Word: tudjman
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Nearly 150,000 Serbs like Milic spent most of last week fleeing before the army of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman. Tudjman's soldiers needed just five days to conquer Krajina, the crescent-shaped region whose Croatian Serb majority seceded from Croatia in 1991 with the help and encouragement of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Tudjman's victory last week created the largest exodus of refugees since the Balkan wars began; at the same time, the offensive shook up the region's political and military balance of power, and as a result seemed to create an opportunity for peace. The White House...
...Milosevic does not come to the Serbs' aid, and if Tudjman is satisfied with retaking Krajina, the chances for peace in the region might actually be improved. A demonstrably strong Croatia could act as a counterweight to Serbia; a defeat for the Serbs might make them more amenable to negotiation; and a reintegrated Krajina would no longer be a source of instability. As American and European diplomats point out, the map looks much simpler with Krajina in Croat hands, the isolated eastern enclaves in Serb hands and some sort of Bosnia in the middle, making the way to a settlement...
...Milosevic may not be able to stay aloof, and Tudjman may reach for too much. If the situation of the Krajina Serbs becomes truly dire, nationalists in Serbia will press Milosevic to act. "I don't expect Milosevic to come to the rescue of the Krajina Serbs unless there is a barbaric massacre or the blowing up of churches by the Croats," says one State Department official. "That would put him under tremendous pressure." Thousands of refugees now pouring into Serb-held lands in Bosnia could also provoke sympathetic outrage in Serbia...
Milosevic's silence up to now has fueled speculation that the two Presidents may have crafted a secret deal, allowing the Croatians to attack Krajina so long as they leave the Serbs in eastern Croatia alone. But Tudjman covets other regions in Croatia, and if he tries to seize those, he is sure to provoke Milosevic. All-out war would almost certainly follow, for example, if the offensive were to spill into the oil-rich and agriculturally prized region of Eastern Slavonia, which is now occupied by Croatian Serbs. Tudjman is tough and shrewd, but he has misjudged Milosevic before...
...Serbs suffering bombardment. But the Bosnians' cooperation with the Croatians may be short-lived. Catholic Croatia and Orthodox Serbia have long harbored the desire to divide Bosnia between themselves, and Bosnia's recent partnership with the Croats does not change its vulnerability. Indeed, some fear that a successful Tudjman might begin divvying up Bosnia with Milosevic. "Every government acts only in its own interest," said one Bosnian government official, who predicts that once Croatia has what it wants, it will eagerly turn to the task of carving up its newest ally. If so, that would be honoring a centuries...