"peace plan". On the contrary, the logic is to organise the ethnic dismemberment of Bosnia.
International Viewpoint #259 September 1994 congressman and veteran of Haitian affairs, there would certainly be a lot of problems with an
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Postal giros to CCP Paris 11 541 97 1 invasion because, according to him, it would be necessary to govern Haiti for at
Notebooks for Study and Research least ten years after.
it:
As he
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BOSNIA leave."
Clinton faces a complex choice. He knows that if the military quit power of their own volition, the US will have to
Dismemberment constitute the essential core of a MINUHA of 6,000. And then, almost the same political problems will emerge as would in the case of an invasion. Yet, pressed as he is today, it would be difficult for Clinton to accept that the military should
THE FUNDAMENTAL hypothesis of the "contact group"
stay in power and the situation continue on Yugoslavia (composed of the United States, Russia, until the end of Aristide's term.
A new factor will now weigh stron-
France and Germany) is that its "peace plan" for Bosnia gly on Clinton's decision; the aggravacan be applied if Belgrade imposes it on the Bosnian tion of the Cuban crisis. Cuban officials
Serbs. There are two real issues at stake here. The have already said that Haiti is being used as a pretext to justify military escalation in the Caribbean. More than ever, the questions of Haiti and Cuba will be linked in US policy. *
34
CATHERINE SAMARY
International Viewpoint #259 September 1994
T IS true that the ending of all political aid from the big Serbian brother will inevitably weaken the Serbian nationalist forces in Bosnia (and in Croatia). And one witnesses a growing public divorce between Milosevic and the leaders of the self-proclaimed "Serbian republic" in Bosnia; this could be the prelude to the fall of Radovan Karadzic and of General Mladic, the principal architects of the "ethnic cleansings" in Bosnia. The divorce underway is the logical consequence of the falling out last autumn in Belgrade between Milosevic and Seselj, his former ally of the nationalist far right, and the most radical defender of the Greater Serbia project. Milosevic knows how to manipulate nationalism and leave the dirty work to his allies when it suits him, then condemns them when it serves his interests: he paved the way for the criminals who practiced "ethnic cleansing", without ever officially recognising the self-proclaimed "Serb republics" in Serbia and Croatia, nor formally defending the project of a Greater Serbia. His official objective remains a Yugoslav federation — the new party of Communists led by his wife has reaffirmed the need to establish links between republics, and indeed to extend them to other Balkan republics. Milosevic will do whatever he believes necessary to retain power, thus whatever will lead to the lifting of sanctions and the international recognition of the current Yugoslav federation (Serbia and Montenegro). But this requires acceptance of the plan proposed by those who claim to personify the "international community". Such a plan concerns in the first place the people of Bosnia - indeed it is precisely there that it has been vehemently rejected, incapable of satisfying any party (neither the nationalist forces,
Intangible
On the one hand, the plan maintains the fiction of a Bosnia with intangible frontiers — and so does not permit the regroupment of the Serbs in a Greater Serbia; but on the other it does not base itself on those Bosnian Serbs who reject "ethnic cleansing" and continue to defend a multi-ethnic project. The alternative to the partition of Bosnia would be the transformation of the BosnianCroatian federation in a democratic and egalitarian sense into a state of citizens granting the same status to all its peoples. But the Bosnian parliament has still not integrated the amendment of the
Civic Council of Bosnian Serbs! set up last March, in order to make this federation the state of its three peoples (and not only of Croats and Bosnian Moslems alone). As to the "contact group", it ignores the demands expressed by the Civic Council or those of Circle 99 in Sarajevo and persists against their will in dividing Bosnia into three "ethnic" entities. Two of these, regrouped in the Bosnian-Croatian Federation (to which the plan promises 51% of the territory) are ready to confederate themselves with Croatia. In such circumstances only symetrical links with the Serbian-Montenegran federation could re-establish confidence and modify the importance of the frontiers.
It is well known that none of the parties accept the "peace plan", although, formally, those representing the Bosnian-Croats declare themselves ready to sign; when Karadzic rejected it, this gave them the chance to appear reasonable in the eyes of the international negotiators. But the Bosnian military leaders clearly support a war of reconquest of territories. While they have proposed an amnesty for those who supported the dissidence of Fikret Abdic in the Bihac pocket, one still awaits some political measures aimed at winning the confidence of the Serbs and weakening Karadzic's base. Would this latter, overwhelmingly peasant, be able to keep its lands in a "Bosnian" state?
### Goal
The radicalisation of the Bosnian Serbs in the goal of obtaining the recognition of "their" state can only be beaten by a political and military defeat of the Greater Serbia project. That is why it is necessary to give all symbolic weight to the Declaration of the Bosnian Serbs, drawn up at Sarajevo last March:
"No political goal can justify the sufferings of innocent peoples, the genocide and ethnic purification practised against all citizens, in particular against the Bosnian Moslems, the destruction of an immense spiritual and material heritage."
The same logic is expressed in the platform of Circle 99:
"No part of the territory of the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina can be considered as the territory of a single people, whatever it is... Bosnia-Herzegovina is a secular state and can adopt no law on the establishment of a state religion, no law forbidding the free expression of faith, limiting the freedom of expression, of the press or the right of citizens to meet together to present their petitions..."
### Socio-economic
This platform also underlined an essential socio-economic dimension to any project of common life:
"We express our conviction that civic and political rights, in their universality, cannot be disassociated from economic, social and cultural rights and that social justice is an indispensable precondition to the full expression of human dignity and to all harmonious social development..."
On 12-14 October in Tuzla, in the heart of working class Bosnia, these voices will express themselves,? to resist the rise of the fundamentalist currents on all sides. With International Workers Aid, we will be at their side. *
1. On 27 March of this year, 500 Serbs, representing the 200,000 who live on "Bosnian" territory, rejected the idea that Karadzic represented the point of view of all Bosnian Serbs. They appealed for a congress of reconciliation of all the Bosnian peoples, to decide on the future of their coun try. They demanded that all war crimes be punished on individual and concrete bases and demanded equality of rights for the citizens and peoples of Bosnia. They demanded also that their "Civic Council" is represented and heard in the negotiations - which is not always the case. They received the support of Vuk Draskovic, one of the principal leaders of the democratic opposition in Serbia. If they represent an essential point of support against the project of a Greater Serbia, they are at the same time the pivot of a struggle against reactionary tendencies in the BosnianCroatian camp. Their amendment (rejected for the instant) to the Bosnian-Croatian constitution is a test of the official discourses on "multi-ethnic" Bosnia.
2. "Circle 99" is a Sarajevo-based group of intellectuals which rejects all the current projects defined under international pressure as well as the logic of a war of conquest of "ethnic" territories by the nationalist parties. They have established a Charter defining a democratic Bosnia-Herzegovina, which takes up the logic of the declarations of the Civic Council of Bosnian Serbs.
3. This is a conference co-organised by the "Verona Forum" (set up principally by the Greens, in support of the democratic movements in former Yugoslavia), Circle 99 in Sarajevo and the Citizens Forum in the mining town of Tuzla. It takes place on the eve of the elections, in which the non-nationalist parties, until now a majority in Tuzla, face a difficult position. Selim Beslagic, mayor of Tuzla and leader of the former Reformist Party, has formed a social democratic regroupment, representing the most credible altemative to the party of Aljia Izetbegovic and the nationalist currents in Bosnia. 35