Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

IRRECONCILABLE POSITIONS 161
was incapable of functioning. Marković supported Mesić by declaring that the
ministers of the government were at their posts and performing their duties. 109
Even today, it is puzzling as to what impelled Milošević to take this step,
which he soon had to retract. One interpretation is that Milošević simply lost his
nerve because the state presidency had prevented him from employing the army
at this stage for the creation of a Greater Serbia. Now he seemed to believe that
he would give the army freedom of action by bringing about an “institutional
vacuum”. 110 Events showed, however, once again, that the army leadership was
not ready to take action without a political cover. Kadijević himself writes that it
would have looked like an ordinary military putsch, even to the outside world,
and would have destroyed any legitimacy still invested in the Yugoslav
federation, on which the army too depended. 111 There were no troop movements
anywhere in the country that weekend. Only in Knin did local Serbs react by
declaring their “independence”.
Milošević had been dealt a setback. But then Tudjman suddenly showed an
interest in meeting with him personally, in order to stake out the Serb-Croat
relationship. Mesić reports how he had a foreboding of Tudjman’s mission
around mid-March and then promptly came the report from Jović that Milošević
would meet with Tudjman in about 10 to 14 days. 112 From Tudjman’s standpoint,
the time had not been badly chosen; it depended now under which star this
“historical” meeting would take place.
The two men met on 25 March 1991 in the state estate of Karadjordjevo in
Serbian Vojvodina. That Tudjman had chosen this location is itself noteworthy,
for it was here that, in 1971, Tito had effected the political liquidation of the
“Croatian Spring”. Jović had encouraged Tudjman’s hopes in advance when, in
response to a question by Mesić as to why the conflicts with the Serbs of the
Krajina could not be resolved peacefully, he had declared that Serbia had
interests in Bosnia, but not in Croatia. 113 Milošević immediately pursued this
same line in Karadjordjevo. Serbia, he is reported to have said, claimed 66 per
cent of the territory of Bosnia; one should not entertain any illusions on this
subject. In Croatia, on the other hand, Serbia had no territorial pretensions. This
was music for Tudjman’s ears, insofar as he had been hoping for a partition of
Bosnia so as to grant Croatia borders corresponding more or less to those of the
1939 Banovina of Croatia, and seemed now to have found, in Milošević, his
“historical” partner. The two of them proceeded to agree on a partition of
Bosnia, at the expense of the Muslims. 114 Actually, according to Mesić, this was
tantamount to a betrayal of the Muslims, for Tudjman had, up to now, always
loudly declared his desire for partnership with the Muslims of Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
Mesić said that the whole business was rather dubious, because one could not
assume that Milošević would collaborate in the creation of a Greater Croatia;
besides he, Mesić, had been in favor of cooperation with the Muslims and
against the partition of Bosnia. This was the source of Mesić’s differences with
Tudjman. Tudjman, for his part, returned from Karadjordjevo almost exultant; he