Through Bosnian Eyes: The Political Memoirs of a Bosnian Serb

XV The Owen-Stoltenberg Plan for a Union of Three Republics

M. Pejanovic, THROUGH BOSNIAN EYES xv. THE OWEN-STOLTENBERG PLAN FOR A UNION OF THREE REPUBLICS Stoltenberg and Owen started a new round of talks in May 1993. Owen made several attempts to explain why the international community, particularly the leading powers, had failed to stand firm behind the Vance-Owen Peace Plan. To a large extent, the United States considered Bosnia and its war to be a European problem, one for the European Union to solve. Further talks with the Bosnian delegation· wereconvened,and Oweninvitedallmembers oftheBosnianPresidency to attend. Thus work began on another peace plan, known as the Owen": Stoltenberg Plan for a Union of Three Republics. The main idea of the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan was to create three ethnic units within Bosnia. These three ethnic territories would form the Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The biggest problem, however, was drawing ethnic borders that would satisfy Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs alike. The government delegation, on the other hand, had formulated principles from which we never departed. The position of the United States at this time was clear. Its representatives declared that they would support a peaceful solution which suited the legal government of Bosnia, or, as they put it, the Sarajevo government. The US gave top priority to the principle that Bosnia was a UN member state, a legal state with internationally recognized borders. Secondl)', they insisted that the Bosnian, or rather the Bosniak territorial unit, could not be less than 32% of the territory of Bosnia. The third principle was that Bosnia must have an exit to the sea via Neum and to BrCko harbor via the city of BrCko,?4 The fourth principle was that Sarajevo must remain united and have capital city status. The Americans also 74 Brcko is a town in northern Bosnia's Posavina region on the south bank of the Sava River. It was captured by BSA forces early in the war. The Bosnian 177 M. Pejanovic, THROUGH BOSNIAN EYES insisted upon the return of the pre-war populations to the territory from which they had been expelled by force. The cities of Brcko, Doboj, Neum and Sarajevo were the cause of the most acrimonious disputes between the delegations during the negotiations. During these negotiations, Professor Filipovic, Miro Lazovic and I urged the Presidency in Sarajevo to invite Selim Beslagic, an opposition party leader and Mayor of Tuzla, to join the Geneva delegation.75 When the difficult discussion of Brcko's status began, there were many different ideas on the table. Karadzic, as he had done throughout the negotiations, advocated access to the Brcko harbor through separate flyovers and tunnels. In his view, Bosniaks and Serbs, or Croats and Serbs, should not even meet on the same road. Selim Beslagic reacted-furiously to the suggestion: "Not even a lunatic would accept this." Beslagic was very soon discouraged by the way the negotiations were going and during the first break he returned to Tuzla. Karadzic endlessly repeated his offer to trade the parts of Sarajevo under Serb control for land in Eastern Bosnia. He wanted to create at any price an ethnically pure territory running parallel to the river Drina, from Bijeljina to Foca. He offered to exchange the Sarajevo suburbs of Vo~osca and Ilijas for the Eastern Bosnian towns of Srebrenica and Zepa. We talked this over once in our delegation, but rejected all possibility of trading land and populations, for by accepting such a proposal we ourselves would participate in the evil called ethnic cleansing. Gorazde was always on the table to be traded fo~ those suburbs of Sarajevo.called Serb Sarajevo, while KaradziC's delegation persis.ted in offering its option of an ethnically divided Sarajevo. The state delegation kept, Serb nationalists felt they needed to retaincontrol ofBrCko in any peace settlement to assure a land corridorbetween their WesternBosnian territories in the Krajina and the land they controlled in Eastern Bosnia. This left the problem ofestablishingpassage from the government-controlled territories to the Sava River and to Croatia to the north. 75 Tuzla was the only major city in Bosnia where a social democratic party prevailed in the 1990 elections. There,Selim Beslagic,candidate of the Unionof 'BosnianSocial Democrats (UBSD), was elected Mayor, a posthe held throughout the 1990's. In February 1998 the UBSD merged with the SDP and became effectively the Tuzla branch of that party. 178 M. Pejanovic, THROUGH BOSNIAN EYES however, .to its insistence...