The Deadly Embrace

All the three nations either keep systematically cutting off each other's communication lines or their use such threats as an convincing political means. In our situation this means that the Serbs are holding a knife to the Croatian and the Muslim main artery; the Croats to that of the Serbs and the Muslims, and the Muslims wherever they can, that is mostly to the Serbs' lines of communication. Croatia has two critical points which are making its already unfavorable geographic position, resembling something like a boomerang, even worse. The first point - of secondary importance - is the Karlovac - Duga Resa line: there, Serbian positions are practically on the other bank of the Kupa river, and the Slovenian border is some thirty kilometers in the other direction, in the hills. The problem lies in the fact that it is along the Kupa river valley that there runs a direct line of communication between Zagreb and Rijeka, a two-lane motorway and a one-track railway. Both pass further away from Duga Resa through the hills of Gorski Kotar, high mountains and dense forests. With a quick action, the Serbian forces on the other side of the Kupa can always cut the road and the railway and thus force Croatia to communicate with half of its territory through Slovenia. This is politically humiliating (which would still be bearable) and, in the long run, extremely risky in view of the Slovenian-Croatian relations so far. Apart from that, the available transport facilities along the Zagreb - Ljubljana - Istria - Rijeka - Dalmatia route are very modest: narrow roads, one-track railways and a long detour. The other and much more painful point is the Zadar - Sibenik - Knin triangle and - especially - the zone around the Maslenica bridge. Namely, the Adriatic Highway (the only connection between Zagreb, Rijeka and Split) was put out of use by the still unclarified explosion in the autumn of 1991 when the Maslenica bridge blew up (according to the legend being told by engineer officers, bad weather and thunder activated the electric lighters). This forced Croatia to transport everything by ferryboats via the island of Pag, since the Krajina Serbs held the Karinsko sea and all the land detours (see the maps). Apart from that, the Serbs also held the Zemunik airport and positions around Donji Zemunik (around 8 km from the sea), which made it possible for them to toss a mortar grenade into the Adriatic whenever they wanted - not to mention the Adriatic Highway on the Zadar - Biograd route. Thus, the Serbs managed to pinch the Croats where it really hurts and to separate 700,000 Croats from the rest of the country. It is now also the climatic circumstances that come into the story: this winter, the well known Velebit bora successfully kept preventing ferryboat transport towards Pag and further towards Zadar and Split. This kept heating up the Croatian public opinion and turned the Maslenica zone into the Croatian policy's psychological and symbolical focal point. Since the beginning of the Maslenica attack, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman has been claiming that this is an agreed upon matter, that is, that he was - allegedly - promised that it would be made possible for the Croatian side to construct a temporary pontoon bridge and that "everybody knows this". However, in the context of the Geneva maps, one thing catches the eye: the so called province 3 in Posavina (Bosnia-Herzegovina) has been given to the Croats although the Croats had left this, until the war, mixed region; this sounds like a bargaining offer, because the Bijeljina - Banja Luka (Bosnia-Herzegovina) corridor passes through the mentioned "province". The first impression of all the analysts was that the Croats were offering "province 3" in exchange for the territories around Zadar and for safe transport on the Adriatic Highway. However, one thing is being forgotten: if one is to believe very well informed sources at the federal level, the negotiations (if there were any negotiations at all, they distance themselves) were most probably over Prevlaka (a tiny peninsula on the Croatian-Montenigrin border) and not over Posavina. This sounds logical: Croatia will gladly give up Prevlaka in exchange for pushing the Serbs from Zadar towards Knin, beyond artillery range and far enough not to be able to endanger future tourism. The problem is that the Serbs from Knin and Krajina did not, it seems, agree to such a deal (if anyone asked them at all). It is Maslenica that hurts the Croats; a painful point for the Serbs from the Knin and the Banja Luka Krajina is the corridor through Posavina, and for the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina it is the Zvornik - Bijeljina - Banja Luka (in general), the Zvornik - Pale and Zvornik (Bajina Basta) - Gorazde - Foca - Kalinovik -eastern Herzegovina corridors. This last line of communication can be made up for through Montenegro, depending on the political circumstances. However, the other lines, are irreplaceable. Once again here occurs the problem of the Serbian Republic's dependence and both Krajinas (Banja Luka and Knin) and on mother Serbia: without passable lines of communication, these Serbian lands are in trouble, because they have no food, fuel, ammunition and material preconditions for an effective defense in general. On the other hand, the Yugoslav Army is in difficulties for two reasons: the first is the attention the United Nations is devoting to both Bosnia-Herzegovina and the UN protected areas in Croatia; the other is the ban on flights over Bosnia-Herzegovina which - with the attack around Maslenica - has suddenly become an extremely sensitive political detail. In other words, the Yugoslav Army cannot take a round about route for flying (and the question is also to what extent it is able to at all, due to the exhaustion of the technical resources and the need for keeping the facilities for non-envisaged situations which are not to be ruled out). An engagement along the land route would primarily require an entire army (experienced high-ranking soldiers say) for securing the corridors and for crossing two internationally recognized borders, so that the issue of the international community's reaction remains open... On the other hand, the Bijeljina - Banja Luka corridor is endangered from the south by combined Croatian-Muslim forces, and from the north by the Croatian army across the Sava river. The Zvornik - Pale corridor is under constant attack by guerilla groups created after the ethnic cleansing of Eastern Bosnia, fierce and revengeful fighters who shy from nothing. They are also endangering the Zvornik (Bajina Basta) - Gorazde - Foca - eastern Herzegovina line of communication. This situation in eastern Bosnia is threatening to spread and to last "for years, as things now stand", said a retired officer of the Yugoslav People's Army who knows the terrain and who is very concerned. Here too, the Yugoslav Army cannot do much, because it is tied by foreign political considerations and the critical state the technical resources are in. The Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina are in an inconvenient position, to say the least. At the moment, they are being fought by both the Serbs and the Croats (the later more and more, especially around Gornji Vakuf and Kiseljak); both are cutting off their communications between isolated enclaves and are trying to convince them to accept a division of Bosnia as a "necessity". The straining of relations between the Serbs and the Croats last week (in the Knin Krajina) will somewhat ease the position of the Muslims, but it is unlikely that it will change the state of affairs. The besiege of Sarajevo still lasts, even though the vital corridors Ploce - Mostar - Konjic - Sarajevo and Split - Zenica - Sarajevo could be opened with a little effort and good will on the part of the forces of the Croatian Defense Council in Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, these efforts and good will have been lacking ever since the summer of 1992 which is, obviously, some kind of policy. Theoretically speaking, the legal government in Bosnia-Herzegovina could benefit from the present Serbo-Croatian conflict - at least for a short period of time, until the brothers make up again. The only thing left for them to do until this happens is to hit both sides as fiercely as possible where it hurts the most: on lines of communication, taking positions for a future situation, trying to impose themselves as a future partner in the field, where everything is resolved in the end. Their message is clear and simple: we are here; we are armed and perhaps we are arming even more; we will also be able to make your life hell with guerilla and terrorist actions.