This action was unjustified and inaccurate because Izetbegovic was a leader who had displayed remarkable courage and integrity by persevering in his struggle to forge a multi-ethnic state and was not in fact responsible for any human rights abuses. The unjustified criticism of Izetbegovic is all the more galling when one considers that his pleas for military intervention to stop the carnage which was occurring in Bosnia (between 1992 and 1995) were ignored until 1995.

With growing international pressure for the United States to disengage from Afghanistan and Iraq, an overview of Izetbegovic’s life is therefore warranted. This is because these two nations face the distinct prospect of an inter- communal bloodbath occurring similar to what had previously happened in Bosnia if they are abandoned by the international community. This biography of Alija Izetbegovic written by David Bennett originally appeared in the November 2000 edition of Serendipity.

Alija Izetbegovic: Integrity in the Face of Evil

Bosnian Tragedy

Between 1992 and 1995 the world was shocked by the cruel and senseless war in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina in which over 300, 0000 lives were lost. During this period, for the first time since Hitler’s Third Reich, a systematic policy of ethic genocide - ‘ethnic cleansing’- was pursued in Europe. The primary victims in this instance were Bosnia’s Muslim majority. This evil policy was actually orchestrated by then Serb - and later rump Yugoslav - president, Slobodan Milosevic as part of his strategy to maintain the dominance of Serbia’s post- communist elite. The Bosnian war was further complicated by the involvement of Bosnia’s Croat Defence Council (HVO), which acted as a surrogate for neighbouring Croatia’s late president, Franjo Tudjman. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) deplorable reluctance to militarily intervene at an earlier stage to end Serb - and to a lesser extent Croat - aggression against Bosnia was an indictment against both the United States and the European Union (EU) to fully overcome the legacy of the Vietnam War Syndrome. This mindset spuriously maintains that military involvement in the affairs of another nation is inherently wrong, immoral and therefore doomed to failure.

The man who led Bosnia through its 1992-1995 nightmare, and who until recently led its Muslim community, was the writer and lawyer, Alija Izetbegovic. By examining Izetbegovic’s personal and historical role in the former Yugoslavia, the Bosnian war and its aftermath, an example of a leader emerges who has maintained his integrity. He was able to do this by tenaciously persevering in his vocation of forging a multi-ethnic nation in the face of overwhelming odds.

In trying to come to grips with the horrors of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war there has been a tendency to categorize them- and by extension to excuse the failure to militarily intervene- as the explosion of repressed ancient and uncontrollable ethnic rivalries which defy rational resolution. Such a perspective is an inaccurate one because much of the history of the former Yugoslavia (1918-1992) was one in which most of its political leaders deliberately forewent the opportunities that arose to forge a nation that was based on equality and democracy, to selfishly consolidate their own power. This was done by manipulating inter-ethnic rivalries. Alija Izetbegovic as a political leader has been an exception to this leadership pattern.

When Izetbegovic was elected head of the Bosnian presidency at the end of 1990, he along with Macedonian President Kiril Gilgorov attempted sincerely, if naively, to ensure the Yugoslav federation’s continuance in a more devolved form. This attempt was unfortunately sabotaged by Slobodan Milosevic. He feared that Yugoslavia’s continuance would have resulted in the election of a federal anti-communist government. Such a development probably would have fatally undermined Milosevic’s authority within Serbia. The Serb leader’s subsequent determination to create a ‘Greater Serbia’ meant that Izetbegovic had no choice but to lead Bosnia-Hercegovina out of Yugoslavia in March 1992 and inevitably face Milosevic’s bloody wrath.

Due to Alija Izetbegovic’s taciturn personality he has often come across as something of an enigma to both international observers and to Bosnians. Even amongst Bosnia’s secular inclined Muslim majority, Izetbegovic has stood out as an exception to the rule because he is a practicing Muslim. He is also the only political leader of former Yugoslav republic - until Milosevic’s recent fall - who had never been a communist. Izetbegovic’s public life has been dedicated to forging a sense of identity for Bosnia’s Muslim population, who had often been previously wracked by an inter-communal division with many Bosnian Muslims identifying themselves as either Croats or Serbs.

In attempting to foster a sense of a distinct Muslim Bosnian ethnic identity, Izetbegovic has also striven since he came to office in 1990 to maintain a multi-ethnic state (or what he defines as a ‘citizen’s state’) based on equality between Bosnia’s Croats, Muslims and Serbs. The paradoxical dynamic in establishing multi-ethnic Bosnia has been for its Muslim population to gain a clear ethnic identity as Muslims, so that Bosnia-Hercegovina can maintain itself as a de jure independent state and subsequently avoid the fate of being portioned between Croatia and Serbia.

Bosnia within the Interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Bosnia’s strategic value was most notoriously illustrated in June 1914 when the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, by a Serb chauvinist which precipitated the outbreak of the First World War. With the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s defeat and subsequent disintegration in November 1918, Bosnia became a part of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (which after 1929 was officially called Yugoslavia) under the Serbian royal family, the Karageorgivics.

Alija Izetbegovic’s historical role model was the leader of Bosnia’s Muslims during the inter-war period, Mehmed Spaho. His party, the Yugoslav Muslim Organisation (JMO), entered into an alliance with Monsignor Anton Korosec’s Slovene Populist Party to constitute the unitarian kingdom’s third force. This alliance exercised an important political influence by judiciously playing various ethnically based political parties off against each other during the kingdom’s parliamentary phase in the 1920s.

In the aftermath of the fatal wounding of the Croatian Peasant Party’s (HSS) leader, the charismatic and mercurial Stephan Radic during a parliamentary debate, King Alexander imposed a royal dictatorship in January 1929. This dictatorship attempted to artificially create a sense of nationhood and unity by vigorously promoting ‘Yugoslavism over tribalism’. Bosnia’s Muslim’s particularly resented the royal dictatorship because it deprived the JMO of its political clout and abrogated the Habsburg’s generous 1909 statute that had guaranteed the Bosnian Muslim community’s autonomy. Ironically, the resentment against King Alexander’s dictatorship was such that it facilitated a degree of inter-communal goodwill between Bosnia’s Muslim, Serb and Croat communities.

The royal dictatorship effectively closed off domestic avenues for authentic and legal democratic opposition. Consequently exile groups, such as the Croatian ‘Utasa’ (‘Uprising’) became a majority threat to the kingdom due to the patronage that it enjoyed from irredentist Italy and Hungary, which along with Albania and Bulgaria had territorial designs against Yugoslavia. Having concentrated so much power in his hands, King Alexander’s assassination in October 1934 in France on a state visit by a Macedonian terrorist in the employ of the Utasa came as a profound shock to Yugoslavia.

Prince Paul’s Regency: Uneven Political Liberalization

Until the late King Alexander’s son, Peter II assumed his majority in 1941 his prerogatives were to be exercised by his second cousin, Prince Paul. His regency ushered in a period of uneven political liberalization. Following partially fair parliamentary elections in May 1935 a new ruling political party was formed, the Yugoslav Radical Union (JRZ). Spaho and Korosec took their respective political groups into this new party. The withdrawal of the Serbian Radical Party from the JRZ in 1936 subsequently enabled the Korosec/Spaho bloc to become the dominant power group within the governmental JRZ.

In February 1939 the Korosec and Spaho seemed to have consolidated their political dominance when they helped engineer the downfall of the pro-Axis premier Milan Stojadinovic as he attempted to establish his own personal fascist dictatorship. Unfortunately for Bosnia’s Muslim community, Prince Paul utilized Stojadinovic’s downfall as an opportunity to reach a compromise with the HSS’s able leader Vladko Macek concerning Croatian autonomy. The granting of Croatian autonomy was a positive first step, but the problem was that the process of devolution was not extended to all communities within Yugoslavia. The regent sought this accommodation with the HSS in order to bolster national unity as Europe approached the outbreak of war.

The Sporanzum (The Understanding)

The ensuing negotiations were finalized in August 1939 with the conclusion of the ‘Sporanzum’ or ‘The Understanding’ which resulted in the creation of a Croatian Banovina (or Governorship). Macek’s subsequent appointment as vice-premier made him the second most powerful political figure in the kingdom after the regent.

The Sporanzum was a diaster for Bosnia’s Muslims because half of Bosnia-Hercegovina was given to the Croatian Banovina without any recognition of Bosnian Muslim rights. The 1939 Cvetkovic/Macek boundary along which Bosnia was divided later became the blue print upon which Serbia’s Milosevic and Croatia’s Tudjman covertly agreed to partition Bosnia between them. This reconciliation between Serbia (represented by Prince Paul) and Croatia (represented by the HSS) therefore set the precedent which illustrated how Serbo-Croatian could be fatal to Bosnian Muslim interests, as Izetbegovic was later to experience.

The Sporanzum paradoxically aroused Serb resentment and throughout 1940 there was agitation for a Serb Banovina (which is analogous to English agitation for home rule in Britain). Serb hatred toward Prince Paul was manifested in March 1941 when a group of Serb military officers led by Air Force General Simovic used the regent’s very reluctant adherence to the Axis Tripartite Pact as a pretext to stage a coup in the name of King Peter II. The new Simovic cabinet, which retained the Bosnian Muslim, Croat and Slovene ministers from the preceeding Cvetkovic cabinet, re-affirmed its adherence to the Pact.

Nonetheless, an infuriated Hitler refused to accept assurances from the Simovic regime and ordered the invasion of Yugoslavia. Within ten days of the Axis invasion the kingdom was dismembered. Macek courageously refused to the German offer to ‘lead’ the Italo/German occupied “Independent State of Croatia” (sic) (The NDH) which was subsequently led by the bestial Utasa leader, Anton Pavelic.

The Second World War: Bosnia’s First Bloodbath

Bosnia-Hercegovina was incorporated into the NDH. Although a section of the JMO initially collaborated with the NDH, they were soon to be disillusioned. The precedent of ‘ethnic cleansing’ was started by Pavelic with his Utase committing horrific massacres against Bosnian Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats. It was from the mountains of Bosnia that thousands of Serbs fled that Josip Bronz Tito’s communist partisans first emerged. Due to its mountainous terrain and central location that Bosnia became the strategic and bloody battleground in which guerrilla fighting took place in Yugoslavia during World War II. The withdrawal of Germany’s better military units to fight Soviet Union helped create a vacuum, which led to the complicating factor of a civil war between the communist Partisans and the predominately Serb royalist Cetniks which were led by Draza Mihailovic.

Bosnia’s Muslim population bore a disproportionate brunt of the bloodbath not only because Bosnia was a major theatre of war but also as they were specifically targeted by the various combatants. Many Muslims - but not the entire community as such- were persecuted and targeted for liquidation by Pavelic’s NDH. Because there were Bosnian Muslim units who fought under the Germans both the Partisans and Cetniks took reprisals against Muslim civilians. Nonetheless there were Muslims that fought under Tito, who in a masterstroke created the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) in November 1943. The AVNOJ brought non-communists into Tito’s camp. By recognizing the national rights of groups such as Macedonians and Montenegrins, Tito was able to significantly extend his guerrilla network on a nationwide basis. Bosnian Muslim families such as the Pozderac family that fought with the Partisans were later to gain positions of wealth and power in Tito’s future nomenklatura. Although there were instances of Cetnik units that were not under Mihailovic’s control killing Bosnian Muslims, a small minority of them threw their lot in with the Cetniks.

The Young Muslims

Throughout the hostilities of World War II the Izetbegovic family remained in the relative safety of Sarajevo. Izetbegovic entered a horticultural college before transferring near the war’s end to study law at Sarajevo University. Due to the Bosnian Muslim population’s lack of a coherent political organization in the wake of the JMO’s disintegration and the horrendous carnage wrought by the war on Bosnia’s Muslims, a group of Muslim students and youth, including Izetbegovic, founded the Sarajevo based Young Muslims. This organization sought to defend the interests of Bosnian Muslims and it enjoyed German support to the extent that they shielded it from Pavelic’s murderous wrath. With complete military victory achieved by Tito in May 1945 he unleashed a year long bloodbath in which between 100,000 and 250,000 people, including the courageous Draza Mihailovic, were butchered.

Although the Young Muslims was a cultural organization, it did not escape post war communist persecution due to its religious character and its toleration by the German occupation authorities. A twenty-one year old Izetbegovic was subsequently arrested and tried as a Young Muslim activist who had edited the journal, ‘Mujahid’. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Released in 1947 as a first time offender, Izetbegovic returned to his law studies. This period was to improve invaluable to Izetbegovic because it established his niche within the ad hoc stream that subsequently centred round the defunct Young Muslims and the minority of Bosnia’s practicing Muslims in the communist era.

Tito’s Yugoslavia
The promulgation in January 1946 of a Soviet style constitution gave republican Yugoslavia a federal framework. This federal structure was negated by the fact that the Yugoslav Communist Party actually possessed the fulcrum of power, it at least recognized the legal de jure rights of Macedonia and Montenegro as official republics of Yugoslavia. The regions of Vojvodina and Kosovo, due to Serb sensibilities, were eventually accorded the status of autonomous republics, not within Yugoslavia, but within the Yugoslav republic of Serbia.

Bosnia-Hercegovina, along with Croatia, were formally accorded the status of fully fledged republics within Yugoslavia, despite Serb designs on those regions. Inspite its official republican status Bosnia was actually under Serb domination. This was because most of this republic’s top administrative and party posts were held by Serbs. Up until Izetbegovic’s election to office in late 1990- despite the Tito regime’s later political liberalization- Bosnia remained the most ideologically doctrine, repressive and corrupt of the Yugoslav republics.

Tito’s support for the communists during the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) and his subsequent advocacy of a Balkan federation resulted in the pathologically suspicious Stalin expelling Yugoslavia from the communist bloc in 1948. The Soviet tyrant took this action because he feared that such a federation would threaten his power. A stunned Tito reacted by swiftly purging the party of its pro-Soviet elements and by launching an intensive collectivization program to demonstrate his ideological bona fides. But from 1953 onwards, after accepting western financial loans, Tito embarked upon a skilful liberalization program in which the Communist Party’s (renamed the League of Communists, LCY, in 1953) power was diluted with regard to it encroaching on people’s lives without forgoing its overall political power.

With the onset of political liberalization, Yugoslavia was opened to western tourists (who brought in hard currency) and Yugoslav citizens were allowed to work abroad as guest workers in Western Europe, thereby sending back valuable remittances. A variant of Marxist economic theory was subsequently developed that became variously known as the ‘Yugoslav Road to Socialism’ or ‘Market Socialism’ in which economic planning was theoretically devolved to workers’ councils and limited private property rights were recognized. This ‘Market Socialism’ was actually underwritten by western loans and primarily administered by and for the benefit of the families of the LCY’s nomenklatura or ‘New Class’.

Another policy innovation of Tito’s was his ‘non-aligned’ foreign policy that was adopted in the 1950s. Yugoslavia subsequently established close links with Third World nations. Because many of these countries were Muslim it consequently became an advantage in Yugoslavia in the 1960s to be an ethnic - as opposed to a religious Muslim- in order to obtain postings in the Yugoslav diplomatic corps.

Titoist Devolution
The most significant domestic ramification of Tito’s non-aligned foreign policy was the official recognition that was granted to Bosnia’s Muslims as a distinct ethnic group in 1971. In that year, an ethnic Bosnian Muslim, Dzemeral Bijedic, was appointed federal prime minister. Due to Bijedic’s influence with Tito, a number of ethnic Bosnian Muslims joined Tito’s entourage and this ethnic group subsequently became the predominant group within Bosnia’s LYC leadership in the 1970s. Most Bosnian Muslims to this day believe that Bijedic’s death in an airplane crash in 1977 was engineered by Serb chauvinists. It is quite plausible, that had Bijedic lived, that because of his political stature, he, and not Izetbegovic, would have led a post Yugoslav Bosnia.

Tito’s purging in 1966 of his heir apparent and security chief, the Serb Alexander Rankovic represented a crucial turning point in effectively devolving power to the republics away from Rankovic’s personal Serbian faction within the LCY.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, despite the onset of limited political liberalization, Izetbegovic played no political role as he concentrated on his legal career. He later served as an administrative official with Bosnia’s railways and as a director of the PUT construction firm. Nonetheless Izetbegovic still stood out as one of a minority of Bosnian Muslims that actually practiced his faith and consequently forewent the enhanced career opportunities that would have come his way had he joined the LCY.

The Power of Ideas: The 1970 Islamic Declaration
In 1970 Izetbegovic wrote a treatise entitled The Islamic Declaration: A Programme for the Islamization of Muslims and Muslim Peoples (The Declaration). This treatise was not distributed at the time. It effectively advocated a unity between Islamic teachings and culture. As such, it attacked the notion that one could be an ethic Muslim without being a believer.

The Declaration obliquely attacked Tito’s cult of personality and the philosophical basis of Marxism. (For good measure, Izetbegovic who is an Ottoman Empire sentimentalist criticised the coercive thrust of Kemal Ataturk’s Turkish republic). The Declaration made no mention of Yugoslavia or Bosnia-Hercegovina and its advocacy of a linkage between culture and religion has been misrepresented by Izetbegovic’s political opponents as Islamic fundamentalism.

In 1976 Izetbegovic published his book, Islam Between East and West and this book was followed in 1981 by another book of his, Problems of Islamic Revival. The 1976 book is more important than The Declaration because it gives a clearer perspective on Izetbegovic’s actual political beliefs and philosophies. Noel Malcolm in his book, A Short History of Bosnia reviewed Islam, Between East and West in the following terms by writing that Izetbegovic “tried to present Islam as a kind of spiritual and intellectual synthesis which included the values of Western Europe. The book contained some eloquent praise of Renaissance art (including literature) and European literature; it described Christianity as ‘near union of supreme religion and supreme ethics’; and it also had a special chapter praising Anglo-Saxon philosophy and culture, and the social-democratic tradition. No fundamentalist could have written that.”

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Yugoslavia’s 1974 Constitution

In 1974 Tito ushered in a new constitution to fully take effect on his death, indeed the primary aim of the new constitution was to ensure that Yugoslavia survived Tito’s death. The 1974 constitution established a system whereby the top government and party positions were to be rotated between the different republics in order to ensure that no one ethnic group predominated. The republics were also given certain veto rights over federal government decisions. Tito unfortunately squandered a golden opportunity that came with the adoption of the new constitution to elevate Kosovo and Vojvodina to the status of fully fledged republics of Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav dictator’s adamant refusal to envisage a future multi-party state meant that constitutional power would be balanced within the framework of the nomenklature’s interests as opposed to the overall good of the peoples of Yugoslavia. A multi-party framework would have complemented the devolution that the 1974 constitution facilitated and could well have ensured Yugoslavia’s survival.

With Tito’s death in May 1980 his framework of a decentralised authoritarian (as opposed to totalitarian) state was put into effect. Post- Tito Yugoslavia became the only communist country up until the late 1980s where a national parliament could successfully block government legislation. However this exercise of political sovereignty by a legislature did not denote political liberalism but rather that federal MPs were beholden to the leaderships of their republics. While the LCY nomenklature was prepared to openly air its policy differences within a legal context, it was determined to crush anyone that challenged its overall authority and privileges. Alija Izetbegovic was to gain Yugoslav wide prominence as someone that challenged the post-Tito political status quo.

Izetbegovic’s Emergence as a Dissident in Post-Tito Yugoslavia

Izetbegovic and eleven of his acquaintances were placed on trial in 1983, accused of plotting to establish an Islamic state after circulating copies of The Declaration in Sarajevo. The real sensibilities that Izetbegovic had aroused with the authorities were actually revealed when the defendants were charged with advocating a multi-party state. Izetbegovic’s trial was the most important of the post-Tito period because it exposed the actual repressive nature that underlay an avowedly ‘liberal’ communist state.

Sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment (later reduced to eleven years on appeal) Izetbegovic spent five years in the Foca Prison until he received an early release in 1988. As a petty slight Izetbegovic was consigned to the section which held hardened prisoners. (Those prisoners who protected Izetbegovic during his imprisonment were later released by him and given positions within the Bosnian army regardless of their ethnic background). Izetbegovic’s unflagging faith and stoic nature enabled him to successfully endure the rigours of prison life. This subsequently gave him the strength and fortitude to face the horrendous political future that lay in store for him when he was released.

Multi-Party Elections

With the decaying of communism throughout Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s it became apparent to the peoples of Yugoslavia that a one party state could not be sustained. In March 1989, a Bosnian Croat, Ante Markovic, was appointed federal prime minister and he attempted to steer Yugoslavia toward a multi-party future. The prime minister launched the Alliance of Reform Forces (subsequently known as the Reform Party) in July 1990 as he took on his nemesis, Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic. The Reform Party enjoyed strong support in Bosnia and it stood a good chance of taking office in that republic when elections were held there in late 1990.

Alija Izetbegovic reactivated the latent Young Muslim network and recruited contemporary young Muslim academics, such as Dr. Haris Silajdzic and Dr. Erup Ganic to found the Democratic Action Party- the Stranka Demokratske Akcije- (SDA) in May 1990. This party was- and still is- exclusively Muslim, although its membership is notionally open to all Bosnians. The SDA’s support was initially confined to Bosnia’s minority of practicing Muslims.

From Milosevic’s perspective a Reform Party victory had to be sabotaged at all costs because its inter-communal focus would probably make it more difficult to instigate a ‘Bosnian Civil War’ as a prelude and pretext to partitioning Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia. In July 1990 with the covert backing from Milosevic, an avowedly anti-communist party, the Serb Democratic Party (the SDS) was founded. This new party’s leadership was initially drawn from figures that had been briefly imprisoned in the 1980s due to their involvement in the Agrokmerc business scandal. The SDS stressed its alleged anti-communism by invoking- and subsequently disgracing- the memory of Draza Mihailovic. Ironically, this party stressed its supposed ethnic tolerance by inviting Izetbegovic to its founding Congress as its guest of honour.

The strong support that the SDS garnered amongst Bosnia’s Serbs caused many Bosnian Croats to shift their support to the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) which had won power in neighbouring Croatia in June 1990. Because Bosnia’s Croats and Serbs were shifting their support to ethnic parties, most of Bosnia’s secular inclined Muslims subsequently transferred their support to the SDA. The strength of this de facto tripartite alliance was illustrated in November 1990 when its respective candidates to seven person collegiate presidency (respectively composed of two Muslims, two Croats, two Serbs and one general representative) easily defeated the candidates from the former communist parties and those from the secular inter ethnic parties. Following the December 1990 parliamentary elections in which the ethnic parties again easily won, with the SDA gaining a plurality, the presidency convened and elected Izetbegovic as its president. A new three party coalition (composed of the SDA, the HDZ and the SDS) cabinet was formed and Izetbegovic’s then personal friend, Momcilo Krajisnk of the SDS elected parliamentary Speaker.

Gathering War Clouds

From Izetbegovic’s perspective the 1990 elections were highly satisfying because Bosnia’s three constituent ethnic communities- especially its Muslim community- had asserted their identities within a seemingly cooperative anti-communist framework. Having acquired office, a naïve President Izetbegovic attempted to devise a more devolved constitutional framework in which Yugoslavia could continue in a con federal form to which Bosnia could still belong. Unfortunately Milosevic was determined to engineer revolts by ethnic Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia in order to create a ‘Greater Serbia’. The SDS instead of being an anti-communist force was in fact a Trojan Horse/surrogate for the post-communist Milosevic to achieve his territorial ambitions and subsequently maintain his power in Serbia.

In July 1991 a successful revolt by Serbs in the Krajina region of Croatia, which along with Slovenia had recently seceded from Yugoslavia, occurred. This revolt was covertly organised by the Yugoslav Military Intelligence and it was actually carried out by the Serb dominated Yugoslav People’s Army- sic (JNA). The Krajna ‘revolt’ was supported by the Bosnian SDS, which now demanded a con federal Bosnia. Having seen Milosevic sabotage his plan for a further devolved Yugoslavia, a wiser Izetbegovic now realized that a federal Bosnia would provide Milosevic with the cover to bring whatever territory that the SDS claimed as part of a de facto ‘Greater Serbia’. In October 1991 a very acrimonious parliamentary debate, which was filmed, between Izetbegovic and the SDS leader Dr. Radovan Karadzic (a psychiatrist by profession) the SDA/HDZ majority rejected SDS calls for a federal Bosnia and passed a sovereignty law under which Bosnian law took precedent over Yugoslav law. The SDS’s reaction was to withdraw from the coalition government, parliament and presidency. Ominously the JNA proceeded in November 1991 to disarm the Bosnian Territorial Defence Force.

Bosnian Independence and the Onslaught of Ethnic Cleansing

For Izetbegovic however a point of no return had been reached in which for Bosnia to have remained in Yugoslavia would have meant remaining within an inhospitable Greater Serbia. An independence referendum was subsequently held in March 1992 in which the voters were asked if they endorsed the establishment of an independent multi-ethnic Bosnia-Hercegovina. Due to an SDS backed boycott, supported by JNA obstruction, only Muslims, Croats and those Serbs in Sarajevo that were able to vote took part in the independence referendum in which 99% voted for independence with a turnout of 63%.

Karadzic predictably refused to recognise the result and from the JNA stronghold of Banja Luka proclaimed a ‘Serb Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina’. Those JNA units that were based in Bosnia cosmetically transformed themselves into the Army of the Serb Republic (VRS) and disingenuously adopted the trappings of the Serbian Orthodox Church. However most of the VRS’s officers, such as its commander, General Ratko Mladic were former LCY stalwarts who were covertly financed and supplied with arms by the Milosevic regime. The VRS was supported by various Serb paramilitary death squads, the most notorious been the ‘Tigers’ which was led by the late and unlamented ‘Arkan’.

Having established itself as a nominally independent force, the VRS launched a savage artillery bombardment on Sarajevo on April 6th 1992 as Serb paramilitaries attacked the capital. Fortunately the JNA Sarajevo garrison inexplicably declined to support the attack - a minority of the garrison later joined the new Bosnian army which was a chaotic combination of lightly armed police reservists and the SDA militia, the ‘Green Berets’- were able to successfully repulse the attack on the capital. In May 1992 Izetbegovic and his daughter and close confidant, Sabina were seized by the JNA’s Sarajevo garrison as they returned from an international conference on Bosnia. The newly formed Bosnian army reacted quickly by surrounding the barracks, which gave them the leverage to secure the president and his daughter’s release in return for JNA garrison’s safe passage out of Sarajevo.

This new army’s success was in part due to the directions they received from former gang leaders, some of whom Izetbegovic had established a connection with from his period in prison. These leaders possessed an intricate knowledge of the capital’s labyrinth of back streets and alley ways and therefore were able to secure most of the capital for the government. Within a month of its attack on Sarajevo the VRS controlled 70% of Bosnia. Actual government control of Bosnia was confined to a small triangle bounded by Sarajevo, Tuzla and Tranik in central Bosnia. The remaining territory that was not under VRS control was held by the allied Bosnian Croat army, the HVO in the west in Hercegovina, which had repulsed the Serbs.

The second major miscalculation the Izetbegovic made (the first was his former implicit alliance with the SDS) was his assumption that western military intervention would be promptly forthcoming. The European Union (EU) would not support NATO intervention without United States leadership. Unfortunately the Bush administration’s foreign policy ‘experts’- such as National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft- were infected with the ‘Vietnam Syndrome’. Consequently they selfishly refused to undertake military intervention abroad unless it was vital to the United State’s economic interests (such as the Gulf War in 1991). While a relatively small and ineffective United States Protection Force (UNPHOFOR) was subsequently deployed in 1992- which would eventually number 44, 0000- the international community refrained from assisting Bosnia as an international arms embargo was imposed on all the combatants, thereby principally benefiting the well stocked VRS.

Due to its shortage of manpower, -the VRS approximately numbered 80,000- General Mladic pursued a strategy in which the VRS seized territory by blitzkrieg. To hold the taken territory and minimize VRS casualties, the practice of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and siege warfare was applied. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ involved massacring non-Serb civilians, rape and generally forcing people from their homes. For all the verbal eloquence with which western leaders denounced Serb aggression they offered no practical military assistance to Bosnia. Even though Bill Clinton as a presidential candidate vocally deplored the Bush administration’s inactivity with respect to Bosnia, his Vietnam War complex manifested itself as president when he vetoed a congressional bill that would have lifted the arms embargo against the Bosnian government.

In negotiations at the various international conferences sponsored by the EU or the Council for European Security and Co-Operation Alija Izetbegovic was often treated with contempt because of his reluctance to capitulate. Ironically, Serb intransigence such as Karadzic’s refusal to accept the Vance/Owen Plan in 1993 (which would have divided Bosnia into ten cantons) enabled Izetbegovic to avoid endorsing agreements that would have sanctioned Serb dominance.

Izetbegovic’s Precarious Military and Political Situation

Izetbegovic’s major achievement following the proclamation of Bosnian independence was to have retained control of most of Sarajevo- part of the eastern sector of the city fell to the VRS- so that he could claim to be the legal head of state for all of Bosnia. The foundation of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina (ARBH) in 1992 from the police force, the Green Berets and former city gains was another substantial achievement because it gave Bosnia a fighting chance with regard to ensuring its survival. Under the brilliant command of General Rasin Delic (a former JNA officer who had defected) the ARBH became a flexible organisation that was able to wage hit and run operations against the VRS. Due to the initial support that the ARBH received from the HVO in 1992, western Bosnia (i.e. Hercegovina) remained free from VRS control. In October 1992 however fighting broke out between the ARBH and the HVO. In April 1993 the Bosnian HDZ, led by Mate Boban, with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman’s discreet support declared the establishment of a secessionist Croat ‘Herce-Bosnia’.

In September 1993 the political/military situation reached a nadir for Izetbegovic when the HVO entered into a political alliance with the VRS and the Bosnian president’s major political opponent within the Muslim community, Firket Abdic. Abdic established the self-declared ‘Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia’ as he entered into an alliance with Boban and Karadzic. Izetbegovic reacted to these ominous developments by dismissing the HDZ ministers (including Prime Minister Mile Akmadzic) and appointing Dr. Haris Silajdzic, the scion of one of Bosnia’s most prominent Muslim families as the new prime minister in 1993.

The new Silajdzic cabinet won inter-ethnic popular support within the besieged Sarajevo in late 1993 when it launched a military offensive that destroyed the HVO, extortionist criminal gangs and the Mujadeen militia that were operating in the capital. Because much of the ARBH was composed of Muslim refugees from ‘ethnically cleansed’ areas they subsequently fought with a ferocious determination against the HVO in western Bosnia that the regular Croatian army, the HV, was obliged to intervene in November 1993 to save the beleaguered HVO from military defeat. Fortunately because President Tudjman was susceptible to western pressure he forced a reluctant Boban to conclude a ceasefire with the ARBH and to enter ‘Herce-Bosnia’ in March 1994 into the newly created Muslim-Croat Federation. This new entity existed within the paradigm of the Bosnian state and Prime Minister Silajdzic concurrently served as prime minister of the new federation. The formation of this federation meant that Izetbegovic and Silajdzic had effectively staved off a Croatian attempt to de facto annex the western part of Bosnia. Consequently the ARBH was free to concentrate on countering Serb aggression.

Internal Divisions within the Bosnian Government

Within the Bosnian government controlled territory a split emerged between the secular nationalists and Muslim hardliners with Izetbegovic straddling the middle. On the one hand was a hardline Islamic faction led by Vice-President Ejup Ganic which was supported by General Delic, who brought in most of the ARBH officer corps into the SDA to constitute a powerful party faction. Alternatively, Prime Minister Silajdzic and most of his cabinet advocated a multi-ethnic state.

Although Izetbegovic has succumbed to Islamic hardline pressure to officially recognize Bosnian Muslims as a distinct ethnic group- ‘Bosniacs’ - he refused to declare a Bosniac republic. To have done so would have legally destroyed Bosnia-Hercegovina as a multi-ethnic state and thereby legitimized a Serb-Croat partition. Consequently Izetbegovic refused to dismiss the Croat and Serb members of the Bosnian presidency, such as the courageous Serb, Mirko Pejanovic, that he had unilaterally appointed to replace the departed SDS and HDZ representatives.

Prime Minister Siladzic became a trenchant critic of Izetbegovic’s over reliance on his Muslim power base and unconstitutional refusal to rotate the presidency after December 1991 onto the Croat and Serb members of the collegiate presidency. However Siladzic grudgingly appreciated that Izetbegovic’s stature was such that only he could effectively check Muslim hardliners. For the Ganic/Delic bloc dared not move against ‘Deedo’ or ‘Grandpa’ as Izetbegovic is affectionately known to most Bosnian Muslims.

Belated NATO Intervention

In July 1995 the supposedly ‘safe areas’ of Srebrencia and Zepa fell to the VRS which resulted in the massacre of over 8000 Muslim men. Meanwhile the VRS launched an offensive to take the western enclave of Bihac with the support of Muslim troops loyal to Adbic. During this crucial stage US congressional pressure led by Republican Senate leader Bob Dole to rescind the arms embargo against the Bosnian government reached a crescendo. At this vital juncture Croatia launched a blitzkrieg offensive to retake Krajina. Meanwhile a wary Izetbegovic arrived in the Croatian capital Zagreb to negotiate an alliance with Tudjman. Due to the bloody noose that Croatia received from the ARBH in 1993/94 and the international disrepute that the Serbs were held in, the canny Tudjman calculated that he could maximize his influence in Bosnia by entering into an alliance with its government.

On August 12th 1995 a successful joint Bosnian/Croatian military offensive was launched to which relieved Bihac and consequently consigned Abdic to political oblivion. At the same time the VRS launched a barbaric mortar attack on a busy Sarajevo marketplace. The international uproar was such that the Clinton administration was compelled to launch massive NATO air strikes against VRS positions in Bosnia which subsequently gave the advantage to the Bosnian/Croatian military offensive. Consequently by mid-October 1995 VRS control of Bosnia had been rolled back from 70% to just under 50%. Despite this (or perhaps) because of this shift in military fortunes in favour for the Bosnian government due to NATO bombing, American pressure compelled Izetbegovic to take part in an international conference on Bosnia to determine its future.

The Dayton Conference

In contrast to Czechoslovakia’s ill-fated President Eduard Benes-whom Izetbegovic has compared himself to-he was not effectively excluded from the conference that decided his nation’s fate. The November 1995 American sponsored negations on a post-war Bosnia were held at the Wright Patterson Air Base outside Dayton, Ohio. Izetbegovic utilized his status as a chief of state to maximum effect so that he could hold his own against Tudjman and Milosevic who represented and negotiated on behalf of the respective Croat and Serb interests in Bosnia. The Bosnian government delegation was itself wracked by division between the Ganic and Siladzic factions. Meanwhile Izetbegovic had to contend with negotiating with the Milosevic and Tudjman (whom the Bosnian president wryly described as a choice between Leukaemia and having a brain tumour). Furthermore the talks’ American mediator, Richard Holbrooke subjected the Bosnian government delegation to sleep deprivation as he attempted to bully Izetbegovic into accepting the terms as he dictated them.

Izetbegovic’s reaction to this challenging environment was to cut off from his delegation- except for his protégé, the former Bosnian ambassador to the United Nations, Muhamed Sacibrey- and unilaterally negotiate with Milosevic and Tudjman as much as possible without Holbrooke. Shrewdly realizing that Milosevic and Tudjman were ‘control freaks’ that wanted to control their satraps, Izetbegovic convinced them that they could do this by using their influence within the context of a federal de jure Bosnia-Hercegovina. Although Izetbegovic had indignantly rejected the a federal solution in 1991, he realized that the subsequent deployment of a 60,000 NATO led Implementation Force (IFOR) would in effect prevent Bosnian Serb and Croat attempts to join up respectively with either Croatia or Serbia.

Crucially the Dayton Accords (in contrast to the Paris Agreement of January 1973 that facilitated the US abandonment of South Vietnam and consequently led to that nation’s destruction) sanctioned the continued deployment of foreign troops. This development was crucial because it would ensure that the political framework established by the Dayton Agreement would be broadly adhered to by the parties.

Post Dayton Politics

The Dayton Accords divided Bosnia into two ‘entities’, the Muslim/Croat Federation, constituting 51% of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the predominately Serb Puplika Srpska (RS) covering the remaining 49% of the territory. These two ‘entities’ in turn existed within a de jure Bosnia-Hercegovina, which has a loose federal government, bicameral parliament, judiciary and three person presidency (representing the nation’s three constituent communities). Internationally supervised elections were to be held in September 1996 to facilitate the creation of the Dayton mandated political institutions.

With the signing of the Dayton Accords Izetbegovic adopted a two-pronged approach. On the one hand he moved to consolidate his position within the Muslim community and the areas under his direct control, while simultaneously stressing his renewed commitment to inter-communal reconciliation and national unity by encouraging Bosnia’s Serbs and Croats to operate within the Dayton framework. Izetbegovic accordingly purged the pro-Iranian elements within the ARBH in return for extensive American military aid while also retiring the non-Muslim elements within the army. Former communist bureaucrats were dismissed and antiquated Titoist taxation policies were rescinded as external financial aid flowed into the Muslim-Croat Federation. A substantial gain for Izetbegovic and a reward for his compliance with the Dayton Accords was the VRS’s withdraw from most of eastern Sarajevo.

In the landmark September 1996 elections Izetbegovic fended off a valiant challenge from former Prime Minister Siladzic to be the Muslim representative on the new three person presidency. Many of Siladizic’s secular inclined Sarajevo Muslim supporters pragmatically shifted their support to Izetbegovic in order to strengthen the overall Bosniac position within the post-war Dayton framework. The 1996 post-war Bosnian elections were similar to the 1990 multi-party elections in that they resembled an ethnic census because its ethnic communities voted overwhelmingly along ethnic lines. Ironically a Bosnian Serb splinter party allied to Milosevic, the ‘Union for Peace and Progress’ (sic) siphoned votes away from the SDS’s Momcilo Krajisnk. This was done to ensure that Izetbegovic chaired the three person presidency during its first term (1996-98) during which the Dayton framework would be implemented.

The geographical split that has occurred in 1997 in the RS’s leadership between those Serbs based in Banja Luka in the west loyal to Dr. Biljina Pavsic and the Karadzic clique based in Pale in the east has been a very positive development. This is because this split has spawned a critical mass of Serbs who are prepared to operate within the framework of Bosnia-Hercegovina as a de jure nation state. Dr. Pavsic, a genuine anti-communist, has remarkably transformed herself from been a ruthless advocate of ethic cleansing to a strong proponent of reconciliation and general adherence to the post Dayton political arrangements.

Within the Muslim-Croat Federation a renewed SDA/HDZ alliance (despite a brief outbreak of fighting in Mostar 1996) against the secular/inter-ethnic parties should ensure that the federation will survive for the immediate future. Furthermore, there has been a discernable, but limited progress with regard to internationally supervised repatriation of the victims of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

The SDA’s defeat in local government elections this April this year by the EU backed Social Democratic Party ( a reconstituted post communist political party) in the Muslim-‘Bosniac’ area resulted in Izetbegovic announcing in June his resignation from the presidency which took effect in October this year. The election of secular and/or inter-ethnic ideological parties could potentially inject the republic’s Dayton created institutions with a unifying focus.

Ironically the Serbian branch of the SDA enjoys strong support in the predominately Muslim Sadzak region within Serbia proper. The Serbian SDA is currently aligned to the broad anti-communist alliance that recently brought Milosevic down. It remains to be seen if the Serbian SDA will exercise any influence over Yugoslavia’s new president, Vojislav Kostunica, an avowed monarchist. The new Serbian leader may well emulate Izetbegovic’s approach of seeking solutions to seemingly intractable questions based on law and due process.

Izetbegovic’s Beneficial Legacy

While the politics and history of the Balkans region can be classified as volatile, it would be unethical to categorize the horrific bloodshed that occurred in Bosnia as inevitable because of pent-up ethnic rivalries. This is because the carnage was deliberately and calculatedly engineered by Milosevic and his post-communist cohorts. In this context, both as a leader of a nation and one of its communities that were the primary victims of aggression, Izetbegovic stands out because he did not utilize the turmoil that confronted him to also become brutal of forsake his humanitarian outlook.

Alija Izetbegovic’s life, both political and personal, is testament to the fact that consistency is the key ingredient to the virtue of integrity. In this respect Izetbegovic is very similar to West Germany’s late former leader, Konrad Adenauer. Similar to Adenauer, Izetbegovic displayed exceptional courage by defying a dictatorship and in subsequently leading the nation after the tyranny had ended. Such a comparison is apt because Izetbegovic has never been an Islamic fundamentalist but rather the Muslim equivalent of a Christian Democrat.

Having suffered imprisonment for his faith and later advocacy of multi-party democracy it should not have come as a surprise that Izetbegovic did not subsequently abuse his power when he came to office. This is because for him, power is not an end in itself, but rather a means of achieving the objectives of forging a distinct Muslim identity within a tolerant inter-ethnic state. By persevering in the pursuit of this inter-related objective, Izetbegovic demonstrated that the key to ethical leadership is to strive for outcomes based on altruistic principles and not to allow the ensuing travails, no matter how horrific, to destroy the integrity of those principles.

Dr. Bennett is the Convenor of Historical and Current Affairs Analysis (HCAA), Editor of Social Action Australia Pty Ltd and the International Liaison Officer of the Australian Monarchist League (AML).

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