POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: Tough Times Ahead…

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Dec 27 2000 (IPS) - Serbia and Yugoslavia face tough times ahead as they try to rebuild the country from the devastation inflicted during the 10 year rule of Slobodan Milosevic which ended with the Serbian parliamentary elections on December 23.

“It would be wrong to say that everything caused in this country by Milosevic simply ended on December 23,” analyst Milan Milosevic told IPS.

“That was the day that marked the new beginning. The doors to painful recovery are open now”.

Serbia, together with tiny Montenegro makes the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), went to the parliamentary elections on December 23.

As all the opinion polls predicted, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) won a landslide victory.

In the 250-member parliament, DOS will have 176 MPs, Milosevic’s Socialist Party 37, while two ultranationalist parties – Radicals and Serbian Unity will have 23 and 14 seats respectively.

“This was the final word of Serbs on 10 years of Milosevic’s rule,” analyst Srbobran Brankovic told IPS. “It was also a triumph of DOS and the final act of the play that started in September. And it was a goodbye to 55 years of communist rule, 11 years late after the Berlin wall fell down”.

Communists ruled here since the end of World War II. Milosevic only changed the name of the party into “Socialist” in 1990.

The victory in Serbia cemented DOS’s power at all levels in FRY, finally ending Milosevic’s undisputed dominance. He lost the federal presidential elections to DOS candidate Vojislav Kostunica in September, while his Socialist Party lost the majority in the federal parliament.

But fighting the legacy of Milosevic’s regime will be an enormous effort, analysts say.

“Federal government (run by DOS) is already dealing well with its tasks,” says analyst Ivan Torov. “But ruined Serbia will see major battles and problems,” he adds.

In FRY, the federal president and federal government deal with foreign policy, international cooperation and defence.

Economic development and functioning in all the other areas of life is within the jurisdiction of the governments of republics, Serbia and Montenegro.

Yugoslav President Kostunica has practically ended the years of isolation of FRY. Since October, FRY was re-admitted to the United Nations (UN), Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after an eight year gap.

Diplomatic relations were renewed with the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France. They were cut when the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, air raids started in March 1999.

Diplomatic relations were established with all the republics of former Yugoslavia, that broke down in bloody wars in the early 90s.

The legacy of 10 years of Milosevic’s rule is devastating to Serbia. He was president of Serbia from 1990 to 1997, when he pushed himself to the post of president of FRY.

“We have to deal a blow to all the remnants of Milosevic’s regime,” says Zoran Djindjic, DOS leader and future Serbian Prime Minister.

“With the new government, due by January 15, we’ll have all the means to do that,” he added.

At the hastily convened press conference when DOS was celebrating its electoral victory, Djindjic told journalists that the new, “transparent government of Serbia will fight corruption and abuses first”.

Milosevic-controlled administration was notorious for its corruption and abuse of all available funds. Close circle of Milosevic’s aides became enormously rich due to the breaching of international sanctions and monopoly-style running of remaining business in the country.

More than four billion US dollars were siphoned out of the country by Milosevic and a few dozens of his aides in the past decade.

Hundreds of accounts held by Milosevic, his family and firms of his aides are controlled abroad, in order to determine the origin of funds.

Djindjic said that one of the first tasks will be “to bring the guilty to justice. There will be no reprisals, but no amnesty either”.

In the past decade, unemployment reached 40 percent in Serbia and salaries fell to 40 US dollars a month. In the 80s, Yugoslavia was the most developed country in the Balkans, the average salaries being 10 times higher than today. Several rounds of severe economic sanctions and almost a decade of isolation brought the economy to a standstill.

Djindjic says that the reforms of the country’s judicial, police and economic system will be his priority.

The new interior minister designate, Belgrade human rights activist and lawyer Gradimir Nalic, wants a thorough reform of the repressive police, that used to be one of the pillars of former regime.

“First of all, the reform of the police will turn it into a force that protects the people and does not go against it” Nalic told IPS.

“Second, the police will be prompt into the investigations that could bring all the members of former regime, who abused power, into the hands of justice”.

The worst situation is within Serbian economy, devastated by several rounds of international sanctions, introduced by the UN and Europe due to Milosevic’s role in wars in neighbouring former Yugoslav republics.

The additional devastation came with 11 weeks of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, air raids in 1999.

“I would not define the economic reforms as a shock therapy,” Djindjic said. “Serbian economy is already in a state of shock and there is no magic wand that can bring it back to life. With the help of international investors and through our own efforts, we must be engaged in hard work in many years ahead of us”.

Statistics show that the overall production in Serbia is only 43 percent of the production in 1989. Foreign debt, unpaid for 10 years now, has reached 15 billion US dollars.

UN officials say Yugoslavia urgently needs some 800 million US dollars in aid to get through the Winter, while the country’s total humanitarian needs for the next six months are between 1.4 and 1.5 billion US dollars, half of which the Belgrade government can cover itself.

According to Branko Dragas, the economy aide of Zoran Djindjic, Serbia’s losses in gross domestic product (GDP) in the past 10 years have reached 216 billion US dollars.

“Serbia waged wars, suffered from international isolation, marinated in mafia-style economy led by the mighty people,” Dragas said.

“We are deeply in red and the only way out is the total reform of the economy. That is where Serbia is heading to, painfully and slowly, in the future”.