Today's news clearly tell the story of how the Clinton backed European
imperialism has offered 2 billion dollars financial aid to restore the
Serbian economy in exchange for ousting Milo from power and buying
pro-Milo officials by Kostunica. It sounds like the Marshall plan of
90s.
Pundits would note it..
Mine
--
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/09/world/10CND-YUGO.html
Pro-Milosevic Officials Resign, Strengthening Kostunica's Hand
By STEVEN ERLANGER
BELGRADE, Serbia, Oct. 9 — The Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica,
today continued his struggle to consolidate his authority over Serbia
and his own allies, trying to find a balance between revolutionary
justice
and legality in the post-Milosevic era.
In his second day in office, Mr. Kostunica secured the resignation of
the federal prime minister, Momir Bulatovic, opening the way for a
possible deal that would dissolve the Serbian parliament and hold new
elections, possibly on Dec. 17.
Such a development would constitute a crucial step in consolidating Mr.
Kostunica's hold on the levers of power, ushering in a democratically
elected new government to reflect the realities of an era following the
downfall of the defeated president, Slobodan Milosevic.
Mr. Kostunica has tried to persuade Mr. Milutinovic, a wavering
Milosevic ally who was also indicted by the war crimes tribunal, to
dissolve the Serbian parliament on the grounds that new elections are
required to
restore political stability. Mr. Milutinovic wastold that now is the
time to move or face charges.
Serbia's interior minister, Vlajko Stojiljkovic, a staunch ally of Mr.
Milosevic, also resigned under pressure. Mr. Stojiljkovic has headed
the police, and Mr. Kostunica's allies, who are happy enough with the
army, desperately want one of them to control the police.
In another boost for President Kostunica, the European Union today
lifted economic sanctions that it imposed on Yugoslavia, and offered $2
billion in assistance to help rebuild the economy, which was heavily
damaged by NATO's retaliatory air war last year after Mr.
Milosevic sent police and army units into Kosovo to expel ethnic
Albanians.
The European Union left intact its freeze on assets that Mr. Milosevic
and his allies deposited abroad, as well as the ban on their travel to
the 15 European member countries.
Some in the 18-party coalition that backed Mr. Kostunica are afraid that
his concern for legal niceties may prove costly in the uneasy vacuum of
power that has followed Mr. Milosevic's ouster.
There have followed serious behind-the-scenes struggles for control of
the police, the courts, the banking system and customs authorities.
Mr. Kostunica's coalition has formed a "crisis committee" that is a kind
of
parallel government to the Serbian authorities who were beholden to Mr.
Milosevic. They are moving through institutions one by one, trying to
ensure support for a new democratic authority.
"We are against revolutionary transformation, but there are always
people for revolutionary change," said Dragor Hiber, a member of the
crisis committee.
Veran Matic, the president of ANEM, the Association of Independent
Electronic Media, said the greatest danger to Mr. Kostunica "is the
question of the unity of the democratic opposition."
Mr. Kostunica's problems range from the enormous to the bizarre. One
of the most bizarre concerns the visit on Tuesday of the French Foreign
Minister, Hubert Vedrine. Mr. Vedrine, along with President Clinton, and
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, were convicted in absentia of
war crimes in a pre-election propaganda exercise here. Formally, Mr.
Vedrine and the others face arrest and 20 years in jail, and their
photographs are up on wanted posters in police stations and at the
airport.
Kostunica officials are afraid that the police may embarrass Mr. Vedrine
at the airport. Mr. Kostunica can sign an amnesty, but that is
considered
politically awkward here. The public prosecutor can void the conviction,
but the process is clumsy. So the officials are working, quietly, on the
police not to act.
Mr. Clinton spoke to Mr. Kostunica on Sunday evening for five minutes
to congratulate him. Mr. Kostunica has been reluctant to have William
Montgomery, the ambassador who has been running the "Yugoslav
embassy in exile" in Budapest, to be appointed the American ambassador
in Belgrade when relations are restored. Mr. Montgomery's
office in Budapest helped to run and fund the anti-Milosevic campaign,
which Mr. Kostunica regarded as overt meddling in Serbia's affairs.
But Mr. Kostunica would go along with the appointment, his aides say, if
all sanctions against Yugoslavia are lifted, including the so-called
outer wall, which blocks Yugoslav access to international financial
institutions — and thus to crucial loans and credits.
Control of the police has been a significant issue. The police did not
in
any serious way oppose the mass protest last Thursday that led to the
burning of the federal Parliament, helped along by some prior
agreements made with the opposition.
In Sunday's issue of the daily Politika, Zoran Djindjic, head of the
Democratic Party, the backbone of the opposition, said the police "had
reorganized, stabilized and realized what the interest of the people is,
and the police have become practically immune to orders that could bring
them into conflict with the people."
But knowledgeable officials say former police and security officials
with
connections to Mr. Djindjic attempted to take provisional control of
Belgrade police headquarters on Friday morning and again on Sunday
morning, telling the chief of police, Gen. Branko Djuric, to hand over
his
authority and his firearm. General Djuric called other opposition
officials, with whom he had promised cooperation, and said he would
shoot himself first. He asked for protection and someone to guard him at
night. With the intervention Sunday morning of Mr. Kostunica himself,
the situation appears to have been calmed, officials said.
Mr. Milosevic's head of state security, Rade Markovic, is also said to
have contacted Mr. Kostunica's aides complaining about death threats
from former security officers, and has discussed resigning.
On Friday, at the lucrative Customs Department, a close Milosevic ally,
Mihalj Kertes, was pressured by armed men working for the opposition
to leave office. Weapons were reportedly found in Mr. Kertes's office.
To the surprise of Mr. Kostunica and some of his allies, a businessman
named Dusan Zabunovic, who is considered close to Mr. Djindjic and owns
an import company called M.P.S., was appointed head of customs. The
selection caused such an uproar among the opposition leaders themselves
that it was rescinded the same day.
There was another drama at the courts, with senior Milosevic judges
like Milena Arezina, chief judge of the Serbian trade court, ordering
the
destruction of documents relating to sensitive cases, like the
government takeover of the I.C.N. pharmaceutical company owned by Milan
Panic, a Serb-American, and the cases against ABC Produkt, a publisher
that owns an independent daily newspaper, Glas Javnosti.
People working in the judiciary called opposition officials to warn them
of the destruction of the files, some of which was stopped. There was a
similar incident at the Foreign Ministry, though of lesser importance.
Indicative of the problems was the drama on Saturday at the main state
bank that clears payments between businesses, an organization known as
the Zavod za Obracun Placanja, or Zop. The crisis committee was told
that Milosevic officials were transferring large sums of money to
private
companies to pay for pre-election government purchases of cooking oil
and sugar.
The company that created the bank's electronic data system agreed to
crash the computers to stop the transactions, but allow for the payment
of important benefits like pensions. The crisis committee then appointed
Zivko Nesic, general manager of the bank until fired in 1998, to manage
it.
With Mr. Bulatovic's resignation today, Mr. Kostunica and his allies
took
a step toward asserting control over the Serbian government and
Parliament, which did not go through new elections. It has been
dominated by Mr. Milosevic's coalition, which was allied with the
Serbian Radical Party.
If, however, the Radicals realign themselves with the Serbian Renewal
Movement, another party that was sometimes in opposition and
sometimes allied with Mr. Milosevic, they could bring down the current
government. Both those parties fear that new elections, which Mr.
Kostunica wants in both the federal and Serbian parliaments within the
next 90 days, will devastate them.
--
Mine Aysen Doyran
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222
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