* Cardinal Jules Mazarin, a famously cunning and powerful seventeenth-century prelate, succeeded Cardinal Richelieu as chief minister to Louis XIII.
* Forces normally assigned to NATO were reassigned for use in the 1991 war against Iraq, but Desert Storm was not a NATO operation.
* Joulwan finally got the command structure that he wanted—the right one—in 1997, when a four-star Army general took over the Bosnia command.
* See chapter 20.
* Beattie, a senior partner at a New York law firm, was appointed under government regulations that allow private citizens to serve on a part-time basis. In June 1997, he became a senior advisor to Secretary Albright for the reorganization of the State Department, and I became the envoy for Cyprus.
* British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind gently objected to the phrase for a personal reason: he told the press later that he had stayed up until 4:00 A.M. working on the same problem. Introducing him at a speech in New York a year later, I offered a customized amendment to the quote: “While Europe, with the exception of Malcolm Rifkind, slept …”
* Although neither man could have imagined that he would lose his own House of Commons seat in the landslide victory of Tony Blair and the Labor Party in May 1997.
CHAPTER 20
Disasters and Progress
This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison’d chalice To our own lips.
—SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
ON PAPER, DAYTON WAS A GOOD AGREEMENT; it ended the war and established a single, multiethnic country. But countless peace agreements have survived only in history books as case studies in failed expectations. The results of the international effort to implement Dayton would determine its true place in history. And the start was rocky.
The First Setback. The unification of Sarajevo under Federation control ninety days after the establishment of IFOR was the first major political deadline of the Dayton agreement, and in many ways the most important. Before Dayton, no outside observer had thought it could happen, and many still doubted that it would. It was, without question, the first key civilian test of Dayton.
Sarajevo was unified precisely on schedule. On March 18, 1996, a group of ragged Bosnian Serb policemen, their voices barely audible over a scratchy recording of the anthem of precommunist Yugoslavia, lowered their flag from the police station in Grbavica and left for Pale. “We saved this area militarily,” said Milenko Karisik, a Bosnian Serb Deputy Interior Minister, “but we lost it at Dayton.” The next day, the Bosnian Serbs handed over to the Federation the Serb-controlled portions of Sarajevo. There was no fighting, no attempt to prevent the event.
But at the moment that was one of Dayton’s greatest achievements, the Bosnian Serbs exploited the passivity of IFOR and the weakness of the enforcing powers to salvage something for their separatist cause. In the two weeks before Sarajevo’s unification, Pale ordered all Serbs in Sarajevo to burn down their own apartments and leave the city. They even broadcast detailed instructions on how to set the fires. (Pile all the furniture in the middle of the room, douse it with kerosene, turn the gas on, and throw a match into the room as you leave.) Young arsonists, mostly thugs from Pale, roamed the streets warning Sarajevo Serbs that if they did not destroy their homes and leave, they would be punished severely, perhaps even killed.
For those Bosnian Serbs who had moved into Sarajevo from the countryside during the war, destroying apartments they would have to leave anyway was easy. But tens of thousands of Sarajevo Serb families had lived in peace for generations in the once-cosmopolitan city. Most were ready to stay had they not been forced to leave. Kris Janowski, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, estimated that before the exodus there were seventy thousand Serbs in Sarajevo, of whom at least thirty thousand wanted to stay. After the intimidation tactics of Pale, fewer than ten thousand remained, many of whom would leave soon thereafter. In the week before March 19, a steady stream of Serbs clogged the roads out of Sarajevo, most carrying furniture, plumbing fixtures, and even doors. Behind them rose the smoking remains of Grbavica and Ilidza. “We must not allow a single Serb to remain in the territories which fall under Muslim-Croat control,” said Gojko Klickovic, head of the Bosnian Serb Resettlement Office (and later Prime Minister of Republika Srpska).
Journalists reported nearly incomprehensible scenes a Serb woman beaten and raped by a young Serb thug before he set fire to her partment; an elderly Serb couple who survived the entire war in Sarajevo appealing futilely to Italian troops as a Serb thug blew up their apartment. Robert Gelbard, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, was visiting Sarajevo at the time at my suggestion; he watched in disgust as IFOR and the International Police Task Force refused to apprehend the marauding arsonists and IFOR kept its own fire-fighting equipment inside the IFOR compound. Desperate, the Muslims sent their antiquated fire-fighting equipment into the Serb portion of the city, where they were attacked by rock-throwing Serb arsonists. But their requests for IFOR protection were refused. Gelbard watched buildings burn as IFOR troops stood by less than 150 meters away, and observed British General Michael Walker, IFOR’s second-ranking officer, coolly reject the pleas of the Deputy High Representative, Michael Steiner, for IFOR intervention. “I was ashamed to be associated with it,” Gelbard told me later, “to be unable to get IFOR to do anything.” A year later, appointed by President Clinton and Secretary Albright to coordinate the faltering implementation effort, Gelbard would make a difference.
This tragedy could have been easily prevented if IFOR had taken action. But although unchallenged and feared, NATO/IFOR did almost nothing. An IFOR spokesman said that while the burnings were “unfortunate,” the Serbs “have the right to burn their own houses.” IFOR, said another spokesman, “is not a police force and will not undertake police duties.” Shocked by IFOR’s sudden passivity, U.N. officials, in an ironic role reversal, now criticized NATO for its inactivity. “If [NATO] had been tougher, things would be different,” said Kris Janowski. “We’re seeing a multiethnic Bosnia being flushed down the toilet.”
It was my first month as a private citizen; I realized too late that I had left too early. Watching with growing anxiety from New York, I called Washington frequently, pleading for action, pointing out that Dayton’s “silver bullet” clause gave IFOR full authority in such a situation. But Admiral Smith refused to act, repeating his mantra that IFOR was not a police force, that putting out the fires or arresting the arsonists would be mission creep. That IFOR’s passivity was endangering fundamental policy goals of the United States and NATO seemed unimportant to him.
Warren Christopher and Bill Perry finally stepped in and insisted that NATO take action. Reluctantly, Smith and Walker ordered their troops to detain a few of the young arsonists and turn them over to the local authorities, while IFOR put out some of the fires. It was too little, too late. “If anyone thinks this is a success,” said U.N. spokesman Janowski, “that would be rather silly. There has been millions of dollars’ worth of property damaged in looting and fires, and an exodus when we were supposed to see people returning to their homes.”
This was the worst moment of the first two years after Dayton. Not only was it a disaster on its own terms, but it ended the sense of hope and momentum that had begun in late November. Pale used the very exodus it had created as an excuse to prevent Muslims from returning to their homes in the Serb portion of Bosnia. Muslims and Croats read the events as evidence that multiethnic cooperation would not be encouraged by NATO. The message seemed clear: leaders and thugs who preached ethnic division would not be punished or constrained.
Stung by international criticism, the military struck back, publicly blaming the international civilian agencies, particularly Carl Bildt, for the “slippage” in implementing Dayton. But assigning blame was pointless. The events of mid-March provided an object lesson in the tenacity and ruthlessness of the Serbs—and the
confusion of the implementing organizations in Bosnia. They also illustrated one of Washington’s most important but least understood maxims: good policy badly executed becomes bad policy.
The Toughest Issue. Until the March disaster, all three ethnic groups in Bosnia, awed by the sight of sixty thousand heavily armed IFOR soldiers, were prepared to do almost anything that IFOR asked. The Bosnian Serbs, in particular, had been so badly battered, both militarily and politically, that they would have offered little resistance had IFOR enforced tough guidelines. Even Milosevic had encouraged IFOR at first to take a firm line, although he would soon cease to do so. Rallying from the despair they had felt since November, the Bosnian Serbs began to resist on almost every nonmilitary issue, while remaining careful to avoid provoking IFOR. It was almost as if they had an implicit understanding with the IFOR command: we will not attack your forces if you leave us alone to pursue an ethnically divided country.
Of all the things necessary to achieve our goals in Bosnia, the most important was still the arrest of Radovan Karadzic. But Karadzic surfaced after a few months of near seclusion and began issuing orders and giving interviews, signaling his followers that they could still safely pursue their separatist goals. With his military forces neutralized, Karadzic used the “special police,” a vestige of the communist police state, to threaten any Bosnian Serb who showed support for Dayton. Even though these units were also covered in the Dayton agreement, IFOR pointedly ignored these “police” as they crossed the Serb portion of Bosnia intimidating anyone who cooperated with Muslims or spoke favorably of Dayton. Karadzic’s first major target was the first politician to support Dayton publicly, the mayor of Banja Luka, Predrag Radic, whom he prevented from attending the meeting with President Clinton at Tuzla in January.
While the arrest of Karadzic would not have solved all the problems the international community faced in Bosnia, his removal from power was a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for success. As we had told the President and his senior advisors before Dayton, Karadzic at large was certain to mean Dayton deferred or defeated. Nothing had changed six months later, except that Karadzic was rebuilding his position. While the human-rights community and some members of the State Department, especially John Shattuck and Madeleine Albright, called for action, the military warned of casualties and Serb retaliation if an operation to arrest him took place. They said they would carry it out only if ordered to do so directly by the President; thus if anything went wrong the blame would fall on the civilians who had insisted on the operation, especially on the President himself. This was a heavy burden to lay on any president, particularly during an election year, and it was hardly surprising that no action was taken to mount, or even plan, an operation against Karadzic in 1996 or 1997.
Paradoxically, the same officials who opposed capturing Karadzic supported a tight deadline for American troop withdrawal. The two goals were obviously incompatible; if you wanted to reduce troop levels, capturing Karadzic was essential. Yet still NATO refused to consider arresting Karadzic, arguing that it was too risky and not an IFOR mission.
I raised the issue with Admiral Smith on my “farewell” trip to Sarajevo on February 11, during the same meeting in which we discussed the detention of the two Bosnian Serb officers by the Muslims. The previous day, The Washington Post had published John Pomfret’s dramatic description of Karadzic driving unchallenged through four NATO checkpoints—two of them manned by Americans—on a trip from Pale to Banja Luka. When I showed Admiral Smith the article, he tossed it contemptuously to an aide while offering a few pithy comments about interfering, know-nothing journalists. He did not deny the story, however. He remained adamant: his forces would not go after indicted war criminals.
A Letter to the President. When I left the government, President Clinton had invited me to send him my views from time to time. By early June of 1996, I felt that the situation had reached a point where such a message was justified. I sent copies to Christopher, Lake, and Talbott.
Dear Mr. President:
We are at a decisive moment in the Bosnia peace process. I would like, therefore, to take up your request to send you my views:
The success of IFOR so far is now threatened by Karadzic’s success in defying the political portions of Dayton. If he continues to thwart the Dayton powers, the peace process will fail.
This would result, at a minimum, in Bosnia’s partition, with the real possibility of further division into three parts within a few years—all of which we have said we oppose. While our national interests are not directly affected by whether Bosnia is one country or two or even three, the outcome in Bosnia will profoundly affect our overall role in the emerging post-post-Cold War world….
Of the many organizations in the former Yugoslavia in the last five years, only NATO—that is, the United States—has been respected. What NATO/IFOR demands, happens.
But the reluctance of NATO to go beyond a relatively narrow interpretation of its mission has left a gaping hole in the Bosnia food chain. Recognizing this, the Bosnian Serbs have increasingly defied the Dayton powers. In response, the Bosnian Muslims have moved further from a multiethnic state, as Izetbegovic starts building an undemocratic and fundamentally (although not fundamentalist) Muslim state in his half of the country….
The implications of Karadzic’s defiance go far beyond Bosnia itself. If he succeeds, basic issues of American leadership that seemed settled in the public’s eye after Dayton will re-emerge. Having reasserted American leadership in Europe, it would be a tragedy if we let it slip away again….
It may seem odd that so much can hang on such a matter as the fate of two odious war criminals. But history is replete with examples of small issues leading to the unraveling of larger ones. The question of Radovan Karadzic is such an issue…. Our goal should be Karadzic’s removal not only from his presidential post, but from power….
There are other things that should have been done earlier—but which, if done now, will still make a difference. Several examples:
—Every day Karadzic uses television and the controlled media to prevent local reconciliation efforts. IFOR has the ability and authority to cut these lines, but has refused to do so. These communication lines should be cut—now. This would be a devastating blow to Karadzic, and popular in the United States….
—Sanctions reimposition. We wrote into Dayton the ability to reimpose sanctions if necessary. This is our strongest remaining leverage…. I would suggest Milosevic be given a clear message….
Return to Bosnia. Calls to capture Karadzic and Mladic were mounting. They came from newspapers around the world, and from Carl Bildt and Senator Dole; from Mort Abramowitz, the respected president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and from the American philanthropist and financier George Soros—who, astonishingly, had spent more of his own money on aid projects in Bosnia than had the United States government.
On the evening of Friday, July 12, the Administration, facing growing international criticism, asked if I would return to the region immediately on a special mission. With the understanding and support of my new colleagues at Crédit Suisse First Boston, I left three days later, after a day in Washington.
The Administration’s goal was to remove Karadzic from power or significantly weaken him through diplomatic pressure, thus defusing the pressure for a military operation. As I had written a few weeks earlier to the President, our most potent nonmilitary weapon was the reimposition of economic sanctions against Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs—a right we had carefully retained for ourselves in the Dayton agreement, but only until ten days after the national elections scheduled for September 14.
When I saw Christopher, Talbott, Tarnoff, and Berger separately on Monday, July 15, it was clear that Washington was uneasy about using sanctions. With only hours left before departure for Bosnia, I argued that the threat of sanctions was important if our team was to have a chance of success. When several official
s expressed concern that reimposition would upset the Europeans, I reminded them that we would lose the power to reimpose sanctions in only seventy days. “Use it before we lose it,” was my slogan for the day.
The key meeting took place with Sandy Berger in the late afternoon. Lake was away; we met in his empty office. He said no consensus could be forged in time for our trip. After close to an hour of intense discussion, Sandy said, “Look, you and I have been friends for twenty years. Don’t ask for something we can’t give you. Just go out there and do what you can. We know you will make it sound better than it is.” He laughed, and clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s why we asked you back,” he said. On the way to the airport I called Strobe to describe the meeting. He confirmed my impression. “Just use that old creative ambiguity,” he said.
“We are here,” I told the press when we landed at the Sarajevo airport on Tuesday, July 16, “because we are not satisfied with the degree of compliance we are seeing, particularly on the part of the Bosnian Serbs.” Our first meeting was with Robert Frowick, the urbane American diplomat whom we had chosen to head up the OSCE mission in Bosnia and run the elections. He was at a crossroads. So far he had allowed Karadzic’s party, the SDS, to take a major role in the election preparations, but he was increasingly troubled by their behavior, which included stuffing the registration rolls and intimidating potential voters. Frowick had the authority to declare any party or individual ineligible. The deadline for a final decision was almost upon him—within three days he had to decide whether or not to allow Karadzic’s party to participate in the elections, scheduled for September 14.
Disenfranchising the SDS was tempting but risky. It might provoke a boycott of the elections, but it would remove from the electoral process the party that was, more than any other force in Bosnia, trying to prevent Dayton from succeeding. But before we came to any conclusions, it was essential to find out what Izetbegovic wanted to do; his views would be critical.
To End a War Page 48
