STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Get a low APR NextCard Visa in 30 seconds! 1. Fill in the brief application 2. Receive approval decision within 30 seconds 3. Get rates as low as 2.99% Intro or 9.99% Ongoing APR and no annual fee! Apply NOW! http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/NextCard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Yugoslav Ambassador on Mission to Do 'Something Positive' • Read Nora Boustany's previous Diplomatic Dispatches columns. By Nora Boustany Friday, June 1, 2001; Page A28 A crew cut, casual tan trousers, rolled-up sleeves and soft suede high-tops soften the presence of Yugoslav Ambassador Milan St. Protic but do nothing to diminish it. It is not his towering six-foot-plus frame or grand gestures that make him larger than life, but his role as one of the leaders of the democratic opposition that toppled Slobodan Milosevic. Protic's large office on the top floor of the newly reopened Yugoslav Embassy on California Street is almost too small for his intense personality. The man who earned a doctorate in modern European history and then taught it at the University of California in Santa Barbara is all California at first, laid back and mellow. But when he talks about his homeland, he becomes passionate. When things started to change at home in 1992, he was drawn back to join the democratic movement. "It was too much of a challenge for me to miss the show," he said. Protic immediately started organizing rallies and giving speeches about democratic change. He helped form the party of then-opposition politician Vojislav Kostunica, but quit over differences about dealing with Bosnian Serbs. Protic started his own think tank before being elected to parliament in September 2000. He was elected mayor of Belgrade on Oct. 5, when crowds stormed the parliament building and effectively swept Milosevic from power. "I will never forget the moments in 1997 when we faced police squads in the streets," Protic recalled in an interview, referring to student-led protests against Milosevic. "There were 200 of them, fully armed. We were barely 10 inches apart, we were getting so close, we could feel one another's breath. We could see Milosevic's beasts and we were challenging them." The groups that formed the alliance that would overthrow Milosevic began picking up energy. "It was in the air and you could not stop these people. It was like an avalanche," Protic said. Protic was an advocate of nonviolence throughout his mayoral campaign and on the morning of Oct. 6, he was asked to calm the crowds that had gathered on the square outside city hall. He stood on a balcony of Serbia's former royal palace and urged the crowds to pray for the crisis to end peacefully. "I remember I could see people crying," he said. Protic's first act as mayor was to ask residents to clean up their city. "I wanted them to return to normalcy and do something constructive. It was the only thing I could think of to drain the tension out. I said, 'I am not ordering you, I am not commanding you, I am asking you.' " Fighting Milosevic and the Communists was all "negative energy," and despite reservations about uprooting his family and leaving his parents behind, Protic accepted the offer to come to Washington. "It was time to do something positive." He presented his credentials on Feb. 14. After having been closed for two years, the embassy was bare and neglected. In the three months since it was reopened, the ambassador and his skeleton staff have played host to Kostunica, who is now Yugoslavia's president, the prime minister, his foreign minister and central bank governor. The ambassador shows up at 9 every morning to read the U.S. and Yugoslav press before meeting with his diplomats. At noon, he heads out for lunches with people on the Hill, before making the rounds of think tanks and non-governmental organizations interested in the Balkans. "He not only speaks with an American accent but he also speaks the American idiom and appreciates the history of both America and Yugoslavia," said Thomas M. Countryman, the outgoing director of South Central European affairs at the State Department. "He understands the issues of democracy his country is facing and has the substance to interpret in both directions." "He straddles two societies very effectively and he knows the different models for a society that is reinventing itself after two convulsions, the end of communism and the spasms of violence," said James O'Brien, who was adviser on the Balkans to President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. O'Brien, one of the first senior U.S. officials to visit Belgrade last year, met Protic, who was surrounded by people who had been on the streets the week before. With them was a Yugoslav who had been threatened by Milosevic's police, who suspected that the man was working for the U.S. Embassy. The police had taken him to a field and put an unloaded gun to his head. Looking at him, Protic remarked: "Well, welcome back guys." "He was an amazing breath of fresh air," O'Brien recalled. New carpeting and lighting have been installed at the embassy. But refurbishing the embassy is not Protic's main concern -- it may have to be handed over to Slovenia as part of the redistribution of diplomatic property among new countries of the former Yugoslavia. Logistics aside, Protic has a daunting task ahead as his president grudgingly agrees to cooperate with the international tribunal for war crimes, which wants to try Milosevic. Plus, there is Balkan fatigue here, watching the last brick fall from the Berlin Wall. Yugoslavia met the March 31 deadline for arresting Milosevic, thus securing certification for $50 million in U.S. aid and paving the way for aid from multilateral institutions. Protic said it was imperative for Yugoslavia to try its ousted leader at home before handing him over to the international tribunal in The Hague. "Protic's challenge is that he has to get his message to the American people now," O'Brien said. "It is a historical moment for us of facing the truth within ourselves and making him [Milosevic] face our truth," the ambassador said. "We believe our nation desperately needs the concept of the rule of law to sink in and [trying] Milosevic is the best way to begin. We could have organized a monkey trial, but that would be doing what he, the Communists and the Nazis did. There is no doubt about his crimes. We have no reason to avoid his accountability. It took a lot of restraint not to have a vendetta against him." Protic said that his government is waiting to compile enough evidence for a trial. "Look how long it took to try Timothy McVeigh; nobody doubts what he did." Protic said he likes being in Washington. "I may disagree with some things, but I understand it. I like the Americans, their straightforwardness, their easygoing attitude and their diligence. This is a great country." © 2001 The Washington Post Company Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
