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The International Community and
the FRY/Belligerents IIII
by Matjaz Klemencic
The
Scholars’ Initiative: Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies
2001-2005
Matjaž Klemencic: Team Leader, Dušan Janjic: Team Leader, Vlado
Anzinovic, Keith Doubt, Emil Kerenji, Alfred Bing, John Fine,
Vladimir Klemencic, Sumantra Bose, Zlatko Hažidedic, Miloš Kovic,
Steven Burg, Marko Attila Hoare, Vladimir Petrovic, Daniele
Convers,i Constantin Iordachi, Nikola Samardžic, Dušan Djordjevich,
A. Ross Johnson, Brendan Simms
(Part I
| Part II
| Part III
| Part IIII)
Year 1995: Peace in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Despite seventy-seven cease-fires from March 1992 until May
1994 and numerous diplomatic missions, in particular by Richard
Holbrooke, U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and
Canadian affairs, ethnic cleansing continued in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
However, the sequence of events, which was to change fundamentally
the dynamic of the conflict, and immensely enhance the prospects
for peace, began with the fall of Western Slavonia in Croatia.
On 1–2 May 1995, Croatian armed forces mounted a surprise attack
known as Operation Flash, which successfully reclaimed for Croatian
government control UN Sector West (western Slavonia)—part of
the Serb-controlled Krajina.359
The fall of Western Slavonia showed that the fanfare about
union between the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia was a hollow boast.
But the Knin authorities ignored the lesson. After four years
of rejecting any compromise, and expunging all traces of Croat
history in their domain, they would not alter course. The Europeans,
the U.S.A. and the Russia did not ignore the lesson. Keen to
forestall another Croat incursion, the diplomatic representatives
of the U.S.A., UK, EU, and UN stationed in Zagreb drew up a
special peace plan for Croatia, which was intended to rectify
the loopholes in the Vance plan. The “Z4 Plan,” as it was known,
attempted to reconcile Croatia’s insistence on preserving the
integrity of its frontiers with Serb insistence on self-determination.360
Tudjman agreed gingerly, through only as a starting point for
discussions, Miloševic supported the agreement. But Krajina
leaders (Milan Martic and Milan Babic) rejected it outright.
After the Serbs in Croatia were defeated, Bosnian Serbs captured
Srebrenica and Žepa, where they killed almost 8,000 Bosnian
Muslims.361 Consequently, NATO intervened with air raids on
the Serb positions, and the Serbs agreed to start peace negotiations
in August 1995. During the summer of 1995, Miloševic’s dream
of Great Serbia was totally crushed in Croatia. On 4 August
1995, Croat formations estimated at 150,000 men launched a coordinated
series of around 30 attacks into the former UN Sectors North
and South along a 300-kilometer front.362
With Operation Storm, the Croatian army regained control over
most of the territories of the RSK. Croatia was again unified,
with the exception of Baranja and Eastern Slavonia (Croatian
Podunavlje) – but without 250,000 Krajina Serbs who had fles
upon the approach of the Croatian Army.
The operation, known as Operation Storm, lasted only five days.
The capital of the Krajina, Knin, fell on the second day. With
Operation Storm, the Croatian army regained control over most
of the territories of the RSK.364 Croatia was again unified,
with the exception of Baranja and Eastern Slavonia (Croatian
Podunavlje)- but without more then 200,000 Krajina Serbs who
had fled upon the approach of the Croatian Army. An offensive
of united Croat-Boshniak forces against Bosnian Serbs continued
into the region of BiH. On 8 September 1995, the foreign ministers
of BiH, Croatia, and the FRY, meeting in Geneva, agreed that
BiH would remain a country divided into two entities, a Croatian-Muslim
entity and a Serbian one. In October of the same year the cease-fire
started. On 1 November 1995 peace negotiations started at an
American Air Force base near Dayton, Ohio. Those peace negotiations
ended with the signing of a peace agreement in December 1995
in Paris.365 Slobodan Miloševic was right when, during a visit
of Holbrooke’s delegation to Belgrade just before the Dayton
Agreement was signed, he engaged in the following conversation
with General Wesley Clark: “Well, General Clark, you must be
pleased that NATO won this war” (in Bosnia). Clark responded:
“NATO did not even fight this war. You lost it to the Croats
and Muslims.” Miloševic answered: “It was your NATO, your bombs
and missiles, your high technology that defeated us. We Serbs
never had a chance against you.”366 It is obvious that Miloševic
did not learn from this lesson, as future events of 1999 showed.
The signatories of this agreement were Alija Izetbegovic of
BiH, Slobodan Miloševic of Serbia, and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia.367
After three years of war, peace came to BiH again. The reactions
to the signing of the Dayton Agreement were the most euphoric
in Belgrade, where the people honored Miloševic as a visionary,368
and in Zagreb, where Tudjman evaluated it as a “victory of Croatian
diplomacy” because the Croats lost the least of all the belligerents
in the conflict. In BiH there were many who had doubts about
the peace.369 Historian Ivo Banac criticized the Dayton Peace
Agreement, saying it did not fulfill expectations for a lasting
peace. Dayton did not make it possible for the return of refugees
and for prosecution of war criminals. According to our team
member Albert Bing, this peace agreement did not divide BiH
but also did not abolish the possible reasons for its further
fragmentation. As mentioned, the Dayton Agreement foresaw stationing
of 60,000 peacekeepers who, under the NATO command, would also
protect internationally recognized frontiers of BiH. In accordance
with a special agreement between NATO and Russia, 2,000 Russian
soldiers were stationed in Tuzla.
Conclusion
The breakup of multinational empires of the 19th century resulted
in a proliferation of sovereign states. The breakup of Yugoslavia
in the early 1990s resulted in a further proliferation of states.
The Powers (international community) should have tried much
sooner to foster a peaceful dissolution of the SFRY. It should
also insist on meaningful rights for Serbs in Croatia before
international recognition. All this may well have failed, but
it would have been the “right thing to do.”
There are states and states. Only Slovenia and now Croatia
can qualify as fully sovereign. More then half of f the population
of Montenegro and the vast majority of Kosovars dispute the
sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which they
see as an (illegitimate) extension of Serbia. Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Kosovo, and perhaps Macedonia are based on such a degree of
international authority and external security that we lack an
adequate descriptive term – they are neither states, nor trusteeships,
nor protectorates, but rather would-be states that are a mixture
of all three; so the international community decides on everything.
Endnotes
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