Re: Milosevic and Srebrenica

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 20:19 06/10/00 -0700, you wrote:

> > Now, a quick question.  Several on this list who are otherwise
> > perceptive and critical thinkers have accepted, and indeed
> > broadcast, the view that Milosevic is an agent of the devil, etc. What
> > evidence does anyone on this list have that he is evil, anti-
> > democratic, satanic etc. other than Albright's (sic) and company
> > diatribes.
>
> Srebrenica


Let us condense the proposition to whether there is any evidence that
Milosevic is anti-democratic, leaving aside the question of demonic
possession as an unscientific hypothesis.

Perhaps the question could also be posed: is there any evidence that
Milosevic was following Tito's policy on the national question?


About Srebrenica,

there may be no evidence of complicity by Milosevic in Srebrenica.

While I agree with Brad that Srebrenica was unacceptable at the end of the
20th century, particularly when the imperialist powers were, for their own
interests, acting as protectors and peacemakers,  massacre and the violent
depopulation of land has been a normal feature of war since the beginning
of human history.

Milosevic and the SPS may have been far too sophisticated, directly to
support the Serbian nationalists of Bosnia Herzgovina. Indeed he rather
undermined Karadicz. On the other hand someone allowed Federal army
munitions to pass readily to the Bosnian Serb nationalists.

Milosevic did not have directly to support Arkan to have a highly
contradictory relationship with him. He probably was not strong enough to
dispose of Arkan himself. On the one hand, he may not have protected Arkan
too vigorously from the risk of assassination, and on the other he may have
taken advantage of the realpolitik created by Arkan's existence. He may
have felt he had to be in coalition with Sesjel (sp?) who is turn, he could
assume, was in contact with Arkan.

It may be that Milosevic led the SPS to have pluralistic relations with a
coalition of other nationalist political forces, but without the pluralism
of a more open civil society.

Although Kostunica presents himself as incorruptibly scrupulous about the
law, he too will have to negotiate his way through these structures, and at
the moment is needing to woo the SPS of Montenegro to attend the assembly
in order to make it a federal assembly and not just a Serbian one,
otherwise where is his federal presidency?

Who knew that paramilitaries were accompanying federal troops last year as
they went from village to village in Kosovo creating hundreds of thousands
of refugees? It might be hard to prove that Milosevic knew. It might
equally be hard to prove that he asked. Perhaps he did. The death toll in
Kosovo turned out to be far lower than in Bosnia by a factor of over 20.

I attach below evidence that has just come to light of the complicity of
Tudjman in ethnic cleansing. But even the strongest critics of Milosevic
have to consider that evidence implicating him similarly, may not exist.



Chris Burford


> Secret tape recordings provide indisputable evidence of the former
> Croatian President's obsession with the division of Bosnia.
>
> By Drago Hedl from Osijek (BCR No. 169, 5-Sep-00)
>
> The subject of rumour and speculation for years, the late Croatian
> President Franjo Tudjman's alleged designs on Bosnia have been confirmed
> in transcripts of secret tape recordings he made at the height of the conflict.
>
> In a recorded conversation with two senior Croatian officials on November
> 28, 1993, the former Zagreb leader speaks of trading Bosnian Croat
> controlled areas along the Sava River for towns in the west of the republic.
>
> "If we get borders Novi Travnik, Busovaca, Bihac and if we cleanse
> Baranja, we can give up majority of areas around Sava," Tudjman is heard
> to tell Mate Boban, the then president of Croatian republic Herzeg-Bosnia,
> and Gojko Susak, the Croatian minister of defence at the time.
>
> Although not mentioned explicitly in the tapes, the trade off with Serb
> leaders is widely believed to have been part of his plan to create Greater
> Croatia - that is a Croatian state including much of the western half of
> Bosnia.
>
> The revelations come several months after Tudjman's successor to the
> presidency Stipe Mesic claimed to have discovered a telephone hotline used
> by his predecessor to conduct secret negotiations with Yugoslav President
> Slobodan Milosevic over control of former Yugoslav territory.
>
> The new transcript comes from a huge archive of taped Tudjman
> conversations made available to the public by Mesic.
>
> Tudjman obsessively recorded confidential discussions with his colleagues
> because he felt they would prove to be invaluable when historians came to
> writing about his role in Croatia's struggle for independence.
>
> Hundreds of tapes have been found in the former president's office,
> exposing wartime plots, intrigues and corruption. Officials have spent
> months sifting through them, separating those dealing with criminal
> activities from ones documenting ordinary political business.
>
> The latest tapes to be published provide indisputable proof of both
> Tudjman's obsession with the division of Bosnia and the lengths to which
> he was prepared to go to achieve his goal.
>
> Tudjman clearly talks about 'cleansing' the Serb-held Baranja region of
> Croatia - a euphemistic term for the brutal removal of ethnic groups - one
> of the most shocking tactics employed by the warring factions in the
> Yugoslav conflict.
>
> The tape also reveals Tudjman's cynicism. Under pressure from the
> international community to end his involvement in Bosnia, the Croatian
> leader decided to sacrifice Boban to appease his detractors.
>
> Tudjman and Susak are heard trying to persuade Boban to step down. They
> reproach him for not launching an investigation into the destruction of
> the 'Old Bridge' in Mostar and dozens of civilian murders in the town.
>
> The criticism, however, stemmed not from revulsion over the crimes but an
> effort to deceive the international community by presenting themselves as
> committed to the preservation of human rights.
>
> Tudjman was concerned the civilian deaths might prompt the international
> community to make Mostar a protectorate.
>
> Asked why he hadn't charged anybody with the murders, Boban insists that
> there wasn't sufficient evidence to do so. Tudjman is heard to retort,
> "You may not be able to bring charges, but politics is a game. Provide the
> names of 60 people - and we'll say they are under investigation for
> violating human rights."
>
> In another revelation, Boban talks about a meeting of the Croatian
> Democratic Union, HDZ, on February 28, 1992 (from the records it is not
> clear whether it was HDZ from Bosnia-Herzegovina or Croatia) at which a
> decision was made to annex some parts of Bosnia to Croatia.
>
> Boban mentions the move in passing and the matter is not mentioned again.
> But Tudjman's references to trading territory at the end of his
> conversation with Boban and Susak leaves little doubt that annexation was
> high on his agenda.
>
> War mongering, ethnic cleansing, secret deals over territory, the
> toleration and encouragement of war crimes and a deceitful attitude
> towards the international community were central elements of Tudjman's
> policies.
>
> People have long speculated over his wartime objectives, but they've had
> little hard evidence on which to base their assessments. The publication
> of his secretly recorded tapes reveal not only his ultimate goal, a
> Greater Croatia, but the brutal means with which he was prepared to achieve it.
>
> Drago Hedl is a regular IWPR correspondent