The Peacemakers

The official announcements are full of expectations that the cease-fire will be preserved and that the UN peace-keeping forces will come. Of course, all this deserves praise, but for the sake of Serbia and its future international relations, the following question must me asked once more: why were the citizens of Serbia being killed in Croatia, under the pretext of defending the Croatian Serbs, who never lived in worse conditions than today, after being defended? No matter how well they started getting inside the role of peacemakers, the fact that the exponents of Milosevic's politics have until a couple of days ago been doing all they could to convince the people that the war was inevitable and that it represented a proof of patriotism - has not been forgotten yet.

Going through the papers of a few months ago - where you can find in black and white what some of today's most fervent peace supporters have said or done - makes you feel like Alice in Wonderland when she found herself on the other side of the mirror.

Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia, has in March last year, when Borisav Jovic "resigned" the post of president of the federal presidency, ascribed special significance to the protection of (Serbian) "mothers and children". Leaving the mothers and children of Krajina in the hands of the UN troops, the president reveals today: "Between war and peace every sensible and honest man will choose peace". He admits (in an interview to "Vecernje novosti") that Serbs also have extremists and that he, as a citizen, would always "have more confidence in the political parties and the politicians who do not threat their political opponents"; he even said that "a great segment of responsibility for boycott and discontent of the Albanian people lies within the hands of the responsible Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo and is based on their inappropriate behaviour".

As far as the war in Croatia is concerned, there is no doubt that it is "a natural, legitimate act of self-defence, imminent to the historical dignity of the Serbian people" (Milosevic, Serbian Parliament, June 1991). And june was the month of the first EC expeditions to Yugoslavia, when Mr. Dellor and Mr. Santer were offering us money to stay together. The main enemy of Serbia then were the United States, the ambassador Warren Zimmermann was by far the most widely hated of all foreigners, while "the approach of the EC delegation was considered to be an act of interference in Yugoslavia's internal affairs" (Slobodan Milosevic).

In July last year, while battles were waged in Vukovar, Vinkovci, Osijek, Bosanski and Slavonski Brod, Pakrac and Daruvar,Sisak, Petrinja, Glina, Plitvice, Gospic, Benkovac ... the president did not speak of peace, nor has he asked for the UN troops to come. By that time, the Croatian authorities were the ones to insist on the internationalization of the YU-crisis. In the Serbian Parliament Milosevic spoke of strong outside pressure on Serbia... "this is not the first time we are faced with the intentions of the super-powers". That was also the time of the romance between the Serbian regime and Milan Babic and Radovan Karadzic. In those days Milosevic proclaimed himself commander of the Serbian Territorial Defence.

Then the period of futile cease-fire announcements followed- first in Belgrade and then in the Hague and elsewhere. At one point the Yugoslav Presidency (which was still complete) appointed the state committee for controlling the cease-fire which was a sham for the outset since it was headed by Branko Kostic who was then far removed from his present peacekeeper image. The famous announcement of dr Kostic dates from that period: "You in Borovo Selo can always count on the help of the Presidency and other federal organs... The fact that they are calling you chetniks and terrorists has no real ground. You are merely self-organized and armed people defending your age-old hearths". Serbia at that time, as later, was "not in war". Milosevic gave an interview to Sky-news in August stating that his regime is helping the Croatian Serbs only by providing them with "drugs, food and money" and he was sure they will respect the cease-fire since he knows "the soul of those people". These days he is forced to write an open letter to Milan Babic (forget the soul of the people). Even then the "traitor circles" were speculating on whether Milosevic really has Babic, Hadzic (the president of SAO Baranja, Slavonia and Western Srem) and the like under his control. Dr Budimir Kosutic (we still remember him) was explaining that Serbia can not influence the behaviour of Milan Babic and Goran Hadzic. Milosevic was then happy with their politics so he had no reason to exert influence on them which also suited him in his dealings with the international public. Now, however, they are supposed to listen to him who does not want to bring the Croatian Serbs to Serbia when they want it, but is instead handing them over to the United Nations, rather then their local leaders. But consistency has never been high on Milosevic's list of priorities.

The Belgrade media and the press loyal to Milosevic were competing to find the worst-stricken refugee and the most brutally massacred victims, the Hague conference was trailing along and Ante Markovic called for the resignation of general Veljko Kadijevic. On that occasion he mentioned the cassette where Slobodan Milosevic gives orders to Radovan Karadzic telling him to make contact with general Nikola Uzelac, the then commander of the Banjaluka Corps and instructing him to, following the agreement within the top military circles, he should arm the Territorial Defence of Bosanska Krajina in order to carry out the "Ram" /"frame"/ programme /the plan for creating Great Serbia/.

All those threats, appeals, heart-rendering talk of age-old hearths and the warrior tradition were in vain - the majority of Serbian citizens did not wish to go to war. The scandals with the reservists who refused to go to the front and with the ones who were fleeing the battlefield were assuming disturbing proportions viewed from the authority standpoint. There were a few attempts to boost the fighting moral of the people and this is why the Serbian officials visited the rebels. Pavic Obradovic, the vice-president of the Serbian Parliament was explaining to the reservists in Sid towards the end of September that "Serbia is being defended in Slavonia and Krajina", so that "all the casualties involved in defending the Croatian Serbs are justified" /today Milosevic interprets the presence of the UN peace keeping troops as enabling the citizens to "go back to normal life without guns". Dragan Dragojlovic, the Minister of Religion in Zelenovic's government was sent to Valjevo to explain to the rebellious reservists that Serbia is officially not in war so as not to be seen as an aggressor and that, for the same reason it does not have its own army but it has the federal army instead. He explained that they should not leave their units since the people would say that "the Serbs are not what they used to be" and the Moslems and the Albanians will rebel.

Autumn was getting ever more interesting. The so-called four member Yugoslav Presidency made a big political entrance and since it was devised by three generals (Kadijevic, Adzic, Brovet) the imminent war danger was immediately proclaimed. Dr Branko Kostic, the formal vice-president but really the president of the so-called Presidency immediately organized a press conference where they explained their October position. "The Yugoslav Presidency should once again try to make the Croatian authorities respect the cease-fire... and if it does not succeed in this I think that the Army should crush the armed force of the Croatian paramilitary formations and thus create the conditions for finding the peaceful solution to the Yugoslav crisis".

The "redrawing of borders" mania was at its peak and its most prominent exponent was academic Mihajlo Markovic, the vice-president of the SPS /Socialist Party of Serbia/ main board. He said that in the first half of October 1991 the Army will /draw a new border between Serbia and Croatia and only than can we talk about the peaceful solution to the crisis", thus compromising himself and Milosevic as well, who, a few months later, after accepting the positioning of the UN troops according to the "blot" system consented to the retreat of the Army from the regions it used to control. The president of the Serbian Parliament Aleksandar Bakocevic repeated at the same time that Serbia is not in war and that it has no war aims. Somewhere around that period the citizens remembered the promise Milosevic gave in his talks with the opposition that "the war will be short" and that "things are going our way" while he remarked the following at the meeting with borough leaders: "If we can not work well, at least we can fight well".

Branko Kostic calculated at the consultation meeting of the Yugoslav Presidency /where four "regular" members were present along with the representatives of Serbs in diaspora in the image of Babic, Hadzic, Karadzic, Crncevic and others interested in the third Yugoslavia/ that the gathered officials represent 12.6 million people or 52 percent of the entire Yugoslav population.

In November 1991 a turn of events ensued. Dr Borisav Jovic, one of the members of the so-called Presidency and the president of SPS, who in March 1991 insisted on proclaiming the state of imminent war danger and who supported every radical proposal of the Army suddenly says: "Sending the UN peace keeping troops to Croatia could bring about the end of war in that republic which would create the conditions for the peaceful solution to the Yugoslav crisis". True Jovic's president said that "the presence of the foreign troops is not welcome, neither can they help find the solution to the existing crisis" - but that was in August.

Just as he has now, along with Milosevic, put himself at the head of the peace keeping movement, dr Kostic was also against it when it was expected. Speaking in August in Herzeg-Novi the vice-president said that he will see "although he doubts it" whether the EC could use its authority to make Tudjman respect the cease-fire; if not then Kostic "is convinced there can be no alternative but to send the Army to crush the resistance of the Croatian paramilitary formations". Marko Negovanovic, the present Serbian Defence Minister was even in October 1991 saying that "the main task of all those who wish to stay in Yugoslavia and of those who want to separate from it peacefully would be to discard with any thought of resorting to foreign armed force". At the beginning of December 1991 Mihajlo Markovic came to the fore again by complaining to the citizens of a Belgrade borough that "our youth is not psychologically prepared for this war. They lived well, dreaming of a Dynasty-like life and it has now come as a shock to them that they have no choice but to take arms and go to fight". This fits nicely with the announcements of Radovan Karadzic that "Serbs can live without bread, but not without a country" and with the one which says that "it won't be the first time we'll feed on roots".

Milosevic is the only "misfit" here since, as we have already mentioned he is these days talking of the "return to normal life".

But can they be forgiven for all they have done?