ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

killings in Sarajevo, and so on. All of these reports were coming out and arousing public
opinion, generally in an anti-Serb direction because most of the publicized atrocities
seemed to be committed against Muslims by Serbs. This was the time when three or four
State Department desk officers in a row resigned from the Department to protest that the
U.S. was not taking stronger action against Serbia. There was a feeling that the U.S.
should be doing more to stop these atrocities, that it should intervene against the Serbs. It
was a horrible time and horrible things were happening. The U.S. had started reacting to
this, and military action by NATO was not ruled out. This was one of the reasons I was
told there was a 50-50 chance of closing the Embassy.
There was also continuing tension over Kosovo. In December 1992, six months before I
went out, Deputy Secretary Eagleburger gave Milosevic what came to be known as the
“Christmas warning” that we would take action against Serbia proper in retaliation for
any move against Kosovo. So U.S.-Serb relations were very bad, as you can imagine, and
the State Department increasingly felt under pressure to do more to stop the killing in
Bosnia. Our initial approach had been to try to stay out and let the Europeans take the
lead. We felt that this was a good example of a regional conflict that the European Union
should try to handle. But the European Union was not doing very much, and pressure was
mounting on the U.S. by domestic public opinion to do something.
Q: I just finished interviewing Ron Neitzke. He served in Belgrade before but he was in
Zagreb as Consul General at this time and then made Chargé for a year. He was saying
that he very much felt unhappiness from the Department of State that he was reporting
too many of these atrocities because the U.S. Government didn’t want to get involved. He
said he also felt he was up against what he called the Belgrade mafia, which was
Eagleburger, Scowcroft and others with Yugoslav experience who had served there and
felt close to the Serbs. Did you encounter any of this?
PERINA: It was ironic because there were a lot of Yugoslav experts at the top levels of
the U.S. Government. But I did not feel such pressure. Of course, I was reporting from
Serbia and most of the atrocities were happening in Bosnia. So I was not in a position to
report on them. From Belgrade, we did follow developments in Kosovo and kept
Washington informed on all reports of atrocities there. I did not get any signals that such
information should not be reported. On the contrary, there was a lot of interest in Kosovo
in our Congress so it was important for the Department to be fully up to speed.
Q: Oh, yes. This is where everything was happening. Were you given any special
instructions when you went out?
PERINA: Apart from the possible need to close the Embassy, the instructions were just to
survive. The UN sanctions were among the toughest possible. There were no airplane
flights, nothing was supposedly allowed in. Now, of course, it was a porous border and
you could buy a lot of stuff, but for the average person it was very difficult. For example,
you couldn’t buy gasoline. People had to go to Budapest and bring back gasoline in milk
cartons, which they then often sold at roadside stands. There was also this rampant
inflation going on as a result of the sanctions. When I arrived, the staff took me to a
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