Fears and Hopes of Postwar Serbia

What Is the President Up to?

It seems that even Milosevic himself is aware that he will not be able to maintain the existing situation for long. The campaign of reconstruction of the destroyed "under our own steam" defying everybody and police repression are aimed not to keep him in power but when the time comes for negotiations on withdrawal to enable him to negotiate from the position of force and as a person who is still capable of imposing conditions

AIM Podgorica, 5 October, 1999 (By AIM correspondent from Podgorica)

That Slobodan Milosevic's days in power are numbered should be clear even to himself. Personally indicted for war crimes by the Hague Tribunal, president of FR Yugoslavia is at the head of the state which is in international quarantine, in which relations between the two federal units correspond to those in former SFRY on the eve of the dissolution with foreign military protectorate of Kosovo after the lost war with NATO. Milosevic is at the head of the state in which the economy is falling to pieces and the frustrated population driven to the wall. There are, however, no visible signs that Milosevic's regime is getting ready for departure. On the contrary, propagandist campaign of reconstruction "under our own steam" is in full swing with a vocabulary which reminds of that in Soviet Russia during its first five-year period fter the revolution on the one hand, and on the other, the regime has started a brutal political showdown with a part of the opposition gathered in the League for Changes which includes mass police beating up of peaceful protesters in the streets of Belgrade.

What are things coming to? According to ones, to open dictatorship in the completely isolated country such as Albania until just recently or North Korea nowadays. Others, however, think that Milosevic and his supporters are buying time in expectation of spectacular changes in the world, Russia primarily, which would then enable the current regime to become a sponsored satellite in strategic quibbling of great powers. There is also fear that a more or less bloody civil war is threatening us in the forseeable future.

Nevertheless, if one looks closely under the surface of political life, like for who knows how many times before, one will conclude that little is what it seems to be. The red-and-black coalition in power (Socialist Party of Serbia, Yugoslav Left and Serb Radical Party) is far from being really monolithic and self-confident as it seems. Among its initial partners - the Socialists and Leftists - for a long time there has been no real enthusiasm which is necessary for completely authoritarian rule. One of the main motivations for executing power of their party leadership is - personal interest. It is true that for everything these persons nowadays are and for everything they possess they can thank the regime. It is also true that they are ready to defend it aggressively. Hardly anybody believes, however, that they are ready to go down to the bottom with everything they have acquired if the present social milieu becomes unsustainable.

This also refers to the case of introducing dictatorship which they would mostly have to finance on their own, as well as to the situation in which discontent of the citizens would reach proportions in which changes would become inevitable. After all, in every previous great political turmoil, like the 1996/97 citizens' protest, the ruling structure was seized by mutual conflicts and splits into hard and soft factions concerning the method of overcoming the crisis. The reason why they have remained comparatively homogeneoius and with a small number of "turncoats" is in the fact that Slobodan Milosevic managed to preserve unchanged rules of the game. The current campaign of "reconstruction and development" and beating up of the protesters are turned in that very direction. First, it is intended to demonstrate that everything is as it used to be and that this is how it will continue to be: police violence is on the other hand intended to intimidate by showing that the regime is still very "fit" when it is necessary to apply bare force.

The Radicals as the "youngest" coalition partner, grew in the past ten years as a specific political parasite. Milosevic has intentionally delivered into their cheap and brutal nationalistic and social demagogic hands that part of the impoverished population which manifested disappointement with his "leniency" and political shifts he was foced to make. The Radicals of Vojislav Seselj in this context are carrying out two tasks: intimidating of the local and the world public with the possibility that this regime could be replaced by an even worse one and pretending to be a party of order and force every time Milosevic is faced with the challenge of citizens' demonstrations. Although his parliamentary force appears to be quite remarkable, it is essentially a form of life created in a laboratory. This does not mean that the Radicals should be underestimated. A big part of its energy and freshness the regime owes to readily expressed Machiavelism, cynism, ruthlessness and lack of principles of the Radicals.

On the other hand are the coalition League for Changes and the Serb Revival Movement (SPO). The former are organising daily demonstrations in Belgrade and cities inside Serbia with a maximalistic objective to force Slobodan Milosevic to resign; the latter are in favour of the change of the regime solely by early elections. The paradox of the situation is reflected in the fact that Milosevic does not intend to either resign or schedule elections without great pressure that can be exerted only through a broad union of the opposition in which participation of SPO of Vuk Draskovic has crucial significance. The public is extremely aware of that: the number of people gathered at demonstrations varies (it is in any case not even close to the one in 1996/97 citizens' protests), and Draskovic is failing to acquire the necessary political credibility. In any case, the League for Changes has at least started its election campaign.

The additional aggravating circumstance is that the opposition leaders have to regain the trust of the public. All the previous citizens' protests failed because of their mutual envy and petty politicking. Therefore, it is no wonder that all the opposition parties have unexpectedly easily reached a principled agreement on conditions under which they are ready to run in the elections.

Excommunicated from the international community, faced with internal economic and social collapse, ethnic and state debacle, Milosevic will not be able to maintain the political status quo for a long time, nor to make a turn toward something else that would guarantee his power at all costs. Not because he would not like to, but because his followers do not have the force to maintain open dictarorship, because the global political trends do not play into his hands and because after the ten-year long bloodshed and misery in the unprecedented troublesome times, Serbia is not ready for a civil war. In such circumstances, time has simply ripened for a change of the regime, independently of the will of the opposition and even despite it.

Milosevic is, all things considered aware of it. The campaign of reconstruction of everything destroyed "under our own steam" defying everybody and police repression are aimed not at keeping him in power, but when the time comes for negotiations on withdrawal at enabling him to negotiate from the position of force as someone who will still be capable of imposing conditions. What will happen then, in what way he will try to ensure his status and the influence of his hangers-on will be the main problem of post-Milosevic's Serbia.

Philip Schwarm

(AIM)