Destructive logic unfurls
THE Owen-Stoltenberg peace plan removes the ambiguities of the previous plan, as desired by Serbian and Croatian nationalists. Instead of scattered "provinces" with a "dominant ethnic group", now the ethnic carve-up has been taken to its extreme with the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina into three "ethnic Republics". The Bosnian union (sic!) of these Republics can only be provisional since each republican government at least on the Serbian and Croatian sides; on the Muslim side, things are still uncertain) justifies its existence on the basis of the impossibility of living together. CATHERINE SAMARY - 27 September 1993 have won with our State." We can only hope that this is the case.
But the recognition of the Bosnian Serbian State will perhaps accentuate separatist demands in Kosovo; but also in Croatia, where the Serbs of Krajina will want their own State to be recognised. This is all the more the case since the recent signing by Izetbegovic and Karadzic of an accord that recognises the Bosnian Serbian State's right to separate following a referendum in two years' time; in this arrangement, the "Muslim" State would hang onto international representation. tional representation.
This agreement provoked great panic on the Croatian side. Will all the haggling between Milosevic and Tudjman lead to the loss of the Croatian Krajina in exchange for Herzeg-Bosna? Many Croats do not accept this (even if, unfortunately, they do not denounce ethnic purification in Croatia and would be ready to "settle" the question of Krajina by force).
The Anti-War Centre of Zagreb has courageously organised meetings against the Serbian-Croatian carve-up and aggression in Bosnia-Herzegovina. There was no shortage of insults and death threats. The headline of a trashy article that appeared in the August 19 edition of Slavonski magazine read, "Serbs, leftists, feminists and homosexuals are making war on war"
For the first time, in the beginning of September, a semi-independent newspaper in Rijeka, Novi List, gave column space to the Croats of central Bosnia. Under the headline "They have betrayed central Bosnia", one of them, a member of the Christian Democratic Party, accuses Tudjman and Mate Boban of being responsible for the Muslim offensive. "Mate Boban is not the representative of all the Croats [of Bosnia]", he adds, referring to Stjepan Kljujic as the only legitimate Croatian deputy.
But Kljujic was excluded at the same time from Tudjman's HDZ party and from the Bosnian presidency - when Boban's Herzeg-Bosna was being set up in July 1992. Herzeg-Bosna refused to accept the "bad Croatian" refugees from central Bosnia.
While there are victims in all the communities sacrificed by their military leaders' hunger for power and territory, the
1. New bills of 10 billion dinars have just been issued in Belgrade. Each one is only worth a few dollars.
HIS "union" will not bring an end to the war; none of these States is homogenous. Even with two million refugees and displaced persons, even after the "ethnic cleansing" already carried out, no territory is homogenous.
Each community will see its co-nationals sacrificed for having had the misfortune of not wanting or not being able to be "on the inside" of the correct borders. Everywhere, the existence of enclaves of oppressed minorities will be generalised. It is these enclaves that we will have to defend, everywhere.
While the "Bosnians", in the sense of a community that is mixed and proud to be so, are the big losers in this plan, it will in no way stabilise the situation in the neighbouring republics - with the heightened risks of a Balkan explosion and the formation of a Palestine in the heart of Europe.
The Bosnian parliament (now missing several dozen of its Serbian and Croatian deputies) began sitting on September 28 to examine the latest proposals. Alija Izetbegovic said he was ready to accept the Owen-Stoltenberg plan on condition that the "Muslim State" has an access to the sea and that NATO and the United States (rather than the UN) ensure the application of the accords, particularly the protection of the "enclaves" under siege. Sarajevo would have the status of an open city placed under UN protection; and Mostar would be placed under the control of the EEC.
At the end of August, Radovan Karadzic, leader of the "Serbian republic" of Bosnia, accepted the plan that would set up the three "ethnic States". ', in spite of the fact that 20% of territory would be returned to the Muslim part. But we can expect that in practice the Serbian militia and population in these territories will refuse to come under the control of those who were their victims during the ethnic cleansing.
In the end, the Muslim offensive that accompanied their demand for an access to the sea will work to the advantage of the Serbian part, even though Karadzic has rejected any idea of renegotiation. Through an acceptance of changes that are unfavourable to the Croatian part, which now controls the coastal region, the Serbians will get their own access to the sea.
In comparison with the Vance-Owen plan which they signed with great enthusiasm, the Croats of "Herzeg-Bosna" lose a significant part of their territory.
For months, the Muslims of "HerzegBosna" had been removed from all positions of responsibility and placed under the military control of the Croatian HVO. But the fiction of the alliance was broken during the violent "ethnic cleansing" of Mostar. From that point on, the Bosnian military offensive had the objective of acquiring territory for the rump "Muslim State", ", to the detriment primarily of its former Croatian ally.
The Greater Serbia project is the "big winner" of this pseudo peace plan - but not the Serbian people. While the "deputies" of the Bosnian Serbian republic may have celebrated the recognition of their State, the territory itself is already living in synch with Serbia - that is, in synch with its currency and its economic collapse.!
Trafficking and corruption are widespread. This explains the rebellion of Serbian officers which recently shook Karadzic's grip. He has been on television recently praising the "justice" of the officers' demands; but he adds that they threatened to "throw into doubt everything we
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International Viewpoint #249 October 1993
Bosnian Muslims, Islamicised Slavs, only had Bosnia-Herzegovina for a State. Many among them, in the cities, were members of small non-nationalist parties in whose ranks could be found Serbs and Croats who considered themselves "Bosnian".
But the weakness of and divisions inside these parties have been dramatic, reflecting the generalised decomposition of socialist initiatives of solidarity across ex-Yugoslavia and internationally. In response to the war, they have selected to give critical support Izetbegovic and join his government.
This means that there was no independent "Bosnian" force to publicly express an alternative orientation based on the mobilisation of the effected populations. The Bosnian government was fully oriented towards the hope that foreign intervention would save a Bosnia-Herzegovina recognised by the UN.
The destructive logic of building States on an exclusive ethnic basis will continue to unfurl. The nature of the Muslim rump State remains ambiguous, but many Sarajevo residents say they are happy to be under the protection of the UN - including as protection against the growing dangers of fundamentalist outbursts. These dangers can only increase given new dramatic developments in the misalliance with the Croats.
Raids by Croatian police on refugee camps in the middle of the night have created a collective psychosis. Muslims' identification papers are torn up and then they are driven out for being "without papers".
In Serbia, the hundreds of thousands of Serbian refugees are used as a pressure base for the carrying out of an apartheid policy of "Serbification" of Kosovo, where Serbs are offered the jobs of laid off Albanians along with many other material privileges. The same thing is happening in Vojvodina, where Seselj's militia are being supported against the Hungarians and Croats.
These measures have to be resisted in all the republics of ex-Yugoslavia and across Europe. They are making refugees of new immigrants facing racist exclusion fed by omnipresent unemployment. The fight for asylum rights must also be part of the campaign against the failure of the so-called "international community" and "European community" in ex-Yugoslavia. Defiance of all these governments should strengthen the prospects of a long-term European solidarity campaign oriented towards the unions, and community, women and youth organisations.
The first "Workers" Aid" convoy -symbolically targeting the workers of