Journal of Genocide Research

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Perpetuating fear: insecurity, costly signalling and

the war in central Bosnia, 1993

Tomislav Dulić

To cite this article: Tomislav Dulić (2016) Perpetuating fear: insecurity, costly signalling
and the war in central Bosnia, 1993, Journal of Genocide Research, 18:4, 463-484, DOI:
10.1080/14623528.2016.1226433

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2016.1226433

Published online: 20 Oct 2016.

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JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH, 2016
VOL. 18, NO. 4, 463–484
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2016.1226433

Perpetuating fear: insecurity, costly signalling and the war in

central Bosnia, 1993
Tomislav Dulić

ABSTRACT
This article deals with the relationship between the ethnic and
societal security dilemmas on the one hand, and the way in which
elites seek to prevent local-level cooperation through ‘costly
signalling’, on the other. By analysing transcripts of tape-recorded
conversations from the Security Council of the Republic of Croatia
during the period 1992–95, the author shows that the Croatian
elite based its initial strategy on the widespread fear that Croats
would become dominated in an independent Bosnia and
Herzegovina. It was during this phase that Franjo Tuđman and
parts of the Bosnian Croat elite voiced the idea that parts of Bosnia
and Herzegovina should—at least as a contingency—be joined
with Croatia. However, the elite in Zagreb began backtracking in
early 1992, when it became clear that the international community
would not allow such a turn of events. It is also shown that fears of
political domination began transforming into security concerns in
the second half on 1992 due to the increasing tensions between
the Bosniak and Croat armed forces. The final part of the analysis
shows how local elites used nationalist symbols and the presence
of foreign Mujahedin fighters in the vicinity of Zenica for the
purpose of ethnic mobilization in the spring of 1993.

Introduction
Despite a substantial amount of empirical research on the wars in former Yugoslavia in the
1990s, there are still competing explanations as to whether the violence was primarily
driven by elites or if it came ‘from below’. One explanation has focused on the role of
‘ethnic competition’ in local communities, which created tensions that could be exploited
by political elites for the purpose of ethnic mobilization and conflict.1 Rather than under-
standing the violence as being mass driven, ‘instrumentalists’ have explored how propa-
ganda was used in an elite-led conflict to cement in-group cohesion and prevent
collaboration across ethnic boundaries.2 These explanations tapped well into a growing
interest in how history and culture was used for mass mobilization in Bosnia and Herzego-
vina (henceforth BiH), explaining the phenomenon from different perspectives.3 Among
the most popular theoretical models has been the ethnic security dilemma theory
(ESD), which focuses on the impact of information failure and resource accumulation in
a context of uneven power balance. Central to the theory is that belligerents may end
up in conflict and mass violence, even though neither had any malignant intent prior to

CONTACT TOMISLAV DULIĆ tomislav.dulic@valentin.uu.se

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
464 T. DULIĆ

the onset of hostilities.4 In that sense, violence breaks out not as a result of premeditation
and planning, but due to insecurity and the emergence of ‘first strike’ advantages.
None of the models provides entirely satisfactory explanations for the violence in BiH
and in particular pertaining to the relationship between political decision-making and
its local impact. The proposition that violence happened as a result of local-level animos-
ities is questioned by research that shows no support for the idea that ethnic distance was
high prior to the outbreak of conflict5 while only a fraction of the violence came ‘from
below’.6 Instrumentalist explanations have shown how elites use media manipulation
for political purposes, but often rely on a rather unsophisticated understanding of how
macro-level propaganda affect local attitudes; an underlying assumption of a strong
and direct relationship between attitude and behaviour; and the assumption that symbolic
manifestations of nationalism by themselves prove ethnic hostility.7 Even though the ESD
explains how violence may erupt in spite of relatively benign inter-ethnic relations, it often
results in problematic reifications of ethnic groups as political actors, while sometimes
relying on untenable assumptions of original non-malignancy.8
This article brings the discussion forward by analysing the outbreak of conflict and
‘ethnic cleansing’ between Croats and Bosniaks in central Bosnia in 1993 in order to
gain a deeper understanding of how elites become affected by various security concerns,
which sometimes are also used to further exacerbate local cleavages, mobilize co-ethnics
and prevent inter-ethnic cooperation. Following a theoretical overview that seeks to inte-
grate the societal security dilemma (henceforth SSD) and the concept of top-down ‘costly
signalling’ with the ESD, I turn to an empirical analysis of how the Croatian and Bosnian
Croat political and military elites perceived their security situation prior to the outbreak
of full-scale war in April 1993.
The empirical analysis is primarily based on transcripts of tape-recorded conversations
from a series of top-level meetings among the Croatian elite, which took place from
December 1991 until March 1993. The contents of these discussions were not meant for
public consumption or propaganda purposes, and would probably never have reached
the public had it not been for Croatian President Franjo Tuđman’s decision to secretly
record them. Consequently, they provide a detailed insight into the deliberations and dis-
cussions among high-ranking politicians and military commanders, who basically formu-
lated the policies that were later carried out on the ground. Among the participants
were the entire Croat and Bosnian Croat elite, including nationalist politicians such as
Mate Boban (president of Herceg-Bosna and the Croatian Defence Council), Dario
Kordić (member of the ‘government’ of Herceg-Bosna and president of the Croatian
Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina [henceforth HDZ BiH] in 1994–95) and
Jadranko Prlić (‘prime minister’ of Herceg-Bosna 1992–96), but also ‘moderates’ such as
Stjepan Kljujić (president of HDZ BiH 1990–92) and Ivan Markešić (party secretary of the
HDZ BiH). One meeting was attended by Nikola Koljević (member of the Presidency of
BiH and ‘vice president’ of Republika Srpska during the war), and another by international
negotiators David Owen and Cyrus Vance.
The analysis shows that a deeper understanding of the decision-making process
requires taking full account of the fact that political actors had different motives for advo-
cating one solution or another, while some appear to have been indecisive or changed
their mind from one meeting to the next. I argue that one cannot fully understand this
vacillation without integrating the ESD and SSD theories, since the documents show
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 465

that perceived long-term threats to identities in the latter may coexist in a parallel or in a
sequential relationship with the fears of physical security characterizing the former. While
space limitations prohibit a detailed analysis of the effect of propaganda on attitudes and
micro-level violent behaviour, the article finishes with a few characteristic illustrations of
how some of the very individuals who participated in the Zagreb meetings used inflam-
matory speech acts and symbols for the purpose of ethnic mobilization.

Theory
Due to the predominance of rational choice theory in the field of international
relations, scholars often tend to view indiscriminate violence as the product of
various breakdowns and inabilities rather than as a premeditated and planned form of
violent behaviour.9 Even though recent research has provided important insights into
the relationship between control and selective violence,10 many studies rely on variants
of the ESD in order to explain indiscriminate violence. The theory has its roots in the
realist perspective on international relations,11 and is based on the assumption that
ethnic conflicts may erupt even if the groups involved originally do not nurture malignant
intent against one another. This is because the dissolution of states produces anarchic
relationships between groups, which are forced to fend for their own security by arming
or by joining alliances. The problem is that the accumulation of resources in defence of
one group will automatically reduce the relative security of another. Feelings of insecurity
may become exacerbated if the incumbent has an advantage that could disappear over
time, since that would create an incentive to strike first and destroy the enemy before
they become too strong. In cases where groups live intermingled or in enclaves, an incen-
tive to utilize ‘first strike’ advantages in order to drive out the enemy population from ‘con-
tested’ or ‘link-up’ territories frequently develops. However, violence erupts only if and
when the weaker side decides to oppose an attack, either due to its own capabilities
because of the prospect of outside intervention, or if facing annihilation in case of
surrender.12

Non-malignancy, fear and identity

Even though security dilemma theories provide a reasonable explanation for the outbreak
of war and violence, their proponents continue to struggle with some lingering
deficiencies. Of particular importance is the fact that the model is based on the assump-
tion of non-malignant intent, which is often difficult to ascertain empirically due to a lack
of primary documents originating with the belligerents themselves. Some try to overcome
the issue by referring to ‘uncertainty’ about the intention of the adversary as a sufficient
requirement for a defensive orientation to exist,13 while others settle for ‘illusionary incom-
patibilities’.14 Yet others emphasize the structural rather than psychological character of
the security dilemma, which reduces the importance of cognition to a ‘modifier’ that
may at best affect the intensity of fear.15
While pinpointing important theoretical deficiencies, neither of these explanations pro-
vides an entirely satisfactory answer to the problem of intentionality. Notwithstanding that
structures affect agency, it is how elites perceive the situation that informs their behaviour,
and will be of decisive importance as to whether war will break out or not. The best way in
466 T. DULIĆ

which to approach the issue is therefore to focus on the role and function of emerging
incompatibilities along a trajectory leading from the structural preconditions of conflict
to the sense of acute danger among political decision-makers. Apart from being actor-
oriented and psychological in character, such an approach to the problem of non-malig-
nancy necessitates a dynamic view of intent and agency, since war is often the last resort
in a spiral of violence.16 It is for instance important to recognize that individuals can
nurture seemingly contradictory beliefs about reality at the same time. Conversely,
decision-makers belonging to the same elite often have quite different albeit compatible
or even reinforcing views on the causes of insecurity. In a classic ESD, for instance, violence
results from resource accumulation in a situation of uneven power relations and a lack of
information about the intention of the adversary. However, it might also result not from an
immediate security threat, but from the identification of emerging structural disadvan-
tages that actors believe upset power-sharing arrangements and provide for the domina-
tion of one group until group identities, rather than physical existence, is perceived to be
under threat. Such processes are in fact best explained by the SSD, which was first coined
by the Copenhagen School of International Relations.17 While structurally very similar to
the ESD, the SSD rests on the idea that conflicts happen in situations where a state fails
to provide guarantees for the preservation of collective identities. Assuming groups
want to maintain identities, real or perceived infringements on those cultural, social and
economic resources that facilitate the reproduction of identities often provoke counter-
action and a highly ‘securitized’ public discourse. This is usually done in order to ward
off existential threats not necessarily to the physical well-being of groups, but to their
existence as culturally distinct communities. However, as Roe points out:
… societal identity can be defended using military means. This is particularly the case if iden-
tity is linked to territory: the defence of the ‘historic homeland’. If the threat posed by one
group to another is military (armed attack from a neighbouring society), then some kind of
armed response is usually required.18

Situations like the one described by Roe are not least important in the case of an emer-
ging democracy in a multi-ethnic environment, when political elites can use extreme vio-
lence in order to translate demographic dominance into political control.19 However, the
SSD sometimes precedes the ESD in a sequential relationship, whereby initial threats to
identities and fears of assimilation transform into real or perceived fears of physical secur-
ity once political anarchy sets in, the state monopoly on violence is lost and groups have to
fend for their own security. More precisely, strong groups may act violently in order to
change the structural preconditions that are believed to cause identity threats in the
longer term, although not necessarily experiencing an acute security threat. On other
occasions, they might act similarly in order to prevent an attack by the opponent. In
that sense, the SSD appears to have its strongest explanatory power when focusing on
long-term effects of societal (in)security, while the ESD generally appears more geared
towards a time-limited context beginning with emerging anarchy and finishing with the
outbreak of violence. By acknowledging that individual actors within the same elite
may have different motives for their actions, we may also begin to overcome the
problem with reification.
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 467

‘Costly signalling’ and ethnic mobilization

Another problem that plagues security dilemma theories is the lack of a coherent expla-
nation as to whether and how speech acts and propaganda on the elite level actually influ-
ence local or individual-level participation in violence. As has been pointed out by scholars
from various fields,20 there is in fact little empirical evidence to support the assumption of
a strong causal relationship between the propagation of ideology and perpetrator behav-
iour. Some Holocaust historians for instance suggest that propaganda primarily seeks not
to mobilize perpetrators but to identify the victim group and delineate it in ways that will
automatically signal to members of the in-group that they are safe from persecution unless
they oppose the government policies.21
Moreover, propagandists often use media to instil fear and thus pre-empt interference
with government policies from within the in-group once they are set in motion. In an
effort to explain why certain dilemmas end up in conflict and others do not, de Figueiredo
and Weingast for instance argue that political leaders can achieve distancing and in-group
cohesion by depicting the out-group as a threat and danger, thus signalling that
cooperation across ethnic boundaries is futile, and might even be dangerous. The reason
for this, according to the authors, is that elites manipulate masses because ‘gambling for
resurrection offers the hope of forestalling the loss of power’.22 By depicting the outsider
as a real or potential threat, the elite utilizes negative stereotypes and historical codes in
order to create insecurity and ethnic distance. Key to the model is that the salience of inse-
curity increases if members of the out-group engage in speech acts or symbolic behaviour
that somehow ‘confirms’ the prejudices of the in-group. The reason is that such behaviour
will seem to make the claims made by the central authorities more plausible.
Drawing on theoretical arguments, we reach certain hypotheses concerning the under-
lying reasons for the outbreak of a full-scale war between the Croatian Defence Council
(Hrvatsko vijeće obrane, HVO) and the Army of Bosnia and Hercegovina (Armija Bosne i
Hercegovine, ABiH) in BiH. First, we would expect that the gradual transformation of Yugo-
slav society through democratization would result in the emergence of an SSD, which
causes fears of domination in the longer term among the Croatian elite in Croatia and,
more importantly, Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, one should also expect different
actors to hold different ideas, with the salience of the ESD existing in parallel with the
SSD or increasing the closer we move to the outbreak of violence between the Bosniak
and Bosnian Croat armed forces in April 1993. Once violence sets in, political elites
should hypothetically abandon the idea of cross-ethnic cooperation and use ‘costly signal-
ling’ in order to maintain in-group loyalty and cohesion. While the term usually denotes
signalling to the opponent that an attack will carry a high cost,23 it is here used in a slightly
different way in order to show how actors play on insecurity for the purpose of enhancing
in-group loyalties and participation. In practical terms, this means using cultural and his-
torical symbols and linguistic codes in order to signal that out-groups cannot be trusted
and cooperation might even be detrimental to in-group security. Moreover, we expect
that political actors will base their opinions on their own experiences, professional respon-
sibilities (for instance, officers will focus more closely on military security) and territorial
background, while attitudes will also be heavily influenced by external constraints and
the actions of opponent groups.
468 T. DULIĆ

Background: the dissolution of Yugoslavia

The inability of Yugoslavia to survive as a state was due to the confluence of long-term
conflicts between centralism and federalism and short-term effects of economic crisis
and political decision-making. Following the devastation of the Second World War,
which included a particularly bloody civil war, the communists sought to establish a
strong central government emphasizing a supra-national Yugoslav identity for the citizens.
By the mid 1960s, however, political tensions prompted the leadership to embark on a
policy of rapid reform, culminating in the adoption of a constitution in 1974 that devolved
most powers over financial and fiscal politics, administration and even the security system
to the level of the six Yugoslav constituent republics and two provinces.24 However, the
effects of ‘confederalization’ and abandonment of ‘Yugoslavism’ did not surface fully
until after Tito’s death in 1980, when intensified democratization, an inability of a yearly
rotating presidential system to overcome severe economic crisis and the ensuing delegi-
timization of communism resulted in the questioning of the very basis for Yugoslavia’s
existence. As a result of weakening central authority, the republics embarked on a
policy of what has been referred to as ‘constitutional nationalism’.25 This meant that the
protection of national identities and economic interests became strongly associated
with the existence and strengthening of the republics at the expense of the federal
government.
The failure of the federal authority under Ante Marković to reconstitute its power in
1989 was followed by the dissolution of the communist union in early 1990. The central
authority had thus lost virtually all of its political power, which meant that important
federal institutions ceased to function and the country was plunged into a state of emer-
ging anarchy. Much in line with Posen’s theory, this brought about a situation where the
leaders of various republics had to scramble for control over means of coercion, while at
the same time making sure to gain support from their respective constituencies. The first
task was achieved through a combination of arms purchases abroad and the acquisition of
substantial military resources that were scattered throughout the country in accordance
with the principles of the Yugoslav decentralized defence system.26 Such activities
risked shifting the power balance in ways that were considered threatening by the Yugo-
slav People’s Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija, JNA), which although undergoing a
process of ‘Serbianization’ represented the state’s federal institutions.27 As a consequence,
the JNA tried to prevent the establishment of hostile military organizations on the level of
republics (such as the Croatian paramilitary Zbor narodne garde).
The presence of an SSD can be identified in much of the national and populist rhetoric
that accompanied the conflict between centralization and (con)federalization in Yugoslav
society. At least since the mid 1980s, nationalist leaders had argued that in-group identi-
ties were under threat from ‘others’, for instance in the ‘Memorandum’ written by a group
of scholars of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, in which they complained that
Serbs in Croatia and Kosovo were mistreated and would eventually cease to exist due
to a form of ‘cultural genocide’.28 Among the most important populists on the Croatian
side was Tuđman, elected president in 1990 and a former historian and director of the
Institute of History of the Worker’s Movement in Zagreb. He developed a nationalist
outlook in the 1960s and in subsequent publications argued that BiH ‘should have been
made a part of the Croatian federal unit’.29 In 1989, he published another book on the
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 469

Second World War, in which he sought to minimize the crimes perpetrated by the Croatian
fascist Ustaša organization, while seeking to portray Croatian history as a constant struggle
for nationhood in an essentially hostile environment on the border between the east and
west.30 The tendency to minimize the suffering of Serbs and Jews in the Independent State
of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH) created an outcry. While this was in line with
de Figueiredo and Weingast’s model, it also ‘confirmed’ ethnic stereotypes of Croats as
covert fascists in the eyes of some Serbs.31 This was extremely important, as vivid mem-
ories of past atrocities made Serbian anti-Croat propaganda seem justifiable for many
Serbs.32
The next major step towards war came in the spring and early summer of 1991, when
Croatia and Slovenia definitively embarked on a path that would lead to the referendum
on independence in June. These developments were highly important also for Bosnia and
Herzegovina, where three distinct political options of high relevance for the emergence of
an SSD crystallized within its highly ‘ethnified’ political landscape. The Bosnian Serb elite
insisted BiH should remain in Yugoslavia, which was seen as the only guarantee for the
Serbs to avoid being dominated by an alliance of Croats and Bosniaks. Although
Bosniak leader and BiH president Alija Izetbegović initially opted for a ‘Yugoslav’ solution,
the independence of Croatia and Slovenia finally prompted him to work for the preser-
vation of centralized BiH as the only viable option for the Bosniak (officially Muslim until
1993) national interests.33 The Croats, finally, sought some form of (con)federal arrange-
ment that would guarantee the political and cultural rights of the relatively small Croatian
community, and which could maintain strong ties to Croatia proper.34
Once it became evident that Yugoslavia was in its final stages of dissolution and the EU-
sponsored Badinter Commission had begun to establish its principles for recognition of
the Yugoslav republics, in November 1991 the Bosnian Serbs decided to establish five
‘Serbian Autonomous Regions’, which in January 1992 joined to create the Serbian Repub-
lic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.35 Simultaneously, the Croatian political elite in BiH on 18
November 1991 declared the establishment of the Croatian Union of Herceg-Bosna.36
Whether or not Tuđman and the Croatian elite had actually decided to carve up BiH at
this point remains debatable.37 It seems fairly convincing that some form of agreement
was reached between Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević in Karađorđevo prior to the out-
break of war in the spring of 1991, according to which Croatia would become expanded
to include present-day Croatia as well as western Herzegovina and possibly the Bihać and
Cazin Krajina to the north.38 However, details of these conversations are still not available
and much of the discussion is based on second-hand information.

Empirical analysis
The minutes of the talks in the Croatian Security Council provide vital information about
these processes and shed important light on the deliberations made from the establish-
ment of Herceg-Bosna in late 1991 to the outbreak of war in April 1993. Following the
Badinter Commission’s decision to advocate the recognition of Yugoslav republics
within existing borders, the Croatian leadership organized a meeting in Zagreb on 27
December 1991 with representatives of the HDZ party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The
meeting began with a lengthy discussion by the moderate Kljujić, who related another
meeting in Sarajevo, which was attended by Bosnian President Izetbegović and the
470 T. DULIĆ

leaders of the Yugoslav military leadership. Kljujić was adamant that one would have to
cooperate with the Bosniak side in order to secure secession from Yugoslavia, since the
Bosnian Serb elite was insisting on the preservation of a territorially reduced federation
that would include Bosnia and Herzegovina. The fear was that otherwise the Serbs, who
constituted thirty-one per cent of the population but according to Kljujić had sixty per
cent of the power in their hands, would be able to dominate the republic.39 Even
though he did not elaborate, the underlying assumption appears to have been that the
creation of a rump Yugoslav federation would result in a situation where Bosnian Croats
would become marginalized as a result of cooperation between Serbs and Bosniaks.
While Kljujić belonged to a ‘moderate’ faction within the HDZ together with Markešić,
Boban and Kordić represented a hawkish line of thought that put considerable pressure on
Tuđman to proceed with expansionist policies. Boban explained that politicians would
have to take the fact that Herceg-Bosna had become established in accordance with
‘the political will of the Croatian people’ into consideration when deciding on the future
course of action. Therefore he argued:
one should await the independence of BiH when that area, in accordance with internationally
recognized, democratic means … will be declared an independent Croatian area and be
united with Croatia, but only at that point in time when the Croatian leadership [ … ]
decides the right opportunity and moment has come for this.40

However, Boban also called for the creation of a strategy that would take Croatia’s overall
security situation as well as ‘democratic means’ into consideration, by which was probably
meant a referendum to be held for the purpose of legitimization. While agreeing generally,
Kordić placed somewhat more focus on the overall strategic situation, specifically the fact
that his own constituency in central Bosnia was surrounded by Bosniak majority regions
and therefore represented a perfect example of a vulnerable ‘ethnic island’. He therefore
argued that ‘the Croatian people of this sub-regional unit of Travnik lives by the idea of a
final annexation to the Croatian state and is prepared to achieve this by any means poss-
ible’.41 Even though he did not elaborate, he also mentioned the need for ‘voluntary re-
settlement’ in order to secure the Croatian littoral.
A characteristic impression that emerges from the conversation is that Tuđman appears
to have been rather indecisive and constantly argued in terms of contingencies.42 The
reason for this was most probably that Croatia was dependent on international support
for the preservation of its territorial integrity. It would therefore be very difficult for him
to openly violate BiH territory, while at the same time arguing for the return of Serb-con-
trolled areas of Croatia to Zagreb’s control. On the other hand, he certainly had long-term
goals about the unification of Croatian ‘national and historical territories’ into a common
nation-state, which would also include some territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina with
Croatian absolute or relative majority. This was in part motivated by a fear that Serbs
and Bosniaks would eventually come to terms, which risked marginalizing the Croat popu-
lation and could possibly lead to its disappearance in BiH.43 In the end, however, he
reached the conclusion that there was ‘no perspective’ for a sovereign state of Bosnia
and Herzegovina:
Therefore, I think that as we have used this historical moment to realize an independent and
internationally recognized Croatian state, so too I think that we should take the opportunity to
gather the Croatian national being within the widest territorial boundaries possible.44
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 471

While Tuđman received almost unanimous support from the western Herzegovinian
Croats, some of the meeting participants nevertheless felt quite uneasy about the idea
of partitioning BiH. Among them were Markešić, who in reference to the situation in
central Bosnia argued that he could not see ‘how [Bosniak-dominated] Bugojno, Gornji
Vakuf, Travnik, how one can suddenly say: We will go to Herceg-Bosna, we will be
annexed to the Republic of Croatia’.45 He was little impressed by the president’s analysis
and opined that ‘someone outside of these regions will in the end decide about BiH’s
future’.46 If that were to happen, Croatia would lose the possibility of establishing
strong ties with the BiH Croats. Most importantly, the party risked a split on its policy
regarding BiH, which would also force Croats to resettle:
I could not, and this I say frankly, neither can I today accept this way of creating communities,
for the simple reason—how, with what moral right can we accept the Croats from Banja Luka,
29 thousand, from Zenica where there is 20 thousand, from Tuzla where there is over 20 thou-
sand and in Sarajevo over 34 thousand. What about a solution concerning the integral Croat
question in Bosnia and Herzegovina?47

The problem alluded to by Markešić points to a strategic dilemma facing the BiH Croats
depending on their physical location. While Croats living in ethnically homogenous
western Herzegovina were generally considered strong supporters of secessionism,
those in Posavina risked becoming disproportionately hit by violence due to the fact
that the area was of strategic importance for the Serbs as a ‘link-up’ area. The Croats in
the Lašva Valley and other parts of central Bosnia, for their part, knew that they lived in
a potentially isolated enclave, but could possibly hope to establish a land corridor from
western Herzegovina by capturing Bugojno and Travnik. As pointed out by Markešić,
the Croats living in Serb-controlled Banja Luka, Sarajevo and areas northeast of the
capital (e.g. Vareš) instead faced the prospect of having to resettle in Croatian-dominated
regions or muddle through as best they could.
This overall political, military and international situation made it extremely difficult for
the Croatian side to agree on a consistent strategy insofar as BiH was concerned. Since
aggressive military operations seemed politically dangerous, the leaders set out a strategy
in two steps. The first was to secure Bosnia and Herzegovina’s secession from the Yugoslav
federation, since that would effectively force the Bosniaks to side with Croatia in antici-
pation of a Serbian onslaught. The second step was to rely on the prospect of Serbian
offensive behaviour to secure control over ‘link-up’ territories. The strategy was clarified
by Božo Raić (one of the deputy chairmen of HDZ BiH), who also argued that one
should avoid violating the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina until the
moment ‘when others [i.e. the Serbs—TD] begin to dissolve her territory’.48 When that
happened, the Bosnian Croat elite should proceed by declaring independence for a
Herceg-Bosna that was larger than the relatively limited areas with Croat majority in 1992:
In that context I want to say: We cannot accept those arguments, which depart from the
current ethnic make-up of Herceg-Bosna as the measure by which everything should be
solved. We depart from the historical right of the Croatian people, from the statehood,
which was established in 1939 as a minimum, and from the analysis of the ethnic picture
over time.49

The reference to the border of Banovina Hrvatska (established as a Croatian entity within
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1939) is very important for two specific reasons. Firstly,
472 T. DULIĆ

references to the Banovina came up after Tuđman’s meeting with Milošević in Karađor-
đevo and was favoured by the Croatian leader.50 Secondly, the Banovina territory did
not include Vareš municipality to the northeast of Sarajevo, which means that one was
basically signalling an abandonment of that area as well as other regions with a minority
Croat population that could not be legitimately claimed.
The sources furthermore suggest that the Croatian elite nurtured expansionist desires
towards BiH early on, although expansion was to happen through ‘democratic’ means
rather than outright military aggression. Since the elite had decided not to attack or
even annex parts of BiH unless it started disintegrating due to processes outside the
control of the Zagreb leadership, non-malignancy appears to have been in place at this
time. However, there is little evidence of the type of security fear permeating the Croats
that is a key element in the ESD. The concerns that appear to have existed were instead
primarily attributable to an expected demographic growth of the Bosniaks. Interestingly,
Tuđman even appears to have believed in a conspiracy on the part of the West, arguing
that ‘America gladly would accept Serbia as a policeman [kao žandarma] in order to
prevent the future creation of an Islamic state in Europe’.51 However, his short-term
concern was that if BiH remained in some form of reduced Yugoslavia, Croats would even-
tually become marginalized and over time even risked disappearing completely:
Gentlemen, at the time of [Croatia’s—TD] entry into the common Yugoslav state, the Croatian
population was 24 per cent and now 17. It is absolutely certain that with the establishment of a
sovereign and independent Croatian state, the Croatian man would (as he has also up until
now) flee from Bosnia and Herzegovina and throw himself into Croatia even to a larger
measure, so that those Croatian parts [of BiH—TD] would be left with a decreasing population
and lose important, Croat characteristics on that territory.52

The conclusions that can be drawn from the meeting on 27 December are that the Croa-
tian and Bosnian Croat elite did not experience an immediate security threat from the
Bosniak side, while the bulk of concerns instead focused on the effects that Croatian inde-
pendence would have on the presence of Croats and Croatian identity in Bosnia and Her-
zegovina should its leaders decide to remain in Yugoslavia. Consequently, the elite acted
from the perspective of an SSD in order to secure a referendum on secession, while at the
same time reaching an agreement on a future administrative division of the country. The
sources also point to some of the actors viewing the independence of Bosnia and Herze-
govina as a mere first step that would be followed by outright secession based on the
‘democratic will’ of the people for the purpose of uniting Croatian territories into an
area largely covering the historical Banovina Hrvatska. Interestingly, however, the elite
did not plan a major attack but—as will be shown below—simply expected that BIH
would implode as a result of Serbian aggression. This, in turn, would allow Croatia and
the Bosnian Croats to simply pick up the pieces at the right opportunity.

From a societal to an ethnic security dilemma

In order to achieve their political goals and keep all contingencies open, Tuđman and the
Croatian leaders clearly had to take the Serbian and Bosnian Serb position into consider-
ation. While Belgrade supported the Serbian secessionists in Croatia as well as the Bosnian
Serb leaders, the latter also had to consider the delicate power balance and interests in
Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time. A second meeting on 8 January 1992—in other
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 473

words at the time when Croatia was receiving international recognition throughout the
world—was attended by the Bosnian Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Her-
zegovina, Nikola Koljević. He made it clear that he would not object to a dividing up of the
country into separate Serbian and Croat zones of interest through a process of ‘confeder-
alization’.53 Although outright secession was not openly discussed, the meeting resulted in
agreements that paved the way for a gradual dissolution of the state. Firstly, they agreed
that neither the Serbs nor the Croats would accept a unitary state dominated by Bosniaks.
Secondly, it was agreed to divide the territory into spheres of influence. Thirdly, the parties
agreed that the division of territories would have to be followed by some form of ‘civilized’
and ‘organized’ population transfers.54 Tuđman thus seems not to have been entirely
averse to ‘ethnic engineering’ even before the war, noting that ‘history sometimes
shows that it was necessary … to exchange populations and so forth’.55
The outbreak of war in April 1992 led to a dramatic change in the strategic situation,
which was of profound importance for the Croatian leadership. Even though talks were
held on 6 May between Radovan Karadžić and Boban concerning the division of the
Serbian and Croatian ‘constituent units’,56 the Bosnian Serb decision to use Posavina as
a link-up area destroyed any prospect for long-term cooperation. On the other hand,
the Bosnian Croats succeeded in defending western Herzegovina, which had a larger Croa-
tian population and would help control the thin littoral along the coastline. Having secured
the secession of BiH, the Croatian leadership could choose between two courses of action.
One was to attack the Bosniaks while they were at their weakest and completely depen-
dent on Croatia for arms shipments. Time was of the essence in these calculations, since
the Bosniak side was larger in numbers and had begun to establish a functioning
command and control system. The second alternative was to wait and hope for the
ABiH to be defeated or severely weakened by the Serbs. This option seemed less than
likely by September, however, when the VRS had taken control of most territories the lea-
dership laid claim to and simply entrenched themselves. In the worst case, the HVO might
find itself fighting the Bosniaks alone, which was particularly precarious in central Bosnia,
since Bosniak-majority municipalities surrounded it.
It was against the backdrop of the recognition of Croatia, the seemingly hopeless situ-
ation facing the Bosniaks and the situation in central Bosnia that Tuđman arranged
another meeting in Zagreb on 17 September 1992. This meeting is particularly interesting,
because Tuđman made a rather lengthy exposé, which illustrates how the ESD and SSD
had begun to merge in his mind. After defending himself with respect to the loss of Posa-
vina, he turned to a rather heated argumentation that is illustrative of a man who had
become decidedly more concerned about an attack by the ABiH than in early 1992:
… You say that the Muslims want a war. But what does that mean? We cannot quarrel with the
Muslims … but, we can also not place ourselves under the fez, place our policies under the fez
of Alija Izetbegović, or any other Muslim. As we cannot place ourselves under the Serb, we
cannot under the Muslim. Because there are statements by Bosnian representatives, published
around the world—‘Well, now we fight the Serbs, and then it is the time for the Croats and
Catholics’. Regardless of the fact that this is not the general opinion among the Muslim and
that we cooperate well in some places (which we support and must support in practice),
when they advocate a civic state, they do not count on it. Izetbegović told me so himself,
he said: ‘forty-four percent like that, and when we take this and this, we already have fifty
percent’. […] He counts on birth rates, when he advocates a civic state; it is the same thing
that Belgrade advocated to the Croats during the entire period from 1918 onwards. And
474 T. DULIĆ

they count not only on the help of the Mujahedins you mentioned, which there are some
1,100 to 1,300 from Sudan but also from Afghanistan, Iran, etc. And, they do not only count
on civic involvement from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sandžak and Kosovo, but also from
Turkey. We can reckon on four million Turkish citizens originally from Bosnia, who are prepar-
ing for and organizing a return to Bosnia and Herzegovina in their own way. If the Serbian
aggressor is our main enemy, he is so only today. But, we must not turn a blind eye to the
fact that we would definitively lose Bosnia and Herzegovina if we forget that creating a
civic state also means creating an Islamic one. What, then, please tell me? Would we establish
our border at Neum, at the entry and exit of Dubrovnik? How would we defend the southern
Croatia with such borders if this situation were being prepared for us now? From the position
of the Croatian people one has to take into account the current situation and long-term
scenarios.57

This passage of quotation shows that Tuđman believed the creation of a civic state
without territorially defined autonomies risked leading to a situation where the Muslims
as the largest ethnic group in the country would take over political power, much like
the Serbs had ostensibly done in Yugoslavia. His references to a threat of an Islamic
state are interesting not only because such views were to become the core of the anti-
Muslim propaganda once open warfare broke out,58 but also because the type of fear
of dominance characteristic of a societal security dilemma coexisted with a growing
security concern. From Tuđman’s perspective, Islam represented a long-term threat to
Christianity and, hence, the Croatian nation.59 He therefore believed Croats had to define
‘their’ territories in advance of a final settlement, since they risked domination by Bosniaks
due to their ostensibly higher birth rates.60 It is also noteworthy that the refusal of the inter-
national community to intervene or send arms to Bosnia and Herzegovina strengthened
Tuđman in his belief that the West in fact was allowing Serbian aggression in Bosnia and
Herzegovina:
Why is the world allowing them to do this, Europe as well as America? Gentlemen … this is
allowed precisely because … the Serbs or Serbdom is useful for them in breaking Muslim
efforts to create an Islamic state in Europe. You already have that publicly, in western
media. They say, this is a dual policy. On the one hand are the rights of Bosnia and Herzego-
vina, the Muslims … On the other hand in practice they allow it to happen.61

While nurturing long-term aspirations on BiH territory, Tuđman also appears to have
feared an attack in the not too distant future. However, he nevertheless refrained from uti-
lizing a first strike advantage and risking an all-out war, while instead trying to balance
Croatia’s military-strategic demands with pressures from the divided Bosnian Croat com-
munity. According to his interpretation of events, the international community appeared
not to stand in the way of Serbian aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore,
Croatia would simply have to position itself in such ways as to end up in a win-win situ-
ation, considering that BiH had acquired international recognition on the same terms as
Croatia. If the international community continued to support the territorial integrity of
the state, then Croatia should fight for the preservation of the state. If not, or if the
Bosniak leaders would demand the creation of a centralized state, then one would
adopt a completely different position. This was clearly spelled out by Tuđman in his
rather lengthy discussion of the Croatian strategy during the 17 September meeting:
I have said: either a Bosnia that will secure also the interest of the Croatian people, or, well—a
split up! In addition, I said: One part to Serbia, one part to Croatia, and a Muslim statelet can
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 475

remain in the middle, that historical tiny Bosnia which in that case would not have the possi-
bility to have the ambition to create a large Islamic state in Europe.62

On 20 January 1993, Tuđman, Boban and Gojko Šušak met with Owen and Vance, as part of
the preparations for the eponymous Peace Plan. While the minutes from this meeting do
not provide any particularly interesting data, it happened in the context of a deteriorating
security situation and growing distrust between the HVO and ABiH. Tensions surfaced in
late 1992 and early 1993, when incidents happened in Bugojno, Novi Travnik and
Travnik.63 This was a most serious development, which further isolated the Lašva Valley.
While surrounded by numerically superior ABiH forces, the HVO nevertheless had access
to more heavy weapons and a better-organized command and control structure. From a
Croatian perspective, it therefore seemed that time would eventually run out and insecurity
also increased due to the arrival of reinforcements to the region, including foreign Mujahe-
din warriors in the vicinity of Zenica.64 Adding to the military-strategic situation was a
problem that had its roots in the international political scene. More specifically, the
Vance-Owen Peace Plan (henceforth VOPP) contributed to the tensions once it became
apparent that large Bosniak-dominated areas would be apportioned to the Croatian side.
It was in this context of increased tensions and sensitive negotiation that the Croatian
elite met again on 8 March 1993. After having received a briefing about the military situ-
ation in central Bosnia, Tuđman first declared that his policy towards BiH had been to
avoid taking any steps that would lead to Croatia being declared an ‘aggressor’ and
having to take responsibility for the disintegration of Yugoslavia ‘and now Bosnia’. He fol-
lowed through by declaring that Croatia had to adapt to the West’s visions:
… the West is currently for the preservation of BiH … and for the moment insists on such a
solution and preservation [of BiH] and in the context of these talks perhaps thirty to forty thou-
sand people [UN peacekeepers] will be sent to Bosnia …65

Boban continued after Tuđman’s exposé by discussing the policies and measures that
had been undertaken to secure Herceg-Bosna’s future. In an obvious reference to the
fact that the West would not recognize secession, he said, ‘Herceg-Bosna will never
cease to exist. She will continue to be Herceg-Bosna, even as part of something else’.66
It is fairly clear from this statement and the concurrent peace negotiations that the
Croatian elite had understood three things of high strategic importance. The first was
that military developments would make it extremely difficult to re-establish a direct
communication line between western Herzegovina and central Bosnia. This, in turn,
necessitated a defensive posture in the negotiations, and in combination with the
West’s support for the territorial integrity of BiH precluded the possibility of a split-up.
Adding to this was the fact that the Bosnian Croats were in a rather beneficial position
due to international developments. More specifically, the VOPP had awarded not only
Posavina, but also Bugojno and other areas in which Croats were a minority to the Croatian
side, thus effectively overturning the military losses in the Posavina region as well as re-
establishing a corridor from western Herzegovina to central Bosnia. In other words, the
Croat side actually received more than it had dared ask for in the previous negotiations
with the Serbian side, which explains why Boban threatened Izetbegović with a formal dis-
solution of the Bosniak-Croat military pact during the negotiations between the two sides
on 25 March.67
476 T. DULIĆ

‘Costly signalling’ and the outbreak of war in central Bosnia

Moving to events in central Bosnia, we turn the focus to some illustrations of how in-group
‘costly signalling’ was used by the Croatian elite in order to increase tensions and fear
during the highly volatile first months of 1993, when decisions taken at the elite level
had an impact on the ground. Among the most important actors on the Croatian side
were Kordić, Prlić and Anto Valenta, who would appear on local radio stations shaping pro-
paganda to achieve ethnic distancing. Valenta was a particularly interesting actor in these
local events considering that he had become an advocate of ‘ethnic engineering’ even
before the war. In August 1991 he published a book entitled The Division of Bosnia and
the Struggle for Completeness, in which he advocated a restructuring of BiH according to
ethnic principles through ‘voluntary transfers’ of populations.68
Croat propaganda in central Bosnia basically took two forms, which might have had two
distinguishable goals. The first was the use of fascist Ustaša symbolism, which evidently
sought to create fear among ‘others’ and had a particularly strong meaning in a context
of memories of the Second World War and the mass killing of Serbs, Jews and Roma as
a terrible historical period. As a member of the European Council Monitoring Mission
(ECMM) explained later, the historical symbolism had a certain effect:
… propaganda spread to the peoples of Herzegovina through media, whether that is press or
television. There is the raising of flags. There is the presentation of … of values. I can’t say
whether they were official or not, but the display of pictures of Ante Pavlovic [sic] and
symbols of Ustasha not only publicly displayed but in the offices of HV officials was designed
to produce a message.69

While the use of Ustaša paraphernalia was an important tool by which to manifest ethnic
exclusivity among Croats and instil fear into the out-group, the presence of foreign Muja-
hedins (formally part of the 7th Muslim Brigade) also became a useful tool by which to
instil fear into the Croat community. The mechanisms behind such activities were also
explained by ECMM monitor Christopher Beese at the postwar court proceeding in the
Hague: ‘if you announce to a Croat village that the Mujahedin were about to come over
the hill, you could reasonably expect the villagers to take flight’ since ‘they had no
reason to wait for the Mujahedin to turn up, to see what their intentions were’.70 The state-
ment is particularly interesting for our purposes, since the witness was also asked to speak
about the two effects of propaganda that he identified. The first was that it convinced the
Croats that extremist factions had a strong presence among the Muslim population. This
was particularly important since ‘Muslim aggression justified defence, and therefore by
broadcasting details of Muslim aggression by any means would encourage families to
release their—their sons, husbands, fathers for the fight’.71 The second effect was that
local authorities could use the VOPP ‘to demonstrate Croat ownership of provinces and
to some extent to convince people of success’.72 In so doing, Kordić, Prlić and Valenta legit-
imized themselves as the sole defenders of Croatian interests.
A problem with the statement is that there was a tendency on the part of Beese and the
court to reduce references to Mujahedins as mere ‘propaganda’ without elaborating on
the possibility that local commanders actually did experience stress.73 The ECMM official
nevertheless acknowledged that Croat officers indeed complained about the presence
of ‘extreme Muslim elements, the Mujahedin in Central Bosnia’,74 which suggests local
elites may well have shared the sense of insecurity with their compatriots. As for the
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 477

‘ordinary’ people, witness statements suggest there actually was widespread fear in Lašva
Valley, which was accentuated through media and rumours. According to ECMM monitor
Roger Watkins, for instance, ‘the effect on the population, military and civilian, that were in
the Vitez pockets was significant’.75 One of the persons called to the court gave an inter-
esting account, when asked about whether he felt threatened by his Muslim neighbours:
A. My Muslim neighbours? No.
Q. Who were you afraid of?
A. There were frequent threats, that is to say, we were threatened when we heard the term
‘Mujahedin’. That was the frightening word.
Q. In what sense were you afraid when you heard the term ‘Mujahedin’? Who were these
people?
A. Well, they were some foreign mercenaries from some Arab countries who had come to
fight for Islam for the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that they existed in Zenica, and
Zenica was the bordering municipality, if you look at Zenica, Vitez and Ahmići and Pirići,
where I come from, so that was the nearest.
Q. So people spoke about them as warriors to propagate religion. But were they also talked
about as to their conduct, whether they adhered to the rules of warfare or the prevalent
rules with regard to their behaviour toward civilians, or were they also spoken of as
something quite separate and different?
A. Well, the tales told were that these people would slaughter others and that they would
storm the village and so on. There were terrible stories going about, and you could
believe them or not believe them.’76

This description of events also serves as an illustration of how ‘costly signalling’ directed
towards the Croatian in-group placed locals in an ethnic security dilemma of their own.
Basically, they could choose either to believe the information received from their
leaders and compatriots on the front, or to hope for the best. Herein lies the entire
dilemma, since Croats in central Bosnia were much more likely to believe the Croatian
side than the Bosniak one or, for that matter, foreign observers. According to de Figueir-
edo and Weingast’s model, it is always more likely that individuals will side with their ‘own’,
particularly insofar as the opponent side acts in such ways to ‘confirm’ the propaganda
coming ‘from above’.77

Outbreak of full-scale war

Summarizing the argument, it seems safe to assume that there was indeed a fairly
strong relationship between elite-level political decision-making and violence on the
ground, with some of the same individuals participating on both levels. However, it was
mainly or almost exclusively the elite that was concerned with the demographic and
other issues of relevance for the SSD, while intense feelings of fear and insecurity appear
to have been more salient in local communities. This should of course come as no surprise,
considering that the elite for the most part was situated far away from the frontlines.
Moreover, one cannot understand the outbreak of war without taking full account of
the security threat that developed over time for both parties to the conflict. Resentment
and distrust had its roots in Bosniak dissatisfaction with the establishment of Herceg-
Bosna, but also in a series of incidents that began when the ABiH prevented HVO reinforce-
ments from reaching Jajce in October 1992 (the town subsequently fell to the Serbs).78
These were followed by renewed clashes in Gornji Vakuf, Busovača and Kiseljak during
478 T. DULIĆ

January 1993, which also resulted in the killing of civilians on both sides.79 The ill-con-
ceived VOPP added fuel to the fire by exacerbating a deteriorating situation. As a result
of an initial refusal to sign the agreement by the Bosniaks, HVO commanders demanded
the subordination or removal of all ABiH forces in Croat-controlled areas. More ominously,
the HVO threatened to ‘unilaterally enforce its jurisdiction in Cantons three, eight and ten’,
unless Izetbegović signed the peace agreement by 15 April.80 All of these activities set the
stage for an extremely tense situation around mid April.
The specific event that brought all-out war to central Bosnia occurred in the
early morning of 15 April when Mujahedins abducted Živko Totić, the Croat head of the
HVO Military Police in Zenica. While abductions, drive-by shootings and threats had inten-
sified on both sides during early April, the case of Totić became particularly dangerous due
to his position and the fact that the perpetrators killed four soldiers in his entourage.81 The
rapid conflagration that ensued suggests both sides had made contingency plans for war,
while also sparking a controversy that remains to this day. While authors of the CIA report
Balkan Battlegrounds argue that it was the HVO that started the all-out war,82 the ICTY pro-
vides more careful assessments, while acknowledging that ABiH attacks in January contrib-
uted to a deteriorating security situation.83 In a more detailed and convincing analysis,
historian Charles R. Shrader argues that it was the ABiH that started offensive operations
on Mount Kuber in the morning of 15 April.84 He also draws our attention to the fact that
the Croats were outgunned by four to one,85 which basically precluded any major offen-
sive operations and forced Commander Tihomir Blaškić to settle for ‘active defence’
operations.86
Regardless of how and when full-scale war began, the escalation that ensued following
a series of ABiH attacks against Croatian villages reached its first culmination with
the mass killing of 117 Bosniak men in Ahmići on 16 April 1993, followed by expulsions
and refugee flows.87 By June, events on the ground would further undermine the
prospect of ethnic cooperation, when soldiers of ‘El Mudžahid’ captured a group of
Croats and brought them to camps outside Maline. The prisoners were tortured and mis-
treated, while having to watch as a Serbian prisoner was brought out from the camp to a
nearby field and beheaded.88 On 8 June, another group of Mujahedins killed a group of
thirty-six Croat prisoners of war and civilians from the villages of Bikoši.89 Much in line with
de Figueiredo and Weingast’s theory, atrocities like these ‘confirmed’ the malignant intent
of the adversary in the eyes of the local Croat populations. This, in turn, served to effectively
sever inter-ethnic ties, increase the salience of insecurity and deepen the conflict in central
Bosnia.

Concluding observations
The Croat-Bosniak conflict that broke out in central Bosnia provides an interesting opportu-
nity to investigate the relationship between the ESD and SSD, as well as the way in which
macro-level decision-making plays out on the ground during a conflict. The analysis
largely confirms the assumption in the theoretical section about the coexistence of an
SSD and ESD. Initially, the Croatian leaders—and in particular Tuđman himself—seem to
have been preoccupied primarily with the SSD. As time went by and the military situation
changed, the ESD seemed to become more salient. This notwithstanding, the Croatian
elite never took the decision to attack and full-scale war did not break out until the abduction
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 479

of Totić in mid April. So can one say that the Croats had non-malignant intent and a
defensive posture during the run-up to the conflict? Using the concept of non-malignancy
as lack of intent to attack, the answer would probably be yes. The Croatian side did hope to
see dissolution of BiH and would have used such a turn of events to unite Croatia proper with
Herceg-Bosna, but this was only one contingency that would largely depend on the position
taken up by the international community. Zagreb did not, for all its manipulation and agree-
ments with the Serbs ‘behind the scenes’, plan or instigate an outright military attack. One
could use a wider definition of non-malignancy and argue that the long-term ideas con-
nected to the SSD actually prove its absence, but that would lead to an unnecessary expan-
sion of the term.
Croat strategic deliberations resulted in a gradual move away from a predominant
SSD and ‘pre-emptive expansionist’ position in late 1991 and the spring of 1992. By
September, Tuđman still hoped for the dissolution of BiH, but at the same time was
apprehensive about finding himself in a two-front war. In September, however, he
began to fear an attack, although arguing that it would not come immediately.
According to Posen’s model, he should at this stage have utilized a possible ‘first strike
advantage’ when the Bosniaks were at their weakest. There are probably three reasons
for not doing so. One was that the Croat forces had been spread thin and had quite
recently lost Posavina. Opening a second front at that stage was probably considered
unwise. The second reason was that an outright attack would have a detrimental effect
on Croatia’s position as a ‘victim of aggression’, which in turn threatened its own territorial
integrity in the struggle against the Serb insurgency. Thirdly, and perhaps most impor-
tantly, the Croat side found itself in a win-win situation due to the very beneficial
outcome of the VOPP, which in practice meant that lost territories would be regained.
The idea of including large parts of BiH into Croatia had to be abandoned due to the inter-
national situation, but in turn one would receive more land than reasonably expected. The
situation was of course much more problematic for the ABiH, which ultimately resulted in
conflict.
Turning to macro-micro relations, we confirmed the hypothesis that the salience of
the ESD would be higher on the meso- and micro-levels than among the elite. Most state-
ments of individuals emphasized fear and insecurity. Underneath all of this was certainly a
fear of identity threats, but the results seem to show that the salience of such concerns
diminished with the intensification of conflict. This was most probably also realized by
the elite, which focused on the dissemination of fear in its speech acts and use of
symbols, either to terrify ‘others’ into flight, or in order to instil fear into the in-group
through references to Mujahedins. The one thing that the analysis could not provide a
clear answer to, however, was whether or not the local elites were ‘playing’ a signalling
game in order to create an ESD where none existed, or if men such as Prlić, Valenta and
Kordić actually shared the sense of insecurity and fear of their constituencies. The strategic
situation they found themselves in, with ABiH forces surrounding the Lašva Valley,
suggests they did, but more research needs to be done before a definitive answer can
be provided.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
480 T. DULIĆ

Notes on contributor
Tomislav Dulić is Director of the Hugo Valentin Centre at the University of Uppsala. He is the author
of Utopias of nation. Local mass killing in Bosnia and Hercegovina 1941–42 (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis
Upsaliensis, 2005) and numerous articles on the history of the Balkans.

Notes
1. Nils B. Weidmann, Violence and the changing ethnic map: the endogeneity of territory and con-
flict in Bosnia (Zurich: ETH Zurich, 2008); Andrew Slack and Roy Doydon, ‘Population dynamics
and susceptibility for ethnic conflict: the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, Journal of Peace
Research, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2001, pp. 139–161.
2. See Stuart J. Kaufman, Modern hatreds: the symbolic politics of ethnic war (New York: Cornell
University Press, 2001); Valère Philip Gagnon, The myth of ethnic war: Serbia and Croatia in
the 1990s (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).
3. See for example David B. MacDonald, Balkan holocausts? Serbian and Croatian victim-centred
propaganda and the war in Yugoslavia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002);
Damir Mirković, ‘The historical link between the Ustasha genocide and the Croato-Serb civil
war: 1991–1995’, Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2000, pp. 363–373; Branimir Anzu-
lović, Heavenly Serbia: from myth to genocide (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1999); Michael
A. Sells, The bridge betrayed: religion and genocide in Bosnia (Los Angeles: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1996).
4. The theory was developed during the Yugoslav war and has been used by several authors
since; cf. Barry R. Posen, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict’, Survival, Vol. 35, No. 1,
1993, pp. 27–47; Michael Mann, The dark side of democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Erik Melander, Anarchy within: the security dilemma
between ethnic groups in emerging anarchy (Uppsala: Department of Peace and Conflict
Research, Uppsala University, 1999).
5. Interestingly, survey data show that ethnic Serbs in Croatia were less intolerant than Croats,
which is counter-intuitive considering that it was in their regions that the war broke out
first: see Duško Sekulić et al., ‘Ethnic intolerance and ethnic conflict in the dissolution of Yugo-
slavia’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 29, No. 5, 2006, p. 813.
6. Nils B. Weidmann, ‘Violence “from above” or “from below”? The role of ethnicity in Bosnia’s civil
war’, The Journal of Politics, Vol. 73, No. 4, 2011, pp. 1188–1189.
7. Donald P. Green and Rachel L. Seher, ‘What role does prejudice play in ethnic conflict?’, Annual
Review of Political Science, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2003, pp. 509–531; Eran Halperin, ‘Group-based hatred
in intractable conflict in Israel’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 52, No. 5, 2008, p. 729; Paschal
Sheeran, ‘Intention–behavior relations: a conceptual and empirical review’, European review of
Social Psychology, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2005, pp. 1–36; William D. Crano and Radmila Prislin, ‘Attitudes
and persuasion’, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 57, No. 1, 2005, pp. 345–374; Timur Kuran,
‘Ethnic norms and their transformation through reputational cascades’, The Journal of Legal
Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2, 1998, p. 650.
8. Paul Roe, ‘Former Yugoslavia: the security dilemma that never was?’, European Journal of Inter-
national Relations, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2000, pp. 373–393; Aladin Baljak, Bosnia: the security dilemma
that did not exist (Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008).
9. E.g. Jean-Paul Azam and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Violence against civilians in civil wars: looting or
terror?’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2002, pp. 75–76; James D. Fearon and
David D. Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, insurgency and civil war’, American Political Science Review, Vol.
97, No. 1, 2003, pp. 75–90.
10. For Kalyvas’ theory and subsequent empirical findings, see Stathis N. Kalyvas, The logic of vio-
lence in civil war (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Laia Balcells, ‘Rivalry and
revenge: violence against civilians in conventional civil wars’, International Studies Quarterly,
Vol. 54, No. 2, 2010, pp. 291–313; Jannie Lilja and Lisa Hultman, ‘Intraethnic dominance and
control: violence against co-ethnics in the early Sri Lankan civil war’, Security Studies, Vol. 20,
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 481

No. 2, 2011, pp. 171–197; Ravi Bhavnani et al., ‘Three two tango: territorial control and selective
violence in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 55, No. 1, 2011,
pp. 133–158.
11. See John H. Herz, Political realism and political idealism, a study in theories and realities (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1951); Robert Jervis, Perception and misperception in international
politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976); Herbert Butterfield, History and human
relations (London: Collins, 1951).
12. Posen, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict’; Paul Roe, ‘The intrastate security dilemma:
ethnic conflict as a “tragedy”?’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 36, No. 2, 1999, pp. 183–202; Erik
Melander, ‘The geography of fear: regional ethnic diversity, the security dilemma and ethnic
war’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2009, pp. 95–124.
13. Ken Booth and Nicholas J. Wheeler, The security dilemma: fear, cooperation and trust in world
politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
14. Jervis, Perception and misperception, pp. 76–80.
15. Shiping Tang, ‘The security dilemma: a conceptual analysis’, Security Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3,
2009, pp. 604, 610.
16. Mann, The dark side of democracy, p. 7.
17. See Ole Waever, Identity, migration and the new security agenda in Europe (London: Pinter,
1993); Barry Buzan, People, states and fear: an agenda for international security studies in the
post-cold war era, 2nd edn. (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991).
18. Paul Roe, Ethnic violence and the societal security dilemma (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), p. 58.
19. Several studies have focused on these aspects; see Jack Snyder, From voting to violence: demo-
cratization and nationalist conflict (New York: Norton, 2000); Monica Duffy Toft, The geography
of ethnic violence: identity, interests, and the indivisibility of territory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2003); Edward D. Mansfield and Jack L. Snyder, Electing to fight: why emerging
democracies go to war (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).
20. Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in
Poland (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993), pp. 148–149; Green and Seher, ‘What role does
prejudice play?’, p. 510.
21. Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans and the ‘Jewish Question’ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1984), pp. 148–149; Ian Kershaw, Popular opinion and political dissent in the Third
Reich: Bavaria 1933–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
22. Rui J. P. de Figueiredo and Barry R. Weingast, ‘The rationality of fear: political opportunism and
ethnic conflict’, in Barbara F. Walters and Jack Snyder (eds.), Civil wars, insecurity and interven-
tion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 263.
23. James D. Fearon, ‘Domestic political audiences and the escalation of international disputes’,
American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 3, 1994, pp. 577–592; Andrew Kydd, ‘Trust, reas-
surance, and cooperation’, International Organization, Vol. 54, No. 2, 2000, pp. 325–357;
Clayton L. Thyne, ‘Cheap signals with costly consequences: the effect of interstate relations
on civil war’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 50, No. 6, 2006, pp. 937–961.
24. Lenard Cohen, Broken bonds: Yugoslav disintegration and Balkan politics in transition (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press Inc., 1995), p. 33; John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as history: twice there was a
country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 308.
25. Robert M. Hayden, ‘Constitutional nationalism in the former Yugoslav republics’, Slavic Review,
Vol. 51, No. 4, 1992, pp. 654–673.
26. Tomislav Dulić and Roland Kostić, ‘Yugoslavs in arms: guerrilla tradition, total defence and the
ethnic security dilemma’, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 62, No. 7, 2010, pp. 1058–1060.
27. In 1992–93, Slobodan Milošević (at the time president of Serbia) initiated a number of purges
of the JNA in order to cleanse it of pro-Yugoslav officers; Timothy Edmunds, ‘Civil–military
relations in Serbia–Montenegro: an army in search of a state’, European Security, Vol. 14, No.
1, March 2005, p. 117.
28. Kosta Mihajlović and Vasilije Krestić, Memorandum SANU (Belgrade: SANU, 1995); see also
Xavier Bougarel, ‘Du code pénal au mémorandum: les usages du terme génocide dans la
482 T. DULIĆ

Yougoslavie communiste’, in Isabelle Delpla and Magali Bessone (eds.), Peines de guerre (Paris:
École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2010), p. 74.
29. Franjo Tuđman, Nationalism in contemporary Europe (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs,
1981), pp. 112–113.
30. See Franjo Tuđman, Bespuća povijesne zbiljnosti: rasprava o povijesti i filozofiji zlosilja (Zagreb:
Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske). For an overview of Tuđman’’s revisionism, see Ivo Goldstein
and Slavko Goldstein, ‘Revisionism in Croatia: the case of Franjo Tuđman’, Eastern European
Jewish Affairs, Vol. 32, No. 1, 2002, pp. 52–64.
31. See, for example, Milan Bulajić, Tudjman’’s ‘Jasenovac myth’: genocide against Serbs, Jews and
Gypsies (Belgrade: Stručna knjiga, 1996); Vasilije Krestić, Genocidom do velike Hrvatske (Novi
Sad: Mozaik, 1998).
32. MacDonald, Balkan holocausts? pp. 138–141.
33. Stephen L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup, The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina: ethnic conflict and inter-
national intervention (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), pp. 70–71.
34. For details of these discussions prior to the outbreak of war, see Alan J. Kuperman, ‘The moral
hazard of humanitarian intervention: lessons from the Balkans’, International Studies Quarterly,
Vol. 52, No. 1, 2008, pp. 49–80.
35. Miroslav Tuđman (ed.), Istina o Bosni i Hercegovini (Zagreb: Slovo, 2005), pp. 83, 101.
36. Tuđman, Istina o Bosni i Hercegovini, p. 99.
37. For more on these discussions, see James J. Sadkovich, ‘Franjo Tuđman and the Muslim-Croat
war of 1993’, Review of Croatian History, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2006, pp. 207–245; Ivo Lučić and Adnan
Busuladžić, ‘Karađorđevo: politički mit ili dogovor?’ Časopis za suvremenu povijest, No. 1, 2003,
pp. 7–36; Marko Attila Hoare, ‘The Croatian project to partition Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1990–
1994’, East European Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1997, pp. 121–138.
38. Laura Silber and Alan Little, The death of Yugoslavia (London: Penguin Books, 1996), p. 132.
39. Predrag Lucić (ed.), Stenogrami o podjeli Bosne, 2 Vols. (Zagreb: Kultura & Rasvjeta – Civitas,
2005), 1: pp. 76–79.
40. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 80.
41. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 105.
42. Darko Hudelist, Tuđman (Zagreb: Profil, 2004), p. 702. See also International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia, Case No. IT-95-14 (references to the legal material will henceforth
be referred to according to the following template: ICTY [IT-95-14]), T.1998-04-16, pp. 7137–
7139.
43. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 85.
44. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 88.
45. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 109.
46. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 109.
47. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 109.
48. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 99.
49. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 99.
50. Following the infamous negotiations between Milošević and Tuđman in March 1991, the latter
returned to Zagreb in a what one of his generals later described as an enthralled state,
exclaiming that ‘we received a territory even bigger than the Banovina Hrvatska!’; see Silber
and Little, The death of Yugoslavia, p. 132.
51. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 84.
52. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 85.
53. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 132.
54. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 132.
55. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 142.
56. While not calling for outright secession, the deal in Graz had the aim of solving the potential
disputes between Serbs and Croats, which effectively isolated the Bosniak side; Tuđman, Istina
o Bosni i Hercegovini, pp. 176–177.
57. Lucić, Stenogrami, pp. 240–241.
 JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH 483

58. For an overview of the Croatian anti-Muslim propaganda, see MacDonald, Balkan holocausts?
pp. 238–242.
59. One can identify a gradual shift in Tuđman’s view, at least judging from his writings. In the late
1960s, he argued that Muslims were basically Croats who had converted in the Middle Ages,
while describing Bosnia and Herzegovina as ‘an artificial creation’ that the communists estab-
lished in order to balance Serbian and Croatian interests. The idea of an ‘Islamic threat’ appears
to have developed later to become very common among Croatian and Serbian political actors
during the political mobilization during the war; see Franjo Tuđman, Velike ideje i mali narodi:
rasprave i ogledi (Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske, 1990 [1969]), pp. 13, 121–122, 129.
60. The issue of demographics was important in these debates, not least in Bosnia and Herzego-
vina. According to the 1991 census, Bosniaks made up forty-four per cent of the population,
followed by thirty-one per cent Serbs and seventeen per cent Croats. Adding to these were
some five per cent Yugoslavs, who for the most part had either Muslim or Serb parentage.
For more on the Yugoslavs, see Duško Sekulić et al., ‘Who were the Yugoslavs? Failed
sources of a common identity in the former Yugoslavia’, American Sociological Review, Vol.
59, No. 1, 1994, p. 85.
61. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 240.
62. Lucić, Stenogrami, pp. 239–240.
63. Balkan battlegrounds: a military history of the Yugoslav conflict, 1990–1995, 2 Vols. (Washington,
DC: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Russian and European Analysis, 2003), 2: p. 331.
64. During the trial of Kupreškić et al. pertaining to war crimes in the Lašva Valley, the court con-
cluded that the HVO had more military hardware, while not refuting the argument of the
defence that the HVO was severely outnumbered; ICTY (IT-95-16), Judgement, p. 51.
65. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 285.
66. Lucić, Stenogrami, p. 296.
67. David Owen, Balkan odyssey (London: Indigo, 1996), p. 142.
68. Anto Valenta, Podjela Bosne i borba za cjelovitost (Vitez: HKD Napredak, 1994), pp. 65–71.
Valenta also participated on the Croatian team during the negotiations leading to the VOPP.
69. ICTY (IT-2004-74), T. 20060615, pp. 3245–3246.
70. ICTY (IT-2004-74), T. 20060615, p. 3247.
71. ICTY (IT-2004-74), T. 20060615, p. 3248.
72. ICTY (IT-2004-74), T. 20060615, p. 3248.
73. Beese even relates a conversation with local Croatian commanders, where he appears to have
questioned how it was at all possible that Mujahedins had arrived in central Bosnia, consider-
ing that all entry points were controlled by the HVO; ICTY (IT-2004-74), T. 20060615, p. 3247. A
statement by ECMM monitor Ray Lane suggests the observers may not have been aware of
the presence of Mujahedins in central Bosnia, which although rather surprising might
explain the scepticism; ICTY (IT-2004-74), T. 20071016, p. 23800.
74. ICTY (IT-2004-74), T. 20071016, p. 23800.
75. ICTY (IT-2004-74), T. 20070523, p. 19043.
76. ICTY (IT-1995-16-T), T. 19990714, pp. 11211–11212.
77. de Figueiredo and Weingast, ‘The rationality of fear’, pp. 279–280.
78. ICTY (IT-1995-16-T), Judgement, pp. 56–58.
79. ICTY (IT-1995-16-T), Judgement, pp. 18–23.
80. The mentioned cantons were supposed to become part of the Croatian entity. There was also
an agreement in place that the VOPP would be implemented in Vitez municipality irrespective
of whether the Serbian side signed it or not; ICTY (IT-1995-16-T), Judgement, p. 15.
81. The abduction of Totić was the last in a series of events that began in early April, which
involved both sides and included the kidnapping of four Croatian soldiers on 13 April.
Shrader also points out that the Mujahedins may have acted independently or under the
order of the commander of the 7th Muslim Brigade; Charles R. Shrader, The Muslim-Croat
civil war in central Bosnia: a military history, 1992–1994 (College Station: Texas A&M University
Press, 2003), p. 83.
82. Balkan battlegrounds, 1: p. 191.
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83. ICTY (IT-1995-16-T), Judgement, pp. 18, 23.

84. Shrader, The Muslim-Croat civil war, p. 89.
85. Shrader, The Muslim-Croat civil war, p. 189, fn. 21.
86. ‘Active defence’ refers here to small-scale attacks designed to prevent the enemy from con-
trolling lines of communication and organizing; Shrader, The Muslim-Croat civil war, p. 92.
87. ICTY (IT-1995-16-T), Judgement, pp. 107–113.
88. ICTY (IT-2001-47), T. 20060315, p. 19358.
89. ICTY (IT-1995-142), T. 22001. Small-scale killings of civilians had happened earlier, for instance
on 6 May in Miletići; ICTY (IT-2001-47), T. 20031202, p. 384.