Withdrawal to the Right Hands

While a Croatian-Moslem (i.e. Bosnian-Herzegovinian) offensive is under way on the Northern front, the pressure of the Serbian military bloc is growing in eastern and central Bosnia, especially in the Gorazde region, whose urban center is still under the control of the legal authorities. From a military and strategic point of view, important news is that the village of Lijesce (from where Bosanski Brod and Slavonski Brod have been shelled) has "fallen", and that Odzak and Modrica are again under the control of the "liberating" forces (the quotation marks are put because it is still unclear whether the "liberators" consider the "liberated" territories as Croatian or Bosnian).

As in every war, there are exaggerations in this B&H war as well (according to reports, it turns out that every person killed is necessarily massacred), though it is certain that some crimes will be only later be uncovered. But images of horror are flashed before our eyes: in Brcko, twelve people were found in a cellar, I quote, "killed and massacred by the aggressor Chetnik forces"; in Gorazde, the last, the very last, food supplies are being consumed, while water and electricity supplies have been cut off for days. But in spite of this, as the local reporter says, "the town's defenders are strong and courageous". In Mostar, due to the fact that burials are impossible at the town cemetery, Moslems and Catholics are being buried together in the central park, as they say - for the time being, though it is possible that war emotions could leave them lying together, as a testimonial of the tragic past to future generations... Slowly, but surely, the B&H media are beginning to use a vocabulary similar to the one used in Croatia, although, owing to the current situation, we shouldn't blame them much for this.

Clashes have escalated again in Sarajevo, and their basic cause is the unresolved status of the army barracks located within the city. The JNA's intention is to move in the forces loyal to Mr. Karadzic (the other side, of course, opposes this idea), and to control the airport. By capturing the latter, the JNA has cut off the last of Sarajevo's links with the world. Another bitter fact for the B&H authorities is that it they are barely functioning in two Sarajevo districts. Terror and pillaging continue in the B&H capital. This is particularly felt by the inhabitants of Dobrinja, Vrace and Grbavica (parts of Sarajevo), where what's left of life functions mostly thanks to local Serbs who, putting their own lives at stake (for quislings are the worst enemies of all), buy the necessary groceries for their Moslem neighbors.

As the result of the last missile attack, the Hum TV transmitter ceased operating, but then, miraculously, started to partially function. But what is even more amazing is that the only remaining B&H TV transmitter on Mt. Bjelasnica has not been disabled yet, or that no-one has tried to do so yet.

The UNPROFOR headquarters have also been hit, although it is still not known whether this was due to "poor aiming" (which was one of Mr. Karadzic's explanations for the destruction of some vital buildings) or genuine intention. And so the UNPROFOR will be dejectedly leaving this ghost town, following the EC Monitoring Mission.

The JNA's formal withdrawal from B&H continues, regular troops are going home, and wherever it is painlessly possible, they are substituted by the notorious reservists. In places where this is not possible, the JNA is either stalling (Zenica), or opting for overt clashes (Sarajevo). Therefore, it is obvious that a transfer of all available JNA potentials to Mr. Karadzic is under way, so that his arguments not lose their weight in advocating the idea of "cantonizing B&H" and the "beneficial" map-drawing.

The first open conflict between the HVO (Croatian Defense Council - a Croatian Democratic Union's [HDZ] military formation) and the local B&H Territorial Defense (B&H TD) unit has been registered in Busovaca. The pretext was the weapons from a nearby JNA warehouse, and the HVO has used the opportunity to take power into "its own hands". Commenting on the incident for VREME, Serif Kadric from Zenica TD, said that all Croatian military forces (HVO and HOS - Croatian Rights Party [HSP] military formation) are generally loyal to the Republic of B&H, but that there exists a real danger that the headquarters of these armed groups could begin to view the "captured" territories as Croatian, in the sense of belonging to "mother Croatia". But this is only problem number two at the moment, said Mr. Kadric. The Zenica HOS representative Mladen Holman expressed a view similar to Mr. Kadric's, adding that it was probably a struggle for power, and not the "cutting off of a part of B&H territory". Mr. Holman stressed that his party is against Mr. Boban's (Croatian Democratic Union) and Mr. Karadzic's current politics and that it is supporting the idea of an integral B&H (!?). After the remark was made that HSP's program states that B&H should be joined to Croatia, Mr. Holman said: "Yes, but we will fight for it by democratic means only" - forgetting the fact that his party was the first to establish armed units.

The B&H government's activity has been reduced to that of a few people. The main issue that they are discussing are war criminals, while the latter are showering them with gun shells. The farce regarding the government was completed when the formal mandator, Jure Pelivan, failed to create a "truly expert" team, thus leaving the structure of the government unchanged, while the vacated seats still have not been filled (after Serbian representatives had left). Some inventiveness has been shown by the Deputy-Prime Minister Mustafa Cengic who fled with his family to Turkey, under the excuse of alleged diplomatic activity, which, by the way, no-one charged him with. The B&H Foreign Minister, Haris Silajdzic, probably due to the fact that he has no place to come back to, is still conducting the uncompromising diplomatic policy, whose only fault is that, apart from verbal support, it has no results at all. Mr. Alija Izetbegovic, and his protégé Silajdzic, have put all their stakes on international intervention, and an armed one at that, which is the last of all measures the proverbially slow and hesitant international community could possibly adopt.