Clashes, Elections, Negotiations

The one year long cease-fire agreed upon in Sarajevo was violated by the Croatian army some fifteen days before the elections for the Assembly's Chamber of Districts and for local bodies of authority. The election campaign itself passed without great political passions because of both the relatively small competencies of the bodies that were to be elected and the clashes in Ravni Kotari. The results of the elections showed that the Croatian Democratic Union had retained its supremacy, but also that it has been seriously shaken for the first time. Even though most of the citizens of Croatia approve of the Maslenica bridge action, it turned out that the main state policy, for which there exists a dubious consensus, is not always enough to make up for the growing crime, the uniformity of the media, nepotism, the introduction of suitability according to the regime's criteria, that is, for everything that cannot be justified by the war and its consequences. Still, the elections were a good test of the public mood and an opportunity for acquiring a new political legitimacy for the authorities' future moves and their consequences. Presidents Cosic and Tudjman agreed in Geneva without great problems that Bosnia-Herzegovina should be organized on confederal principles since they cannot have the Serbs and the Croats there join their states. At first, the agreement reached to the detriment of the third side held water. However, someone in Zagreb got a delayed stroke of wisdom and asked what stood in the way of such a confederal model, after Bosnia-Herzegovina, also being applied in Croatia. The regions under UNPROFOR's protection did remain within Croatia's borders, but, according to the plan of Cyrus Vance, their status is subject to negotiation. The Maslenica action is a clear sign that, while there is still time, the official stands regarding Krajina will not be abandoned regardless of whether someone interprets this as a blow to the peace efforts by the cochairmen of the peace conference. And it is precisely their proposal for the cantonal division of Bosnia-Herzegovina, according to which 17 percent of the Bosnian Croats get 25 percent of the territories, that the authorities in Zagreb wholeheartedly accepted.

It is now considered that the for long hidden expansion there has been rounded off and that a favorable moment has come for resolving the territorial problems in Croatia itself - the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is exhausted by the sanctions and politically isolated, the Serbian public is tired of the war, it is unlikely that the Yugoslav Army would be able to intervene without provoking a military intervention while, despite the embargo, the Croatian army managed to arm itself in the meantime so that it can now see it out with the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Namely, the use of military force undoubtedly brings the current authorities in Zagreb several advantages: it eliminates painstaking and long negotiations with unavoidable compromises, it makes possible the "ethnic cleansing" of a large number of militant Serbs there who do not recognize the Croatian authorities and the return of the "ethnically cleaned" Croats, which altogether changes the ethnic picture of that region and it avoids the granting of a special status to the Serbian minority which was one of the preconditions for Croatia's international recognition. Such plans are also additionally aided by the dissatisfaction of the domestic public with the work of UNPROFOR and the position of the refugees, as well as a large number of suspended communications. After the outbreak of hostilities, the authorities in Knin reacted by seizing the heavy weapons from the storehouses under UNPROFOR's control and by launching a counter-offensive whose aim was to win back the territories lost in the first days of the conflict. At the same time, it was warned from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that the Yugoslav Army would not sit and watch (the last such statement was made by president Cosic prior to the departure of the Krajina negotiators to New York) if the clashes escalated. A similar reaction could have been expected since the action by the Croatian authorities was experienced as the first step of a total attack and a precedent that could later on also be applied in numerous other disputed places, like Okucani, Karlovac and others. Also, the relations between the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the Serbian Republic are not unimportant, or more precisely, the idea about the unification of all Serbian lands, the sponsorship of which is also not being abandoned by, for the moment, the only recognized Serbian state. These policies function according to the principle of connected vessels - it is considered that every solution in Bosnia-Herzegovina largely prejudices the future status of Krajina in Croatia, that is, that every concession Knin would make would weaken the position of Karadzic in his efforts to ensure a maximum of statehood for the Serbian Republic. Therefore, the attack by the Croatian army could also be considered an attempt to separate the situation in Croatia from the solution for Bosnia-Herzegovina which was searched for in Geneva, all the more since the stand of the new American administration regarding the war in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was not known.

At the moment, both sides have small maneuvering space and every new bullet that is fired reduces it even more. People in Krajina consider that the situation in which they are attacked, in fact, plays into their hands, so that they are requesting a negotiating status as the Bosnian Serbs have, therefore, a veritable recognition of their state, which Croatia can, in no way, agree to. For the moment, Hadzic claims that direct talks with Croatia are possible only when its troops withdraw to the borders of January 22nd.

Also, the draft resolution forwarded to the UN by Krajina, stresses that the coexistence of the Croatian and the Serbian nations in one state is impossible, that is, it requests peace talks that would lead to a territorial division between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Serbian Krajina. As regards New York, it is difficult to forecast what will happen there. Croatia's withdrawal is not possible without serious consequences on the internal political scene, and Hadzic's team is under pressure from both Knin and Belgrade which does not allow it to make any compromises - it is not a small thing to play with the possibility of being accused on betraying Serbian interests. No kind of solution will be found in Bosnia-Herzegovina until the new war flames in Croatia are extinguished.

In the meantime, clashes continue, casualties are multiplying, there is still the danger of the clashes escalating, primarily because of the concepts of statehood that lie behind them.