yugoslavias implosion

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ChApter 2
lifting of un sanctions. After the Bosnian Serb leaders turned down
a plan for peace put forward by the Contact Group (a group comprising
Russia, Germany, the United States, France, and the United
Kingdom), Milošević “imposed” a trade blockade against rs to bring
it into line, charging that the Bosnian Serb leaders’ decision to reject
the plan “runs contrary to the very interests of the citizens of rs, as
well as against the interests of the whole Serb people and those of the
fry,” and accusing them of rejecting the peace plan “at a moment
when Republika Srpska has been recognized on half the territory of
the former BiH, when the acceptance of peace would have resulted
in the lifting of the sanctions on those without whom they would
not exist.” 302 Milošević believed that by rejecting the peace plan, the
Bosnian Serbs “exhibited cruel callousness toward the interests of
the overwhelming majority of the Serb people and of all citizens of
Yugoslavia” and “arrogated to themselves the right to decide on the
fate of the eleven million citizens of the fry.” 303
The Bosnian Serb leaders were backed by the Serbian Orthodox
Church and the pro–Greater Serbia intellectuals, particularly
Kosta Čavoški, Matija Bećković, and Vojislav Koštunica. They feared
that Milošević might give up the conquered territories; only after the
signing of the Dayton Accords, which most of them criticized, did
the Greater Serbia proponents realize that Milošević had squeezed
the maximum in “generally unfavorable circumstances.” 304
After the fall of Krajina in August 1995, the Bosnian Serbs were all
but beaten by the combined Muslim-Croat forces and were in danger
of losing Banja Luka and Prijedor. However, the United States
checked the Muslim-Croat offensive and accommodated the Bosnian
302 Vecernje novosti, August 19, 1994 .
303 Politika, August 26, 1994 .
304 Radovan Radinović, Srpski narod u novoj geopolitičkoj stvarnosti (The Serb
Nation in the New Geopolitical Reality) in „Geopolitical Reality of the
Serbs“, Institut za geopolitičke studije, Beograd, 1997, p . 28–29 .