Through Bosnian Eyes: The Political Memoirs of a Bosnian Serb

XVII Wartime Visits to Moscow and Belgrade

M. Pejanovic, THROUGH BOSNIAN EYES XVII. WARTIME VISITS TO MOSCOW AND BELGRADE After the failure of the Owen Stoltenberg Plan for a Union of Three Republics, the US became directly involved in the search for peace. In February and March 1994, American diplomats helped negotiate the Washington Agreement, the first s'uccessful phase in the search for a comprehensive peace for Bosnia. The Washington Agreement ended the armed conflict between the ABH and the HVO and led to the creation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.. Together, the US, Russia, France, England and Germany agreed to form the Contact Group to promote a broader peace agreement, that would end the war waged by KaradziC's Bosnian Serb nationalists. Thanks to their influence in the UN Security Council, Contact Group member countries were able to produce the founding principles for a peace agreement for Bosnia. One of these principles was that Bosnia must retain its international and legal continuity as a state, its integrity and unity within internationally recognized borders. The second principle was that the state should be equally governed by each of its three nations, Croat, Serb and Bosniak. The third principle was that the situation the conflict had created on the ground should be resolved by defining two Entities: the Republika Srpska, which would occupy 49% of Bosnia's territory, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would cover 51%: this was the Contact Group's founding concept. Two further conditions were envisaged for the peace plan: that the leading powers should manage its implementation in association, and that a formula for internal division would be necessary. The latter now became the subject of all negotiations with those who represented the military and political forces currently operating in Bosnia. 197 M. Pejanovic, THROUGH BOSNIAN EYES When the Contact Group started work, the Pale leadership issued a clear rejection of their proposal. During 1994, the Contact Group went on failing to produce significant results, until the US peace initiative got under way, at the end of the year. The US took over the leading role inseeking a peace solution, using a combination of military action in Bosnia, and diplomatic pressure on the power centers of Belgrade and Zagreb - which had and still have immense influence on Bosnia's political and military forces. In summer 1994, the SGV appointed a delegation of its members to visit Moscow: Miro Lazovic, Speaker of the Bosnian Parliament, Gavrilo Grhovac and Rajko Zivkovic as officials of the SGV, and myself. This was the first visit to Moscow ever made in wartime by a delegation from Bosnia. It was also the first visit paid by Bosnian Serbs. We had a meeting scheduled with Vitaly Churkin, deputy to Andrei Kozyrev, Russia's Foreign Minister. Kozyrev had earlier visited Sarajevo, and as chance would have it, I had hosted his visit to the Presidency and the subsequent press conference. We used our meeting with Churkin to discuss the Contact Group Plan. It was a unique opportunity for Churkin to hear the SGV's vision for achieving a lasting peace. We stressed the idea of a peaceful, political solution, with the involvement and commitment of th"e international community, as a guarantee that the peace plan would be implemented. We acquainted Churkin with facts that were little known in Moscow, particularly that many Serbs still lived in cities on Federation territory. We also told him the facts about Serbs in Bosnia generally and the current distribution of the Bosnian Serb population. According to the estimates of international organizations, half a million citizens of Serb nationality had been forced by war. to seek refugee status: many of these were educated people from the cities. We told Churkin that the Serbs living in territory under KaradziC's control numbered around 800,000, and within this group was a ruling elite which managed the army, police, political activity, and local municipalities. Within this elite there flourished an extremism founded on ethic hatred, and dedication to ethnic cleansing and ethnic expulsion. We stressed the need to distinguish between this extremism and the wishes and interests of the Serb nation as a whole. We said we knew that the ordinary people living in the territory held by KaradziC's forces, above all wanted the war 198 M. Pejanovic, THROUGH BOSNIAN EYES to end. Noone wanted their sons to go to war and never come back; no one wanted their...