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

would reverse all of the results of the ethnic cleansing that the Serbs had perpetrated. But
then in addition, many of the Serbs were shocked to see how the boundaries were drawn
between the Serb and the Federation portions of Bosnia, and also of Sarajevo which was
divided into sectors. In effect, some Serbs found that they would be living in Muslimcontrolled
areas. The person who reportedly passed out was a rather affluent Bosnian
Serb who suddenly learned that his entire estate would be in a Muslim rather than Serb
part of Sarajevo. As I mentioned before, Milosevic could agree to such terms because he
was not really a Serb nationalist. He did not care that much about Serbs. He cared about
Milosevic. He thought that by helping to conclude an agreement at Dayton his past
actions would be forgotten and he would gain legitimacy and respect. But he was wrong.
Kosovo was still outstanding, and it would prove to be his downfall.
Q: Was he still afraid at Dayton that Serbs might be bombed by the U.S.? Was that also a
motivation?
PERINA: Perhaps it was. Certainly bombing was never off the table. But this reminds me
of another anecdote about the technical support we had at Dayton from the military,
which was really impressive. The process of deciding the borders between Republika
Srpska and the Federation was one of the hardest parts of the negotiation. It amounted to
sitting down and dividing a country on maps, deciding which side gets this village and
that road. Numerous disputes came up. In one example, the disposition of a country road
depended on whether it was passable in the winter or not, and there was an argument on
how wide it actually was. Well, the U.S. had developed a wonderful way to deal with
these disputes. We had virtually all of Bosnia on aerial film. There was a room set up at
Dayton with several very large TV screens. In the case of this road, for example, we
could go to this room, ask the technicians to find the road, and literally fly over it, even
changing altitude within a certain range. The delegations that saw this technology were
really amazed. One day, Holbrooke found a pretext to take Milosevic into this room and
show him how it worked. Milosevic was also amazed. But, of course, the film had not
been put together for the purpose of helping the Dayton negotiations. It had been put
together by our military for the purpose of possible air strikes within Bosnia. Holbrooke
knew this, and he intentionally wanted to remind Milosevic of it. I am confident
Milosevic understood and got the message. It was in fact very impressive technology for
its time. Nowadays, of course, it might not be any more impressive than Google Earth.
Q: Did you find yourself getting sympathetic to the Serbs after all the time you spent with
them? You understood their concerns and viewpoints, after all.
PERINA: I found Milosevic very interesting but I would not say I grew more sympathetic
to him. On the contrary, as we discussed earlier, the more I knew him the more I
recognized how strange he was and what a perverse view of the world he had. With him,
the first impression was better than subsequent ones. But I would say that over my entire
tour in Belgrade I grew more sympathetic to the Serb people. They had acquired an
extremely negative image in the West as almost a nation of rapists and war criminals.
This was unfair. I came to know many, many good and courageous Serbs who were as
opposed to Milosevic, Mladic and Karadzic as anyone in the West. They were paying the
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