Ivor Roberts - Conversations With Milosevic

Ivor Roberts

Published by the University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

2016 by Sir Ivor Roberts

All rights reserved

Designed by

Set in Minion Pro by Graphic Composition, Inc

Printed and bound by Sheridan Books

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for

permanence and durability of the Committee on

Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the

Council on Library Resources.

Printed in the United States of America

20 19 18 17 16 C 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Roberts, Ivor, 1946

Title: Conversations with Miloevi / Ivor Roberts.

Description: Athens : The University of Georgia Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015043961 | ISBN 9780820349435 (hardcover : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9780820349428 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Roberts, Ivor, 1946 | Yugoslav War, 19911995Diplomatic history. | Miloevi, Slobodan, 19412006. | SerbiaPolitics and government19922006. | Balkan PeninsulaPolitics and government1989 | AmbassadorsGreat BritainBiography. | Great BritainForeign relationsBalkan Peninsula. | Balkan PeninsulaForeign relationsGreat Britain. | Western countriesForeign relationsBalkan Peninsula. | Balkan PeninsulaForeign relationsWestern countries.

Classification: LCC DR1313.7.D58 R63 2016 | DDC 949.703dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043961

This work was originally published in Serbian in 2012.

For Elizabeth
and for Huw, David, and Hannah

This book has been a long time in gestation. Shortly after I left Belgrade as British ambassador at the end of 1997 after four very long years in the middle of the Yugoslav wars, I was allowed a sabbatical year before my next posting as ambassador at Dublin. Id been encouraged by senior colleagues in the Foreign Office to commit to writing my experiences in the former Yugoslavia, and a year at St Antonys College, Oxford, presented itself as the perfect opportunity.

I wrote a first draft quickly, while the memories and impressions were still fresh, supplemented by the notes I had taken of the conversations with the protagonist of the book. By the end of that year, Id completed a manuscript, which, following normal procedures, I submitted for authorization before publication. The initial reaction was encouraging. There shouldnt be a difficulty... expect it will all go through quite painlessly, and so on, but days turned to weeks with an ominous silence, and then a final verdict emerged: even with amendments, the book could not be published. The undesirability of creating a precedent in publishing exchanges between an ambassador and a head of government or state, even when the latter was regarded as a war criminal, was the reason given for the ban. Perhaps this was true up to a point, but was the more compelling reality anxiety over offending various friendly countries? I was, to put it at its most restrained, disappointed. I also pointed out that Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. negotiator who had brought the negotiations over the Dayton Agreement to a successful conclusion, had just published his own version of his time as lead negotiator. I thought it right that the UK story, and mine in particular, should be fairly aired. Holbrookes vivid account had little to say about most of the European actors, and there was a tendency to underplay their role. Holbrooke, I was told, was in a different category: someone who transferred between his law firm and government service seamlessly. Not an option in British government service then and none too easy now.