Foreign Correspondent
Inside Track On World News
By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
Eric Margolis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
www.foreigncorrespondent.com
Has Milosevic finally used up his nine lives?
By Eric Margolis
July 18, 1999
Zurich, Switzerland - There is nothing more wasteful or dismal than a lost
war. So it's no surprise many angry Serbs are calling for the overthrow of
Slobodan Milosevic, the nationalist demagogue who led them into four
disastrous wars.
The wily Milosevic has repeatedly shown a remarkable gift for surviving
defeats and confounding his many internal and external enemies. This
time, however, his nine lives may be running low. Serbia lies in ruins;
its economy is moribund; its morale at r ock bottom. The Serb Orthodox
Church, whose clergy formerly blessed Milosevic's ethnic cleansing as a
`new holy crusade,' has turned against its erstwhile champion and
denounced his crimes in Kosova.
As UN police investigators in Kosova uncover mass graves filled with the
remains of murdered women and children, even the staunchest former
defenders of Serbia have fallen silent. The numerous Toronto Sun
columnists and editorial writers who backed the
Serb cause and/or denounced NATO's humanitarian military intervention in
Kosova ought to be hiding their faces in shame.
Growing numbers of Serbs are realizing their government force-fed them a
farrago of lies about Kosova. Most of `Albanian terrorists' executed by
Serb forces turned out to be six-year old children, and 80-year old men.
The massive looting and burning in Kosovo showed clearly that what went on
there was not some ancient quarrel, or a struggle to preserve holy places,
as Serbia's apologists claimed, but a crime. Kosova is, in fact, the
world's largest crime scene.
Unfortunately, Serbs seeking a change of regime are confronted by a series
of unpalatable alternatives. The second most powerful party in Serbia is
the neofascist Radicals, and its White Eagles paramilitary units, led by
Vojislav Seselj, a former deputy
prime minister, whose thugs are notorious for ethnic cleansing and
massacres of Muslims and Catholics. Seselj's views on how to treat Muslims
is neatly summed up in his famous phrase, `you gouge out their eyes with a
spoon.'
The loudest current opposition to the regime comes from the bearded
enrag�, Vuk Draskovic, who was once beaten almost to death by Milosevic's
secret police when he broke with his leader. But Draskovic has also lately
allied himself to Milosevic, and is a fierce nationalist who headed
paramilitary gangs that conducted ethnic terrorism in Bosnia.
Zoran Djindic, another opposition stalwart, looks more respectable and
media-friendly than wild-eyed Draskovitch. But Djindic fled to the safety
of Montenegro during the bombing, and has many unsavory, extremist
connections, including with war criminal
Radovan Karadzic, aka `Dr Death.' Djindic backed the wanton shelling of
the world heritage city, Dubrovnik, in 1991.
The fourth horseman of the Serb political Apocalypse is the dapper
bank-robbing gangster, Zeljko Raznatovic, aka `Arkan,' a vicious sadist
who has been indicted by the UN as a war criminal. Arkan's `Tiger'
militia is responsible for some of Serbia's wors t atrocities in Bosnia
and Kosova, and acts as a state within the state. Another gang of fascist
skinheads, the Gray Wolves, was decimated, and its leaders murdered, by
the UDB, Serbia's much-feared secret police, in order to erase evidence of
past war c rimes. UDB armed and used the Gray Wolves, Tigers, and White
Eagles to do its most murderous work in Bosnia and Kosova, or liquidate
foes of Milosevic.
Behind these gangster-politicians stands the real power in Serbia, the
armed forces, police, and the UDB. If these `power ministries' withdraw
their support, Milosevic will either have to flee to exile in Russia or
Greece, or he and his Gorgon-like wife
could end up facing a firing squad like Romania's tyrant couple, the
Ceausescus, known to their deeply unadoring people as `Mr and Mrs
Draculesscu.' .
Far off in Serbia's political wings are two other candidates: Milan Panic,
a pharamacutical company owner, who was very briefly prime minister of
Serbia. He is probably the best candidate for the job, but lacks a strong
following in Serbia. Even remoter, Crown Prince Alexander, scion of the
Serb Karageorgevic dynasty. Alexander told me some years ago he was ready
to return - when asked - to head a democratic government. A
constitutional monarchy for Serbia might not be a bad idea.
Meanwhile, Washington has finally put a US $5 million bounty on
Milosevic's head and tasked CIA to overthrow him - actions that should
have been done a decade ago. Bounties often work. Some fed up Serb
generals may be tempted to take up the offer and t hen settle in Miami.
Handing the Milosevics over to justice would go far to restore Serbia to
international respectability, though there are still hundreds of little
Milosevics in the dark corners of Serb political life.
Don't, however, put much faith in CIA: its coup record in recent years is
dismal. The best CIA could probably do is freeze Milosevic personal
accounts secreted in Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Russia, and South Africa and
kidnap him if he were ever so foolish as to travel abroad.
The Serb dictator still has one more good hand to play. Serb forces
withdrawn from Kosova were moved into Montenegro. Milosevic appears bent
on overthrowing Montenegro's pro-western government and rebuilding his
power by conjuring up yet another major cr isis. Which just shows you
can't keep a good Balkan tyrant down -until you drive a stake through his
heart.
Copyright: E. Margolis, July 1999
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