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

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PERINA: We saw the cables, and we followed all of the press reports. I knew the Ambassador, John Menzies. But until we were together at Dayton, we did not have much direct interaction. The link between all three capitals—Belgrade, Sarajevo and Zagreb— was Holbrooke and his traveling entourage. And one of the interesting things about Holbrooke, which I am sure frustrated a lot of people in Washington, was that he never reported on his meetings through cables. In the 20 or so visits by him to Belgrade, we never did a single reporting cable. Q: This was deliberate? PERINA: Absolutely. He always said-- and he was right in this-- that the more you report, the more Washington starts interfering in the negotiations. Interagency groups are set up, instructions drafted and circulated, a lot of people who want to get in on the action start appearing, and generally they are not helpful. What Holbrooke did was to call Warren Christopher periodically and brief him orally on the talks. Than, if anyone wanted a telegram, he would just say that he had already briefed the Secretary and that was that. And he got away with this as far as the State Department was concerned. It was a little tougher with the other agencies, particularly the Defense Department, because they did not trust the State Department, either Holbrooke or Christopher. That is why there were so many DOD representatives on the delegation whom Holbrooke had been obliged to accept as part of the initial decision to launch talks. These people were all doing their own reports back to their agencies in Washington. In particular Wes Clark, as the representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would run off after every meeting to send a report back to his people in the Pentagon. Holbrooke knew this, and it irritated him, but there was nothing he could do about it except—later in the process- start having some very private, one-on-one meetings with Milosevic to which the agency reps were not invited. Q: As the talks started, was it almost implicit that we had the option of bombing the Bosnian Serbs if the talks did not succeed? Did Milosevic understand this? PERINA: Yes. That option was always there, and Milosevic did understand it because in fact before Dayton it happened. We did bomb the Serbs in Bosnia briefly, and there was a huge demonstration, several thousand people, in front of the Embassy. It was one of the few times I was really frightened about things getting out of hand but there was an element of orchestration in the demonstration so that Milosevic did not let it get out of hand. It looked very threatening but remained peaceful. All of this was very ironical because the Embassy had twice been evacuated before the Holbrooke talks when we were threatening the Bosnian Serbs with military action. In each of these cases, all dependents and non-essential personnel were evacuated to Budapest in advance of possible bombing. In each case, the bombing did not happen, and people returned to Belgrade after several days in the Kempinski Hotel in Budapest. After the second time, it became silly, and the Serbs started making fun of it. They photographed the automobile convoy on the way to Budapest and made jokes about it. So then when we finally did take military action shortly before Dayton, the whole Embassy was there and no one had been evacuated. I 78
cannot now remember what finally triggered the bombing but the point was primarily to show the Serbs prior to Dayton that we were serious. Holbrooke wanted to show that there were teeth in the threats after all. But it all happened on short notice and no one had time to evacuate the Embassy when we finally might have needed to do so. Q: During this time was Croatia brought into the game? PERINA: Sure. There was another team working with Croatia to try to set up a Muslim- Croatian federation in Bosnia to balance off the Serbs in the negotiations. I was not directly involved in this but it was seen as one of the elements needed to make the Dayton structure work. Q: Was this structure worked out with Milosevic? PERINA: The basic elements agreed with Milosevic were that Bosnia would remain as a single, unified state consisting of two entities, the Serb Republic or Republika Srpska as the Serbs called it, and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The two entities would have a lot of autonomy, including their own parliaments, but there would be a central Bosnian parliament and governmental structure, a central judiciary and so on. There was a rough outline of the division of powers among these entities and the key institutions that would be created but otherwise all the details were worked out at Dayton. That is where we had the real experts, the lawyers and others to put flesh on the bones. Q: How did Holbrooke get the Bosnian Serbs to agree to this? PERINA: Well, Holbrooke rightly did not deal with the Bosnian Serb leaders Karadzic and Mladic. They were simply too tainted by the atrocities committed. That is why he dealt with Milosevic, and why Milosevic was key to the negotiations. One of the fundamental problems through the talks was that we needed to negotiate with the Bosnian Serbs but could not do so directly but only through Milosevic. Milosevic thus knew how important he was to the whole process and hoped to redeem himself and his entire career by helping to make Dayton succeed. There was the one episode that Holbrooke describes in his book when Milosevic persuaded us to have a meeting with Karadzic and Mladic. He organized it at a house on the outskirts of Belgrade. It was the only time that I also met with Karadzic and Mladic because, of course, they were not invited to the Dayton talks. They impressed me as rather sullen and unfriendly. They were, of course, very unhappy with the position they had gotten themselves into. Through their actions in Bosnia, they had become politically radioactive, and thus Milosevic held all the cards in the negotiations, and they as well as Holbrooke were dependent on him as an intermediary. Q: How did the Dayton meeting come about? PERINA: Well, once the Serbs, basically Milosevic, agreed to the basic principles and structures of a settlement, it was understood that there would have to be a meeting of everyone involved to flesh out the agreement and sign it. You must remember that all of 79
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The Association for Diplomatic Stud
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Holbrooke visits Albanians Dayton M
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throughout the country were execute
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capitalists and so on. At that time
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taken to an apartment which initial
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Q: You said that after Cleveland yo
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they agreed to send me there. Marxi
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most comprehensive collection of in
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Q: What was the background of your
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is there from that trial?” I thou
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word that he was going to come to a
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Q: During the Vietnam War, there wa
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very different interpretations. The
Page 27 and 28: Q: So you were there from 1979? PER
Page 29 and 30: I will always remember that staff m
Page 31 and 32: was very tough. We did suspend the
Page 33 and 34: line was that a person was made to
Page 35 and 36: there. The Polish economy was nose-
Page 37 and 38: Q: What sorts of issues did you tal
Page 39 and 40: war. But I can tell you that the So
Page 41 and 42: museums. Even in the private sector
Page 43 and 44: to the Soviet Union. Everything tha
Page 45 and 46: phrases “Open this gate, tear dow
Page 47 and 48: PERINA: Yes, they did. Jumping ahea
Page 49 and 50: Those plenary sessions I actually w
Page 51 and 52: PERINA: That is exactly right. The
Page 53 and 54: Q: OK, in 1989 you’re going to th
Page 55 and 56: PERINA: This was an issue because o
Page 57 and 58: position in Europe, and really the
Page 59 and 60: Soviet domination. They had histori
Page 61 and 62: Q: That was my impression as well w
Page 63 and 64: welcoming dinner in a restaurant an
Page 65 and 66: Q: How were you received by the Ser
Page 67 and 68: eard, and he functioned as everythi
Page 69 and 70: Part of the reason that we didn’t
Page 71 and 72: One of the more interesting people
Page 73 and 74: Q: So what was happening with Kosov
Page 75 and 76: Albanians were very anxious to have
Page 77: I remember Holbrooke’s first visi
Page 81 and 82: Q: And this was not an idle comment
Page 83 and 84: price for having a very bad leaders
Page 85 and 86: PERINA: Certainly during the period
Page 87 and 88: Q: So you took over the Holbrooke r
Page 89 and 90: PERINA: Not really. We coordinated
Page 91 and 92: why I believed that it was not wort
Page 93 and 94: Q: Can you give a brief summary of
Page 95 and 96: PERINA: Well the American interests
Page 97 and 98: shorter visits of three to four wee
Page 99 and 100: Q: How so? PERINA: Well, he felt un
Page 101 and 102: Q: Still, it strikes me that all of
Page 103 and 104: As for the European Union, most Mol
Page 105 and 106: PERINA: Nagorno-Karabakh is the mos
Page 107 and 108: e called the “Prague Process” w
Page 109 and 110: we physically crossed the front lin
Page 111 and 112: were about three-quarters of the po
Page 113 and 114: down to the Black Sea. Since I was
Page 115 and 116: PERINA: It is difficult to say. He
Page 117 and 118: political interests to keep it goin
Page 119 and 120: a huge personal embarrassment. It l
Page 121 and 122: clearly followed the advice because
Page 123 and 124: good governance and so on. In its b
Page 125 and 126: Deputy Secretary, Richard Armitage,
Page 127 and 128: PERINA: Relations with Europe were
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End of interview 129
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