.

2) During his election campaign Milosevic will pretend to open prospective for improved situation bby spectacular agreements with the Croats; after the meeting Fikret Abdic claimed that Milosevic was advocating the reopening of motorways, railways and communications between former Yugoslav republics. Milosevic shall even concede to sign whatever agreements which he shall or shall not observe, depending on his immediate needs, only to change the tune again when he sees it necessary as he has been doing so far.

3) Milosevic shall continue paying lip service to the finding of a solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a view to prompting the international community to lift the sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The recent media campaign in the West which focuses on the hard life of the common people in Serbia, as well as a part of the communique from the meeting between Mr Stoltenberg and Milosevic which runs to the effect that the current unsolved issues need not delay the establishment of peace and the process of lifting the sanctions against FR Yugoslavia, indicate that Milosevic has been given certain guarantees that he will be helped out yet again.

4) In order to transform from a war criminal and the ultimately responsible figure for genocide into a respectable president who is supposed to guarantee peace and stbility in the Balkans. Milosevic will have to wash his blood-stained hands and find some scapegoats. In light of this fact, it is easier to understand his current showdown with Sesely, but also the discontent of Serbian paramilitary forces in Croatia who have begun to realise that they will be sacrificed and handed over to be tried by the International War Crimes Tribunal. Since Milosevic always places his bets on several horses, it should not be ruled out that he intends to shove the Serb insurgents in Croatia, Seselj's militia and the rest into war in Croatia, and achieve the following goals: elimination of the possibility of their return to his own yard in Belgrade, getting rid of dangerous witnesses, and weakening of Croatia, since a part of the blame for renewed fighting would be apportioned to Croatia. What Milosevic also has in mind is to

deepen the discord among the Croats by instructing his military aides to allege in public that Yugoslavia is not obliged to offer the Serbs in Croatia military protection, thus inciting Croatian hawks to try to solve the problem of the occupied areas of Croatia by force, precisely at the moment when such a move would suit milosevic's regime.

5) In Bosnia and Herzegovina Milosevic will keep fomenting conflicts between Croats and Moslems by all possible means, even by military aid to both sides in various areas and at various moments, in order to prove that the conflict there is a civil war where everybody fights everybody else. At the same time Milosevic and Karadzic will maintain the pretence of a secret Serbo-Croat agreement on the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to apportion a part of the blame for the genocide against the Moslems on Croats and Croatia.

6) Milosevic will come out with yet more initiatives for a global solution of the crisis, and will even be prepared to trade land, since he has captured enought other peoples' land to do trade with.

However, Milosevic should never be underestimated, since he never puts all of his eggs in a single basket. Along with his peace-seeking programme, which he reckons to win him the elections, he also has a military programme prepared, which he uses to threaten both his friends and enemies into submission to his terms of peace and the policy he dictates.

By renewed shelling of Sarajevo and new civilian casualties there he wishes to demonstrate that, if his terms are not accepted, the oncoming winter will have more disastrous effets than any that we have witnessed so far. In Croatia, similarly, by occasional artillery attacks on Croatian cities and by a propaganda campaign about Serbia's alleged possession of weaponry for large-scale destruction bought from Russia, he tries to create an opinion that is better to accept peace on Milosevic's terms than suffer attacks by his military force. He also threatens with a spreading of the conflict to a wider area of the Balkans, trying to convince all the relevant parties that there is no other solution but to accept him as the master of life and death in the Balkans, as the only figure on whose decision an end to this current tragedy can be put.

Having in mind the elements pointed out above, it is clear that he can succeed only if also Croats and Moslems, and not just the international community as before, play into his hands.

I belong among those in Croatian politics who have always maintained that neither peace nor stability in the Balkans are possible unless Serbian expansionist policy is defeated, and Slobodan Milosevic, as its main protagonist, is overthrown. Therefore I have advocated from the start that we stick to the principle: What is good for milosevic is bad for Croatia, that is, we should make only such moves which would waken Milosevic's position. For, whoever replaces Milosevic in power in Serbia, even Seselj, would represent a change for the better for croatia, and the end to Serbia's expansionist policy would occur sooner. Unfortunately, whenever opportunities arose for Milosevic to be overthrown, the prevailing opinion among the croatian policy-makers was, propably largely due to relations of power in international politics, that the only realistic solution waw to try and reach a compromise with him.

Although I am not very optimistic that the forces in world politics that cannot foresee any just solution without bringing Milosevic down will eventually prevail, I think that at least the Croatian official strategy would benefit from certain corrections, regardless of their reception by international politics. Namely, it would be helpful if if we could reach a wide consensus in Croatia on the following wuggestions which result from discussions in Parliament and the media.

1: Croatia should launch an extensive political and diplomatic offensive and demand: a) that the sanctions against Yugoslavia be toughened to the point when Slobodan Milosevic renounces his expansionist policy, in order to show Serbia's citizens that there can be no peace or end to the crisis with Milosevic in power, b) that Croatia's consent on the talks on a global solution to the Balkan crisis be conditioned by Milosevic's regime recognising Croatia within its internationally recognised borders, c) that Croatia's consent on a political solution to the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina, even if it meant turning it into a UN or a NATO protectorate, be conditioned by such possible political solution simultaneously resolving the problem of croatia's occupied territory, d) that Serbia undertakes to regulate national minority issues the same way as these are regulated in Croatia, e) that the principle of the non-violability of borders be respected and that the necessity of retaining the existing international

borders be acknowledged as the prerequisite to stability in the Balkans.

2) Croatia should make it plain that it will participate in the search for a global solution to the crisis only if its territorial integrity is guaranteed by the international community. In this respect the continuation of UNPROFOR's mandate in November should be conditioned by the deployment of UN peacekeepers on Croatia's international borders with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This should also be a prerequisite to the possibility of the lifting of sanctions against Serbia.

3) Croatian authorities should gather as much documentation as possible on both the actual perpetrators of war crimes and the ideological and other initiators of the policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing for the work of the International War Crimes Tribunal.

4) Croatia should increase efforts to normalise the relations between Croats and Moslems in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

5) In the search for a solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia should return to the Vance-Owen plan, that is support the decision of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia on the withdrawal of the existing agreements and territorial concessions to either Serbs or Moslems in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I am well aware that the strategy as outlined above is unlikely to win support in the international community, but by insisting on it Croatia would certainly affirm its reputation and strengthen its position in the world. This would also enhance the chances for an increasing number of international protagonists who have had enough of British-Franco-Russian efforts to pretect war criminal Slobodan Milosevic and to present him as a respectable statesman, to prevail in the long run.

I will try to explain all this to Mr. Ghali and others whom I shall meet in New York, if for nothing else, then just to appease my conscience. I know that politics and morals seldom go together, and that politics is a battle of opposed interests, but, despite the present disaster we are experiencing, I firmly believe that a policy which is based on crime cannot succeed for long and is bound to be defeated in the long run. Therefore, the policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing will inevitably be defeated, along with the policies of those who cannot understand that, if they were to keep their hands clean, they must not shake hands with somebody whose hands are stained with blood.

October 25, 1993