Volume 10 Numbers 2/3

Spring/Summer 2001

Feature: The Future of the Former Yugoslavia

Introduction

On February 16-17, 2001-that is, just before the recent tensions in Macedonia broke out and before Slobodan Milosevic was delivered to The Hague-the Council on European Studies at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies hosted an international conference on "The Future of the Former Yugoslavia." The conference, support for which was part of the council's federal grant, met at a time when it was generally accepted that the cycle of post-Yugoslav wars had come to an end with the demise of the Milosevic regime in Serbia. The conference also coincided with the beginning of the Bush administration, whose foreign policy on the Balkans was still unclear. It was, therefore, the right time for an examination of the postwar politics and societies in the former Yugoslav lands, their mutual relations, overall regional prospects, and the interaction between southeastern Europe and the international community.

Still, this conference was unusual because of its participants-an extremely distinguished group of activists and public intellectuals in their native countries, who were in the forefront of the democratic opposition in the 1990s. Their dissidence, in some cases, went back to the days of the Yugoslav communist regime. These were voices not frequently heard on American campuses or collectively in their homelands. Unfortunately, the group was not complete, as Viktor Ivancic, the editor of the Feral Tribune of Split, Croatia, could not attend because of an illness in his family. Likewise, Veton Surroi, the editor of Koha Ditore of Pristina, Kosovo, was prevented from coming because of a family illness. His absence was a source of considerable regret because, without him, the conference was left with no Kosovar participants. In addition, the organizers were particularly saddened by the absence of Rusmir Mahmutcehajic, of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. For unexplained reasons, which elicited the indignation of the participants, he was denied an entry visa by the US authorities. This example of bureaucratic obstinacy is, at the least, illogical, especially as Mahmutcehajic is often interviewed by the Voice of America and is received by the representatives of the United States in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, few individuals in recent years have contributed more to the idea of pluralism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We did, however, have the benefit of his paper.

This somewhat abbreviated version of the conference proceedings, is organized in four parts. Each section begins with an essay, establishing a theme for discussion, followed by the transcribed conversation among the participants.

- Ivo Banac

The Participants:
Teuta Arifi (1969- ) is assistant professor of Albanian literature at the Saints Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia. She has participated in the work of numerous humanrights, civic, and feminist organizations and, notably, is on the board of the Macedonian Soros Foundation and the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly. She has also served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her books include: Gjeografia ime (My geography [poetry], 1966); Feminizmi ekzistencialist (Existential feminism, 1997); Ucestvo na zenite vo sovremenite trendovi vo Republika Makedonija (The participation of women in the contemporary trends in the Republic of Macedonia, 1997); and Shate dite magjike (Seven magic days, 1998).

Ivo Banac (1947- ) is Bradford Durfee Professor of History and chair of the Council on European Studies at Yale University. His publications include The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (1984) and With Stalin against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism (1988). He was a member of the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights, copresident of the Croatian Soros Foundation, and a columnist of the Feral Tribune, a political weekly published in Split, Croatia.

Nenad Canak (1959- ) is president of the Social Democrats of Vojvodina. He was a deputy in the Serbian National Assembly and the Council of Republics of the Yugoslav National Assembly. He was elected president of the Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in 2000. He has published three books: Ratovi tek dolaze (Wars are yet to come, 1993); Pet godina samoce (Five years of solitude, 1994); and Godina raspleta (The year of denouement, 1996).

Ivan Zvonimir Cicak (1947- ) is a columnist for the Croatian weekly Nacional (Zagreb). He was one of the student leaders and the student prorector at the University of Zagreb during the reform period (1970-71) after which he was convicted of "counterrevolutionary activities" and imprisoned for three years. He revived the Croatian Peasant Party in 1990 and was the president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee during the Tudjman period, when this organization represented the most vocal opposition to Tudjman's authoritarian regime. He is the recipient of the Bruno Kreisky award for human rights (1999).

Jovan Donev (1955- ) is professor of international relations at the Institute of National History at the University of Skopje, Macedonia. He is the director of Euro-Balkan Institute, a private and nonpartisan think tank at Skopje.

Zdravko Grebo (1947- ) is professor of law and chair of the Department of State and International Public Law at the Law Faculty of the University of Sarajevo and the chair of its postgraduate programs in European Studies and Human Rights and Democratization. He is the secretary of the Chamber of Legal Studies of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1990 he drafted a proposal for an alternative constitution for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The founder and a former president of the Bosnian Soros Foundation, he directed Radio Zid (Wall) during the siege of Sarajevo. He is a recipient of the European Rectors' Club Award for Peace and against Racism and Xenophobia (1993) and the Franklin Four Freedoms Award (1994).

Drago Jancar (1948- ) is the foremost contemporary Slovenian writer. He was imprisoned for "enemy propaganda" during the communist period. Jancar has been the president of the Slovenian P.E.N. Center (1987-91) and is the recipient of the Preseren Prize and the European Short Story Award. In 1989, he organized an exhibition on the communist period in Slovenia-"The Dark Side of the Moon." His most important works in English translation include Stakeout for Godot (play, 1997), Mocking Desire (novel, 1998), and Northern Lights (novel, 2001).

Natasa Kandic (1946- ) is the founder and executive director of Belgrade's Humanitarian Law Center (1992), the most important human-rights organization in Serbia. She initiated human-rights monitoring in Kosovo and directed several campaigns against the Milosevic regime, including the Candles for Peace campaign (1991-93), the anticonscription petition (1991-92), the blackribbon march against the killings in Sarajevo (1992), and forums against pressures on ethnic Croats in Vojvodina (1992). She is the recipient of numerous awards, among them the Human Rights Watch award (1993), US and UK Democracy and Civil Society awards (1998), the Martin Ennals award (1999), the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights award (1999), NED Democracy Award (2000, with Veton Surroi), the Geuzenpenning award (2000, with Veton Surroi), and the Civil Courage Prize of the Northcote Parkinson Fund (2000).

Ivan Lovrenovic (1943- ) is the foremost Croat writer and social critic in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was the editor in the Sarajevo publishing house Svjetlost and is a columnist of Dani (Sarajevo) and the Feral Tribune (Split). He was a refugee from Grbavica, the Sarajevo quarter captured by Radovan Karadzic's paramilitaries, where his manuscripts and library were destroyed, and spent several years in Zagreb and Berlin. His most important books include Liber memorabilium (1994), Ex tenebris (1994), Bosna, kraj stoljeca (Bosnia, the end of the century, 1996), and Unutarnja zemlja: Kratki pregled kulturne povijesti Bosne i Hercegovine (The inner land: A short overview of the cultural history of Bosnia and Herzegovina), the latter having been translated into German and Czech.

Rusmir Mahmutcehajic (1948- ), professor of electrical engineering, is the president of the International Forum Bosnia, a nongovernmental organization of Bosnian cultural and political leaders dedicated to a united and multinational Bosnia founded on dialogue and trust. Mahmutcehajic was a deputy prime minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina and minister of energy and industry (1991) and played a key role in supplying Bosnia's defense during the war. A leading strategist of Bosnian independence, he broke with Alija Izetbegovic in 1993 over the latter's acceptance of a ghettoized Bosniac state. Author of numerous philosophical and political studies, some of his books are available in English: Living Bosnia (1996); Bosnia the Good (2000); The Denial of Bosnia (2000).

Miodrag Perovic (1947- ) has been professor of mathematics at the University of Podgorica since 1970. He is the author of several textbooks in the field of mathematical analysis and is a founder of Monitor, the first independent newsweekly in postcommunist Montenegro (1990), and of Radio Antena M (1994), where he also serves as editor, political analyst, and commentator.

Slavko Perovic (1954- ) is a founder and the former president of Liberal League of Montenegro, the chief opposition and proindependence party in Montenegro that has opposed the war-making efforts of Milosevic and his Montenegrin allies.

Srdja Popovic (1937- ), a leading Belgrade humanrights lawyer, was the defense attorney in some of Yugoslavia's most important political cases during the communist period. A prominent opponent of the Milosevic regime, he left Serbia in 1991 and has since been in residence in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Ranko Risojevic (1943- ) is a writer and the director of the National University in Banja Luka, Bosnia. Author of some thirty books of poetry and prose, he is a member of International Forum Bosnia, the Foundation for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and the Civil Forum of Banja Luka. He is also a member of the independent committee for the symbols of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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