Word: serb
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...design for Bosnia that will be hard to construct and easy to paralyze. It turns the country into a republic containing two "entities." American officials insist this is not a partition and that Bosnia is a unified state, but other observers, including Bosnians, are not so sure. The Bosnian Serb holdings, the Republika Srpska, total 49% of the land. The other entity is a federation of Muslims-- called Bosniacs in the documents--and Bosnian Croats. All citizens will be free to travel in both parts of the country, and roadblocks and checkpoints are to come down. Both entities will have...
...separate the combatants and get the new country up and running, NATO plans to send in an Implementation Force, called I-FOR, of some 60,000 troops, 20,000 of them American. They will separate the federation's forces from the rebel Serb army, supervise their return to barracks and patrol demilitarized zones on both sides of the cease-fire lines. The I-FOR commanders will be the judges of what action they must take in any situation, and while the military annex to the agreement does not say so, the force will function much like an army of occupation...
...effort to bring the Serbs back up to 49%, the Americans had tried to find some sparsely settled spots in Croat areas. That set off one of the worst tussles, over the so-called Posavina corridor, the narrow strip in the north, at the top of the map of Bosnia, that links Serb holdings in the northwest of the country with those in the east. Milosevic continued to seek a wider corridor. But Tudjman balked at handing over the parts held by Bosnian Croats as compensation for Serb losses elsewhere. This time Bill Clinton had to step in. He phoned...
Izetbegovic then made his final demand. He wanted Brcko, the Serb-controlled town that anchors the Posavina corridor, turned over to his federation. This looked like a deal breaker. It was almost as if the Presidents were afraid to conclude the deal. "At the end," says Holbrooke, "we faced not a question of substance but one of political will. Do you actually put pen to paper?" Christopher drafted language on his handy yellow pad that would submit the Brcko issue to international arbitration and sent copies to the three delegations...
...Milosevic spotted Christopher returning to his suite and followed him in. "Mr. President," Christopher said to him, "you have a deal." With tears showing in his eyes, Milosevic said, "I'm so grateful, I'm going to put a big picture of you up in Belgrade." Christopher and the Serb president toasted each other with white wine...