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Serb Arrest Points to Coup Against Djindjic
16 March 2002 Summary
Yugoslav military security service personnel arrested Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Momcilo Perisic March 14 on charges of espionage. The move was likely part of an effort by Serb nationalists to depose pro-Western Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Djindjic will probably be able to foil the plot, if he can survive the weekend.
Analysis
On the evening of March 14, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Momcilo Perisic was having dinner with John Neighbor, an official from the U.S. Embassy and two other Serb citizens. At some point Yugoslav military security service personnel arrested the four, and after 15 hours ultimately released Neighbor, although they denied him contact with the embassy during his incarceration.
The U.S. State Department, "shocked and outraged and … protesting like hell" according to a spokesman, lambasted Belgrade for its treatment of U.S. personnel, especially as Neighbor was at one point reportedly held with a plastic bag over his head. Shortly thereafter, a military court in Belgrade announced that Perisic had been detained on charges of espionage and revealing military secrets.
STRATFOR sources in Belgrade report that the charges ring true. They contend that Perisic has been a U.S. contact for at least the past three years, and has proven instrumental in keeping Washington abreast of what the various players in the Yugoslav government and army are up to. It is highly likely that some of the information he passed to the United States also proved useful to prosecutors in the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Government officials including Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica were by their own admission caught by surprise over Perisic's arrest. A joint statement from an emergency session of Serbian leaders made it explicitly clear they had all heard about the arrest through the media.
At this point, the story becomes even more complicated. Perisic is a deputy prime minister in the ruling coalition of Serbia, the real power in what is left of Yugoslavia. It is exceedingly unlikely that pro-Western Djindjic, Perisic's boss, was unaware of his activities. Considering how essential Western assistance and debt relief is to the survivability of Djindjic's government, the prime minister had to have at least tacitly approved of Perisic's activities.
It is also likely that when Perisic was arrested, he was transferring information that might have proved either embarrassing or incriminating to officials in Yugoslavia's military security services, which is still the primary bastion of Milosevic loyalists.
Between his current position as deputy prime minister and his previous post as Milosevic's army chief of staff throughout the Kosovo conflict -- until his dismissal in 1999 -- and prime architect of the Bosnian war, Perisic undoubtedly had ample dirt on every personality who mattered over the last several years of Milosevic's rule.
Timing was critical for those who wanted to keep Perisic silenced. The morning that he was arrested, Yugoslav army Chief of Staff Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic announced he would resign by the end of the month. Pavkovic, a fierce rival to Perisic, has long been considered to share many of Milosevic's nationalist leanings and is himself under investigation by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
Pavkovic is the most respected personality in the military, and his resignation would deny a major potential ally to anyone plotting a possible coup against pro-Western Djindjic. Those who orchestrated Perisic's arrest undoubtedly hoped to force the nationalist Pavkovic to rally the military to their cause of deposing Djindjic.
But Pavkovic was not the only person the military security service likely hoped to bring into their conspiracy. Without a figurehead willing to fill the spotlight, their efforts would come to naught. Pavkovic may have had the nationalist credentials and the respect of the military, but he lacks the public appeal needed to rally the nation.
That may be why Gen. Alexander Tomic, head of the Yugoslav military security services who allegedly ordered the arrest, had close communications with Rade Bulatovic, the security aide to Kostunica, on the issue of Perisic's detention. Kostunica's political star has been dwindling ever since he became president in late 2000. Central Bank chief Mladjan Dinkic proved a hit with international donors, Djindjic himself showed he is capable of juggling economic reforms and public works and Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic proved more capable of grabbing headlines.
That reduced Kostunica, who has made no secret of his desire to match his title with actual power, to harping at government policies and attempting to stir up the embers of Serb nationalism.
Press reports from B92, Tanjug and Beograd.com news agencies, in addition to Yugoslav Justice Minister Vladan Batic and Djindjic himself, all place Tomic at the center of the conspiracy. Apparently it was Tomic who notified Bulatovic about the arrest in an attempt to bring Kostunica on board. Tomic also reportedly refused Pavkovic's order to attend an emergency session March 15 of senior Serbian and Yugoslav leaders -- prime ministers, presidents and chiefs of staff included -- to address the Perisic arrest. When so ordered, his alleged response was, "I don't take my orders from anyone in that room," B92 reported.
The strategy of Tomic and Co. was probably to arrest Perisic, expose his espionage, and then count on a combination of a Pavkovic-led military and a Kostunica-led populace to either force a change in Djindjic's pro-Western behavior or simply replace Djindjic with Kostunica outright.
If this was indeed the plan, then the next 24 hours are critical. Tomic and his allies have precious little time to convince Pavkovic and Kostunica to move. Should no popular protests spontaneously erupt, there must be charismatic personalities to force the issue. But with Pavkovic within two weeks of retirement, and Kostunica's track record of having neither the guts nor gray matter, the prognosis is poor.
Djindjic is already looking for openings. In one of his first statements on the government crisis he declared, "Not only is there no civil control of the Military Security Service, but there's no military control," Tanjug reported. This statement about the arrogance of the military security service -- and the implied promise that the lack of military control will be soon rectified -- will likely draw regular military units closer to Djindjic's camp and away from Tomic's.
Djindjic also may be able to draw the public to his side as well, in spite of the well-grounded espionage charges. Despite the pain of the economic reforms Djindjic has implemented, for the most part Serbs have power, water and food -- a somewhat better state of affairs than existed under his predecessors, who led Serbs into one war after another - all of which they lost.
Since he has rather solid control over the military and the Interior Ministry, he now knows exactly who and where some of his most dangerous foes are based -- and he can purge them at his leisure. That depends, of course, on whether Djindjic and his government can survive the weekend.
He also has another pool of strength to draw upon -- the West. The United States is not exactly in a conciliatory mood right, and someone else's rogue secret police roughing up an American diplomat is not something that will engender warm fuzzies in the White House. The Bush administration may require Tomic's head on a platter, but it will also be willing to provide the platter as well as some cash on the side.
This does not mean, however, that Djindjic can purge with impunity. The arrest of Perisic has shaken his government to its core. The Serb citizenry has yet to come to grips with the tumultuous events of the past decade in general, and the role they played in the Yugoslav wars in particular. If the reactionary arrest of one of his allies does not serve as a wake up call to Djindjic, he could well face a far more blatant coup attempt in the future. Tomic is certainly not the last nationalist residing in the Serb military.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/647957/posts
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