Bosnia was a central part of “The Channel” as we entered the second month of our shuttle. On Friday, September 22, hoping to reduce the tensions between the Russians and the Bosnians, Strobe invited Sacirbey to meet Mamedov privately in his office.
Strobe began with an imaginative attempt to lighten the tension and create a bond between the two men. “You have something in common,” he told them. “You both have Muslim heritage and the same name!” (Mamedov was a slavicized version of Muhamed, Sacirbey’s first name.) Sacirbey was surprised. “So, you’re one of us?” he asked. Mamedov, of part-Azeri background, laughed. “Well, by way of Baku,” he replied.
Unfortunately, the rest of the meeting did not live up to this promising start. Each man had a position to defend, and, while pleasant, the conversation did not produce any breakthrough on either side.
During our last meeting in Belgrade, Milosevic had suggested that someone from the delegation return to Belgrade before the New York session to put direct pressure on the Bosnian Serbs—part, he said, of his “technology.” Although it was Milosevic’s responsibility to deliver the Pale Serbs, there was value to his suggestion. I asked Owen, Hill, Pardew, and John Burley from State’s Balkan desk to return to Belgrade after only two days in Washington.
The three men reached Belgrade on Saturday, September 23. Milosevic, upset by some of the changes Sacirbey had proposed, asked them to meet with Karadzic and Krajisnik. This was the “technology” that Milosevic so enjoyed. But, as the discussion progressed, the Americans realized that the Pale Serbs had not really accepted the central concession to which Milosevic had committed them at Geneva—that Bosnia would remain a single state. Karadzic demanded the right to vote for secession, and, showing an unexpected flair for metaphor, said that a single Bosnia would be “a wooden oven which would burn itself up the first time it was used.” He attacked every provision of Owen’s draft designed to create national structures. He objected to the election provisions, refused to discuss the “competency” of the central government, and insisted that the Bosnian Serbs have a separate foreign policy and their own embassies. A meeting that was supposed to be mere “technology” turned into another marathon sixteen-hour negotiation, during which the American team rejected every Karadzic effort to legitimize a divided Bosnia.
Reaching an impasse on Sunday afternoon, Owen and Hill asked Milosevic, who had left the Americans alone with the Bosnian Serbs, to return. While the Americans waited in the gardens, Milosevic engaged in his usual routine of outmaneuvering and intimidating the rest of the Serbs. He then summoned the Americans back into the room, and produced an agreement close to the one we had negotiated with Sacirbey. Owen and Hill agreed, however, to drop the word “direct” in the clause describing elections for the presidency and the national assembly. They also agreed to soften the language on the functions of the central government.
Calling just before they left Belgrade on Sunday, September 24, Owen and Hill told us that despite some “minor changes” the basic elements of the Further Agreed Principles were intact. I congratulated them and requested that they fax us the new draft right away. By this time, I was at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York to meet foreign ministers from other countries, accompanied by Rosemarie and Christopher Hoh, who worked for Chris Hill. Anticipating a day of intense communications with the field, I asked Philip S. Goldberg to go to the State Department early Sunday morning to handle telephone calls, then come to New York later in the day. Goldberg and Hoh were two of the best younger American diplomats: candid in private, reliable, and dedicated.
Sacirbey remained in Washington that Sunday morning for a meeting with Lake, Tarnoff, Fuerth, Kerrick, and Sandy Vershbow. Sacirbey said the draft agreement he had negotiated in Washington was fine, but he warned that Izetbegovic was upset about the Owen-Hill-Pardew trip to Belgrade. “The negotiating team has been contaminated by the Belgrade air,” Sacirbey said. He was not joking. “My President is not going to tolerate your people going to Belgrade all the time. The optics are bad. You must spend more time in Sarajevo.” He was not moved when Tarnoff noted that Owen and Hill had spent two days with Silajdzic in Sarajevo on the document, as well as an entire day with Sacirbey himself in Washington.
Peter called immediately to alert me to the problem, but it still seemed just another Balkan bluff; I did not see how serious it was. By this time, Owen, Hill, and Pardew had started home in their small military jet. But as the negotiators flew west over Europe, Izetbegovic announced that Sacirbey “has been instructed not to attend” the meeting in New York, less than forty-eight hours away. “The Serbian side has demanded wholesale changes which radically alter the agreement,” Sacirbey told the press waiting outside the White House. A White House press spokeswoman, Mary Ellen Glynn, skillfully downplayed the difficulty, calling it “part of the ups and downs of shuttle diplomacy.” As far as I could tell, however, this was all “downs.”
More bad news followed immediately, in the form of a fax from Belgrade with the revised draft agreement. As soon as he saw the changes, Phil Goldberg warned that, while not substantial, they would be treated as “big” in Sarajevo. Later, we learned that Sacirbey had never sent the changes he made in Washington on September 22 to Sarajevo for approval. I felt the New York meeting slipping out of control.
In diplomacy process can often be as important as substance. This is especially true early on, when longtime adversaries are prone to maximize differences rather than reach out for agreements. Such was the case at that moment; we had been sloppy in not planning a stop in Sarajevo for Owen, Hill, and Pardew. Now we were paying the price. I blamed myself for three basic errors. First, I should have asked our team to reject any changes, no matter how small, in Belgrade. Second, even though we saw far more of the Muslims than the Serbs, many of our meetings were outside Sarajevo, and we had unintentionally left a public impression that we were spending more time with Milosevic than Izetbegovic; our team should have gone to Sarajevo. We also erred in thinking that Sacirbey could speak for the entire Bosnian government.
We needed to find a way to get the Sarajevo government back on track quickly, or the New York meeting would collapse, unleashing a cycle of disagreements and perhaps even a re-escalation of the war.
I had a desperate idea. Could we turn the Owen-Hill-Pardew team around in midair, and get them to Sarajevo in time to save the New York session? Goldberg and I realized our colleagues had not yet reached their refueling stop in Ireland. Goldberg gave the Operations Center and the National Military Command Center an urgent task: find the plane, get us in touch with it, turn it around.
We were in luck; Goldberg and the OpsCenter found the Irish official who ran the VIP room at Shannon; he knew us well from our frequent stopovers. The plane had just landed, and the official soon located our colleagues.
As we talked, Hill and Owen, unshaven and ragged, huddled around a green “Dial Your Relatives in America” shamrock-shaped pay phone, located next to the “Ladies’ Toilet.”
“Chris,” I said, “you have to go back to Sarajevo. You have to go back. We will lose the agreement unless you get Izetbegovic back on board.” They were halfway home, utterly exhausted. Now they were being asked to turn around in the middle of the night. It was not hard to sense Hill’s fatigue and unhappiness. “Chris,” I said, “let me talk to Bob.”
I could hear Hill ask Owen if he wanted to talk to me, and, more faintly, Owen’s dry, dignified voice saying, “Not much.” Then he came on the phone. Anticipating his first question, I told him I had already talked to the Secretary of State and he shared my view. This provoked audible snorting at the other end of the phone, and a comment that they had allowed only “minor changes” in Belgrade. “Bob,” I shouted into the phone, “there is no such thing as ‘minor changes’ in the Balkans!”
Although exhausted, they turned around and headed back across Europe, stopping in Ramstein, Germany, to switch to a C-130 flight to Sarajevo. After a sleepless wait, they
were told that the only available transport plane was in Italy. After more difficulties at the Italian air base, they boarded a British C-130 and headed for Sarajevo at 7:30 A.M. Before leaving Ancona, Hill called Goldberg and me through the OpsCenter. It was 2:30 in the morning in New York, and both Phil and I sleepily understood that the call’s primary reason was to make us share their exhaustion. “Do you realize how difficult this is for us?” Hill asked.
Hill said later he would never forget my answer. Just as I had visualized him at the shamrock-shaped pay phone in Shannon, he imagined me in a fancy suite at the Waldorf. “Look,” I said, “you’re in Ancona and I’m up at 2:30 A.M. We’re all inconvenienced. We’re having a difficult time here too. Now go get the Bosnians on board.”
Owen, Hill, and Pardew finally arrived in Sarajevo on Monday morning, September 25. The meetings highlighted the widening split within the Bosnian government. An angry Haris Silajdzic immediately chastised them for dealing only with Sacirbey. “Do not believe,” the Prime Minister said, “that you can reach an agreement without me.”
The Bosnian government’s opposition was caused not by the language changes in Belgrade but by a change of heart on the part of Silajdzic. After thinking further about the draft language he had approved on September 15, Haris told Owen and Hill that he now felt it was “too American”; the presidency was too powerful. He now favored a more “European” system; that is, one with a strong prime minister and a weak presidency. Silajdzic’s annoyance was directed at Sacirbey, not the Serbs; he felt that the draft approved by the Foreign Minister, Izetbegovic’s political ally, had been designed to weaken him. So deep was Silajdzic’s anger that he insisted on a separate meeting with the three Americans, and refused to participate in their session with Izetbegovic.
To solve this impasse, Owen and Hill redrafted the New York document in such a way as to gain the support of both Bosnian factions and still be acceptable to the Serbs. They fell back on our standard approach of deferring the most difficult issues and focusing instead on general principles embraced by all, which could be made more specific later. As soon as we heard from Owen that the Bosnians had accepted the revised draft, Christopher called Izetbegovic to thank him. Izetbegovic assured him that Sacirbey would now attend the New York meeting.
But once unleashed, the cycle of demands for changes in the agreement could not easily be stopped. As soon as he read the revised election language from Sarajevo, Phil Goldberg said, “The Serbs will never accept this.” He was right again. Hill sensed this as well; as he changed planes in Ancona on his way back to New York, he called the OpsCenter and left a short message: “Tell Holbrooke to call Milosevic over the elections provisions. They are going to cause a big problem.”
It was now midday on Monday, September 25, and everyone was converging on New York. With concern in Washington rising, Christopher and I went to the teleconference room of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, along with Madeleine Albright, to brief the President and the rest of the principals. Then Christopher, Albright, and I met with the three Balkan Foreign Ministers for a courtesy call. The meeting was short and perfunctory. To the press, Christopher was upbeat; but once they had left, the meeting became tense, with Christopher urging agreement, and then closing down the meeting before the three Foreign Ministers could start arguing with one another.
Working from my Waldorf hotel suite, Don Kerrick, Phil Goldberg, and I spent most of the next six hours on the telephone, alternating between Milosevic and Izetbegovic. Milosevic argued that he had reached an agreement in good faith with Owen, Hill, and Pardew and that he could not change it again. Milosevic was most adamant on the question of “direct” elections; having gotten it out of the draft, he did not want it to reappear. He also objected to elections by “popular vote,” another clause that had been reinserted in Sarajevo.
Between phone calls, I saw Sacirbey. The meeting came closer to physical violence than any other during our long negotiations. I asked him if, for the sake of overall progress, he and his government could drop the “direct” clause for presidential elections. Even the United States, I pointed out, did not elect its president directly. Sacirbey said that without the precise word the Serbs could create “sham elections.”
“That’s nonsense, Mo,” I said. “The Geneva principles guarantee international supervision of the elections. This is not the defining test of a democracy.” Nothing in the draft precluded direct elections, I told Sacirbey; if we did not get them now, we would insist on them in the next round.
Sacirbey asked to call his President. We gave him some privacy, and he talked with Izetbegovic. When we resumed, he was angry and immovable. Without the direct-elections clause, there could be no agreement.
The atmosphere in the room grew tense. Sacirbey enjoyed a spirited, rowdy relationship with many of us, and we often expressed ourselves in rather rough-and-tumble terms. But this time the mood slipped over the edge, and the exchange became ugly. Without warning, Sacirbey slammed his jacket down on the sofa, stood up, and started for the door, yelling that the United States was betraying his country. “If you leave in this way, you will do your country immense damage,” I responded, following him. He was in a rage, and for a moment it seemed to Goldberg and Kerrick that he was going to hit me. Kerrick stepped quickly between us, then moved smoothly into the hotel corridor to block Sacirbey’s departure. As Sacirbey started out the door, he saw two dumbfounded journalists in the corridor watching this amazing scene. The sight of the journalists, and Kerrick’s physical presence, seemed to calm Sacirbey slightly, and Don eased him back into the room. We shut the door again and managed to finish the meeting on relatively civil terms, but without any progress.
I called Izetbegovic as soon as Sacirbey had left. “Mr. President,” I said, “we are on the brink of a disaster. You will gain a great deal from this agreement, and we will negotiate later to get direct elections. You are giving up nothing.” He said he had to have the direct-elections clause. It was already after midnight in Sarajevo, and Izetbegovic disliked working at night. I gave up, ending with the hope that we could make progress in the morning.
Milosevic was, in this area as in so many others, the exact opposite of Izetbegovic. He enjoyed late-night drama, perhaps in part because his stamina and ability to hold liquor often gave him an additional edge over others at that time. Seeing we were in a hole, he stuck to his guns on the elimination of the direct-elections clause.
Kerrick, Goldberg, and I were drained. I called Christopher and asked if he would make a last-ditch call to Izetbegovic with me very early the next morning.
Tuesday, September 26. I arrived in our staff room at the Waldorf at 5:30 A.M. and was joined by Goldberg. It took almost an hour to reach Izetbegovic. When we finally connected, Christopher and I asked him to defer the question of direct elections, provided Milosevic would give up the reference that appeared to limit the role of the central government. After a few minutes of discussion, Izetbegovic agreed. We thought we were out of the woods.
The meeting of the Balkan Foreign Ministers was scheduled to start at 10:00 A.M. in the twelfth-floor conference room of the United States Mission to the United Nations on First Avenue, facing U.N. headquarters. The room, although less imposing, had been set up to resemble the one in Geneva. Fearing a repetition of Sacirbey’s last-minute dramatics in Geneva, I sent Phil Goldberg to the Bosnian’s offices to make sure that Sacirbey showed up on time. At 9:30 A.M., as our European colleagues were arriving at the twelfth floor, he called. “We’ve got a big problem,” he said, speaking in a low voice. “Mo isn’t going to agree. You’d better speak to him.”
Sacirbey came on the line. He would attend the meeting, but he could not accept the agreement. I told him that there had to be a misunderstanding; the Secretary of State had just talked to his President, and everything was all set. No, said Sacirbey, “I’ve just talked to my President, and he told me not to agree.”
It was Geneva all over again—a l
ast-minute problem with the Bosnians. Racing down one flight of stairs to Albright’s office, where Christopher had set up headquarters for the morning, I told him, Madeleine, and Tom Donilon what had happened. Moments later Goldberg arrived with Sacirbey and brought him directly to Albright’s office.
Warren Christopher was famously a polite man who almost never raised his voice or showed personal discourtesy of any sort. But we were about to see an amazing sight. Sacirbey walked in smiling, said, “Hello, Chris,” and stretched out his hand. Christopher ignored it, holding his own arms stiffly at his side. “What the hell is going on here?” he said in a voice just barely containing his fury. “I made an agreement with your President just two hours ago.”
Taken aback by Christopher’s anger, Sacirbey tried to explain that the Bosnian government had overruled Izetbegovic, but the more he talked, the more resistant Christopher became. “This cannot stand,” he told Sacirbey. Albright, whose close relationship with Sacirbey dated from his U.N. ambassadorship, tried to reason with him, but to no avail. After fifteen minutes of useless argument, I pointed out that over one hundred journalists and officials from five nations were waiting for us upstairs. We had to join them.
Warren Christopher opened the meeting with brief remarks urging the parties to seize “this moment in history [to] end the fighting and end it for good.” The photographers clicked away, and the press was ushered out. Immediately, to the surprise of nearly everyone in the room, I adjourned the meeting, whispered to Granic and Milutinovic that we had a problem with Sarajevo—this brought a gleam of real pleasure to the Serbian’s eye—and asked the Contact Group to join us downstairs. We gave each of the Foreign Ministers a private “holding” room on the same floor.
To End a War Page 26
