Who is Vojislav Kostunica?
Kostunica is a political personality who not until the presidential
election campaign was introduced by the Western media and who,
according to the reports, previously had played only a subordinate
role in Serbia and Yugoslavia. He is the chairman of a "Democratic
Party of Serbia". For a short time now he has been the presidential
candidate of the "Democratic Opposition of Serbia", a coalition of
several parties in which apparently Zoran Djindic calls the shots,
acting as Kostunicas campaign manager.
This union actually already tells essentials about Kostunica,
because among the "opposition" politicians who since long have been
built up by the West, Djindic is the one who during the NATO terror
bombings went so far as to demand to give up the independence of
the country and to have it formally incorporated into the realm
dominated by the aggressors. Since then, of course, he cannot dare
any longer to run for a public office in Serbia, and it seems
reasonable to suspect that Kostunica is serving as a fig leaf for
Djindic's direction, for enabling it to anyway take part in the
election campaign and for pushing the West's objectives nearer to
their fulfillment in spite of all of this.
In fact all the signs are that Kostunica is acting as the still
relatively guiltless and unsuspected one who helps Djindic come to
power - a Trojan horse of the US- and NATO-dependent opposition.
Kostunica appears as someone who objects NATO, who condemns the
aggression against his country and the separation of Kosovo, and
who also drops critical remarks about the US' interference into
Yugoslavia's domestic affairs.
It is worthwhile, however, to have a closer look at Kostunica's
statements
What, for example, should one think about the following
explanations in a speech by Kostunica of April 14, 2000:
(http://www.bbnet.org.yu/bdnet/elections/eng/0414kostunica.htm)
1. "There is one more thing Serbia desperately needs today -
national reconciliation. First of all, the living Serbs are to
bury the hatchet and allow the dead to make up and bring about
that historic reconciliation. The first step to reconciliation
is to abolish the existing division into patriots and traitors.
After all, the present-day rulers of Serbia, who decreed
themselves patriots, have demonstrated their patriotism to all
but the Serbs. They have built other people's countries and
demolished their own. They did many a good turn, but caused
their own people to grieve. Slobodan Milosevic has committed a
mortal sin against his own people and his own state.
Accordingly, he has to leave."
Here Kostunica accuses Milosevic who so far has been trying, within
the bounds of his possibilities, to defend Serbia's and
Yugoslavia's independence, of being a non-patriot, whereas he wants
figures like Djindic who definitely represent nothing but serfdom
towards the West, to be freed of the treason accusation.
In the same speech Kostunica continues:
2. "It is my duty to say one more thing. There is another sort
of violence that befell our misfortunate people - external
violence spearheaded by power-wielders in Washington and
Brussels. The forms of the external violence are the long-
standing sanctions, last year's bombs and support to Albanian
terrorists in Kosovo. Whatever the source, violence is always
violence, despite occasional attempts at presenting it as
humane. It is hard to believe that people are killed, exhausted
and starved by sanctions, and that their environment poisoned
for their own benefit. First and foremost, we have to trample
the domestic violence underfoot. In order to survive as a
people, we have to normalise our relations with the world, but
we must neither disregard nor forget the foreign violence
conceived by the United States and NATO. More importantly, we
must never elevate it in our esteem or present it as anything
else but violence. Otherwise we will forget who and what we
are."
These sentences deserve a more detailed commentary.
Here "the external violence" is criticized, and a critical attitude
is at first taken towards NATO, towards the US and the EU. If
however this is at the same time subordinated to a maxim like
"whatever the source - violence is always violence", this criticism
immediately evaporates into cheap talk. For it is by no means
unimportant from which sources violence originates and which
objectives it serves. Violence motivated by neocolonialism, as
exerted by NATO's latest war, by the economic sanctions and the
starvation strategy against the Serbian people, has to be objected
and fought against exactly because of its political goals, whereas
military violence for repelling this aggression is necessary and
must be supported. More generally, the resistance against these
objectives of the West cannot be denied the right to apply force if
necessary.
Even more clearly Kostunica speaks in the following when he goes so
far as to declare the "domestic violence" to be the main enemy.
This means in other words: we regret to be the victims of violent
acts by the NATO countries, but it is not our main task to do away
with that but instead with the domestic violence. Having the
situation in mind one has to understand by this "domestic violence"
repressive acts by the Milosevic government, and in the first place
such against the so-called opposition of the Djindic and Draskovic
type. Kostunica here apparently chooses expressions by which the
most miserable forces can be vindicated. He avoids the concrete
articulation of just demands from the people against the
bureaucratic apparatus, although he likes to allude vaguely to the
struggle against corruption, but on the other hand he puts possible
justified measures by the government against treason, or
corresponding acts by the people, on the same level as the
suppression of democracy.
Here Kostunica's adaptation to the West's strategy becomes already
very clear.
Now a passage from an interview with the magazine Vreme:
(www.freespeech.org/ex-yupress/vreme/vreme79.html)
3."I also believed that we have to distance ourselves from
declarative, conterproductive support coming from the present,
departing, American administration which has proved to be
absolutely useless for the opposition and democratic forces in
Serbia. And that support can cause a lot of harm in the
election campaign. It is common knowledge how they can help the
population in Serbia. It seems that some European states are
far more aware of that, and they have over some small but
important projects, such as energy for democracy, established
some cooperation and assistance and led to a quiet and gradual
abolishment of sanctions."
To publicly play the distance from the US is absolutely necessary
for somebody who wants to act as an opponent of the Milosevic
government - this Kostunica is admitting here. If the connection
with the US is all too clear, if somebody like Djindic appears in
Ms. Albright's office for receiving her orders, if the US from
their part are too openly sponsoring, financing and media-
supporting this "opposition", this cannot be but
"counterproductive", therefore its image has to be changed. The
substance of NATO's policy however is what this Kostunica
identifies himself with. The program "energy for democracy" is
nothing but a part, an element of the war and its continuation by
different means. After the bombs had destroyed power plants,
refineries and transport routes and an import blockade had been
erected, NATO offered delivery of oil and food to those regional
rulers in Yugoslavia who would associate themselves with NATO
against Milosevic It is a prime example of the "democracy" of
Western capitalism which even after decades will be able to claim a
prominent place in the list of its self-exposures: 'you dance to
our tune and acknowledge the government we selected for you, or
else we look after your dying a wretched death.'
One more clear example for Kostunica's bootlicking of this kind of
"democracy" (from the same interview):
4. "VREME: In first news about your presidential campaign,
foreign news agencies mostly described you as a 'moderate
nationalist, inclined to democratic changes', and 'a fierce
critic of the American administration'.
Would you add anything to or take away from this news agency
portrait of Vojislav Kostunica?
KOSTUNICA: I would add a few things. Above all, there is a
radical dedication to the struggle against corruption,
regardless of its source. That has characterized my political
struggle so far. As far as the fierce criticism of the current
American administration is concerned, it does not at all imply
an anti-western attitude. On the contrary. That criticism is in
a way balanced with a different attitude with respect to
Europe. That criticism is pro-western rather than anti-western.
In as much as it advocates the return of the West to its
original democratic and liberal values."
The European governments which represent this dog's muck of an
"energy and food for democracy" program, are for Kostunica
relatively close to the "original democratic and liberal values" of
the West. Enjoy your meal!
Apart from the toadying, Kostunica's analysis completely misses the
heart of the matter. In fact, the EU countries made war against
Yugoslavia shoulder to shoulder with the US, and exactly they in
fact are the ones which continue to exert massive pressure against
Serbia and Yugoslavia by their extortionist policy. Basically they
are only subordinates of the US.
Concerning this one more statement by Kostunica. In a "Statement by
Democratic Oppostion of Serbia (DOS) Presidential Candidate
Vojislav Kostunica 18.9.2000" he says:
5. "In what they called a message to the Serbian people, EU
foreign ministers unequivocally pledged to lift the sanctions
against Yugoslavia if the September 24 election results led to
a democratic change, thus furnishing compelling evidence that
Europe's policy towards Yugoslavia has changed for the better.
Of course, it would have been much more useful for Serbia's
democracy hadn't the ministers made the lifting of
international sanctions conditional, but this gesture of
goodwill will no doubt mean a lot to the Serbs, particularly
given the fact that we have already fulfilled their sole
condition - readiness for democracy. This is also yet another
opportunity to pay full respect to France's diplomacy and
Hubert Vedrine, a man at its helm."
The shameless extortion from the part of the EU which ties the
abolition of the embargo to the installation of a government
according to the wishes of the US and the EU, for him really is "a
change for the better", "a gesture of goodwill".
We don't to withhold from the Serbian people what a special sort of
friend Mr. Kostunica chose for it in the person of Hubert Vedrine,
the French foreign minister.
In an interview with the US paper "International Herald Tribune" of
April 20, 1999, Vedrine came to the fore:
(Q.) "The air strikes seem to put the Serbian population
strongly in tune with their leader, Slobodan Milosevic. Is a
harsher Western military blow needed to bring home to people
the consequences of what they've done, perhaps shock them to
their senses after living in denial about the outside world
for several years?
(Answer Vedrine:)
"For 10 years, in fact, ever since Mr. Milosevic seized on the
Kosovo issue to propagate the backward-looking nationalistic
delusions that have done so much harm to the country he runs.
Someday the people of Serbia will have a place in Europe, but
right now they have developed a mood of paranoia - which
existed before the air strikes but has worsened.
After a decade in which Serbian leaders have misled their
people so badly, Western governments can't operate in terms of
collective guilt, we can't make war on a people. We did not
intervene to change the regime in Serbia; we intervened
because the Kosovo situation was intolerable. Now we have to
work for solutions, not think about punishment. It's going to
take the Serbs a long time to recover and we're somehow going
to have to manage for them - until they are again ready to
take responsibility for themselves."
* * *
wg / Editorial staff of Neue Einheit Oct.2, 2000
Internet Statement 2000-23
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