The Countdown

The warring parties in Bosnia were presented the plan of the Contact Group in Geneva last week. The expected compliance of the Bosnian side was followed by customary grumbling and complaints about injustice, the Croats didn't care, and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic screamed but made sure he did not say anything explicit like "yes," "no," "black," or "white." "The constitutional principles" of future BosniaHerzegovina were immediately cited as a problem of utter importance that remains open (as if everything else is more than easy to solve). Such diverting of attention was wholeheartedly supported by the Serbian war lobby, headed by the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and its leader Vojislav Kostunica. On the other hand, Karadzic mentioned the people as he did a year ago when the VanceOwen plan was killed on Mount Jahorina. But, the situation is different now: this time Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic let Karadzic go alone to face the "worldwide mafia" (as Karadzic recently described the international community). "The people will decide," Karadzic said upon his return. "It is much too serious to be talked into anything."

Radovan Karadzic has decided to counterattack. VREME has learned that Karadzic told Douglas Hurd and Alain Juppe in Pale that he cannot accept the plan and the maps of the Contact Group. He still hasn't said that publicly, but has already begun undertaking measures in that direction. Propaganda was immediately put to work even before the maps were unveiled: on July 9, the Bosnian Serb paper "Javnost," attacked Russia along with her diplomats accusing her of failing to realize that everything concerning the Contact Group is a "farce," that Russia was allowed to play the "secondrate supporting role," that she contributes to "prolongation of war," "goes along with the globalinterventionist model" and tries to revive Bosnia as a unitary state. Karadzic's propaganda is trying to convince the Russians that Andrei Kozyrev is a "cynic" who fell for US diplomacy's "upstart snobbism," stressing that the "real Russian interests" are sacrificed to Western imperialism to the detriment of the Serbs. The message is"the maps are unacceptable."

The campaign gained in intensity after Geneva: Velibor Ostojic, Minister without portfolio in the Bosnian Serb Government and Chairman of the Executive Board of the Serb Democratic Party of all Serb lands (which is headed by Karadzic) said on Bosnian Serb television last week that "the maps must be rejected" as they failed to provide a minimum possibility for spiritual and territorial unity of the Serbs on two sides of the Drina River. Radoslav Brdjanin and Rajko Kasagic launched a campaign dedicated to the Serb cause in Banja Luka: Brdjanin says that "River Sava in the north and Kupres in the south, including the valley of River Neretva and the access to the Adriatic, represent the frontiers of the Serb lands. The Drina River is not the border between the Serb lands. All that is Serbia with one capital cityBelgrade." Rajko Kasagic added that "one must not yield before the blackmail of Western strongmen who have one goal onlyto destroy the Serbian people."

According to VREME's reporters, chances that the Bosnian Serb Assembly will accept the plan and the maps of the Contact Group are practically nonexistent judging by the recent propaganda campaign in Karadzic's media. The die is cast. Radovan Karadzic seems to have decided to reject the 49:51 partition of Bosnia. Momcilo Krajisnik, the Speaker of the BosnianSerb Assembly, has already done it when he said that Bosnian Serbs would not give in to the pressure of Belgrade. Bosnian Serb Army Commander, General Ratko Mladic, has threatened in an ambiguous and subtle way with attacks on UNPROFOR troops in case the plan fails and NATO decides to achieve something by force. The Main Board of the Serb Democratic Party of Serb lands issued an announcement on Pale on Thursday evening saying that "the documents are incomplete" as the partition of Sarajevo and the access to the Adriatic are missing, so that this has to be carefully "examined" by the Bosnian Serb Assembly.

The great powers are not apt to accept a compromise this time. Karadzic's propaganda has tried to drive a wedge between the West and Russia, and failed: Kozyrev repeated Vitaly Churkin's diagnosis about "war madness." US, France and Great Britain made it clear that "yesbut" will not be accepted; it is a "take it or leave it" plan this time and there is no bargaining. Alain Juppe and Douglas Hurd warned several times that the consequences will be serious. They also began indicating that the Serbs from Bosnia and the Serbs from Bosnia are not to be identified: the "isolation" of the Serbs from Bosnia is more and more often mentioned as a consequence of their rejection of the plan.

Milosevic may have managed to draw the line between the Serbs from Serbia and the Serbs from Bosnia. It is still not certain whether he was successful. In case he was, the Serbs from Serbia would no longer be responsible for the Serbs from Bosnia. Milosevic was given the option to distance himself from Karadzic (truly this time, not like last year with the blockade of bridges on the Drina River). It is not known what Milosevic discussed with Nikola Koljevic, Bosnian Serb Vicepresident, and General Ratko Mladic, but it is believed that something was offered to Koljevic, and that Mladic was there to enforce that impression. Milosevic then received Juppe and Hurd, who seemed moderately satisfied and principally worried when they left him.

Milosevic's propaganda struck back: Bosnian Serb television broadcasts cannot be seen in Serbia any longer. Hadzi Dragan Antic, Director of the News Enterprise "Politika," lectured Karadzic in the Belgrade daily "Politika" and again on prime time news of Radio Belgrade last Saturday. He told the Bosnian Serbs to come to their senses and reminded them about Jahorina. The message is clear (as is its origin): Radovan, you blew it, take 49 per cent and shut up, any other offer, if at all, can be only worse than previous ones. The shadow of differentiation (as communist comrades would put it) is getting longer on this side of the Drina River: the dilemma is clear and was to be expected either for Karadzic or for Milosevic. The army is worried; the police even more.

Last week's scandal of Dragan Mladenovic, Inspector of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, is a precedent in history of our police. Young policeman accused his bosses and colleagues of corruption, killings, extortion, looting and a number of other crimes. Interestingly, the names of some heads of police were mentioned in the connection with the war in Bosnia, which contradicts Milosevic's repeated statements that Serbia has nothing to do with the war in Bosnia. Since there is no reason to assume that Inspector Mladenovic was suicidal, there is a reasonable doubt that something much bigger rather than simple talk is at issue.

When everything is taken into account, the lack of propaganda support to Radovan Karadzic in the statecontrolled media in Serbia, frequent statements of Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) officials as well as other indications, like the latest statement of Yugoslav Army Chief ofstaff, General Momcilo Perisic, about "the peaceful role of Yugoslavia," it transpires that Milosevic's counterattack is serious. The Serbian war lobby (the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), the Democratic Party (DS), the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), former Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic, and the like) are screaming because of "the betrayal of the Serbian cause," but Slobodan Milosevic does not seem to be moved by this.

The situation in Bosnia is as follows: who accepts the plan will regret it, who doesn't will regret it, too. Radovan Karadzic has decided not to accept what the Contact Group is offering him. Speaking pragmatically, this is understandable: his Serbs are more dangerous than Milosevic's Serbs are. Just as the Sarajevo authorities kicked the ball into Karadzic's part of the field by accepting the plan, Karadzic is now passing it to Milosevic by rejecting the plan. Karadzic is trapped: if he agrees to freeze the current situation by accepting the maps of the Contact Group, he will get a state that is not viable; if he tries to make a viable state, he will fail, because it is too late for that now. Milosevic doesn't care, the only thing he cares about is staying in power in Serbia, so he could hardly wait for the opportunity to tell Karadzic that he blew it and should now figure out what to do. Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic's recent message and his mentioning of "hostages" best reflects such a stand. Milosevic can only benefit from differentiation in Serbia over support to Karadzic (as he did from every differentiation so far): the war lobby and the nationalist opposition (except from the careful Serbian Renewal MovementSPO) will turn out to be irresponsible, and the new Left (the Communist Leaguethe Movement for YugoslaviaSKPJ, the transmuted Socialist Party of SerbiaSPS) will get a chance in future elections that will be held as soon as it is clear what happens with Bosnia.

There is a reasonable doubt that the situation with the maps is much worse than it looks at the moment: a Western diplomat told VREME that none of the published versions of the maps is true; he made it clear that they are even less favorable for Karadzic.

What are Karadzic's chances? He is to stay in power in "total isolation" (Hurd and Juppe), against new political parties that Milosevic is infiltrating in the Bosnian Serb Republic and that keep talking about the elections in November, against nervous apparatchiks in his own power structure (that will always play it safe), against infiltration of the police from Serbia in the same structure, against the organized systematic campaign that targeted corruption and fraud at the top of his power structure, against ambitions individuals who would like to see themselves in his place (and who are supported by Belgrade, like Nikola Koljevic) and against common sense of his generals who know that they cannot defend the territory against the increasingly stronger Bosnian army.