Fighting for Tudjman's Menu

Less than a week after the "semi-recognition" of the Bosnian Serb Republic in Geneva, declared in the accompaniment of NATO bomb detonations, the Croatian Army, the Croatian Defence Council and the Army of Bosnia Herzegovina have been drawing the new western borders of Serbianism in a rapid and dramatic way.

Bosnian Serb General Mladic continues his confrontations with General Smith around Sarajevo, refusing to see the woods for the trees. And, while on the one hand the bombers are dearly charging Mladic's stubbornness by destroying military, telecommunication, transport and industrial capacities of the Bosnian Serbs, cities of strategic importance in the west of the Bosnian Serb Republic have been falling one after the other: since Tuesday, the Serbs lost Donji Vakuf, Sipovo, Jajce, Drvar and Bosanski Petrovac. The Serbian army has obviously dispelled, the civilians are fleeing; each causes the other: defeatism, for which there is still no efficient answer, is spreading.

NATO air force operations over Bosnia have entered the second stage a long time ago. In the first stage, NATO targeted radar-reconnaissance stations and the few anti-aircraft systems that were not well hidden or camouflaged. Despite the media and propaganda bidding of the actions' efficiency, the bombers hit their aims, if not the first time, then repeatedly shelling over the following days and nights, until they achieved their goal - to blind the whole anti-aircraft defence.

The Serbs were left with only small mobile systems: Strela, Igla and Silo. Such a missile downed one plane - a French Mirage 2000, but after its loss, NATO issued the order that the pilots fly above 4,000 meters, where they are almost 100% safe from such small systems. Larger and more sophisticated systems the Bosnian Serbs have did not react. And there is little chance they will as all the chief systems of detection and guidance have been destroyed or seriously damaged and the only systems that could be used for launching anti-aircarft missiles are the smaller, mobile radar systems detecting approaching aircraft at much lesser distance and with lesser efficiency. Such systems would easily be discovered by the specialized planes for anti-electronic actions flying within each NATO group and would be neutralized by electronic interference or destroyed by anti-radar missiles.

In this stage, only targets in the eastern part of the Bosnian Serb Republic were fired at, and General Janvier tried to persuade Mladic to withdraw his heavy weaponry from the exclusion zone round Sarajevo; Mladic, however, persistenly refused. At that moment, it was still uncertain whether sparing the western part of the territory under Serbian control was merely a coincidence or a concession to Mladic who is believed to have his strongest base round Banja Luka and Prijedor. Even if there had been an intention to appease the general hoping that this would weaken Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic who advocates a more rigid option, Ratko Mladic gambled this chance away by trying to set conditions during his second meeting with General Bernard Janvier.

"Sir, only we set the conditions here and you are to fulfill them", Janvier allegedly said and with these words virtually ended the second unsuccessful summit of Generals qualified by UNPROFOR as "sour".

After the radar systems came the telecommunication relays: Stolice on Majevica, Trovrh above Gorazde, and then the rest. It was already high time even for Mladic and Karadzic to start thinking seriously, because the loss of the integrated anti-aircraft defence did not in any way shift the balance of forces regarding the Croatian Army and the Croatian Defence Council and the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina - the sky over Bosnia is ruled by NATO alone - but the loss of protected (cryptographic) and microwave communications reduced the Bosnian Serb Army's communications to the unreliable communications of WWII, which can be monitored by everybody. This further reduced the efficiency of command, the speed and reliability of conveying messages and the units' mobility. General Mladic still did not understand.

Then ensued the second stage of bombing: the actions spread to the western part of the Bosnian Serb Republic, where the ring of anti-aircraft defence of Banja Luka was neutralized, the airport runway in Mahovljani pierced by special bombs, the telecommunications center on Mt. Kozara destroyed and bridges and army plants in the other parts of the territory blown up. The shell plant Pretis in Vogosca was in flames for almost two days, Foca is practically cut off, the bridge between Semizovac and Srednje has been blown up, almost completely severing the roundabout road between Ilidza and Pale. None of the Bosnian Serbs took the matter seriously nor showed the ability to think at least two days in advance. They still tried the dilettante version of a media counter-blow, auctioned civilian victims, shelled hospitals and children, and when the UNPROFOR members first apologized for the victims in the Blazuj hospital "if there were any" and then tried to reach it and see the situation for themselves, the Serbian side was unable to organize their trip. Stories of children killed by nearly each falling bomb have choked up on the absence of an answer to the question what makes the Serbs push the children into the streets when they hear above them the sounds of planes which are definitely not amicable.

Karadzic kept on pinning his hopes on the "Russians", saying that "Russian power is enormous when it comes to arms supplies. All we need is for them to open a few of their warehouses and let us take what we need and we will beat the enemy, not only the Muslims, but also the Croats, not only in Bosnia, but in Croatia as well." He did not explain who would use those weapons in the spread out, exhausted and disoriented Serbian army, lacking communications and General Headquarters Commander who is concerned only with Sarajevo.

The Russians did protest a bit and hissed at NATO, but it must have been clear to everyone but the Bosnian Serb leadership that their protests were aimed more at inter-bloc haggling, establishing a kind of counterbalance to NATO's domination and calming down the turbo-national Duma. The Pale leadership's delusion continued and increased with the wailing over cruising missiles. There are definitely no reasons to attach greater importance to a type of bomb or missile, if the outcome NATO had in mind has been achieved. Pale was again beside the mark and focused on "Tomahawks" instead of on the fact that various bombs are still falling on its territory from the air, making a loud BOOM and incurring great damage.

The Americans meanwhile brought another aircraft carrier "America" into the Adriatic water, which probably increased NATO's bombing capacity. The cruising missiles were probably used to prevent the jamming of the air guiding system which simply would not have been able to deal with the number of planes needed for a concentrated attack on all strategic targets in the Banja Luka region.

And while Akashi said that the third stage of attacks, which would include attacks on all industrial facilities and who knows what else, was not ruled out, the Bosnia-Herzegovina Army and combined forces of the Croatian Army and the Croatian Defence Council launched their attack. The Bosnian 2nd and 3rd Corps first seized Vozuca, a village on the slope of Mt. Ozren of strategic importance as the Zenica-Tuzla highway passes through it. Alija Izetbegovic himself visited the troops on Tuesday which will definitely be an encouragement to the Tuzla and Zenica Corps to continue advancing over Ozren up to Doboj.

In the west, the frontal borders of the Bosnian Serb Republic fell even faster and more drastically: the 7th Bosnian Corps aided by the Croatian artillery from the plateau above Glamoc routed the Serbian 13th Division which was holding Donji Vakuf and Sipovo. The strongholds the Serbs had been building for three years to defend Donji Vakuf from a frontal attack from the Bugojno direction were just as useful as the Maginaut-line was to the French in 1940.

The attack came from the rear and the Serbian army fled to avoid being surrounded. It is difficult to stop fleeing troops: the road was jammed with troops and civilians and when they reached Jajce, no one could have stopped the Jajce civilians and army from joining them.

Rumors proved faster than the official media. Although Karadzic appeared on a TV Banja Luka show on Tuesday (which is hardly visible in the town after the repeater was destroyed and is sent by messenger to Pale and Bijeljina), he failed to convince anyone to remain in town. He seemed confused and kept on accusing "a battalion that fled" of Sipovo's fall.

Emcee Lazar Petrovic's question, "It seems we are repeating ourselves, it seems we are unable to learn a lesson. Is there fear, panic, misinformation, the fifth column again? What is really going on?", showed that the system was no longer what it had been. After being asked such a direct question, Karadzic confirmed that opinion of numerous analysts that he has nearly completely lost contact with reality by answering that an investigative committee would be set up and laid the blame on "uniformed people who go around enticing the people to flee because the Ustasha are close".

Meanwhile, the flight continued on the ground, the column that meanwhile grew to include 50,000 people was being joined by citizens of Jajce, Drvar, Mrkonjic Grad and Kljuc.

A farcical ideological statement was issued on Wednesday claiming that the "Bosnian Serb Army units on this part of the front are holding their positions strongly and incurring great losses on the united enemy every day"; the very next day, it was admitted Jajce and Drvar had fallen, that most of the road from Jajce through Mrkonjic Grad to Bosanski Petrovac was under Croatian control and that the Serbian units were roaming the woods trying to find a way out. According to unconfirmed news, the 5th Corps has also headed East and reached Bosanski Petrovac which might have already fallen by the time Vreme closed (Thursday afternoon).

The united forces of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Federation have obviously achieved total operative cooperation and the Serbs face breakdown, distrust and defeatism. Military logic would call on the Commanders of the 1st and 2nd Krajina Corps, Generals Tadic and Tomanic, to set up crucial defence in the Kljuc region, unless they want to face an extremely unpleasant situation of the key access roads to Banja Luka remaining open. However, it seems that the fleeing people are pulling after them the national army; their flight has acquired such proportions that it prompted the Bosnian Brigadier General Ferid Buljubasic to say Kljuc might fall even on Thursday. His statement is merely a sour pill in comparison to the goals Commander of the 7th Corps Mehmet Alagic has mentioned: "Our aim is to review the Bosnian Army troops in Banja Luka."

Whether this prediction of General Alagic will come true currently depends on a series of factors not all of which can be rationally controlled. Such a large number of refugees, hitherto experience shows, can be stopped only in a place large enough where extreme efforts can be invested to neutralize the enormous charge of defeatism and panic - and Banja Luka is the only such place. In order to achieve this, the army would have to be commanded by General Mladic alone, as he is the only figure whose charisma can still bear significance. But to devote himself to this, he would have to let go of the futile games round Sarajevo which he could win only by compromise of which has proven incapable.

Whether another party will enter the game and enable the Serbs such a compromise is the key question. NATO and the UN warned (but only warned) the Croats and Muslims that they should not use the situation created by NATO attacks, which sounds really cynical. The main goal of the bombings was none other than to neutralize the Serbian superiority and to reduce the Serbian army to the level of their enemies, so that it could realize that the time of artillery superiority and fighting from a distance is long gone. The goal has obviously been achieved, and NATO might easily stop its attacks despite Mladic's pouting over the cannons in the exclusion zone. Serbian President Milosevic is keeping quiet, probably with the intention of speaking out after the 49:51 ratio is achieved on the ground so that no Serb has to force Serbs to move out and he can take advantage of another major defeat for his final showdown with Karadzic. For his cooperation and refusal to be soft towards the refugees, he might even be granted the position of the favorite American vassal in the region, and, at best, economic aid one day without the obligation to introduce capitalism.

Some moves, which a few months ago seemed ridiculous or at least unrealistic, such as the Bosnian Army's announcement that it did not want to "cut off the corridor so that the Serbs can have a place to flee", now become clear in this genuinely disastrous scenario. Bosnia's fate will be rapidly and brutally resolved on the ground over the next few days: the only thing that is certain for now is that the Serbs still might keep 49% of the territory, although it is not so certain that the layout of the territories will correspond to the Contact Group plan. At worst, it might resemble Tudjman's London menu.