LUKEWARM AND RESTRAINED

Echoes of the Croat military action in Belgrade

AIM, BELGRADE, May 3, 1995 Political parties and state agencies in Serbia reacted to the news on the action of Croat forces in Western Slavonia with great delay and comparatively half-heartedly. This action began on Monday morning, and it was completed on Tuesday afternoon after Croat forces took over control of the entire region.

On Monday evening, Belgrade television reported about the intervention of Croat forces only in the 21st minute of its central daily news program. During the day, in state radio programs, there were reports about the conflicts, but they were quite scanty.

State news agency, Tanjug, reported on developments in Western Slavonia in time - on Monday morning - but in the afternoon the same day and on Tuesday, it sent reports with a delay of several hours. In independent agencies and media in Serbia, these developments were the central topical issue.

Representatives of most of the political parties, except, of course, for the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), gave their statements to Belgrade independent media by Monday evening. Intervention of Croat forces was condemned, but the impression was that party officials both from the left and the right wing were somewhat caught unprepared in the midst of celebrating May 1.

The next day, on Tuesday, political parties came out with their statements again, and just a mildly speaking half-hearted statement of the SPS was also publicized. The statement demanded from the UN Security Council to intervene and stop Croat attacks on Western Slavonia.

The statement issued on Tuesday late in the afternoon, after the session of the Supreme Defence Council of the FR of Yugoslavia was not any sharper. It read that it was an "aggression of Croatia against the Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK)" and that it was "a criminal act against civilian population".

The theses about the FR Yugoslavia "holding firmly the standpoint that there is no military solution" for the crisis in the region of former Yugoslavia were repeated. No counter measures were mentioned, there was no expression of support to the leadership of the Serbs from Krajina, there was not a single word about the right of the Serb nation to choose in which state it would live. Bombing of towns and suffering of the civilian population was condemned in general, which could partly be interpreted as a reprimand addressed at Knin because of the missile attack on Zagreb.

A few hours before the Supreme Defence Council, the Synod of the Serb Orthodox Church issued a statement from the session convened because of the developments in Western Slavonia. The statement concludes that the attack of the Croat forces "directly jeopardizes the peace solution" and that it is a "stimulus for an even more terrible flaring up of the war fire". The Synod addressed an "urgent appeal to domestic state and international factors" to take all measures to return Croat forces to the initial positions, and demanded from them to "protect the Serb civilian population endangered by war actions".

At its session held on Tuesday, the Synod also decided to postpone the visit of the Serb Patriarch Pavle to Germany planned for Wednesday, as an additional manifestation of support to the Serbs from Krajina.

The statement of the Synod, in a political sense, was considerably closer to the reactions that came from the rightist centre and the extreme rightists than to those of the state leadership. The Serb Radical Party (SRS) whose leader was among the first to issue a statement, on Monday evening, appealed for unity and offering assistance to "brothers across the Drina river", accusing the authorities in Serbia for watching calmly the "Croat aggression".

A member of the leadership of the Serb Renewal Movement (SPO), Milan Bozic, held a press conference on Tuesday, where he "most sharply condemned" the attack of Croat forces on Western Slavonia. In the name of this party, he demanded that the Croat forces "immediately stop the aggression which was in no way provoked, and which has in its foundations tactical objectives of the war lobby in Croatia which is trying to snatch the RSK piece by piece".

Bozic also said that official institutions in the FR Yugoslavia "should take a stand" in relation to the developments in Western Slavonia and that only the federal Assembly "can define guidelines of the official policy of Belgrade".

The leader of the Democratic Party (DS), Zoran Djindjic, assessed that this was a "calculated blow to the democratic process". "Croatia is pursuing a policy of destroying confidence and making negotiations impossible, because it is interested only in possessing territories, without the Serbs on them, if possible", he said.

The Civic Alliance of Serbia is practically the only political party in Serbia whose statement about the developments in Western Slavonia does not speak about "aggression of Croatia against the RSK", but about "resumed military actions which are allegedly expected to extract forcibly a peaceful solution" and appealed to both parties to "to show maximum of restraint".

The leader of the National Party of Montenegro, Novak Kilibarda assessed on Tuesday that Yugoslavia "cannot be immune to what is happening in Croatia" and announced that this party would demand from the Yugoslav and the Montenegrin parliament to "discuss urgently the newly established situation ... in Serb countries across the Drina and the Sava".

A few minor parties also publicized their stances on Tuesday, the Serb Liberal Party, the Parliamentary National Party, being among them which condemned "Croat aggression", but also "silence of Belgrade".

Dragan Janjic