(Forwarded)
Belgrade Journal, Tuesday, Oct. 10 1 p.m.
New elections Dec. 19 [set for Dec. 24 as of Oct. 14]
The Institutions Are Still Paralyzed By Violence And Threats
========================================
MICHEL COLLON
Weekly magazine SOLIDAIRE (Workers Party Of Belgium)
In these historic moments, the events change from hour to
hour, the truth of the morning is surpassed by the
afternoon. Under opposition pressure and the violent acts
unfolding here, with a state and some institutions
completely paralyzed, the Serb Parliament decided to
dissolve itself. The next elections for it will take place
December 19.
They'll occur under a new electoral system, proportional
representation, with a single voting area for the entire
country. This should give an advantage to the Radicals and
the DOS, but also to Milosevic's Socialists. It isn't known
yet if the Serb President Milutinovic will also resign.
The same results? A situation of dual power?
What could be the outcome in two months? Probably the same,
as the population will not have had enough experience as to
what the DOS government would concretely mean for their jobs
and incomes. Certainly, the violent attacks and mafia-like
activities organized by Djindjic have shocked even a part of
those partisan to [Vojislav] Kostunica.
But the euphoria of victory and the persistence of some
illusions-"We will live better, earn $5,000 like the
opposition promised us"-these factors and also the loss of
prestige by the strong man Milosevic as well as the
weakening of his party, all these elements point to a
favorable result for the DOS.
The parties of Seselj and Draskovic, both of whom have
strongly criticized the mafia-like violent attacks, could
take up some of the slack, but this is not at all certain.
Will they then find themselves in the coming years in a
situation of "dual power," with a Yugoslav government under
the influence of Milosevic and a Serbian government under
the authority of Djindjic and the West? It would be a rather
unique and explosive historical situation. But it is not at
all certain.
The DOS is pressuring for its solutions: either a DOS
minority government, or a so-called government of experts,
or an alliance of the DOS with the Montenegrin SNP. It is
also said that the SPS - currently under terrible pressure -
could accept that the DOS enter the Yugoslav government.
Then there would be a government of national unity made up
of SPS-DOS-Radicals-SPO (Draskovic).
In all cases, confrontations must follow. A power-sharing
formula is never more than a temporary solution, and the
appetites on the scene are too strong.
The game isn't over, but the room for action is narrow
Whatever occurs, for progressives all over the world it will
be important to follow this situation attentively and to
keep your eyes on the so-called democratic Yugoslav parties,
whose program is in reality the IMF's. The months to come
will have great importance, and the situation is not yet
definitively played out.
As we have indicated, a good part of Kostunica's electors
remain anti-NATO. Darko, a jurist, told me: "I am happy that
Milosevic is gone, because he didn't lead the combat to the
end to defend the Serbs of Croatia, and then in Bosnia. And
he neglected all the youths who were victims of these wars.
But with this new regime, we will have an even greater
problem. It's NATO that's coming here. We must not let it
happen."
The five reasons for the defeat
How can we explain Kostunica's victory? By a collection of
factors, most of which have been explained and developed in
the preceding articles.
1. NATO violence.
2. Ten years of deprivations from the economic stranglehold on the country.
3. The CIA money that was spread around an provoked
defections.
4. An intelligently run media-psychological
campaign backing Kostunica as a new man and trustworthy.
5. The errors of the Milosevic regime.
First, fundamentally, it's a victory for NATO, a victory for
violence. In the spring of 1999, when the strongest
bombardments were directed at civilian targets (electrical
installations, supplies, highways, bridges) , U.S. General
Michael Short stated: "I am persuaded that if these people
don't have current to keep their refrigerator going, no gas
for the kitchen stove, if they can't go to work because the
bridges are smashed and they can't stop thinking about the
bombs that could fall at any moment, the time will come when
they will say to themselves that they have to finish with
all that. All that-that was the Belgrade regime"
That's what NATO calls democratic elections. Just like
Madame Carla Del Ponte, the so-called impartial
international judge, in reality an arm of Washington just
like a Tomahawk missile or a crude CIA spy. This woman just
declared: "It is appropriate on my part to express my
pleasure regarding the dramatic events unfolding in
Belgrade. I wish them full success with their all new
democracy." (communiqu� Oct. 6)
Strange judge, strange tribunal, that closes its eyes to the
reign of terror and the Kosovo mafia and at the same time
dares to applaud "democracy" all the while continuing its
dirty task of demonizing the Serbs.
For the moment, we will skip developing here the other
factors contributing to the defeat (we have treated them
extensively in previous articles), but we will come to the
fifth factor, about which many questions have been posed to
us. "Why have there been no counter-demonstrations in the
street?" "What do the workers think of all this?" "Why
hasn't the army reacted?"
Why the regime lost its support
Yesterday (Oct. 9), I met with union activists in the
provinces who had come to see me to speak about my book
"NATO at the Conquest of the World" and to invite me to lead
a conference before their militants and members. Their
organization, which is listed as "independent" but which was
very close to the Socialist Party, has 35,000 members.
Of course I asked them questions about the current
situation. I found their answers truly vague and confused.
Discomfit. Finally, one of the leaders told me: "I put up
the leaflets I got from Milosevic, but I voted for
Kostunica."
At the center of the loss of confidence
Sunday I went to Novi Sad to observe the second round of the
regional elections in Vojvodina. In an interview, the
Socialist Party secretary for the Dusan Bajatovic region
told me: "We are a very large party, with a very great
number of activists, and 10 years in power, that's a lot. It
provoked a competition among the activists. Many of the
people were not in our party for the right reasons, but to
serve narrow interests.
"And in a poor country, to be in the party wakes up the
appetites. The people have seen individuals grow rich from
one day to the next and without justifiable reason. There
have been many such cases. Where does this money come from?
And the people have thought that it was the SPS's position
in the government that gave rise to these privileges.
The large majority of the party members, however, are honest
and devoted to their country, and they too judged these
cases severely. There have also been false accusations made
against the leaders of the SPS and of the state, but under
these conditions, the members did not know how to correctly
answer these attacks.
Important admission. We still have to determine why these
enrichments and these privileges were not combated. Because
those getting them were too high up?
"There is not only the SPS," the engineer Branko explained.
"The YUL party that claims positions still further left than
the SPS has also lost its credibility. It has at its center
numerous very rich bosses. You can't have a left-wing theory
and a right-wing practice."
But he added, "It is not for this reason that you should
throw yourself into the arms of the right wing. Ten years
ago, the same Western promises were made to the Romanians.
But I know that country, because my work often brings me
there. At present, the situation is so extremely
catastrophic that you can even see Romanian workers busy in
the fields here, in Yugoslavia, in Pojurevac! And they
didn't have sanctions on them."
An other progressive intellectual, Darko, shares these
opinions and even adds: "Milosevic should have done like
Castro does. You see that one always going to discuss
problems with the ordinary people, with the peasants, to see
how it's going, what they think, what are their problems.
Cuba is also under attack, but it defends itself well."
When you try to evaluate the relative importance of these
diverse elements, you have to be careful. The facts that we
just indicated are very important and we will come back to
them. But they are not new, the people knew of them for a
long time. And no one has confidence in the honesty of the
opposition in the area of corruption. You must remember that
in fact the SPS got more or less the same as it did in prior
elections. The new factor was the success of the DOS. We
shall return to this point in the future.
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