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Punishment for Disobedient Guys

The analysis of the International Crisis Group (ICG) from August 2000 was totally wrong. The assessment that "the regime is stronger than ever", the prediction that "Slobodan Milosevic could stay in power indefinitely"...

by Ljiljana SMAJLOVIC

NIN, Belgrade, Serbia, FR Yugoslavia, April 11, 2002

A two-day conference about the transition in the Balkans was held in early December 2000 at one of numerous foreign policy institutes in Washington. The participants were "the usual suspects", the best known experts for south-eastern Europe from the capital and the discussion progressed under the strong impression of changes that had occurred in Yugoslavia on October 5. Daniel Serwer, the director of Balkans department in the Washington United States Institute for Peace, a non-governmental organization established and funded by the US Congress, was among the participants. This research institution was known before, during and after the bombardment of Yugoslavia by its fairly hardline and uncompromising views regarding the regime of Slobodan Milosevic and the need for American involvement in the overthrow of that regime. (It was noted that, during the NATO bombardment, one researcher from the USIP was a guest on the CNN, in the show "Insight", and prompted by his militancy the host of the program to conclude that, look, even the Institute for Peace, in this case, does not support a peaceful solution). In the discussion about the changes that were to follow in Yugoslavia, Serwer mentioned that his institute believed that there "should be reconciliation after war". Aleksa Djilas, who happened to be in Washington as a guest of a similar institution, Washington "Woodrow Wilson" international center, reacted by saying: "the problem with your institute is that you believe that war is necessary for reconciliation".

Timed Reports

That was a rather sharp riposte for Washington, especially in year zero of the post-Milosevic era, when Serbia was still basking in the glory of October 5 and the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic and enjoyed the benefits of a honeymoon with the international community. Then, Serbs, very briefly, had a reputation of "heroes of democracy" in Washington, and Madeleine Albright stated for The New York Times that she "always knew that the Serbs were wonderful people". In the meantime, Serbs, at least those who failed to qualify for "reformists" in the West, were again classified as nationalists that must not be treated leniently and the international reputation of the post-Milosevic authorities has also suffered.

No doubt, the honeymoon is over, as is testified by the most recent analyses of the leading institutes, and the best known "think-tanks" in the West, which deal with our part of the world, such as the US Institute for Peace in Washington and the International Crisis Group, with headquarters in Brussels. Both institutions timed their latest reports about the situation in our country for late March, probably because the end of March is the American deadline for the fulfillment of conditions for the continuation of financial assistance of the US, and consequently at that time the interest for our region is at its peak.

Experts of both institutions are very concerned for the fate of reform in our country, as is, by the way, most of the Serbian public. The difference is that the ICG is much harsher in its assessment and openly advocates that Serbia be denied future financial assistance, while the USIP uses more moderate vocabulary and suggests that "currently Serbia is more of a chance than a problem" for the international community.

How To Cleanse Serbia

The opinions of these experts and institutions have a significant influence on the thinking and decisions made by the politicians and officials of the most powerful western governments and the western public, and that is why their analyses and recommendations should be taken very seriously in Serbia as well. It is useful to know, above all, that the leading people from these institutions are a part of the elite of the Western foreign policy establishment. They come to institutes straight from diplomacy or the State Department and, naturally, do not change their mode of thinking. Sometimes, they have even more influence than while they were state officials. That means that they do not become overnight unbiased analysts only because now they work for a "research institute" instead of for the State Department, but that in their new capacity they still advocate same policies they advocated while they were in power. Sometimes they advocate them with more conviction than what they could afford while they were a part of the civil service. That is why any examination of their findings should take into account their backgrounds and the origin of the usual consensus between them. (they usually metaphorically come from under the same "coat", but now wear different "hats").

Thus, for example, the director of the USIP, Daniel Serwer, is a veteran diplomat, who until 1998 worked as a highly respected official in the intelligence service of the State Department, and before that, between 1994 and 1996, was the American envoy to the Muslim-Croat Federation in BH. Our public is aware of the American policy at that time (cobble together an alliance between Croats and Muslims in Bosnia at all cost, so that they could together attack Serbs), and consequently very few will be surprised to find out that Daniel Serwer was since the first days of the bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999 one of the few open proponents of the idea that NATO could uproot the sickness known as Serb nationalism only by militarily occupying Yugoslavia after the bombardment and imposing on it a military occupation similar to that of Germany or Japan after WWII. In the interview published in The New York Times on May 11, 1999, Serwer claimed that Milosevic's regime was "deeply rooted" and that Serbia would be unable to "cleanse" itself from that evil. The same theory was advocated in that article ("How To Cleanse Serbia" by Blain Harden) by the president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Sonja Biserko, who later joined the USIP in Washington.

Serwer has been known in the Yugoslav public since 1998, when together with Slavko Curuvija, Boris Karajcic, and Milan Panic he testified in the Senate about the need to increase the American assistance to the democratic forces in Serbia. Later the program of his institute was abused in the showdown of the regime in Belgrade with the opposition and the free media (Vojislav Seselj, the leader of the Serb Radical Party downloaded it from the Internet, put a CIA logo on it and proclaimed it for a CIA plan for the destabilization of the country). Serwer's colleagues from the American administration took his advice, increased the assistance to the Serbian opposition and the media many times and thereby assisted the overthrow of Milosevic in 2000.

However, even when he testified in front of a Senate committee, Serwer did that with the remark that he was expressing his own, rather than USIP's views. By the way, the USIP insists that every document leaving the institute include a disclaimer that "the USIP does not advocate particular policies", despite the fact that it obviously advocates very specific policies. The International Crisis Group, whose chief creator and architect is here, also, well-known Morton Abramowitz, is a completely different, new sort of non-governmental organization which does not refrain from open advocacy of certain concrete political moves. Abramowitz is also a veteran US diplomat. Before he became an "independent expert" he headed the State Department intelligence service (US SID, the Service for Intelligence and Documentation, within the State Department), where Serwer headed the European department.

The ICG does not hide that is was created both to provide analysis and to advocate and lobby the public and governments to achieve specific policies and results. The president of the ICG, former Australian Prime Minister Garrett Evans, last year, in a conversation with journalists of "Washington Post" described his organization as a "functional equivalent of a ministry of foreign affairs", openly stating that the organization was created with the goal of being more powerful, or at least efficient, than some ministries of foreign affairs. The ICG is supposed to be a herald of a new type of diplomacy, which aims to act preventatively. At the time when Morton Abramowitz set up the ICG, in 1994/95, he was the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (yet another organization fighting for peace) and his role model was the report of the Carnegie Commission from 1913. The ICG tries to focus on cause of crises, instead of on their symptoms. It has about ten analysts, only in the Balkans, a few in Africa, and all together 18 offices at various crisis spots all over the world.

What Handelman Does Not Know

A new characteristic of the IGC is that it, following its interventionist outlook, indulges in experiments that are unusual for research institutions. Thus the ICG took liberty, even though it is not a competent investigative or judicial institution, of putting together (and then publishing) a list of suspected war criminals in the Republic of Srpska in 2000. That list included 75 Bosnian Serbs and was compiled by the analysts of the ICG, although it is unclear how and where they obtained the data. The list does not have the force of an indictment issued by the Hague Tribunal, but it did cause trouble for many of those who ended up on the list. In November 2000, London Guardian wrote about the case of Dragomir Vasic, for whom the ICG claimed that (with the disclaimer "allegedly") he organized ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks in Zvornik, including the "transfer" of Bosniaks from Bijeli Potok to a concentration camp, as well as the disappearance of 750 Bosniaks, and that he "participated in organization" of torture and rape of Bosniak women in the mosque in Djulici... At the time Guaridan contacted Vasic, he was not in hiding but was actually a local councilor in Zvornik, representing the SDS. He had been vetted and approved as a candidate by the OSCE. However, he was a rather desperate man who denied committing any crimes, but nevertheless lived with a lot of uncertainty. Guardian claimed that the ICG compiled its list based on its data and "leaking" of information from some international organizations. At the time director of the ICG in Sarajevo, James Lyon, interpreted this action to a journalist from London as a sign of fear that many war criminals may end up being unpunished. (The Hague has indicted only a few tens, while the authorities in Sarajevo have documentation about 31,000 "suspected" war criminals).

In the meantime democracy arrived in Serbia and James Lyon moved to Belgrade, where he still works for the ICG. Officials of this organization frequently complain of still not having the influence they desire on the policies of great powers, but their score in Yugoslavia is not to be underestimated, at first glance. Morton Abramowitz was a strong advocate of the punitive policies with respect to Belgrade during the Kosovo crisis in 1998, and then in Rambouillet totally abandoned all pretence of neutrality and entered the castle as an official advisor to the Albanians delegation led by UCK commander Hashim Thaci. Abramowitz advocated issuing of ultimatums to Serbs and bombardment. The American leftist critics refer to him as "eminence grise of the NATO for humanitarian interventions". Later the ICG strongly advocated that the UNMiK take control of the "Trepca" mine away from the Serbs (which UNMiK did soon afterwards). It is interesting that the ICG justified its demands that "Trepca" be taken over as soon as possible by asserting that if that was done while Milosevic was still in power the future democratic authorities could blame Milosevic for that takeover.

Dismal Failure

The influence of the ICG on newspaper commentators can easily be spotted. Formulations from the ICG analyses can be found literally repeated in columns or editorials of western publications. The most recent example comes from the Canadian daily newspaper "Toronto Star", and its columnist Stephen Handelman. On March 12, 2002, a few days after the publication of the ICG report about the state of reforms in Yugoslavia, Handelman advocated that Yugoslavia not be permitted further integration in the international community because "pandering to the Serb glorification of their own significance in the region will only cause future trouble". (By the way, Handelman is convinced that Milosevic was extradited to the Hague in April 2001, and also thinks that the person who stole millions of dollars from the Delta Bank [the money was recovered by the Police and the robbers caught a few days after the robbery] will never be caught because in the bandit state, such as Yugoslavia, the robbery must have been organized by someone with political connections. Obviously, Handelman learned everything he knows about Yugoslavia from the ICG report). By the way, the ICG keeps insisting in its reports that the Serbs are convinced that they have the right to "privileged treatment", which may create impression, among those who are not knowledgeable about our recent history, that the international community has really been coddling Serbs during the last ten years.

However, in recent years, the ICG had much more success in promoting punitive policies against the Serbs than in analyzing the Serb political situation or forecasting future developments (although it is still unclear whether Colin Powell will follow their recommendation and deny every further assistance to the FRY). The analysis from August 2000 is probably the worst and most shameful failure that any organization of that kind has ever experienced in this region (the name of the author of that analysis is until this day a well-kept secret). Everything in the report was wrong. The assertion that "the regime is stronger than ever", and that Slobodan Milosevic could stay in power "indefinitely"; that "most Serbs do not respect opposition leaders"; that voters are "passive and indecisive"; that "the SPO and the Serb Radical Party could profit from the 24 September elections", including the stupidities that "people are scared to discuss politics in public" and that "the media have abandoned all pretense of professionalism"...

Good Army is Bad Army

As late as August 17, 2000, the ICG was convinced that any participation of the opposition in the elections could only set back democratic changes in Serbia and provide false democratic legitimacy for Slobodan Milosevic; however, the ICG was primarily, at the time, concerned with trying to convince the international community to under no circumstances urge Milo Djukanovic to participate in the elections, because there was no chance to oust Milosevic from power in the elections. No one should be surprised to learn that in early March neither Steven Handelman nor the ICG believed that there was any chance for the survival of the joint state of Serbia and Montenegro. Handelman, because he read that in the ICG report, and the ICG because it is convinced that Yugoslavia should be destroyed in order to finally crush "Greater Serbian nationalism", which according to the ICG is still the main threat in the Balkans.

It is interesting that the abovementioned analysis from August 2000, where Serbia is described in worst possible terms (ICG analysts do not see at that point light at the end of the tunnel), very little space is given to the Yugoslav Army. However, the section dealing with the YA reserves a few compliments for officers. According to the ICG analyst, the middle ranking officers, allegedly, after their experience in Kosovo are "dedicated to peaceful solution of all future crises". "They do not want, nor would support, a new war or use of the army for the suppression of public dissatisfaction of demonstrations. Parts of the Officer Corps could participate in a coup, or even carry out a military coup. In that case the attitude and role of military units stationed in Belgrade would be of major importance," the ICG report claims. And then continues: "Low ranking officers do not support the Radical Party anymore nor its leader Vojislav Seselj, like they used to in the past. This could be very significant, can open space for more positive interaction between officers and conscripts serving the mandatory military service. Conscripts from the University and other schools bring ideas that mostly support the opposition and the democratic transformation of the Serb society. Those changes in the military limit its usefulness for the regime and could significantly endanger the plans to keep the military as a back up instrument of repression."

Therefore in the report about the situation in Serbia on the eve of the September 24, 2000 elections, the only hope detected by the ICG in the Serbian society centers on the Yugoslav Army. In August 2000, the Army is not a corrupt, criminal organization, even though it's still under Milosevic's command. However, a year and a half later that same army has, according to the reports of the ICG, gone through a remarkable transformation, while being under command of the new democratic authorities. According to the ICG's March 28, 2002, report, the Yugoslav armed forces are no less than "nationalist, conservative and corrupt" and demonstrate intentions "to protect important elements of Milosevic's legacy". And Serbia, under the democratic authorities, according to the ICG, cannot decide "whether to turn towards Europe or adopt reactionary policies similar to those in Belarus"! The anger of the analysts was provoked, naturally, by the arrest of Momcilo Perisic. However, one should not conclude from the fact that the ICG blames Vojislav Kostunica, the Army that he controls to a certain extent and his cabinet for all evils, that Zoran Djindjic has a better standing with the ICG. It seems that from their point of view he is only a lesser evil and Djindjic and Nebojsa Covic deserve special criticism for referring to all Albanians as "terrorists", "before, and especially after September 11".

Cato and Heritage

Against Intervention

Besides extremely interventionist research institutions such as the USIP and the ICG, the US is the home of research institutions that as a rule oppose extensive American involvement in the affairs of other states. These institutions are as a rule conservative think-tanks, such as Cato Institute (CATO) or the Heritage Foundation. These institutions are usually in ascendance when the Republican Party is in control of the White House, as is currently the case. In Washington, a certain shift in the balance of power between the liberal and conservative "think-tanks" has already occurred. Clinton's administration "followed the advice" of the interventionists, and before September 11 and the new American exit to the world scene in struggle against terrorism, it seemed that isolationist trend would prevail. Experts from Cato and Heritage have advocated American withdrawal from the Balkans, and the best known among them are Ted Galen Carpenter and Gary Dempsey from the Cato Institute and John Halsman from the Heritage Foundation. All of them were strong critics of the NATO bombardment and any sort of interventionism and open meddling in affairs of other states, including "humanitarian" interventionism. It is not by chance that Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica accepted invitation of the Cato Institute and delivered a lecture during his first visit to the US, last year.

A book by a group of authors "Exiting the Balkan Thicket", has just been published by the Cato Institute in Washington. The book proposes a whole spectrum of scenarios for the Bush administration for an exit from the Balkans, and the vice-president of the Cato Institute, Ted Galen Carpenter, claims that the US in the past developed everything but democracy in the Balkans. Steven Schwartz, on the other hand, claims that reflexive anti-nationalism prompted the West to in Bosnia and Kosovo embrace former Communist politicians and adopt an extremely authoritarian approach.

Translated on April 24, 2002