POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: Yugoslavia President Aims to Save Federation

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jul 4 2001 (IPS) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica faces his federation’s worst crisis, precipitated by the extradition of his predecessor, Slobodan Milosevic, to a UN war crimes tribunal whose jurisdiction the deposed strongman refused to recognise.

Milosevic’s Jun 28 extradition has sparked the worst political crisis to date in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Zoran Zizic, the federation’s prime minister, resigned Jun 29 in protest over Milosevic’s transfer to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

The Serbian government arranged the extradition unilaterally, circumventing FRY laws and institutions in what Zizic termed an “unconstitutional” and “humiliating” manoeuvre.

By Tuesday, Kostunica was embroiled in talks to name a new prime minister designate with representatives of the major parties in the Yugoslav parliament.

His aim, as his office announced late Monday, was to save the federation and a programme of political reforms begun after Milosevic fell from power last October.

“All the efforts will be aimed to further regulate Yugoslavia’s foreign economic relations and the continuation of reforms, particularly economic” ones, Kostunica’s office said in a statement. “We should also complete the implementation of the platform aiming to re-define relations between Serbia and Montenegro.”

Ten years after the former, six-member Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia fell apart amid wars that lasted until mid 90s, the FRY has been reduced to two republics: Serbia, with a population of 7.5 million people, and Montenegro, with 650,000 people.

Under the FRY constitution, when the federal president comes from Serbia, as does Kostunica, the prime minister must come from Montenegro, as did Zizic.

“Zizic’s resignation threatened all that FRY achieved,” political analyst Zoran Lutovac told IPS. “Kostunica has to put an enormous effort to save the federation for the time being. He has a short time to solve this or we’ll face new elections.”

The federation emerged from ten years of international isolation last October, when Milosevic was forced by a massive uprising to concede electoral defeat to Kostunica.

The international community began to engage the FRY and on Jun 29, donors and creditors pledged some 1.28 billion dollars in grants and loans for the struggling economy. This came in apparent appreciation of Milosevic’s extradition, which the United States in particular had demanded.

Zizic’s resignation effectively has rendered the entire federal cabinet a lame duck. Members will hold office until their successors are chosen, a process for which the constitution allows up to three months. If no new government is formed by then, elections will have to be held.

That prospect appeared to worry politicians but was welcomed by at least one political analyst.

“We could see either a healthier FRY emerge, or a nice divorce of Serbia and Montenegro,” analyst Bratislav Grubacic told IPS. “FRY must clear up the piles of dirty heritage Milosevic left, if it wants to continue.”

Zizic came from the Montenegrin Socialist People’s Party (SNP), once the ally of Milosevic in the tiny republic. Last October, when Kostunica won the presidential elections, SNP switched sides and joined the new leader’s Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) to form a coalition government.

DOS holds 58 of the 138 seats in the federal parliament and needs the support of the SNP’s 28 deputies to govern.

Montenegro’s ruling party is not the SNP, however, but the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), headed by Milo Djukanovic – a pro-independence alliance that boycotted last year’s federal and presidential elections.

Djukanovic took office in 1998. An outspoken critic of Milosevic, he steered his republic away from Serbia with much encouragement from the United States and Europe, which were keen to undermine Milosevic. Montenegro has already replaced the dinar with the German mark, set up its own customs and tax services, and barely contributes to the federal budget.

As for FRY, Djukanovic favours only a loose alliance between Serbia and Montenegro, which would retain individual sovereignty while sharing foreign and defence policy. But to see this through, he will have to court the SNP which, although a minority party in Montenegro, gained political clout by taking part in the federal elections.

“On paper, Yugoslavia exists, but in practice it is two separate states,” said Grubacic. “The separation does not necessarily mean wars as in the 90s. We could see a ‘velvet divorce’.”

The former Czechoslovakia went through such a transition in 1992, he noted, when the Czech and Slovak republics parted ways peacefully. “That country was formed in 1918. That is the same year when the former Yugoslavia was made,” Grubacic said. “Why not a velvet divorce here?”

Meanwhile, Milosevic appeared Tuesday before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. “I consider this tribunal a false tribunal,” he declared. “I do not recognise it as it is an illegal tribunal.”