Can The Impossible Prevail?

Diplomatic circles consider the adopting of UN Security Council Resolution 820 which gives Bosnian Serbs a deadline of nine days in which to sign the Vance-Owen peace plan, as the last non-military method in trying to persuade the Serbian side. Yugoslav Army chief-of-the-general staff general Zivota Panic believes however, that non-military methods were abandoned much earlier. Asked recently by a Japanese journalist if the enforcement of the no-fly zone was the first step towards an international military intervention in Bosnia, general Panic said: "Not the first. This is the hundredth step towards a military intervention." In the same interview, general Panic said clearly that the readiness of the Serbian people to defend themselves, was greater than that of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) soldiers' to attack.

The majority of reactions to the Security Council's ultimatum to Bosnian Serbs, and indirectly the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, show that even before the threat to tighten sanctions, and with regard to the rejection of the Vance-Owen peace plan, it was well known that there was a national consensus on the matter. In describing the situation, Democratic Party leader Dragoljub Micunovic said that Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic were closer to negotiations and compromise than Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and 90% of the public. "When we were prepared to negotiate, we allowed public opinion to be formed by mentally instable people who made inflammatory speeches, threats against the whole world, incited the people, and said there was nothing to negotiate over, that they did not wish to 'trade with their country,' and that we would fight to the last man," said Micunovic.

This time there were fewer inflammatory speeches, breast beating and threats against the whole world than expected. It was only occasionally that one could hear that "Serbs are ready for anything," that they are "made of something special, and it would be better not to tangle with them." Writer Vojislav Lubarda said that "the world's blind power-brokers must be warned that the Serbian people in Bosnia, Herzegovina and the former Croatia cannot live without secure territorial links with Serbia and a definite separation from Moslems and Croats. If they have really decided to stop this, "then they must be aware that they will see their soldiers in bloody pants," said Lubarda. Many believe that United Nations Protection Force in Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR) soldiers would be the first to have "bloody pants" in the event of an attack on Serb positions in Bosnia.

In the days leading up to the fateful April 26, the eyes of the world and domestic public are trained mostly on Milosevic. His political opponents are asking if he will behave again like a doctor who prescribes the right medicine after its expiry date has passed, i.e., after the medicine has turned to poison. Milosevic has remained true to himself, and once again is not making public statements at a time when the noose is tightening and when things have gone too far. This silence gives him the chance of turning up in the end with a "solution ensuring salvation" and of wiping the sweat off the nations' brow. However, there is a growing number of those who believe that the point has been reached when a reasonable and redeeming solution has become impossible, and when thanks to Milosevic's propaganda, the majority of Serbs believe that in the clash with the world, the "water is only knee-high." If all efforts at negotiations fail, and the world does not agree to a minimum of Serb demands, Milosevic will be faced with tougher sanctions which will undoubtedly strengthen his position and convince the Serbs that "the whole world is definitely against them." A policy which has always considered compromise a sign of weakness, will find it difficult to abandon its long-standing delusions. An additional difficulty is the fact that moves affecting the fate of the nation will now have to be made in a pinch, increasing the risk of making catastrophic mistakes.

Official Serbian policy finds itself today in the same situation as a mouse with only one hole, and such a mouse, by definition, is not "a good mouse." The solution must now be sought in the crater made by the architects, band leaders and participants in the war, both at home and the world community whose injudicious decisions helped things along. Director of the Institute for International Policy and Economy Predrag Simic claims that the chances for compromise are very slight, since both sides have passed that diplomatic and psychological line after which all workable solutions become a loss of face. But, diplomacy sometimes allows for the impossible.

Diplomatic skill consists in finding solutions in situations such as this, solutions which allow all to return home with heads high, and the possibility of saying "we won, we scored a great success." There was no such diplomacy in negotiations on ending the war in Bosnia.

When this number of VREME goes to the press (Friday afternoon) Lord Owen will have visited Belgrade. According to some sources and confirmations by Karadzic, before Sunday midnight, when the deadline given to Bosnian Serbs runs out, Lord Owen will have met several times with collocutors in Belgrade in an attempt at finding a corridor of salvation for Serbs. However, his peace plan has been jeopardized by the latest clashes between Croats and Moslems.

Croatia's attempt at rounding off the ethnic cleansing of its territories, in spite of having signed the Vance-Owen plan, could be the Bosnian Serbs' last chance at improving their negotiating positions. Pictures from Konjic and Vitez seen by the world in the last few days, inevitably bring up a logical question: what is the essential difference between not signing the Vance-Owen peace plan and signing it, but then ignoring it?

While efforts will be made in Belgrade at diffusing the latest package of sanctions and at averting a possible military intervention, a joint session of the Serb Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Republic of Serb Krajina assemblies will start in Bosanski Novi (renamed Novigrad by Bosnian Serbs). Numerous announcements say that this two-day session will pass in a clash between two options: the unification of Serb lands step by step or all at once. The second option would practically put an end to all peace negotiations. Official Serbian policy is still rather reserved towards the idea of proclaiming an alliance of all Serb lands, even though some unofficial views say that there is a readiness to play this card in the event that the peace plans fall through. However, the number of those who are impatient to let the world know that the moment has come for the unification of all Serbs, is growing daily. In August last year the London-based Economist concluded somewhat cynically that Western Europe would have to admit, sooner or later, that Serbia, and perhaps Croatia, will end this war with more territory than they had when it started. As soon as this fact is recognized, the end of the war will be closer, said the Economist.

"Regardless of how all this ends, we will all leave this state of clinical death one day," said Belgrade Law Faculty professor Vojin Dimitrijevic in an interview recently. "The body will perhaps recover, but not the brain. There will certainly be aftereffects," concluded Dimitrijevic.