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2012 Civil Wars in Yugoslavia: Explaining the Bargaining Process Toma Sokolikj

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COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PUBLIC POLICY

CIVIL WARS IN YUGOSLAVIA: EXPLAINING THE BARGAINING PROCESS

By

TOMA SOKOLIKJ

A Thesis submitted to the International Affairs Program in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Science

Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2012 Toma Sokolikj defended this thesis on November 6, 2012. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Mark Souva Professor Directing Thesis

Will H. Moore Committee Member

Megan Shannon Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

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I dedicate this to Maca and Late Sokolikj for their unconditional support during my entire educational career.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the above-mentioned faculty members for their help and guidance, as well my sister Iva and my brother Zlatko for always being there for me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ...... vi Abstract ...... vii 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

2. BACKGROUND ON YUGOSLAVIA ...... 4 2.1 Second Yugoslavia...... 6 2.2 Political History of Yugoslavia ...... 8 2.3 The Passing of a Marshal ...... 14

3. UNDERSTANDING CIVIL WARS ...... 19 3.1 Explaining the Bargaining Model ...... 21 3.2 Commitment Problem in Bargaining ...... 23 3.3 Costly Signals ...... 25

4. EXPLAINING THE BARGAINING PROCESS IN CROATIA ...... 29 4.1 What of the Serbs in Tudjman’s Croatia? ...... 30 4.2 Resurrecting Interethnic Violence ...... 34 4.3 Fighting for Greater Bargaining Power ...... 38 4.4 Third-party Presence and Credible Guarantees ...... 44 5. BARGAINING IN BOSNIA: A TALE OF THREE BELLIGERENTS ...... 52 5.1 Scramble for Bosnia and Herzegovina ...... 52 5.2 External Intervention in Bosnia ...... 57 5.3 UN Persists: the Vance-Owen Peace Plan (VOPP) ...... 60 5.4 The Faultlines...... 64 5.5 Impediments ...... 68 6. WHAT OF SLOVENIA AND MACEDONIA – LEAVING THE DREAM ...... 74 6.1 Strike to Deter Further Secession: Fighting “Our Slovene Brothers” ...... 75 6.2 “Macedonians are Southern Serbs” ...... 81 6.3 Conclusion ...... 86

7. LESSONS LEARNED...... 88

REFERENCES ...... 92

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 97

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1: Geographic layout of ethnic groups in Yugoslavia before the conflict ...... 29

Figure 5.1: Timeline of Yugoslavia’s break-up and international response, 1991-1995 ...... 72

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ABSTRACT

Resolving ethnic conflicts is no easy task. In the 1990s, civil wars engulfed Somalia,

Mozambique, Rwanda, Cambodia, Yugoslavia…the list goes on. In the Balkans, the disintegration of Josip Tito’s pan-Slavic dream destabilized the security of the region and relations between the people living in the Yugoslav republics. Minorities stranded on the other side of the border following the secession of the former Yugoslav republics were skeptical of the new governments in their internal policies fueled by nationalistic overtones. This caused a backlash of self-determined autonomy of minorities within the newly seceded republics

The paper provides a theoretical application of crisis bargaining to explain the wars in

Yugoslavia caused by the commitment issues among the dyadic couple. Crisis bargaining between civil war combatants is hindered by incredible commitments, issues of uncertainty and lack of third-party guarantees to safeguard ceasefires and military disengagement. Parties to a civil conflict are therefore unable to successfully commit to peaceful negotiations during periods of heightened vulnerability. Commitment issues arise during such periods which cause prolonged fighting for better position at the bargaining table, and are most likely to prevail in the absence of credible guarantees and honest communication.

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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION It has been over 20 years since Yugoslavia’s dissolution. During this period, political scholars have continuously debated the events that transpired in the Balkan conflict and attempted to understand the tumultuous breakup of a former communist state comprised of more than 6 different ethnic groups. As a result, the international relations academia has split into

several camps. While some tend to accentuate the role of ethno-nationalism and others attribute the civil wars to the domino effect of leaderless states following the fall of Communism, one particular camp of political scientists offers an extremely intriguing approach to explain the

onset, duration and settlement of the Yugoslav civil wars. The work of James Fearon, Barbara

Walters, and other international relations theoretical scholars, focuses on explaining bargaining

conditions amid civil wars. Thus, the research presented in this thesis seeks to explain the

difficulty to successfully end the bargaining process between the belligerents in both Croatia and

Bosnia, and with it provide a more pragmatic application of existing theories of civil war

negotiations.

Due to the high focus on the ethnic cleansing missions perpetrated by Yugoslav leaders,

the killing of different ethnicities in pursuit of secessionist agendas has come to be a likely

popular consensus among non-IR individuals. It is time to straighten out the record and provide a

well-supported approach to interpreting the events in Yugoslavia. The topic of Yugoslavia is

most interesting. To the ones who believe that it has received more than a fair share of analysis

and explanations, I argue precisely the opposite. The conflict itself is fairly young. Other than the

abundant work of authors who have underlined the role of ethnic animosity and nationalist

waves, very little has been said regarding the difficulties of resolving the civil warfare due to

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classic tip-of-the-iceberg approaches. From an IR perspective, the bargaining model presents an innovative way to explain failed credible commitments as they relate to civil war bargaining.

The point of my departure, therefore, is to explain the bargaining conditions between the belligerents in Croatia, and their counterparts in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Recent studies on the Yugoslav civil wars have produced a strong combination of theories that I believe best explain the prolonged violence among Serbs, Croats and Bosnian

Muslims. Moreover, a closer look at the bargaining model reveals a distinct opportunity to shed more light on negotiations between civil war combatants. Essentially, the purpose of the paper is to highlight the growing commitment problem among minorities to remain in the republics opting for secession. At the risk of being exploited and attacked during periods of vulnerability, minorities and governments in Yugoslavia measured the cost between fighting for additional bargaining power and peaceful dialogue toward power-sharing agreements. The governments in both Croatia and Bosnia feared that territorial contiguity with an outside lobby republic could enable calls for secession and power-grab attempts by minorities. Conversely, minorities became skeptical of the host republics despite some concessions regarding the rights of minorities as they believed that the need to secure a greater bargaining power was more realistic than a credible commitment by its opponent. Ethnic minorities feared that the host administration would renege on its agreement to protect minority rights once it has established its own security apparatus and secured complete control of the republic.

But even when the host republic and minorities were able to conclude an agreement, the real crisis arose during the implementation period. According to existing IR theories, credible commitments cannot be achieved without costly signaling. The process requires quid-pro-quo concessions from both sides which communicate willingness to accommodate the opposition.

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Amid the civil wars in Yugoslavia, the most difficult task was overcoming the highly treacherous

period of demobilization. There, belligerents were unable to credibly commit to ceasefires due to

their incredible signaling. Leaders of Croat, Serb, and Bosnian Muslim militias withheld

information and almost always communicated incredibly, thereby aggravating the commitment problem. In response, IR scholars have indicated that an external presence has the potential to guarantee the safety of all sides during such treacherous periods. In both Croatia and Bosnia, the

UN acted as a third-party guarantor, and in spite of substantial troop commitments, it failed to eliminate commitment issues at the bargaining table. In the end, the thesis will help the reader to

understand the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, and to distinguish why some republics endured civil

wars while others experienced rather infinitesimal conflicts.

In Chapter 2, I provide a necessary recap of the political highlights of Yugoslavia’s four-

decade existence. It serves to familiarize the reader with the history of pan-Yugoslavism, as well

as to better understand relations between the ethnicities once united under a singled federal flag.

Further, Chapter 3 presents an outline of competing arguments, and a theoretical framework

along with existing literature regarding the main elements as developed by defenders of the

bargaining model. In the two chapters succeeding it, I analyze the wars in Croatia and Bosnia

individually by following the logic of the bargaining model. Chapter 6 addresses the rather

peaceful exit of Slovenia and Macedonia from the federation. The conclusion summarizes the

arguments presented in the thesis and suggests ideas for further research.

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CHAPTER TWO BACKGROUND ON YUGOSLAVIA The Balkan Peninsula, a region stretching from the Adriatic beaches of Italy to the sandy

Turkish coasts on the Black Sea, has been associated with the home of the South Slavs, one of the three tribes that comprised the Slavic civilization. During the 6th century, the South Slavs populated almost the entire Balkan Peninsula, and have since become the main residents of the same, occupying the territories of what we know today as Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia,

Montenegro, Bosnia, and Bulgaria. Culturally, the South Slavic people to this day remain nearly identical. This has resulted in the universal use of the term Balkans when referring to individuals born in these countries. Historically, the South Slavs were not always unified. For a millennium,

Croats and Slovenes remained under the rule of the Roman Empire, Hungary and the Habsburg

Monarchy, and were influenced by the Roman Catholic religion and Latin-speaking folk. Serbia,

Bosnia, Montenegro, and Macedonia, on the other hand, were the focus of external conquerors

from Byzantine and later, the Ottoman Empire, yet remained heavily influenced by the Eastern

Slavic languages and Orthodoxy emanating from Russia and the Bulgarian Empire.

As the Ottoman Empire slowly disintegrated, the Balkan Wars in 1912-1913 put the

South Slavic nations at odds. Ignited by the indecision to split the newly liberated territories,

Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians and Greeks first launched attacks against the Ottomans and later

turned on each other, mostly over the division of the Macedonian territory. Externally, the

Austro-Hungarian influence from Central Europe intensified relations between the Catholic

Slovenes and Croats, and the Orthodox Serbs, while the Russians supported Serbia in the

expansion of its Slavic connection throughout the Peninsula. Following the Austro-Hungarian

invasion on Serbia in 1914, the South Slavs endured the First World War in shambles. With such

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considerable division among them, the idea to form a Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in

the aftermath of the war had not been welcomed with much enthusiasm.

Against all odds, the first attempt to unite the Yugoslavs, a local name for South Slavs,

was successfully executed, thus forming the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1919. In

and of itself, the Yugoslav Kingdom was more of an international consent to unite the successor

states as a “necessary precondition for peace, future stability in the region and the balance of

power in Europe”1 than an ideal union of South Slavic people. The considerably larger size of

Serbs enabled the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (renamed in 1929) to sway much of the political decisions in their favor. Naturally, tensions between Serbs and Croats, the second largest population, took a turn for the worse, thereby forcing King Alexander to establish dictatorial rule in January 1929.2 The Croat group was distraught by the Serb dominance and criticized the political insolvency which continued to erect Serb sacrifice as the backbone of the kingdom.

Little by little, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia destabilized over the years, until it finally succumbed to the fear from the Axis powers. Extreme nationalists on both sides further enflamed the existing Serbo-Croat division. A fascist regime of the Croat Ustaša, and its Serbs counterpart, the resurrected Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army (Četnici), an organization founded in the early 20th century to fight against the Ottoman Empire, sprouted amid growing tensions in the First Yugoslavia. Soon, war between the Ustaša and the Četnici raged throughout the rump pan-Slav state, and with it contributed to additional animosity between nationalists on both sides. The barbaric bloodshed among the Yugoslavs produced the formation of extermination camps, among which most popular was Jasenovac in Croatia.

According to the official website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Croat

1 Vesna Drapac, Constructing Yugoslavia: A Transnational History (Hampshire: Palrave MacMillan, 2010), 91. 2 Ibid., 117. 5

authorities murdered between 80,000 and 100,000 people of which nearly half were Serbs.3 As ethnic slaughter engulfed the dismembered Yugoslav kingdom, exiled government officials steadily lost control and with it, the hope to resurrect the pan-Slavic dream.4

2.1 Second Yugoslavia

The ongoing ethnic division and political feud preceding the outbreak of WWII gave rise

to the communist movement which, until then, had been a mere underground sentiment and a

greatly outnumbered organization.5 Fearing imminent invasion by the Axis powers, communists

in Yugoslavia used a sharp rhetoric in contrast to the ultranationalist camps to gather additional

support among their fellow Yugoslavs. The two most outspoken communist leaders, Edward

Kardelj and Josip Broz Tito, used the promise for ethnic equality and development based on

social societal division of labor to outgrow the nationalists’ popularity and unite the Yugoslavs, along with the numerous Albanians, Hungarians, Roma and Jewish population living in

Yugoslavia, against the Nazi occupiers.

Tito’s “National Liberation Struggle” echoed credible hope for wide-scale changes

which, in return, helped the Croat-born communist leader form the official Yugoslav liberating

army, the Partisans. The promise to liberate and emancipate all Balkan folk epidemically

conjured millions of Partisan supporters, ready to write history itself. Concurrent with the slow

regression of the Axis powers in 1944, the promised land of ethnic equality and federalism was

quickly delivered to the Yugoslavs. A year later, Tito and the Partisans formed the Federal

People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) comprised of six republics and two provinces, and

headed by a central communist party.

3 For more information on concentration camps in Croatia, please visit the official website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, http://ushmm.org/. 4 Leonard J. Cohen, Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia’s Disintegration and Balkan Politics in Transition (Boulder, Westview Press, 1993), 21. 5 Ibid., 22. 6

Today, it is not uncommon to encounter criticism among academics regarding the speed

and method used to form the second Yugoslavia. In order to prevent sudden rises to power and

increased nationalist sentiment, let alone endless power-sharing and territorial-division

arguments, Tito’s Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) had decided to act quickly and

established the Soviet-based one-party system.6 Milovan Djilas, a close ally of the charismatic

leader, had since admitted to have decided on significant territorial issues during a military

march. In 1977, Djilas elaborated the need for quick decisions out of the public’s reach in his

paper titled Novi tok istorije:

“We looked on the national question as a very important question, but a tactical question, a question of stirring up a revolution, a question of mobilizing the national masses. We proceeded from the view that national minorities and national ambitions would weaken with the development of socialism, and that they are chiefly a product of capitalist development…We felt Yugoslavia would be unified, solid, that one needed to respect languages, cultural differences, and all specificities which exist, but that they are not essential, and that they can’t undermine the whole and the vitality of the country, inasmuch as we understood that the communist themselves would be unified.”7

In retrospect, hasty territorial decisions directly indeed opened the doors to future interethnic and intrastate tensions. Out of all the Yugoslav ethnicities, the Croats and the Serbs were the most scattered across the peninsula. Although the communist leaders were aware that a large population of Serbs resided in Dalmatia and Slavonia among other smaller Croat regions,

Tito’s close circle of generals and officers rejected all ideas for an autonomous Serb province

6 Leonard J. Cohen, Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia’s Disintegration and Balkan Politics in Transition (Boulder, Westview Press, 1993), 24. 7 Ibid. 7

within Croatia.8 Additionally, Serbs and Croats endured similar fate in Bosnia. There the communist leadership had inadvertently created an extremely potent mix of Serbs, Croats, and

Bosnian Muslims. Finally, the Albanian-dominated region of Kosovo-Metohija was denied autonomy and placed under Serbian rule.9 Thus, because of KPJ’s swift and preemptive decisions to define the new borders of Yugoslavia, many of the unhappy ethnicities will later resurface only to become Yugoslavia’s main vexing problem. Ironically, the very idea of brotherhood and unity among Yugoslavs is what bred the need for ethnic identities within the newly formed country.

2.2 Political History of Yugoslavia

The Partisans who led the international explosion of Yugoslavia were well aware that

political stability in the newly-formed country was far from over. Even the Yugoslavs who

supported the Partisan ideology during WWII knew of it. However, resisting the old cliques and

fascist tendencies, and with it fighting fascism itself, was a better option for everyone. This aided

the ex-Partisans to form a powerful elite organization with communist ideals that would run the entire country for four decades.10 The Communists platform targeted the establishment of sociability and equality among the Yugoslavs. In their eyes, there was no distinction between better off and worse off, or between the haves and have nots, for the idea of united Yugoslavia had no room for capitalist inequality. Although this was an outright unattractive ideology to the

Western Powers, the Yugoslavs had nothing else to compare it other than the thousand years of monarchy and empire rulings. To them, complete democracy was still an unknown phenomenon.

8 Leonard J. Cohen, Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia’s Disintegration and Balkan Politics in Transition (Boulder, Westview Press, 1993), 26. 9 Ibid. 10 Vesna Drapac, Constructing Yugoslavia: A Transnational History (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 203. 8

Under the slogan “Brotherhood and Unity,” Tito used a mild form of democratic

dictatorship to keep national tensions from spurring unwanted animosities and disunity. What

many feared it may become another form of Soviet communism, Tito and his communist party were convinced the Yugoslav dream was not meant to reflect their fellow Slavs in the East. In

Yugoslavia, the liberal conception of democracy somewhat existed which made Tito’s communism a model not to be exported.11 Overnight, the Marshal12 become larger than life and gained the support of both the East (Stalin’s Soviets) and the West, including the American capitalists. The magnitude of his movement was attributed to his partisan resistance and impressive transition from soldier to statesman. As George Bilainkin, a long-time correspondent for Contemporary Review in Prague, Belgrade, and the Soviet Union, once stated, the key to

Tito’s admiration was his drive and resilience for liberation13. Thus, the new form of socialism was often referred to as Titoism, painting an independent pan-Yugoslav union.

In essence, the principles of Tito’s Yugoslavia were self-management, federalism, non- alignment, national and individual equality14. Self-management, Tito’s version of liberalism, entrusted producers with powers and allowed the same, as well as workers at the lowest level of social and economic interaction, to participate politically insofar that it became the hallmark of

Yugoslav communism for outside observers15. Additionally, Tito’s governing was based on incentives rather than the use-thy-big-stick Soviet model. With it, he helped enflame the need for national and individual equality despite critics from the West who believed such test for liberal and democratic dictatorship was not the answer to true democracy.

11 Vesna Drapac, Constructing Yugoslavia: A Transnational History (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 205. 12 The Marshal is a name for Josip Broz Tito used by Yugoslavs even to this day. 13 Vesna Drapac, Constructing Yugoslavia: A Transnational History (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 206. 14 Ibid., 212. 15 Ibid., 214 9

Many international leaders saw Tito as the benevolent dictator despite criticism of being

authoritarian. Tito’s internal policies enabled peaceful coexistence of the nations of SFRY. The

Yugoslav federalism was based on the equal representation of the six republics and the two

provinces. In order to achieve a uniformed one-party rule, the nations were represented by eight branches of the communist party, each specifically created to serve the political interests of its respective republic or province. What is more, Tito had long before realized that preventing national extremism was the key to national equality as well the successful running of the federation.

As tensions grew between the West and the Soviets, Tito’ s Yugoslavia defiantly resisted alignment and even criticized the Soviets’ latest invasion of Czechoslovakia, and though it scored major points among the Western powers, the country continued to pursue its own goals and remained on its original track. Domestically, however, the situation was not the same.

Between 1968 and 1970, opposition to the regime sprouted from each corner of Yugoslavia.

Initially, a student-organized protest aimed at the economic reform of 1965 criticized the growing inequality and the market mechanism of the Yugoslav self-management, spurring large political support from the educational institutions, as well as the Croatian-based journal Praxis whose members never missed an opportunity to hammer the failings of the system.16

With the downfall of Aleksandar Ranković, a Serb leader in the province of Kosovo and

Metohija, relations between Serbs and Albanian Kosovars were reversed. No longer oppressed by Ranković’s internal security forces known as the State Security Service (SDB), the Albanian population intensified the expansion of its identity, and soon organized protests in Albanian- populated cities in Kosovo and Macedonia, calling for change to the province’s status to a

16 John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice there was a country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 297; Detailed information on the Economic Reform of 1965 in Yugoslavia can be found in A Country Study: Yugoslavia (Former) (Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress, 1992): Ref. No. DR 1214.Y83 1992. 10

republic, the Albanian opposition clashed with local non-Albanian residents in Pristina, the

capital of Kosovo, and Tetovo, a northwestern city in Macedonia. Naturally, to keep a lid on

nationalist movements, Tito’s party immediately diffused the situation and renamed the province

to Kosovo, but also allowed Albanian Kosovars to wave the Albanian flag (a black two-headed

eagle) under the flag of Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, such concessions produced an even greater need for establishing an Albanian identity within Kosovo, and distressed many Serb and

Montenegrin officials who departed the province, inadvertently increasing the percentage of

Albanian residents.17

At the turn of the decade, Slovenia and Croatia each launched their own opposition to the federation. Prior, a public outcry among Slovenes aimed at the last-minute decrease of the republic’s cut of a $30 million loan from the World Bank for various road expansion projects tested the mutual trust and confidence among the delegates in the Federal Executive Council.18

Infuriated by the inadequate allocation of funds and the political impotence of their responsible officials during the meeting in Belgrade, the Slovenian public had been prepared to retaliate by enforcing stricter regulations for transportation services on Slovenian territory. Nevertheless, the most efficient Yugoslav nation was forced to drop all retaliatory plans after carefully examining the long-term consequences to their economy.

In 1970, Tito’s leadership encountered opposition from Croatia, dubbed the Croatian

Spring. The criticism expressed by the Croats sought to separate the Croatian language from the

Serbian and to review the allocation of federal funds for Croatia. Four years prior, the

Declaration Concerning the Name and Position of the Croatian Language had been issued by

17John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice there was a country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 298. 18 Ibid. 11

the Croatian Writer’s Club without any warning.19The division over the linguistic issue was not

only a question of additional dictionaries to be printed for Croatian speaking residents; it also

meant an initiative to resurrect the Croatian identity. Additionally, Croats publicly complained

about the republic’s undermined contribution to the economic state of Yugoslavia. Croatia’s

significant revenue from its tourist business was criticized to have been funneled in the industries

in Belgrade, namely covering excessive costs and corrupt deals of trade enterprises such as

General Export.20

During the summer of the same year, the Croatian Spring affected the Communist Party,

the cultural organization Matica Hrvatska, and the Zagreb University.21 Additionally, Serb

hardliners among the ranks of the secret police (SDB) leaked rumors of suspected resurrection of

the old fascist Ustaša regime, and accused powerful and highly-placed Tito loyalists of

conspiring with the Kremlin to bring down Tito.22 Fortunately for the leadership, such zealous

attempts to turn reforming communists against each other had failed miserably; unfortunately for

the residents of Croatia, it plunged tensions and political rhetoric between Croats and Serbs even

deeper. Over the next year, the Croatian Spring continued to stir up politics in Yugoslavia.

Despite Tito's attempts to counteract it, the revolution intensified its criticism of Tito's close

allegiance with Serb leaders. In reality, Tito and Edward Kardelj were not as afraid of the din

within Croatia so much as they were of waking the Serbian leviathan.23 At that time, Serbs

outnumbered Croats in almost every federal body, including the Yugoslav army. Even though,

Serbs constituted only 15 percent of the population in Croatia, the same held 40 percent of posts

19 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 190. 20 John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice there was a country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 301. 21 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 194. 22 Ibid., 195. 23 Ibid., 199. 12

in the Communist Party, as well as higher ranks in the police, the secret police and the army officer corps.24

All attempts to dissuade the Croat nationalists proved difficult for the Communists. The

Croat rhetoric sharpened to the extent that questions regarding the Croats in Bosnia began rising concurrent with the already vehement calls against the spillover of Serb workers in the more developed and higher-paying regions of Croatia. During Tito's frequent trips between Zagreb and

Belgrade, members of the Croat Party detracted from the communist camp, causing a split within the reform movement. Suddenly, Miko Trupalo, Savka Dabćević-Kućar and Vladimir Bakarić, the three main leaders of the Croat Party, were now at odds with Tito loyalists. Fearing a counter-revolution, Tito was forced to smite the poisonous hand once and for all. In December of

1971, Tito's wrath against the Croat communists delivered many years of jail time for the main instigators among which had been Franjo Tudjman, the future president of Croatia, and intellectuals from Zagreb, as well as the young student leaders who supported Maspok, a Croat word for the Croatian Spring.25 Finally, Tito and Kardelj shut down newspapers which spread the nationalist sentiment such as Vjesnik, Gospodarski Glasnik and Hrvatski Tjednik, temporarily suppressing the movement.

2.3 The Passing of a Marshal

Following the Marshal’s death in 1980, the fate of the Yugoslav dream remained in the hands of a collective leadership, one expected to survive only a short-term period. And right they were. The political discourse during the 1980s produced distant relations between the republics and wide-scale abandonment of the then Yugoslav ideology. In the eyes of the leaders, the one-

24 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 195. 25 Ibid., 202. 13

party system was no longer considered to be an integral part of the country.26 During the first

half of the decade, Yugoslavia's infrastructure suffered a severe blowback as a result of increased

political division. Excluding the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), nearly all forms of institution

witnessed their own downfall at a chaotically fast rate. At the federal level, the weak connection between the regional party organizations and the central organs was ever more evident. The

League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LKJ)27 admitted in 1984 that the body had been "having difficulties with members who ignored party directives and behaved in an irresponsible fashion.”28

Moreover, the recently created self-management interest communities noticed rapid

expansion within the republics. The idea of ordinary citizens monitoring all public services

(education, health, social welfare, child care, employment, sports, information, etc.) quickly

overwhelmed the existing communities, resulting in a steep spike.29 Consequently, two parallel structures monitored the same area, which produced confusion and inefficiency. Forced to reinvent the same establishments, members of the communities adjusted their purpose and adopted the behavior of governmental agencies.30 In a nutshell, the communities which had been

created to monitor the Yugoslavs and act as consumer advocates, turned on the population and

began to regulate them. This recent stunt among the political organizations might have been

overlooked had it not been for the numerous charges of corruption and complaints regarding

their unresponsiveness and unconstitutionality.31

26 Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The War For Kosovo (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 7. 27 The Communist Part of Yugoslavia was renamed the League of Communist of Yugoslavia after Tito’s death. 28Ibid., 9. 29Ibid., 8. 30Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The War For Kosovo (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 8. 31 Ibid., 8. 14

However, the real crisis revealed itself through the widespread polarization and the

economic difficulties. Initially, the main focus of the federation had been directed at domestic

policy issues, mainly on general political democratization, as well as the exterior image of

Yugoslavia and its academic solvency, thus neglecting key macroeconomic and social issues.32

This caused a four-tier split among the republics: liberal recentralizers (the Serbian leadership),

conservative recentralizers (Bosniaks and Hungarians in Vojvodina), liberal decentralizers

(Hungarians in Vojvodina) and conservative decentralizers (Croatians, Macedonians and

Kosovars). While the Slovenes remained adamant about preserving the autonomy of their

homeland and sided with the decentralist camp considering their conservative economic views

and liberal social policies, it remained unclear of Montenegro's official position, though its close political ties with Serbia were well known.33

The most advanced republics, Croatia and Slovenia, called for reforms and restructuring of the system. In their eyes, the ludicrous spending of federal funds for the army and the economically deprived province of Kosovo had to come to an end. By 1984, the average growth rate of Yugoslavia had come down to 0.4% of GDP, an extremely sharp decrease compared to the 1973-79 6.1% of GDP.34 A common Yugoslav phrase in the 1970s "biće bolje (it will be better)" no longer echoed during the following decade. At the start of the 1980s, Yugoslavia's dark fate loomed from a distance, biding the time of the pan-Slavic political bickering and economic insolvency. As hope for diffusing the situation and with it the most recent attempts to recentralize the LKJ slowly vanished, interethnic tensions arose, thereby hastening the rise of nationalist sentiment at the expense of the League's federal legitimacy.

32 Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The War For Kosovo (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 9. 33 Ibid. 34 Detailed overview of the federation’s GDP between 1950 and 1985 is shown L. J. Cohen, Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia’s Disintegration and Balkan Politics in Transition (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993), table 1.2, 31. 15

Lingering at the very edge, the one-party federal system soon became an easy target for

its harshest criticizers. Therefore, inaudible intellectuals who favored the complete suspension of

the system and supported a nationalist agenda to overhaul the current structure advanced the

need to protect both the political and ethnic identity of their respective nationalities. Almost

every republic now faced party pluralization, and nationalist platforms began brewing in each of

the republics. Interestingly enough, Pandora's Box was opened with the issuing of a

Memorandum by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) in 1985. The document

entailed a new nationalistic ideology targeted at the Serbian population, portraying their Serb

brothers as the greatest victims of Tito's Yugoslavia - reference was made to the Serbs in Kosovo

who had been uniquely victimized and culturally deprived.35

The sharp spike in Serbian nationalism brought together likeminded intellectuals from

Belgrade who stood behind the banker-turned-politician Slobodan Milošević, the mentee of the

President of the Serbian Communist Party Ivan Stambolić. To the surprise of most of Serbia,

Milošević’s unprecedented rise fired up the remaining underground nationalist camps.

Unexpectedly, Stambolić was quickly ousted after Milošević had picked off one by one each of the president's powerful supporters. The swift takeover neutralized LKJ's federal policies and ignited a church-sponsored Serb nationalist wave which enabled the newly self-appointed

Serbian leadership to place both Kosovo and Vojvodina, the two autonomous provinces in

SFRY, under the complete control of Orthodox Serbia.36

During the same period, the Slovenes had been also strengthening their own nationalist

sentiment. According to the rising number of supporters of the same ideology, as the richest and

most efficient republic in Yugoslavia, Slovenia's fruitful contributions were severely milked by

35 Leslie Benson, Yugoslavia: A Concise History (Hampshire: Pallgrave MacMillan, 2004), 146. 36 Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The War For Kosovo (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 26. 16

the less efficient republics.37 Thus, the core of Slovenian politics in the late 1980s revolved

around maintaining a confederate position within SFRY, and if all else were to fail the Slovenes,

would secede to preserve their autonomy.

In 1989, the extent of Serb nationalism further escalated, this time echoing a Greater

Serbia plan to unite Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, as well as Montenegrins, who had often

been considered as actual Serbs, all under the control of Serbia. Since the infamous

Memorandum, Serbia's policies had gone from claiming victimization to a complete attack on

Tito's legacy and the Marshal himself.38 Naturally, Slovenes and Croats responded vehemently

by defending the unity and brotherhood achieved by the Croat-born Partisan. Macedonia, the

republic who had until 1988 closely sided with Serbia and supported its previous, less-

hegemonic policies, no longer shared the same vision for a Serb-dominated federation with the

Serbian leadership, and joined Croatia and Slovenia in their opposition.

During the next year, the ticking time-bomb was ready to explode. In terms of the

federation’s economic state, the annual growth rate of the federation’s national income, gross

industrial output, and gross agricultural output had not only come to a stagnant zero percent, but

proceeded to further drop.39 By 1990, the long-sloping national income had already fallen to a -

2.0 growth rate, while the gross industrial and the gross agricultural output had been reported at -

1.0 and -5.0, respectively. Although the sinking national income growth rate reached the lowest

percentage in 1988, its impact was nothing in comparison to the declines in both industrial and

agricultural production. In Serbia and Montenegro, industrial production sharply decreased by

37 Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The War For Kosovo (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 33. 38 Ibid., 35. 39 Detailed information on the economic state of the Former Yugoslavia is shown in S. P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The War For Kosovo (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 49. 17

more than 13 percent, while Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia witnessed a 10 percent drop in

production in their own industries.40 In addition, the pressure of a mounting foreign debt of $22 billion, a trade deficit of $2.7 billion and a colossal inflation rate of 2,000 percent per annum plunged the Yugoslav republic into a deeper economic crisis from which the last-minute privatization policies of 1989 were unable to protect the pan-Slavic dream.

On the political stage, the nations were even more divided. While the Slovenes and the

Croats prepared for their departure from the great South Slavic state, citizens of the remaining republics made final attempts to re-patch the broken dream by suggesting a 4+2 confederation, with Slovenia and Croatia as the two confederate states. But without Slovenia and Croatia in the

Yugoslav federation, Bosnia and Macedonia were skeptical of the imbalanced ethnic composition. With half of the Yugoslav members moving toward secession, the uncertainty of the future treatment of ethnic minorities stranded on the other side of the border hastened the break up process, thus causing the civil warfare in the Balkans. In Croatia, Serbs were skeptical of the new Croat government while in Bosnia the political dominance of Bosnia Muslims increased the need for greater autonomy within a Muslim state.

40 Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The War For Kosovo (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 49. 18

CHAPTER THREE UNDERSTANDING CIVIL WARS

What are the fundamental causes of the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia? What are the

real reasons civil war belligerent parties are unable uphold promises to ceasefire? Today’s

literature on civil wars is split between four camps: economic inequality; ethnic hatred and

ethno-nationalism; anarchy, and crisis bargaining. My goal is to argue against the first three and

elaborate my support of the bargaining theory as it relates to the Balkan conflict. Thus, this

chapter includes a brief overview of the existing arguments and why they fail to best explain the

continuous warfare between the Yugoslavs followed by an introduction to the bargaining model

as a perfect method to understand why peaceful settlements came at a great cost and too late.

Economic models of civil war seek to understand civil wars as a consequence to

shortcomings in sociopolitical dialogues between minority and majority groups. It is the belief of

many supporters of this argument that in order to comprehend the need for civil warfare we

ought to first investigate micro-level motives which lead to such political violence. The

economist argument claims that the unemployment rate in Yugoslavia had also been heading in

the wrong direction (equaled more than 40 percent in poorly developed regions) before

interethnic hostilities broke out. In 1989, income continued to fall and growth rate fell as nearly

as 20 percent.41 During the prewar period, the economic state of Croats was far better than that

of Serbs and Bosnians. Even more, unemployment and development in Serbia exceeded

Bosnian’s numbers. Accordingly, supporters of the economic model have argued that

Yugoslavia’s negative economic growth caused the warfare. However, the economic state of the

federation only produced the need for secession, which is not always characterized with warfare.

41 Nicholas Sambanis, “Using Case Studies to Expand Economic models of Civil War,” Perspective on Politics 2 (June 2004): 259-279. 19

The next argument uses the widely-accepted notion among Western journalists of the

ancient hatred between Serbs and Croats as well as the animosity between Bosnian Muslims and

Serbo-Croat Christians. According to defenders of the ethnic hatred argument, ethnic wars are

likely to occur in states where primordial feelings of animosity and hostility between ethnic

groups exist. The logic of this argument dictates that the civil war in Croatia and consequently, in

Bosnia, broke out as a direct result to suppressed feelings of ethnic hatred. Political scientists

Walker Connor, David Horowitz and Anthony Smith all have embraced the primordial

perspective as a causal variable in historical records of ethnic chauvinism and ethno

nationalism.42 Likewise, Horowitz claims that the ethnic hatred argument is just as plausible as

any strategic reason for conflict.43 This theory, however, only explains the rising need to secede

from SFRY as it predominantly relies on ethnic animosity as the true cause of the conflict.

Instead, I strongly believe that the ethnic hatred and ethno-nationalism argument merely deterred

the ethnic groups from further cooperating with each other.

Another common approach to the Yugoslav civil conflict entertains the realist idea of

anarchy. In itself, the argument is simple and self-explanatory. When it comes to civil wars,

realists claim that an anarchic state breeds conflict. For argument’s sake, let us assume that we

agree with this notion. According to it, we would then also assume that civil war conflicts arise

only in leaderless states. In other words, where there is a lack of central authority, we would

encounter a higher likelihood of civil war occurrence. However, to accept the realist perspective

as we try to explain the continuing warfare in Yugoslavia would not only be not enough, but also

inaccurate. While hostilities erupted in Croatia in 1990, SFRY was still led by a Federal Council

42 D. Sekulić, G. Massey and R. Hodson, “Ethnic intolerance and ethnic conflict in the dissolution of Yugoslavia,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 29 (May 2006): 797-827. 43 David L. Horowitz, “Structure and Strategy in Ethnic Conflict,” paper presented for the Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics, Washington, D.C., 1998. 20

of delegates from all republics and provinces. At the republic level, there also was a central

authority in power.

In contrast, the bargaining theory suggests that civil warfare exists due to several

interdependent factors that prevent disputants from successfully settling the conflicting issue.

Minorities in civil conflicts fear future exploitation and thus polarize against the government. In

order to increase their bargaining power for greater autonomy, minorities mobilize against a

repressing government, as was the case with Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia who ethnically

cleansed territories to create pure communities.

3.1 Explaining the Bargaining Model

“War is always a bargaining process…”44

As Geoffrey Blainey underlines in his well-known book, The Causes of War, in order to

understand the causes of war one must also understand the solutions. By this, the political

scholar did not mean that wars end because disputants are incapable of further fighting. He,

instead, claims that most wars end as a result to the bargaining process between the disputants.

The bargaining model has received widespread support among political scientists thus

far. Robert Powell, a political academic from the University of California at Berkeley, is one of

the many who have used the theory to better explain causes of war and conflict, as well as the

inefficiency to negotiate settlements. Further, IR scholars Alastair Smith and Allan Stam have

also been the focus of many likeminded theorists thanks to their contribution to the model itself.

In Bargaining and the Nature of War, the two developed a model that treats warfare and

conflicts as part of the bargaining process rather the end of the bargaining process.45 Similarly,

44 Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 192. 45 Alastair Smith and Allan C. Stam, “Bargaining and the Nature of War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 6 (December 2004): 783-813. 21

James Fearon and Barbara Walter, the very inspiration behind this paper, have over time applied

the bargaining model to explain the onset, duration and solution of ethnic civil wars.

The term bargaining underlines ongoing negotiations to divide a conflicting issue

between disputants. More recently, political academics have been much looser with the

definition, thereby referencing divisible issues as pieces from the pie. The bargaining theory is a

rather more complex approach than the aforementioned arguments for civil war occurrence as it

relies primarily on cooperation between dyadic couples. The existence of potential gains from

dividing the pie pushes disputants to cooperate. However, rarely do disputants favor the present

status quo over the opportunity to acquire even greater gains. Accordingly, the bargaining

process becomes more complex when actors seek to maximize their share of the pie which breeds more conflict between the same,46 and once wars becomes the main course of action, the

disputants fight for greater bargaining power. In order to explain the prolonged warfare in the

Balkan conflict, we attempt to answer the central puzzle of why the bargaining process breaks down in the first place.

Essentially, I argue that wars endured in Croatia and Bosnia as a result of the rising commitment problem amid the crisis bargaining process. In the following chapters I apply the bargaining model to emphasize the failure to produce positive results at the bargaining table. In order to do so, I explore the events which started the crisis bargaining process and analyze the chief factors I believe aggravated all peaceful resolutions to the Balkan conflict. Furthermore, I argue that a lack of credibility in the political dialogue between minorities and majorities within the republics aggravated the commitment problem among the civil war parties and exacerbated negotiations, thereby making room for military actions. Finally, I indicate how vital international

46 Robert Powell, “Bargaining Theory and International Conflict,” Annual Review of Political Science 5 (2002): 1- 30. 22

presence and security guarantees are amid civil conflicts, especially during highly treacherous periods of military disengagement and ceasefires.

3.2 Commitment Problem in Bargaining

“A leader never wishes to enter war. He simply wishes to be taken seriously at the bargaining table”47

But why do disputants bargain in the first place? Why not escalate the process itself and jump straight into war? The main goal of the dyadic couple is to get concessions from each other in order to gain the upper hand. During preliminary negotiations, the political dialogue predominantly focuses on making demands in the interest of the conflicting issue. In civil wars where territorial claims are the central issue, disputants challenge their opponent into conceding certain areas and regions that are of historic, economic, or even strategic value to the challenger issuing the demand. Such claims are often seen in intrastate wars on the brink of dissolution, namely caused by separatist movements. Other forms of civil wars entail a bargaining process promulgated by demands for greater cultural identity and change in the minority status.

Minorities in such conflicts challenge the majority to grant them a larger political representation, recognition of various cultural values (language, religion, symbols) but mostly, better protection from potential exploitation of its lower status in the future.

Thus, the critical issue in crisis bargaining situations is eliminating the commitment problem. In itself, this widely-popular phenomenon, underlines the inability of two disputants to agree on conceding certain concessions. In interstate politics, the commitment problem appears when a dyadic couple struggles to settle a conflict due to issues of security, enforcement and intervention. If either disputant suspects the credibility of its opponent’s promise to comply with

47 Excerpt from Immortals (Relativity Media, 2011). 23

the demands set forth in the said agreement, the same would be reluctant to cooperate. Hence, the parties to a dispute are unable to follow through on promises made during an agreement and are then more likely to renege on it, revealing the incredibility of its own statements.

Fearon claims that the commitment problem mostly occurs in states where ethnic majorities are reluctant to resist exploiting ethnic minorities.48 According to the scholar, post-

Soviet Eastern Europe exhibited high concentration of commitment problems due to the recent downfall of Communism which left ethnic groups “…without a third party that can credibly guarantee agreements between them.”49 In somewhat similar sense, Walter underlines commitment problems as the central issue of the bargaining process, thereby arguing that countries with weak political institutions, highly politicized and fixed cleavages, and expected power shifts are most prone to failure of negotiations.50

In essence, the commitment problem can be caused by various factors emerging from the

conflict. Unlike realists who argue that commitment problems occur due to an anarchic state,

bargaining theorists have argued that issues pertaining to privileged information and issues of credible behavior are among the top key components to resolving the dilemma. In international warfare, information asymmetries are not absent. Although certain technological advancements have made it possible for each side to gather relatively accurate information regarding its

enemy’s capabilities and power, the fact of the matter is that privileged information regarding its

own military capabilities is never publicly communicated. James Fearon claims that if parties

had complete information, the likelihood of striking a deal would be significantly higher.51

Although the scholar’s point can be attributed to nuclear conflicts, I argue that in situations

48 James D. Fearon, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, eds. D. A. Lake and D. Rothchild (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 108. 49 Ibid. 50 Barbara F. Walter, “Bargaining Failures and Civil War,” Annual Review of Political Science 12 (2009): 243-261. 51 James D. Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization 3 (June 1995): 379-414. 24

where private information is not privileged, we would not have a commitment problem to begin

with. Complete information will thus allow the more powerful party to reject concessions while

at the same time push the weaker ones toward bargaining. Similarly, civil war parties are reluctant to communicate their own complete information while simultaneously trying to gather as much as possible about their opponents.

In summary, information is the key to issuing credible statements. In political science, the term credibility often is used to define the likelihood of disputants who seek to negotiate a settlement to keep their word and comply with the terms of agreement. In other words, statements issued by disputants pledging peaceful cooperation, democratic governing, demobilization and many additional concessions, can define disputants as either credible, ones

who follow through on their promises, or incredible, ones who renege on agreements. Almost

always, the parties who are unable to credibly promise to adhere to a settlement are motivated by

either purely strategic incentives or by uncertainty as to post-agreement developments, especially

in civil war resolutions where demobilization and demilitarization are essential. Here, minority

groups fear future exploitation by the majority and thus require credibly guaranteed concessions.

3.3 Costly Signals

As disputants attempt to secure credible guarantees during the crisis bargaining process,

the likelihood of peaceful outcome and the outbreak of war become reciprocally connected. For

example, in Yugoslavia, the Serb minority and the Croat government were unable to strike an

agreement, leading the two ethnicities to fight over the Croatian territory in 1991. Although the

Croat government led by Franjo Tudjman had made previous efforts to accommodate part of the

concessions demanded by Serb separatists, the actions and behavior of Croat nationalists during

negotiations indicated otherwise. Seeking to strengthen the national identity of their people,

25

Croat nationalists revamped the movement by resurrecting symbols and traditions used by the

fascist Ustaša regime which in turn discouraged Serbs from further bargaining.

During periods of war, civil disputants are unable to conclude the bargaining process

through a peaceful resolution mainly because it would require them to lower their defenses,

adhere to the terms of agreement and trust their opponents to do the same. Extant literature on

the matter argues that the use of costly signals could potentially produce compliance.52 Such

levels of cooperation can be achieved through various quid-pro-quo strategies and agreements.

For instance, a government in civil wars could demobilize but at the same time block its

challengers’ assembly camps in order to communicate its intention to cooperate. Although the

practice of such civil bargaining policies may look good on paper, in reality the story is quite

different. The absence of complete information and certainty aggravates the commitment

problem. Without complete information, uncertainty about the opponent’s intentions prevails,

causing each of the sides to either falsely report the status of its demobilization process or renege

on the agreement by striking preemptively In a nutshell, it is far too costly for either of the

disputants to rely on the self-enforcement of peace negotiations while exposing themselves to

sudden attacks, or power grabs in the case of non-war bargaining.

During the bargaining process, it is not uncommon to encounter numerous failed attempts

at peaceful settlements, the main factor being the brief treacherous period of military

disengagement.53 In order to implement successful agreements, combatants in civil wars are

likely to seek outside assistance, generally in the form of credible third-party guarantees.54 The

need for third-party supervision carries the potential to compensate for the lack of power by

52 Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 24. 53 Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 26. 54 Ibid. 26

either of the combatants to enforce treaty agreements, and intervene in the event one of the

parties decides to renege and execute a preemptive strike. Without a third-party to provide

protection during the bargaining period, disputants are less reluctant to resist opportunities to

exploit the opponent’s vulnerability. Therefore, the answer to eliminating both security and

enforcement issues, and with it minimizing the commitment problem is not only connected to the

credibility of disputants but also to the level of international action to resolve the conflict.

One way to eliminate future incentives to renege on agreements and to re-mobilize is through the establishment of power-sharing and power-dividing agreements.55 And, in the presence of incomplete information, incredible reputation and inefficient negotiations, third- party guarantees become essential. Whatever the strategies, the end goal is to reach a peaceful settlement designed to credibly guarantee the safety of each disputant or at the very least, the security of the weaker and geographically-isolated party.56 Recognizing territorial and national sovereignty has shown that it does not guarantee peaceful resolution of conflicts, as was the case with Croatia and Bosnia. In fact, such a move by the international community only exacerbated internal politics in the two republics and promulgated Serbia and Croatia to aid minorities within.

I have thus far explained the bargaining theory as developed by international relations scholars. To reiterate the chapter, existing arguments regarding the continuous civil warfare in

Yugoslavia are, in and of themselves, less plausible answers to the central puzzle. Unlike its competing counterparts, the bargaining theory best encompasses the factors affecting the crisis negotiation process. In summary, the key component to achieving positive conclusions in conflicts is eliminating the commitment problem which is aggravated by incredible agreements

55 M. Hoodie and C. Hartzell, “Civil War Settlements and the Implementation of Military Power-Sharing Arrangements,” Journal of Peace Research 40 (May 2003): 303-320. 56 Chaim Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars,” International Security 20 (Spring 1996): 229-246. 27

and dishonest statements. With the help of distinguished political scientists I will next apply the

bargaining theory to the conflict in Croatia and subsequently, the conflict in Bosnia where upon secession from SFRY, the security of stranded Serb and Croat minorities became the focus of interethnic bargaining.

28

CHAPTER FOUR EXPLAINING THE BARGAINING PROCESS IN CROATIA

Figure 4.1: Geographic layout of ethnic groups in Yugoslavia before the conflict

(Source: Central Intelligence Agency)

Milošević’s rapid rise to power and pro-Serb polarization among intellectuals from

Belgrade was viewed with large skepticism by the Slovene and the Croat delegations in the

Federal Council. Additionally, the debilitating economic state coupled with the revamped

nationalist fever fueled public outcry for secession from SFRY which could no longer be ignored. In 1989, the two republics began to slowly creep toward exiting the South Slavic dream.

29

For the leading Western nations, the ideal goal was to prevent the dissolution of Yugoslavia. For

Serbs, however, preserving the Yugoslav dream was largely influenced by decisions to secure a

Serb-dominated federation and protect Serbs who lived outside the Serbian republic.57

Accordingly, Serbs residing in the remaining republics became increasingly political and formed parties. What started out as a precautionary strategy on the political stage soon transformed into the central mission of Serb minorities, mainly the ones residing within Croatia and Bosnia.

There, the bargaining dialogue for sociopolitical concessions and guarantees over time escalated into full-scale ethnic warfare characterized by primordial genocide, also known as ethnic cleansing. At first, the principal actors in Croatia were the Croat President Franjo Tudjman and

the Croatian Serb leader Jovan Rašković. While the Tudjman’s government slowly strengthened

its power, the situation became tenser and both the government and the Serb minority polarized.

Rašković was later replaced by Milan Babić who used a less accommodating bargaining

position. Additionally, Milošević through its influence of the JNA became the main external

lobby state for the interest of the Serb minority.

4.1 What of the Serbs in Tudjman’s Croatia?

In Croatia, the commitment problem arose as a result of the Serbs who were about to get

stranded on the other side of the border. The 1991 census indicated that Croatian majority

constituted nearly 88% of the population, and that the remaining 12% were Serbs, most of which

had been concentrated in Croatian regions near the Serbian and the Bosnian borders. However,

pure Serb towns and part did not exist in Croatia. At best, Serbs and Croats lived in relatively

identical and mixed communities. Despite this, Serbs in Croatia remained skeptical of the Croat

57 The Serbs were the most dispersed nationality throughout the Balkans. According to the Library of Congress, Country Studies, only 70% percent of Serbs lived in Serbia. The remainder lived in Vojvodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Croatia, with small percentages in the rest of the Yugoslav republics. Detailed information regarding the actual percentage of Serb residents outside of Serbia is shown in A Country Study: Yugoslavia (Former) (Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress, 1992). Ref. No. DR1214.Y83 1992. 30

government in their treatment of minorities and advanced the idea of an autonomous province

within Croatia following the republic’s move toward secession. The sudden need among Croats

to establish a separate Croatian identity led Serbs to the formation of the Serbian Democratic

Party (SDS), a party representing the interests of Serbs in Croatia.58 In an interview for the New

York Times, its leader Jovan Rašković had been quoted reasoning the politics of the recently-

formed party as a counteract to the rising calls for Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia.59

Rašković and his supporters saw no reason why Serb-populated regions of Croatia should not be

allowed to also secede from the republic and form their own Serb autonomous province.

The upcoming 1990 parliamentary elections in Croatia indicated the resolve of the

Croatian statehood to secede from the federation. Even with the communist party still active,

remnants from the Croatian Spring of 1971 were easily resurrected following the formation of

the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), a party led by the same nationalist imprisoned by Tito’s

League of Communists. These intellectuals from Zagreb now pushed the idea for creating a

westernized Catholic state whose policies would favor the Croat welfare above all else. At its

head, the main architects of the revamped nationalist movement appointed Franjo Tudjman, one

of the most influential leaders during the Croatian Spring whose plans for Croatia differed from

those of the higher-ups in HDZ. The recently-appointed presidential candidate shared their

concerns of possible calls for the annexation of Serb-populated territories in the republic

emanating from Serbs in Croatia and irredentists in Belgrade, yet remained open to maintaining

democratic relations with the opposition.

Consequently, ultranationalists among the HDZ supporter base intensified the party’s

locomotive, gathering support from wealthy émigrés, who like their old friends, favored

58 Dejan Jović, State Collapse in South-Eastern Europe: New Perspectives on Yugoslavia’s Disintegration, eds. Lenard J. Cohen and Jasna Dravović-Soso (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2008), 269. 59 Ibid. 31

decommunization of Serb minorities out of the public sector.60 With a strong support base in

advanced Western countries, external funding poured in HDZ to enable rapid recruitment of

young Croat supporters. This way, HDZ became the main opposition of SDS. Despite the

increased pluralization, tensions between Serbs and Croats were not alarming. Defenders of the

old communist federation in Zagreb remained confident of the Croats’ belief in the communist

system and decided to amend the laws to ensure a clear victory. Prior to the elections, the

communist party developed an electoral system which granted the winning party an absolute

majority of seats in the new parliament.61 This way, the communists believed they had

guaranteed their party its first democratically-elected term and that the nationalist wave would be

unsuccessful in stirring up further tensions. In addition, the then recent polls indicated a 10

percent lead against Tudjman’s HDZ.

As fate would have it, the 1990 elections gave rise to HDZ. By securing 41.9% percent of

the votes, Tudjman’s party had successfully used the communists’ error and was thus elected to

lead the republic.62 Immediately after, bargaining talks between SDS and the new HDZ-

dominated administration commenced, putting Tudjman and Rašković at the center of the puzzle.

Initially, negotiations between the Croat president and the Serbian leader had promised credible

guarantees for the legitimacy of the Serb minority within the republic before later being

boycotted by third party interests and extremists among the HDZ ranks.63 According to Marcus

Tanner, Rašković held no skepticism for Tudjman’s resolve to negotiate credible concessions,

adding the following regarding the Croat president:

60 James D. Fearon, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, eds. D. A. Lake and D. Rothchild (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 120. 61 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 228. 62 Ibid; Detailed information on the 1990 elections can be found on the official website of Hrvatska Izvestajna Novinska Agencija, http://www.hina.hr/ 63 James D. Fearon, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, eds. D. A. Lake and D. Rothchild (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 120. 32

“He is a tough politician of clear conceptions who represents what most Croats accept. Tudjman is the kind of character who speaks quite openly about his intentions, and we like that…there’s no ideological fog when you’re talking with Tudjman.”64

To the Croat nationalist camp, Tudjman’s policy on considering concessions in mixed communities between Serbs and Croats in the Krajina and the Slavonia regions did not fit in with their plan for dealing with the Serb minority. Relinquishing control of local enforcement and security as well as allowing additional local administrative positions to non-Croats was out of the question. In terms of geostrategic position, Krajina and Slavonia represented ideal locations for

Milošević’s Serbia. Croat nationalists anticipated irredentist calls from Belgrade and feared the proximity to the Serbian hive these territories could provide Serbs in Croatia with. The Slavonia region connected northeastern Croatia and northwestern Serbia while the Krajina region separated eastern Croatia from Bosnia. Considering the number of Serbs residing in Bosnia as well as the ones near the Croat borders, the nationalist intellectuals in Zagreb influenced all of the HDZ’s decisions to reject concessions issued by non-Croat Serbs.

The prospect of being deprived of certain geopolitical guarantees could be enough even for non-extremist Serbs to engage the government now rather than later, regardless of possibilities of peaceful interethnic bargaining.65 The commitment problem, as developed by

Fearon, suggests that the Serb minority would either attempt to secede upon Croatia’s secession from SFRY or fight for greater guarantees within the new state. By entering the new state, the

Serb minority would allow newly independent Croatia to form various Croat-dominated political institutions, build a stronger state and control it via its own security apparatus. The logic of the commitment problem dictates that during such course of action, the government would have less

64 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 224. 65 James D. Fearon, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, eds. D. A. Lake and D. Rothchild (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 116. 33

of an incentive to honor its commitment and resist exploiting the minority in the future.

Conversely, the Serb minority could take a different approach by going to war with the Croat

government in hope of securing greater concessions.

4.2 Resurrecting Interethnic Violence

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, a possible remedy for the commitment problem in Croatia is securing third party guarantees. In theory, a credible commitment by an interested international community could be argued as a plausible answer to the dilemma. However, prior to the war, the only party interested enough was Serbia, and its intentions were not construed as impartial. At the federal level, the Council was inharmonious. Slovenia was preparing for its own secession while both Macedonia and Bosnia looked for ways to prevent the federation from falling apart. And for Serb leaders, it meant a great deal to support the cause of the Serb minority. In response to growing changes in Croatia’s national identity, intellectuals in Belgrade sympathized with their brothers in Croatia and urged Milošević and its party to come up with an

antidote. Soon, Milošević’s pawns in Krajina and Slavonia were able to intensify the nationalist

rhetoric and later used the widespread polarization between Croats and Serbs to wage “local- level, house-to-house” warfare to ethnically engineer the regions.66

The most notable of Milošević’s zealots, Milan Babić and Milan Martić, decided to make

greater use of SDS by sharpening its anti-Croat rhetoric and serving the Serbian cause within

Croatia. Babić, the star of Knin’s Town Council, sidelined the rather gutless Rašković and assumed control of SDS in 1990. Aided by the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the two used the recent decommunization of Serbs to alienate non-Croat Serbs from their Croat neighbors.67

66 James D. Fearon, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, eds. D. A. Lake and D. Rothchild (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 114. 67 Misha Glenny, The fall of Yugoslavia: The third Balkan war (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 12. 34

Meanwhile, the Tudjman administration signaled its intention to further minimize the Serb

identity in Croatia by invoking symbols of the Ustaša regime68, as well as abolishing the use of the Cyrillic alphabet.69 Until then, nearly 95% of the population in Croatia, including Serbs in

Krajina and Slavonia, had used the Latin version. This move was an unnecessary course of

action aimed to distinguish between the Latin-based version and its Cyrillic counterpart of the

Serbo-Croat language.70 Consequently, the recent anti-Serb strategies alienated Serbs who had, until this development, remained on the sidelines.

In a way, supporters of anti-Serb and anti-Croat politics in Zagreb and Belgrade, respectively, controlled interethnic tensions. With such tactics in place, neither side could credibly commit to an agreement. Hence, if credible commitments cannot be secured before an ethnic civil war breaks out, why do combatants then expect to secure greater concessions after fighting? Surely, minorities who are at risk of being defeated into compliance will favor peaceful bargaining rather than engaging the government. Nevertheless, the minority’s predicament is more complex than it seems. By not fighting, the Serb minority would allow future exploitation by Tudjman’s administration. In the event Croat leaders break their promises, what may seem credible during the bargaining process, carries the risk of turning out to be incredible once the

Croat government stabilizes its control of the state.

Therein lies one of the reasons why negotiations fail in civil wars. Similar to Fearon’s model of credible commitments, Walter too suggests that as long as there are opportunities for exploitation, negotiations for settlement will be unsuccessful.71 Moreover, she finds no relevancy in the conditions on the bargaining table in civil conflicts. Both the Serbs and the Croats could

68 The fascist Ustaša regime used a red-white chequered flag during its peak years amid WWII. 69 I Misha Glenny, The fall of Yugoslavia: The third Balkan war (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 12. 70 To this day, Croats use the Latin alphabet while Serbs use the Cyrillic. 71 Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 5. 35

agree on certain terms but at the risk of being bluffed by the majority, the Serb minority will

eventually continue to fight rather than waste its time on unenforceable terms of agreement. The situation in Croatia was somewhat similar to the civil war in Nigeria where the Igbo population, fearing future decommunization and massacre by the government, refused to sign a cease-fire, while the same were suspected of seeking foreign sympathizers to strike during times of peace.72

Thus, to overcome this obstacle, the dyadic couple would require more credibility which could be acquired through fair integration into the state government and statewide accommodation of the minority.

But even then the Serb minority would still have every reason to suspect the majority’s intentions. Extant literature on failed civil conflict negotiations classifies such reasons into six different theories: 1) cost of war; 2) balance of power; 3) domestic political institutions; 4) ethnic identity; 5) divisibility of stakes, and 6) mediation.73 Admittedly, all of the aforementioned theories fit the Croatian war. They each include variables and factors which create conditions for bargaining. Regardless, the missing element, and the crucial aspect of civil war negotiation, is not explained by the current theories and we are thus forced to search for the answer to recurring failures of the crisis bargaining process.

In order to answer this puzzle, I analyze the costly signaling and the circumstances which prevent disputants from committing to them. Without these, there would not be credibility in agreements. And if the agreements are impossible to implement, then the commitment problem will prevail.74 Thus, in order to eliminate the commitment problem the dyadic couple must first overcome the crucial barrier to civil war settlement – the safeguarding of quid-pro-quo

72 Barbara F. Walter, “The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement,” International Organization 51 (Summer 1997): 335-375. 73 Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 15. 74 Ibid., 19. 36

cooperation. During times of war, when negotiations are at hand, the primary objective of

disputants is to demilitarize and demobilize the enemy. By agreeing to mutually retreat forces

and dismember their militias, civil war combatants first reciprocate through military concessions

to overcome the highly treacherous period, and later bargain over new power-sharing agreements

to prevent future exploitation. In theory, the situation in Croatia would have been contained had

the two sides honestly committed to demobilization and restructuring of democratic institutions.

In reality, however, the increased skepticism along with the fear of sudden attack

aggravated the conflict. Serbs were not concerned about the Croat government in the short term

as much as they feared for their vulnerability in the long term, once the Tudjman administration

strengthened the republic. Thus, the minor resistance in Krajina soon became a full-fledged

military movement led by Babić.75 Extremists in SDS realized that without Croat officials in the

JNA, Tudjman’s administration would be easier to defeat. Interestingly, during 1990 the

Croatian military force consisted of local policemen and reservists without any combat

experience. Inspired by this weakness, SDS’s political dialogue now echoed complete secession

from the republic in contrast to Rašković’s more subtle idea of separate autonomy within

Croatia. As expected, Babić’s calls for separation were not welcomed lightly by the HDZ. In

addition, Serbs and Montenegrins, often considered cousins of Serbs, supplied weapons to the

rebels in Krajina which the Croats saw as a Serb attempt to keep the republic under a Serb-

dominated regime.76 The influence of JNA aid quickly spread to the town of Vukovar located on

the Serbo-Croat border in Eastern Slavonia, thereby forcing Tudjman to prepare the republic’s

forces for defense.

75 Misha Glenny, The fall of Yugoslavia: The third Balkan war (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 17. 76 Francine Friedman, “To Fight or not to Fight: The Decision to Settle the Croat-Serb Conflict,” International Interactions, Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations 23 (Winter 1997): 55-78. 37

In spite of his previous dedication to a peaceful bargaining process, the Croat president,

under false pretenses, sent two aircrafts to Knin to take over the local police station and town

hall, and with it diffuse the rebellion.77 Tudjman’s bluff was quickly discovered by JNA’s Air

Force who immediately sent MiG fighters to intercept the Croats.78 Consequently, Babić used

Tudjman’s deceptive strategy to stir up additional hysteria about the safety of Serbs in Croatia.

With the help of extremists in Belgrade, the JNA-aided rebellion from Krajina eventually clashed

with Croat policemen and reservists.

4.3 Fighting for Greater Bargaining Power

“- We have to secure unity in Serbia if we want, as the biggest and most numerous republic, to dictate events. These are questions of frontiers, essential questions of state. And frontiers, as you know, are dictated by the strong, not the weak. Are we going to tell everyone what we are going to do on the radio? We can’t do that. But if we need to fight, we’ll really fight. We may be no good at working or trading, but at least we know well how to fight.” 79 – Slobodan Milošević

The very core of crisis bargaining can be explained through a three-fold structure. The first concern among combatants is protecting private information. Information problems in intrastate disputes are nearly impossible to resolve.80 In the absence of complete information, the dyadic couple is less likely to settle the issue through peaceful resolution. This causes information asymmetries regarding the opponent’s resolve and capability to become a major obstacle in resolving disputes. Ideally, the government requires complete information to estimate the likelihood of an attack by the minority. But because rebel forces thrive on keeping information private, the government remains uncertain and reluctant to concede certain

77 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 233. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid. 80 Barbara F. Walter, “Bargaining Failures and Civil War,” Annual Review of Political Science 12 (2009): 243-261. 38

concessions. Conversely, rebel forces, too, experience periods of uncertainty. For them, the

primary goal is to determine whether the government is committed or uncommitted.

Theoretically speaking, rebels use the government’s track with rebellions to better assess its most

likely behavior. The theory, however, cannot be applied to the situation in Croatia. The Krajina

rebellion was unable to rely on previous clashes due to the fact there had not been any. Without a

track record, Serb combatants felt reluctant to honestly communicate their capability and kept

their information private.

The second concern is the state’s capability to maintain commitments to peace.81 Political

scholars have thus divided states accordingly: 1) states with weak political and legal institutions;

2) states with cemented cleavages, and 3) states with shifts in power between societal groups.82

Firstly, while Croatia prepared for secession, the new administration began restructuring the

republic to fit the universal democratic model. However, competent political institutions are

impossible to establish overnight, let alone guarantee foolproof enforcement of interethnic

treaties. Secondly, states with fixed political cleavages have a lower likelihood to commit to a

peace. Minorities in such states are skeptical of the majority’s incentive to resist future

exploitation. The overwhelming number of Croats in Croatia supporting the anti-Serb rhetoric

aggravated the commitment problem among Serbs. Thirdly, the complexity of powershifts in

states produces obstacles for civil disputants on the political stage. A downshift for the majority

is expected to push it away from the bargaining table whereas an upward spike in power worries

the opposition. And, with rapid ethno-nationalist sentiment infecting both sides, it was in the

interest of Croats to preserve the upper hand in domestic politics and for Serbs to be even more

skeptical.

81 Barbara F. Walter, “Bargaining Failures and Civil War,” Annual Review of Political Science 12 (2009): 243-261. 82 Ibid. 39

In addition to the aforementioned classification, there is another example that I believe

best fits the conflict in Croatia as well as the one in Bosnia which I discuss in the following

chapter. The disintegration of communist unions and federations, namely the USSR and

Yugoslavia, created states with reluctant governments as to the honoring of “rights of ethnic

minorities that found themselves stranded on the wrong side of newly drawn international

borders.”83 Such an explanation holds the potential to explain the commitment problem as it

echoes arguments made by sons-of-soil dynamics. From a scholarly perspective, sons-of-soil groups are insurgent bands fighting on behalf of an ethnic minority against the state’s forces.84

Although Fearon suggests sons-of-soil cases mostly characterize civil wars in Asia, I believe his definition fits this study. According to the scholar, in a sons-of-soil war, the insurgent minority is expected to either fight over land populated by migrants from the dominant majority or over control of resources in the minority’s home area.85 Because Serbs in Krajina and Slavonia demanded that they be granted complete control of these territories, the sons-of-soil dynamics somewhat explain the Croat leaders’ policies in regard to Serbs.

The final concern advances the idea of divisibility of stakes. Extant literature on international conflicts and crisis bargaining failures stipulate that as long as the issue at hand cannot be divided without depriving one of the parties of what it wants, the benefits of negotiations are unlikely to outweigh the benefits of fighting. The division of Croatia was not an idea shared by both sides. While supporters of Babić’s politics favored the carving of Serb- dominated regions in the republic, Croats remained adamant about preserving its current borders.

Ironically, Croatia’s own secessionist agenda produced subsequent secessionist calls from both

83 Barbara F. Walter, “Bargaining Failures and Civil War,” Annual Review of Political Science 12 (2009): 243-261. 84 James D. Fearon, “Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer Than Others?,” Journal of Peace Research 41 (May 2004): 275-301. 85 Ibid. 40

Krajina and Slavonia. Its decision to depart the Yugoslav federation brought on civil turmoil,

making the republic’s territory indivisible in their eyes. And once stakes become indivisible, the

chances of outright military victories are less likely than prolonged warring with ceasefires and stalemates.86

Sure enough, both Croats and Serbs proceeded to prepare themselves for the eye of the storm. By the end of 1990, not only had Croatia transformed the capabilities of its police forces

but had also formed its first Croat National Guard.87 Moreover, Croat military personnel commenced smuggling weapons in the country, directly violating demilitarization ultimatums

from JNA officials. Whether directly or indirectly, the Serb-controlled Yugoslav army had failed

to remain impartial in the conflict, indicated by the army’s frequent aid to Serbs in Croatia. In

addition to the numerous training programs and material aid extended to the Krajina rebellion,

JNA conscripts were ordered to confiscate all weapons from reservists in both Slovenia and

Croatia. Unlike Slovenia’s canny strategy to hide large quantities of weaponry prior to the

confiscation, the Croats failed to act quickly due to the existing presence of JNA troops in the

republic. Consequently, Croats increased the smuggling of AK-47s from Germany and Hungary

under orders from General Martin Špegelj, who was later caught on a video camera justifying the

illegal shipments as a way to fight off the Yugoslav army, thus triggering polarization among the

ranks of the Federal Yugoslav Council.88

Soon after, peace talks were held between Tudjman and Milošević at Karadjordjevo, an

old Serbian royal hunting lodge dating back to King Alexandar. The main purpose had been to

discuss the settlement of the conflict in Krajina, though precisely this was neglected by the two

86 Monica D. Toft, “Indivisible Territory, Geographic Concentration, and Ethnic War,” Security Studies 12 (Spring 2002): 92-119. 87 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 238. 88 Ibid., 243. 41

presidents. The end result of the negotiations at Karadjordjevo failed to produce any effort to

diffuse the situation in Croatia which indicated the leaders’ unwillingness to cooperate. Instead,

the fate of the Bosnian republic was discussed and plans were made pertaining to its carving into

a Croat and a Serb portion. Concurrently, another JNA-aided Serb rebellion from Slavonia

ignited with the help of Željko Ražnatović’s (Arkan) paramilitary forces.89 Its mission had been

to reclaim the territories seized by the fascist Ustaša regime during WWII, and thus joined the

Krajina rebellion in the fight against Croat forces supported by General Špegelj and other high-

ranked Croat nationalists.

In absence of credible commitments to uphold peaceful settlements, fighting occurs as a

consequence of a lack of serious bargaining90. Since it is natural to think of war as part of the

bargaining process, we can then deduce that both sides prefer an alternative method of crisis

bargaining. If the commitment problem is too great to allow either of the disputants to agree on a

set of terms, then by the logic of the bargaining theory the dyadic couple is expected to resolve

the bargaining positions over fighting. During the conflict in Croatia, extremists on both sides of

the dispute were reluctant to trust one another, and in one particular case such conviction

sabotaged negotiations in Eastern Slavonia. There, Josip Reihl-Kir, a Croat police chief who had

used peaceful dialogue to keep tensions from spiraling into full-scale bloodshed, was murdered

by a young Croat policeman employed by HDZ ultranationalists.91

The common approach to explain decisions to fight rather than bargain is by accepting

the assumption that disputants are not pleased with conditions on the bargaining table and thus

believe that an alternative course of actions would change the bargaining power. With this in

89 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 246. 90 James D. Fearon, “Fighting rather than bargaining,” draft presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, 2007. 91 BBC: Death of Yugoslavia (British Broadcasting Corporation, 1995), Part 3. 42

mind, not only do we expect separatists to challenge governments over territorial claims but also

are able to explain why governments mobilize instead of conceding to the minority’s

concessions. Thus, the decision to fight rather than settle the conflict can be analyzed through an

expected utility analysis developed for situations riven with nationalistic overtones.92 Drawn

from the principle of micro-economics, the expected utility model of conflict was first introduced

by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita to examine policy decisions during a real time crisis situation and

provide information to involved decision-makers.93 In 1991, Dijana Pleština, an expert on

Yugoslav politics, graphed its dynamics during the crisis bargaining process by classifying each

actor’s position on the dissolution of Yugoslavia into five levels: 1) 0 – Greater Serbia; 2) 25 –

preserving Tito’s model; 3) 50 – loose federation with increased power to the republics; 4) 75 -

complete federation, and 5) 100 – Full Croat independence. Accordingly, the collected data was

then utilized to show the overall forecast of the Croat-Serb conflict as shown below.

Table 4.1: Difference between the bargaining positions of Croats and Serbs

Acronym Group Name Position Capability Salience Influence

EXTRE Serb extremists 0 100 1.0 100

ARMY Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) 15 100 1.0 100

MILOS Slobodan Milošević 15 80 1.0 80

SERB Serb Orthodox Church 15 50 .5 25

SERBI Serbs in Yugoslavia 30 10 1.0 10

CROA Organized Croat Émigrés 100 40 .6 24

92 Francine Friedman, “To Fight or not to Fight: The Decision to Settle the Croat-Serb Conflict,” International Interactions, Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations 23 (Winter 1997): 55-78. 93 Ibid. 43

Table 4.1 – Continued

Acronym Group name Position Capability Salience Influence

PARAG Paraga Croat extremist 100 30 1.0 30

TUDJM Franjo Tudjman 100 90 1.0 90

CROAT Croats in Croatia 100 90 1.0 90

The Yugoslav Crisis 94

The data above suggests that given the stark contrast between the two most extreme

points, the conflict in Croatia could not be settled without the offer of concessions. From the

perspective of Milošević and JNA generals, Croatia’s full independence was not an acceptable

solution. As the data indicates, Milošević would continue to press Serbian claims to either

territorially divide the republic or maintain a tight (Titoist) federation. Conversely, Tudjman and

the remaining Croats would remain strictly focused on declaring independence and deterring

opponents who desired concessions.

4.4 Third-party Presence and Credible Guarantees

“…The greatest challenge facing civil war opponents at the negotiating table is to design a treaty that convinces the combatants to shed their partisan armies and surrender conquered territory…”95

This subchapter argues that the primary objective during civil war negotiations is

not to divide the territory and address the grievances which started the war, or for that matter

prevent irreversible commitments. Instead, combatants should go through great lengths to strike

94 Francine Friedman, “To Fight or not to Fight: The Decision to Settle the Croat-Serb Conflict,” International Interactions, Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations 23 (Winter 1997): 55-78. 95 Barbara F. Walter, “Designing Transitions From Civil War: Demobilization, Democratization and Commitments to Peace,” International Security 24 (Summer 1999): 127-155. 44

a treaty agreement with quid-pro-quo concessions which will increase their vulnerability and test their credibility. As neither disputant is able to credibly signal its willingness to stay true to its statements, civil war negotiations often will require a third party to ease the process of implementation. Herein, the third party acts as a guarantor during the highly treacherous period to eliminate uncertainty among belligerents and help them make serious concessions.96 By guaranteeing that groups will be protected, the third party ensures that payoffs from cheating on a civil war agreement are no longer appealing to combatants. In short, they must be resolved and ready to use force if either of the disputants decides to renegade and attack the other.97

In international relations, the breaking down of civil conflict negotiations is attributed to two types of combatants: 1) combatants who do not wish to reach a settlement and 2) combatants who cannot agree on a settlement.98 The first camp suggests that combatants may not favor settlement that would accommodate their opposition. According to Horowitz, leaders of ethnically divided states are reluctant to make concessions that would improve the minority’s status99. Such leaders have many strategic reasons to reject demands issued by challengers which can vary from reputational concerns to simple stalling for time.

On the other hand, combatants unable to agree to a settlement often encounter obstacles during negotiations due to more pragmatic issues. Paul Pilar has indicated that indivisible stakes influence decisions to back down from agreements.100 Similarly, Harrison Wagner argues in The

Causes of Peace that as long as neither side gets what it wants without depriving the other of

96 Barbara F. Walter, “Designing Transitions From Civil War: Demobilization, Democratization and Commitments to Peace,” International Security 24 (Summer 1999): 127-155. 97 Ibid. 98 Ibid. 99 Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 564. 100 Paul Pilar, Negotiation Peace: War Termination as a Bargaining Process (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 24. 45

most of what it wants, the stakes at hand discourage credible commitments.101 James Fearon implies that it is the value of winning the war that aggravates the bargaining process, thus increasing chances for continuous fighting.102

A more accepted view on combatants who cannot reach an agreement examines the role of incomplete information. As I mentioned in the previous chapters, withholding private information prevents combatants from trusting one another, making it difficult to compromise a solution. Fearing bluff by their opponents, disputants in the Croatian conflict underreported their capabilities and quantities of weaponry. If Serbs and Croats were to divulge complete information, the outcome would become two-fold; it could either facilitate a settlement or leave them vulnerable to attack.103

Resolving the conflict in Croatia posed a difficult task. The success of cease-fires and peace treaties depended on complete demobilization, demilitarization and dissolution of militia forces. Precisely this was impossible to accomplish despite efforts at the highest level of the

Yugoslav Council and the European Community (EC). In the summer of 1991, the European

Troika, comprised of Jacques de Poos of Luxembourg, Gianni de Michaelis of Italy, and Hans

Van den Broek of the Netherlands, attempted to get the headless Yugoslav presidency back into operation to arrange ceasefires in Slovenia and Croatia but also Croatia to put a three-month moratorium on its declaration for independence.104 The troika had remained present for Stipe

Mesić’s appointment as the chairman of the Yugoslav rotating presidency before returning to the

EC. However, appointing a Croat to the highest presidency failed to dissuade Milošević from

101 Harrison R. Wagner, Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End, ed. R. Licklider (New York, New York University Press, 1993), 236. 102 James D. Fearon, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, eds. D. A. Lake and D. Rothchild (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 108-120. 103 Barbara F. Walter, “Designing Transitions From Civil War: Demobilization, Democratization and Commitments to Peace,” International Security 24 (Summer 1999): 127-155. 104 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 250. 46

intervening in the secessionist republics. After a brief conflict in Slovenia, JNA forces

transferred all equipment to Croatia and Bosnia in spite of numerous requests by the Yugoslav

president to withdraw back to Serbia. At this point, it was evident that Serbia had complete

control of the JNA and that Mesić’s presidency was irrelevant.

Following Croatia’s referendum of independence on June 25, 1991, JNA forces and Serb

rebels in Slavonia and Krajina commenced attacks on Croat towns from west and east

respectively. As pressure mounted toward Zagreb, the Europeans decided to once again send the

troika to Yugoslavia who after not being permitted by Milošević to monitor the alleged attacks

by Croat fascists, took matters to the UN Security Council. With the EC peace initiative nowhere

near sight, Croats finally launched offensives. Luka Bebić, Croatia’s Defense Minister, justified

the confrontation with the Yugoslav army as a necessity.105 According to Croat generals, it

proved costly to wait on the EC to resolve the matter on the international stage. To their own

misfortune, the Europeans condemned Tudjman’s decision to besiege the army bases around

Zagreb, accusing the president of escalating the conflict.

The EC unequivocally failed from the very beginning as it lacked the commitment to

oversee intrastate politics in Yugoslavia. In short, the foreign ministries were unsuccessful in

detecting Milošević’s involvement in the conflict in Croatia. Although the Serb president denied

any involvement in the war, it was obvious that Serbia had supported the Serb uprisings from day one. In addition, leaders in Belgrade controlled the media context in Serbia to gather widespread support for counter-fascist missions, countering the media campaign in Croatia.

Moreover, Milošević temporarily supported Lord Carrington’s plan to cease fire while the

Yugoslav republics reviewed the newly-submitted 4+2 structure of the federation only to orchestrate a covert attack on Vukovar. The Serb president diverted all attention to the coastal

105 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 256. 47

town of Dubrovnik where after a heavy bombarding campaign he allowed negotiations with the

UN to cover the massacre in Vukovar. Within a couple of weeks, the town was under complete

control by Serb forces.

Kaufmann believes that in order for international intervention to work, be it either

through mediation or military presence, it must be guided by two principles – complete

separation of the warring communities and assistance to aid the weaker side or on a need

basis.106 Was this implemented in Croatia? Under the Vance Plan, approved by the UN Security

Council in 1991, Croats were instructed to lift all blockades on the army to allow JNA forces to retreat from the republic. To communicate its commitment during the demobilization period,

14,000 UN peacekeepers had been deployed in Croatia to create three demilitarized United

Nations Protected Areas (UNPAs) in Western and Eastern Slavonia as well as in Krajina.

According to Walter, the number of UN peacekeepers committed to the Croatian war represented a credible amount, thereby indicating a strong commitment by the UN.107 The scholar believes that commitments by third parties in the form of troop deployment can be broken down into 3

levels: 1) under 500 troops, the commitment is considered weak and fails to facilitate attempts at

peaceful settlements; 2) troop deployment between 1000 and 5000 indicates a mediocre

commitment to a conflict, and 3) 10,000 troops or more deployed during a conflict

communicates a strong and credible commitment to aid disputants during the treacherous

period.108

Was UN’s deployment of 14,000 peacekeepers enough to guarantee a successful

demobilization period? At first glance, it appeared that the fourteenth attempt at peace talks

106 Chaim Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars.” International Security 20 (Fall 1996): 136-175. 107 Barbara F. Walter, “ The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement,” International Organization 51 (Summer 1997): 335-375. 108 Ibid. 48

between Croats and Serbs had found a short-term solution to ending the conflict. UN

peacekeepers enabled refugees to return to their homes where control of the local police was to

be restored based on the ethnic composition prior to the war.109 Additionally, UN peacekeepers were expected to disband the JNA, the Croat National Guard and all paramilitary forces. As for the Serb-controlled zones, also known as pink zones, the plan had been to eventually restore its autonomy to the Croatian authority.

One major shortcoming, however, was the sovereignty of Krajina, the root of the

Croatian conflict. Since the UN had failed to address it, its fate would be determined in the aftermath of the Bosnian war. Another impediment of the Vance Plan was the nature of the bargaining terms. Loosely based on a take-it-or-leave-it method, the plan was practically forced upon the Yugoslav leaders. This was not the right course to peacefully end the bargaining process. The agreement had left Milošević, Tudjman and Babić without any time to discuss a more permanent enlargement of its nature before it was adopted by UN Member-States. Finally,

the presence of UN peacekeepers was not enough to credibly guarantee the safety of both Croats

and Serbs in Croatia despite the substantial amount of protective force. UNPROFOR’s primary

duties were not to administer the terms of the ceasefire, but to merely monitor the progress from

the border. Although the UN worked out a temporary solution to power-sharing in mixed

communities in Croatia, it temporarily postponed violence in the same regions.

In Croatia, external guarantees failed to eliminate the security dilemma associated with

the process of demobilization and power-sharing. In theory, the danger of demobilization should

be clear to both the disputants and the third party guarantor. Once possible dangers have been

identified, the goal is to consolidate a plan that would minimize, if not, completely extinguish the

109 Bertrand de Rossanet, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping in Yugoslavia (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1996), 65. 49

commitment problem. In order to do so, third-party brokered plans should include three

safeguards: 1) unilateral enhancement of defenses to prevent reneging and sudden attacks; 2) more realistic and less risky consolidations to reduce opportunities to cheat, and 3) reinforcing trust by costly signaling.110 This offers disputants the chance to transfer weapons equipment over to their defenses while at the same time demobilize their militia forces. If done reciprocally, the tit-for-that behavior is expected to communicate credibility. While UN peacekeepers escorted

JNA forces out of Croatia and monitored the withdrawal of the Croat National Guard, Serb militias were demilitarized by handing over weapons to UN camps. Without any means to defend themselves and immediate support from JNA conscripts, Serbs in Croatia were reluctant to implement the peace process.

UN’s failure to implement its mandate did not go unnoticed by the Croats either.111.As

Croat leaders grew impatient with UNPROFOR’s inefficiency to relinquish Serb control of the enclaves and disarm their militias, further tension escalated between the Croatian government and the Serb minority, with each side reverting to the use of force and eventually discontinuing the ceasefire112 Subsequently, Croatian launched offensives, also known as Operations Flash and

Storm, to reestablish links with areas along the Dalmatian coast and Slavonia, its northeastern region, further undermining the Vance Plan.113 Violence also escalated around the UNPAs, and once Serb militias broke into these areas to retrieve their weapons, UN’s futility became clear.114

In retrospect, the Vance Plan was too ambitious to begin with and majorly flawed. Croatia used the deployment of UN troops to gain its strength, both economically and militarily, which

110 Barbara F. Walter, “Designing Transitions From Civil War: Demobilization, Democratization and Commitments to Peace,” International Security 24 (Summer 1999): 127-155. 111 Alan James, “The UN in Croatia: An Exercise in Futility?, The World Today 49 (May 1993): 93-96. 112 Ibid. 113 William J. Durch and James A. Schear, UN Peacekeeping, American Policy and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, ed. William J. Durch (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 217. 114 Ibid. 50

enabled it to orchestrate various strategies in ethnically engineering Serb-populated regions in the republic.115 Across the Croat-Bosnian border, Serbs populated majority of the contiguous territory. The fast-paced progress of Serb militias in the beginning of the same year worried the

Tudjman administration, forcing the Croats to renege on the agreement preemptively against a

possible spillover of the Bosnian war. Henceforth, the war in Croatia became the platform for the

Croatian mission in Bosnia and the two conflicts endured concurrently until 1995.

In summary, Serbs in Krajina and Slavonia moved toward secession due to the rising

uncertainty of future relations between the Croat majority and the Serb minority. On the other

hand, Croats feared the realization of Greater Serbia and politicized its anti-Serb rhetoric to

preserve the territorial division designed by Tito and the Communists in 1945. Consequently,

neither side was able to issue credible statements. Croats decommunized Serbs and invoked

symbols of the WWII fascist regime while Serbs vehemently promoted an autonomous union of

Serb-populated regions in Croatia. Negotiations in Croatia did not fail because ethnic animosity

made compromise impossible; they failed because civil war combatants were unable to endure

periods of heightened vulnerability while they gave up their means of defense in return for

incredible third-party guarantees.

115 William J. Durch and James A. Schear, UN Peacekeeping, American Policy and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, ed. William J. Durch (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 217. 51

CHAPTER FIVE BARGAINING IN BOSNIA: A TALE OF THREE BELLIGERENTS

In Bosnia, the main actors were the Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović, the Bosnian

Serb leader Radovan Karadžić, and the Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban. Initially, the commitment problem arose with Izetbegović’s push for a sovereign Muslim state. Serbs in

Bosnia were considerable larger in size than their brothers in Croatia and were against full secession from SFRY. The Croats, on the other hand, became more vehement at a later point when violence erupted between them and Muslims in Herzegovina. The wave of Muslim refugees into regions near the Croatian border increased the Croats’ vulnerability of political shifts and led to stronger calls for Croat autonomy within Bosnia. Additionally, both Milošević and Tudjman entered the conflict and replaced Boban and Karadžić by shifting from external lobby actors to the principal actors in the conflict along with Alija Izetbegović.

5.1 Scramble for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Unlike the conflict in Croatia, the Bosnian question was more complex. As the UN struggled to settle the Serbo-Croat conflict, the hitherto peaceful republic of Bosnia and

Herzegovina (BiH) was already taking measures to follow Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia out of the federation. In the final quarter of 1991, the then Bosnian president and leader of Bosnian

Muslims, henceforth referred to as Bosniaks, began pushing for a Bosnian referendum on independence. With it, Izetbegović intended to put an Islamic stamp on the multiethnic state, an obviously optimistic idea given the republic’s ethnic composition.116 The census of 1991

116 Edgar O’Ballance, Civil War in Bosnia, 1992-94 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 1. 52

indicated there had been 43, 5% Bosniaks, 31, 2% Serbs, and 17, 4% Croats residing in Bosnia

prior to the war along with a small percentage of Macedonians, Montenegrins and Roma117.

Bosnia, often viewed as a miniature version of Yugoslavia, had higher chances of surviving the federation’s dissolution as neither ethnic group had a majority. In theory, such a

mix could encourage multiethnic coalitions, power-sharing and rotating terms, similar to the

Yugoslav federation. In addition, the ethnic blocks in the republic were more mixed than divided. No large town or region in Bosnia was ethnically pure mostly due to the swift territorial

division implemented by Tito in 1944 who had deliberately cut the territories of the Yugoslav

republics in order to bring balance among the Yugoslavs, thus stranding Serbs and Croats on the

other side of the borders.118 The republic’s composition gave hope to international leaders that

Bosnia could survive Yugoslavia’s disintegration. The reality, however, narrated a different

story. Following the developments in Croatia, the mixed ethnic blocks in Bosnia became most

prone to civil warfare. The leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadžić, saw no compromise

within a Muslim-run state, thus sharpened his political dialogue to mirror that of Serbs in Croatia

and intellectuals in Belgrade. Karadžić politicized Bosnia’s carving as a necessity due to the

large number of Serbs who lived in the republic. His answer to the Bosnian question echoed the

Greater Serbia plan consisted of Serbia and Serb-populated regions in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo

and Vojvodina.119

At that time, Izetbegović’s Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the Bosnian version of

SDS, and the local HDZ branch held 86, 70 and 45 seats in the republic’s parliament,

117 Detailed information on the 1991 census of Bosnia and Herzegovina is shown on the official website of the republic’s Federal Office of Statistics, http://fzs.ba/ 118 Ibid, 4. 119 Brendan O’Shea, The Modern Yugoslav Conflict 1991-1995 (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 20. 53

respectively.120 Although there had been no majority in the republic, Bosniaks counted on their pluralistic dominance to sway internal politics in their favor. On 15 September 1991, the Bosnian

Assembly decided to declare its sovereignty from SFRY which put Bosniaks, but mostly

Izetbegović’s SDA, at odds with Croats and Serbs.121 A month later, the Bosniak leader had the same convinced that secession was the right path for entire Bosnia. On 15 January 1992, EU recognized Slovenia and Croatia as independent states, which led to the EC-brokered conference in Lisbon where the three main parties met to discuss Bosnia’s independence. After much opposition from all sides, the final decision allowed ethnic communities to retain some power, though the specifics had not been addressed.

On 1 March 1992, Bosnians voted in favor of the referendum on independence which was signed two days later. But before Bosnians could celebrate, fighting had already broken out in Bosanski Brod and around Sarajevo, the capital city.122 Izetbegović’s unitary policy to recognize the sovereignty of the entire territory sparked anti-Bosniak movements among Croats and Serbs which the belligerents of the Croatian war had no intention on ignoring. During this time, Croatia and Serbia were already the main focus of numerous rumors and speculations regarding mutual clandestine efforts to carve up Bosnia.123 The then US ambassador, Warren

Zimmerman, explained that neither Tudjman nor Milošević had any real desire to give up

Bosnia.124 Zimmerman’s meetings with the two leaders in 1992 convinced him that a grab for

Bosnia had been imminent. A year prior, during the famous meeting in Karadjordjevo, the two sides discussed the fate of Bosnia instead of addressing the Krajina rebellion, a fact I included in

120 Brendan O’Shea, The Modern Yugoslav Conflict 1991-1995 (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 21. 121 Edgar O’Ballance, Civil War in Bosnia, 1992-94 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 7. 122 Joyce P. Kaufman, NATO and the Former Yugoslavia: Crisis, Conflicts and the Atlantic Alliance (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002), 71-77. 123 Edgar O’Ballance, Civil War in Bosnia, 1992-94 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 4. 124 Brendan O’Shea, The Modern Yugoslav Conflict 1991-1995 (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 31. 54

the previous chapter. Thus, both the US and the UN acted preemptively in anticipation of similar

ethnic violence to the war in Croatia and recognized the Bosnian republic as a sovereign state on

6 April, 1992. In order to deter external lobby republics from interfering with Bosnian politics, the international community internationalized the conflict.

In retrospect, Izetbegović’s hasty decision to secede the entire republic was not a well- thought-out plan. Not only did Bosnian Muslims account for less than half of the population, but they advanced the idea of Bosnian dominance over Serbs and Croats. Clearly, a more functional approach would have been to discuss partitions of contiguous Serbian and Croatian lands, though this was thought to be severely impeded by the lack of pure ethnic communities.125 The presence of JNA forces in Bosnia did not make things easier either. Instructed to withdraw from Croatia, the majority of the JNA conscripts settled in Bosnian cities populated heavily by Serbs. This allowed Bosnian Serbs to form their own autonomous republic within Bosnia called Republika

Srpska stretching from northwestern Bosnia near Eastern Slavonia to the republic’s southeastern borders with Croatia and Montenegro. Its location proved to be an excellent geostrategic position for Serb combatants who later executed attacks in the heart of Bosnia and the contiguous war zones in Croatia.

For Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs, there was no room for peaceful bargaining. Bosniaks believed their overall dominance entitled them to create an Islamic state with scattered intermixed communities. Under the Ottomans’ rule, the population in Bosnia mixed in with Turk combatants, creating a concentrated colony of Turk descendants among Slavs, one that would later become completely separated following the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, the constitution of 1968 recognized Muslims as a distinct nationality within Yugoslavia which gave rise to the Muslim identity.

125 Brendan O’Shea, The Modern Yugoslav Conflict 1991-1995 (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 4. 55

The Serbs, however, strongly opposed the idea of a former Muslim colony becoming a state and with it, separating Serbs from their brothers in Serbia and Montenegro. For Serbs, keeping territories of Bosnia was more precious than the fight in Croatia which can be explained by their arduous history of protecting the territory. During the Bosnian crisis in 1909, Austro-

Hungary threatened the annexation of the Bosnian territory to which the Serbs responded by recruiting the help of the more powerful Russians in their fight over the territory. Despite

Russia’s failure to deter Austro-Hungary from invasion, the Serbs’ commitment to defend

Bosnia led to the start of the First World War when Serb rebels assassinated the Austro-

Hungarian prince Gavrillo Princip in Sarajevo in 1914. Because minorities favor concessions to repression, Serbs were expected to radicalize their political discourse in Bosnia. 126 The combination of a repressive majority, the Bosniaks, and a supportive lobby state, Serbia, increased the likelihood of conflict in the republic, identical to the conditions in Croatia. In crisis bargaining, minorities can choose between rebelling and submitting to the new institutions, and once a choice has been made, the government has the option to either challenge or concede.127 In

Bosnia, Serbs made the first move by favoring the secession of Bosnian Serbs from the republic to submitting to a Muslim state.

As for the Croats, the idea of remaining integrated within a Serb-dominated federation was less popular than the idea of living within independent Bosnia where three ethnicities led the government.128 Also, the absolute size of the Croat minority was inferior to its Serb and Bosniak counterpart. Therefore, Croats in Bosnia first supported the push for secession and formed a

126 Erin K. Jenne, “A Bargaining Theory of Minority Demands: Explaining the Dog that did not bite in 1990s Yugoslavia,” International Studies Quarterly 48 (2004): 729-754. 127 Ibid. 128 Francine Friedman and Ismeene Gizelis, “Fighting in Bosnia: An expected utility evaluations of possible settlements,” International Interactions: Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations 23 (May 1997): 351-365. 56

federation with Izetbegović’s party. Once the Bosnian Croats concentrated in the southern

regions of the republic, it received increased support from its own lobby state, Croatia. The

territorial contiguity encouraged Croats in Bosnia to now push for autonomy within the republic.

5.2 External Intervention in Bosnia

The presence of geographically concentrated kin was expected to allure external

intervention by Croatia and Serbia.129 Determined by its settlement patterns, ethnic Serbs in

Bosnia formed a contiguous Serb autonomous province which would allow a more direct

intervention by Milošević during the war. Further, their proximity to ethnic Serbs in Croatia

enabled rapid deployment of reinforcements in target regions. According to Ada Huibregtse, the

likelihood of intervention depends on the strength of the link between an ethnic kin in a target

state and the dominant ethnic group in the intervening state.130 If strong enough, the two sides will increase their mutual cooperation through cross-border alliances.

On 27 April 1992, Serbia and Montenegro formed the third Yugoslavia (FRY) headed by

a federal president and prime minister.131 On the same day, JNA forces were instructed to

withdraw from Bosnia only after they had relinquished 80,000 troops, namely ones who were

natives to the Bosnian republic, to help set up a Bosnian Serb army.132 Such military

domestication was designed by leaders in Belgrade to avoid aggravating the international

community for its involvement in Bosnia. The seemingly “dismembered” element of the

Yugoslav Army (VJ),133 allowed Serbia, and primarily Milošević, to control developments

across the border. Simultaneously, Bosnian Serb combatants formed the Army of Republika

129 Ada Huibregtse, External Intervention in Ethnic Conflict, International Interactions: Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations 36 (2010): 265-293. 130 Ibid. 131 Robert Thomas, The Politics of Serbia in the 1990s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 120. 132 Ibid., 121. 133 The Yugoslav People’s Army officially ceased to exist on 19 May when it was replaced by the Yugoslav Army. 57

Srpska (VRS) which was commanded by Ratko Mladić, a former commander of the JNA garrison in Knin.134

In spite of all of Milošević’s efforts to deny any involvement in the Bosnian conflict, the

UN Security Council imposed economic sanction against the FRY on 30 May in addition to the arms embargo enforced at the beginning of 1992. The most dominant Member-States believed that a harsh economic pressure would deter Serbia from further contributing to the warfare in

Bosnia. Moreover, the remaining political players in Milošević’s SPS intensified their opposition to the then government policies by splitting off and creating small branches of existing parties.

Unfortunately, this would prove to be inefficient in the long run as Milošević replaced lost factions with young, pro-Serb zealots who helped recruit an even larger support base. In order to prevent future nationwide protests and political fallouts, Milošević invited Dobrica Ćosić, a rather likeable Serb figure, to become the first FRY President, and also added Milan Panic, an

American businessman born in Serbia, as his Prime Minister.135 His primary goal was to indicate its willingness to cooperate with moderates while he secretly dictated Yugoslavia’s politics behind closed doors. As for the UN embargos, its effects were temporarily postponed by Serbia’s continuous dinar-printing macroeconomic policies and the notorious smuggling of weaponry into the federation.

Similarly, nationalists in Croatia felt responsible toward the concentrated minority of

Croat brethren and provided aid in their struggle for independence. At first, the Tudjman administration was adamant on only ensuring the survival of Croat communities from Serb attacks. This led to the formation of a Muslim-Croat federation between the newly-established

134 Robert Thomas, The Politics of Serbia in the 1990s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 122. 135 Ibid., 122. 58

Croatian Defense Council (HVO) and the Bosnian government.136 For nearly two months,

Croatia aided the alliance to withstand the wide-scale progress of Serb combatants who had claimed 70 percent of BiH’s territory thus far. Through joint efforts, Muslim and Croat combatants liberated the southern region bordering Croatia in June of 1992, with the recapture of the eastern bank of the city of Mostar.

Its proximity, however, allowed Croat combatants who had fought in the Croatian war in

1991 to migrate across the border and to better protect Croat territories in Bosnia. This influx coupled with the establishment of the Herzeg-Bosnia province caused a split in the Muslim-

Croat alliance. Subsequently, Muslim combatants departed the ranks of the Croat HVO and joined the units of the Bosniak-led army. As the ultimate head of all Croat states, Tudjman transferred the control of the Bosnian HDZ in winter 1992 over to Mate Boban, who established

Mostar as the capital city of Herzeg-Bosnia. Under Boban’s command, members of the HVO held key offices and set up checkpoints where Croats kept large percentage of the weapon shipments intended and paid for by the Bosnian government. Boban’s pro-Croat policies drove an even larger wedge between Croats and Muslims which brought scores of Muslim mujahedeen from Afghanistan. Moreover, the recent string of successes by Bosnian Serbs led by Mladić further exacerbated Croat-Muslim tensions in Mostar. The former JNA commander executed attacks in the northern regions of Bosnia in an attempt to create a corridor between Belgrade,

Banja Luka, and Knin. Such advances pushed Muslims to the south, thereby overflowing Croat- dominated parts of the republic. Shortly thereafter, Croats were greatly outnumbered by

Bosniaks.

As the international community focused its efforts on Serbia, the Croat-Muslim tension was largely ignored in the beginning. Despite Izetbegović’s frequent bickering regarding HVO

136 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997), 286. 59

activities in Herzegovina, the Western powers were afraid of internationalizing the conflict and stood by idly. Foreign governments and international organizations had been aware of the

279,000 Muslim refugees sheltered by Tudjman’s administration in Croatia and made efforts to avoid further provoking feelings of nationalism among Croats, only this time against

Bosniaks.137 The spillover of displaced Bosniaks worried the Croat administration, forcing it to

use the international spotlight on Serbia to renege on the Vance Plan and launch offensives against the Krajina Serbs. Consequently, the Serb militias in by the Croat-Bosnian border

infiltrated the UNPAs to take back the weaponry that had previously been handed over to

UNPROFOR. Still, the international community remained but a spectator and imposed no

sanctions, for an additional plan had been brewing among members of the UNSC.

5.3 The Vance-Owen Peace Plan (VOPP)

What makes for successful mediation? Third-party presence is often considered to be a

key component of conflict resolution.138 As I mentioned in the previous two chapters,

combatants normally seek the help of external powers to consolidate a peaceful settlement of an

ongoing civil conflict. Identically, third parties are looked upon to resolve international wars.

When looking for a third party to intervene in a conflict, we expect to find states or non-

governmental organizations with credible power, impartiality and above all, an interest in the

resolution of the conflict.

Existing literature, however, indicates there are still many unanswered questions

concerning third-party presence, particularly mediations.139 The ongoing debate on bargaining in

intra- and interstate wars has thus far produced several camps of scholars who question the

137 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997), 288. 138 Andrew Kydd, “Which Side are you on? Bias, Credibility, and Mediation,” American Journal of Political Science 47 (October 2003): 597-611. 139 Ibid. 60

normal grasps of what a mediator should be. Some scholars have argued that mediators should

not remain indifferent to the terms on the bargaining table and that bias is the main motivator behind third-party intervention.140 Likewise, the realist camp has suggested that mediations

represent opportunities for large third-parties to settle conflicts to their liking.141 Conversely,

institutionalists have maintained that neutrality is more powerful provided that third parties are

able to exert influence by offering credible guarantees to combatants and thus believe that

neutrality and information-sharing facilitates cooperation.142

The aforementioned views can all be tested by observing mediation attempts in crisis

bargaining in Yugoslavia. By 1993, resolving the civil war in Bosnia had become an oxymoron

for the European powers. The reality was that Europe did not exist as a single entity.143 The

powers that be were clearly divided, biased and failed utterly in negotiating a settlement. At that

time, it was no secret that Russia and Britain favored Serbia, in part due to their Slavic

connection and well-integrated circle of wealthy émigrés, respectively, while Germany and

Austria supported Croatia. Often, Croats claimed that large aspects of their culture had derived

from Austro-Hungary and Germany in addition to similar Roman Catholic states. Thus, without

any real desire to punish the favorites or adhere to proposals offered by sympathizers of the

enemy, the future of Bosnia was bleak, at best.

However, it is important to note that settling the conflict posed no easy task for third

parties. Prior to the outbreak of the war, the republic was multiethnic, multicultural and

multireligious in the fullest sense as there were no towns, or regions for that matter, that were

140 Saadia Touval and William I. Zartman, Mediation Research: The Process and Effectiveness of Third-Party Intervention , ed. K. Kressel and D. G. Pruitt (Hoboken: Jossey-Bass, 1989), 118. 141 Cristopher Gelpi, Imperfect Unions: Security Institutions over Time and Space, eds., H. Haftendorn, R. O. Keohane, and C. Wallander (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 117. 142 Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discort in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). 143 Kemal Kurspahic, War and Change in the Balkans: Nationalism, Conflict and Cooperation, ed. B. K. Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 76. 61

classified as purely Muslim, Serb, or Croat. By 1992, the three ethnicities were so deeply mixed

among each other that members of each ethnic group cohabitated in apartment buildings,

attended same schools, and even entered mixed marriages.144 Precisely this made it difficult for

third parties to resolve the ongoing civil warfare. Recurring offers to divide the country into three

separate regions like the one proposed in Lisbon in 1992 only encouraged extremists among all

sides to take up arms and ethnically cleanse one another to create pure Serb, Croat, and Muslim territories.

In February 1993, mediators Cyrus Vance of the UN and David Owen of the EU offered a political solution to the conflict in Bosnia which entailed a division of the republic into 10 ethnic cantons.145 If accepted, the VOPP promised each of the ethnic groups three provinces excluding the central province in Sarajevo which was intended to remain mixed and under international control. In the post-war years, Owen criticized the lack of American support of the VOPP and the dishonest Yugoslav leaders for the plan’s failure to facilitate peaceful resolution.146 During his testimony in the trial of Milošević conducted by the International Tribunal Court for

Yugoslavia (ITCY) in The Hague in 2003, Owen pointed out that Milošević had proceeded to support Serb violence in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 instead of using his influence and power to help implement the VOPP.147

In contrast, James Gow’s Triumph of the Lack of Will offers a more plausible explanation of the failed UN/EU-brokered negotiations. Although some of his arguments run along Owen’s criticism of the Clinton administration, the expert on the Bosnian conflict believes that the

144 Kemal Kurspahic, War and Change in the Balkans: Nationalism, Conflict and Cooperation, ed. B. K. Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 77. 145 “Milosevic ‘had power to end fighting’,” British Broadcasting Company, November 3, 2003. 146 Sabrina P. Ramet, Thinking about Yugoslavia: Scholarly Debates about the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 78. 147 “Milosevic ‘had power to end fighting’,” British Broadcasting Company, November 3, 2003 62

overall lack of will among Britain, France, and Germany was the main reason behind the

Bosnian Serbs’ rejection of the VOPP in 1993.148 According to Gow, Whitehall, Bonn and Paris all looked at the Yugoslav situation through their own historical lenses. The British government was reluctant to impose sanctions due to their past experience in Northern Ireland. Additionally, descendants of the old Serbian royal family heavily influenced decisions among the peerage on the island. Germany and French, on the other hand, read the situation in terms of self- determination – the former favored independence above all else, but the latter disproved of it out of fear for subsequent calls for independence from Corsica.149

Therefore, “the international community tried to wash its hands of any responsibility by sending UNPROFOR-BH to Bosnia.”150 With prevailing conflicting national objectives of the four permanent members of UNSC (United States, Great Britain, France, Russia), the only way to communicate an international resolve to end the civil war in Bosnia was by providing “blue helmets” as a response team. Unlike the UN monitoring mission in Croatia, here the primary goals were to: 1) provide aid to Sarajevo; 2) escort of humanitarian belief; 3) protect safe areas, and 4) disarm the Croat-Muslim conflict.

Due to the nature of the conflict, UNPROFOR-BH allowed the Bosnian government more control, communications and intelligence than any other UN field operations.151This encouraged the Bosnian government to implement its own policies and took advantage of the recent spotlight on Croats to remain under the radar. And when the UN insisted on remaining

148 Sabrina P. Ramet, Thinking about Yugoslavia: Scholarly Debates about the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 79. 149 Ibid, 78. 150 Kemal Kurspahic, War and Change in the Balkans: Nationalism, Conflict and Cooperation, ed. B. K. Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 80. 151 William J. Durch and James A. Schear, UN Peacekeeping, American Policy and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, ed. William J. Durch (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 223. 63

impartial, the Bosnian government criticized it, and distorted and attacked its doctrine.152 In his memoirs of the Bosnian conflict, the fourth UN chief political officer in BiH, Phillip Corwin, explains that the Bosnian government, suspecting high-ranked UN officials of non-alignment, threatened them with death and on a few occasions, declared them persona non grata (an

unwelcome person), a way to publicly expose an outsider’s unsympathetic views on the suffering

of Muslims in Bosnia, and an attempt to mobilize the populace against such persons. Naturally,

the entire strategy had been designed to cover up numerous death threats issued by war profiteers

placed high in the Bosnian government as well as to lash out against UN officials and other

international notables who foiled the Bosnian government’s attempts to pervert the UN’s

mandate and gain greater control of UNPROFOR.153

5.4 The Faultlines

The reality of UN’s presence, however, was that in the beginning it proved irresolute to

aid the sides during the bargaining period. In 1993, the largest peacekeeping organization was

able to only commit 8,723 troops in BiH.154 By referencing to Walter’s criteria, as laid out in the

previous chapter, it is safe to conclude that the initial intervention fell short from communicating

strong resolve, and instead appeared mediocre. Additionally, rather than standing up to the

Bosnian Serb army, UNPROFOR-BH merely kept Sarajevans fed and dressed.155 Consequently,

the population in the capital city grew increasingly impatient with UN’s impotence and were

more likely to boo than bouquet the blue helmets. After a month of stagnant progress, the UN

152 Phillip Corwin, Dubious Mandate: A Memoir of the UN in Bosnia, Summer 1995 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 15. 153 Ibid., 16. 154 Detailed information on UN troops deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina is shown in W. J. Durch and J. A. Schear, UN Peacekeeping, American Policy and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, ed. William J. Durch (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 239, Table 1. 155 William J. Durch and James A. Schear, UN Peacekeeping, American Policy and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, ed. William J. Durch (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 233. 64

finally implemented the Sarajevo Airport Agreement when Serbs granted it control of the airport,

in exchange for UN blockades surrounding it. However, UNPROFOR failed to prevent

unauthorized overnight crossings of non-UN individuals who were shot by Serb snipers

controlling the lowlands around the airport.156

Moreover, the arms embargo imposed by the UN aggravated the bargaining conditions

among Croats and Bosniaks. By 1991, nearly the entire weaponry of the JNA, the fourth largest

in Europe, had been taken by Serbs and sympathetic Montenegrins. Following the outbreak of

the two wars, this allowed the obviously superior Serb militias to mobilize quickly and launch

blitz attacks against defenseless Bosnian cities, thus forcing the Bosnian government to plead to

the members of the UNSC who not only UN rejected lifting the embargo, but also failed to

provide air-strike support to the endangered communities. As a result, Bosniaks and Croats

commenced elaborate weapon-smuggling missions enabled by sympathetic states, signaling

intentions to fight back.

Perhaps, the greatest mistake of UN’s intervention can be seen in its handling of the

bargaining process. As violence erupted between all three groups, Serbia and Croatia’s external

involvement and proxy warfare became even more apparent despite continuous denial from both

sides.157 During a raid on the federal Interior Ministry building in Belgrade on 19 October 1992,

a police force headed by Mihalj Kertes, then agent of the Milošević government with substantial

role in aiding Serbian militias, removed files and documents thought to link the Serbian

156 William J. Durch and James A. Schear, UN Peacekeeping, American Policy and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, ed. William J. Durch (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 235. 157 Kemal Kurspahic, War and Change in the Balkans: Nationalism, Conflict and Cooperation, ed. B. K. Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 80. 65

authorities to paramilitary groups active in Croatia and Bosnia.158 Conversely, Tudjman’s outer reach in the Bosnian HVO indicated just how far his involvement extended beyond the border.

Precisely this, UN officials failed to admit to themselves. With the international recognition of BiH in 1992, involvements by either Tudjman or Milošević would have

constituted an interstate dispute. Then by this logic, an outside attack on a sovereign state

requires international intervention. But the UN erred in escalating Karadžić and Boban to

Izetbegović’s presidential status. Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia, two self-declared

autonomous provinces, had not been internationally recognized at the time, while Bosnia’s new

sovereignty elevated the republic’s status to that of both Serbia and Croatia. Instead, the UN

ought to have attempted to mediate an agreement between Tudjman, Milošević, and Izetbegović,

from the start.

By the end of 1993, the situation in Bosnia became increasingly difficult to diffuse. UN

peacekeepers were rather inept in maintaining peace while mediators negotiated agreement after

agreement. Thus far, Thomas Stoltenberg, replacing UN mediator Cyrus Vance, lost the

confidence in Yugoslav leaders who, according to the UN official, signed and shortly thereafter

broke treaties on a weekly basis. Within the first two years of the Bosnian conflict, the total

number of ceasefires rounded up to 69.159 In addition, both Stoltenberg and the then Belgian

Lieutenant General in BiH, Francis Briquemont, criticized the UN for its unrealistic approach to

resolve the crisis as well as their lack of support for the troops on the ground.160 Without the

backing of UN in New York, UNPROFOR-BH became as minimalist as its sister mission across

the border, in Croatia. Similarly, UNPROFOR-BH created safe areas around Bosnian towns and

158 Robert Thomas, The Politics of Serbia in the 1990s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 124. 159 Stephen M. Hill and Shahin P. Malik, Peacekeeping and the United Nations (Brookefield: Dartmouth Publications, 1996), 145. 160 Ibid. 66

with the adoption of Resolution 844 the Security Council authorized the deployment of 7,500

troops, also known as the light option, to safeguard those areas despite the Secretary-General’s vehement pleads to commit a force of 34,000.161 Subsequently, due to rising concerns over the

UN budget – UN launched missions in Cambodia, Western Sahara, Somalia and Rwanda prior to

1993- only 3,500 troops were delivered to the safe areas with large chunks allocated to Sarajevo

and Tuzla at the expense of Srebrenica and Žepa, the latter of which received a UN advance

party consisting of only ten soldiers.162

Overall, the presence of UN troops in Bosnia failed to credibly communicate the international community’s resolve to eliminate the commitment problem. In consideration of the previous paragraphs, I argue that the safe areas were, in fact, not safe at all. The Serbs were more resolved, resisted UN disarming policies and proceeded to undermine its mandate by obtaining almost half of the land between March 1994 and July 1995.163 On the other hand, Muslims were less likely to sacrifice resources and instead favored US policies for improved status. Further,

Croat-Muslim tensions allowed additional fragmentation of the republic and increased the need for greater third-party guarantees. As a consequence, the Serbs’ bargaining power increased at the expense of the two other ethnic groups.

The largest aggravator of the bargaining process had been the external influence of the international community. Germany continued to support Croatian interests. Russia had thus far clearly demonstrated its support for Bosnian Serbs by pursuing settlement that guaranteed Serbs

161 Stephen M. Hill and Shahin P. Malik, Peacekeeping and the United Nations (Brookefield: Dartmouth Publications, 1996), 144. 162 Ibid., 145. 163 Francine Friedman and Ismene Gizelis, “Fighting in Bosnia: An expected utility evaluation of possible elements,” International Interactions: Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations 23 (May 1997): 351-365. 67

half of Bosnia.164 Even France and Britain supported Russia’s position to end the conflict by halving the republic between Serbs and Croats. Together, the bargaining positions of Serbs and

Croats in Bosnia would have produced a peaceful settlement. This, however, was not the right approach to settle the conflict. Offers to split the territories only encouraged ethnicities to cleanse one another in pursuit of pure communities.

5.5 Impediments

With the three sides growing increasingly distant, the ineptitude of the UN to prevent the ongoing slaughter in Bosnia became more apparent with each passing day. Following the demise of the VOPP, Tudjman and Milošević proposed a peace plan to Izetbegović guaranteeing three separate republics. Like the 70-plus ceasefires before it, this one, too, failed to end the bargaining process peacefully. When offered to the Bosniaks, Izetbegović immediately underlined his minimum requirement of 30 percent Muslim-held territory, an amount which exceeded the

Serbs’ maximum bargaining position by 6 percent. Expectedly, the plan was rejected by the

Serbs.

The next plan came from the Contact group on former Yugoslavia which devised a plan

to split the republic into 2 portions – 51 percent for Croats and Muslims and 49 for Serbs.165 If

accepted, the plan was expected to both end the recent Croat-Muslim warfare and settle the

Bosnian question. Unfortunately, as history would show it, the plan failed to account for certain

developments in the Serb camp. Although Milošević had previously adjusted his strategy in BiH

to a more moderate position to reduce external pressure, he was no longer in control of the

164 Francine Friedman and Ismene Gizelis, “Fighting in Bosnia: An expected utility evaluation of possible elements,” International Interactions: Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations 23 (May 1997): 351-365. 165 Joyce P. Kaufman, NATO and the Former Yugoslavia: Crisis, Conflict and the Atlantic Alliance (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,2002), 112. 68

dialogue among Serbs outside of Serbia. SDS combatants Babić and Martić slowly aligned with

Karadžić’s extreme bargaining position.166 Consequently, Serbs in Krajina and Bosnia resumed fighting and moved for unification of the two military command structures.

During the first half of 1995, the situation in BiH rapidly deteriorated. UNPROFOR-BH remained passive despite the political backing of NATO and the two organizations’ increased bilateral cooperation. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, led by the US since the end of the

Cold war, was given green light to ease the situation in Bosnia in1993 but was militarily unable to enforce UN ceasefires.167 The reasons for NATO’s delayed start two years later were primarily due to the ongoing expansion initiative. US foreign policy advisors to President

Clinton prioritized a more stable, increased structure of the Alliance before making any decisive actions to engage forces in Bosnia.168 The Americans believed that the Bosnian issue could prove too risky for the organization as they expected to increase the existing division among key international powers.

The lack of credible third-party guarantees for the protection of all Bosnian citizens received its largest criticism during the summer of 1995. The killings of Serbs, Croats and

Muslims in UN sectors between April and June caused for large-scale retaliatory attacks on all sides. After ordering UN forces to withdraw, Croats launched offensives in Krajina which crowded out the Bosnian Serbs’ support for their brothers in Croatia. This caused large flows of

Serbs into Bosnia who aided Serb aggression against Muslim enclaves. In response, Bosnian

Serbs executed thousands of citizens of Srebrenica despite the presence of a UN camp. Similar

166 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 294. 167 Joyce P. Kaufman, NATO and the Former Yugoslavia: Crisis, Conflict and the Atlantic Alliance (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,2002), 110. 168 Ibid., 108. 69

fates endured Bosniaks and Croats in Goražde and Žepa where UNPROFOR-BH troops also were a scarcity.

In summary, the continuous failure of the bargaining process resulted in prolonged violence among the three ethnicities. The scramble for Bosnia was not a political move to divide the republic; the parties to the conflict used warfare to secure better bargaining positions. Unlike their brethren in Croatia, the Serbs in Bosnia comprised more than third of the population and favored securing Serb-dominance in Serb regions of the republic. Simply put, Serbs implemented cleansing policies to decommunize the remaining ethnicities. Similarly, Bosniaks also rejected offers to give up large pieces of the republic. At the very beginning, the Bosniaks’ plan envisioned a Bosniak-led republic of Croats, Muslims, and Serbs. Over time, as Serb aggression scattered Muslims throughout the Balkans, Izetbegović’s bargaining position decreased noticeably. The Bosniak leader’s communicated his lowest position of one-third of the republic in the final moments of the war. Interestingly enough, the Croat position more or less remained consistent. Tudjman and the Bosnian HVO only sought enough territory and Croatian autonomy to safeguard Bosnian Croats in Herzeg-Bosnia. In almost all of the ceasefires and peaceful negotiations, the Croats favored the terms of the proposed agreement.

Precisely this influenced the decision to end the conflict with a two-way split of Bosnia as dictated by the Dayton Accord struck in November 1995. Its provisions were identical to that of the Contact Group’s plan to divide Bosnia into Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika

Srpska, a 51 percent Croat-Muslim mix and a 49 percent Serb-governed republic, respectively.

Then, why did the bargaining process produce a successful peace plan in 1995 and not during the previous two years?

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The implementation period is highly treacherous for combatants. In order to mitigate the

risks of the commitment problem, disputants to a conflict seek greater power-sharing in the

state.169 But as I have mentioned on several occasions thus far, civil war combatants need a

larger force to enforce treaties and punish disputants who renege on agreements. In Bosnia, the

UN failed to communicate its credibility as a third-party guarantor. The lack of security

guarantees discouraged combatants from demobilizing their forces. Similarly, the highly

contrasting bargaining ranges between Serbs and the Muslim-Croat federation proved too

difficult a task for UN and EU mediators. Hampered by budgetary issues, the UN failed to

commit a credible force to protect the safe areas and help disputants to demobilize. Although

troop deployment peaked between 1994 and 1995, the international organization lacked the

resolve to punish disputants. The creation of the ITCY failed to deter further aggression by the

Yugoslav belligerents, thus rendering incredible all third-party efforts to settle the conflict.

Like the Serbs in Croatia, minorities in Bosnia favored mobilization to integration in the

new institutions. In theory, minorities only risk direct confrontation if they hold some type of

leverage over the government. Serbs and Croats were better equipped and each of the group

received substantial support from their respective external lobby state. The secessionist policies

of Serbs and Croats were thus driven by outside political support and the needs of the respective

ethnic kin inside Bosnia. In order to facilitate interethnic cooperation and implement ceasefires,

the international community acted as the third-party guarantor of safety, though its incredibility

was evident. UNPROFOR-BH failed to commit to the protection of endangered civilians along

with the safeguarding of highly-tense mixed communities in Bosnia.

169 Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 160. 71

Figure 5.1: Timeline of Yugoslavia’s break-up and international response, 1991-1995

In summary, the prolonged failure of the crisis bargaining process in Bosnia and

Herzegovina resulted from unrealistic bargaining positions, incredible statements among belligerents, lack of security guarantees, and delayed action. By the end of 1995, NATO’s proactive military intervention and strong commitment to punish aggressors had concluded the civil conflict in Bosnia. In contrast to UN’s response, NATO appeared more militarily resolved, which was indicated by its use of bombing campaigns to punish dishonest disputants. Between

September and November 1995, NATO launched several bombing campaigns in Bosnia, mostly targeting regions where UN peacekeepers were largely impeded by Bosnian Serbs. By October

12, the Serbs had already lost half of that 70 percent of Bosnia’s territory and were soon forced to sign a ceasefire. In return, the Muslim-Croat federation was instructed to recognize the sovereignty of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska and accept the 51/49 split of the state. Across the

72 border, NATO allowed the Croat government to launch offensives against the remaining Serbs in

Krajina in order to fully eliminate the commitment problem between Tudjman’s government and

Serb rebels, thus ending the 4 years warfare between Croats and Serbs.

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CHAPTER SIX WHAT OF SLOVENIA AND MACEDONIA – LEAVING THE DREAM In the previous chapters, I explained the wars in Croatia and Bosnia by analyzing the

crisis bargaining process. In doing so, I concluded that disputants to the two conflicts prolonged the bargaining process as a result of the commitment problem to uphold ceasefires. At the end of the wars, a rough estimate of nearly 90 failed ceasefires and negotiations supports my theoretical approach to explain the failures at the bargaining table. Simply stated, neither sided believed that the other would uphold an agreement to treat minorities fairly, thus leading combatants to fight to prevent future vulnerability and secure greater bargaining power. In Croatia, the Croats clearly were the dominant majority and outright rejected the idea of Serb autonomous provinces within the republic. Prior to the war, there had been no pure Serb regions, or even pure Croat for that matter. The Serbs’ pursuit of autonomous Krajina and Slavonia had been based on rising nationalist sentiment among secessionists in Croatia and irredentists from Belgrade. Similarly,

Bosnia and Herzegovina was torn between Tudjman and Milošević in their quest of unifying

Croats and Serbs, respectively.

And in 1998, Milošević’s policies in Kosovo yet again indicated its resolve to ensure that

Serb-inhabited Yugoslav regions remain under the control of FRY, but mostly the Serbian leadership. It had been only 9 years since the Serb leader’s famous speech of Serbian

Brotherhood and Unity in Kosovo Polje, a location known for its historic significance following the last Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1389. There, the overnight Serb political star gave rise to the underground camps of ethno-nationalism and supporters of Greater

Serbia. For nearly a decade, the disintegrating Yugoslav federation fought secessionists in the

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Balkans. While Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo endured civil warfare, two former Yugoslav

republics were able to depart the pan-Slav dream without any lasting consequences.

Why did the JNA jump at the opportunity to prevent Slovenia’s secession but gave up quickly? What was different about Macedonia that Yugoslavia’s army failed to intervene during its secession? I argue below that JNA forces collided briefly with Slovenes to prevent their secessionist movement, as well as subsequent calls for secession from the remaining Yugoslav republics before engaging the Croats. In addition, I underline that the preventive measures by the international community and the Macedonian identity question, an ever complex task that still continues to burden the current independent Macedonian country, along with the infinitesimal percentage of Serb residents in it, deterred the Serb leadership from attacking the republic.

6.1 Strike to Deter Further Secession: Fighting “Our Slovene Brothers”

In international relations, the realist argument advances the idea of an anarchic system where interactions between states are perpetually fueled by battles over relative power. Through their obvious tendency to compete amongst each other, the principal actors engage in a locked

“command and conquer” reality. Starting with the earliest forms of military conquests and ending with the Cold War bubble, states and leaders consistently relied on one specific tactic in preventing unwanted warfare – the power of deterrence. By believing that sending a strong counter-threat to potential aggressors would discourage immediate attacks, states have for a long

time used such deterrent strategies to signal challengers their resolve to protect their sovereignty.

Inevitably, a state’s resoluteness to defend its interests when challenged by another state has

become of great importance to present foreign policy-making. In crisis bargaining, political

scientists place large significance on the reputations of states in conflicts. Reputation building

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builds on the economic model of the success of chains stores.170 According to the model, a store

builds a reputation for quality goods and good services over a certain time period which then

enables it to attract more customers and expand its business. In international relations, however,

the model has been redesigned to include successful commitments among dyadic couples. If a

promise is kept, it contributes to the reputation of the original issuer. If it is not, the international

community, and the opponent above else, perceive the issuer as incredible and dishonest.

Thus, disputants to a conflict use their opponent’s past experience with similar issues to

discern between a resolute and an irresolute opponent. As Thomas Schelling points out in Arms

and Influence, it is not just about issuing a threat to the challenger; the power of deterrence can

only be strengthened by credibility and resolve.171 Therefore, the theoretical framework of

deterrence dictates that the success in deterring challengers depends on the defender’s reputation

to follow through on commitments. Schelling suggests that this can be achieved by following

through on commitments to fight challengers over stakes that are of interest to the defender.172

Over time, the defender builds a reputation for committing to its promises and is thus perceived

as resolute.

Similarly, when governments face domestic challengers in civil disputes, the reputation

theory dictates that a government is forward-looking and follows the logic of rational deterrence.

Admittedly, the government must first have already identified all potential challengers within the

state. In states such as Croatia, where a dominant majority and a single minority comprise the

population, governments need not worry regarding their domestic reputation. Although

conceding to certain issues will indicate its lack of resolve, such dialogue will not produce

170 Reinhard Selten, Decision Theory and Social Ethnics, Issues in Social Choice, eds. H. Gottinger and W. Leinfellner (Dodrecht: Reifel Publishing, 1978). 171 Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 36. 172 Ibid, 49. 76

subsequent challengers. By this logic, the government’s response will be straightforward and

accommodating rather than endure the cost of war.173 An exception to this would be minority ethnic groups with substantial external support. In the Croatian case, Serbs utilized Serbia’s military aid to pursue their own secessionist agenda.

Conversely, the situation becomes more complex when a government is aware of at least few potential challengers within the same state. If it decides to concede and accommodate one challenger, it runs the risk of being perceived as weak and irresolute by the remaining camps.

The Federal Yugoslav Council had been well aware that if the federation granted Croatia and

Slovenia their calls for secession, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo would all follow suit. Prior to the Croatian War, Alija Izetbegović and Kiro Gligorov, respectively announced that in such a case Bosnia and Macedonia would have no other choice but to depart Yugoslavia as well, all the more pressuring the Yugoslav leadership to improve the bargaining situation between Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia.

In theory, ethnic challengers face an uncertainty dilemma, for they could either face a government that is conciliatory and willing to accommodate territorial concessions, or a government that is resolved and uncompromising. In light of this, potential challengers make their decision based on a government’s past behavior. During Tito’s reign, however, nationalism had been successfully suppressed by the Communists before producing secessionist calls. Thus, when Slovenia and Croatia challenged the Yugoslav Council by an act of self-determination, the remaining Yugoslav leaders split in two camps – accommodate by granting greater autonomy but

not full sovereign independence or military engage to prevent secession.

173 Barbara F. Walter, Building Reputation: “Why Governments Fight Some Separatists but Not Others,” American Journal of Political Science 50 (April 2006): 313-330. 77

When referring to accommodation, the bargaining process is not black and white. In fact,

secessionists can be accommodated in 4 ways: 1) full accommodation (independence); 2)

accommodation including some territorial autonomy; 3) slight accommodation also known as

reforms but without territorial concessions, and 4) no accommodation.174 In a study on

secessionist calls, Walter has found that nearly three-fifths (86) of the 146 self-determination challenges between 1956 and 2002 were denied any accommodation. Out of the rest, 63% were granted territorial autonomy, 30% reforms and only 1% achieved full independence.

Interestingly, the former Yugoslav republics fall into the latter, except for Serbia and

Montenegro, which remained unified until 2006.

Credible commitment concerns were weaker in Slovenia due to their fair treatment of minorities in the republic. Relations between Slovenes and Serbs were the complete opposite of relations between Croats and Serbs. Firstly, Serbs had no violent history with Slovenes and secondly, the Slovene contribution to the federation was too great to jeopardize it. This was known to all republics, but especially to Croatia, which saw no Yugoslavia without its neighbor in the north. The Marshal had long ago set up the federation to balance the Serb dominance with the political power of Slovenia and Croatia. Thus, if the Slovenes were to leave the federation – something the Serb leadership was not entirely against – Croatia was expected to follow it. In the beginning, Slovenia’s secession was met with proposals to reform the federation by establishing a rotating presidency between the republics. According to the reform, the federal Council had envisioned a federation led by a different ethnic leader each six years, mostly to ensure that no ethnicity would be re-elected within 30 years.175 On 28 June 1991, Stipe Mesić became the president of all presidencies in Yugoslavia, but the JNA and many other internal affairs remained

174 Barbara F. Walter, Building Reputation: “Why Governments Fight Some Separatists but Not Others,” American Journal of Political Science 50 (April 2006): 313-330. 175 Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 251. 78

out of his control. This was affirmed by the mobilization of JNA troops in both Slovenia and

Croatia who had been sent by pro-Serb Yugoslav Army generals. With it, the Yugoslav Army

sent a message to the rest of the republics that secessionist calls would be met with force. Before

Mesić’s first official day as the president of Yugoslavia, Serb-dominated JNA forces militarized

their aggression against Slovenes by launching attacks in the name of unity.176

In the meantime, the EC, led by Lord Carrington, revamped the 4+2 plan originally

designed by Izetbegović and Gligorov to help the Yugoslavs create a federation of four republics

in union with a loose confederation between Slovenia and Croatia. Although the idea was

rejected, the JNA signed an agreement to withdraw from Slovenia which was completed after the

republic’s independence on 7 October 1991.177 The ten-day war in June 1991 between Slovenia

and Yugoslavia produced 54 casualties and nearly 300 wounded and left many more puzzled by

the events that had transpired. According to the Death of Yugoslavia: Wars of Independence,

when asked of the reasons for the attacks, a JNA conscript protecting the army’s barracks in

Slovenia appeared stupefied and responded by saying the following:

“Supposedly, they [Slovenes] are trying to leave Yugoslavia…And supposedly, we are trying to stop them…”178

A week prior, while the head of the republics discussed alternatives to secession, Milošević was

seen grabbing the arm of Milan Kučan, then Slovene President, in an attempt to appear friendly,

yet resolved. When confronted by the media, Milošević explained that he had offered Kučan a

new set of negotiations which would include a new constitution allowing secession of any

republic provided that all ethnic groups within the same would also be allowed to secede. It was

176 Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The War For Kosovo (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 66. 177 Ibid. 178 Excerpt from BBC’s documentary on Yugoslavia, Death of Yugoslavia (British Broadcasting Company, 1995). 79

obvious that Milošević had been hinting at a possible secessionist movement favoring Serbs in

Croatia and Bosnia. The 1991 census of Slovenia indicated that Serbs made up for only 2.5%

(47,401) of the entire republic’s population (1,913,355) while in the two other republics this number was significantly higher.

What was the real reason behind JNA’s swift withdrawal? Until 1991, Slovenia had the strongest economy in SFRY. Therefore, to keep both Slovenia and Croatia meant to buy the faltering federation some more time. This had been clear as daylight. Regardless, the republic and its citizens were noticeably different. First and foremost, the Slovenian language was not nearly as similar as the languages spoken in Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Montenegro, and was only spoken in Slovenia. Additionally, the Slovene republic was largely affiliated with the

Roman Catholic Church whereas the Serb republic embraced Serb Orthodoxy. Thirdly,

Slovenia’s geographic position was neither of strategic or political value. With Croatia’s secession on the move, the lack of territorial contiguity between Slovenia and Serbia could prove unfavorable for JNA troops in Slovenia. Politically, the Slovenes favored Croat policies over any other republic, which limited the overall Serb dominancy. A federation without Slovenia would thus allow Serbia greater political power. And from an economic standpoint, Croatia’s highly attractive coastal area was worth much more than Slovenia’s tiny access to the Adriatic Sea.

Moreover, the Serb leadership feared the treatment of Serbs in Croatia more than the secessionist agenda of Slovenia. The Slovenes had neither indicated any aggressive tendencies nor an exploitative agenda against the republic’s minorities. Even with Edward Kardelj as the

Vice President of SFRY, the Slovenes remained the driving economic force of the federation and mediated Croat-Serb relations. In addition, a large amount of Serbian labor force frequently traveled to Slovenia where tensions never rose between the two ethnicities. This assured

80

Milošević that the Slovenes had not been interested in ethnically-engineering the new Slovenian

state and posed no threat to the 2.5% Serbs in it. Thus, when push came to shove, the Yugoslav

Army generals focused their effort on Croatia, leaving Slovenia to pursue its own destiny.

6.2 “Macedonians are Southern Serbs”

Until the 1990s, the Macedonians had predominantly relied on federal funding.

Therefore, when Slovenia and Croatia first indicated their decision to leave Yugoslavia, the

communist party of Macedonia led by Kiro Gligorov persisted on brokering agreements to sustain the federation. The reality was that Macedonians identified themselves as the rightful descendants of the South Slavic tribe. The Marshal had largely instilled the Macedonians’

resonance with other South Slavs by officially recognizing them as a separate Yugoslav

nationality in 1945. This was in contrast to the Bulgarian as well as the Greek definition of the

Macedonian people. The former had since long ago claimed Macedonians as one of their own,

while the Greeks avoided the use of the ancient Macedon name to define their South Slav

neighbors in the north and anticipated unfounded territorial claims in the event of a possible

Macedonian independence, something the territory of contemporary Republic of Macedonia had

not had for over 2300 years, when Alexander the Great ruled the southeastern lands of the

Balkan region.179

Dubbed the weakest republic by foreign policy experts, the economically underdeveloped southernmost Yugoslav member was thus forecasted to implode as a result of the increased internal security deficit amid Muslim-Slav tensions. The international community believed that the combination of 65% Macedonians, 22% Albanians and 13% Turks, Roma, and Serbs would

179 Alice Ackermann, Making Peace Prevail: Preventing Violent Conflict in Macedonia (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999), 53. 81

cause yet another spillover and escalate violence on a larger international scale.180 As aggression erupted in the west, however, the newly appointed government gradually increased its disambiguation from Yugoslavia by first replenishing the ranks of its army and sending them to all of its four borders (FRY in the north, Albania on the west, Bulgaria on the east and Greece in the south). Without Slovenia and Croatia to counterbalance the politics of Serbia, any offer to reform the federation would have left Macedonia in an unfavorable position.181

As time passed by and the conflict in Croatia intensified, the Macedonian leadership

decided to use the international spot light on Serbia to push its own secessionist agenda. Later,

the republic introduced its own currency, the Macedonian denar as a substitute to the Yugoslav

dinar.182 In spite of such quick pro-sovereign developments, the Macedonian leadership

understood it would need the consent of the Albanian population to credibly commit to its

independent path. Albanians in Macedonia were ethnically identical to Albanians in Kosovo and

precisely this coupled with Albania’s proximity to the two groups guided the political discourse

of interethnic relations in Macedonia. Essentially, the idea of a state of peaceful cohabitants

encouraged greater Albanian involvement in the republic. During 1991, the largest ethnic

minority in Macedonia was therefore quickly integrated into the new government and various

institutions of the Macedonian public administration.183

Consequently, the summer of 1991 became the deciding period for the republic. At the

risk of being dragged into the ongoing volatility, the political parties in the Former Yugoslav

Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) unified to prevent aggression on its territory and cosponsored

180 Andrew Rossos, War and Change in the Balkans: Nationalism, Conflict and Cooperation, ed. B. K. Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 112; For more information on ethnic composition of Macedonia please refer to http://www.macedonia.org/. 181 Ibid., 111. 182 Stevo Pendarovski, Macedonian Foreign Policy 1991-2001: Aspects of Internal and International Legitimacy (Skopje: University American College, 2012), 35. 183 Ibid. 82

the referendum of independence on 8 September 1991. Two months later, the republic’s

constitution was adopted, officially seceding FYROM from the pan-Slav federation. Unlike the

JNA conscripts in Slovenia, part of the presiding JNA forces in Macedonia had already been

instructed to withdraw from the territory and to reinforce attacks in Croatia and Bosnia. To this

day, very few remember emotions between Macedonian militias and JNA conscripts running

high in April 1992. However, the republic’s exit displeased the Serb president who publicly

accused the Macedonian government of stabbing him in the back.184 Rather than alarm the

powers that be, Milošević turned to sympathizers in Greece to orchestrate a geopolitical division

of the Macedonian republic between Serbs – he claimed that more than 150,000 Serbs had lived

in Macedonia – and Greeks.185 Even more, the presence of the remaining Yugoslav army units in

Skopje encouraged Milošević of Gligorov’s obedience to Yugoslav politics.

In reality, however, Macedonians clearly were in a hurry to cement their control of the

republic’s territory, while the Serbs not only needed all the additional funding they could get to

fund the military efforts of FRY in Croatia and Bosnia, but also avoided provoking Albanians in

Macedonia due to their dominant presence in Kosovo which, at that time, had been still a

province within the Serbian republic. Additionally, the percentage of Serbs who lived in

Macedonia in 1991 had been estimated at 2.5%, nearly identical to that of Slovenia,186 and

offered no incentive to gather domestic support for Serbs soon to be stranded on the other side of

the border. Finally, citizens of the two republics had never experienced turbulent relations, an

obvious consequence of their near-identical cultures and similar languages.

184 Takis Michas, Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic’s Serbia in the Nineties (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), 51. 185 Ibid. 186 For detailed information on 1991 census in Macedonia please refer to http://www.macedonia.org/. 83

Despite the 1992 Adžić-Gligorov agreement for nonaggression against the Macedonian

republic, interethnic tensions in FYROM did not cease. During the next year, thousands of

refugees from Bosnia poured into the republic, hampering the work of the fairly young organs

and administration. In addition, the Macedonian identity was not yet resolved. The European

Council in Lisbon had only recently instructed the republic to re-apply under the name FYROM

instead of Macedonia, and the European Economic Community concluded its 1992 Edinburgh

Summit with an identical solution to Macedonia’s entry – the country was expected to change its

constitutional name. With no sight of European integration or formal recognition ahead, the

matter was handed back to the UN where ongoing membership negotiations likewise faired

unsuccessfully amid rising concerns of internal security in the republic.

Beyond the already placed UN forces in the troubled corners of former Yugoslavia,

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then Secretary-General of the UN, revamped the role of the organization

as a third-party guarantor of protection. Largely due to increasing external pressure, the 1992 issue of Boutros-Ghali’s An Agenda For Peace introduced preventive deployment of troops in civil warzones and contiguous states moving toward independence. Therefore, the initial deployment of 700 UNPREDEP blue helmets on the Serbo-Macedonian border communicated its resolve to prevent spillover of the ethnic conflict.187 During its six-year mandate, UN forces clashed with a Yugoslav military unit on only one occasion in June 1994 after which Yugoslav military presence was fully withdrawn from Macedonia’s territory.

The situation in Macedonia carried a greater risk of international warfare. The highly disputed sovereignty of the republic threatened the very stability of the entire Southeastern

European region as the 1991 census showed that, in addition to the aforementioned number of

187 Henryk J. Sokalsky, An Ounce of Prevention: Macedonia and the UN Experience in Preventive Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 2003). 84

Serbs and Albanians residing in the republic, an estimation of around 77,000 Turks also lived in

Macedonia, a 60% drop from the 203,000 reported to have lived during the 1950s.188 In the extreme case, the international community had expected the republic’s neighbors to all scramble for a piece of their own.

In the end, the most vehement calls against independent Macedonia came from the Serb leadership who did not believe Macedonians had the right to secede from Yugoslavia. Based on the premise that it was Tito who had defined the people of the republic as Macedonians in the first place, Serbia rejected the recognition of the newly established state. Milošević and likeminded irredentists from Belgrade believed Tito had done so only to weaken the Serbs’ dominance in Yugoslavia and with it, restrict Serbia’s power. The scramble for the republic was then further intensified by high ranked political figures in Belgrade and Athens, respectively claiming that over 300,000 Serbs lived in Macedonia and that the towns in FYROM near the

Greek border were predominantly inhabited by Greeks.189 Soon, warlords, politicians and bishops in Serbia promoted the idea of a two-way split of the republic – the Serb-populated region to be included under the control of Serbia while the remaining part was to be given to the

Greeks. President Gligorov’s main concerns, however, were not directed at the republic’s neighbors in the south. The soft-spoken leader had suspected Greece would risk its membership in the EU and NATO, and instead agreed with the Greek government on a compromise regarding the republic’s new name and symbols.190

Fortunately for the stability of the European continent, but mainly for the security of the

remaining Balkan states, international intervention arrived at the right moment. For the first time

188 http://www.macedonia.org/ 189 Takis Michas, Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic’s Serbia in the Nineties (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), 54. 190 Ibid., 56. 85

in its mission in the former Yugoslavia, the UN had acted both timely and decisively. The

unprecedented preventive deployment of 1,000 UN and NATO peacekeeping troops in 1993,

authorized by UNSC Resolution 795 on 11 December 1992, successfully communicated to

Milošević that the West was resolved to prevent further spread of violence. The possibility of a

multiethnic conflict across the hitherto peaceful southeastern region of the Balkan Peninsula

posed too large of a threat for the dominant powers to ignore. In April 1993, Macedonia became

the 191th member of the UN, thus providing the new state with international support and

security.191 In addition, the sharp change in America’s policy on the Yugoslav conflict following

the recent election of the Clinton administration also helped deter Milošević from making further

territorial claims, thus ending the scramble for the smallest former Yugoslav republic peacefully.

6.3 Conclusion

The point of departure of this chapter was to introduce the reader to existing theoretical

approaches that encompass conflicts between secessionists and governments. As mentioned in

the first subchapter, the precedent-logic theory offers a conventional interpretation of the brief

conflict in Slovenia. In June 1991, Serb army generals and leaders mobilized the JNA against the

Slovenes to indicate the potential consequences of continuing secessionist tendencies. Further, I

underlined the importance of minority rights in the new Slovene republic. The ten-day war

indicated that the infinitesimal percentage of Serbs residing in Slovenia and the lack of ethnic

mistreatment and repression were enough to convince Milošević to concentrate military efforts on Croatia, Bosnia, and later Kosovo where Serb minorities were more vulnerable to unfair treatment and denied cultural autonomy. In addition, the Slovenes’ departure assured Serbia greater control due to its substantial political and military influence over the remaining republics.

191 Matjaz Klementić, Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars’ Initiative, eds. C. Ingrao and T. A. Emmert (West Lafayette: Westview University Press, 2006), 169. 86

In the second subchapter, I briefly covered the complexity of the situation in

Macedonia. Hampered by sharp, unfriendly politics from all four sides, the smallest republic was

expected to implode due to its ethnic composition of Macedonians, Albanians, Serbs, Turks,

Greeks, and Bulgarians. The fear of ethnic spillover into this extremely combustible mix forced the international community led by the Clinton Administration and NATO to act preemptively.

Moreover, the strong communication and signaling of military resolve successfully deterred

Serbia from opening additional warfronts in the Balkans.

In summary, ethnic Serbs in Slovenia and Macedonia were not skeptical of the host governments. Both Milan Kućan and Kiro Gligorov indicated no intention to repress minorities of any ethnicity, thus decreasing the likelihood of a commitment problem. Additionally,

Macedonian and Slovenian had already been the official languages of Macedonia and Slovenia, respectively. Thus, when the republics pushed for independence, the governments did not focus on distinguishing between their mother tongue and Serbian. This exact approach enabled the governments of the two republics to compromise with their respective minorities.

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CHAPTER SEVEN LESSONS LEARNED The purpose of this research has been to explain the bargaining conditions in the wars in

Yugoslavia following the slow disintegration of Tito’s federation. In the beginning of the 1990s, members of SFRY slowly began pushing for secession from the headless pan-Yugoslav union.

Fueled by faltering macroeconomics and highly tense political dialogue between the ethnicities, the remnants of Titoism after the Marshal’s death in 1980 were no longer considered essential among Yugoslavs. Governments at the republic level used the opportunity to polarize their respective nations against the continuation of economic and sociopolitical disparity among the citizens of Yugoslavia. One by one, members of the SFRY ceased relations with the Federal

Yugoslav Council and declared independence from it. Thus, ethnic minorities stranded on the wrong side of the border became the main focus of lobby actors who aided militants in Croatia and Bosnia in pursuit of increased minority concessions.

International relations scholars have argued that lack of central authority, suppressed ethnic animosity or economic inequality constitute the main reasons for the civil wars in the region. Instead, I have showed in my paper that it was the inability and unwillingness of host governments to credibly commit to concessions coupled with incredible statements amid tense political negotiations that caused minorities to rebel and then form their own autonomous provinces within the seceded republics. Issues at the bargaining table between civil war combatants decreased the likelihood of peaceful settlement in entirety due to a lack of security guarantees and communication of repressing agenda. In Croatia, the Tudjman administration decommunized the Serb minority and invoked old fascist symbols to create a single Croatian identity in the republic, and in Bosnia, the Muslim-dominated government of Alija Izetbegović

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pushed toward the creation of a Muslim state despite the lack of majority status. Minorities in both republics feared future exploitation and demanded that they be allowed either greater autonomy or secession of regions which they populated. The two main problems in both republics, however, were the high number of mixed ethnic communities which later became the epicenter for ethnic violence and bloodshed, and the close proximity of external lobby actors.

Prior to 1990, there had not been any pure regions in Croatia and Bosnia. It is argued here that governments were skeptical of outside lobbyists in Belgrade and Zagreb, and rejected concessions based on this premise and also because citizens of the majority were significantly present in the disputed regions.

The civil wars in Yugoslavia can be explained by the failure of the dyadic couple, or the troika, as was the situation in Bosnia, to communicate their intentions at cooperation. In crisis bargaining, the lack of credible statements and costly signaling only deteriorates negotiations between combatants. If neither party is willing to commit to a set of concession and guarantees, the likelihood of fighting will increase. Once fighting ensued in Yugoslavia, combatants sought to ethnically engineer concentrated regions, driving an even larger wedge between their bargaining positions. But why did disputants fail to communicate resolve toward peaceful negotiations? The main aggravator was the commitment problem which was promulgated by fear of vulnerability and uncertainty. Consider the following .The bargaining theory requires combatants to first agree to a set of quid-pro-quo concessions, usually in the form of mutual military disengagement, before deciding on power-sharing agreements and larger integration. In political science, this highly treacherous period is most difficult to overcome. Incomplete information and lack of security guarantees for safeguarding during situations of heightened

89 vulnerability prevents ceasefires and forces reneging, which further aggravates the commitment problem. At the risk of being attacked during it, civil war disputants thus strike preemptively.

In response, political scientists have advanced the idea of third-party presence to help combatants better uphold promises to ceasefire. In order to be successful, a third party is required to communicate strong resolve to settle the conflict, as well as credibility in its role as a security guarantor. I showed that the international community, represented by the EU and the UN, failed to facilitate cooperation during ceasefires because of its incredibility and delayed response.

Firstly, by recognizing the republics, the leading powers internationalized the wars in

Yugoslavia. Although this is believed to help international organizations overcome issues of sovereignty amid intervention, the same cannot be said for UNPROFOR in both Croatia and

Bosnia. There, the UN troops took a more passive role and only monitored hostilities between ethnicities. Secondly, UN troops appeared incredible to the Yugoslav combatants, which failed to deter further aggression in the mixed enclaves. Even with UN safe havens in the republics, militias proceeded to ethnically cleanse towns and villages in them. Without security guarantees, demobilization of any kind is unlikely to occur.

The main argument is to underline the importance of credible security guarantees and commitments to issued statements. As a result of the complete lack of both, the civil wars in

Croatia and Bosnia did not end until NATO’s proactive and militarily resolved intervention in

1995. This begs the question: What is the right approach in resolving ethnic civil wars? The realist camp has long argued that partition of ethnic regions is less prone to civil warfare.

According to scholars among the realist camp, such course of actions eliminates the security dilemma between ethnicities in mixed enclaves. I respectfully disagree. Partition of ethnic regions is what causes violence in the first place. This was supported by the EU and UN plans

90 discussed in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6. Partition plans devised to divide states into autonomous, contiguous cantons carries the risk of encouraging ethnic engineering of the same. Combatants will then continue to purge individuals of different ethnicity to increase their bargaining power and solidify their right to claim the territory. The international community tried this exact approach and failed unequivocally for three years. Instead, third-party mediators and guarantors should devise plans based on proportionate power-sharing and complete integration. In the absence of repression and political tension, this model is likely to bring peaceful transitions of newly succeeded states. In the Republic of Macedonia, tensions between the Macedonian majority and the Albanian minority have only peaked once in the country’s twenty years of existence since its secession from SFRY in 1991. Eleven years ago, in 2001, the Macedonian government agreed to certain concessions and increased the Albanian minority’s integration in the republic. In addition, the Albanian identity has been politically supported while the Albanian language declared as the second official language of the country. In light of such promising progress, I believe future studies should continue to empirically test the impact of power-sharing agreements in ethnic civil conflicts.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH CURRICULUM VITAE

Toma Sokolikj

Education: Florida State University, M.S. International Affairs, 2012 Major Field: International Economics

Florida Gulf Coast University, B.S. Legal Studies and Criminal Justice, 2010 Major Field: Paralegal Studies

Experience: FSU Office of Distance Learning, Supervisor/Operations Assistant LobbyTools, Inc., Research Desk Aide/ Head Capitol Correspondent Weapons and Equipment Research Institute, Criminal Justice Researcher and Tester George F. Wallace, United States Patent Attorney, Legal Assistant

Interests: International economics and development, Humanitarian law, Southeast Europe.

Current Research: Thesis: Civil Wars in Yugoslavia: Explaining the Bargaining Process Committee Chair: Dr. Mark Souva

Leadership: Pi Kappa Alpha Alumni Association (FSU), Fall 2012 - Present Congress Of Graduate Students (FSU), Fall 2010 – Fall 2011 Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity (FGCU), November 2006 – Spring 2010 Phi Alpha Delta Prelaw Fraternity (FGCU), Spring 2009 – Spring 2010

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Software Proficiencies: Microsoft Suite, Linux Systems, Sales Force

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