Guns, not pens, once more were redrawing the map of the former Yugoslavia. And although it was unclear how far the ripples of the new fighting would spread, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman seemed to be winning a gamble that he can regain Krajina, a vital transportation and oil corridor, without triggering a regionwide conflagration. Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic holds the power to broaden the war. But his first responses were muted; many suspected the two had cut a territorial deal. “Belgrade will let this happen as long as the Croatians don’t go east,” said a CIA assessment. One thing was embarrassingly plain: how little influence outsiders have on the main players. Tudjman’s troops moved out just hours after the U.S. ambassador to Croatia announced concessions by the Serbs to head off the offensive. “The Devil’s in the driver’s seat,” says a top State Department hand.
The hellish spectacle of red-roofed homes in flames and highways choked with refugees was familiar–except that this time the victims were Serbs. U.N. officials estimated that at least $0,000 people were fleeing east to Serb-held areas of Bosnia. That could be just the beginning. If Croatia now attempts to ethnically “cleanse” the region, as many Serbs fear, it could uproot about 150,000 people in the largest single such upheaval of the war. “The Croatians do not want to reintegrate Serbs into Croatia-they want Croatia rid of Serbs,” said Lazar Macura, spokesman for the Krajina Serb delegation to inconclusive peace talks in Geneva last week. A NATO source said there was no evidence that the Croat troops were evicting civilians wholesale–or even taking prisoners. For the war’s main victims of “ethnic cleansing”–the Muslims–the offensive meant rare relief. The fighting could only ease Serb pressure on the adjoining “Bihac pocket”–one of the last of the U.N.-designated “safe areas” left after devastating Serb offensives this summer in eastern Bosnia.
The West’s response to the new fighting shredded any pretense of impartiality. Al-though the United Nations deplored the new fighting, NATO nations expressed only the mildest concern. U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said he understood Croatia’s “obvious frustration” with the recent Serb move on Bihac. “We are not in a position to prevent the Croats from doing what they consider to be correct and necessary,” German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said before the fighting began. And although three U.N. peacekeepers died when the invading Croat forces fired on their positions, there was no outcry for retaliatory airstrikes. In any ease, that would leave the U.N. forces exposed; their main rear bases are inside Croatia.
Could the new fighting be a step toward resolving the Balkan crisis? Some policy-makers think so. At the White House, which last week launched a wide-ranging review of possible outcomes to the festering conflict, one source suggests that because all the players are reconsidering their options, chances for a negotiated settlement may be better. But the same source concedes that every round of fighting so far has led to further escalation. And the history of the battlefield is hardly encouraging. In Serbo-Croatian, the region’s full name, Vojna Krajina, means “military frontier.”
