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WARREN ZIMMERMANN (1934-2004)
A DIPLOMAT WITH BLOOD ON HIS HANDS
by Srdja Trifkovic
ChroniclesExtra! February 6, 2004
Warren Zimmermann, the last U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia before its breakup
and civil war, died on February 3 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 69.
Zimmermann, a career Foreign Service officer, was named ambassador to
Yugoslavia in 1989 by the first President Bush. Zimmermann was recalled from
Belgrade in 1992 when U.N. sanctions were imposed on what remained of
Yugoslavia, and two years later he resigned from the Foreign Service over
what he felt was President Clinton’s reluctance to intervene forcefully
enough on the Muslim side in the Bosnian war. Secretary of State Colin
Powell said Zimmermann ranked among the finest U.S. career ambassadors and
described him as an eloquent defender of human rights: “Ambassador
Zimmermann's passing is a great loss to American diplomacy and to our State
Department family.”
What the obituaries do not state, however, is that in March 1992 Warren
Zimmermann materially contributed—probably more than any other single man—to
the outbreak of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The facts of the case have
been established beyond reasonable doubt and are no longer dosputed by
experts.
Nine months earlier, in June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared
independence, a move that triggered off a short war in Slovenia and a
sustained conflict in Croatia where the Serbs refused to accept Tudjman’s
fait accompli. These events had profound consequences on Bosnia and
Herzegovina, that “Yugoslavia in miniature.” The Serbs adamantly opposed the
idea of Bosnian independence. The Croats predictably rejected any suggestion
that Bosnia and Herzegovina remains within a Serb-dominated rump Yugoslavia.
Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim leader, had decided as early as September 1990
he argued that Bosnia-Herzegovina should also declare independence if
Slovenia and Croatia secede. On 27 February 1991 he went a step further by
declaring in the Assembly: “I would sacrifice peace for a sovereign
Bosnia-Herzegovina, but for that peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina I would not
sacrifice sovereignty.” The process culminated with the referendum on
independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina (29 February 1992). The Serbs duly
boycotted it, determined not to become a minority in a Muslim-dominated
Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the end just over 62 percent of voters opted for
independence, overwhelmingly Muslims and Croats; but even this figure was
short of the two-thirds majority required by the constitution. This did not
stop the rump government of Izetbegovic from declaring independence on 3
March.
Simultaneously one last attempt was under way to save peace. The Portuguese
foreign minister José Cutileiro—Portugal holding at that time the EC
Presidency—organized a conference in Lisbon attended by the three
communities’ leaders, Izetbegovic, Radovan Karadzic, and the Croat leader
Mate Boban. The EU mediators persuaded the three sides that
Bosnia-Herzegovina should be independent but internally organized on the
basis of ethnic regions or “cantons.”
The breakthrough was due to the Bosnian Serbs’ acceptance of an independent
and internationally recognized state, provided that the Muslims give up
their ambition of a centralized, unitary one. Izetbegovic appeared to accept
that this was the best deal he could make—but soon he was to change his
mind, thanks to Warren Zimmermann. When Izetbegovic returned from Lisbon,
Zimmermann flew post haste from Belgrade to Sarajevo to tell him that the
U.S. did not stand behind the Cutileiro plan. He saw it as a means to “a
Serbian power grab” that could be prevented only by internationalizing the
problem. When Izetbegovic said that he did not like the Lisbon agreement,
Zimmerrmann remembered later, “I told him, if he didn’t like it, why sign
it?” A high-ranking State Department official subsequently admitted that the
US policy “was to encourage Izetbegovic to break with the partition plan.”
The New York Times (August 29, 1993) brought a revealing quote from the key
player himself:
"The embassy [in Belgrade] was for recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina
from sometime in February on,” Mr. Zimmermann said of his policy
recommendation from Belgrade. “Meaning me.” ... Immediately after Mr.
Izetbegovic returned from Lisbon, Mr. Zimmermann called on him in
Sarajevo... "He said he didn’t like it; I told him, if he didn’t like it,
why sign it?"
After that moment Izetbegovic had no motive to take the ongoing EC-brokered
talks seriously. Only had Washington and Brussels jointly insisted on an
agreement on the confederal-cantonal blueprint as a precondition for
recognition, he could have been induced to support the Cutileiro plan. But
after his encounter with Zimmermann Izetbegovic felt authorized to renege on
tripartite accord, and he believed that the U.S. administration would come
to his assistance to enforce the independence of a unitary Bosnian state.
The motives of Zimmermann and his political bosses in Washington were not
rooted in the concern for the Muslims of Bosnia as such, or indeed any
higher moral principle. Their policy had no basis in the law of nations, or
in the notions of truth or justice. It was the end-result of the interaction
of pressure groups within the American power structure: Saudis and other
Muslims, neocons, Turks, One-World Nation Builders, Russophobes… all had
their field day. Thus the war in the Balkans evolved from a Yugoslav
disaster and a European inconvenience into a major test of “U.S.
leadership.” This was made possible by a bogus consensus which passed for
Europe's Balkan policy. This consensus, amplified in the media, limited the
scope for meningful debate. “Europe” was thus unable to resist the new
thrust of Bosnian policy coming from Washington.
While Europe resorted to the lowest common denominator in lieu of coherent
policy, Zimmermann was giving finishing touches to a virulently anti-Serb,
agenda-driven form of Realpolitik that was to dominate America’s Bosnian
policy. Just as Germany sought to paint its Maastricht Diktat on Croatia’s
recognition in December 1991 as an expression of the “European consensus,”
after Zimmermann’s intervention in Sarajevo Washington’s fait accomplis were
straightfacedly labeled as “the will of the international community.” Just
as the EU has lived with the consequences of its acquiescence to Herr
Genscher's fist-banging in Maastricht, Europe has felt the brunt of the new
American agenda in foreign policy. It was resentful but helpless when the
United States resorted to covert action—with the support of Turkey and
Germany—to smuggle arms into Croatia and Bosnia in violation of U.N.
resolutions. Zimmermann’s torpedoing of the EU Lisbon formula in 1992
started a trend that frustrated the Europeans, but they were helpless.
Cutileiro was embittered by the US action and accused Izetbegovic of
reneging on the agreement. Had the Muslims not done so, he recalled in 1995,
“the Bosnian question might have been settled earlier, with less loss of
life and land.” Cutileiro also noted that the decision to renege on the
signed agreement was not only Izetbegovic’s, as he was encouraged to scupper
that deal and to fight for a unitary Bosnian state by foreign mediators.”
This was echoed by Ambassador Bissett, who has opined that the United States
undermined every peace initiative that might have prevented the killing: “It
appeared that the United States was determined to pursue a policy that
prevented a resolution of the conflict by other than violent means.”
More than a decade after the event it cannot be denied that Warren
Zimmermann’s role in Bosnia’s descent to war was crucial. In early 1992 most
Muslims were prepared to accept a compromise that would fall short of full
independence—especially if full independence risked war—but he encouraged
Izetbegovic to take a leap in the dark.
Zimmermann’s subsequent role as an advocate of a military intervention on
the side of the Muslims was seedy but predictable; ditto the lies,
half-truths and distortions contained in his book on the Yugoslav conflict
(Origins of a Catastrophe: Yugoslavia and its Destroyers). The Washington
Times was wrong when it claimed in an otherwise insightful piece that the
Lisbon agreement “was scuttled by hapless Mr. Zimmermann, who encouraged
[Izetbegovic] … to reverse himself and withdraw.” In reality there was
nothing “hapless” about Zimmermann’s action. It was as coldly premeditated,
and as tragic in its consequences, as Bismarck’s game with the Ems telegram
in 1870, or William Walker’s stage-managed “massacre” at Racak in January
1999, or Albright’s cynical setup at Rambouillet a month later. No doubt
when these two “eloquent defenders of human rights” meet their maker the
Secretary of State of the day will also assure us that their passing is “a
great loss to American diplomacy and to our State Department family.”
Serbian News Network - SNN
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