CITIZENS ON SLIPPERY GROUND

What Course will Serbia Take

Now it is certain that the presidential and poarliamentarian elections in Serbia will be held before they are actually due, in the second half of September. This has strained political relations to the extent that violence is present everywhere, from the republican parliament to the streets and other public places. Many believe that the regime is deliberately spreading fear and that in order to preserve power it is ready even to imprison its own people by deliberately putting the country into deep self-isolation

AIM Belgrade, 21 July, 1997

    In distinction from last year when after the election

theft citizens protested for three months, before the forthcoming elections the sequence of events could be quite different and an outburst of civil discontent could this time precede the elections. Some non-governmental organizations have called the citizens to make this step, believing that manifestation of revolt would be an efficient warning to the regime which in its effort to remain in power, does not shrink from demonstrating violence. In its crudest form, it was demonstrated a few days ago in the Serbian republican parliament during adoption of the election law before which all deputies of the Democratic Party (DS) had been thrown out, just in order to make sure that provisions convenient for the regime would remain in the text of the law. This was the response of the violent majority to the obstructive minority which was trying with a large number of proposed amendments to prevent the increase of the number of electoral district from nine to 29.

Had by any chance the parliamentary procedure been followed, the whole summer would have been spent in discussions about 1,800 draft amendments of the law pursuant which the forthcoming republican parliamentary elections will take place which the deputies of DS had submitted. By using the majority in the parliament as a specific machine for mincing the amendments, the administrative committee of the assembly of Serbia overnight packed all of them in four big "packages" and enabled in this way rejection of several hundred draft amendments at a time. Along with the amendments their authors were also thrown out, that is the deputies of DS, who had not succeeded in their intention, but who had in this way offered an opportunity to the public to see the full extent of despotism of thwe authorities.

The destiny of the deputies of DS was experienced by the public as disintegration of the system, and since the judiciary had already shown its impotence, it is becoming more and more realistic that resolution of all kinds of conflicts could move out into the streets. That something like that could easily happen was illustrated by demonstrative gathering of the citizens of Zemun aimed against the local Radical municipal authorities (the immediate cause of the gathering was forcible eviction of family Barbalic - Croat by nationality - and beating up of lawyer Nikola Barovic by Seselj's bodyguard, after tv-duel between Seselj and Barovic in BK Television), who found another group of people to oppose the former in order to provoke a conflict. Something similar, but in a much more dangerous form was deja vu on 24 December last year (the rally and the counter-rally), but the latest event in Zemun reminded also that the danger of an inter-Serb conflict has not been altogether eliminated.

Therefore it is not far from the truth that it was not only the fate of lawyer Nikola Barovic to "slip on a banana peel", as Seselj publicly commented on the injuries of the lawyer, but that practically every citizen who is not by measure of the regime is in his position. Fear has crept in people again, and the impression is that its seed was sawn by the regime itself, because its representatives are manifesting ruthless despotism, with the intention to show that the election rules will be the ones set by it and none other. In response to all that, there is an evident increased effort of the opposition parties and non-governmental organizations to restore the self-confidence among the citizens, with the feeling of which they had last winter persistently opposed the authorities because of the committed theft of votes.

Twelve opposition parties, reacting to the adopted election law, signed an agreement on boycott of the forthcoming elections. The intention is to deprive them of legitimacy of being multiparty elections. The biggest opposition party, the Serb Revival Movement (SPO) had already made it public that it would not run in the elections if the election rules were not changed. The outcome of the procedure concerning adoption of the election law in the parliament showed that the regime had no intention to meet the demands of the opposition, regardless of protests in the country and clear messages coming from the international community that Yugoslavia would not be received by it if democratic relations were not established.

The latest moves of the authorities have been turned towards self-isolation from the rest of the world to a much larger extent than the one implemented by the international community. Slobodan Milosevic sent a clear message in this sense by having refused to receive the foreign minister of Great Britain, under the pretext that he was too busy. Such a step can be understood only as the intention to eliminate the influence of the world in the forthcoming elections, because if the British minister got the cold shoulder, it is certain that noone else will risk to give the same pleasure to Milosevic. Milosevic has given up on the international community and has demonstratively slammed the door in its face, because what his regime intends to do in the forthcoming elections is not intended for anyone from without to see or hear. He assessed that at this moment its presence can be of more damage than benefit, and he is obviously also convinced that he is more useful to the world in extinguishing the fires blazing in his neighbourhood than the other way round. That is why the Serbian leader "has no time" to receive visits of foreign ministers, and at the same time he has prevented the opposition to use their visits for meetings with them. The impression is that with a single blow he has achieved two goals, if of course the other party remains indifferent to his actions. The regime has decided to preserve power at any cost, and the events which are exciting the public in the past few days confirm this intention of his. He has assessed that he would achieve this best if he surrounded the country with barbed wire fence and thus reduced the interest of foreign public for what was going on in Yugoslavia or for what would be happening in the foreseeable future. Should the majority of the opposition refuse to participate in the elections under imposed conditions, the elections will still not be single-party elections. The analysts of political circumstances assess that the regime has ensured appearance of two types of parties in the elections. Its open allies belong to one, such as JUL, and the others are its concealed allies, such as the Serb Radical Party (SRS).

The leader of the SRS, Vojislav Seselj, has lately greatly agitated the domestic political public with his statements and actions which are the expression of a clear message saying that if his party and he himself won confidence of the majority, the regime would be even worse for the people, and repression even severer. That is why unconcealed conviction prevails that Seselj is the main trump card the current regime is using, giving him a double role. One is supposed to create the impression that the electorate has a possibility of choice, and the other is that of the offer of a worse variant of the existing one. The international community is supposed to be faced with the same dilemma, although it openly manifests that it is not inclined towards Milosevic, but does not give up on him either, because it assesses that it will be easier for it to keep things under control in this part of the world with him than without him. This is seen best from the reaction of the USA to Milosevic's election for president of Yugoslavia. The American administration does not recognize Yugoslavia, but it will keep up the dialogue with Milosevic because of his signature on the Dayton accords.

Many think that this is the key reason for which the deputies of the Montenegrin Democratic Party of Socialists in the federal parliament voted in favour of Milosevic's election for president of Yugoslavia. It seems that it is not convenient for the international community to send Slobodan Milosevic, as a signatory of the Dayton accords, into political retirement, but it continues to keep water up to his neck. Before the forthcoming elections, Milosevic has realized what the interests of the USA, as the key factor in the Balkans, are, so he abundantly uses internally limitations of the imposed foreign isolation. The regime has fabricated a possibility of choice between minor and major evil for its electorate. In this respect the regime has clearly presented itself. It remains to be seen how the domestic public will react, that is, whether it will agree to give up practising individual rights and freedoms for the sake of the collectivity, or whether it will do "something" about it.

By going to the post of the president of Yugoslavia, Milosevic has solved his personal "personnel" problem, but his political activities depend on whether his party will maintain the majority in the republican parliament. Without such support, he will not be able to count on a position which would enable him to easily break the resistance in the other federal republic and influence political developments in it. That is why a convenient climate is being created in the media, which are with their propagandist activities reminding of the period in late eighties, when Milosevic was consolidating his power.

Ratomir Petkovic

(AIM)