Bosnia As A Means Of Settling Others' Bloody Accounts

VREME: In one of our conversations long before the war, you said that you didn't have any illusions that the new republican leaders would leave the Yugoslav community and that they would grab the greatest part of Bosnia's territory. Your prophecy proved true...

GREBO: It might be said that I was playing safe. I think that those catastrophic prophecies were the result of analytical exaggerations which, to be cynical, are expected of intellectuals who take part in public life but secretly hope that the worst won't happen. On the other hand, risking being stuck with the worst possible label here being proclaimed a Yugonostalgic, I knew that there was no Bosnia without Yugoslavia and vice versa. It was clear that BosniaHerzegovina must disintegrate, because it was built on the same principle as the former Yugoslavia. Of course, Bosnia has a historical substance and a tradition of a life together, but when the only principle of political organization is the national principle, then it loses all meaning. Therefore, the matter does not concern an excess of nasty Serb or Croat imperialism and hegemony. It was an idea which was logically and consistently carried through. If you're creating a national state, it's historically untenable to leave large chunks of your population outside a rounded off territory. This meant that a Greater Serbia and a Greater Croatia would have to include those parts of their people living in BH. Therefore, that which remains cannot be called Bosnia, but eventually a reservation where the Moslems will live.

* I presume that this line of thinking led you to say that Bosnia would always end up as a means of settling Yugoslavia's bloody accounts.

Yugoslavia deserved to disintegrate because of its identification with the concept of a Greater Serbia; it was manipulated to this end, especially by the ruling party and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). However, a less emotional analysis will show that Yugoslavia disintegrated primarily because it was an undemocratic country, and not because it was a multinational state. Bosnia has become a means of settling accounts, so that all the others, and here I make no difference between Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and even Macedonians, might carry through their programs to the end. Their selfishness in the whole thing is obvious. All looked after their interests, not caring that this peaceful and naive people would have to pay the price for Yugoslavia's disintegration.

* How do you interpret the political blindness of the authorities in BH? Or more specifically Alija Izetbegovic, since it took him two years to realize that Belgrade and Zagreb were working on the same plan the division of BH?

I'm a bit reluctant to answer this question since I must add something: It is a fact that BH is some kind of a testing ground where solutions for the former Soviet Union and the rest of world are being tested, under laboratory conditions. This is why there are probably some limits because of which people much more powerful than Izetbegovic, I'm thinking of Tudjman and Milosevic, are not free to play their, probably allotted roles, to the end. This is the reason for the scandalous inability to recognize matters shown by Izetbegovic. On the other hand, while the country is at war, and people in trouble, I'm thinking of him and myself, it perhaps wouldn't be polite to rub it in. But, a man must take risks, so that it is difficult not to comment the catastrophically bad estimates made by the authorities, embodied by Izetbegovic. Starting with the fact that it was not realized that this war was primarily a SerbCroat conflict, in which the Moslems, if they survive, will probably be expendablethey will simply have the largest number of genocide victims, while at the same time being the factor that tips the scale. Such mistakes are not forgiven. The current BH leadership have a lot to answer for. I do not doubt the mildness and good intentions of Mr. Izetbegovic, even though some claim that he is crafty and loves power. But, to be some kind of an Eastern wise man in these times, and this is the image Izetbegovic nurtures, is irresponsible and in the final run, not up to the mark of the historical role, and something that the President of a country cannot allow himself.

In the meantime, what had started out as a propaganda slogan about a civil war, has slowly become reality. The civil war was instigated in BH a year later, and the saddest thing is that those who created it will be able to say that they were right from the start and that this is a tribal conflict between Croats, Serbs and Moslems and nothing else. In this way they will justify their conquests and atrocities. Viewed globally, the world has sacrificed us. This is sad, but that's the way it is. We are an episode that has come to an end.

* In spite of the fact that the borders are being drawn up persistently and that the country has been torn apart in the twoyearslong war, neither side is happy. How do you think this ``trade'' will end, and is a just solution possible?

I've long been tortured by suspicions that all were prepared to divide Bosnia from the very beginning along the lines of the tripartite authorities which won the elections, but there were psychological difficulties in explaining this to the people. Perhaps this two years long catastrophe was necessary in order that the people might accept that fact, and that all of us who knew it wasn't true that different people couldn't live together, would be forced to think so and reach such a conclusion. That is why there is no just solution. But, history has never been based on just solutions. The real question is is there a lasting solution, one which will ensure peace. Unfortunately, we are living the last days of a single BH, if there are still those who haven't realized this. The matter has been decided, and there are just some marginal details to be agreed on. All this makes the whole thing even more ignominious. But even if they divide BH and get international guarantees, there won't be a lasting peace here without the punishing of war criminals.

* To all intents and purposes Milosevic and Tudjman are on the road to succeeding in their intentions and of getting away without serious consequences for themselves or their undemocratic regimes.

The matter concerns bums who, unfortunately, will be awarded. If, thanks to this trade with Bosnia and for the good of someone's bad conscience, some kind of a trial is set up, it will probably concern ten odd fools, after which they will go around claiming that the world upheld its principles and promises. If for no other reason, they should be punished for that shameful trade seen in Geneva last time, that is the most monstrous thing I have seen so far. Unfortunately, all their meetings are like that.

* You told me recently, that sometimes on returning home you walk in the middle of the street on purpose, morbidly hoping that someone from the surrounding hilltops will resolve your problems, or as you said, put an end to the torture. It's a feeling that people living outside Sarajevo's hell can't understand. But isn't that too pessimistic for a fighter, or to quote a poet who said ``better a terrible end than a horror without an end''?

That's true, its suicidal symbolically and in the literal sense of the word. When I walk down my street, I walk down the middle for a long time, knowing that someone on mythical Mt. Trebevic can see every stain on my jacket, and that a sniper bullet will put an end to everything. Sometimes I find peace in that, because all that is happening to this nation is a gross insult. This death wish is a protest. The fact that I sometimes taunt a sniper is part of our Balkan pigheadedness and Mediterranean cheek. But I really do believe that those people who survive Sarajevo, and there are less of us every day, will become a new breed.