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Thursday, October 12, 2000
1. The 'collateral damage' of yesterday are heroes today
2. Milosevic allies stage fightback
3. Milosevic die-hards cry foul over "Western coup"
4. U.S. Urges Milosevic Allies - "Get out of the Way"
5. Kosovo Albanians Threaten New War If Belgrade Troops Return
6. Trans-Balkan Pitches Pipeline
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The 'collateral damage' of yesterday are heroes today
By Robert Fisk
8 October 2000
Last year we hated them. Now we love them. The bestialised Serbs who chose
to "support" Slobodan Milosevic were "collateral damage". Now they are the
saviours of Europe's "newest democracy". Less than 18 months ago, I saw the
beheaded corpse of the local priest at Varvarin, the blood of a young
mathematics student smeared across the road, the body of Milena Malobabic
in the grounds of the Surdulica hospital, all victims of Nato, all deaths
that Nato dismissed as the regrettable side effects of war, all killed by
Nato pilots. But now their relatives have, most of them, voted for Vojislav
Kostunica - and so they have become our allies and friends, our partners in
the soon-to-be reconstructed Balkans.
Is it healthy, this amnesia of ours? I doubt if the Serbs share it. I don't
think the people of Surdulica are going to smash the war memorial in their
village to the dead of one of Nato's last air raids. And, given his track
record, I doubt if Mr Kostunica is going to share it. What was it that
George Robertson, our former secretary of state for defence and now
Secretary-General of Nato, said about Kosovo scarcely a year and a half
ago? "Serbs out, Nato in, refugees back." Only after the "ethnic cleansing"
of the Kosovo Serbs began under Nato's eyes - at the hands of the Kosovo
Albanians - did Mr (now Lord) Robertson choose to explain that he meant
only Serb paramilitaries. Too late. What is Nato going to say if our
favourite, moderate president of the new Serbia demands the return of all
Serb refugees to Kosovo?
And what of the Serbs who were in Kosovo during the war? The paramilitary
war criminals butchering and expelling the Albanians may have been too
drunk to vote. But we are assured that most of the army's conscripts voted
for Kostunica (which is why Milosevic allegedly sent them home before his
proposed second round of elections). Were these not the same army
conscripts who served in Kosovo during Nato's bombardment? Were they not
the same conscripts who watched - if they did not participate in - the
massacres? So do we hate them still? Or do we love them?
All civil conflict ends messily. The two biggest thugs in Bosnia - Radovan
Karadzic and Ratko Mladic - are still at large. In post-war Lebanon, all
bar one of the men with blood on their hands ended up in
government. And on Friday night there was an intriguing comment from the
State Department's James Rubin, who last year was so keen on a war crimes
trial for Mr Milosevic. Asked if the Serbian dictator would be heading for
the Hague war crimes tribunal, Mr Rubin paused for a moment, and then said
- note these words - that it was "a question of sequencing".
Sequencing? Who invented this word? Where does it come from? Well, it seems
that Serbia - once it is back in the family of nations - may have to
address Mr Milosevic's guilt, but only (I quote Mr Rubin again) in "some
legal process". The Americans, it seems, are going to let the Serbs do what
they wish with Mr Milosevic, just as long as he accepts that Mr Kostunica
is president. Which he does. So perhaps he's got away, our Beast of
Belgrade; perhaps he's not heading for the Hague, after all.
Can it be - can it possibly be - that the man we once reviled as the
"Butcher of Belgrade" (he was actually referred to in that form by BBC
World Television on Friday) is also going to be turned into a lamb, an
intriguing relic who will occasionally give us an interview or two,
recalling his negotiations with Richard Holbrooke at Dayton and explaining
how misunderstood he has been?
We will not love him, of course. But perhaps we may just ignore him. Just
as we will ignore all those friendly conscripts who witnessed the Golgotha
of the Kosovo Albanians and - at the least - did nothing, but who have now
loyally voted for the opposition parties that Nato nations funded.
Yes, it is true that we always said we were fighting only Mr Milosevic, not
the Serbian people. We said the same before we bombed Libya in 1986 and
Iraq in 1991 (and, by chance, Egypt in 1956). But we killed the Serbs with
ever greater impunity as Nato's targets became more and more
civilian-orientated. Now they are our heroes - just as they were in two
world wars. For the sake of reality, one can only hope the Serbs feel the
same way about it.
Independent
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Milosevic allies stage fightback
By Justin Huggler in Belgrade
12 October 2000
Slobodan Milosevic's allies launched a counter-revolution yesterday,
plunging Serbia into a potentially violent crisis by grabbing control of
the security services and rejecting attempts to end their authority over
key state institutions.
The rearguard action saw the government of Serbia attempting a
constitutional coup against the new Yugoslav President, Vojislav Kostunica.
Mr Milosevic's loyalists in the still functioning Serbian government said
they intended to disobey the federal President's orders. They also said
state television, seized during mass protests last week, should be under
their control.
The Serbian government also announced that Mirko Marjanovic, the republic's
pro-Milosevic Prime Minister, was taking control of its interior ministry -
a move that would give him direct control of Serbia's 100,000 police.
Mr Kostunica's supporters pledged to call more demonstrations if Mr
Milosevic's allies tried to regain control and said the public would not
allow Serbia to fall back into the hands of the Milosevic camp.
Technically Mr Marjanovic and the Serbian government are still in power:
the elections that swept Mr Milosevic aside were only on a federal level.
And whoever controls Serbia ineffect controls Yugoslavia. Two days ago the
Serbian interior minister was forced out of office, after which the
republic's government reluctantly agreed to stand aside and hold elections
on 17 December.
Yesterday it reneged on that agreement, accusing the opposition of not
doing enough to control "lawlessness and violence". Branislav Ivkovic, the
Serbian Science Minister, said in a radio interview that only the decisions
of "legal bodies" on a Serbian, not federal, level would be respected.
The opposition alliance behind Mr Kostunica threatened to bring the people
back on to the streets. The President's allies later offered to share some
power with the old guard.
But in a further rebuff to Mr Kostunica, army generals warned against the
"negative consequences" of purging the senior ranks of the military
appointed by Mr Milosevic. In a defiant statement the army cautioned
against the "possible negative consequences of increased attacks and
attempts to discredit certain individuals of the Yugoslav army".
Independent
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Wednesday, October 11 9:32 PM SGT
Milosevic die-hards cry foul over "Western coup"
BELGRADE, Oct 11 (AFP) -
Die-hard supporters of Slobodan Milosevic cried foul Wednesday, insisting
last week's popular uprising to oust their leader was nothing more than an
opposition coup sponsored by hostile Western powers.
"The people were cheated," said Goran Matic, a top official of the Yugoslav
Left of Milosevic's wife Mira Markovic.
He said the people had been intimidated by the presence during the polls of
"the US Sixth fleet in the Adriatic sea" and "manoeuvres in Romania."
Matic, a former federal Information Minister in the Milosevic-controlled
government, charged that the regime had also been sabotaged by the enemy
within.
"When the constitutional court decided to annul the (second round)
elections, President Milosevic exclaimed: "These pigs, they want my skin!"
Matic told AFP.
The court initially said the election would have to go to a run-off but
suddenly changed its opinion and declared Vojislav Kostunica the outright
winner.
Radoslav Nikolic, one of Milosevic's Socialist party (SPS) officials in
Belgrade said all the "vandalism" sweeping the country in the wake of
recent unrest "comes from groups of troublemakers who have systematically
destroyed our premises."
Wandering the among debris of devastated halls on all five floors of the
SPS building, shaken party members with ashen faces try to gather electoral
data and files ransacked and left lying on the floor.
On the walls of the press conference hall, protestors had sprayed the
slogan: "We like the drugs", a reference to the anti-narcotics campaign
launched recently by the SPS.
Bojana Boric-Breskovic, manager of the National Museum and a high official
of the SPS, was indignant.
"Our children have been manipulated by the opposition, and I do not like
that," she said.
"I believe that foreign intelligence services played a major and
determining role," Breskovic said.
However, she also complained of Milosevic's "failure to communicate" with
his associates during the campaign leading up to September's federal polls.
Boric-Breskovic is a pessimist. She noted with regret that "many of (our)
supporters have jumped ship and changed sides," condemning "the debacle and
betrayals of a group of SPS deputies."
The majority of Milosevic's deputies and his allies, contacted by AFP,
refused to comment or were not available.
"If Milosevic does not react rapidly, he will lose the confidence of his
party forever," Boric-Breskovic said.
Gordana Radovanovic, a 70-year old pensioner from the southern Serbian town
Leskovac, saw last week's events not as a revolution, but as a coup d'etat
staged with the "manipulation of a mass of young people."
"Although my grandsons do not know why, they came to protest," she complained.
"Our opposition politicians are paid by foreign countries to carry out this
sabotage," she charged.
For her, the Russians and the Chinese "have let Milosevic high and dry."
"I do not believe that Milosevic will rise again," she said.
Young Milosevic supporters are hard to find, and, like their older
colleagues, at present prefer to remain silent or anonymous.
Milosevic's electoral backing came mostly from the older and rural
population. Various electoral figures showed that Milosevic won between 35
and 40 percent of votes at the September 24 presidential polls.
Mirko Pavlovic, a 29-year old manager, was one of the rare ones willing to
admit to "the role of Western powers which have manipulated the Serbs."
"I am sure that the Americans are controlling everything and are heading
the conspiracy against Slobodan" Milosevic, he said.
He condemned the "new world order and political games in Russia, which has
turned its back to Milosevic," as well as Western determination to portray
the president as "the champion of the ethnic cleansing."
For him, the accomplishments of Milosevic's regime are numerous, "like in
Bosnia, where he managed to enlarge the Serb territories."
"I hope that Milosevic will live for twenty more years so history will
finally do him justice," Pavlovic said.
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Wednesday, October 11 8:18 PM SGT
Montenegro wants independence, association Serbia
PODGORICA, Yugoslavia, Oct 11 (AFP) -
Montenegro wants to be an independent and equal partner of Serbia under
Yugolavia's new President Vojislav Kostunica, Foreign Minister Branko
Lukovac said Wednesday.
"We believe that any future association is possible only on the basis of
equality, in such a form that would guarantee the independence of both
Montenegro and Serbia, otherwise the major would always dominate the
minor," the Montenegro minister said in an interview with AFP.
"We believe that we need each other, we have a lot of similarities, a lot
of things in common, and we need to create a new framework, a new basis for
our cooperation," he added.
Since coming to power in 1998, Montenegro's president Milo Djukanovic has
sought greater autonomy for Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in federal
Yugoslavia.
Yugolavia's freshly-minted president -- who defeated Slobodan Milosevic in
September elections -- has ruled out the possibility of independence for
Montenegro and the UN-administered province of Kosovo, saying any such move
was banned under the national constitution.
"As far as independence for Kosovo and Montenegro is concerned, let me
explain it in this way; our Yugoslav constitution does not permit
independence for Kosovo or independence for Montenegro, because these two
elements are an integral part of the country, the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (FRY)," Kostunica told French television channel TF1 on Monday.
Lukovac hinted at continued political struggles for Montenegro despite
Milosevic's departure from power last week.
"It is not that Milosevic is now out that all problems are solved," he said.
"The reasons are not necessarily connected with Milosevic but with that
policy of domination that would reduce Montenegro to a municipality," the
foreign minister added.
"Hopefully now we have democracy in Serbia to emerge with new elections,
and then we can sit together and talk, and accept democratic options
without the threat of the use of force, because we are not a war trophy,"
he said.
The foreign minister likened Montenegro's future relationship with Serbia
to that among European Union members.
"We need more coordination and not a transfer of authority. It has to be
more harmonizing operations of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro,"
Lukovac said.
"You have that in the EU. You have countries that are members of the EU and
that have delegated a lot of authority to the EU, still they are
independent countries.
But the foreign minister said Montenegro would not press for quick talks
with a new, more democratic Serbia.
"We have to wait for that, that means December elections, and then
immediately, in the weeks after the elections, after the new structures are
formed, to initiate talks, dialogue, negotiations, and possible agreement,"
he said.
Lukovac raised the possibility of holding a referendum on independence, but
conceded that Western countries would likely be opposed to the idea.
The foreign minister said he had had contacts with Western powers and had
received assurances that cooperation with Montenegro would be maintained
despite the triumph of Kostunica.
"We might perhaps need to test that relation and that attitude again. If
after all efforts to find some common understanding the option would be for
instance a referendum on independence, I might assume that not everybody in
the international community would be happy about that," he said.
"We remain interested in cooperation with the international community and
with Serbia but we would not surrender our historical and constitutional
rights to be responsible for our own fate," he warned.
The minister said Montenegro could one day look for an independent seat at
the United Nations.
"I think that would be a quite normal, a quite right option to have both
Montenegro and Serbia sit in the United Nations. That would not be at the
detriment of their cooperation.
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http://www.centraleurope.com/news.php3?id=208742
[The political parties that just won comfortable
majorities in both houses of the Yugoslav parliament
should "get out of the way" and "allow the democratic
transition to continue," says National Security
Council spokesman Crowley. Interesting, but eminently
predictable, definition of democracy coming from
Washington.]
U.S. Urges Milosevic Allies - "Get out of the Way"
WASHINGTON, Oct 12, 2000 -- (Reuters) The United States on Wednesday urged
allies of ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic who are resisting
democratic rule to "get out of the way" and allow the country's transition
to continue.
"The move toward democratic transition is ongoing. These Milosevic allies
should get out of the way,"
U.S. National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley told Reuters.
He had been asked about news that Milosevic allies were refusing to give up
control of the government in Serbia, the dominant of the two republics that
make up Yugoslavia.
"There are some signs that pro-Milosevic elements are resisting efforts to
form a new government in Serbia. This is a matter for the Serbian people,
to determine who will govern them, but they have clearly rejected Milosevic
and his allies," Crowley said.
"It's time for the hard-liners to accept this fact andallow for the
democratic transition to continue," he
said.
U.S. officials said they did not regard the resistance by Milosevic allies
as a crisis.
"I think there'll be lots of bumps and frictions along the road. There will
be pockets of resistance. It's
not unexpected," said one State Department official.
Milosevic was forced by a massive popular revolt last week to admit
electoral defeat and cede power to new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica.
An official of Milosevic's Socialist Party said on Wednesday that Serbian
government ministers would
ignore backers of Kostunica and carry on ruling Serbia.
Kostunica vowed not to be deterred. "The opening of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia to the world will not be blocked," he said.
Crowley said Kostunica was continuing to consolidate his power and noted
that new elections were planned in December for the Serbian parliament.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, speaking before learning of the
Socialist Party's comments, said, "We've never underestimated the
difficulty of taking over and making democratic rule effective in Serbia."
"I think you have to describe this as a continuous retreat, though, on the
part of Milosevic and the
people that were once close to him. Many have abandoned him already. He is
ostracized, marginalized and clearly out of power.
"And I think one can see the direction that it's heading for others that
might have been associated
with him in these positions. So we do have confidence that the democratic
forces are strong and that the new government will be able to take over,"
Boucher said.
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http://www.centraleurope.com/news.php3?id=208736
"If anyone thinks the KLA is dead, they're kidding themselves."
Kosovo Albanians Threaten New War If Belgrade Troops Return
PRISTINA, Oct 12, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Kosovo Albanian guerrillas
would take up arms to
prevent Yugoslav forces returning to their breakaway province, political
leaders said Wednesday.
"If they ever came back in uniform, we'd know how to react," Naim Maloku,
head of the Central Liberal Party of Kosovo and a former fighter in the
separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), told AFP.
"If anyone thinks the KLA is dead, they're kidding themselves," he warned.
Zoran Djindic, a close ally of the new Yugoslav president Vojislav
Kostunica, said in a interview
published in Belgrade that 1,200 Serb police and Yugoslav troops could
return to Kosovo by the end of the year.
But Ramush Haradinaj, a former guerrilla leader and head of the Alliance
for the Future of Kosovo, said the Serbian forces would be turned back at
the province's frontier by fighters from Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
"If they ever tried to come they would not be able to cross the border," he
said, adding: "There are NATO forces there and Kosovo Albanian forces which
would be well-prepared to resist them."
Bilal Sherifi, chief of staff to Hashim Thaci, the former political chief
of the KLA and now leader of
the Democratic party of Kosovo, described the idea that Yugoslav troops
could return as a "dream."
"This idea is over forever," he insisted.
Yugoslav personnel were to be given authorization to return to Kosovo under
a UN Security Council
resolution which defined terms under which the province became a UN
protectorate at the end of the
1998-1999 war between the KLA and Belgrade.
But the terms did not define the number of personnel to return or the
timing of such a move.
General Juan Ortuno, leader of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in charge of
maintaining security
in Kosovo, said that it was his decision when Yugoslav troops could return
and that no discussions had begun with the new Belgrade authorities. ((c)
2000 Agence France Presse)
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Albanian Daily News
October 12, 2000
Trans-Balkan Pitches Pipeline
BAKU, Azerbaijan - This month, the Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria Oil pipeline
consortium will start a series of presentations of its project for a
pipeline between the Black Sea and the Adriatic to prospective customers.
The pipeline should run from the Bulgarian port of Burgas, through FYROM,
to the Albanian port of Vlora.
The plan, which has the full backing of the US, the European Union and a
number of banks and investment funds, should result in a pipeline with an
initial capacity of 750,000 barrels a day. The costs of the pipeline's
construction have been calculated at $1.1bn.
At oil prices oscillating around $19 per barrel (the oil companies' average
benchmark in terms of investment planning), this would mean that four years
of functioning at full capacity would be enough to recoup this initial
investment.
Interest rates and operation costs would bring the transport and handling
costs of a barrel of crude to
$2 initially, to be brought down to $1 gradually over time.
"If you take the shipping costs by tanker from the Black Sea to the
Mediterranean sales points through
the Bosphorus into account, the price looks quite high," AMBO's president
and CEO Ted Ferguson, on a working visit in Baku, told CBN.
"But then these are the flat rates, and the loss of time caused by queuing
up at the entry of the Bosphorus straits is not included in them. By saving
time, AMBO in fact saves oil companies a lot of money as well. And
remember, the more tankers that queue up, the longer they will have to wait."
Currently, oil transport prices through the Bosphorus to the Mediterranean
oscillate around $5 per ton, or $0.80 per barrel. After most of the
investments in the AMBO line have been written off, total transport costs
are estimated to be about the same.
Other projects to relieve the Bosphorus include a pipeline from Odessa to
Brody, meant to link up to the Druzhba pipeline leading from Siberia to
Central Europe. Another one is to lead from Constanza to
Trieste, and is financed by Italy's state energy group Eni. A last one is
to go from Burgas to the nearby
Greek port of Alexandropolis, but thus far only exists on paper in spite of
strong political support by the
European Parliament. Together, the pipelines are expected to absorb the
bulk of the surplus 2.7 million barrels a day of Caspian oil from Russia,
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
The most burning question concerns the issue of a plan to build a new oil
pipeline across the Turkish
mainland to the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean near the border with
Syria. Currently, a group of oil companies' representatives (known as the
so-called sponsor group) is studying the costs and benefits of the plan
against other options.
"I have no doubt that the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline is going to be built at some
stage, provided proven oil
reserves stand the price," Ferguson says. "Pipelines like ours have often
been presented as alternatives to it, but I do think that if explorations
in the Caspian produce oil volumes according to average expectations, there
will be enough supplies for both, or even more. To my mind, the OKIOC's
eventual output will be the key issue. As for the sea and rail-link from
Aktau to Batumi, I do not think that they will be out of business either.
Remember that onshore oil from Azerbaijan is also looking for outlets. In
fact, the rail-link was put up at an early stage to export oil from the
Muradkhanly field, now operated by Ramco."
The OKIOC, the consortium that holds the concession over the vast and
presumably rich offshore field of Kashagan, is still at an early stage of
its exploration plan. Only one test well out of six has been completed and
the results of its analysis will be known by the end of October. Kazakh
government
officials claimed this summer that reserves are supposed to be around 7
billion tons of crude, thus
enabling it to yield peak volumes of up to 100 million tons per year or two
million barrels a day by 2008.
According to Ted Ferguson, fears that a pipeline to Ceyhan would
marginalize Georgia as a core oil outlet for the Caspian are equally
unfounded.
"I think that the construction of a parallel pipeline to Supsa will be
justified by supplies, even after
Baku-Ceyhan comes into operation," he says. "Even Iran will be able to
serve as an outlet for Caspian oil. But we have to bear a couple of things
in mind when looking at the future oil map of the wider region."
"Oil companies insist on selling the oil they get in the Caspian at world
market prices. The nearest point where they can do that is the southern
European spot market in Augusta on the eastern coast of Sicily. What they
do not need is a Caspian oil glut in the Black Sea, meaning more supplies
to it than they can get out. To the north, exports are virtually blocked by
Transneft's lack of purchasing power to buy oil at acceptable prices. This
is why Russia's swap deals fall through time and again. In Iran they work
better, but only insofar as the country's domestic market can absorb them.
Besides, generally speaking, Europe does not want to pump more oil towards
the Persian Gulf; the area remains simply too explosive. This leaves routes
across the Balkan as the key to oil trade solutions."
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Global Reflexion - Amsterdam - The Netherlands
