The murdered Serbian prime minister was a reviled western stooge whose
economic reforms brought misery
Neil Clark
Friday March 14, 2003
The Guardian
Tributes to Zoran Djindjic, the assassinated prime minister of Serbia,
have been pouring in. President Bush led the way, praising his
"strong leadership", while the Canadian government's spokesman
extolled a "heralder of democracy" and Tony Blair spoke of the
energy Djindjic had devoted to "reforming Serbia".
In western newspaper obituaries Djindjic has been almost universally
acclaimed as an ex-student agititator who bravely led a popular uprising
against a tyrannical dictator and endeavoured to steer his country into a
new democratic era.
But beyond the CNN version of world history, the career of Zoran Djindjic
looks rather different. Those who rail against the doctrine of regime
change should remember that Iraq is far from being the first country
where the US and other western governments have tried to engineer the
removal of a government that did not suit their strategic interests.
Three years ago it was the turn of Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia.
In his recent biography of Milosevic, Adam LeBor reveals how the US
poured $70m into the coffers of the Serb opposition in its efforts to
oust the Yugoslav leader in 2000. On the orders of Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright, a covert US Office of Yugoslav Affairs was set up to
help organise the uprising that would sweep the autocratic Milosevic from
power.
At the same time, there is evidence that underworld groups, controlled by
Zoran Djindjic and linked to US intelligence, carried out a series of
assassinations of key supporters of the Milosevic regime, including
Defence Minister Pavle Bulatovic and Zika Petrovic, head of Yugoslav
Airlines.
With Slobo and his socialist party finally toppled, the US got the
"reforming" government in Belgrade it desired. The new
President Vojislav Kostunica received the bouquets, but it was the State
Department's man, Zoran Djindjic, who held the levers of power - and he
certainly did not let his Washington sponsors down.
The first priority was to embark on a programme of "economic
reform" - new-world-order-speak for the selling of state assets at
knockdown prices to western multinationals. Over 700,000 Yugoslav
enterprises remained in social ownership and most were still controlled
by employee-management committees, with only 5% of capital privately
owned. Companies could only be sold if 60% of the shares were allocated
to workers.
Djindjic moved swiftly to change the law and the great sell-off could now
begin. After two years in which thousands of socially owned enterprises
have been sold (many to companies from countries which took part in the
1999 bombing of Yugoslavia), last month's World Bank report was lavish in
its praise of the Djindjic government and its "engagement of
international banks in the privatisation process".
But it wasn't just state assets that Djindjic was under orders to sell.
Milosevic had to go too, for a promised $100m, even if it effectively
meant kidnapping him in contravention of Yugoslav law, and sending him by
RAF jet to a US-financed show trial at the Hague. When a man has sold his
country's assets, its ex-president and his main political rivals, what
else is there to sell? Only the country itself. And in January this year
Djindjic did just that. Despite the opposition of most of its citizens,
the "heralder of democracy" followed the requirements of the
"international community" and after 74 years the name of
Yugoslavia disappeared off the political map. The strategic goal of its
replacement with a series of weak and divided protectorates had finally
been achieved.
Sometimes, though, even the best executed plans go awry. Despite the
western eulogies, Djindjic will be mourned by few in Serbia. For the
great majority of Serbs, he will be remembered as a quisling who enriched
himself by selling his country to those who had waged war against it so
mercilessly only a few years earlier. Djindjic's much lauded reforms have
led to soaring utility prices, unemployment has risen sharply to over
30%, real wages have fallen by up to 20% and over two-thirds of Serbs now
live below the poverty line.
It is still unclear who fired the shots that killed Zoran Djindjic. The
likelihood is that it was an underworld operation, his links to organised
crime finally catching up with him. But, harsh though it sounds, there
are many in Serbia who would willingly have pulled the trigger. On a
recent visit to Belgrade, I was struck not only by the level of economic
hardship, but by the hatred almost everyone I met felt towards their
prime minister, whose poll ratings had fallen below 10%.
The lesson from Serbia for today's serial regime changers is a simple
one. You can try to subjugate a people by sanctions, subversion and
bombs. You can, if you wish, overthrow governments you dislike and seek
to impose your will by installing a Hamid Karzai, General Tommy Franks or
a Zoran Djindjic to act as imperial consul. But do not imagine that you
can then force a humiliated people to pay homage to them.
� Neil Clark is writing a book about the recent history of Yugoslavia
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