Rogue Republic Stalls Peace Efforts in Croatia

The Serbian nationalist warlord who led a 1991 rebellion that tore away one-third of Croatia has a simple strategy for dealing with Western warnings that the outside world will never accept his breakaway state: Milan Martic, self-styled president of the rogue Republic of Serbian Krajina, is waiting for the rest of the world to give in.

“It is my deep belief that we as a nation and a people are just within our rights,” Martic informed U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith as the two men prepared for today’s resumption of Croatian peace talks.

“Many governments, including the United States, will change their positions and attitudes regarding the Serbian people in the former Yugoslavia, and we will get that final right to self-determination,” the mustachioed rebel leader insisted. “What is most important today is that we have our own state, and that is a fact.”

Galbraith, who doubles as the American mediator in the long-dormant talks to end the conflict, traveled two days ahead of the negotiations to this remote, rocky rebel stronghold in hopes of persuading Serbian insurgents to begin mending fences with the government of Croatia.

But nationalist passions and propaganda that sparked the war here three summers ago have not run out. On the contrary, the roughly 200,000 Serbs living in the shattered war zones draw on their anger and hardship as sources of strength for what they know will be a long standoff.

Martic--like the architect of the Balkan conflicts, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic--counts on using obstinacy as a weapon with which to wear down outside resistance to his pariah state.

Some Western mediators believe the time is right for a start toward reconciliation because Serbian nationalist patrons in the rump Yugoslavia, keen to get U.N. sanctions lifted, have threatened to cut the fuel and food lifeline to the Krajina rebels unless they agree to a peaceful solution.

But others fear the tough talk from Belgrade is just a smoke screen for Milosevic’s own calculated resistance. They worry that pressure being brought on neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina to accept ethnic partitioning is encouraging Serbian secessionists here to hold out for a similar carve-up that would allow them to unite with other Balkan Serbs.

Stymied by the impasse over Krajina’s political status, mediators from the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union have changed tactics in negotiations, setting aside the question of who should rule Krajina to focus on smaller steps that might boost economic cooperation and trust.

Their proposals include deals to supply water and fuel to rebel-held regions in exchange for restored telephone and transportation links, as well as payment of pensions to Krajina retirees by the Croatian government and resumption of trade. But the stalemate over Krajina’s political status has been tripping up even those efforts to restore mutually advantageous contact.

Krajina Serbs object to a U.N. Security Council resolution that recognizes Croatian sovereignty over the region and its right to administer and tax Krajina commercial transactions. The rebel leaders claim the U.N. position undermines their authority and places them at a disadvantage in the negotiations.

The rebels’ position offers little hope of any progress at the peace talks scheduled to run for two days at Plitvica Lakes, a scenic resort behind Serbian lines that was one of the former Yugoslav republic’s most popular tourist attractions.

The stunning succession of lakes, wooded slopes and waterfalls provides a telling example of the devastation war has brought to a land that once teemed with visitors who bankrolled a prosperous lifestyle. The 1989 income of the Plitvica Lakes resort was three times higher than that of all of Krajina today, Galbraith noted.

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More discouraging for the mediators than the stubborn positions staked out over economic matters is an obvious endeavor by Knin authorities to strengthen their hold on the vanquished territory and the Zagreb government’s coinciding military buildup in apparent preparation to retake it.

A cease-fire arranged by the mediators in March led to deployment of U.N. soldiers along the more than 400-mile confrontation line stretching from the Adriatic Sea to within 20 miles of Zagreb and east to the border of the rump Yugoslavia. The patrols were designed to be temporary--to give warring factions pause to negotiate a permanent settlement by which Krajina Serbs would gain some degree of autonomy but submit to political union with the rest of Croatia.

Instead, rebels have been haggling with peacekeeping officials over the exact delineation of the cease-fire line, regarding it as the permanent border of their state. The Croatian Defense Ministry, while also refusing to make concessions in negotiations, has beefed up its presence on the other side of the front line, according to a U.N. official in Knin.

“One of the many troubling parts of all this is the increasing war talk on both sides of the line,” Galbraith said after his Krajina visit, which included a tour of front-line villages that have been the scene of wanton destruction and desecration by both sides.

Confronted by the prospect of another fruitless stare-down when the two sides meet at Plitvica, Galbraith warned that there is a limit to the patience and resources of the international community. “We will try to do our best Thursday and Friday,” he said. “But if there is no progress, we are losing our chances.”