Turning A New Leaf in Bosnia

After three full years and rejections of all offered peace plans, the Bosnian Serb leaders have found themselves in almost total political isolation. The only people to come to Pale (apart from UNPROFOR) are elders of the Serbian Orthodox Church who are condescending towards the Pale leaders. Church elders were given anniversary Easter gold and silver pieces depicting the White Angel during their last visit. There are no signs the international community will ease the pressure on the Bosnian Serbs and Security Council resolution 988 shows that the pressure is rising.

The fortunes of war seem to be turning their back on the Bosnian Serbs as well. After taking Vlasic, the Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) Army pushed back the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) on Mt. Treskavica and closed in on the Sarajevo-Foca road. Fighting has intensified on the Majevica, Doboj and Brcko fronts. The BiH 5th corps launched a new offensive in the Bihac pocket on Mt. Pljesevica; its troops launched their first rocket attack on an important communications tower on the Gola Pljesevica peak. The BSA currently has no solution to the BiH offensives in several places at once aimed at taking important positions to control communications. The BSA problems with manpower and supplies are becoming increasingly evident.

In searching for a way out the Bosnian Serb civilian and military leaders have grown apart.

Karadzic feels that he can continue as he has and that sooner or later the international community and Sarajevo government will relent.

Mladic does not seem to believe that any more; he is urging the defining of optimal war goals to end the war through negotiations on that basis.

That's the basis on which their activities differ. Wanting to prove that nothing can get in Bosnia unless he gets the concessions he asked for, Karadzic announced "reciprocal behavior": "whatever the international community does against us we will do against the international community and our enemies the Moslems."

Unlike Karadzic who refuses to recognize the UN Security Council and is threatening World War III, general Mladic met with Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in the company of Krajina prime minister Borislav Mikelic and leader of the recently self-proclaimed Republic of Western Bosnia Fikret Abdic. What they talked about is not known; we only know that a Yugoslav Army (VJ) colonel brought in a roll of maps.

It's certain that Mikelic is Milosevic's most loyal Serb politician on the other side of the Drina river, that Abdic's political fate depends on Serbia's interests and that the Pale leaders had no idea about the meeting.

What will happen now in the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS)? On the one side are the poor people who are bleeding more and more on the war fronts, on the other a rich class of "businessmen" in the civilian authorities. The dissatisfied army has been demanding a declaration of a state of war for a long time, accusing the "businessmen" of being in opposition to the war goals; oil as a strategic resource is flowing into privately owned gas stations and the money from sales is invested into profitable private deals instead of buying ammunition. In that context, there has been mention of a certain minister who organized production of detergent and is selling it in Serbia.

Many believe that general Mladic has calmed the dissatisfaction of the army for a long time but that he has realized that with these civilian leaders he is doomed to military failure. A state in which under 10% of economic facilities are operating, in which "businessmen" form their own military formations instead of paying taxes, where crime and corruption are booming, where ethnic cleansing is called national leveling and obvious war crimes are a result of "international conspiracies and lies" cannot win a war. At the moment, out of highly pragmatic reasons (preserving his own skin), it's unimportant to him how much he contributed to the whole mess and what his army has done.

Both Karadzic and general Mladic, if they want to preserve their personal authority, know that something has to change. In his Easter message, the general called for "necessary sacrifices in the struggle to victory" probably meaning civilian businessmen. Karadzic most probably sees the need for change differently; he has no intention of ousting the people Mladic is targeting who are his main political and economic bulwark.

In other words, they will meet the army's requests if he has to, out of pragmatic needs, but not as the communists would say, in a disorganized and hasty manner.

He told the public what he intends to do at Easter on the RS TV, sitting in an armchair in front the camera behind a table with baskets of Easter eggs. Karadzic made his announcement:

1. Local bodies of authority (municipalities) will no longer finance their (local) units as they did so far but will pay the money to the government which will pass it on to the ministry, which will pass it on to army headquarters which will finally pass it on to the units.

2. The army will have priorities in financing and supplies. Salaries in companies will not be paid until soldiers get their pay, nor will anyone get anything until the army gets its share of aid. In short, the army and its needs have been given the honorary first row seat.

3. Promotions of many "good and honest" soldiers since "this is the hour when we should take care of our younger personnel".

Dealing with profiteers was left for the end of the war: "then every Serb hero or invalid will be rewarded as befits Serb heroes".

There is no doubt that the Bosnian Serb leader is continuing to discipline his army and use it for his own goals. It's a completely different question whether that army has any motivation to wage war for a state that Karadzic creates and his pillars of authority and whether the defeats are perhaps the first sign of the breakup of what they have created.