Ghostbusters

Karadjordjevo, Josip Broz Tito's "favorite meeting place", is a complex including a 500 hectare hunting ground for diplomats several kilometers northwest of Backa Palanka (Vojvodina). It expanded from a farm house in 1957 over woods and fields and lakes to greenhouses and flocks of sheep to herds of wild boar, bison and mountain goats (in the middle of the flatlands) to fish and orchid farms. There's also a floating villa, a windmill and a one storey house with a salon, bedrooms, and most importantly, a conference room. Some of the older caretakers remember that the late Marshal Tito used to organize autumn hunting for diplomats and recommend the ensuing "spiritual unity" at all "conferences and gatherings".

It is hard to say whether that spirit characterized the Milosevic-Tudjman meeting in Karadjordjevo on March 25, 1991; it was held in secrecy. Reporters were told then that the Serbian and Croatian Presidents had met in the two republics' border area (Karadjordjevo is just a few kilometers from Ilok, which was Croatian at the time). Later reports said that the two had talked, but what they discussed is still unknown. All rumors say they agreed to topple then federal Prime Minister Ante Markovic and separate Serbs and Croats (i.e. divide Bosnia). If that is true, then the agreement from that meeting has only been accomplished halfway; the first part met with everyone's satisfaction and the second is ongoing.

After Milosevic and Tudjman, Karadjordjevo was taken over by volunteers from the 1991 war who hunted game, got mud on the carpets and enjoyed the fact that their waiters held the rank of army Majors. Now the complex is back to normal. Milosevic met with Kozyrev and the Contact Group experts and no statements were issued from the talks.

The Brioni archipelago, off Croatia's coast, was a favorite vacation spot for Roman patricians, Austro-Hungarian nobles and the late Yugoslav Marshal. It was also the setting for the fall of Aleksandar Rankovic (a powerful communist leader who rose to be Tito's vice-president) at the "Brioni Plenum of 1961", who still has many fans among advocates of strong-arm policies, nationalism, communism and the police in Serbia. Much later, on July 9, 1991, Poes, De Michelis and Van Den Broek, Europe's good will envoys during the breakup of Yugoslavia, witnessed the signing of an agreement on the withdrawal of the former Yugoslav army from Slovenia. The old federation was undermined there and Brioni definitely reverted to its Croatian name "Briuni", a tourist complex with one part at the beck and call of Croatia's ruling party and President. Tudjman loves Briuni.

None of the other residences of the lifelong and only President of the late Yugoslavia avoided the fate of housing historic (and other) meetings which saw the thankless inheritors, helped from abroad, split up their heritage.

The villa Dalmacija in Split (five apartments, seven hectares of park) was built in 1912 by Herr Schiller for Czech tourists and socialist Yugoslavia (Croatia's communist republican government) took it over so that Tito would have a place to receive Churchill and Maria Kallas. Milosevic, Tudjman and Izetbegovic met there twice - first on March 28 with the other republican leaders, and on their own just three months later.

The Brdo Kod Kranja residence was owned by Juraj Eh Brdski, nobleman Von Egkh zu Hungerspach, the Zeiss barons, merchants Franc Dolenc and Stanko Hajnihar, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (used by Prince Pavle Karadjordjevic) and socialist Yugoslavia, i.e. Slovenia (Josip Broz Tito). It was also used by the six republican leaders for an April 11, 1991 meeting where they agreed in principle on a referendum on the future of Yugoslavia, giving the people hope that things could be done without fighting. That referendum was never held.

In Dobanovci (near Belgrade Airport), the site of a mysterious army base (rumored to include underground bunkers and the Marshal's "wolf's den"), there is a house with land that was allegedly supposed to go to Jovanka Broz, but court intrigues deprive her of it. Later it became an affair after former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia president Dobrica Cosic met there with army leaders in the spring of 1993 and was used to topple him.

Tito's Biljana Villa in Ohrid (Macedonia) is now the residence of Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov. In April 1991, the six republican leaders held a meeting there and in September 1993, Gligorov and Milosevic met.

The last Milosevic-Tudjman meeting was held in Tito's villa in Igalo (Montenegro) in September 1991. Mediator Lord Carrington attended that meeting before giving up on the Balkans.

Tito's hunting lodge bear Bugojno (central Bosnia) was not the site of talks and unconfirmed reports from the area say it was ransacked early in the war. One report even said a stuffed bear had been stolen.

Interestingly, nothing much happened in Tito's houses in Belgrade and Zagreb; all the meetings took place in the Zagreb presidential palace and Belgrade presidency building. The exception was former federal Prime Minister Milan Panic, who held a party at the Beli Dvor residence in Belgrade. Later reports said some guests were not in top form. They were afraid of ghosts.