>Might not the upsurge against Kostunica be considered as a speeding-up of
>the process that Milosevic started, i.e., the privatization of state
>property in Serbia? it also would be a broadening of the transformation of
>property rights, since the beneficiaries of the privatization would no
>longer be Milosevic insiders but a much broad class of capitalists,
>primarily outside of the country (those with lots of money, who can skim
>the cream, like Milan Panic).
>
>Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
No, Milosevic was hostile to privatization. He only allowed it when there
were no other options. For example, the state owned telecommunications
industry was sold to private investors when a debt crisis threatened to
bring the country to a grinding halt. I have posted to PEN-L the results of
a Lexis-Nexis search over a 2 year period that over and over describe him
as hostile to privatization and Washington--in turn--being hostile to him
over this stubborn committment to a form of economics that all of Eastern
Europe had superseded in all its wisdom. I will post it again to remind
people:
[These are typical results of a Lexis-Nexis search done on "Serb" AND
"privatization" for the years 1996-1997].
Christian Science Monitor, June 6, 1996
On the one hand, Mr. Milosevic is desperate for international recognition
of his regime, and to use his status as a peacemaker - bestowed by the West
when he forced Bosnian Serbs to negotiate last autumn and signed the Dayton
peace accord on their behalf - to encourage investment to jump-start the
Serb economy.
On the other hand, Milosevic is harking back to the political control
promised by that old Communist star on his presidency building. He is
ensuring that his grip on the country is more absolute than Tito's ever
was, and is revoking some privatization and free-market measures.
====
NY Times, July 18, 1996
United Nations sanctions against Serbia were suspended after the Dayton
accord but can be reimposed for noncompliance with the treaty. On the
positive side, Mr. Holbrooke can offer to formally end the sanctions,
lifting the cloud of uncertainty that might deter international investors.
Since the suspension of sanctions last December, there has been little
improvement in the Serbian economy, largely because of the determination of
Mr. Milosevic, a former Communist, to keep state controls and his refusal
to allow privatization.
But daily life has regained a modicum of normality. Families no longer
hoard oil, sugar and other foodstuffs and gasoline, previously sold on the
roadside by black marketeers, is more easily available.
====
Washington Post, August 4, 1996
Politically, too, Yugoslavia bears the scars of years of international
isolation. By rejecting Moscow's embrace and adopting an eclectic brand of
communism known as workers' self-management, Yugoslavia's postwar dictator,
Tito, became the darling of the West and the champion of the Nonaligned
Movement. Today, 16 years after Tito's death, Yugoslavia has been left with
few real friends, and what was the most open country in Eastern Europe has
become one of the most closed.
"Milosevic failed to understand the political message of the fall of the
Berlin Wall," said Konstantin Obradovic, deputy director of the Belgrade
Center for Human Rights. "While other Communist politicians accepted the
Western model, and moved in the direction of the rest of Europe, Milosevic
went the other way. That is why we are where we are today."
====
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 27, 1996
But the abrupt departure of Avramovic from the political scene on Oct. 9,
scant weeks after joining an opposition coalition he helped craft, has
mystified Belgrade.
The former banker is immensely popular in Serbia as the savior of its
battered currency, which he came out of retirement nearly three years ago
to shore up. His "new dinar" is still holding its own against western
currencies. The bank rate is so close to the street rate that
once-ubiquitous hard-currency traders have all but disappeared. The streets
instead are now packed with cars, a result of last year's suspension and
this fall's lifting of 1992 economic sanctions against Serbia.
Avramovic is no shrinking violet, going nose-to-nose with Milosevic last
spring over his belief that politicians would have to compromise with
Western leaders and make structural economic changes, including a
privatization program, if Yugoslavia was to pull out of its economic
tailspin. When Avramovic forced the issue by withholding some payments to
the government, Milosevic engineered his ouster as national bank chairman.
====
The Toronto Sun , January 19, 1997
Last week, Europe's last anti-communist revolutions appeared to be nearing
their peak in Serbia and Bulgaria.
Angry Serbs, both democrats and nationalists, are determined to politically
cleanse Slobodan Milosevic, the communist despot who unleashed ethnic
cleansing, fouled Serbia's name, and wrecked its economy. "King Slobo" and
his henchmen are furiously stashing money in Cyprus, and preparing to flee
if wavering army generals and the security services turn against the
communists.
In Sofia, equally angry Bulgars burned down their make-believe parliament.
Huge crowds demanded the ouster of the bumbling communist government that
made a total mess of this once moderately successful country.
These dramatic, highly welcome events overshadowed a series of interesting
reports just issued on German trade with East Europe. In the long run, they
may prove even more significant than the anti-communist rebellions in
Serbia and Bulgaria.
Germany, according to government figures, is now doing more trade with East
Europe than with the U.S. In recent years, German commerce with Hungary,
the Czech and Slovak Republics, Slovenia and Poland has soared beyond all
expectations. Predictions made three years ago by this column that East
Europe would shortly become the economic hinterland of united Germany are
proving correct.
Two major forces have driven this remarkable development. First, the above
states, led by Poles and Czechs, ruthlessly undertook the acutely painful
process of "shock treatment:" full privatization, dismantling the welfare
state, including firing huge numbers of useless bureaucrats and state
workers. The results are spectacular. Today, the economies of these East
European states are surging at high-intensity growth rates. Canada could do
well to emulate the economic sense and political courage of the Poles and
Czechs.
Fast-increasing prosperity has allowed these nations to import consumer and
industrial goods, mainly from neighboring Germany. As a result, a whole new
sector of German business has sprung up to serve East Europe. In a few more
years, the economies of Germany, the Czech and Slovak republics, Austria,
Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and, to a lesser degree, Poland will be highly
integrated.
Second, Germany has shot itself in both feet economically by allowing its
production costs to become the world's highest. Germany's once ballyhooed
system of "social responsibility" created a monstrous welfare state --
complete with seven-week paid vacations, 32-hour work weeks and
employer-paid spas -- that seems like a wild parody of the business acumen
and energy for which Germans were once noted.
Germany's labor market has become so rigid, its unions so powerful, wages
and benefits so high, no company in its right mind would open a new plant
in Germany. Companies that can't fire -- and thus have flexibility to meet
changing demand -- don't hire, either. Today, getting rid of just one
employee in Germany costs an unbelievable $ 55,000.
The result, as in Canada, has been economic and technological stagnation,
unemployment over 11% and the inability to no longer support Germany's
preposterously lavish welfare system or its huge, sluggish bureaucracy.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Germany's other politicians were extremely
foolish to allow big unions, and their allies in the left-wing press, to
price Germany out of world markets. Germany's businessmen, however, are no
fools. They are rushing to move plants and jobs en masse across the border
into free-market, low wage East Europe, where workers still know how to work.
Money, in our world, knows no borders.
As Germany industry expands eastward, another fascinating historical
process is at work. Seventy-nine years after the collapse of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I, we are seeing the
beginning of a recreated Germanic sphere of influence in what was once
called Middle Europe.
Slovenes, Croats, Czechs, and Slovaks are often called "German slavs."
Hungarians are historically close to German culture. Some 12 million ethnic
Germans were spread across Central and Eastern Europe until ethnically
cleansed by the communists in 1945. Even fiercely independent Poland has a
long love-hate relation with Germany, and a sizable ethnic Germany
minority. In Central and East Europe, Germany plays a role similar to
America's pervasive influence in Central and South America.
The accession of the Czechs, Poles, Hungarians and Slovaks to NATO will, of
course, accelerate this process. Borders will begin to blur, as they do now
between Austria and Germany. There's no need to cry "Anschluss!" at this
prospect. This is simply a logical flow of economics that was interrupted
by two world wars. Germany is and will remain the economic superpower of
Eastern Europe -- and from this, inevitably, will flow increasing political
influence.
Britain, France and Russia tried for the last 100 years to thwart this
natural geopolitical development. Even Britain's recent underhanded support
for Serbia in Bosnia was driven by a desire to block German influence in
the Balkans. This policy is wrong.
A democratic Germany is the best possible stabilizing influence over the
poorer end of Europe. A close German-Polish-French entente should be the
bedrock of Europe's military security. Just as a victorious America
restored ravaged Europe after 1945, Germany could now do the same for East
Europe, building prosperity, stability and democracy on the ashes of
communism.
====
Financial Times, Dec. 16, 1997
Slobodan Milosevic, the federal Yugoslav president, has run into opposition
after trying to dismiss the government's leading reformist, the deputy
prime minister Danko Djunic.
Mr Djunic was appointed early this year to head the regime's faltering
reform efforts. He won the respect of international bankers while heading
the Yugoslav team in debt rescheduling talks with the London Club of
commercial creditors, but ran into trouble at home with hardliners close to
Mr Milosevic.
====
Financial Times, Dec. 22, 1997
President Bill Clinton will deliver tough messages to both Moslem and Serb
politicians when he visits Bosnia today, preparing the ground for an
open-ended US peace-keeping effort in that country.
Mr Clinton will take Bosnian Moslem leaders to task for obstructing
economic reforms which could potentially benefit Serbs and Croats,
according to Robert Gelbard, chief US envoy to Bosnia.
"We are very concerned about the lack of movement on fundamental reforms,
such as privatisation and the property law," said Mr Gelbard, adding that
Moslem politicians had blocked property laws which would enable the return
of Croats and Serbs to Sarajevo."
Louis Proyect
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