RIGHTS-YUGOSLAVIA: Time for Political Process to Resume

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Vesna Peric-Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jun 8 1999 (IPS) - The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia has not only mashed the country’s infrastructure and economy. It has also damaged the democratic process which, opposition leaders say, must be resumed as soon as Serbia is allowed to live in peace.

Since Belgrade accepted the European Union-Russian peace plan last week, the subject reappeared in Serbian media, despite the penalties critics may face due to the State of War declared in the country when the air attacks began on March 24.

The relative social and political cohesion experienced during the war -which at least temporarily reinforced the government against the foreign enemy – is now giving way to renewed political projects and ambitions.

“The next step Serbia has to take is broad democratisation,” Vuk Draskovic, leader of the opposition Serb Renewal party (SPO), the country’s third largest political group, told IPS.

“Now that the end of the war is on sight, the next thing should be democracy in this country,” he said, commenting on the parliamentary approval of the peace plan presented by Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari and Russian special envoy Victor Chernomyrdin.

The parameters of such democratisation, however, are yet to be defined, as Draskovic – like many other opposition figures – identifies Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic as the most important stumbling block for the development of democracy in Serbia.

The issue at stake is whether political parties will seek a profound transformation of the political system, or are just struggling for Milosevic’s post.

Draskovic was part of Milosevic’s government, as deputy Prime Minister, until a few weeks ago, when he was dismissed for telling people that Yugoslavia could not win a war against the world’s 19 most powerful countries.

The ruling coalition is currently composed of Milosevic’s Socialist party, the nationalist Radical party of deputy prime minister Vojislav Seselj and the neocommunist Yugoslav United Left (JUL), of Milosevic’s wife, Mira Markovic.

They have kept a low profile regarding the political future of this country.

The Socialists have won parliamentary elections in 1990, 1992 and 1997, but suffered a setback in the local vote of 1996, in which opposition parties gained control of the country’s 15 largest cities. The next Parliamentary election is due in 2001.

Draskovic’s view is shared by Zoran Zivkovic, of the Democratic party (DS) . Zivkovic, mayor of Nis, Serbia’s third largest city, told IPS that “together with the reconstruction of our destroyed country, another process has to be developed – the process of democratisation”.

Zivkovic blames Milosevic for the air attacks coming from the world’s most important democracies. “It was not democracy that fell on our heads, those were bombs, missiles. People in Serbia do not need anyone now to explain to them who is to blame. They know it.,” he says.

“It was regime that lead us to this situation, and NATO. But, it is also clear that democracy will be a hard thing to achieve here if this regime remains in power. It is for us now, people in Serbia, to change this regime and to enter the road of reforms and democratisation” he added.

Goran Svilanovic, head of the small Civic Alliance of Serbia, agreed. “Strategically, Serbia should orientate itself to Europe. This means, development of democracy, real democratic institutions, the end of this regime. The period ahead of us is going to be, among other things, the end of Milosevic’s era in Serbia.”

“The nucleus of civil society was fragile here even before March 24” comments Zagorka Golubovic, a sociology professor at Belgrade University.

“NATO campaign against this country brutally stopped the development of the feeble democratic processes. Thanks to the NATO action, the profound dissatisfaction of people with the regime and its political institutions was rerouted against the outer enemy,” she says.

“NATO practically did a big favour to the regime and ensured its monopoly in power,” she adds.

Milosevic’s opponents argue that the unity of Serbs against NATO attackers, provided the regime with an excuse to silence dissent. But they also agree that without NATO bombs falling on Serbs’ heads things might change.

A the height of NATO attacks, the state-controlled television loudly denounced opposition politicians who were calling for a compromise or acceptance of western terms for Kosovo, which was in general terms what the Serbian parliament had to swallow a few weeks later.

The owner of a private Belgrade newspaper was killed in April, after he criticised the government.

Now the peace plan is being heralded as a victory for Serbia, for it does not include -as the so-called Rambouillet Accord did – a referendum for independence in Kosovo, nor free access to the country to NATO troops.

Ironically, analysts say, when NATO targeted Serbia’s biggest cities, including Belgrade, Nis, Novi Sad or Kragujevac, it was hitting towns controlled by opposition parties, such as Draskovic’s or Zoran Djindjic’s Democratic party.

Their victory in local elections in November 1996 was initially ignored by the government, but later confirmed after four months of massive street protests in Belgrade, that many then thought would bring Milosevic down.

“We were between a hammer and an anvil. You couldn’t tell who was hammering harder – the government here in Serbia or NATO and the international community,” says Vladan Batic, coordinator for the Alliance For Change (SZP), the largest opposition coalition in Serbia.

“The international community has moved us extremely far away from democratic changes. They have supported Milosevic for years, treated him as a guarantor for peace. They have hindered democracy in Serbia. Now we have a long road to go,” said Batic, also the leader of the small Christian-Democratic Party.