Only Future Will Tell

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, April 5 1999

by Marinko Culic

While NATO bombers are charging Yugoslavia, Croatia could, according to both the patriotic and independent media, soon sneak into the antechamber of that Alliance. While the Yugoslav economy, and not only of the military kind, has been suffering devastating blows, Croatia has the privilege of slow death and has already begun to receive additional credits. While Louise Arbour, after a long delay, has chosen exactly this moment to issue the indictment against Arkan, the already announced indictments against Croatian Generals have suddenly been forgotten...

As could have been seen during the last few days, Croatia hasn't immediately snatched these Easter gifts. First, there was some wise hesitation, which could have also been interpreted as hidden opposition to the NATO intervention. Tudman probably feverishly tried to estimate to what extent the destruction of the armor of the "sovereign" Yugoslavia can be dangerous for Croatia, which has fenced itself off from the world with the same type of the cage, refusing to allow the International Community to meddle here on behalf of some silly human rights and similar nonsense. Besides, the player from Pantovcak has definitely waited for the price of Croatian support and collaboration to increase enough so that Mate Granic, who had in the meantime rushed to Washington, could send some good news from abroad.

And, really, radiant Granic soon informed the nation that he had not had such fruitful and pleasant meetings with the Americans since the Washington Agreement five years ago. All in all, a pure triumph! But, before the first festive fireworks are fired from the garden of the Presidential residence, it wouldn't hurt to pause for a moment and consider why the Americans have suddenly become so generous that the entrance of Croatia into WTO is not any more a problem; they will also support Croatia in the negotiations in connection with the Prevlaka peninsula; Americans have no complaints regarding the Sakic trial, and the collaboration with the Hague Tribunal, check that out, is not as bad as it was previously thought!

Callous Bad Student

Only a bit more than a month ago the State Department gave the Republic of Croatia failing or barely passing grade in all of these subjects. The fact that it was even investigated whether there is "forced" and "child labor" in Croatia (fortunately, no cases were found) indicates the harshness of the grader. Well, how come this bad student has suddenly deserved the good grace to now send home from America postcards in which he boasts that the new-old "partnership" and "alliance" with the USA has finally again been established? The only possible answer is that the Americans have with the intervention in Yugoslavia found themselves entangled in something so complicated and uncertain that they with gratitude accept any assistance, regardless of the kind and provider of the assistance.

In Gun Powder Smoke

It even does not matter whether the assistance is sincere, as is the traditional problem in the Croatian case, which was this time confirmed with the already mentioned less than eager support for the NATO intervention. After Granic finished the job of the decade in Washington, the official Zagreb continues to observe the intervention in Yugoslavia with Socratic skepticism. True, these reserves are now not expressed by the highest state bodies, which know very well the importance of the moment and avoid to talk more than necessary, but that is continued by their journalistic mouthpieces. They consider the NATO intervention so politically and militarily incompetent that they claim that the Rambouillet Agreement is already dead and that NATO could soon follow it to the grave.

Namely, it is only a matter of time when the Western public will understand that the bombs earmarked for Milosevic have actually strengthened his position and struck the Albanians, whose mass exodus is the result of the American mass bombardment. The respected colleague, thanks to whom one does not have to guess too hard about the intentions of the Presidential Palace, even goes so far as to thank the Americans for not intervening in their clumsy and arrogant way in Croatia at the time of the Vukovar battle. This way, "at least we managed to survive". Although that is not stated anywhere, these lines are overflowing with fear that with the NATO intervention Croatia has been dragged into something damned complicated and risky, and besides, in case of a failure of the military campaign, no one is going to give her even an ordinary thank you for the presently shown loyalty.

The Americans will simply pick up their circus tent and leave and Croatia will remain where it is, but now with much more gun powder around itself than a few weeks before, and with the horrifying realization that the USA can burst without a search warrant into any other country in the region. It seems that Tudman had that in mind when last week he initiated the conference of the countries which border Yugoslavia. But the Americans only gave lukewarm support to that initiative and, calling on the dense diplomatic agenda, in essence pushed it to some undetermined future tense, obviously adverse to the idea of the establishment of any collective authority in the Balkans while they introduce order there.

Ramblings About Favorite

The other reason is that it is likely that any political initiative coming from the region would only deepen the already deep hole on the American side. No one anymore knows what political goals were supposed to be achieved by the military NATO intervention. Even if there were any, by now they have wriggled out of NATO hands and appear even further on the horizon - Milosevic is stronger than before the bombing, and the humanitarian catastrophe of the Albanians hasn't been stopped but is actually much worse. The Americans themselves have given up the third goal allowing for the first time the possibility that Kosovo will not remain a part of Serbia but will instead secede, which is, honestly speaking, probably just a tactical threat to Milosevic to realize the high price of his stubborn defiance.

But, even that American boasting sounds like plain rambling, since the whole world can see that it is Kosovars who are leaving, not Kosovo. It is only now firmly in the Serb hands. When this is compared with the peace process in Bosnia-Hercegovina, it is obvious that in Bosnia there was never so much disparity between the desired and real. For full two years political goals were clear and fixed, so that everything could be concentrated on how to break down politically, and only if necessary militarily, resistance of the three sides in the negotiations. In the Serb-Kosovo case obviously the choice was to take the opposite approach, since the Albanian problem had been allowed to languish on the dark side of the Moon for years. As if the problems which could not be resolved without involvement from abroad anywhere else in the former Yugoslavia, could have somehow been resolved on their own at the worst crisis spot.

This is that much more important because only the naive believe that, as can be often heard lately, the NATO action is writing the last pages of the YU-crisis and that the foundations of some new regional order are currently being made. Even it NATO lucks out and hits Milosevic personally with some special bomb, that would not be the end but a beginning of the disarmament of the local extremist and violent regimes and movements, some of which are using exactly this armed intervention in order to hide their tracks in the total commotion. This above all applies to Croatia, which is now elbowing its way, with some success, into the audience of the most recent events. However the finale of these events will certainly demand that the International Community sort out Croatia as well.

That should be made easier by at least one positive fact which came out of the NATO intervention. The intervention has finally put an end to the speculation that Milosevic has been and remains the favorite of the Western countries and that in the past years they have done nothing but worked on preparing the former Yugoslav countries to gather again around the Serb Piedmont.

Now when the NATO strikes obviously have for a goal, whatever one may think about that, to remove Milosevic from power and to, as is becoming more and more likely, throw Serbia on its knees, no nation can use the alibi that as a victim of the Serb aggression she should receive lenient treatment until the business with the participants in the aggression has been cleared up. Starting lines have finally been drawn next to each other.

Translated on 7/20/99