A rchive Date
[ 07-10-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Yugoslavia ]

A free vote was Slobo's downfall

By GEORGE JONAS

- Toronto Sun

October 7, 2000

Tyrants playing with democracy are like children playing with matches. This week Yugoslavia's

has been finding this out the hard way. A number of people could have told him - and his Communist hardliner wife probably has.

On Sept. 24 citizens of the two remaining entities in the Yugoslav federation, Serbia and

Montenegro

, were allowed to vote in direct presidential elections for the first time. Though it was evident by the next day that Milosevic's opponent,

Vojislav Kostunica

, had won, on Sept. 26 Milosevic's election commission called for a runoff vote.

On Oct. 4, Milosevic's high court invalidated the presidential ballot altogether. The next day the people of Belgrade took to the streets.

The end came yesterday for

East Europe

's last remaining Communist-style despot. Russian President

Vladimir Putin

's foreign minister,

Igor Ivanov

, flew to Belgrade to present the opposition leader with Russia's seal of good housekeeping. Once Putin recognized Kostunica as president-elect, it was just about all over for the Milosevic regime.

Judging by chants in the Belgrade streets on Thursday, many Serbians seem ready to do to the Milosevics what Romanians did to their deposed Communist dictator

Nicolae Ceaucescu

and his wife, Elena, i.e., shoot them without much ceremony. However, what few Serbians are prepared to do, including president-elect Kostunica, is to hand over their ex-leader, an indicted war criminal, to be tried in the Hague.

I don't blame the Serbs. For one thing, while Milosevic lost the election, he still received one vote out of three, even by the opposition's estimate. His brand of nationalism may have been criminal, but it was supported by one third of his people to the end. Just as importantly, Milosevic and his policies had the approval of the western democracies for many years. The West's support was sometimes tacit, sometimes grudging and usually qualified by hypocritical disclaimers. But it was unmistakable throughout the early 1990s.

HANDS-OFF POLICY

Both Americans and Europeans assumed a sniffy, don't-rock-the-boat attitude when

Slovenia

and

Croatia

first proclaimed their independence. With the exception of Germany, the West behaved as if it supported the status quo in

Yugoslavia

. It was this hands-off policy that contributed to the development of a gruesome and bloody war in the region.

Yugoslavia's Communist government assumed it had the blessing of the West to hang on to the breakaway republics by force. They immediately proceeded to do so by allying the cause of Communist federalism with the cause of Serbian nationalism.

The West liked to blame ancient ethic hatreds for the conflict in the

Balkans

, but the bloodshed in Yugoslavia wasn't caused by nationalism as such alone. It was caused by ex-Communist commissars clinging to power through the pretext of nationalism.

In 1991, U.S. Secretary of State

James Baker

was still holding forth on the importance of preserving the status quo, i.e., the Serb domination of all entities within the Yugoslav federation, from Croatia to

Kosovo.

As late as 1995, British Foreign Minister Rifkind and U.S. Secretary of State

Christopher Warren

were holding joint press conferences explaining why the arms embargo against

Bosnia

had to be maintained.

By giving the green light to Milosevic and his followers, Baker, Rifkind and their masters contributed to the massacres that ensued. Without such policies, episodes of ethnic cleansing wouldn't have happened in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. The slaughter continued until Croats and Bosnians got the arms with which to defend themselves.

It's a safe bet that Baker, Rifkind and Warren won't find themselves in the prisoner's dock alongside Milosevic at any UN war crimes trial. That's one reason why such prosecutions are a farce. They're far more likely to prolong tensions than relieve them. Even Jiri Dienstbier, the UN's human rights envoy to the Balkans, has been urging the international community this week to drop charges against Milosevic.

A timely act of diplomatic recognition in 1991 may have secured independence for the ex-Yugoslavian republics and averted war at the same time. By the time of Kosovo, however, military intervention probably only served to embitter and protract the conflict. Without NATO's bombing, Milosevic may have been forced from office a year and a half ago.

When the end came, it came swiftly, as it usually does. Tectonic plates shift with glacial speed; underground pressures take decades to build; but when the actual earthquake comes, it's usually over in less than five minutes.

Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com

World Fact Book

(CIA

)

]

Cross-Indexed:

The End Of Milosevic

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