To End a War

by Richard Holbrooke

  Gligorov went over every detail of his earlier discussions with Hill and Pardew. Once Tito’s Finance Minister, Gligorov had almost literally invented his country in late 1991 and early 1992. He wanted the embargo lifted, but would rather let his people suffer than betray what he viewed as his sacred mission to protect his nation’s identity. Finally, he yielded, and I rose hurriedly to call Papandreou. But Gligorov wanted to stretch out the process, and demanded that we eat first. A large meal of meats and Lake Okhrid trout, a famous local fish, materialized. As we ate, I excused myself and called Tom Miller at the Pink Villa. Papandreou, he said, was so excited that he had not taken his afternoon nap, and was pacing up and down anxiously waiting for the call. I told Papandreou that the deal was done, and suggested we announce it simultaneously in Washington, Athens, and Skopje. He agreed, asking only that the Americans make the announcement in all three capitals.

  I called Strobe and Sandy, who were in the Situation Room, totally preoccupied with the struggle over the resumption of the NATO bombing. They hardly had time for the breakthrough on Macedonia, but suggested that I call George Stephanopoulos, the President’s senior advisor, who was also the key Administration connection to the Greek-American community. When he heard the news, George’s voice—normally flat, unemotional, and analytical—broke for a moment. He said he would immediately call key members of the Greek-American community, starting with Senator Paul Sarbanes of Maryland. I also asked him to call Papandreou directly on behalf of the President. As we ended the conversation, his voice broke again, just for a moment, and he said, “God bless you and your team. This is truly wonderful.”

  Nick Burns made the announcement from the State Department, while Macedonian Foreign Minister Stevo Crevenkovski and I held a short press conference outside the Presidential Palace in Skopje. At Papandreou’s request, Tom Miller made a similar announcement in Athens—more evidence of the deep desire in the region to let the United States take the lead in forcing solutions to long-standing problems. We stressed the special role of Vance and Nimetz, who had labored so long on the problem. The main newspapers caught the importance of the agreement; The New York Times, for example, reported the end of “a four-year dispute that had threatened to break into war.” There were still some unpleasant scenes a week later when the two negotiators in New York both threatened to walk away from the September 4 agreement, but the two sides signed a formal agreement resolving the flag issue and lifting the embargo. Negotiations on the name of the new country continued, but the danger of a war on Greece’s northern border had disappeared.

  It is often said that timing is everything. It was only later that we realized just how true this was in regard to the Greece-FYROM question. Papandreou was hospitalized in November, resigned the prime ministership in January 1996, and died on June 22. Gligorov was nearly killed in an assassination attempt on October 3, 1995. The window had closed; the deal could not have been made even a few weeks later.* Had we not made our side trip when we did, the issue, a flash point in one of the most unstable regions of the world, might still be unsettled today. Yet as a result of the breakthrough, tensions dropped dramatically, and the economies of both countries benefited substantially. By 1998 Greece was the largest investor in Macedonia, and its second-largest trading partner.

  Our intervention had demonstrated anew two central truths of the region: the United States was the only country that could force all the parties to a solution; but to do so, we had to be assertive.

  By the time we reached Ankara it was 9:00 P.M., too late to meet with President Suleyman Demirel, Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, or Izetbegovic, who were already at an official dinner. We repaired to the residence of the American Ambassador, Marc Grossman, for a meal with some leading Turkish officials and businessmen. Grossman, one of the most outstanding career diplomats then serving in Europe, had foreseen the problem, and arranged for us to meet with Izetbegovic and Sacirbey after their state dinner. This meant that the long day would be even longer, but we had no choice; the negotiations for Geneva had to be completed in Ankara or we would run out of time, making a catastrophe likely.

  Meanwhile, the drama had grown over the resumption of the bombing. Throughout Labor Day officials in Washington and New York kept the telephone lines going nonstop to Brussels, Naples, Zagreb, Sarajevo, and the other Contact Group capitals. As we called Washington repeatedly, our delegation became increasingly concerned. Knowing the high regard in which General Kerrick was held by his colleagues at the NSC, I asked him to speak directly to Berger to emphasize the urgency of the situation.

  At NATO, both General Joulwan and the stalwart Willy Claes had received the erroneous impression from Janvier and Smith that Mladic had made important concessions. This astonished us and Joulwan. In fact, Janvier had been rudely treated by Mladic, but the French general, still trying to avoid resumption of the bombing, tried to portray his discussions as “progress.” Joulwan joined us in pressing for action.

  As Washington, Brussels, New York, Zagreb, and the major NATO capitals argued over the bombing, two dramatically different documents arrived from the Bosnian Serbs—one seemingly conciliatory, the other blatantly provocative. The first struck me from the outset as a phony, but it almost derailed our efforts to get the bombing resumed; the second made the decision to resume easier.

  The first was a strange, short letter from “Vice President” Koljevic. Writing to Yasushi Akashi, the civilian chief of United Nations operations in the Balkans, Koljevic said that he was prepared to “accept conditions” of General Janvier’s letter. That was all. In a telephone call to Washington as we waited for Izetbegovic at the Ambassador’s residence in Ankara, I argued that this letter was meaningless on at least two levels. First, Koljevic, a creature of Milosevic’s, had no authority in Pale. Second, the omission of any definite or indefinite article preceding the word “conditions” was, I argued, a dead giveaway. Where was a word like “all” or even “the” preceding the word “conditions”? I pointed out that the author of the letter was a Shakespeare scholar, and knew perfectly well the exact meaning of words in English. We were startled that anyone in the United Nations or Washington was taking this silly letter seriously.

  The second letter of the day was from General Mladic—and it was chilling. Addressed to General Janvier, Mladic’s letter was five pages of single-spaced ranting that suggested its author was out of control. He accused Janvier of reneging on the “long hours of agreeable talks in Zvornik” a few days earlier, of which, he said, “there are TV and phone records.” In a remarkable passage, Mladic charged that the NATO bombing was “more brutal” than that of the Nazis against Belgrade on April 6, 1941, a famous date in Yugoslav history. “Hitler stopped the bombing on April 7 and 8 to allow the burial of victims after the Christian custom,” Mladic wrote, “while NATO deliberately targeted our churches and cemeteries during the burial of the killed.” The letter continued with a series of wild threats against U.N. personnel.

  Mladic followed his threats with a ludicrous peace offering. “I assure you,” he wrote, “that Sarajevo is running no danger from the Republika Srpska Army.” Mladic called for “an urgent meeting between the warring sides’ Commanders to sign an agreement on complete, lasting, and unconditional cessation of hostilities in the former Bosnia-Herzegovina. Until this meeting I declare a one-sided cessation of hostilities in the Sarajevo region.”

  When we saw Mladic’s letter, we assumed it resolved any questions about resuming the bombing. What answer other than a resumption of the bombing was appropriate under the circumstances?

  But Mladic’s combination of peace offering and threats gave Janvier and other U.N. officials pause. The French general, who had spent an almost sleepless night and morning in meetings with Mladic, had come away from the meetings publicly expressing the view that “there could be room for negotiation with the Bosnian Serbs.” A U.N. spokesman in Zagreb described Mladic’s letter “as the first step toward full compliance.”

/>   Our reaction to these signs that the U.N. was looking for an excuse to avoid resumption can easily be imagined. But as Clark, Kerrick, Pardew, and I called Washington to express our outrage, Izetbegovic and Sacirbey arrived at Grossman’s residence. It was already after 11:00 P.M. Temporarily leaving the drama over the resumption of bombing aside, we turned again to the draft document for the Geneva meeting.

  The scene that now unfolded in Grossman’s living room was memorable. Everyone was tired, especially the seventy-year-old Bosnian President, but we had important issues to discuss. As we talked, the telephones were constantly in use, as Clark or one of the other members of the delegation spoke to Washington, Naples, or Brussels about the bombing or, on several occasions, aspects of the Athens-Skopje deal, which was just beginning to get public attention.

  The central issue that evening concerned names—the name of the country, and the name of each of the entities. Having spent the day in Athens and Skopje discussing the name and flag of another former Yugoslav republic, we were especially sensitive to, and increasingly weary of, the obsession the leaders in this region had with words and names. An outright military victory was no longer possible for either side, but the leaders of all three sides were willing to let their people die while they argued.

  I watched Izetbegovic carefully. He and Sacirbey sat next to each other in the middle of the room. They studied carefully the draft that we had negotiated in Belgrade, entitled “Joint Agreed Statement of Political Principles.” They were not happy with it. Despite the late hour, Izetbegovic had replaced his normal vagueness with a tougher, more focused attitude. He squinted and stared at the drafts Bob Owen had given him as if searching for verbal tricks that might destroy his country. He repeated phrases slowly in English while Sacirbey translated them, arguing heatedly over what they might mean.

  Well after midnight, we had narrowed the discussion down almost entirely to two sentences—but they were critical to the future of Bosnia. The previous day in Belgrade we had obtained substantial concessions from Milosevic in a sentence that recognized for the first time that Bosnia would “continue its legal existence with its present borders and continuing international recognition.”

  In these twelve words, Owen and Hill had obtained three key concessions from Milosevic that had been unattainable for years:

  First, by accepting the words “continue its legal existence,” Milosevic agreed that the state of Bosnia had a legal existence—moreover, an existence that was deemed to “continue,” thus clearly implying a retroactive acceptance of Bosnia’s claim of independence, denied by the Serbs throughout the war. This was the first time that the Bosnian Serbs had explicitly conceded Bosnia’s right to exist as an independent country.

  Second, “with its present borders.” Speaking for both Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs, Milosevic had accepted the existing boundaries of Bosnia, thereby officially ending territorial claims on Bosnia by Serbia, and rejecting the separatist goals of Pale.

  Third, “continuing international recognition.” Had Milosevic only acknowledged international recognition, there might have been uncertainty as to what was being recognized. But the use of the word “continuing” eliminated a possible ambiguity; “Bosnia” would be the same country that had been recognized by many nations and sat in the United Nations. We felt that this phrase represented a huge breakthrough, amounting to de facto recognition of Bosnia by the Serbs.

  But there were also some problems with the draft:

  First, Milosevic had opposed allowing the country to keep the name “Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” He demanded “Union” or perhaps “Confederation,” names we knew Izetbegovic would reject.

  Second, Milosevic insisted that the Serb portion of the country be referred to as “Republika Srpska (R.S.).” The use of the name that Karadzic and the Pale Serbs had given themselves was certain to be a big problem for Sarajevo.

  As Izetbegovic stared at the paper in front of him, he did not acknowledge the unprecedented concessions we had wrested from Milosevic. But as we expected, he was unhappy at Milosevic’s attempt to change the name of the country, and strongly opposed to the use of the phrase “Republika Srpska.”

  I reassured Izetbegovic that the United States would never agree to Milosevic’s desire to use “union” or “confederation.” We urged Izetbegovic to let us propose to Milosevic that the country be called, simply, “Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Izetbegovic objected. We argued that many countries, including Japan, did not have “republic” or “kingdom” or some other description of their political structure before their name. “Giving up the word ‘republic’ is giving up nothing, especially compared to the fact that Milosevic has now effectively recognized your country within its present boundaries,” Owen told Izetbegovic.

  The second point was more difficult. “That name [Republika Srpska] is like the Nazi name,” Izetbegovic said. We replied that the name meant nothing, and that the governing—the overriding—sentence was the preceding one that recognized Bosnia and Herzegovina as a country “with its present borders”—that is, a single country, of which R.S. was a part. “In our country,” Owen noted, “some states, including Texas and Massachusetts, call themselves ‘republics’ or ‘commonwealths.’ It doesn’t matter, as long as they acknowledge that they are part of one country, and are so recognized by the rest of the world.”

  Izetbegovic continued to object for over an hour. From time to time, I left the room to speak to the White House about the bombing. It helped that Izetbegovic saw that I was fighting hard for something he desperately wanted—the resumption of bombing. But it was still difficult for him to agree to a document that contained the name Republika Srpska.

  It was one in the morning. “We understand your problems with this,” I told the President, “but it is the best we can do with Milosevic at this time. We do not believe that the name Republika Srpska, awful though it is, means much as long as you get everything else—international recognition, defined borders, acceptance of your legal status. You had none of this before. We can’t get ‘Republika Srpska’ out of the draft. I’m sorry, but this is as much as we can do.”

  A long pause. Some discussion among the Bosnians. Finally, the answer from Sacirbey, while Izetbegovic sat silent and unhappy. “This is bad for my President, but we will try to accept it. It will be very difficult for him to explain to his people.”

  When Izetbegovic and Sacirbey left Ambassador Grossman’s residence, it was well after 1:00 A.M. We turned back to Washington for one last, extraordinary series of telephone calls. One by one, Kerrick, Pardew, and Clark told their superiors in Washington why the bombing should be resumed. Then I had my last shot at my friends. Berger, Talbott, Slocombe, Owens, and Vershbow were still in the White House Situation Room. I had a mental picture of the group, eating pizzas and hero sandwiches, huddled together all day—still Labor Day!—while we had raced across Serbia, Greece, Macedonia, and Turkey. In fact, they had been at it now for three straight days, missing almost all of their long-planned Labor Day weekends with their families. (Berger and Talbott had canceled their plans to attend the wedding of Madeleine Albright’s daughter.)

  Yet no decision had been made, and within the Situation Room we sensed several different views. I later learned that Talbott and Berger, who both supported the bombing, had thought earlier in the day that its resumption would be relatively easy, but that as the day progressed, opposition from various quarters, including the U.N. field commanders and the French, made the situation far less certain. In Ankara, we were unaware of the impact that CNN was having: one of its star correspondents, Peter Arnett, had been taken by the Bosnian Serbs to positions outside Sarajevo, where he had filmed scenes he was told were the beginning of the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the area around Sarajevo, as Mladic had promised in his ranting letter. This was a standard Bosnian Serb tactic: showing unilateral and phony “compliance” in an effort to head off NATO action—bu
t it had worked for years.

  “Let me be clear,” I said. “It is very late here now, and we are perhaps overly tired, but we have an absolutely unanimous point of view: the bombing must be resumed. If it is not, we will do our best, but our chances for success in the negotiations will be seriously reduced. The Bosnians are barely on board with our Geneva draft, and when we see Izetbegovic again in the morning for a last review of the draft, the bombing must have resumed.”

  I wanted to end on a high historical note, unusual for this sort of conversation. “If we do not resume the bombing, it will have lasted less than forty-eight hours. It will be another catastrophe. NATO will again look like a paper tiger. The Bosnian Serbs will return to their blackmailing ways.” There was a short silence at the other end of the phone. Don Kerrick, who was listening in on an extension, looked at me, smiled, and gave me thumbs-up sign. I concluded: “I know how difficult this is, and what I am about to say may sound melodramatic, but history could well hang in the balance tonight. I truly believe that you may never take any decision as public officials more important than this one. Give us bombs for peace. Give us a resumption of the bombing by morning.”

  * I also met privately with leaders from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia on NATO enlargement. The most difficult session was with the authoritarian Prime Minister of Slovakia, Vladimir Meciar. Two years later, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary were invited to join NATO, but Slovakia was left behind because it still restricted internal freedoms.

  * See chapters 14 and 15.

  * Gligorov made an amazing recovery and resumed the presidency within a few months, but by that time Papandreou was no longer functioning in Athens.