by Adam LeBor
The Bosnian prime minister and Milosevic eventually reached an agreement. NATO would build a road, under international control, linking the enclave of Gorazde to the main Federation territory. With agreement reached in principle on the corridor, the next question was its width: that is, how much territory would the Bosnian Serbs need to surrender? Which was the cue for the biggest video game in the world: known as ‘Power Scene’, a digital imaging system which had stored the whole topography of Bosnia in a 3-D ‘virtual reality machine’, as Holbrooke described it. ‘We had an aerial photograph of the entire country and you could fly with the joystick over any part of the country, stop, look straight down, look sideways, go up, go down.’7
Milosevic arrived at 11.00 p.m. and was soon entranced with his virtual reality journey through Bosnia. Fuelled by considerable amounts of Scotch, he spent hours ‘flying’ around Bosnia as he discussed the future shape and size of the corridor. General Wesley Clark, who in three years’ time would meet Milosevic in a much less agreeable atmosphere, drew up a plan for one version of the corridor. Milosevic proposed some alterations. Eventually, agreement was found. At 2.00 a.m. Milosevic knocked back his last glass for the night, shook hands all round and exclaimed, ‘We have found our road.’8This was later dubbed the ‘Scotch corridor’.
The personal chemistry between Milosevic and the Americans, especially Richard Holbrooke, was a significant factor in finalising the Dayton accords. He was probably the most popular of the three leaders. Franjo Tudjman was seen as a febrile bore who lectured and hectored about Croatia’s centuries of glorious history, glossing over his own tolerance of the rehabilitation of the symbolism of the Ustasha regime. Alija Izetbegovic sat dour and unforgiving. His severe countenance was a moral reproach to the western leaders who had stood by while Bosnia was being destroyed. He made people feel guilty, and uncomfortable.
Milosevic was much smarter. He was one of the guys. Milosevic knew and liked the United States and Americans, and understood how to interact with them. As one western official, present at the Dayton talks, noted: ‘Milosevic was only instantly available to Richard Holbrooke. He even ate with the Americans, or on his own.’ Milosevic took care to humanise himself, and behave like an ebullient, rumbustious Serb, instead of a sinister fanatic like General Mladic or Momcilo Krajisnik. This was clever, as there were some moral qualms about negotiating with the man dubbed by many the ‘Butcher of the Balkans’.
His tactics were effective. ‘Milosevic knew us very well as a people, he was able to play with us. He knew what our red lines and bottom lines were, maybe even more than we did. He learned this during his time in the US in dealing with us,’ said one senior US official who had extensive dealings over the years with the Serbian leader. ‘He had an uncanny ability to judge how serious we were, and in most cases he would be right. He was a real student of human nature. We might say ten times that he had to do X, Y and Z. He knew the one time out of ten when there would be consequences if he did not.’9
As Tibor Varady, once Yugoslav minister for justice, had noted, Milosevic exerted a powerful aura, which drew many diplomats into his orbit. When dozens of politicians and advisors are locked up together for weeks on end, the human factor can be decisive. Aware of the rivalry and intermittent tension between the Americans and the Europeans, Milosevic skilfully played off one side against the other. He chose a surprising but effective weapon: humour. Not only could Slobo sing, it seemed he could conjure up a whole range of impersonations as well. As ever, he picked his audience carefully, recalled David Austin. ‘He took great pleasure in mimicking Carl Bildt and his Swedish accent, according to the Americans. But when he was with us, he would mock the Americans. He was playing a game with us all the time, and even then it was divide and rule.’10
The Bosnian government delegation was also weakened by ‘small Balkan ways’. Its bitter internal factionalising did not help Sarajevo’s cause. Izetbegovic had encouraged Silajdzic, who possessed a better sense of realpolitik, to negotiate alone with Milosevic over Gorazde. But he had not been pleased with the success of these negotiations, which boosted his prime minister’s standing with the Americans. At the time, Holbrooke noted down that the Bosnian delegation is ‘divided and confused. Silajdzic told me that he had not spoken to Izetbegovic in over twenty-four hours. They have let other opportunities for peace slip away before. It could happen again.’11
The most curious feature of the Dayton negotiations was the utter contempt with which Milosevic treated the Bosnian Serbs. Milosevic had forced Karadzic to give him a mandate to negotiate for the Bosnian Serbs, but they still sent their own delegation, headed by Momcilo Krajisnik, a sinister figure whose eyebrows met in the middle. Milosevic had loathed Krajisnik ever since he supported Radovan Karadzic’s rejection of the Vance-Owen peace plan in 1993.
‘Milosevic behaved abominably towards the Bosnian Serbs,’ David Austin remembered. ‘He humiliated them. Each delegation had one fax machine. Milosevic controlled access to the Serb fax machine, but would not let them use it.’ When the Bosnian Serb General Tolimir wanted to send some documents back to Pale, he had to ask Austin to use his fax machine.
Krajisnik was allowed occasional input into comparatively minor questions such as the future Bosnian constitution. But the key, the map, was reserved for Milosevic. On the rare occasions that Milosevic wanted to consult with someone on his own side, he would talk to Momir Bulatovic, the pliant president of Montenegro, the junior partner in the third Yugoslavia. Austin recalled: ‘Milosevic used to walk up and down the car park, with Bulatovic. That really rubbed it in to the Bosnian Serbs as well. Who was Bulatovic in this? He was completely irrelevant. Milosevic did this in full view of the Bosnian Serbs.’ Krajisnik was so out of the loop’ that he wrote to Holbrooke asking what was happening. Holbrooke showed the letters to Milosevic, and Milosevic threw them in the dustbin.
Milosevic’s total control of the negotiations from the Serb side was most evident in the diplomatic battle for Sarajevo. The Bosnian capital was divided into two zones: government-controlled and Serb-controlled. These were the siege lines from behind which the Bosnian Serbs had shelled the city for three and a half years. The Bosnian government would not budge on their key demand: that the Serbs surrender all the districts of Sarajevo that they controlled, especially an area known as Grbavica. During the war Radovan Karadzic had been quite open that his aim was to split Sarajevo into two separate zones, a sort of Balkan Berlin, complete with checkpoints and border guards controlling access from one side to another.
Momcilo Krajisnik demanded that the Serbs retain control of local councils and police in Serb areas of the city. This was essentially a demand to formalise the division of the city. Richard Holbrooke said: ‘Krajisnik had gone up to the maps and, slamming them with his fist, had said, “I live here” – he’s pointing to a farm he had in [the Serb-controlled district of] Ilidza, “and I’m never going to give this up”.’12 Milosevic broke the deadlock with a startling and unexpected offer: he simply gave the whole of the Bosnian capital to the government side. Momcilo Krajisnik’s farm was lost, although the matter soon became academic as Krajisnik was arrested by NATO troops as a war criminal in 2000, and deported to The Hague. Silajdzic recalled Milosevic’s proposal: ‘He said, “You deserve Sarajevo because you fought for it and those cowards killed you from the hills”, meaning the Bosnian Serbs.’13
This was Milosevic’s ultimate gesture of contempt for the Bosnian Serb leadership. It was also part of the plan that he had outlined to President Tudjman’s envoy Hrvoje Sarinic earlier that year, to strengthen the supposedly ‘moderate’ northern city of Banja Luka, against Pale. Of course there was a price: Milosevic wanted the strategically important northern Bosnian city of Brcko because it controlled access to the northern corridor of territory in Serb-occupied Bosnia that stretched to Serbia proper. He did not get it, but neither did the Bosnian government. After much wrangling Brcko was placed directly under international administration.
The US official argued that Milosevic gave away Sarajevo not to ease the path to a settlement at Dayton, but in fact to ensure that, ultimately, Bosnia would not function as multi-ethnic country. A ceasefire would be signed, but Serbs would never live alongside Muslims again. ‘A cynic would say that Milosevic ceded Sarajevo to ensure Dayton would not work. For Dayton to work you would need an integrated Sarajevo. You need the Sarajevo Serbs to be living in the capital. By giving Sarajevo away, Milosevic ensured this would not happen. This willingness to abandon Serbs who have been on the front line fighting for Serbdom is an absolute characteristic of Milosevic. Once more, these were his protégés and then he walked away from them.’14
The real victor of Dayton was President Tudjman. With his victorious US-assisted army, Tudjman was negotiating from a position of strength. He and President Izetbegovic despised each other, but Izetbegovic understood that it was the Croat and Bosnian Croat armies that had altered the balance of power sufficiently to bring Milosevic to Dayton, ready to make a deal. Tudjman was not very interested in the minutiae of the Bosnian constitution. The area of Bosnia formerly known as Herceg-Bosna remained firmly within control of the Bosnian-Croat Federation. In Mostar his allies, the hard-line Bosnian Croats, remained in place, controlling much of the local government through violence and intimidation.
Tudjman’s main concern was Sector East of Serb-occupied Croatia. Operations Flash and Storm had recaptured sectors North, South and West from the rebel Serbs. But the Croat army had not attacked Sector East, the area including Vukovar, known as eastern Slavonia, that was a centre of petrol-smuggling in and out of Serbia proper. With the prospect of sanctions being lifted in reward for his co-operation at Dayton, Milosevic was prepared to cut a deal with Tudjman over eastern Slavonia. In Balkan fashion, it was conducted away from the limelight: a series of meetings were arranged at which the two leaders addressed each other as ‘Franjo’ and ‘Slobo’.
Tudjman understood that raising the Croatian flag over Sector East was not quite as straightforward as it was in the other rebel-Serb-held areas. His forces could certainly have swept through the UN ceasefire lines and retaken the area, but Vukovar – or what was left of it – lay on the Danube, the border between Croatia and Serbia. There was a chance that Milosevic might send Yugoslav forces across the river to defend the rebel Serbs, and that would re-ignite the war, which this time would be between two sovereign international states.
Eventually, Franjo and Slobo went for a walk, just as they had done back in March 1991 when they carved up Bosnia at Tito’s hunting resort of Karadjordjevo. This time they marched round and round the parking area at Dayton, batting proposals back and forth. At first they shouted and gesticulated, but after an hour, they were in step, both in the parking area, and over Sector East. They would, they announced, agree to the proposal that Sector East would return to Croatia, after a period of UN transitional administration with guarantees of human rights for Serbs who wished to remain under Croatian rule. These were not properly implemented, but Tudjman still regained Sector East without a shot being fired.
In some ways Milosevic’s presence at Dayton was an anomaly. Milosevic was the president of Serbia, one of the two constituent republics of Yugoslavia. Neither Yugoslavia, nor Serbia, was officially at war in Bosnia. Indeed Milosevic himself had repeatedly denied that Serb troops were fighting in Bosnia, although nobody believed him.
The real leaders of the Bosnian Serbs were Radovan Karadzic and General Mladic. But these two men were indicted war criminals and so could not be allowed on American soil. At a meeting in Serbia Richard Holbrooke had insulted Mladic by refusing to eat at the same table. But with hindsight it seems, Holbrooke had no qualms about dining and drinking with Milosevic, who had chosen Mladic as commander of the Bosnian Serb army, and provided the political and military means for Radovan Karadzic to build the Bosnian Serb Republic. Indeed, Milosevic’s indictments for war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia describe him as a member of a ‘joint criminal enterprise’ along with other key figures in the Serb leadership in Belgrade, the Croatian Serb leadership in Knin and the Bosnian Serb leadership in Pale, in the drive to ethnically cleanse first Serb-occupied Croatia, and then Serb-occupied Bosnia.
So why was Milosevic feted as an international statesman in 1995, when the details of the wars between 1991 and 1995, and the extent of his role within them were thoroughly documented, not least by the American intelligence services? Because the demands of geo-politics, and American policy, meant that Milosevic was then seen as the linchpin of any deal that could bring peace to the former Yugoslavia. Statesman or war criminal: much of the difference, it seems, is in the eye of the beholder. It is also a question of timing. In the winter of 1995, Milosevic was seen not as the problem, but the solution. Flying him to Dayton was merely the logical next step after saving his regime from collapse by halting the Croat-Bosnian attack on Banja Luka.
But morality and realpolitik make a murky combination, especially when men seek to act as gods and decide the fate of nations. Mira Markovic argued: ‘Now the Hague prosecution is saying that he did this in 1991 and 1992 and so on. Would they take such a man to Dayton? The West treated him as their ally, and as a factor of stability and peace in the Balkans. He was in Dayton because he knew that he could bring the Serbs on the other side of the river Drina to their senses. He was one of the people they relied on. They should be grateful to my husband for the Dayton peace accords and they well know that.’15
If Milosevic was a war criminal, then so was President Tudjman. Under Tudjman, the Bosnian Croats had also set up a network of concentration camps, and ethnically cleansed Muslims. Just three months earlier the United States had given the nod to Croatia to recapture the Krajina in an operation in which 200,000 Serb refugees fled or were expelled. Officials at the ICTY confirm that had Tudjman lived, he would have been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.16 So at Dayton Milosevic was at least in good company.
21
Enter Mira, Stage Left
Setting up JUL
1995–7
LADY MACBETH: Only look up clear.
To alter favour ever is to fear
Leave all the rest to me.1
Milosevic picked up the telephone. It was 13 January 1996, and his new strategic partner was on the line. President Clinton was flying to visit US troops stationed in southern Hungary, and in Tuzla in northern Bosnia. Just one month earlier, Milosevic had signed the Dayton peace agreement in Paris. President Clinton had said to him then: ‘I know this agreement would not have been possible without you. You made Dayton possible. Now you must help make it work.’2
Milosevic was the man of the moment. On the phone Clinton outlined his hopes for the region’s future. ‘We support normalisation of relations and I know it cannot go ahead without you. We need that, but it only takes a small thing for everything to fall through. That’s why I count on [Secretary of State Warren] Christopher’s trip and then we shall see his report.’3Milosevic replied: ‘That is really encouraging and I am glad to hear that. I am looking forward to receiving Mr Christopher, it can only lead to good. I am optimistic. Thank you for your optimism and your proposal.’
Greatly buoyed by his chat with Clinton, Milosevic then called the Yugoslav foreign minister, the urbane Milan Milutinovic, and told him about the conversation. Both men were somewhat in awe of Madeleine Albright, the US ambassador to the United Nations. Albright, who was of Czech Jewish descent, had spent some time in Belgrade during the Second World War. A powerful figure in the Clinton administration, with an intuitive understanding of the Balkans, she was also a classic Slavic matriarch. She stood for no nonsense from errant males, even Serbian presidents and foreign ministers. Milosevic and Milutinovic were soon snickering like schoolboys:
Milutinovic: It’s a big thing Clinton dared to speak that way in front of Albright.
Milosevic: Yes, he spoke really nicely.
Milutinovic: He must have hid in the airplane’s toilet.
; Milosevic: You’re joking. You think he is afraid of Albright?
Milutinovic: She’s a real ——. You have no idea how it is.
Milosevic: You know how he started the conversation? He was very polite, extremely nice, I simply cannot tell you.
Milutinovic: You know why I’m laughing? The old ––– has told me so many things and I have told her many things. She told me ‘I like you so I’ll tell you everything.’
Milosevic: Well, I don’t know if they were all with him.
Milutinovic: Yes, yes they were. She was on the plane, and Holbrooke.
That’s why it makes it an even greater accomplishment.4
But Milosevic was not laughing the next day, when he saw how Clinton’s visit to Tuzla had been reported in Politika. The once-respected newspaper was now a degraded mouthpiece for regime propaganda. The man in charge, Hadzi Dragan Antic,5 had not yet grasped the new party line. This was surprising as Antic was very close to both Marija Milosevic and Mira Markovic. As a family friend, Antic should have known that the president of the United States was no longer a warmaker, but a peacemaker. Instead the Politika report claimed that Clinton had come to Tuzla to have his picture taken, and dredged up old canards about Vietnam and Whitewater.
As soon as he saw the article, a furious Milosevic rang up Antic. ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? I want to build something and you demolish it as much as you can, you spit on everything and kick everyone.’6 Antic weedily protested that he did not know about the report. Milosevic stormed on, making the unlikely claim that: ‘Believe me, this is a scandal without precedent . . . to insult an American president for the positive thing that he is doing. You fuckers didn’t insult him so much when there was bombing . . . and then you tell me how you support the peace policies.’ Milosevic then issued instructions for the next day’s coverage. ‘I will do it right away,’ said Antic, promising to report everything Clinton did as ‘extremely positive’.