The Left And The Right Shake Hands

Civic Alliance (GSS) leader Vesna Pesic and Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) leader Vuk Draskovic (together they make up the new Democratic movement of SerbiaDEPOS) shook hands at a press conference on Tuesday, November 15. The gesture brought back to mind a meeting of the ``united opposition'' in April 1991, before the visit of Crown Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic. Member of the Reformists Ivan Djuric had helped bring about the visit, while the SPO acted as the main host. At the time, the Reformists grumbled and were suspicious of cooperating with Vuk whom they criticized for his Chetnik folklore. Without trying to be ironical, this handshake illustrates a political friendship based on mutual respect, one which was strengthened during that depressing and bloody autumn of 1991 when deserters fleeing from the front started making trouble in Kragujevac, Becej, Smederevo, Pozarevac, Kraljevo and other cities.

That was perhaps Serbia's greatest show of resistance to the war since King Milan's war with Bulgaria (Balkan Wars 1912) and the call to Serb politicians for a stronger prowar stand, which wasn't heeded by many. The world has unjustly overlooked this cry from Serbia. The grave of Miroslav Milenkovic a reservist from Gornji Milanovac has been forgotten. Milenkovic, a construction worker and father of two, was opposed to the war. He killed himself in Sid (Serbian town, close to the front with Croatia) on September 20, 1991 standing between two groups of reservists, one group threw down their guns while the other took them up and headed for Tovarnik and the front (Vukovar).

The antiwar campaign, the signatures on a petition demanding that the citizens of Serbia decide by referendum if they agreed to allow their children to go to the fronts outside Serbia, the actions ``Black arm band,'' ``The last bell'' organized by groups close to today's Civic Alliance, were called Reformists and Ante's Serbs (Socialist Yugoslavia's PM Ante Markovic). These were all gestures of personal courage by helpless people in a Belgrade full of armed men in uniforms, various paramilitary groups, anonymous and public threats, with paramilitary leaders such as Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan and the leader of the ``White Eagles'' Dragoslav Bokan. When several thousand people gathered in Pioneer Park in Belgrade (between the Federal and Republic Assembly buildings) for a rally organized by antiwar associations close to the Reformists and demanded that Dubrovnik be saved, peace activist Pavlusko Imsirovic was beaten up, and a Belgrade police inspector threatened to send some Chetniks over to carve him up a bit. The SPO and the Civic Alliance qualified the Serbian Radical party (SRS) as a fascist organization which at the time was just a pawn in the hands of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, and demanded that its actions be penalized. The Reformists aimed at preserving Yugoslavia and demanded the respect of human rights, believing that war wasn't the way of resolving Yugoslavia's problems and that a time would come when things would have to be settled. SPO leader Vuk Draskovic was demonized in the statecontrolled media, he and the SPO were presented as ``forces of chaos and insanity.'' Draskovic followed the antiwar feeling of the Serbian youth and understood the dilemmas of the deserters and fathers of only sons. On January 1, 1992 Draskovic joined those who night after night had been lighting candles in the memory of war victims in front of the Serbian Presidency building. Talking to VREME at the time, Draskovic said that he would continue with his antiwar efforts, even if he lost his party in the process. It was clear that his position wasn't an easy one.

Draskovic arrived at his antiwar stand through his Herzegovinian roots and experience that peace must be made with the Moslems and a peaceful demarcation achieved with the Croats. While Draskovic condemned the war policy, the SPO had long been linked with the activities of the socalled Serbian Guard, a paramilitary organization founded in August 1991, but disbanded in early 1992 with the help of the authorities and disappeared from the public scene. After the destruction of Vukovar, and in the midst of the official media's noise about ``liberation'' and ``victory,'' Vuk Draskovic the nationalist said: ``Take your caps off and stand in silence!'' On June 28, at the St. Vitus' feast day rally in 1992, Draskovic said he would beg Sarajevo's forgiveness and in May 1993, his wife Danica Draskovic had the courage to say that her husband would fight to protect the persecuted Moslems in his native Gacko.

After the violence committed against Vuk and Danica Draskovic on June 1 this year, politicians rallied around the Civic Alliance, out of a debt of honor and a feeling of moral obligation; a protest in the name of the protection of personal integrity and resistance to violence was made, and an action for the liberation of Vuk and Danica Draskovic mounted. The rallies were boycotted by two Belgradebased civiliannationalist parties, the Democratic Party (DS) and the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) whose officials made it clear that they could not appear at rallies led by Farmers' Party leader Dragan Veselinov or Vesna Pesic. This intentional sabotage of a political option was due to the aversion felt by the so called national intelligentsia towards ``elements lacking in national sentiments.'' It is a fact that the ``nationalist'' Draskovic was more correct towards the thwarted Civic Alliance than DS and DSS leaders. It was more difficult for him to move his party towards a civilian option than it was for the GSS to agree to an alliance with a national party. Belgrade Institute of Social Sciences analysts noticed in 1990 that as much as 92% SPO voters urged a stronger nationalist option. Last summer the ``civilian syndrome'' was the reason for a crisis in the SPO leadership after SPO vicepresident Slobodan Rakitic resigned and deputy Mladen Markov declared war on the party leadership.

Ahead of the 1992 elections there were indications that the Civic Alliance might perhaps appear jointly with DEPOS on election lists. Slogans and phrases from 1990 about ``a united Serbian opposition'' were repeated. Vesna Pesic called this a ``a great step forward,'' Slobodan Rakitic (SPO) spoke of a ``new beginning.'' There was no new beginning in spite of the fact that Milan Panic, Yugoslav PM at the time, had Reformist ministers in his cabinetTibor Varadi and Momcilo Grubac from Vojvodina, and Ljubomir Madzar from Belgrade. With their civilized manners, these men gave hope that politics in Belgrade could take a turn for the better.

In spite of the fact that Civic Alliance member Nebojsa Popov was an unyielding negotiator when the St. Vitus' feast day rally delegation demanded Milosevic's resignation, several months later, the old DEPOS turned down the ``good offices'' of the Civic Alliance. The Democrats hinted that they would be glad to see Vesna Pesic, but no agreement was reached. In the end the Civic Alliance entered the 1992 elections alone. The political group which openly criticized the war policy followed by Milosevic's regime didn't get into Parliament. The partial success of the Reformists in Vojvodina in coalition with the Belgrade Democrats wasn't even close to the results achieved by Djuric at the 1990 elections. At the beginning of 1992, the Democrats managed to set up a firm alliance through deputy groups with the Reformists in Vojvodina, to include them in deputy groups, and enter elections jointly in 1992. In this way they quickened the disintegration of the Reformists, since their disappointed voters fled to other groups which they perceived as standing a better chance at the elections. Whispering: ``We are a misunderstood sect,'' they plunged deeper into helplessness and split into branches with unfamiliar abbreviations (GSSthe Civic Alliance of Serbia, NSSThe People's Farmer's Party, LSDVthe Social Democratic League of Vojvodina, DRSV the Democratic Reformist Party of Vojvodina). This situation was characteristic of the entire opposition.

Now, in 1993, the alliance with Draskovic and the New Democracy gives the Civic Alliance a chance of consolidating its position, and Serbia's opposition an opportunity of rehabilitating the antiwar option.