Saint and Henchman

In one of his numerous interviews ahead of the November 1990 elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Radovan Karadzic at the time leader of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) told NIN weekly journalist Milorad Vucelic (currently Serbian RTV director) that Serbia's priorities lay in the renewal of old, and the forming of new friendships. Two and a half years later Serbia's priority is survival, which in itself is an accomplishment, while many of Serbia's former friends and allies are willing to turn their planes towards Pale (Bosnian Serb political centre) and Belgrade. Following the Serb Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina Assembly's recent decision to reject the Vance-Owen peace plan, Serbs on both sides of the Drina River have definitely started living like the inhabitants of a desert island. The credit for this goes to the leader of the Bosnian Serbs (in the role of executor) and his Belgrade tutors (as the planners of an unsuccessful and disastrous national project.)

Radovan Karadzic's (48) first forays into politics in 1989, did not indicate in any way that in just a few years this psychiatrist from Sarajevo (specialized in dealing with depressions), dishevelled poet (with four published books of poetry) would take center stage on the world political scene. It was even more improbable that in such a short period of time he would manage to divide the Serbs. While some consider him a candidate for sainthood for saving the Serbs "from a new genocide", others view him as an ordinary henchman who, with his extremism, has slowly made all Serbs hostages of his unreasonable policy. Be as it may, Karadzic is the first Serbian politician in these new times to be mentioned along with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in folk songs.

As one of the founders of the SDS, Karadzic was allotted the role of a "political rabbit", or the man who was supposed to set the tempo in the first few months while the party was being organized in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time, and to later cede the place to a more influential and politically experienced representative of the Serbian people. Those in the know say that Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic and the late Croatian Serb leader Jovan Raskovic suggested initially that Karadzic should accept such a role. Moslems and Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina already had their national parties, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ - B-H branch) respectively. SDA leader Alija Izetbegovic called on Serbs to hurry and do the same at many of his party's rallies throughout Bosnia.

During his first meetings with journalists, Karadzic claimed that he was only doing a temporary job and would soon be replaced. It soon proved that he was a more serious and skilled political player than he himself had thought at first. He easily graduated from a "political rabbit" to the unchallenged leader of the Bosnian Serbs after running only two-three political laps.

"When the SDA was founded, it was leaning towards Islamic fundamentalist ideas. When Croatian extremists who promised that the border would extend to the Drina River started making guest appearances, that was when the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina recognized the danger signals", said Karadzic later in an interview, speaking about his political beginnings. "There were about twenty of us who had for some 30 years been in the opposition, dissidents, internal emigres and outcasts. We refused to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we would be second class citizens, and so started thinking about how the Serbs should be saved. None of us intended to go into politics..."

Primary school books in the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina will probably describe the political organizing of Serbs before the war in this way one day. This, like many subsequent explanations given by Karadzic of what really took place, are much retouched and tailored to meet current needs. Many pre-war inhabitants of Sarajevo were surprised to hear of Karadzic's dissident activities spanning decades, and his claims that the "Moslem" UDBA (secret police) had followed him for years and tapped his phone. The fact that he had published several books, held a top post in the football club "Sarajevo" and was esteemed as a doctor, are greatly at variance with the classic image of a Communist dissident. These romanticized biographical details include Karadzic's explanation why he spent 11 months of 1986 in jail. His claims of dissident activities do not hold water, since those who know better say that the whole matter concerned an ordinary financial scandal.

Without doubt, Karadzic has, with time, become a past master at giving interviews (at least five daily). Compared to his associates in the Serb Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina leadership, Karadzic leaves the impression of a tolerant and moderate politician. With a boyish sincerity (and he is as good as Izetbegovic at this) he makes humbug statements, and answers the question - why is your army shelling Sarajevo - with: We are not doing so, it is the Moslems; We are not attacking Sarajevo but protecting our hearths around Sarajevo; When catching a viper you don't grab the tail but the head, because it can bite you. Karadzic is certainly not the man to buy a second-hand car from.

The war and the speed with which events have taken place here, account for the fact that a lot of what Karadzic says is forgotten too soon. Regardless of his claims today that the founding of the SDS was the Serb's answer to the appearance of the "fundamentalist-oriented SDA", the start of Karadzic's political career was marked by a "great liking" for Bosnian Moslem leader Alija Izetbegovic (now calling each other the biggest liar on earth)... At the founding of the SDS, Izetbegovic and Adilo Zulfikarpasic sat in the front row as guests of honor. At the mention of their names the audience burst into applause, especially when Izetbegovic said that he urged for the preservation of the Yugoslav federation. Later, on many occasions, Karadzic and Izetbegovic claimed that they did not differ much with regard to Bosnia's future. If any newspaper documentation survives this war, it will be interesting one day to look at photos taken in summer 1990 on the Foca bridge. They show Karadzic and Izetbegovic paying their respects to Moslem and Serb victims of World War Two, in the hope that blood will never again flow down the Drina. Today Foca and many other towns in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been ethnically cleansed, and Serbian and Moslem corpses are once again drifting down the Drina. The scene of the two leaders' joint act of homage now looks like the height of cynicism. Many pictures ahead of elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina show Karadzic, Izetbegovic and Bosnian Croat leader at the time Stjepan Kljujic locked in an embrace and their message to the voters: "Communists sowed discord among you, but we will reconcile you."

In interviews to the Belgrade press ahead of the elections, Karadzic often had to downplay fears voiced in Belgrade regarding Moslem fundamentalism saying: "Our Moslems are much closer to us than many Christian European nations". Shortly after the elections it proved that the national leaders (as elsewhere in Yugoslavia) were capable of winning elections, but not of resolving problems, so that things started changing drastically. Karadzic increasingly started replacing the idea of coexistence with claims that "it was simply impossible to live with Moslems and Alija (Izetbegovic)". He didn't pass up the chance of underlining that in the event of a conflict, the Serbian bullet would always be stronger. In July 1991 Karadzic claimed: "I hear that the people are arming, but that is insufficient. Serbs have no need to arm. If they are attacked, it will mean that Yugoslavia has been attacked, and all Serbs will voluntarily join the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in defending the country". In October the same year, during one of the stormiest sessions of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Assembly, Karadzic said: "If you decide on war, you will be wiped off the face of the earth," a quote Izetbegovic was to repeat in many interviews later as conclusive evidence of Karadzic's intentions.

With the start of the war Karadzic entered a new phase in interpreting Serb-Moslem relations. He said for example, that Serbs and Moslems had never lived together. "We believed", he claimed, "that we should help our Moslem neighbors not to look on themselves as a religious sect, but to live with them while they came of age alongside us. It proved that there was no end to our naiveness..." Every new story included the following explanation: "The civil war in Bosnia has been going on for 70 years", Serbs in the former Bosnia-Herzegovina were exposed to "genocidal annihilation" and only in the last year, when war started, had they reached a time of least suffering. This last claim was described as sheer insanity by Mirjana Markovic (Serbian President Milosevic's wife) in a recent interview to the bi-weekly Duga.

"If the past 40 odd years during which the people have lived in peace are described as a time 'of genocidal annihilation', and this period of war when the whole world is horrified, as a 'time of least suffering', then the matter refers to a pathology which carries in it the danger, if given the opportunity, of causing a tragedy on a national scale and of historical character," said Mirjana Markovic.

Long before her husband, Mirjana Markovic (in Duga again) denied Karadzic the right to speak in the name of "12 million Serbs", who according to his claims, are prepared to wage war against the whole world in order to defend Serb interests in Bosnia.

A letter addressed to Serb Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina Assembly deputies which starts with the sentence: "This is no time for vying in patriotism", was the first public confrontation between Milosevic and Karadzic. On all occasions so far, Karadzic has never denied that he is to a great extent plugged into Milosevic's battery and that they are daily in touch by telephone. This connection didn't function during the first three months of the founding of the SDS. Karadzic interpreted Milosevic's support among Bosnian Serbs with their belief that Milosevic would never betray national interests, something that his influential associates in the Bosnian Serb leadership do not agree with today.

There are differing views on what could happen if the crack in the Milosevic-Karadzic relationship were to deepen in the near future. Zoran Djindjic one of the Democratic Party's leaders believes that the Serbian President's position is very strong, and that in the event that "he were to turn the tap off, Karadzic would just wither away, in every respect." There are many who do not believe that Karadzic's position and eventual political fate are similar to that of former Republic of Serb Krajina President Milan Babic, thanks mostly to the results of Milosevic's propaganda. In the first few months it turned Karadzic into the courageous leader of the Bosnian Serbs; a man who unerringly led his people towards the only possible goal. Even many unforgivable mistakes by Karadzic and his associates (with unforeseeable consequences for the Serbian people) were systematically proclaimed national virtues.

At a time when the Vance-Owen peace plan was still not on the negotiating tables, the Serbian side already had a great number of military victories behind it, and Karadzic often told foreign journalists that the warring sides should not be squabbling over territories, but should be protecting the rights of minorities. "It would be better to cede a little territory, a little of our dreams and have peace in the Balkans," said Karadzic at the time. Many months later, just before his last "No" to the Vance-Owen plan, Karadzic also said: "Enough is enough. We Serbs must say: keep your hands away from us. Unless we do so, our enemies and the great powers will try to break us."

Karadzic's recent statement is new proof for many, especially on this side of the Drina River, that the man who has entered folk songs as a man of iron, does yet wish to depart from a policy pursued since the start of the Bosnian war - "whatever you can achieve by force, don't even try to do in peaceful way." The problem with this kind of logic is, as some have already noticed, that it will turn out sooner or later, that the Moslems in Srebrenica, Serbs in Tuzla and Croats in Banja Luka could all have moved out without all those victims and destruction. By placing ads in the papers, for example.

Those who view Karadzic's unyielding policy as a realistic danger for the annihilation of all Serbs, would much prefer if he were to turn to some of his poems which show a greater amount of tolerance. The latest public opinion polls show that at least a half of all Serbs consider this "defiant Serb attitude" as the only answer to the world's injustice and sanctions.