yugoslavias implosion

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transfers and exchanges. People can no longer return to their homes.
We may have to set up special institutions and agencies to regulate
the exchange of property, flats, houses. We must solve the conflict
between the multi-national and multi-confessional communities.” 140
He proposed a similar solution in Bosnia: ”I talked with [Alija] Izetbegović
as a representative of a neighboring state which is prepared
to help, above all on a humanitarian level. By all means we favor
demilitarizing and raising the blockade of Sarajevo and other towns,
we wish to care for the refugees together. We certainly wish to appeal
for an end to all kinds of ethnic cleansing and discrimination.” At
this time, Serbs were holding 70 percent of the territory of Bosnia
and Herzegovina and the international community was casting
about for peaceful resolution.
The international offers dovetailed with the Bosnian Serbs’ war
objective of ethnic division. The only problem for the Serbian side
was the percentage of territory offered them. Ćosić considered 50
percent a “satisfactory” offer, and urged the Bosnian Serbs to sign
the 1993 Vance-Owen plan, which called for dividing Bosnia into ten
regions and was backed by the United Nations. Ćosić believed that
the “Serbs have occupied more than they need. They ought to make
a compromise to let the Muslim population consolidate as an ethnic
whole. The Serbs and the Croats will reach certainly agreement on
territorial issues. Very soon. Regarding the Muslims, we’ll make a go
of it too because they will give up the idea of not negotiating directly
with the Serbs. Izetbegović is no longer talking of waging war until
final victory either.” 141 The Bosnian Serb Assembly rejected the plan
in May.
Historian and chief ideologue of the war in Bosnia Milorad
Ekmečić publicly advocated the unification of all Serbs. He said that
the “readiness to actually do something also for the benefit of the
140 Suddeutsche Zeitung, October 27, 1992, Jozef Riedmiller .
141 Duga, January 16–29, 1993 .