The Worse for Serbia, the Better for Croatia

AIM Zagreb, October 5, 2000

Croatian president Stjepan Mesic congratulated Vojislav Kostunica the election for the new president of Yugoslavia. On the eve of these elections Croatia expressed hope that the citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia would reject the non-democratic and authoritarian Milosevic's regime, that the process of democratic changes initiated in this way would enable “invitation of Yugoslavia into the community of democratic countries”. Zagreb has announced readiness to offer Belgrade help in democratic transition.

Although in official statements before the elections stress was laid on the fact that Croatia approaches its neighbour in the east as part of the international community, after the elections leaders of the Croatian authorities seemed to have disassociated themselves: they remained reserved to the enthusiasm with which the world welcomed the election results. They opposed the idea of immediate lifting of the sanctions imposed on Serbia, regardless of the final denouement of the election entanglement across the Drina. President Mesic stressed that in order to be received in the international community Belgrade must fulfill the same conditions as Zagreb; prime minister Ivica Racan warned that there were still no guarantees that the process of democratisation of Serbia initiated in the elections would be completed. Their cautiousness in comparison with the enthusiasm with which the international community welcomed election results may be understood as the voice of experience. They know Milosevic too well to consider him finished. But it is also possible that this cautiousness is dictated by other, even quite selfish reasons.

There is no doubt that Milosevic was a partner of the rightist regime of Croat Democratic Community (HDZ). Had Tudjman lived longer it is possible that some day he would have decorated his comrade with one of his medals in recognition of his enormous contribution to creation of independent Croatia. The chaotic rightist scene in Croatia which is lately raising big noise and sabre-rattling is in this sense the guardian of Tudjman's option. Indeed, it is just rewriting the scenario Milosevic had applied in the beginning of his rise to power. Organised gatherings of the people – this is the model which it is heartily trying to rehearse. Putschist proclamation that a few days ago the defeated HDZ addressed to the “Croat people” reminds of Milosevic's post-election appearances. The question was already raised in Croatian public whether the two were coordinated from the same centre.

It is much more intriguing that all of a sudden certain leaders of the new regime who have for years been consistently lined up against Milosevic are now starting to lean towards him. That is why the general support of Croatia to changes in Serbia is tinged with strong scepticism. The Croats are generally convinced that with Milosevic there is neither peace nor stability in the whole region, that even countries which he cannot directly endanger any more constantly have to keep an eye on him, that one can never know what to expect with him around. But the assessment of the elections in Serbia is marked by two types of suspicion: there are speculations whether the outcome of the elections will really bring about changes, and what the election results in the neighbourhood will mean for Croatia.

Croatian public is convinced that democratic opposition does not exist in Serbia, that Kostunica does not differ much from Milosevic, that this is all a part of the same story on Greater Serbia. Media are repeatedly publishing his picture with a gun in his hand, politics stresses that the new rulers still have to prove that they are democrats. The opposition in Serbia is reproached for not having offered a truly alternative democratic platform, that its conception in fact competes in nationalism with Milosevic's. Foreign minister Picula, for instance, stresses that Serbia must change its policy, not just cadre. The thesis that Kostunica is in fact Milosevic's Putin, that there is an agreement between them, has become quite popular.

Such statements often sound as lecturing condescendingly those who had themselves bowed and scraped to Tudjman for years. Perhaps because of that very fact they will persistently try to suggest that the new rulers in Croatia are something completely different. In these assessments there are also elements of the general nationalistic suspicion towards everything coming from the east. Serious politicologists, however, warn that democratic transition has not been completed in Croatia either, that it is a long process, but that it is important to start it.

Apart from disbelief in real scope of the Serbian step forward, Croatian public is buzzing with guesses what the announced changes in Belgrade will bring Croatia. It is believed that – should Milosevic leave – Croatia will automatically lose its present position of the favourite of the international community. It is claimed that the Serbs will instantaneously be forgiven and the war and crimes simply forgotten. It is also stressed that the entire international aid will hasten over the Drina, that financial support to democratic changes in Croatia promised for months will definitely fail to arrive. Fear is openly expressed that – should the regime in Belgrade change – Serbia might become the hero of the day and the first strategic partner of the West in the whole region.

Awarding of the changes in Serbia, Zagreb believes, will leave Croatia empty-handed. The unuttered but implicit message of these fears is: better Milosevic than Kostunica, or the worse for Serbia, the better for Croatia. In these laments there is some resentment, Zagreb likes to think that it is something special and it finds it hard to admit that Serbia is larger, that it has a bigger population and that geographically and strategically it is more interesting for the influential parts of the international community. This typically Croatian envy is intensified by the fact that the Croats missed their opportunity and nine honeymoon months with the West.

Just a few rare ones stress that Croatia cannot build its international position only on the difference between itself and Milosevic's Serbia, that this is an inferiority complex. Even fewer are those who propose that Zagreb be the first to offer a hand to Serbia. This line of reasoning prevails among entrepreneurs, but even some analysts also warn that Croatian regime should not be late this time, that it must not let the international community arrange its relations with New Serbia. But for such moves it is necessary to have a certain amount of courage. When president Mesic in a recent interview given to a media in Voivodina as the origin of the war marked the project of Greater Serbia and the idea of creation of Greater Croatia, and then concluded that on the territory of former Yugoslavia “everybody should apologise to everybody else”, he was immediately attacked not only from the right but even from the ruling coalition, as an advocate of revision of history, moreover, as a member of “left pro-Yugoslav extremists”. The relations with Belgrade are still an internal political question in Croatia.

Jelena Lovric

(AIM)