[Interview] Yugoslavia Memory of a disaster – Michel Rocard: the European problem, the disagreement…
(BRUSSELS2) NB: this article is part of a series started in 2007 to try to define the European responsibilities in drama in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
French politician. Leader of socialist students in the midst of the war in Algeria, a Christian on the left, Michel Rocard joined the PSU, a unified socialist party – an alternative non-communist left movement – in 1960 and was its presidential candidate in 1969. A follower of self-management, he notably prefaces Milojko Drulovic's work on the Yugoslav experience “Self-management put to the test” (Ed. Fayard, 1973). He then joined the Socialist Party (PS), in full recomposition under the rule of Mitterand, in 1974. He was French Prime Minister from 1988 to 1991 where he settled the Caledonian "crisis". First secretary of the PS in 1993-1994, he was elected European deputy in 1994 and has been a member of the European Parliament since (Chairman of the Development Committee, then of the Employment Committee and, finally, of the "Culture" Committee and today a member of the Foreign Affairs / Defense Committee).
In 1990-1991, you were Prime Minister, your role in the Balkans?
You know, in the "religion" of Mitterrand's France, Foreign Affairs, it was him alone. I was the Minister for Home Affairs and… for the South Pacific. So I didn't deal much with European affairs. It was the president who had direct control over the Balkans with the SGCI (General Secretariat for European Affairs) headed by Elisabeth Guigou.
However, you knew certain Yugoslav leaders well, what was the feeling at the time, your feeling?
We were neither indifferent nor misinformed. We were worried. I had spent my holidays in 1990 on the Dalmatian coast. And I had found Ante Markovic, the Yugoslav Prime Minister, a man of peace, to have a drink in a port on the Coast. He had told me his enormous concern, how difficult it would be with Milosevic. He was well aware that Milosevic (the Serbian) and Tudjman (the Croatian) wanted the breakup of Yugoslavia. He knew very well that centripetal forces were superior to cohesive forces, that his position was fragile. He was right. We learned after the fact that, during a secret meeting between Milosevic and Tudjman, the two secretaries of the Serbian and Croatian Communist Party had agreed to break up the Yugoslav framework and to divide Bosnia between them. We knew it, in 1995-96, when the carrots were already cooked, and the massacres already committed. (...) I did not know at the time Kucan (Slovenian representative to the collegial presidency), the most insightful and the most brilliant (of the Yugoslav political leaders). I met him afterwards. When he saw Serbia ratify the choice of Milosevic, he immediately understood that it was going to be difficult. And he immediately began to strengthen the police in Slovenia.
The lack of reaction from Europeans, how do you qualify it?
It was not a matter of seriousness or draft, there was simply a disagreement. (…) The British did not want to get involved. And the Germans insisted on getting involved without the others worrying about it. It is only after independence that they become available for (more advanced) reflection.
The recognition of independence by Germany played a negative role?
Yes. Very quickly we felt that the Germans were playing alone. (…) German diplomacy, delighted to see its former Slovenian and Croatian companions, pushed for independence too quickly, putting the Yugoslav federal framework in a position to disappear.
A mistake ?
Yes. I believe and continue to believe that the disappearance of the Yugoslav framework has been harmful. Its outbreak put us in an entirely new situation and opened the way to an international war. (…) There was nothing we could do about it. When one is without means of intervention, that does not disqualify thought. But we had the feeling that we didn't have the possibility.
Couldn't we react all the same?
Bernard Kouchner's diagnosis “decidedly there is nothing we can do about it” is unfortunately correct. (…) The international community would do better (in this case) to explain its indignation but also its incompetence, rather than risk dirty tricks that fail.
Military intervention impossible?
The Yugoslavs were terrible warriors, and the terrain was difficult. The idea of an intervention to calm the game was not within the reach of Europeans and not many people elsewhere. We needed 200 men. (…) I learned from Africa or the Pacific – if you can compare it to the Yugoslav situation – that you can only make peace if the leaders want it, and are obeyed. This was the case in the Pacific. But not in Yugoslavia where each was busy cutting corners on the territory of the other and playing the game of
strength.
On the balance sheet?
There has been a complete failure to maintain peace and prevent genocide. Yes. But also a success in limiting the conflict within Yugoslav borders.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
(Interview carried out on August 29, 2007 face-to-face)