-Caveat Lector- <<Now, for those who have read a little history, recall the Brits in WW2 -- well before the U.S. devoted manpower thereto -- wasn't it Winnie Churchill who rallied his underling citizen followers to resist the attackers, defended by a few RAF fighter aircraft and the will and resistance of the populace, bombed and bombed and ... ? Wouldn't any person, regradless of national origin, defend their homes and homeland? And here we have adversaries who were once allied against the self same attacker -- now supposedly 'different'? Perhaps ... perhaps not ...>> >From Int'l Herald Tribune Paris, Tuesday, April 27, 1999 Milosevic: Undaunted And Unbowed ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- By Michael Dobbs Washington Post Service ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- BELGRADE - NATO warplanes reduced his home to a pile of rubble, put his television stations off the air and destroyed the headquarters of his ruling Socialist Party. But President Slobodan Milosevic carries on with what, to outside appearances at least, is his regular routine. He presides over cabinet meetings, meets with foreign dignitaries and issues orders for reconstructing his devastated country. When NATO began its air campaign against Serb-led Yugoslavia a month ago, alliance officials expressed the hope that it would cause serious political strains within the Milosevic regime, perhaps even provoke a revolt by his senior military commanders. So far, these hopes have not been realized. If anything, the man whom President Bill Clinton calls ''Europe's last dictator'' is more solidly entrenched in power now than he was when the bombs first began to rain down on his country, according to Yugoslav political analysts. Associates depict Mr. Milosevic as a man of strong nerves, angry but unfazed by the bombing of his residence and determined to resist NATO ''aggression'' to the end, even if the alliance attempts to occupy Kosovo with a ground offensive. ''Imagine your reaction if a criminal came and destroyed your home,'' said Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic. All the same, he added, Mr. Milosevic ''is conducting his business as president of the republic and commander in chief absolutely normally.'' Asked how Mr. Milosevic reacted to the missile attack on his official residence in the exclusive Dedinje section of Belgrade, Mr. Jovanovic quoted him as saying, ''It's terrible, but perhaps less terrible'' than if NATO had attacked a populated civilian area. Former associates say the Yugoslav president seems to thrive in situations in which he has his back against the wall. ''He is stimulated by crises,'' said an official who has worked closely with him. ''When everything is normal, he can't come up with a strategy. He needs conflict. NATO played right into his hands.'' Given the secrecy that surrounds the inner workings of the Yugoslav regime, and particularly Mr. Milosevic's own activities, it is virtually impossible to get independent insights into the Yugoslav leader's present state of mind. But the general impression of cool calculation mingled with indignant self-righteousness is consistent with his behavior during earlier political crises, including three dramatic months in early 1997 when popular demonstrations over electoral fraud seemed to have a good chance of toppling him from power. Mr. Milosevic rode out that crisis in the same way that he is riding out the present war with the U.S.-led alliance: through a mixture of stubbornness, patience and cosmetic concessions. Many political analysts in Serbia, including Zoran Djindjic, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, say that the present crisis has strengthened Mr. Milosevic. The NATO attacks have sparked a nationalistic upsurge that has seriously undermined Mr. Milosevic's opposition, because it now seems unpatriotic to be pro-Western. The buttressing of Mr. Milosevic's political position has not necessarily made him more popular among ordinary Serbs. Many Serbs, particularly in big cities like Belgrade, continue to have little affection for a man they associate with a decade of war and a catastrophic decline in their standard of living. The present mood is not pro-Milosevic but anti-NATO. ''For most Serbs, Milosevic does not matter any more,'' said a former associate. ''This is not about him. This is about the country.'' One of the very few political leaders here who has openly espoused political compromise with the West is Deputy Prime Minister Vuk Draskovic, the leader of a moderate party who joined the government this year. In a television appearance Sunday night, he urged the Belgrade government to accept a compromise on Kosovo that he predicted would be reached with Russian and UN mediation, and he called on state leaders to ''stop lying to the people and finally tell them the truth.'' As a statesman, Mr. Milosevic has presided over disastrous setbacks for Yugoslavia and Serbia. During his 10 years in power, the country has lost traditional Serb-occupied lands in Croatia and Bosnia. The economy was a shambles even before NATO missiles began destroying the country's biggest industrial plants, bridges and power grids. As a political tactician determined to hang on to power, however, Mr. Milosevic has few equals. In the opening phase of the present crisis, his grasp of military strategy and war aims seems to have been superior to that of his NATO enemies. While Mr. Milosevic apparently had a good idea of the damage that NATO was prepared to inflict on his country - and made the brutal calculation that the pain was bearable - NATO was unprepared for the all-out Serb offensive in Kosovo and the forced exodus of many of its ethnic Albanian inhabitants. Even if NATO succeeds in wresting control over Kosovo from Belgrade through a protracted air campaign or a ground offensive, most Serbian observers believe Mr. Milosevic will find ways of turning the situation to his advantage. ''This will probably end with a Western victory,'' said Aleksa Djilas, a political analyst who is the son of the former Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas. But, he said, ''it will be a Pyrrhic victory'' if the aim is to get rid of Mr. Milosevic or to ensure lasting political stability in the Balkans. Like many other Serbian intellectuals who have opposed Mr. Milosevic, Mr. Djilas believes that Western governments made a mistake in squeezing the Yugoslav leader into a corner. ''They left no room for diplomacy,'' Mr. Djilas said. ''They came to the conclusion that nobody here supports Milosevic so they could simply bully him.'' >From http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/april99/18_16_080.html IPS news reports appear daily in English, German, Finnish, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. To subscribe, please contact us at: Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, North America. <<Links at site>> CONFLICT-YUGOSLAVIA: NATO Raids Cause More Damage than Nazis By Vesna Peric-Zimonjic BELGRADE, Apr 23 (IPS) - NATO countries may be fighting their war against Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, but in the eyes of ordinary Serbs, four weeks of air raids have meticulously destroyed the works of many generations. For the first time in years, Yugoslav official statistics and independent analyses coincide: the month-long NATO air campaign has caused more damage to the country than the Nazi German occupation between the end of 1941 and mid-1944. ''According to our estimates, the total economic damage caused by NATO aggression and measured in relation to gross domestic product will likely exceed that caused in World War II,'' Group-17, a caucus of independent, market-oriented economists said this week. ''We are drawing the attention of the international community to the fact that the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia represents an act of brutal retaliation against an entire nation and not a punishment of Milosevic's war machinery,'' the group added. According to statistics released by the Yugoslav government, 517 civilians have been killed all over Serbia since the NATO air campaign began. The report did not specify how many of them were ethnic Albanians. The direct damage inflicted on industrial, commercial and civil facilities and structure exceeds 10 billion US dollars, while indirect war damage can be put at several dozen billion US dollars, as more than 500.000 people have lost their workplaces , official and independent experts coincide. The official report adds that 11 important bridges on key routes have been destroyed, while 12 important railway points and six major roads are damaged to the point that they are not functional. Seven airports all over Serbia and Montenegro have been badly damaged, of which only three are of military nature. ''Group 17'' warned against further destruction of industrial facilities in Serbia, where oil, chemical, car, fertiliser, construction machinery and home appliances plants have already been badly hit. The Yugoslav government named 40 industrial sites, 16 refineries and chemical plants, and six agriculture complexes as having been totally destroyed since March 24. Sixteen hospitals and health care centres were targeted, while over 190 schools, faculties or facilities for students and children have been damaged or destroyed, on top of 17 television transmitters. The number of private houses damaged or destroyed is given as ''several thousand'' in towns and small villages all over the country. Heavy damage has been inflicted upon 17 mediaeval monasteries and churches, plus eight sites classified as ''historical heritage.'' Group 17, whose members work both in the country and abroad, also coincided with government assessments of an ecological disaster of regional dimension. ''With these attacks, the alliance has consciously risked a global environmental catastrophe which could result in pestilence of a huge number of people,'' the group warned. In its report, the Government estimates that more than 2,000 cruise missiles have been launched were launched against Yugoslavia and over 6,000 tons of explosives were dropped over its territory in about 7,000 NATO combat missions. The report did not quote its sources, but analysts in Belgrade say it came from the military. The Yugoslav Army (VJ) is reluctant to provide statistics on damage inflicted upon it since March 24. So far, it has only announced the death of 10 soldiers, but the number is believed to be larger, judging by the long obituaries in Serbian dailies. Military sources limit themselves to saying that ''most of (Yugoslavia's) anti-aircraft systems, support and other systems have suffered only minor damage''. ''We're still highly movable, we're on our own terrain and we do have support from our people'' a highly placed military source told IPS. ''We know that we are not a match for NATO, our aim is not to win, we (just) have to defend our people'' he added. General Nebojsa Pavkovic, commander of the Third Army, based in Pristina (Kosovo), told journalists earlier this week that the effects of NATO campaign were ''negligible'' so far. He said his units alone had downed 16 NATO planes, five helicopters, 46 cruise missiles and four unmanned aircraft. So far, NATO has admitted losing one fighter plane, a F-117A Stealth fighter, shot down early in the war and a few unmanned aircraft. Seen on television screens from a comfortable distance, the highly publicised attacks on Milosevic's house, the Serbian Television building or the Socialist party headquarters might look like good scores for NATO pilots. But from the inside, ordinary Serbs see such scores as a symbol of the country's painful devastation. ''It has come to the point where nobody seems to remember why this really started'' says Predrag Simic of Belgrade Institute for International Politics and Economy. ''The destruction of such proportions does not look like it has anything to do with bringing the ethnic Albanian refugees back to Kosovo or tuning down the military machinery of Serbia...It looks completely different. It's a NATO war against Serbia.'' 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