To End a War

by Richard Holbrooke

  We concluded that it was similarly acceptable to meet with Karadzic and Mladic if it would help the negotiations. As our plane descended toward the military airport in Belgrade, we decided we would not ask to meet the two men, but would see them if Milosevic suggested it. However, we would set certain conditions. We would not meet with any Bosnian Serbs—indicted or unindicted—if they presented themselves as a separate delegation or tried to negotiate on their own. At the same time, I said each member of the team could decide whether to participate if either man showed up, and whether to shake hands with them.

  We landed in Belgrade in the late morning on September 13. Two hours later we were back at Milosevic’s villa outside Belgrade. He was anxious to get started. An ABC television crew, led by correspondent Sheila McVicker, filmed the opening moments of our meeting for a Nightline special they were producing, and then retreated to the garden. As soon as they left, Milosevic complained about the expanded bombing. “Your planes are giving close air support to the Muslims and Croats,” he said. I told him that he was misinformed on this point, but I readily agreed—in fact, with a certain pleasure—that the bombing, even though it was not coordinated with Federation ground troops, had the effect of helping the Muslims and Croats. “The Serbs brought it down upon themselves,” I said.

  Milosevic said the situation on the ground needed “calming.” He thought he could get the Bosnian Serbs to agree to a cease-fire throughout the country in return for a cessation of the bombing. Then, he said, we should convene an international conference as quickly as possible to end the war.

  Milosevic’s proposal for a nationwide cease-fire was new. I knew this was what Washington wanted, but it was premature as long as the offensive was progressing. “A general cease-fire is out of the question at this point,” I said. “But we can talk about one for the Sarajevo area.”

  We were struck by the change in his tone. Clearly, the Croat-Muslim offensive in the west and the bombing were having a major effect on the Bosnian Serbs. Milosevic seemed in a rush. Unfortunately, so were many people in the West. Not for the first time, I thought: the chances for a viable peace will improve if the bombing and the offensive continue, at least for a while.

  At about 5:00 P.M., Milosevic unveiled his big surprise. “Karadzic and Mladic are in another villa, about two hundred meters away,” he said. “They can be here in ten minutes. Why don’t we ask them to join us so you can negotiate directly with them?”

  I was grateful we had prepared ourselves for this moment. At that instant, however, I felt a jolt go through my body. It is not an exaggeration to say that I simply hated the two men for what they had done—including, indirectly, causing the deaths of our three colleagues.

  “Let’s talk awhile first,” I said, trying not to appear anxious. “Are you sure that we can accomplish anything? Why don’t you see them first while we wait here?”

  Milosevic said he was sure we could make progress if we used his “technology”—by which he meant the theatrical style with which he loved to dazzle and outmaneuver other politicians in the Balkans.

  “Mr. President, in that case, we are ready to meet with them, but with two conditions. First, they must be part of your delegation, you must lead the discussions, and you must control them. Second, they must not give us a lot of historical bullshit, as they have with everyone else. They must be ready for serious discussions.”

  “They will agree,” Milosevic said. “No bullshit. Let me get them.” He told an aide to send for the Bosnian Serbs. We asked the ABC crew waiting outside to leave, without telling them why. Then we had drinks on the patio and waited for the men from Pale. The lawns blended into trees not far away. In the early August evening there was still plenty of natural light.

  After about twenty minutes a couple of Mercedes sedans pulled up in the driveway. Two men stepped out of the first car, trailed by others. As they approached us through the trees in the fading summer light, their unmistakable silhouettes jolted me again: one, in a suit, tall with a wild shock of hair; the other, short and burly, in combat fatigues, walking as though through a muddy field.

  Before the Bosnian Serbs could reach us, I turned to Milosevic and said, “We’ll take a walk while you explain the ground rules. We’ll return when you can assure us they have agreed.” We retreated into the woods about one hundred yards behind the main house, where we waited nervously and reviewed our strategy. Ten minutes later an aide came running up to us and said Milosevic and his guests were ready.

  I did not shake hands, although both Karadzic and Mladic tried to. Some of our team did, others did not; it was their choice. We sat down at a long table on the patio facing each other, and began to talk. Arrayed next to Karadzic were other Bosnian Serbs whose names were familiar to us, including Momcilo Krajisnik, the Speaker of the Bosnian Serb Assembly. Karadzic, speaking partly in English, began complaining immediately about how unfair the bombing was. He said he was ready for a nationwide cessation of hostilities, but only if the Federation agreed not to “take advantage of it.” I said the United States supported a general cease-fire in principle, but not at this time. We were here only to discuss the situation around Sarajevo.

  As Karadzic replied, I looked at Mladic. Hollywood could not have found a more convincing war villain. He glowered—there was no better word for it—and engaged each of the Americans in what seemed to us, when we compared notes later, as staring contests. Nonetheless, he had a compelling presence; it was not hard to understand why his troops revered him; he was, I thought, one of those lethal combinations that history thrusts up occasionally—a charismatic murderer.

  Despite his size, Karadzic was not an imposing figure at this meeting. He had a sad face, with heavy jowls, a soft chin, and surprisingly gentle eyes. He had studied psychiatry in New York and understood English well. He was quick to launch into a self-pitying diatribe against NATO and the Muslims, whom he accused of mortaring their own marketplace on August 28 in order to lure NATO into the war. He referred several times to the “humiliation the Serbs are suffering.”

  After a few minutes of Karadzic’s harangue, I turned to Milosevic. “Mr. President,” I said, “you assured us that this would not happen. If it continues, we are prepared to leave immediately.” Karadzic responded emotionally. “If we can’t get anything done here, I will call President Carter,” he said. “I am in regular contact with him.” We already knew, of course, that Karadzic had invited the former President to get involved again. Karadzic started to rise, as if to make a telephone call.

  For the only time in the evening, I spoke directly to him. “Let me tell you something,” I said, my voice rising. “President Carter appointed me as Assistant Secretary of State. I worked for him for four years. Like most Americans, I have great admiration for him. But he is now a private citizen. We work only for President Clinton. We take orders only from President Clinton. That is all there is to it.”

  Karadzic sat down abruptly, and Milosevic said something to him in Serbian. For the rest of the meeting, Karadzic was on his best behavior. As Pardew noted later, Karadzic played the “facilitator who kept the Bosnian Serbs on track”—something we assumed his psychiatric training had prepared him for. He showed no sign of the qualities that had led even a cautious observer like Ambassador Zimmermann to label him the “Himmler of his generation.”2

  Karadzic calmly proposed that the Americans produce a draft agreement. I asked Clark, Owen, Hill, and Pardew to work on a document that would end the siege of Sarajevo. As my colleagues hunched over pads of paper, Milosevic and I walked around the garden and talked about other matters. “You know, that was smart,” he said, “what you said about Jimmy Carter. Those guys”—he meant the Bosnian Serbs—”are so cut off from the world they think Carter still determines American policy.”

  Dusk had fallen by the time my colleagues produced a first draft. Seated on a low brick wall about seventy-five feet away, Milosevic and I watched as General Clark began to read his
draft to the Serbs, pausing regularly for translation. We could not make out his exact words, but the deep, booming voice of the Serbian interpreter drifted toward us. The scene was unforgettable: Clark standing under the tall lamp, reading from his draft, the Serbs clustered around, listening intently, the familiar shapes of the two main Serb protagonists outlined in the shadows. Occasionally we could hear other Serb voices getting louder.

  As Milosevic and I chatted, Milutinovic ran over to us and said something to Milosevic. “We better join them,” Milosevic said. “They’re in trouble.” Everyone was standing, but Milosevic pulled up a chair and sat down. After a moment’s hesitation, I did the same in order to establish some rough equality between us.

  Karadzic, clearly angry, said that our draft proposal was unacceptable. Suddenly Mladic erupted. Pushing to the center of the circle, he began a long, emotional diatribe. “The situation is explosive, worse than at any time since the war began,” he said. “There is no justification for the bombing. NATO is supporting the regular Croatian Army inside our nation. It’s worse than the Nazis. But they cannot destroy the spirit of the Serb people. Neither can the United States. The bombing is a criminal act.” Then, a memorable phrase: “No one can be allowed to give away a meter of our sacred Serb soil.”

  This was the intimidating style he had used with the Dutch commander at Srebrenica, with Janvier, and with so many others. He gave off the scent of danger. It was not hard to see how frightening this man might be, especially on his own home ground. I did not know if his rage was real or feigned, but this was the genuine Mladic, the one who could unleash a murderous rampage.

  Turning my back on Mladic and Karadzic, I rose from my chair and looked down at Milosevic. “Mr. President,” I said, “we had an agreement. This behavior is clearly not consistent with it. If your ‘friends’ ”—I said the word with as much sarcasm as I could—”do not wish to have a serious discussion, we will leave now.”

  Milosevic paused for a moment, perhaps to gauge if this was a bluff. Perhaps he sensed that it wasn’t. NATO planes were bombing Bosnian Serb territory as we spoke. It was our moment of maximum leverage, and I was not bluffing about leaving, although we were acutely conscious of the fact that we might lose our best negotiating chip, the bombing, within two or three days.

  Milosevic spoke sharply in Serbian to his colleagues, and they began to argue. Motioning my colleagues to follow, I walked to the other end of the patio, where we waited, listening to the sounds of an increasingly angry debate under the lamps.

  It was over in a few minutes. Milosevic came over to us, asked us to rejoin him, and said that the Bosnian Serbs were ready to negotiate on the basis of our draft.

  Our draft began with a Bosnian Serb commitment to “cease all offensive operations” in the Sarajevo area and remove all heavy weapons from the same area within a week. They also had to open two land routes out of Sarajevo, one the Kiseljak road, to unimpeded humanitarian road traffic. The Sarajevo airport had to reopen within twenty-four hours. In return, NATO would stand down its bombing for seventy-two hours, but resume the bombing if there was no compliance.

  I left most of the negotiating to my colleagues, intervening only when necessary to break an impasse. I did not wish to diminish my role by spending too much time with Karadzic and Mladic, and I trusted my colleagues completely. I called Christopher and Tarnoff to describe the remarkable scene unfolding at the villa, and wandered around with Milosevic, talking about next steps in the peace process. Food was set out on a table on the patio, and Milosevic invited me to eat dinner with him and Mladic. I sat with the two men briefly, but left without eating, returning only after Mladic had left. Commenting on this later, Milosevic said I had insulted Mladic by not shaking his hand or eating with him, and this would not make the negotiations any easier. “If that is true, so be it,” I replied, and repeated an earlier theme of our meetings: “We expect you to make this process work.”

  The Bosnian Serbs argued over almost every word, but sometime after midnight we had what we wanted: after four years, the siege of Sarajevo would be lifted. There was still one important procedural matter to resolve. The Serbs insisted I sign or witness the document. I refused, explaining that we had no formal authority to reach any agreement concerning the activities of NATO or the U.N. We wanted a document with only Serb signatures—and Milosevic and Milutinovic as its witnesses. This was something of a diplomatic innovation—a document drafted by us but signed only by the Serbs as a unilateral undertaking. None of us was aware of diplomatic precedent for it, but it fit our needs perfectly. After it was signed and witnessed, I explained, we would deliver it to Janvier with a “recommendation” that NATO and the U.N. suspend the bombing. The Bosnian Serbs protested vigorously, but they had no choice, and after another long debate, they agreed to the format we had proposed.

  At 2:15 on the morning of September 14, after more than ten hours of negotiations, the Serbs signed the document we had written. We watched as one by one they affixed their signatures to the paper—first Karadzic, who signed without hesitating; then the “Vice President of Republika Srpska,” Nikola Koljevic, followed by Krajisnik. Mladic signed last. He had long since stopped participating in the negotiations, and sat slumped on a couch on the far side of the room away from his colleagues. One of Milosevic’s aides carried the agreement to him. He reached out for the pen, scrawled his name on it without looking at it, and sank back into the sofa. He looked utterly spent.

  Finally, Milosevic and his Foreign Minister signed the document as witnesses. We got up to leave, carrying the precious original with us. If it held, the long siege of Sarajevo would be over. Karadzic came over to me and grabbed my hand. “We are ready for peace,” he said in English. “Why did you bomb us?”

  “I think you know,” I said.

  I was beginning to get a sense of the Pale Serbs: headstrong, given to empty theatrical statements, but in the end, essentially bullies when their bluff was called. The Western mistake over the previous four years had been to treat the Serbs as rational people with whom one could argue, negotiate, compromise, and agree. In fact, they respected only force or an unambiguous and credible threat to use it.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Western Offensive

  It’s farewell to the drawing-room’s civilised cry,

  The professor’s sensible whereto and why,

  The frock-coated diplomat’s social aplomb,

  Now matters are settled with gas and with bomb.

  —W. H. AUDEN, “Danse Macabre”

  WE BELIEVED WE HAD MADE THE BEST possible deal in Belgrade, though I still wonder what might have been accomplished had we been able to continue the bombing for another two weeks. There were few second thoughts in Washington, however, where the reaction was astonishing. Buoyed by enthusiastic expressions of support during a long night of telephone conversations with Washington, we left Belgrade for Zagreb just after dawn on September 14 to deliver the Serb agreement to General Janvier. The United Nations command were sticklers for proper procedures, and we did not have formal authority to conduct a negotiation on their behalf. To minimize the U.N.’s sense of injured pride, we told Janvier that we were simply transmitting a “unilateral undertaking” by the Bosnian Serbs concerning Sarajevo, along with a recommendation that the U.N. suspend the bombing. But we asked him to wait until after we had talked to Izetbegovic, whom we planned to meet in Mostar that afternoon.

  Janvier, whose own negotiations with Mladic had been a well-publicized disaster, seemed stunned by our success. But he recovered gracefully, thanked us, and said he would request a twelve-hour bombing “pause” and await the outcome of our talks with Izetbegovic. In military terminology a pause is different from a suspension—it is a brief period when planes are not flying, while the operational orders for the bombing are still in place.

  From U.N. headquarters, we raced across town to brief Tudjman, who showed no interest in the Sarajevo agreement. He was focused enti
rely on the military offensive in western Bosnia. The Bosnian Serb Army was in disarray, and there were reports that some Serb soldiers had shot their own officers. At least one hundred thousand Serb refugees were pouring into Banja Luka or heading further east to escape the Federation advance.

  Anger in Mostar. Bracing ourselves for a difficult encounter with Izetbegovic, we flew to Split and drove for three hours through the mountains to the medieval city of Mostar to meet Izetbegovic. We knew the Bosnians would be unhappy; from their point of view, stopping the bombing after only a few weeks in return for ending a four-year siege was a poor bargain.

  One of my most vivid memories from my trip to Yugoslavia in 1960 was the beautiful sixteenth-century bridge linking the two parts of Mostar. It was perhaps Yugoslavia’s most famous symbol of multiethnic harmony. When I last saw the high-arched bridge in 1992, it was crumbling under continuous shelling by the Croats, pathetically protected by automobile tires hung over its sides on ropes. Two years later, in September of 1994, when I visited Mostar with General Charles Boyd, the Deputy Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe, the bridge was gone, replaced by a narrow, swaying metal footbridge hundreds of feet above the Neretva River, which Boyd and I cautiously crossed, stepping over gaping holes in the steel planking.

  When our negotiating team arrived on the afternoon of September 14, the fighting between the Croats and the Muslims in Mostar had been over for more than a year, as a result of intense efforts by Warren Christopher and U.S. negotiator Charles Redman. Their creation, the Federation, existed—but only on paper. As Silajdzic put it, the Federation was “a house with only a roof, a roof full of holes.” The damage from that Croat-Muslim war was still palpable in Mostar, where the multiethnic city had become a cauldron of hate.