Making War to Keep Peace (23 page)

In September 2002, after more than two years of failed attempts to broker an agreement between the government and the opposition to resolve the political crisis stemming from the May 2000 elections, and citing “the continuing deterioration of the socioeconomic situation in
Haiti, the ongoing suffering of the people, and its potential for humanitarian disaster,” the OAS passed a resolution calling for the “normalization of economic cooperation between the Government of Haiti and the international financial institutions,” which would mean allowing the release of the $500 million in blocked international aid and loans.
¹²⁵
The Bush administration signed on to the resolution, which laid out goals for the Haitian government that would allow the aid to be unblocked. However, the government failed to meet a November 4 deadline to appoint a new CEP, improve security, punish gangs, and disarm the population.
¹²⁶
Einaudi commented, “The long and short of it is that the key actors have been unwilling to rise above entrenched personal positions in terms of allowing for an end to the fragmentation and paralysis that are leading the country as a whole toward disaster.”
¹²⁷

Meanwhile, Haitian boat people continued to head for Miami, causing disputes in the United States over what to do about the refugees.
¹²⁸
In late October 2002, more than two hundred Haitians arrived in a rickety freighter, many jumping overboard to reach land. In Haiti, protests against Aristide broke out in mid-November. The more than $500 million in aid money that Haiti sorely needs to get its economy moving is still frozen.

New Democracies, New Problems

Military intervention in another country to promote democracy is a relatively new idea; in fact, many nations still consider it an illegitimate interference in the internal affairs of another state.

The world has learned a great deal about how democracies fail. In his book
The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes
, political scientist Juan Linz provides a brilliant analysis of how new democracies establish the legitimacy, authority, and effectiveness necessary to survive, and how they can lose it. Much of what Linz says is directly relevant to problems that exist today in countries in Eastern Europe, Central America, the Philippines, and elsewhere. So far, the United States is the only country that has attempted to systematically design policies that promote democratic practices, and its efforts have been extremely controversial.

The United States has embraced the idea that human rights and
democracy should be important concerns of American foreign policy, but we have been inconsistent in the pursuit of these goals. Concern about human rights and democracy have been factors in U.S. policy toward the former Soviet Union and in Latin America, where Congress has demanded democratic and human rights reforms in return for U.S. aid. There has been broad public approval of making aid to the Philippines, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and other countries conditional on the development of democratic governments.
¹²⁹

The occupation of Haiti, in contrast showed that our government had become too casual about using military force, deploying U.S. troops, and assuming open-ended obligations. Large majorities of Americans feel very cautious about direct military interventions abroad, and a majority opposed sending U.S. forces to Haiti. The primary concern of the largest number of Americans was discouraging immigration from Haiti.

The Clinton administration was committed to success in Operation Restore Democracy, although opposition existed in both the UN Security Council and the Organization of American States. In his effort to “restore democracy” in Haiti by restoring Aristide to power, President Clinton exercised his new approach to foreign policy, 130 involving the United States deeply in Haiti's political development—at great expense. The American presence in Haiti to put Aristide back in power and subsequent involvement with and assistance to Haiti cost U.S. taxpayers about $3 billion.

Once the intervention had occurred, I believed we should follow through on our investment for three reasons: (1) in the interest of human solidarity; (2) because imposing the embargo, which further weakened Haiti's fragile economy, gave us some responsibility and created an increased flow of refugees; and (3) because we had imposed a military occupation on the island. Having intervened so far into the internal affairs of Haiti, the United States had a responsibility to foster the implementation of democratic practices, and the provision of nonpolitical police and judiciary systems.

But the U.S. government could not solve Haiti's terrible problems. No one knows exactly how foreign forces can help civil societies or mod
ern states emerge in very different cultures, and the influence of an external power on the process of democratization is limited. I suggested that the United States concentrate on what we could do well—improving literacy rates and providing police and job training—rather than aiming for the total renovation of Haiti, which would be an inappropriate lapse into neocolonialism. As we now know, even the assistance for judicial reform and police training we provided in the mid-to late 1990s produced scant improvement, as corruption and government indifference created obstacles to reform.

Literacy can be taught from outside a society. Vocational training can also be effectively taught by foreigners. Obviously, efforts to help with literacy and vocational training should respect the traditions of Haiti—its language, culture, and educational system. By playing an active role in programs to promote literacy and technical education, the United States could guard against efforts to politicize these programs and ensure their effectiveness.

There were a good many highly educated Haitians, although many fled the country in these years. Haiti's small commercial and business sectors, along with tourism, constituted the primary sources of foreign exchange, which is why the embargo was so devastating. The development of larger, more skilled working and middle classes could help create the foundation for economic and political development.

But the key to assisting Haiti on the road to democracy is to establish reliable law and order—and since the United States restored Aristide to the presidency in 1994, neither he nor René Préval, who ruled between Aristide's first and second terms, brought about the rule of law that has been missing throughout Haiti's history. Aristide holds a dubious distinction. He was ousted from power twice, again in February 2004 and forced back into exile. A rule of law might have prevented Aristide's second coup and would encourage Haitian exiles to return from the United States, France, and South America, and would contribute greatly to political and economic development.

I was pessimistic in the 1990s about the prospects for democracy in Haiti. Today, I am not much more sanguine—not when the cultural, social, and economic foundations of genuine democracy are still missing
there. As sociologist Anthony Maingot concluded a grim article on poverty and corruption in Haiti by saying: “All that has changed are some of the actors. The play is a tragedy and in Haiti, as in theater, the outcome of a tragedy is predictable; it invariably ends without solutions and with many deaths.”
¹³¹

Many Western observers were impressed with the skill of Josip Broz Tito in preserving Yugoslavia's independence from Joseph Stalin's boundless appetites, from the end of World War II to his death in 1980. Only after Tito died and wars of secession broke out did it occur to Americans that his greatest achievement had been holding together the diverse peoples of Yugoslavia. It was ironic that the Communist autocrat who ruled this one-party state understood the importance of ethnic identity and decentralization to the preservation of Yugoslavia. Tito (who was half Croat, half Slovene) respected ethnic diversity but rigorously suppressed separatism; he was especially sensitive to manifestations of Serb nationalism.
After his death, Serb nationalism asserted itself in the person of Slobodan Milošević.

The story of U.S. involvement in Bosnia is an interesting counterpoint to the experience in Iraq/Kuwait, Somalia, and Haiti. Here the problem was not overreaching but hesitation in the face of tyranny and mass murder on European turf. It shows the danger of allowing political sensitivities, both domestic and international, to stand in the way of strong action. The first President Bush was reluctant to act because he was in an election. Clinton wanted to act, but the Europeans would not agree, the UN peacekeepers were subject to too many limitations, and the UN secretary-general insisted on having the final say. The failure to organize a timely and effective response to Slobodan Milošević demonstrated a global lack of seriousness about a new world order, the Clinton administration was forced to retreat in the face of the lack of support, and NATO stepped in to make the difference where the UN had been merely obstructive.

SETTING THE SCENE

Under Tito's governance, Yugoslavia adopted new constitutions in 1946, 1963, 1968, and 1974. The 1974 constitution provided for an eight-member collective presidency, with one representative from each of the six republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Macedonia) and the two autonomous provinces (Kosovo and Vojvodina). Each region had its own parliament, as well as representatives in the federal parliament. The presidency of the collective executive rotated annually among the eight states, with the commander in chief of the armed forces presiding and the Communist Party reinforcing unity.

In 1989, as Communist governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe began to break apart, opportunities for free expression and self-determination encouraged the development of separatist movements. Democratic reforms in the neighboring countries of Eastern Europe encouraged reformers in all the Yugoslav states; they also hardened the determination of nationalists everywhere, including Milošević, who encouraged the Serbian Communist government to resist reform and preserve its power.

Ambition, political skill, and control of the Communist Party organization quickly made MiloÅ¡ević a powerful source of trouble in Serbia and in the Yugoslav federal government. He purged the Communist Party of Kosovo in 1988 and promised to “make Serbia whole again” by depriving Kosovo and Vojvodina of autonomy and votes, increasing Serb (and his own) power in the collective bodies. With Serbia effectively exercising the votes of Vojvodina and Kosovo, it would control three of the eight votes in the federal presidency. It could generally count on Montenegro as well, giving it control of four of the eight votes.

In January 1990, the Yugoslav Communist Party voted to give up the monopoly on power it had held for forty-five years and permit the formation of other parties. In the fall of 1990, the first free elections since 1945 were held in Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia. Nationalist political parties triumphed in the first two states; in Serbia, Milošević won 60 percent of the votes. In December, he won the presidency again (after winning in 1989), and Serbia's Communists won 194 of the 250 seats in parliament.

Milošević's reelection had been credited, in part, to his successful rallying of Serbian nationalists, who rewarded Milošević for unilaterally abolishing the provincial legislature in Kosovo and extending Serbia's control—first limiting, then revoking the 1974 statutes that had made Kosovo and Vojvodina autonomous provinces with powers nearly equal to those of the six Yugoslav republics. He confiscated the weapons of Kosovo's territorial defense forces and moved to disarm the defense forces of Yugoslavia's other states.

Then, in short order, MiloÅ¡ević began his policy of “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo, expelling ethnic Albanians (that is, Muslims) from their jobs, homes, and farms and forcing their relocation. The Muslims' jobs and property were quickly taken over by Serbs from other provinces. From the start, teachers were special targets of the policy, as were trade union leaders, who were also targeted for expulsion, beatings, arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, and shooting. Virtually all institutions in Kosovo were sucked into the purges, which became progressively more brutal.
²

Slovenian, Croatian, and Bosnian officials watched the evolution of events in Kosovo and in the federal presidency. Milošević's determined effort to gather all power into his own hands increased the interest
of these republics in secession from the federal state of Yugoslavia, an interest that was heightened when Milošević blocked the scheduled accession of the Croatian representative Stipe Mesic to the rotating presidency.

Janez Drnovsek, a member of the collective presidency who later became prime minister of Slovenia, provided a day-by-day account of the deepening political split between those who desired economic and political reforms with multiparty elections and free markets and those who saw reform as a threat to the Communist system.
³
In his memoir, Drnovsek asks whether it might have been possible to prevent the breakup of the Yugoslav nation. His answer: “Yes, the tragic, violent development could have been prevented—by prompt and helpful action from outside Yugoslavia.”
⁴
But the needed “political and economic aid, swift incorporation into the processes of European integration, and…rapid results”
⁵
to overtake the mounting hostility and disorder were not forthcoming. Western Europe was busy with its own integration.

As Slovenia and Croatia leaned toward independence, Milošević and other Serb leaders insisted that independence was not an option because Serbs were spread throughout Yugoslavia. Members of the collective presidency tried to draw up a balance sheet of each state's debts and credits with the national government. Again and again, Milošević drove differences to a climax and refused to recognize the authority of the federal executive body. Citizens rallied in the street, calling for his resignation.

Beginning in May 1990, Milošević used the Yugoslav National Army (JNA), which he controlled, to try to disarm the militias of each of the republics, demanding that all arms be handed over to the JNA, which was largely controlled by Serbia. Slovenia's militia refused to hand over its weapons, which enabled the republic to declare independence in 1991 and face the national army.

Together with Croatia, Slovenia proposed that Yugoslavia become a loose confederation with a democratic multiparty system. In December 1990, 88 percent of Slovenes voted to separate from Yugoslavia. The Croatian referendum on independence passed with 94 percent of the vote. Milošević announced again that if component states of Yugoslavia became independent, Serbia would insist on bringing the 8.5 million
Serbs, scattered in several areas, into a single state and would demand territory commensurate with their numbers.

In June 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence. Immediately, fighting broke out between Croatia and the largely Serb JNA. Brutal from the start, the war included all the elements of ethnic cleansing: siege, murder, confiscation and destruction of property, rape, beatings, and forced relocation of whole populations.

The European Community (EC) called repeatedly for an end to the fighting and announced that it would recognize no unilateral declaration of independence. The Bush administration was willing to defer to the EC on political matters in Central and Eastern Europe, and the EC and its Luxembourgois president, Jacques Poos, were ready to take charge. The EC appointed a troika to deal with the problem: Poos and the foreign ministers of the Netherlands and Italy, Hans van den Brock and Gianni le Michelis. They thought they had achieved their goal of preserving Yugoslavia with the Brioni Agreement, a cease-fire pact signed on July 7, 1991. The agreement stipulated that the Slovenes and Croatians would take no action toward independence for ninety days, the JNA would return to its barracks, and Stipe Mesic would assume the presidency of the federal executive. The agreement came unstuck as soon as it was adopted, but Poos insisted, “If anyone can do anything here, it is the EC. It is not the U.S. or the USSR or anyone else.”
⁶

The Americans had no desire to assume responsibility. James Baker, then secretary of state, commented in his memoir, “The Bush administration felt comfortable with the E.C.'s taking responsibility for handling the crisis in the Balkans. The conflict seemed to be one the E.C. could manage. Yugoslavia was in the heart of Europe, and European interests were directly threatened…. our vital national interests were not at stake.”
⁷

The EC asked the British foreign secretary, Lord Peter Carrington, to undertake the task of making peace. Carrington convened the first meeting of The Hague Peace Conference on September 7, 1991. He had concluded that Milošević and Franjo Tudjman, Croatia's prime minister, were prepared to split Bosnia between them, which would surely lead to war. The only way to avoid war, Carrington believed, was to devise a settlement that was acceptable to all. For a brief period, it looked as if he
had secured an agreement on a loose association of independent republics; arrangements for protecting minority communities in all republics, including human rights guarantees; and no unilateral changes in borders. The agreement was quickly approved on September 25, 1991, by the UN Security Council.

Lord Carrington wrote of this plan, “It seemed to me the right way to do it was to allow those who wanted to be independent to be independent, to associate themselves with a central organization as far as they wanted to. Those who didn't want to be independent, well, they could stay within what had been Yugoslavia. In other words, you could do it…à la carte.”
⁸
Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia quickly agreed, but Serbia refused. Milošević insisted that it was essential for all Serbs to live in one state, not in a number of independent republics. The Carrington plan called for equal rights for all minorities in all states, but this provision was vetoed by Milošević, who was interested not in unity or fairness but in a greater Serbia. To that end, he pressed Serbia's claim to sovereignty over Kosovo, whose population was 90 percent ethnic Albanian Muslim.

The violence worsened, even as Carrington continued to seek an agreement in which all minorities had equal rights in all states. Once again, all states except Serbia agreed. Milošević was unyielding and this newest attempt also fell apart. Meanwhile, the Bush administration quietly suspended all economic assistance to Yugoslavia, including assistance from international financial institutions, effective May 6, 1991.
⁹

The new UN secretary-general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, proved unhelpful in the process. Boutros-Ghali complained that Carrington should have sought his approval of the EC plan before it was submitted to the Security Council; he could have told them that the UN lacked the resources to implement the cease-fire agreement. The secretary-general stated bluntly that activities relating to peace and security should be managed by him and his staff. This was by no means the last time Boutros-Ghali would claim powers for himself that the UN Charter clearly vests in the Security Council, not in the secretary-general.

The United States and most EC member states favored preserving Yugoslav national unity over self-determination for the republics. Only Austria and Germany (which had the closest historical association with
the Croats and Slovenes) expressed sympathy for the aspirations of those who wished to secede. In June 1991, as Slovenia and Croatia moved toward independence, James Baker made a hurried visit to Belgrade, where he called for Yugoslav unity, discouraged secession, and rebuked Serb leaders for their repression of Kosovo. He emphasized that diplomatic recognition by the United States would not be forthcoming if any of the republics unilaterally declared independence. At the same time, Germany warned the Belgrade government not to send troops to fight Slovenia and Croatia, and said that Bonn would recognize them as independent states. But the Serb attacks spread. That same year, Bosnia-Herzegovina also declared its independence.

Two top officials of the Bush administration had long personal experience in Yugoslavia. Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as deputy secretary of state and then as secretary of state, had been U.S. ambassador to Belgrade in the late 1970s and knew MiloÅ¡ević well. Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national security advisor, had served as an attaché in Belgrade and had written his doctoral dissertation on Yugoslavia. Both men had headed Kissinger Associates after their assignments in Belgrade and had done business with Yugoslav enterprises and leaders during their tenures there. Both were very concerned about the effects of the collapse of central authority. Before Baker traveled to Belgrade, he was briefed by Eagleburger and Scowcroft. Eagleburger emphasized Yugoslavia's history of violent conflict: “We believe the only solution to these internal differences in Yugoslavia is an open, multiparty democracy throughout the entire country which protects individual rights.”
¹⁰
The new U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmerman, a talented Foreign Service officer who had already served two tours of duty in Belgrade, also strongly opposed Slovenian independence and the breakup of Yugoslavia.

American and European diplomats sought to prevent the disintegration of Yugoslavia, to prevent Croatia and Slovenia from seceding, to prevent the outbreak of violence and war, and, after war had broken out, to prevent it from spreading and prevent the establishment of independent states. They failed to achieve any of these goals.