Victims According to Plan

I sometimes hear a foreign diplomat saying with concern that the Vance-Owen plan seems to be dead. The Serbs are rejecting it, the Moslems agreed without enthusiasm, only the Croats like it, while a decent compromise requires that all three sides be moderately satisfied. In this case, which abounds in bizarre paradoxes, the best plan would be one which would make all three sides despair equally.

Bosnians - civilians, the fourth and most numerous side in the conflict have suffered most since they didn't have anyone to represent them at conferences. (Izetbegovic's Bosnian army, although not entirely homogeneous, is inevitably fighting for the Moslem and not the Bosnian cause.) With regard to the peace plan, the Bosnians are concerned largely with the principles of the future state's organization, while the other three sides are more concerned with the map. That is how it came about that the Bosnians got the principles, while the Serbs, Croats and Moslems got territories where they hope no principles will hold. Apart from some fighting between all the sides, two sides in Bosnia are fighting against a third. If the war lasts, it will be seen that from time to time all combinations of alliances and enmities are possible, especially at local levels. Of course, all are fighting against the civilians, mostly Moslem civilians, because this is primarily a Serbo-Croatian war.

The main problem with the Vance-Owen plan is that it can be implemented only by an outside force, and there is no indication who would be doing the enforcing and in what numbers. But, that is what would happen, regardless of any map or demarcation, unless Bosnians, i.e. civilians were to be definitely sacrificed. Without them the warriors could reach some kind of an agreement. The problem is that the plan does not exclude the existence of civilians, but even foresees that they return to their homes. However, there is no force which would take them under its protection.

When they arm and cease to be members of the human race, Bosnians become Serbs, Croats and Moslems. Faced with scenes of destruction and crimes committed by Karadzic's Serbs, the world has failed to see how much alike are all the people of Bosnia. The Vance-Owen plan aimed at satisfying and removing Croats and to some extent Moslems from the scene. What happened? The Serbs rejected the plan, demanding that their war-won advantage in the field be respected, while the Croats started making the situation in the field resemble that on the map.

Those who were the first to sign everything, and who should have been satisfied, were the first to continue the war in order to merit subsequently what they had been given under the plan. That is how it came about that columns of people from Mostar headed for camps or fled. The Croats learned from the Serbs that what you hold is a much safer bet, than what you have according to the map, and what the international community recognizes as yours. They also learned that people, once they have been expelled, do not return, and that Serbs are better allies in this than the Moslems. International law-keepers who thought that they were finally close to grabbing the main guilty party, were left empty-handed. There is no doubt that the Croats consciously came to the help of the Serbs by removing the direct threat of an international intervention. (We are brothers after all). The Croats realized that it was in their interests if no foreign troops were to come to Bosnia, if arbitrage and a protectorate are thwarted, because otherwise, Bosnia could be rebuilt, and they want that just about as much as the Serbs. It would seem that their final goal is to divide everything among themselves, including sanctions if need be.

It has turned out that the Croats are inflicting the greatest blow to the Vance-Owen plan. This proves that the problem does not lie only in the map disliked by the Serbian side, but that the Croats have not really accepted the plan's basic principles. Just like the Serbs, they have no intention of continuing life together in some mixed, no man's state. It is obvious that this is a strategic commitment. In their case this is even more obvious than with the Serbs who call on old enmities and new crimes, most of which they committed themselves in order to prove their point.

Tudjman seems to have been alarmed by Milosevic's abandoning of a Greater Serbia, without which there is no Greater Croatia. He realized that he had left Milosevic to face the world's odium alone far too long. The two of them have grown together and in harmony, on the blood of their people. So, why shouldn't they crown their work now, when this last little bit of Bosnia has remained? Who will stop them?

Vance and Owen and the majority of world mediators, diplomats and statesmen have not understood what kind of people they are dealing with. If they had, they would not have offered them plans, negotiations and sought their signatures. These are medieval kings and they don't answer to anyone. They disregard the victims and are creating their states with broad strokes of the brush. It was absolutely irrelevant how Bosnia would be organized and the borders drawn. All that was necessary, was to have enough strength to enforce solutions on them. They should not have been asked anything; or else everything should have been abandoned, and Milosevic and Tudjman allowed to finish what they had started.

Deceived by the Serb's superiority in arms, the world failed to see that Tudjman was not an innocent victim, or a fighter against communism committed to the values of western civilization. The fact that his regime is currently one of the most repressive in Europe has been excused by the world with Croatia's need to protect itself from aggression. All saw the evil which came from Serbia. I fail to understand why it has been so difficult to realize that this is a battle between evil and evil. Tudjman has never had a good enough opportunity, except on the internal plan, of showing that he has never lagged behind Milosevic, and that he wants his bit of Bosnia. After it became obvious how well he had fixed Croatia, none should have been surprised.

The Moslems have been sucked into the fight in the same way, and if the forces are not balanced, well that's just too bad. The difference lies in the fact that the Moslems cannot envisage their survival without the Serbs and Croats, while the latter believe that life with the Moslems is no life at all. The difference in strength and arms is not insignificant. On the contrary, it creates the greatest misfortunes. Military experts will add that a balance of forces is conditional to peace. It would be necessary to achieve a pharmacist's precision in the balance between the three warring sides here. At the same time, the Croats have quashed all plans for the bombing of Serb positions and their heavy arms. Even the idea of arming Moslems does not look too good.

The real goal is to protect the Bosnians from the Serbs, Croats and Moslems, and not let them be killed by all sides indiscriminately. The arming of Moslems would increase the number of Serbian and Croatian civilians in the overall total of war victims. No one in Bosnia should be allowed to yield weapons produced in the 20th century. Such weapons belong to those whose spirit, morals and responsibility have followed the development of modern technology, and who know that arms exist in order not to be used, and to stop those propounding a policy which implies war. The ghosts of an old world have been resurrected in Europe, but they are armed with multiple-rocket launchers and guided missiles.

The world still hasn't found an answer to the frightening paradox from which Bosnia is dying. Diplomats have tried to re-educate these 19th and 17th century people through a crash course. They have shown them the world, visited them and explained the life and times they have strayed into. But to no avail. Now they are looking for ways of taking away those same arms they sold to them when they and the world looked somewhat different.

The international community has stopped before the great moral imperative to do something, but it does not know what to do, except to utter a curse against those who started the war. If the Serbs and Croats manage to divide Bosnia, they will never make peace between themselves, or with the rest of the world. They will never become a part of Europe, and Europe will find it difficult to become what it wishes. But, the forces of war are coming to an end. Milosevic has abandoned the cause, and the majority of Croats show that they are so weary of the war that they would agree to some links with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. What if they were all to say one day: Enough is enough. Even if we have to live together, rather than alongside each other.