Politicians from the Bottom League

Vreme, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia, March 11 2000

Third-rate politicians appointed to second-rate jobs with first-rate salaries, that is how at a time a French publication described those who were given the duty to on behalf the International Community resolve problems stemming from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. The French noted this when it was discovered that high representatives of the International Community in Bosnia-Hercegovina had achieved pretty meager results, while their salaries were significantly higher than that of any president of a state, including those from the most powerful and richest states in the world. At the time when this observation was published, Kosovo experience was still far below the horizon. If it weren't then the impression about mediocrity of international representatives (various higher and lower officials, commissioners, envoys, chiefs of civilian and military missions) and policy "fashioned" through them by the International Community in this region would have been even stronger.

First-rate consequences produced by third-rate politicians and official policies of their countries of origin (this time we are not considering the results achieved by domestic politicians who do not qualify even for "the bottom league") become so obvious that certain analysts claim that the behavior of the International Community could without much agonizing be qualified as one of the pillars, or at least strong support columns of the Milosevic's regime. Starting with the sanctions all the way to the last year's bombardment, everything was officially directed against the domestic power brokers, and usually ended up adding wind to their sails. Usually the same politicians who introduced sanctions and ordered the bombardment during breaks held talks and made various deals with Milosevic for which the population paid in the end.

ELECTIONS ARE COMING: The occasion for recalling the story about clumsy and too often pestilent policy of the International Community is the recent printing and distribution of American wanted posters with the portraits of Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic and Rajko Mladic, all of whom have been indicted by the Hague Tribunal. It has been known for a long time that the three of them have been indicted by the Tribunal, so that it is intriguing why the posters are being printed now. One of the possible explanations is that the International Community, this time through American wanted posters, is trying to remind that no one of the potential passengers to the Hague has been forgotten and that the case of Croatian General Tihomir Blaskic clearly demonstrates that the Tribunal's net will in the end snag big fish. Those who doubt the principled nature of the West remind that the anniversary of the bombardment of FR Yugoslavia by NATO is soon and that with the passage of time the bombardment is increasingly getting an outline of a totally senseless and demented action. Similar conclusions have these days been made by many newspapers in the West. Thus, a wanted poster with Milosevic's portrait perhaps has the goal to divert attention from an unpleasant anniversary to the Serb guilt in the whole story.

Many factors remind that the West is not terribly principled when this region is at stake. At the very beginning of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, exactly the International Community allowed that nationalist leaders with very doubtful legitimacy become esteemed partners in international negotiations, only to send some of them later to the Hague; then, there was a lot of hurry to recognize the independence of states established after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, although many of them did not fulfill even the most basic democratic conditions set by the very same International Community; everything the Serbian opposition did was for years totally ignored in the West; after every political "agreement" with Milosevic and Holbrooke's visit to Belgrade, the regime started a new wave of repression against dissidents, banned independent media or enacted repressive laws, about which the West usually kept silent...

Something similar can be seen today, when past negotiators and the only partners on this side are proclaimed to be undesirable, or, respectively, desirable only in the Hague. Thus, for example, the Americans, who have never recognized FR Yugoslavia are advocating that Kosovo is a part of Yugoslavia, rather than Serbia. KFOR and UN peacekeepers arrived to Kosovo to guard its multiethnicity, but today in front of them ethnic cleansing continues, while crime, political extremism and violence which is increasingly frequently directed against themselves are increasing. Or, let us consider the episode from October 1999. Then, representatives of the Serbian opposition were invited to Luxembourg where they were supposed to sign with the representatives of the International Community a declaration which, among other, demanded from them to assume the obligation to send all those indicted for war crimes to the Hague after coming to power. Those without an Army and Police, or any other instruments of power, were supposed to do what about 30,000 to the teeth armed soldiers of SFOR have been very successfully failing to even try to do - to arrest some of the suspects on the Tribunal's lists. Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska Milorad Dodik was at a time asked something similar in one of the Western capitals (can you and do you want to arrest them?) and he responded along the lines of - if well paid and armed foreign soldiers cannot do it, how can my badly paid and equipped policemen do it.

Those with somewhat better memory will recall that similar posters with Karadzic's portrait appeared in the Republic of Srpska in the fall of 1998, on the eve of elections. The goal was supposedly to remind citizens not to vote for Karadzic's SDS. The outcome was that the SDS somehow survived as the largest party in the Parliament of Srpska and that Nikola Poplasen [extreme nationalist politician] was elected the president of Srpska instead of Biljana Plavsic. Maybe exactly because of a too pushy and loud attempt of the International Community to suggest the voters for whom they must vote. Early or regular elections are scheduled in Serbia and FR Yugoslavia later this year and some analogies with the Republic of Srpska are quite possible. It seems that exactly because of that the Serbian opposition which tries to turn the West into its ally is not exactly overjoyed with the recently printed wanted posters.

Dr. Vojislav Kostunica, otherwise one of the most persistent critics of the behavior of the International Community, has recently stated that such an action is forcing the regime to apply even stronger pressure on the democratic opposition. By the way, several months ago, Kostunica fairly correctly noted that the Western leaders, as far as Serbia is concerned, frequently behave as advocates of "vulgar Marxism", following the principle "the worse, the better". Supposedly, the worse the situation in Serbia, the better chances for democratic changes. And this has been going on for ten years.

The president of the Democratic Alternative, Nebojsa Covic, claims that the printing of wanted posters at this moment is "a mistake which has in practice condemned Serbia to a life and death struggle". Covic further clarified this statement for Vreme: "With this decision and a series of similar insufficiently thought out decisions in the past the International Community forces the Serbian regime to follow the logic - either we stay in power or we die. That is, to say the least, a terrible decision and very dangerous toying with our state and our people. For me it is almost unbelievable that the West has been making so many mistakes for such a long time and that all of them happen by chance".

Nebojsa Covic then reminds that once upon a time Dr. Radovan Karadzic was on his own on similar wanted posters and that at the time the official Belgrade advised him to resign in order to save the state and the people. Now both Karadzic and his advisor are on the same wanted poster. "I cannot think of a single president, no matter what he may be like, and we all know what ours is like, who would accept in a similar situation to call free and fair elections while wanted posters with his portrait are hanging from every lamp post," says the president of the DA and adds that he is concerned about another scenario in preparation by the International Community. "That is their attempt to push us into internal clashes via border conflict spots in the south of Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Vojvodina, Sandzak... So that they can later arrive here as saviors, rather than occupiers."

PINOCHET MODEL: Dr. Dusan Janjic, the director of the Belgrade Forum for ethnic relations, does not deny that many actions by the International Community defy laws of logic. In the recent printing of the wanted poster, which technically seems laughable, he above all sees a message that the International Community will not give up prosecution of the individuals accused of war crimes, as well as another means for political pressure on Milosevic, who is obviously "suppressed" by the International Community to the "existing position". "It is clear that the International Community will not directly clash with Milosevic but will use crises in the region to slowly narrow the space abound him. That is another factor for radicalization of our internal political situation," says Dr. Janjic for Vreme adding that the tightening of the noose around the president of FRY is at the same time a message for his Socialists, who are getting increasingly nervous and are fighting for ever smaller scraps of power. The impression is, however, that the West counts on them in the future, but without Milosevic. "They are trying to put Milosevic in a 'no way out' situation. All that does not mean that at one point, when they decide that he is weak enough, they may not suddenly apply 'Pinochet model'," says Dr. Dusan Janjic.

Judging by what Edvin Mroz, the director of the "East-West Institute" from Pargue recently said in an interview with Podgorica daily Vijesti such solutions are not out of question. Mroz also believes that the standing of the president of FRY in the West is very bad and at the same time emphasizes that the West would have to do much more to demonstrate its determination to change the situation in Serbia. "I would like to see some sort of an agreement with him, since that is the only way to ensure his peaceful departure. At the moment, such manner of Milosevic's withdrawal from politics is not acceptable for some Western governments... I think that the Serb people has suffered enough and that Milosevic should accept to find some sort of a peaceful solution for the crisis," Edvin Mroz said for Vijesti, also implying that it is pity that the world has given up any methods of influencing the Yugoslav president and placed only a stick, without a carrot, on the table. The publication of wanted posters means the end of public communication, but, nevertheless, does not exclude secret contacts.

IT COULD BE WORSE: One of those who do not refrain from directly connecting the policy of the International Community with vitality and longevity of Milosevic's regime is independent economist from Podgorica and member of the group G-17 Nebojsa Medojevic. Recently at a gathering in the Montenegrin capital Medojevic noticed that in the last ten years only the policy of the International Community was worse and had worse consequences than the official Yugoslav policy. In a conversation with Vreme this economist mentioned his impression that the International Community obviously cares very little about a peaceful transition in this region, and even less about providing any significant support for the opposition. Medojevic nevertheless tries to make a distinction between the behavior of the US and the EU. According to him, Americans are always looking for partners which would be prepared to make a deal, bosses who would be prepared to implement their interests. They do not care as much about democracy as that the "main players" in politics are "their men". The European policy is increasingly becoming aware that it is necessary to support processes and development of democratic institutions as a guarantee for stability of a society. "For Americans, Milosevic has for years been the only partner. If we analyze their moves, then it turns out that everything they did produced results which countered their purported goals. With every new policy turn they strengthened Milosevic's hold on power. I do not know whether that was their unstated goal or whether Milosevic by chance managed to fit in their constructions. I do know that they now have a new military base near Urosevac, and that in normal circumstances such a decision could not go through without a regular democratic procedure in a parliament. After the NATO intervention and everything that later happened in Kosovo, the Belgrade regime has been given a huge space for new manipulation. It can now easily prove that the bombardment was not an attempt to punish a regime, but the whole people, that the whole world is against Serbia, or to portray the reconstruction as a huge success in given circumstances," says Medojevic.

Almost all interlocutors of Vreme notice that the policy of the International Community can roughly be paraphrased as - why do you say the opposition when you mean the regime? The most recent moves coming from outside could even be read as - why do you say democratic elections when you mean the state of emergency? Dr. Srdan Bogosavljevic, the director of the research agency "Strategic Marketing", who reminded the author about the saying regarding "third-rate politicians", outlines a few main characteristics of the policy of the International Community with respect to FR Yugoslavia. First, reliance on superficial impressions instead of checked facts, development of policy based on wrong information obtained from unreliable domestic sources, than bad people and bad assessments followed by many mistakes which as a rule produce political profit for those otherwise labeled as "undesirable". Dr. Bogosavljevic also mentions "late ignition" and slow learning of the International Community: the civil war in Bosnia-Hercegovina could have been perhaps prevented and stopped by timely bombardment, but the lesson learned there was applied in a totally different situation in Kosovo, where a classic secession was taking place.

"There is not much consistency in that policy and everything is subject to electoral cycles, momentary interests and narrowed horizons, which leads to hypocrisy. The Dayton Agreement is the best example for that. There, there was a lot of haste because of the forthcoming election campaign in the US, and there was neither patience nor time to dedicate another three days to Brcko, so that the problem remains until today. Even now, one can hear that something significant must be done in Yugoslavia by the next spring, which again has much more to do with their election cycle than with ours," says Dr. Bogosavljevic.

Whatever happens, one thing is certain: for a long time to come, in this region third-rate politicians will work and exercise for first-rate salaries. The life of the locals has long ago fallen out of any rankings.