The Noose Is Tightening

The state recognized by the world has been dismantled, its territory partitioned and population relocated. Its Muslim citizens have been renamed to Bosnjaks, its main cities placed under international administration, its authority under foreign patronage, while its rebel Serbs have remained intractable

The war is not over, the victor can't be determined yet, and there are losers everywhere. All that has remained of the Bosnia-Herzegovina of two years ago is its name. The federation of Bosnjaks (as Muslims are called officially) and Croats also carries the name of Bosnia Herzegovina, a country whose borders have not been determined yet, in territory which only the Americans imagine will cover half the prewar Bosnia. The state recognized by the world has been dismantled, its territory partitioned and population relocated. Its Muslim citizens have been renamed to Bosnjaks, its main cities placed under international administration, its authority under foreign patronage, while its rebel Serbs have remained intractable.

The future geopolitical relief of the former Bosnia can be discerned: the outlines of new states are taking shape. Today, along with what the Serbs have dubbed the Muslims' spring offensive, Muslim operations aimed at liberating the country from Serb aggressors, and the final phase of the US-sponsored negotiations, we see the start of an election campaign in all national camps.

Regardless of the fact if the war has been won or lost, the struggle for postwar authority must start now. There is great confusion in all three national camps. Feverish preparations are underway to come up with arguments which will be put before the people (the Serbs, Croats and Muslims), explaining that what seems a loss, is in fact a gain, and vice versa.

The Muslims suffered the most. Many of them have been killed, and the number of those who have won ``merit'' in the war rises in proportion to the number of victims. There are many pretenders to crumbs at the postwar distribution of authority. The veterans of the war, those who fought from 1991, continue to play a leading role in the Muslim and Serb camps. The situation among the Croats, i.e. the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) depended on instructions from Zagreb, so there was a lot of falling out of the saddle and climbing back into it. The HDZ was joined by many members from other political parties and nations in the past two years, people whose services were valuable during the war, especially at a time when the Muslim leadership was cultivating a civic image, its own and that of its state. Bosnia was not a civic state at the time of its recognition in Luxembourg on April 6, 1992. The same will be true of the future two-nation Bosnia sponsored by the United Sates of America, a state whose foundations were laid two days ago by Bosnjaks and Croats. For as long as a civic Bosnia was BH President Alija Izetbegovic's official platform abroad, the services of the following were welcome: the Social Democratic Party led by Nijaz Durakovic, the LiberalBosnjak organization headed by Adil Zulfikarpasic and Muhamed Filipovic, including a great number of influential Sarajevo Serbs. The noose is tightening again: the multicultural, multiethnic and civicliberal spirit is being forced back into the bottle, and the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) is once again taking center stage.

Alija Izetbegovic and BH PM Haris Silajdzic functioned as a very good team during the war; forecasts on the demise of the partnership have once again proved premature. Both men have been happy with the division of roles and honors. The agreement with Croatia has now enforced a different one: it has been agreed that Silajdzic should remain premier, and that the Croats should be offered the post of federal president. In accordance with the agreement, Alija Izetbegovic has returned to the post of SDA president, and as such will conduct the campaign this autumn.

There are rumors that the elder man was loath to cede his post to the younger one, and that the SDA old guard is grumbling. But Haris Silajdzic's star is shining brightly and the only thing he lacks is a stronger following in the SDA, which in 1990 enjoyed a broad base among the traditional village populace. Playing on Silajdzic is not a matter of dynastic power battles in the SDA, but a healthy survival instinct. Silajdzic was the energetic foreign minister who urged a civic Bosnian option fluently in several foreign languages. At a decisive moment he turned his back on the bright city lights of foreign capitals and returned to Sarajevo. When the Muslim authorities compromised themselves before the world and the inhabitants of Sarajevo, Silajdzic brought order to the city which had groaned under the burden of its ``defenders.'' Silajdzic is the very best that the SDA and its struggle have produced.

If God grants peace and elections by autumn, the SDA will not have much trouble in selling voters, recently renamed to Bosnjaks, the idea of a new, independent state of BosniaHerzegovina, one without Serbs or a civic state. They will swallow the whole package, the loss of Eastern Bosnia and other territories where the Muslims had once been the majority population. The Croats have been taken back into a brotherly embrace, because the US sponsor requested it, a sponsor not given to considering the authentic national will and interests of the local population where it sees national interests of its own. But, there is no warmth in the embrace anymore. Alija Izetbegovic did not praise his supporters who, on misreading signals from Washington, raised the Bosnian and Croatian flags at Kosevo stadium last week. ``Don't do that. That's romance, and unfounded at that. We don't need supports. As a people we're selfsufficient,'' said Izetbegovic.

In the Serb camp, the first team is still playing. The one which won close to 93% of the Serb votes in November 1990. Two-thirds of Bosnia are still in Serb hands, and a lot of property is waiting to be haggled over. The position of Pale has weakened greatly with the West's determination to oppose Serbia's military might with its own. There are not many indications that America wishes to force the Serbs into a Bosnjak-Croatian federation at all costs. The Serbs will settle accounts with their former brethren in percentages. It still remains unclear if the West wants Bosnia-Herzegovina to be reconstituted at least for a moment, as it was on April 6, even if were to disintegrate immediately after this, on condition that international principles were observed, and borders changed by agreement and not force.

The Bosnian Serb leader will start getting headaches once he achieves his goals and wins the final battles. The Serb state in Bosnia does not need only America's stepmother type of tolerance, but mother Serbia's blessing too. The way things stand now, it is unwashed and untidy, with war profiteers and smugglers on its roads and violated by war crimes, so that the Serb Republic in BH cannot join Yugoslavia, which compared to it is a very tidy and orderly state. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic has on a number of occasions closed his eyes to misdemeanors by the Pale leadership, ignored insults. He even passed over the embarrassment in Jahorina with the unfortunate Greek PM Constantine Mitsotakis. In the end however, Bosnian Serbs will be knocking on a door only Milosevic can open.

The loss of Sarajevo could prove politically dangerous to the Bosnian Serb leadership. The matter does not concern the fact that if one doesn't capture the enemy castle, then one cannot win the war which Karadzic has not managed to do. All this apart, the two years of war have not ironed out differences within the Bosnian Serb body: Krajina-Pale relations are no more harmonious today than they were before the outbreak of the military rebellion in Banja Luka, in September 1993. By insisting on the question of Sarajevo, a question not vitally important to Serbs in Krajina, Herzegovina and Yugoslavia, Karadzic and Speaker Momcilo Krajisnik made Sarajevo conditional to their survival. For this reason the battle for Sarajevo is not over, not between Serbs and Muslims or between Serbs and Serbs, regardless of the fact that the city is out of range of Serbia's heavy artillery. If it had the choice of choosing between sanctions and Sarajevo, Belgrade would find it easy to decide. Karadzic and Krajisnik face a much more difficult dilemma. The Serbian people, if they could choose, would never agree to being the hostages of the Bosnian Serb leadership's wish to preserve the city for Serbs and preserve itself as the leaders of those Serbs.