-Caveat Lector-
>From The Nation-
Whoever does not fight at Kosovo...
May nothing bear fruit that his hand sows.
--Serb epic
Contrary to US expectations, a Kosovo peace agreement isn't going to be
signed after a few weeks of bombing, and maybe not ever. To understand why
Slobodan Milosevic decided to fight NATO instead of conceding, one must
understand the contemporary role in politics played by the 1389 Battle of
Kosovo. Milosevic is re-enacting the Serbian central myth of the leader who
lost the medieval battle against superior Turkish forces and became a
martyred nationalist hero. He is trying to keep his power by casting himself
as the reincarnated defender and shifting the public's anger over the
possible loss of Kosovo from himself to the evil West.
There are many forces in his once small political base prompting Milosevic's
defiance. Their continued support for the president is critical to him now,
but they are too peripheral to gain power were he to be ousted. One group
pressuring him is the ultranationalist Radical Party, which won only sixteen
seats in the federal Parliament. Vojislav Seselj, its leader, might have
pulled his party out of the ruling coalition and weakened the government if
Milosevic had agreed to NATO troops. He could have painted his president as a
traitor to Serbian interests. Seselj's popularity grew while he urged a war
with NATO and delegates at the Rambouillet peace talks considered caving in
to the West. To undercut his rival, Milosevic had to adopt Seselj's
positions.
Another factor is the nationalist military officers Milosevic appointed after
firing the military brass who tried to restrain his actions in Kosovo this
past fall. These new officers seemed to be implicitly threatening a coup
when, according to the European press, they told him that allowing NATO
troops into Kosovo would be the beginning of the end of his power. Gen.
Nebojsa Pavkovic said the current military leadership believes that sacred
Kosovo must be defended at all costs. Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, the supreme
commander, speaking in the language of the myth, told his soldiers to
"prepare for martyrdom."
Belgrade political analysts say the Yugoslav president fears the public,
which holds the Kosovo myth at the heart of its identity. He worries about
being killed by an angry mob, like Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu. To
guard against that fate, he silences every critic who could stir up riots or
electoral opposition. He purged not only the military but the universities.
Death threats against students continue. There is an escalated closing of
independent media and jailing of journalists. Serbian journalists expect him
to follow Seselj's urging and crack down on the judiciary and the
anti-Milosevic government in the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro.
His self-protective propaganda campaign plays on the Serbs' sense of
themselves as a persecuted people, which goes back to the fourteenth-century
Turkish occupation and runs so deep that some Christians wear a Jewish star
to identify with another historical victim. In recent broadcasts, World War
II movies were run as a reminder of what the Germans did to Serbs, and claims
were made that Madeleine Albright hates all Serbs and that the Kosovo
Liberation Army had planted plastic dolls to fake a report about Serbs
killing children. State TV endlessly repeats the Serbs' mythic claim to
Kosovo, despite the fact that until 1989 it had been legally theirs for only
about sixty of the past 600 years.
There is no check on Milosevic's propaganda or policies from the democratic
opposition. It has become weak, discredited by its petty power struggles and
the co-optation of its most charismatic figure, Vuk Draskovic, into
Milosevic's government. It is cowed by repression that has created such fear
that many are focused only on individual survival. One dissident said, "I am
not afraid of the war but of what comes after it. There will be no chance for
democracy in Serbia."
Many in the opposition and general public who detest Milosevic aren't opposed
to fighting NATO in Kosovo. The main public opposition to that battle comes
from mothers demonstrating against their sons' military mobilization. Some
reservists, like some 200 in Leskovac, are staging protest rallies outside
military barracks, and many draft resisters are going into hiding. They see
through Milosevic's strategy and believe that he has already sold out Kosovo
but is forcing soldiers to die so he can survive his eventual surrender of
the province.
Except with the conscripts and their families, Milosevic's decision to
re-enact a version of the medieval battle has strengthened him. Earlier this
year his approval ratings were only about 20 percent, because he has
devastated the economy and lost three wars, but by early March a poll showed
37 percent of the Serbs willing to defend Kosovo with force, with more
uniting behind him. Even members of the opposition are entranced by the myth
of the Serbian knights in the Field of Blackbirds, by the tales of glory,
courage and sacrifice that are part of their folk songs and history books.
Like actor Milanko Zablacanski, who was among the tens of thousands
protesting against Milosevic in 1997, many feel honor-bound to support a
leader they loathe against foreign soldiers occupying Kosovo as the Turks
did.
Milosevic can wait out NATO bombings while "cleansing" enough Kosovars from
the mineral-rich north and central regions to make partition into a Serbian
and Albanian sector a realistic exit strategy for the West. If that
half-victory isn't achieved, he can explain his loss of Kosovo as the myth
does, saying the Serbs' brave battle against NATO was not a defeat but a
moral victory.
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