Successful force now faces uncertain future
FROM the minute I saw the workers and peasants of central Serbia march
down Knez Milos Street, I knew that these enraged men with arms like
legs of mutton would not be leaving Belgrade before they finished
their job.
Not a few them were carrying weapons. If the order to shoot had been
made, the police and the Army would have found themselves with a real
battle on their hands.
These men knew how the day would end. But on Friday morning most other
Serbs could scarcely comprehend how deeply their lives had been
changed by the 12 hours that saw them seize back their dignity and
their future that languished in Slobodan Milosevic's dungeon.
Many were convinced that he would wrongfoot the opposition at the last
moment. It was not until I talked to the most senior opposition
leaders on Thursday morning that I realised they had broken a
psychological barrier. Cedomir Jovanovic of the Democratic Opposition
of Serbia (DOS) told me: "We are going to storm the parliament and
take key state institutions."
Mr Milosevic's opponents had at last understood that they would bring
him down only by using his favoured political currency, naked force.
They would not be able to sustain the general strike and the extreme
pitch of people's anger for more than a few days. On Thursday, it was
do or die.
Serbia's revolution has come 11 years after those in Eastern Europe.
Leaving aside the mayhem that he provoked in Croatia, Bosnia and
Kosovo, Mr Milosevic has inflicted unimaginable damage on the Serbian
state.
He gutted its judiciary and filled its civil service and education
system with witless sycophants. The state-run media earned a special
place in the Serbs' misery as it daily regurgitated the mantras of Mr
Milosevic's anachronistic authoritarian ideology.
The police and the military did not guarantee citizens' wellbeing, but
was the ultimate sanction of one man's power. The economy is corrupted
to the point of collapse, serving only the hugely powerful mafias
whose influence will now wane.
All this was made possible by Mr Milosevic mobilising a rancid,
bullying nationalism that became the main motor of destabilisation in
the Balkans. Far from achieving his proclaimed national goals, his
policies saw Serbs driven out of areas in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo
where they had lived for centuries.
Vojislav Kostunica and the other members of the new leadership in
Belgrade face an enormous task in trying to heal those wounds. The
constitutional order with its multiple parliaments is a complete mess.
Serbia's relationship with Montenegro is profoundly confusing.
Solving this conundrum is not helped by the fact that Mr Kostunica's
relationship with the Montenegrin President, Milo Djukanovic, is cool
at best.
If that wasn't enough, Mr Kostunica's powers as Federal President are
quite limited and Mr Milosevic's coalition is the most powerful force
in the federal parliament. For that reason, Mr Kostunica and his
allies are wooing the SNP, which used to support Mr Milosevic in
Montenegro, in an attempt to block the influence of Mr Milosevic's
alliance in parliament.
Furthermore, Mr Kostunica's opposition movement is a broad front in
which cracks are already beginning to appear. The new President is
overwhelmingly the most popular figure in Serbia. But he could not
have swept aside Mr Milosevic without the assistance of several key
men. The most important of those is Zoran Djindjic, whose Democratic
Party was the backbone of the protest movement.
According to insiders, the two men, both ambitious, distrust each
other. Those are the two figures upon whom the Serbs will depend to
solve their most pressing problem.
The nationalism that led to war in Yugoslavia was fashioned for the
sole purpose of winning power for Mr Milosevic in 1987. Thirteen years
later, many Serbs have conveniently forgotten how they supported his
project in the first place. They have suffered severely for their
mistake.
There has been much uninformed criticism in the West about Mr
Kostunica's nationalism. That criticism is based largely on his
opposition to American policy in the region and to the Nato campaign
over Kosovo in particular. Expressing approval of the Nato campaign
within Serbia brings to mind the idea of turkeys voting for Christmas.
But it is also Mr Kostunica's legitimate democratic right to criticise
American policy (everybody else does). The key point is that he is a
democrat. He will attempt to solve any problems through negotiation
and not violence.
The process of rehabilitation will still be exceptionally difficult.
Serbs will have to address the issue of the war crimes committed
either by them or in their name.
A more public recognition by the West of the crimes committed against
Serbs would certainly move the process along. Western Europe must be
deeply engaged in assisting the reintegration of this confused,
traumatised country.
An unstable Serbia blocks the regeneration of the entire Balkan
peninsula; an undemocratic Serbia can always threaten to destabilise
Bosnia and Kosovo.
There is now a democratic Serbia, but it is by no means yet stable.
Thanks to the people's uprising in Belgrade, however, this country and
the Balkans, at last, have a real chance.
The Times 07.10.00
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