(...) On to join Anthea and David Philiips for dinner at W11. David giving us some inside on the Balkans negotiations - how Mladic had greeted the Dutch troops in his office in Srebrnica. There was a small pig sitting on the office table. Mladic took out a knife and cut his throat, and, as the blood gushed out, told the Dutch commander that this was what the Muslims could expect.
D.P. said that Milosevic, negotiating at Dayton on behalf of the bosnian Serbs, dindn't show their delegation the plans for the partition of Sarajevo until 15 minutes before the deal was initiated. Upon seeing them, one of the Bosnian Serb leaders fainted.
Apparently Milosevic - that crafty, disgusting fundamentalist - has made a deal with the Americans that all files connecting him to genocidal activities should be buried. This was the price of his becoming the great peacemaker. It's too disgusting: like expecting the Czechs and Poles and Jews to sit down with Hitler in 1945 and sign a deal with him (a deal where he gets most of Czechoslovakia and Poland and is entitled to 'resettle' any Jews or gypsies he didn't succed in frying).
D.P. was in the Balkans taking round a deputation of diplomats to study the Kosovo problem. Kosovo is almost completely ethnic Albanian, but Serbia claims (and dominates) the territory and has purged Albanians from all official or prestigious posts - teachers, doctors, etc. Conditions are terrible, and the Serbs have been increasing the pressure in the hope that the Kosovars would fight back. But their leader is what D.P. calls 'a Ghandi-style pacifist' who has held things together against all the odds, and has frustrated the Serbian plan with non-violent protest. (...)
16 Dezembro 1995, Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices
