Signing For Slavonia

Milan Milanovic, chief negotiator for the Serb authorities in Eastern Slavonia, said in Erdut on October 27 that the agreement on the status of the area is too serious to be signed hastily. Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian President, signed a joint declaration with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman on November 1 which says the Eastern Slavonia issue will be resolved "with full respect for internationally recognized human rights for all citizens, the right of refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes and recover their property or receive just compensation".

Whatever that statement means (and some are already calling it a reintegration agreement), US Ambassador in Zagreb, Peter Galbraith, and UN peace mediator, Thorwald Stoltenberg, hurried to the region to talk to the Serb authorities. Those authorities refused to sign an 11-point agreement offered by the mediators on October 28 on permanently resolving the status of their region.

Milanovic said their proposal was unacceptable to the Serbs "because that agreement includes a speedy, complete and almost unconditional reintegration into Croatia". Serb negotiators agreed to the first point on an international protectorate over a two year period even though they wanted a five year period earlier. The other points of the agreement (including a full demilitarization of the region, introduction of Croatian police and administration, elections after the transition period instead of a referendum) are considered unacceptable.

Vukovar Mayor Slavko Dokmanovic said of the agreement: "If that agreement were possible we would have signed it in 1990 and there would have been no war". Still, it's hard to imagine that Milosevic and Tudjman could reach a fundamentally different agreement on permanently resolving Eastern Slavonia.

The first thing you notice is that the statement by the two Presidents focuses on the return of refugees and displaced persons not only in that area but in all of Croatia. That seems to be the least painful way to get past five years of war and crisis without getting into the causes of everything that happened.

The Eastern Slavonia authorities are getting out of their responsibility for the reintegration, or more precisely they are "sacrificing themselves" for higher goals. They will give up their maximum demands if the Croatian authorities agree to the return of Krajina Serb refugees with international guarantees of human rights. Eastern Slavonia without autonomy but with the return of Serb refugees is acceptable to Zagreb for at least three reasons: There will be far fewer Serbs than before the war; international pressure on Croatia following the drastic human rights violations in the Krajina will drop off; and finally, mutual recognition will come, something Zagreb has been insisting on.

All that isn't bad for Milosevic. He will get a chance to claim loudly that he has protected the Serbs in Croatia with his peaceful policies which will make the military losses a relative thing. Also he will save his political credibility: if Martic, Babic and Karadzic had listened to him like Milanovic and Dokmanovic did there would be no defeat or refugees.