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Huge aid promise prompted handover
Special report: Yugoslavia war crimes <http://www.guardian.co.uk/yugo/>
Julian Borger in Washington and Ian Black in Brussels
Friday June 29, 2001
The Guardian
It is no coincidence that Slobodan Milosevic's first full day in a Hague prison cell
will be the same day that international donors convene to pledge up to $1.3 bn to help
prop up the war-crippled Yugoslav economy.
Policy analysts in Washington described the delivery of the deposed Serbian leader to
the war crimes tribunal as a triumph for the US-led use of economic sanctions and
incentives as tools to bring war criminals to justice.
At a meeting last month in Washington the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, told
the Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica that Washington would boycott today's
donors conference unless action was taken on Milosevic's handover.
According to Daniel Serwer, a former US envoy to Sarajevo who is now a Balkans
specialist at the US Institute of Peace, the ultimatum tipped the balance in Belgrade
against Milosevic.
"Kostunica did not want this to happen," Mr Serwer said.
"Kostunica takes as his power base the same base as the Milosevic regime. The people
who decided this were in the Serbian government, who weren't going to make economic
progress dependent on Milosevic."
Since Milosevic's fall from power in October, the US had been criticised by European
officials for its insistence that war criminals should be handed over to the Hague
before the "outer wall" of financial sanctions against Yugoslavia could be lifted.
Critics of the policy said it would undermine the new government, and therefore help
Serbian Socialist party activists attempting to restore Milosevic to power. However,
Britain, France and Germany stood with Washington to present a united front.
Ivo Daalder, a Balkans specialist at the Brookings Institution and a co-author of
Winning Ugly, a book on Nato's war in Kosovo, said Milosevic's handover represented a
vindication for the policies of Mr Powell's predecessor, Madeleine Albright.
"Albright won the debate, in that she made Milosevic the problem," Mr Daalder said.
"From early 1999, there was a very conscious effort by the US supported by most
European states, to make Milosevic the point man.
"It has happened quicker than everybody thought. There had been a sense that the new
government should be given a breathing space," he added.
"But this is vindication that measured conditionality was the right approach - The
important thing is that the US and the EU fundamentally agreed on this, and it changed
the debate in Yugoslavia to: Do we want Milosevic or money?"
The full removal of sanctions is also dependent on the handing over of 14 other senior
Serbs indicted for war crimes.
Europe has long been keener than the US to restore Yu goslavia to international
respectability and its Balkan stability pact has acted as a magnet for other countries
in the region.
Slovenia, the first Yugoslav republic to break away, is deep into negotiations to join
the EU. Croatia and Macedonia both have special relationships with Brussels and may
also one day join the union.
Yugoslavia's economy has been devastated by 13 years of of Milosevic's economic
mismanagement and the international sanctions imposed over the wars that started with
the break up of the communist country in 1991.
Last night's handover seems likely to make pledges of aid from the international
community more rather than less generous. The European Commission has already set
aside $190m in its 2001 budget for Serbia and Montenegro, a sum that could rise with
contributions from the 15 EU member states and European Investment Bank.
Diplomats in Brussels have said Washington might put up some $106m, comprising $65m
for Serbia, $33m for Montenegro and the remainder to help refugees.
The World Bank is expected to provide nearly $600m over a three-year period and might
frontload some of that aid to help kick-start the Yugoslav economy.
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