Revolt for peace
March 30, 1992
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA and internal) or frontiers rendered porous by the development of a multitude of links respecting the different cultures but also allowing them to intermingle?
The Bosnian capital Sarajevo symbolizes this latter possibility. It is not by chance that it was here that the biggest demonstrations against the war took place last summer. The aptly named "insurrection for
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA is like a cross-section of Yugoslavia itself. And if the latter is dead in its old form, it is not the case either that the future belongs to "ethnically pure" or assimilationist nation-states. CATHERINE VERLA
S UCH a logic would imply the
state for the Muslims, with the Serbs joining a greater Serbia and the Croats a greater Croatia). Some months ago, "secret" negotiations pointing in this direction were held between Milosevic and Tudjman (respectively, the Serbian and Croatian presidents) and subsequently made public by the for-
But no territory comprising all the Serbs or all the Croats could be homogeneous, nor even assure a majority to its dominant population - at least without significant population movements, assimilation and liquidation.
A logic of disaster
This logic, followed through by the Serbian regime and the army, has been a disaster first of all for its Croat victims, but also for the Serbian people.
It has brought no real solution to the Serbs of Croatia, breaking up friendships and numerous mixed families, inciting the Serbs against everybody under the unproven pretext that everybody is against the
It has proved counter-productive for the affirmation of an independent Croat state in the current frontiers; to be viable this demanded a genuine dialogue between the Croat regime and the Serbs who had lived on this territory for centuries, and not negotiations with the Serb dictator MiloseVIC.
For Bosnia-Herzegovina, as for Macedonia, there have been (and are still) two threats: one stems from the Great Serbian danger which in its most extreme logic denies any specific identity to the Muslims of Bosnial and to the Macedonians.
The other stems from the break up of Yugoslavia into nation-states which could shatter Bosnia-Herzegovina and submit Macedonia to the threat of being parcelled out between Serbs, Bulgarians and Albanians (not to mention Greece).
That is why last June these two republics jointly presented a project for a redefinition of the Yugoslav entity on the basis of a new association of sovereign states: each would have its own army and international political representation, at the same time sharing the sovereignty of a common confederal state.
For these two republics, the fact that Croatian and Slovenian independence were dealt with separately was and remains problematic, weakening the balance of forces that together, with the support of the peoples of Kosovo and of Vojvodina, the four republics could oppose to the Great
It is moreover not proved that the population of the fifth republic, Montenegro,1 is ready to simply line up behind Serbia, without speaking of its willingness to lose its own identity?.
In other words, the Great Serbian threat was not at this point so dominant and irreversible that it justified a rejection of the supposedly blocked negotiations and the adoption of a logic of each republic for
Communities inextricably
This is all the more true in that neither Slovenia and still less Croatia could totally "disassociate" their fate from that of the other communities of the Yugoslav entity. Proximity, economic interdependence, the inextricable mix of peoples and the division of these latter among several states should then be taken not as simply a vestige of an inescapable past, but as a fact that will shape the future.
The real issue will be that of the nature of these states, of their internal democracy (individual and collective rights) and of their reciprocal relations.
It is here that the nature of the frontiers will come into play: will they be walls aimed at imposing ethnic boundaries (which would necessarily be both external peace" brought together several hundreds of thousands of people. The popular and multiethnic resistance to the spiral of hatred and fear is strongest in the towns of mixed culture.
### Possibility of peace
Peace is possible. It has become inescapably clear that the war represents an impasse, desertions are massive, the rejection of the greater Serbian logic is growing among the Serbian people itself.
There is no longer sufficient cohesion in the army to make it an autonomous political force, even if there is a real danger of extremist acts by individuals and groups acting on their own initiative.
The privileges of the armed forces certainly impel their leaders to search for the biggest possible state, and the majority Serb make up of the officer corp tends to make the army a Serbian army.
But the rank-and-file conscripts are from all nationalities and the armed resistance of the peoples to any forced solution will be the rule everywhere, at the price of bloody struggles for all.
This potential violence, very real in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where everyone has their own weapons and memories, could be the spark that will ignite the powder, but also could incite the mass of people to go onto the streets to prevent the worst.
It is this which could push forward the search for solutions which would protect
Without such a will and popular mobilization, the United Nations forces will be bogged down, incapable of stopping the extension of a war which could then snowball throughout Yugoslavia and beyond. * 1. Islamicized Slavs considered by the Croat nationalists, in the writings of Tudjman for example, as Croats; the Serbian nationalists, on the contrary, consider them as Serbs who have betrayed the "cause" 2. The Montenegrins are Serbs with a real national identity stemming from a distinct history, reflected in the existence of a separate national state in the 19th century. If the representatives of Montenegro have been assimilated into the "Serb bloc" of the federal presidency, and if Montenegro will certainly form part of any maintained Yugoslavia, there would be undoubtedly also be an affirmation of the sovereignty of their own republic in this context. 3. Memories of the reciprocal massacres between Serbs and Muslims in the war, memories of a Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of the Ustashe state massacring Jews, Gypsies and Serbs as well as Communists of all nationalities, particularly Croats.
----- photo credits and running heads -----
3
Canton: rhymes with
International Viewpoint # 225 • March 30, 1992 ding to the leaks, the Muslim and Croat leaders reached agreement on the principle of a Confederation of Ethnic Entities. The communes would be grouped together amongst themselves into national cantons on the basis of ethnic majorities as established by censuses. The Serb nationalists have held back from this agreement since they are demanding the partition of Bosnia between the different ethnic groups and the
AT THE start of March the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a republic of what was once Yugoslavia, voted in a referendum on self-determination under the auspices of the
European Community (EC). 63% of registered voters took part, with 99% of these opting for a sovereign Bosnia-
Herzegovina separate from Serbia, which is continuing to terrorize all its neighbours.
The Serb leaders in Bosnia enforced a boycott of the referendum in all the communities which they control militarily, and then, immediately after the result became known, attempted to erect barricades in the republic's capital, Sarajevo. Then something not seen before in
Yugoslavia took place: Sarajevo's inhabitants of all nationalities demonstrated unarmed throughout the night in front of the barricades set up by Serb militia until these latter withdrew from the city.
SLAVKO MIHALJCEK
HE emergence of this significant
T social force, independent of the three national-based ruling parties (Muslim, Serb and Croat)
obliged the leaders of these parties to meet in Lisbon and then in Brussels from March
7 to 9. No text has been made public, but diplomatic "indiscretions" indicate that the
European Community has proposed a plan to turn Bosnia-Herzegovina into a confederation on Swiss lines. The existing frontiers will be internationally recognized but the republic's constitution and the relations between the various communities remain to be defined.
Peace conference resumes
After a break of two months, the Conference on Peace in Yugoslavia has also resumed its work in Brussels. The frantic activity of Cyrus Vance (nominally the
United Nations' envoy, but in fact
Washington's man on the spot) in Italy and
Germany is a sign of a search for an American-European consensus on the future of the Balkans.
While the national leaders of the main
Bosnian ethnic groups have been discussing the future confederation in Brussels, the country itself has seen explosions, shooting and sporadic clashes whose func tion is to carve out the respective zones of
4 infuence. are zones of conflict between the Serb and Croat militia notably coincide with the likely frontiers between the future ethnic cantons.
The pacifist demonstrations, which have been frequent in the main urban centres, however, remain the dominant political factor at the start of March. Often organized by youth and women, independent of the national parties and ethnic groups, it is this activity that is blocking the spread of civil war.