http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=70
The Jeremic Dossier
by Srdja Trifkovic
With Vuk Jeremic at the helm of Serbias diplomacy, the Republic of Kosova
is considered by its proponents more attainable than a week ago. Not for the
first time in her troubled history, Serbias leaders appear hell-bent on
clenching defeat from the jaws of victory.
When Count Aleksandr Izvolsky, Tsar Nichols IIs foreign minister, was
humiliatingly duped by Count Aehrenthal during the Annexation Crisis of
1908, a wit in a St. Petersburg salon was quick to dub him our Minister of
Austrian Foreign Affairs. The quip was unfair: Izvolsky was a conscientious
public servant, guilty of naivety and ineptitude, but not of disloyalty to
his Master or to his country.
The new foreign minister of Serbia, Vuk Jeremic, by contrast, deserves a
similar designation. Hell be Serbian minister of foreigners affairs,
says a senior retired Belgrade diplomat. His appointment, announced last
Monday, is the exact political equivalent of entrusting a troop of teenage
girl scouts to Bill Clinton.
As our regular readers may recall, last December I wrote that the belief in
some Western capitals that Kosovo can be detached from Serbia with
Belgrades agreement was reinforced by none other than President Boris
Tadics chief foreign
policy advisor Vuk Jeremic, one of very few Serbian enthusiasts for John
Kerrys victory in November 2004. Mr. Jeremic (who happens to be a Muslim on
his mothers side) came to Washington on 18 May 2005 to testify in Congress
on why Kosovo should stay within Serbia; but in some of his off-the-record
conversations he assured his hosts that the task is really to sugar-coat the
bitter pill that Serbia will have to swallow anywayand to ensure that the
nationalist Radical Party does not score excessive gains in the process.
I have subsequently repeated this statementvalidated by reliable sourcesin
Serbia itself, in several prominent print publications (Glas javnosti,
Geopolitika) and widely read webzines. It was neither denied nor otherwise
challenged by Mr. Jeremic.
Four months later another advisor to Tadic, Dr. Leon Kojen, a leading member
of the Serbian team negotiating on the future of Kosovo, resigned both those
posts in a blaze of publicity. Kojen said he made that decision after
Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer declared, in a Reuters interview on
April 13, We are working with (Serbian President) Boris Tadic and his
people to find a way to implement the essence of the Ahtisaari plan.
Tout Belgrade knew that Tadics people meantVuk Jeremic. Herr
Gusenbauers indiscretion amounted to the revelation that Serbias head of
state and his closest advisor were engaged in secret negotiations aimed at
facilitating the detachment of Kosovo from Serbiawhich, of course, IS the
essence of the Ahtisaari plan. Jeremics quest for sugar-coating the bitter
pill was evidently continuing, two years after his intrigues in Washington
that I had made public.
Kojens disgust was shared by many ordinary Serbs: from the highest
authority in a country supporting Kosovos secession they were offered a
clear pointer that Tadic and Jeremic were pursuing a dual-track policy on
Kosovo. That policy clearly contravened the countrys constitution and
violated Tadics earlier political agreement with Prime Minister Vojislav
Kostunica to maintain a united front vis-à-vis Ahtisaari, the U.S. and the
EU.
In a normal country a high-level commission of inquiry would be formed
immediately, to look into prima facie case of high treason by the head of
state and/or his closest advisor. Serbia is not a normal country, however.
Prime Minister Kostunica decided to cut a deal with Tadic instead, and last
week he formed a new coalition with the latters pro-Western, reformist,
pro-European Democratic Party (DS). This is likely the greatest blunder of
his career, says one of Kostunicas former collaborators who asked to
remain anonymous. He should have fought a new election instead, instead of
stabbing [the Radical Party leader] Toma Nikolic in the back. In any event
he should never have given the foreign ministry to Tadic, if that
effectively meant giving it to Jeremic.
His appointment has prompted rumors of pending mass resignations by several
senior diplomats. Off-the-record some of them recall Jeremics debacle in
Paris, when he assured a low-ranking Quai dOrsay desk officer that Mister
Milosevic was not Mister Hitlerwhereupon the Frenchman curtly replied that
in his country they do not refer to Hitler as Mister, and told the visitor
that the interview was over. Tadic was subsequently asked by the French
embassy in Belgrade not to send his advisor to Paris ever again.
Jeremics success in forging an almost symbiotic relationship with his
mentor Tadic is said to be partly due to his fathers personal fortune.
Mishko Jeremic is an archetypal Milosevic tycoon, a communist apparatchik
who, in the sanctions-ridden 1990s, prospered as a top manager in Serbias
oil giant Jugopetrol. Young Vuk has used his fathers ill-gotten gains not
only to obtain costly Western degrees, a Belgrade source comments, but
also to court influence with Tadicone of few successors to Milosevic who is
not wealthy in his own right.
An additionally piquant detail concerns the manner Vuk Jeremic obtained
admission, in 2002, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard to study
public administration. At the request of his friend and Jeremics mentor
Boris Tadic, then-prime minister Zoran Djindjic personally wrote a
recommendation for Jeremic; he even employed him at his cabinet as an
assistant, to help him gain some experience before leaving for the United
States. That was supposed to improve his chances of being accepted at the
School.
Serbian counterintelligence service soon thereafter alerted Djindjic that
Jeremic was unreliable, however, and that the BIA (security service) had
conclusive proof of Jeremics treachery in the form of unauthorized copying
and removal of classified documents from the Cabinet and unreported contacts
with foreign nationals (including Bosnian-Muslim mafia boss Damir Fazlic,
his fathers buddy from college). Tadic intervened with Djindjic to prevent
further investigation, so Jeremic was merely thrown outliterally so: he was
physically escorted from the Prime Ministerial office into the street by one
of Djindjics aides after only three weeks tenure. The file on his case is
allegedly still active, according to the daily Kurir,
andpresumablyavailable to Kostunica.
On his return from Boston to Belgrade Jeremic was nevertheless hired by
TadicSerbia and Montenegros defense minister by that timeas special
advisor for Euro-Atlantic integrations. The fact that Jeremic had evaded
compulsory military service (a criminal offence in Serbia) was not
considered a problem.
The armed forces have never recovered from their tenure. The country
unilaterally destroyed its stockpiles of anti-aircraft missiles under the
benevolent gaze of then-US Ambassador in Belgrade William Montgomery. All
senior officers on active duty during NATO attack in 1999 were forced to
retire, including capable field commanders in their prime. The budget was so
drastically reduced that many conscripts went literally hungry in the
barracks, the air force was no longer able to train pilots because of the
chronic lack of fuel . . . The head of the military security service,
General Aca Tomic, was en pensioned off by Tadic, for daring to arrest (in
March 2002) former Chief of General Staff General Momcilo Perisic, who was
videotaped giving classified documents to an American diplomat, David
Neighbor, in return for a cash payment. It was a clear signal that, in
relation to his Western partners, Tadic had no secrets.
A former Yugoslav foreign minister says that each public servant will have
to make his own choice, but that no true [diplomatic] professional could
endure the humiliation of serving under Jeremic. And Dr. Kojen even refuses
to serve on the same team: last Wednesday he rejected a key position in the
new government, that of Secretary of State for Kosovo and Metohija. I could
not accept Prime Minister Kostunicas offer when I saw the names of some
other ministers who are going to influence our policy on Kosovo and
Metohija, Kojen declared, obviously referring to Jeremic.
Unsurprisingly, the proponents of Kosovos independence are delighted with
the new Serbian government and with Jeremics appointment in particular.
When the Wall came down, one well-placed Washington insider comments, we
were pleased to discover the availability of former commies ready to carry
out orders from Washington with the same lickspittle eagerness they had
brought to the service of their former masters. Regarding such people, he
adds, it is hard to know where opportunism ends and personal pathology
begins:
In any case, we can always be sure bothersome and outmoded scruples like
love of country wont present a problem. At a time when loosening Serbias
grip on Kosovo has been harder than expected, the presence of at least one
reliable representative of this type in the new government in Belgrade may
prove useful indeed.
In other words, with Vuk Jeremic at the helm of Serbias diplomacy, the
Republic of KosovA is considered by its proponents more attainable than a
week ago. Not for the first time in her troubled history, Serbias leaders
are trying to clench defeat from the jaws of victory.
Srdja Trifkovic :: May.18.2007 :: News & Views :: 1 Comment »
Serbian News Network - SNN
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