Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

148 IRRECONCILABLE POSITIONS
political-parliamentary framework. The leader of the largely Knin-based Serbian
Democratic Party demanded a vaguely defined autonomy but was, at the same
time, prepared to recognize the Croatian state and cooperate with it. 59
Mesić, at that time Croatian prime minister, told me in October 1994 that one
of the greatest mistakes of the new Croatian leadership had been that it had not
immediately undertaken to make an “alliance” with Rašković’s Serbian party.
Certainly, in the initial phase of his government, Tudjman had signalled his
readiness to make concessions, but he never clearly defined just how far he was
willing to go.
In a conversation with Rašković, Tudjman promised cultural autonomy— a
promise he later confirmed in conversations we had. 60 The problem was that
Tudjman’s whole rhetoric and symbology displayed what Rašković called
“Croatocentrism”. Rašković was even prepared to accept that. What he was not
prepared to accept was a downgrading of the constitutional position of the Serbs
of Croatia under the new constitution. The old constitution had defined Croatia,
in Article 1, as “the national state of the Croats, the state of the Serbian people in
Croatia, and the state of nationalities who live there”. In the draft of the new
constitution, which was later adopted, the Serbs were mentioned only as a
minority together with all the others.
In the entire aforementioned conversation, Rašković made no secret of the fact
that he had come under severe attack from Serbia because of his loyal disposition
to the Croatian state, and that, in his locale, there were people who wanted to
follow Belgrade’s line. Actually, one gets the clear impression that Rašković
wanted to offer Tudjman the support he needed, and to obtain the necessary
reciprocation, in order to be able to continue his relatively moderate line. But
Tudjman foolishly had the entire text of this conversation published, word for
word, in Danas. This move discredited Rašković and the moderate line no longer
had any chance in the Serbian Democratic Party.
There was unrest and agitation in Knin and other largely Serb-inhabited districts
throughout the summer. At the end of June 1990, Milošević said for the first time
that in the event of the transformation of Yugoslavia into a confederation, the
borders of Serbia would be an “open question”. 61 One did not assign too great a
significance to this statement at the time. Serbia, which in its new constitution
had represented itself practically as an independent state, was nonetheless,
through the words of its leader, making clear for the first time what the Greater
Serbian alternative to the Yugoslav federation would signify.
The “Serbian question” in Croatia became acute as a result of the referendum
conducted by the Serbian organizations among Serbian inhabitants of Croatia on
18 August 1990. At this time, the propaganda from Belgrade reached new
heights: the Ustaše were ruling, according to Belgrade, whose news organs were
only too happy to elaborate on this theme. The referendum referred to
“autonomy”; naturally nearly everyone who took part in this referendum
endorsed autonomy. The Croatian authorities declared the referendum “illegal”,
even though they were unable to prevent it. Tudjman repeated to me, in those