Karadzic and Boban divide 101% of Bosnia and Hercegovina

Along with the regular bombing of Mostar, last week was marked by fighting in Doboj, Gorazde and Derventa which, as they say, are now "in the hands of the JNA". The army has vacated the barracks in Travnik after having destroyed everything that could have been of use to the "enemy". The only relatively peaceful place in the Bosna river-basin is Zenica where the problem of relocation of the barracks is being worked on. Talks are strained, however, by the usual wrangling between representatives of the JNA and the Zenica Crisis Center as to what arms can be taken by the soldiers.

You can get from Zenica to Jablanica, from where the old tobacco routes lead to Western Herzegovina and on to Split, by side-roads (the usual route via Sarajevo and Konjic is closed). This is the way the refugees from Bosnia go to Croatia and it isn't difficult to suppose that the military formations of "Croatian people" in B&H receive their arms by the same route. Throughout the whole of the Republic there is a chronic feeling of lack of money, and soon, as a temporary solution, coupons will be printed.

The opposing armies in Bosnia-Herzegovina are slowly settling down. All the Moslem, and for the most part poorly armed, formations have, without much of a fight, come under the command of the Territorial Defense (TD). Some of those in the Croatian national corps are loyal to B&H and come under the same TD control, but there are also formations that consider the conquered territory to be Croatian. It is interesting to note that the Croatian units that do not want to come under the control of the TD of B&H are located in the area which Mate Boban, one of the leaders of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in B&H, in one of his more optimistic variations, has marked as his (it is about 35 percent of the territory, which added to Karadzic's 66 percent makes a total of 101 percent!). The Serbs in B&H are another story. They are mostly engaged in the so-called TD of Serbian B&H, though there are quite a few to be found in the many other paramilitary formations, depending on personal taste (are you for the King or not, and other intimate Serbian questions). The number of Serbs who have remained loyal to B&H and its armed formations is not negligible either. The fact that these are mainly Serbs from the urban areas, i.e. city-dwellers (a very large number of Serbs from Sarajevo did not take part in the shelling of the city) gives support to the theory that this is a war between village and city, a matter of rural-urban contention, though this diagnosis does not have to represent the key to the resolution of the problem.

To add to the general chaos, there is the former JNA, which is quickly being transformed into the army of Karadzic's B&H, though undoubtedly part of the units will cross over to the Serbian side of the Drina. Colonel Jovan Divjak of the B&H TD headquarters, directed the attention of journalists to the way in which fire arms of the Yugoslav Army are being handed over to the Serbian TD, corroborating this with example. In truth, it is still a future operation. According to Divjak, one of these days an attack on the airport (understandably a strategically important point) will be staged , after which the Serbian formations will take over the tanks and other equipment located at the airport, which will give them further control. SDS activist, Tomislav Sipovac, unequivocally stated that the retreat of the Army from B&H represents the beginning of the forming of an army of Serbs from B&H, which up to now were unarmed.

Haris Silajdzic, B&H Minister of Foreign Affairs, is engaged in hurried diplomatic activity with the prime aim of eliciting military intervention in B&H. It can't be said that he has had much success; he has received three rejections in a row (from the US, Turkey and Great Britain), and this puts Izetbegovic in the worst position since his coming to power. Croatian secessionism in B&H, besides that of Karadzic, has been articulated these days by Franjo Boras and Mate Boban, who are helped along by the destruction being carried out by the Serbian bloc. So it was that once again Karadzic and Boban agreed in Graz on the division of Bosnia. It wasn't announced which of them sacrificed the 1% of the territory missing in order to give them all the territory they want.