Trouble With Sacirbej

"The main problem that Tuesday was Bosnian Foreign Minister Mohamed Sacirbej. In fact, he was the problem on two occasions. The first time in Geneva on September 8, just prior to the first meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia when he told Holbrooke he had changed his mind on the document of the Basic Principles of the constitutional order for Bosnia-Herzegovina. He said the Bosnian side can not approve the document since the Basic Principles make no mention of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina but does accept and explicitly mentions the existence of its mortal enemy the Bosnian Serb Republic. Holbrooke got extremely angry, knowing the whole thing would fall apart if he allowed one side to change a single word at the last moment. He told Sacribej that his stubbornness could cause a crisis in US-Bosnian relations, and an end to the NATO bombing campaign. Holbrooke actually had no official basis for that threat because the official US position is that the bombing has nothing to do with diplomacy but his threat drew the wanted outcome and Sacirbej went back to the negotiations.

This Tuesday something similar happened in New York. Again, Sacirbej held everyone in anxiety until the last moment. Only at 2:00 pm did the Bosnians inform the US delegation that it would accept the proposed document. Earlier it demanded changes in the document to say explicitly that direct elections have to be held in all parts of the country instead of the formulation which said the two entities would hold free, democratic elections. The Bosnian government is afraid Mladic and Karadzic will find ways to fix the elections, that instead of direct elections for the Bosnia-Herzegovina parliament, they will simply appoint delegates from the existing Bosnian Serb parliament. The anxiety lasted for hours, and at two o'clock Sacirbej finally said he had changed his mind again and will accept the document. The Americans breathed a sigh of relief. They spent the previous night sending faxes to Sarajevo and Belgrade, Christopher talked to Izetbegovic and Milosevic on the phone, they weighed every word. To calm Sacirbej, the Americans said the article on elections means general direct elections but that wasn't entered into the document."

VREME: Does that Mean the Moslems are the hard-liners in the negotiations?

"To the Americans this is a very frustrating stage: both the Serbs and Moslems frustrate them equally but administration sources told me that the biggest difficulty is the fact that there are divisions in the Sarajevo government, including the rivalry between Alija Izetbegovic who wants a Bosnian mini-state under Moslem rule and prime minister Haris Silajdzic who advocates a wholesome, multi-cultural Bosnia. In that constellation, Sacirbej is on Izetbegovic's side. I know Holbrooke complained that all sides are digging in their negotiating positions and that it's getting harder to get them to compromise. As for the Sarajevo government, Sacirbej told me that they feel Milosevic is flexible now and that he could be made to make even more concessions. That's why the Moslems are very firm. However, that sometimes creates the opposite effect: if the Moslems push too hard, the Serbs dig in even in things that are not of primary importance. On Tuesday, the Serbs were very decisive in refusing changes in the document and did not allow the election formulation to be thrown out.

At the moment the American strategy is to leave what can't be agreed now for later. For example, the number of presidency members and the army and police have been left for later."

VREME: What is the strategy of the Croat side?

"They are almost keeping to the side. The main arguments are between the Serbs and Moslems. The Croats are lending nominal support to the Moslems but they aren't especially enthusiastic and the impression is that that they don't really care about the main bone of contention among the Serbs and Moslems: will Bosnia have strong or weak central authorities. Recently Misha Glenny's article was published saying the Croats are the winners of the Yugoslav civil war. That is a topic that is much discussed here. I think Americans are increasingly feeling that they will have to raise the Croatian question. As for the Croat strategy, their main topic is Eastern Slavonia. They claim Milosevic agreed to a three year transition period before the area goes to Croatia and the Croats want that period limited to one year. In any case, the Croats have managed to get US guarantees that the Eastern Slavonia issue will be part of an overall peace settlement. That means there will be no grand finale: Milosevic's arrival in Washington to sign a peace plan in the White House without an agreement on Eastern Slavonia.