SERBIA: SENTENCED TO VICTORY

subject : for the review

AIM, Belgrade, September 13, 1995

During the past summer, war suffering was presented to Belgrade and Serbia more drastically than ever in the course of the past four years as long as the conflicts in the former Yugoslav space last. A bitter confirmation of what war really means was brought by more than 150 thousand refugees from Croatia who arrived in the beginning of August seeking shelter in the FRY.

And while ordinary people spoke about human suffering of refugees with grief and abhorrence, in the political arena they served as a highly applicable argument in mutual accusations. The official Belgrade proclaimed that the breakdown of the Western parts of the former self-proclaimed "Republic of Serbian Krajina" was an exclusive sin of the local Serb leadership. According to interpretation of Government propagandists, the tragedy of the Serbs from Krajina is the result of Martic's and Babic's disobedience to Slobodan Milosevic. Allegedly, had they followed the peace policy of the President of Serbia, everything would have been to measure of the Serb nation.

Arrows shot at the disobedient Krajina leaders were aimed at the political heads of the Bosnian Serbs as well, who are still persisting in their war option. Criticism of those who were until recently partners on the other side of the River Drina were intended to protect Slobodan Milosevic from any posibility of the public questioning his part of the guilt, since he is after all the chief pilot of all-Serb politics. With well tuned media it seems possible to achieve this goal, or at least create the impression that everyone believes in the innocence of Belgrade authorities of Serb defeats.

Connoisseurs of the circumstances in ruling political headquarters, however, claim that the present uncompromising peace orientation of President Milosevic and his disassociation from the project of "Greater Serbia" does not have unanimous support even among members of the ruling party. The long hinted split among the Socialists to the hard- core and the moderate faction has become especially topical this summer. The hard-core ones headed by the member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts, Mihajlo Markovic, is refusing to abandon the slogan "All Serbs in a single state". Moderate Socialists have adopted the slogan "Peace is priceless", and with it they have come quite close to the Yugoslav Associated Leftists (JUL) - the party headed by Dr Mirjana Markovic, Slobodan Milosevic's wife.

Recent and for many quite unexpected dismissal of Radio-Television Serbia Director General Milorad Vucelic from his post, according to unofficial information, is in fact the result of a conflict between the hard-core and the moderate faction of the Socialists. Conducted by Vucelic, in the past few years, state television has carefully cherished all-Serb patriotism which is nowadays, when the slogan "Peace is priceless" has come into force, treated as war-mongering. Gossip-lovers claim that Vucelic had a direct clash with the peace-oriented mistress of JUL, Mirjana Markovic, and that this was the direct cause for the big boss to thank him for cooperation. Regardless of reliability of this intrigue, it is quite clear that the authorities do not need the type of TV propaganda as personified by Milorad Vucelic any more.

August "Storm" over Knin brought about other inter-party shifts on the political scene of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Regardless of political and ideological differences, and even personal bitter experiences of Vuk Draskovic with Milosevic's regime at the time of his arrest, advances of the still greatest opposition party, the Serb Renewal Movement (SPO), towards the ruling Socialists, or rather their moderate faction has become quite evident. The leader of the SPO has publicly supported negotiatng efforts of Slobodan Milosevic and his disassociation from the radical Serbs across the river Drina. This has given him a much better treatment on state television and other media controlled by the authorities, and there are even serious speculations about the possibility of the SPO joining the Government, which would really be a big step in the parlamentarian and political life of Serbia. In any case, Milosevic can say now that apart from his own, Socialist Party, the sisterly (or perhaps one should rather say spousal) JUL and semi-oppositionist New Democracy, he has the support - at least concerning his policy in relation to the brethren across the Drina - of one of the relevant opposition parties. There is still no consensus on key national issue, but it certainly resembles a convincing majority.

The remaining three significant parliamentarian parties - the Radicals of Vojislav Seselj, the Democratic Party of Zoran Djindjic and the Democratic Party of Serbia of Vojislav Kostunica - have remained outside this peace advocating block. Seselj's position is certainly the most clarified among them and - you may like it or not - the most consistent. He still believes that it is necessary to persist in the efforts to create a joint Serb state, by all available means, including even the Yugoslav armed forces. Basically, Kostunica advocates the same idea about a joint state for all the Serbs. Djindjic's Democratic Party was not originally nationalistic, but consequently became more radical in this sense and close to Karadzic's regime. In the recently published party program for overcoming the crisis, the Democrats repeated the stance about the right of the Serbs from Bosnia to join the state union with Serbia and Montenegro. The Democratic Party insists in the same document on the use of political and diplomatic means although it does not wish to join the mentioned peace block. Does this mean that Djindjic'e party has no intention to participate in the reconstructed government (if there will be any reconstruction) is for the time being still an open issue.

Wavering within the opposition block is also proved by the unclarified relationship between the two democratic parties

• Djindjic's and Kostunica's. For quite some time, the possibility of these two parties merging into one has been mentioned, since by the objectives they advocate at the moment they are quite close, but their heads do not seem to be in too much of a hurry to merge. Recently, a member of the leadership Dr Tihomir Milosevic resigned because the board of his party refused to discuss the union.

Not even in the end of August, when the second Serb state creation also designed in Belgrade became the target of serious attacks, the Socialist authorities have not changed their peace-making rhetoric. Slobodan Milosevic in an orderly manner receives all international mediators, while NATO planes bomb positions of Bosnian Serbs. State media talk with a lot more attention about formation of a joint Belgrade-Pale negotiating team wth Slobodan Milosevic at its head and the Geneva agreement between Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo on demarcation in Bosnia than they devote to NATO air strikes against the already partly recognized "Republic of Srpska". The official propaganda occasionally goes beyond all bounds: just as the Serbs in some parts of former Yugoslavia are suffering heavy blows, the victorious peace policy of Serb President Milosevic is exalted.

The opposition, especially its "non-peace-making part" condemns international military intervention against the Serbs in Bosnia, but the impression is that, like in the case of Knin "Storm" or the May "Flash" in Western Slavonia - there will be no violent reactions to it from Belgrade.

Summarizing the latest developments, the provocative first lady of the SPO Danica Draskovic declared that the Serbs had experienced a beneficial defeat. If what the Serbs had advocated for a time had come true, Mrs Draskovic said, it would have been a triumph of fascism. Judging by the stoic peace with which Belgrade has followed the events on the other side of the Drina this summer, one could say that many share this conviction.

Zdravko Huber