To End a War

by Richard Holbrooke

  I asked Tudjman if he would agree to meet with Izetbegovic under American auspices to forge a common position. Sacirbey had previously suggested that we convene such a meeting, but the idea of an American Assistant Secretary of State convening two heads of state, who already knew each other well and met regularly, seemed both presumptuous and odd. The alarming incident at Bosanski Petrovac changed that: the explosive situation could undo everything that the Federation offensive had gained.

  Return to Sarajevo. On this three-country day, we wanted to take our small jet into Sarajevo to show our confidence in the cease-fire. But the U.S. Air Force felt it was too dangerous, so, from Zagreb, we flew to the American air base in Aviano, Italy, and switched to a C-130 military cargo plane. For this flight, the Air Force was taking no chances: the crew captain, a colonel from Germany, made us don flak jackets and helmets as we crossed the coastline, and the pilot discharged chaff to confuse hostile radar as we descended into the Sarajevo valley. I sat in the cockpit with the pilots, looking for the spot on Igman where the APC had plunged off the road, and soon spied a barely discernable vertical slash of flattened trees descending from the road. We stared at it in silence for a moment before we bounced onto the runway.

  I cannot describe my feelings as we returned to the very spot from which we had lifted off with the bodies of our three colleagues exactly four weeks earlier. This time the sun was out, and so was a very large press contingent, behind a rope. I said a few words and quickly moved on. On the way into the city in our armored cars, past the overturned buses and shattered buildings, we saw streets with pedestrians for the first time in months. A few people waved at the American Embassy vehicles. By the time we reached the presidency building, several hundred people had gathered across the street. As we got out of our cars, they applauded, and a few waved small American flags. The siege of Sarajevo was over.

  Inside the building there was no cheering. Izetbegovic was sour and Silajdzic visibly unhappy. When I tried to discuss rebuilding Sarajevo, they ignored me. They did not believe the Bosnian Serbs would actually withdraw their heavy weapons; after all, they had not done so before. I was not pleased with this response. “You are concentrating only on the small picture,” I said to Izetbegovic. “If the Serbs violate, we will resume the bombing. But if they comply, you must be ready to move forward toward peace and reconstruction.”

  The situation had changed too fast for these brave but isolated men to recognize how much progress had been made. Further pressure would only cause further problems. I dropped the rest of our agenda, and we parted grumpily. As we walked out, Sacirbey told me I was spending too much time with the Serbs—a standard Muslim refrain.

  Our delegation went to see General Rupert Smith to encourage him to take a firm line with the Bosnian Serbs. We had a chance to break them in the Sarajevo area right then if Smith would take an uncompromising approach to implementing the agreement reached two days earlier. “This is the time to challenge the Serbs,” I said. “We finally have a written arrangement and a mechanism with which we can go back to Milosevic and force compliance. We can hold the threat of resumed bombing over their heads.” Smith was well known for being more aggressive than Janvier, but he hesitated. He did not want to be held responsible for what he felt was excessively rigorous enforcement.

  “We must do things our way,” Smith said stiffly. “Perhaps you do not understand.” He went to the map and began a lengthy explanation of the battlefield situation. He still feared retaliation. “And of course we have the usual troubles communicating our instructions to all the troops,” he said. By this he meant that the various nationalities serving under him reacted unpredictably to instructions. “They are conditioned to do things a certain way,” he said dryly. What he meant was: some U.N. troops do not follow my orders.

  As we were leaving, Smith pulled me aside, suddenly much friendlier. “Let me be clear,” he said in a voice so low no one else could hear. “I cannot control the French commander of Sarajevo Sector.* He gets his guidance directly from Janvier, and you know what that means.”

  We returned to Belgrade, again via Italy. If anyone was counting, observed Chris Hill, we had been in four different countries (and in Italy and Serbia twice) during the day. But we still had another three hours of talks with Milosevic ahead of us, accompanied by another heavy dinner. Milosevic seemed unconcerned about the general military situation. When Pardew and Clark told him that the Bosnian Serb forces in the west had fallen apart, he did not argue. Instead, he urged us again to convene an international peace conference in the United States as quickly as possible.

  Milosevic was proud of his knowledge of America, and particularly admired the motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel. Referring to one of Knievel’s most famous (and unsuccessful) stunts, I responded, “You can’t leap the Grand Canyon in two jumps. It’s too early for a conference. The gap between the sides is still too great to bring you together.” Milosevic shrugged; he would keep trying.

  The House with Only a Roof. The next morning, September 19, we convened the Tudjman-Izetbegovic meeting in Zagreb. In the two days since we had arranged the gathering, its urgency had increased because of an unexpected military setback for the Croatians. Regular units of the Croatian Army had encountered heavy Serb resistance and high water while trying to cross the Una River on the Croatian-Bosnian border. For the first time since the offensive began, Croatian casualties had been significant, some twenty-five killed and fifty still trapped on the opposite bank. The Danish battalion in UNPROFOR, caught in the middle of the fighting, had suffered two killed and eight wounded. Furious at this violation of an international border by the Croatian Army, General Rupert Smith called to tell me that he was considering a request for NATO air strikes against the Croatians—more a proof of his understandable rage than a real possibility.

  This first serious military setback visibly changed the Croatian mood. The aggressiveness two days earlier had been replaced with a more cautious attitude. In addition, the Bosnian Serb Army had begun to stabilize its lines, encouraged by Mladic’s return to the front from his Belgrade hospital bed. Intelligence reports said Mladic was digging in east of Banja Luka with heavy artillery—ironically, weapons redeployed after being withdrawn from the Sarajevo area in accordance with our agreement. Banja Luka, swollen with refugees, still lay near the Croatian front lines, but already it seemed less open to a quick strike. The Federation would have to fight for it, which meant a big artillery battle; the Croatians, having prevented the Muslims from obtaining heavy artillery throughout the war, had the only long guns. Thus the decision on Banja Luka lay almost entirely with Tudjman.

  The September 19 meeting between the two Presidents, held in a large conference room in Tudjman’s palace, began badly. Izetbegovic was three hours late from Sarajevo, and this left Tudjman fuming, though the reason for the delay—bad weather, bad roads—seemed understandable enough. Except for Galbraith, none of us had ever seen the two men together before, and their intense personal animosity was worse than we had imagined.

  Tudjman began aggressively. His appetite for conquest had diminished since his troops had been trapped on the river, but his anger at his Bosnian allies was ugly. “We have suffered the casualties, and we liberated eighty percent of this territory ourselves,” he shouted contemptuously across the table at the diminutive Bosnian President, as forty people listened in astonishment. “Now you demand we turn over to you towns that belong to Croatia, that Croatians freed. You insist we capture areas and then turn them over to you. This is simply unacceptable.” Izetbegovic shrank back into his chair, saying nothing. I watched in horror, listening through earphones to a frantic simultaneous translation. As Galbraith observed later, “It was like observing a therapy session through a one-way mirror.”

  Sacirbey, seated next to me, whispered urgently, “You’ve got to stop this. Take over before it’s too late.” I asked permission to make a comment, and both Presidents abruptly turned toward me. It was suddenl
y clear that they wanted the United States to tell them what to do—a strange moment, which we often recalled later. An aspect of the Balkan character was revealed anew: once enraged, these leaders needed outside supervision to stop themselves from self-destruction.

  I began by reminding them that the main purpose of this meeting was to bring the two parts of the Federation back together. With the recent territorial gains, there was a real chance for success—but only if the Federation worked. Fighting between Croats and Muslims at Bosanski Petrovac, and the tensions over who would control each newly recaptured area, benefited only the Serbs. We could not go to a peace conference with a divided Federation.

  I repeated my objections to the capture of Banja Luka, stressing that I was talking only about Banja Luka, and not about the rest of the offensive. Izetbegovic said nothing. This was Tudjman’s decision. Listening for a moment, Tudjman turned to Izetbegovic, and asked, quite calmly, “Shall we agree with Ambassador Holbrooke?” With a shrug, Izetbegovic agreed.

  Surprised at the speed with which the issue had been resolved—and the equally rapid change in Tudjman’s mood—I proposed we make a joint announcement immediately after the meeting. Tudjman suggested that we make the announcement ourselves, and not in the presence of either Izetbegovic or himself. As usual, the leaders wanted to leave the impression that the Americans had pressured them to do what they probably would have done anyway.

  As we left the meeting, I pulled Defense Minister Susak aside. “Gojko, I want to be absolutely clear,” I said. “Nothing we said today should be construed to mean that we want you to stop the rest of the offensive, other than Banja Luka. Speed is important. We can’t say so publicly, but please take Sanski Most, Prijedor, and Bosanski Novi. And do it quickly, before the Serbs regroup!”

  The press was waiting outside the Presidential Palace. I told them that the two Presidents had asked the United States to announce that the offensive would not be aimed at Banja Luka. I pointedly made no mention of any other targets. However, most news stories that day left the impression that we had forced the Bosnians and Croats to “halt their victorious sweep through western and central Bosnia.”* Normally we would have tried to correct these stories, but since they sent the public message Washington wanted, we left them uncorrected.

  Months later, Roger Cohen would write in The New York Times Magazine that preventing an attack on Banja Luka was “an act of consummate Realpolitik” on our part, since letting the Federation take the city would have “derailed” the peace process.

  Cohen, one of the most knowledgeable journalists to cover the war, misunderstood our motives in opposing an attack on Banja Luka. A true practitioner of Realpolitik would have encouraged the attack regardless of its human consequences. In fact, humanitarian concerns decided the case for me. Given the harsh behavior of Federation troops during the offensive, it seemed certain that the fall of Banja Luka would lead to forced evictions and random murders. I did not think the United States should contribute to the creation of new refugees and more human suffering in order to take a city that would have to be returned later. Revenge might be a central part of the ethos of the Balkans, but American policy could not be party to it. Our responsibility was to implement the American national interest, as best as we could determine it. But I am no longer certain we were right to oppose an attack on Banja Luka. Had we known then that the Bosnian Serbs would have been able to defy or ignore so many of the key political provisions of the peace agreement in 1996 and 1997, the negotiating team might not have opposed such an attack. However, even with American encouragement, it is by no means certain that an attack would have taken place—or, if it had, that it would have been successful. Tudjman would have had to carry the burden of the attack, and the Serb lines were already stiffening. The Croatian Army had just taken heavy casualties on the Una. Furthermore, if it fell, Banja Luka would either have gone to the Muslims or been returned later to the Serbs, thus making it of dubious value to Tudjman.

  There was another intriguing factor in the equation—one of the few things that Milosevic and Izetbegovic had agreed on. Banja Luka, they both said, was the center of moderate, anti-Pale sentiment within the Bosnian Serb community, and should be built up in importance as a center of opposition to Pale. Izetbegovic himself was ambivalent about taking the city. This view was, it turned out, accurate.

  After meeting in Zagreb in the late afternoon with British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, who was touring the region, we flew back to Belgrade that night for dinner and one more session with Milosevic before returning to Washington. It was still September 19. We needed Milosevic’s agreement on a framework for the New York Foreign Ministers meeting, which we planned to hold September 26. Milosevic said that he would like to see us again before the New York meeting, and requested that I either return to Belgrade, or send Owen and Hill to discuss the draft agreement.

  By the time our meeting with Milosevic ended, Rifkind had reached Belgrade, and, after midnight, I went to the British Embassy to brief him again on our talks. I was so tired I fell asleep while we were talking, but Rifkind graciously pretended not to notice. I even dozed off while answering a question.

  Strobe Talbott had suggested that before I return to Washington, I send Warren Christopher a personal assessment of the negotiations—a “scene setter” for the meeting of the three Balkan Foreign Ministers on September 26 in New York. Christopher intended to make New York the scene of his first personal involvement in the negotiations, and Strobe particularly wanted me to explain why the military offensive was helping the peace process; there was, he said, a growing disagreement between us and Washington on this critical point. In another example of his intellectual honesty, Strobe included himself and Christopher in the group that “needed convincing.” My informal handwritten note, sent by fax on September 20, was my first written message from the shuttle, after more than a month on the road:

  I suspect that the most dramatic phase of the offensive is coming to an end, and that the recent fluidity of the front lines will gradually be replaced by a return to a relatively stable front line…. Contrary to many press reports and other impressions, the Federation military offensive has so far helped the peace process. This basic truth is perhaps not something we can say publicly right now…. In fact, the map negotiation, which always seemed to me to be our most daunting challenge, is taking place right now on the battlefield, and so far, in a manner beneficial to the map. In only a few weeks, the famous 70%-30% division of the country has gone to around 50–50, obviously making our task easier….

  We recognize that two potential targets should be ruled off limits: Banja Luka and eastern Slavonia. On Tuesday [September 19] in Zagreb we succeeded in getting both Tudjman and Izzy to say to us simultaneously that they would not go to Banja Luka. Both used “the American peace plan” as the excuse for this sudden burst of restraint, even though it seems likely that they did not want to go for it anyway….

  After these two “prohibited zones,” the issue of how far is enough [for the offensive] gets murkier. In the past we weakened our credibility by flashing so many “red lights” that no one knew which ones we meant…. If they take Sanski Most or Prijedor, both of which are in Federation hands in the Contact Group map but which Milosevic has said he will not yield in a negotiation, it would make our job easier….

  Finally, a word about our support. It has been superb all the way, the best I have ever seen in an important negotiation. While I resent some of the blind quotes of a personal nature in several recent articles, I know they do not come from the core team that is supporting us. You, Strobe, Peter, Tom [Donilon], John [Kornblum], Nick [Bums], and now Beth Jones* have been magnificent. Many thanks from all of us. See you in Washington.

  * We were never sure of the truth about Mladic’s illness, although we did confirm that he had been hospitalized. One theory, widely held around Belgrade, was that Mladic did not want to withdraw the heavy weapons from around Sarajevo, and was sen
t to the hospital so that he’d be sidelined while the deal was made. In any case, Mladic soon returned to the field to rally his troops.

  * Smith reported to Janvier, whose command in Zagreb covered all U.N. military activities in the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia, Croatia, and Macedonia.

  * Ironically, the man he was referring to was General Bachelet, who had been so helpful to us on Mount Igman.

  * The Washington Post, September 20, 1995, p. Al. One exception was Stephen Kinzer of The New York Times, who got it right.

  * Elizabeth Jones, a career diplomat later appointed as Ambassador to Kazakhstan, had been added to our Washington backup team for a few months.

  CHAPTER 12

  Drama in New York

  “I like the Walrus best,” said Alice: “because he was a little sorry for the poor oysters.” “He ate more than the Carpenter, though,” said Tweedledee…. “Well!” [said Alice] “They were both very unpleasant characters.”

  —LEWIS CARROLL, Through the Looking-Glass

  WE WERE DETERMINED TO AVOID REPEATING in New York the chaos of Geneva. Yet, partly because of my own error of judgment, the New York Foreign Ministers meeting was nearly a complete disaster.

  The drama surrounding New York would have surprised most journalists and outside observers, who had begun to impart a sense of inevitability to the negotiations. Their optimism was fueled by Administration officials who believed that when they talked to the press it was always necessary to emphasize the positive—which inevitably meant overemphasize the positive. Still, overstated or not, there was good news for the first time in four years. The city of Sarajevo was coming back to life. The aura of invincibility that surrounded the Serbs had been shattered. Milosevic, who had started the war because Bosnia had declared its independence from “Yugoslavia,” had formally conceded in Geneva that Bosnia was an independent country, and had accepted its existing international boundaries.