15 Feb 2005
Belgrade Paralyzed
by Srdja Trifkovic
Having met my old friend, Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, and
the country's President, Boris Tadic, in the last week of January, I can
confirm that the land of my birth is both the most threatened and the most
poorly defended polity in today's Europe. "Serbia delenda!" is the clear
intention of various players in "the International Community" who have a
vested ideological or personal interest in such outcome. Those in Belgrade
who are supposed to prevent such outcome appear paralyzed by internal
disagreements, external pressures, diminishing resources, and dearth of
creative ideas.
The threats to the Serbs' survival as a nation, state, and polity, are many,
but six main issues dominate the agenda:
1. The intended amputation of a large segment of sovereign territory-the
UN/EU/NATO-occupied province of Kosovo and Metohija-that, in addition to
being rich in agricultural land and fossil fuels, has an absolutely vital
significance to Serbia's identity, culture, and self-esteem;
2. The danger of the extinction of the Bosnian-Serb republic (Republika
Srpska) evident in the activities of the "High Representative" in Sarajevo
Paddy Ashdown who seeks to centralize Bosnia-Herzegovina under the Muslim
("Bosniak") domination;
3. The looming threat of dissolution of Serbia's state union with
Montenegro, against the wishes of the clear majority of actual Montenegrins,
i.e. Serbian-speaking Slavs;
4. The ongoing pressure by The Hague War Crimes Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia to surrender various former military, police and political
officials to its self-generated, illegitimate "jurisdiction";
5. The destruction of the remnant of Serbia's economy that has survived the
sanctions, largely due to an overvalued national currency, which will be
aggravated by the forthcoming debt servicing crisis;
6. The catastrophic white plague that threatens Serbia's demographic
extinction as a nation and polity, and which can be cured only by a
spiritual and moral renewal that is not on the horizon.
Each one of these six issues should be alarming enough to concentrate the
best minds of a nation and to engender a broad consensus on how to deal with
the challenge. Internicine squabbling prevails instead, with different
groups, political parties, and influential individuals acting as free
agents, or-some Belgraders suspect-as foreign agents.
Even where nefarious motives appear to be absent, ineptitude prevails. When
I met President Tadic on Monday, January 24, he was preparing for a state
visit to Libya the following day. He complained that the Serbian delegation
was ill-prepared for the trip: Until that moment, he had not been able to
have a meeting with two government ministers and several top business
leaders coming with him, to determine their agenda for the trip. "Regardless
of whether we like each other or not, agree with each others' politics or
not," he said, "we should be able to focus and cooperate at least in those
areas that are evidently in everyone's interest and beyond politics."
The art of improvisation at which the Serbs excel saved the day in this
particular case, and a number of potentially lucrative contracts were
initiated in Tripoli; but that is clearly no way to run a country. As a
Western diplomat observed, "even a medium-sized Western company preparing
its sales team for an overseas trip will be more systematic in plotting its
negotiating strategies and role-playing that the Serbs are in dealing with
various foreign interlocutors."
Tadic claims that his call on the remaining Kosovo Serbs to take part in
last fall's elections under UNMIK's supervision-for which he was severely
criticized-was misunderstood and misinterpreted. He also says that the
perception in some quarters that he was supportive of John Kerry's campaign
was simply wrong. He has regained some lost points by making a
well-publicized visit to Kosovo this week, in the course of which he
reiterated that "this is Serbia," but his largely ceremonial post makes his
maneuvering space limited. In addition, his team of advisors does not
inspire full confidence that his positions will be uniformly consistent in
the future. It includes some highly capable analysts, such as a former
managing editor of the National Interest but it also includes at least two
active supporters of the postmodern "pro-Western" paradigm whose values are
flawed, who have been personally bankrolled by "the international community"
and whose loyalty to their country is at best suspect.
As the country's prime minister, Dr. Kostunica has theoretically the real
power and authority, but they are curtailed by the chronic lack of unity in
his coalition cabinet. The main culprit appears to be the "pro-Western,
reformist" G-17+ party of Kostunica's old presidential rival Miroljub Labus.
>From a reliable source, we learn that Labus and his chief party colleague,
finance minister Mladjan Dinkic, are consistently undermining cabinet unity
by ostensibly agreeing to a certain position at ministerial meetings and
then promptly proceeding to advocate a different, often completely contrary
position, in public utterances and media interviews. This has been apparent
on most critical issues listed above, including Labus's now notorious
ambivalence on the issue of Montenegrin independence and the surrender of
Serbian indictees to The Hague.
Dr. Kostunica remains reluctant, however, to reconstruct the government and
bring the Radical Party of Serbia (SRS) into the two-party coalition with
his Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS). A year ago, when asked about this, he
told me that "for foreign as well as domestic policy reasons" no such
coalition was possible. He accepted that "we need to be able to count on all
parties represented in parliament as potential partners," but added that the
Radicals would have to become "a party of the mainstream, to discard
careless rhetoric and demagoguery, and act like a responsible force." Today
he sees the main obstacle not in the Radicals "careless rhetoric" but in the
effect that such a coalition would have on the attitude of foreign powers.
Bringing "Seselj's people" into government, he thinks, may only accelerate
the process of detaching Kosovo from Serbia, result in renewed pressures
over The Hague, and facilitate Montenegro's secession.
While some commentators see validity in Kostunica's argument, a number of
his own supporters point out that he has to give it a try. They point out
that the local DSS chapter in Serbia's second largest city, Novi Sad, had to
disobey Kostunica's instructions in order to build the ruling coalition with
the SRS in Novi Sad. That coalition proved the key to a new atmosphere of
stability and normalcy in Vojvodina, following a series of artificially
engineered inter-ethnic incidents that were meant to place Serbia's northern
province on the unfriendly agenda of the "international community." A
high-ranking DSS figure told us that "even as it is, Voja (Kostunica) does
not have the means to prevent all those catastrophies from taking place. If
we continue on this automatic pilot, the end will be predictable, with
mathematical precision. Maybe a radical new turn would change the equation
and create a new synergy!"
Quite so, says a Washingtonian analyst specializing in the Balkans who asked
not to be named: "Kostunica is seen in the West as the bad guy in the
present coalition-a 'nationalist,' unfriendly to The Hague, hard on Kosovo,
etc. In a coalition with the Radicals he would suddenly become the good guy,
the 'moderate' who will keep them on the leash and make them behave."
Kostunica's options are limited, and if he keeps doing what he's been doing
he'll keep getting from abroad what he's been getting-which is nothing. By
making a radical turn-the pun is intended-he may not save Serbia from the
many calamities it faces, but he will certainly give it a chance that it
does not have in its present state of paralysis.
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/newsviews.cgi/The%20Balkans/Serbia
/Belgrade_Paralyzed.printer
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