Closing Time

In our divided and lonely country the diplomatic profession has undergone a calvary similar to the one endured by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and all state structures affected by the disintegration of the federal state.

After several purges in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the number of people involved in diplomatic work dropped from 2,000 to around 1,000. Some are still in the service, but they don't agree with the present policy, others chose to remain abroad. Others again, did a volteface, while some were simply sacked.

The matter concerns a dangerous trenda tendency to achieve absolute ``purity,'' and is hostile towards all that is different, national or political, said a diplomat who left the service.

Ilija Djukic was Foreign Minister in 1993. He is regarded as a loyal career diplomat. Djukic said recently that ``a new foreign ministry had been created.''

By moving from the federal ministry to the republican and vice versa, and earning the reputation of a man with diplomatic experience, the current Federal Foreign Minister Vladislav Jovanovic, de facto carried out purges based on foggy ``patriotic criteria,'' which implied a lack of ``cosmopolitanism'' and ``internationalism.''

In January 1993, the Belgrade daily ``Vecernje Novosti'' lamented over the fact that ``close relatives of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman's close associates'' were sitting in the Foreign Ministry. The arrow had been let fly, and some of the undesirables were dismissed this spring. A veteran diplomat said that along with the purges, a lot of new people had come who had worked for the police before. The contents of diplomatic dispatches are unknown, but it is very likely that this atmosphere led to the wish to write what ``those at the top'' wished to read, so that the reports were rigged, creating a fictitious reality, one which would tally to daily political needs.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's April 1991 definition of war goals (his wellknown speech in the Serbian Assembly) was proof that he was opposed to the new world order. At a time when Europe is uniting, Milosevic believes that France's equality is threatened by Germany's domination in Europe. He fears the renewal of the AustroHungarian empire. There were many indications that Milosevic expected a putsch in Moscow, and he has been opposed to Russia's rapprochement with the West.

The authorities installed a lobby of advisors who supported an ideology nostalgically inclined to the Cold War balance of forces. During his term in office as Federal Prime Minister, Milan Panic tried to introduce rationality into Yugoslav politics, an understanding of the modern world's logic, dynamics, tolerance and realism. However, Information Minister at the time, Miodrag Perisic, spent a lot of time telling Russian journalists that we were very concerned over Russia's fate, all the more so as Russia had failed to understand that a war in the Balkans was in its national interests, too. (Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev tried to explain in vain that WW2 had ended in Bolshevism and that Russia had not managed to rid itself of it for 70 years.)

From the start of his term as President, Milosevic showed that he viewed diplomacy as some kind of a special war. He has never considered the breakingoff of diplomatic relations and their lowering to the lowest level as a particularly strong signal, because he just doesn't think much of this particular type of activity. The old French term for ambassador espion honorable translates as ``honorable spy.'' Milosevic has managed to delete the ``honorable'' part. During his first months in power, Milosevic did not receive US Ambassador Warren Zimmermann because the latter had failed to recognize him, Milosevic, as the Tsar of all Serbs, crowned in Kosovo in 1989. Milosevic's propaganda has always proclaimed all contacts between his political opponents and foreigners as espionage, mercenary activities and treachery. Before elections, cameras were installed in front of foreign embassies, recording who of the opposition leaders had dined with foreign ambassadors. Even though he was forced to communicate personally with foreign representatives, there is no proof that Milosevic had a clear perception of their intentions, or of prevailing tendencies in the world, nor did he pay much attention to statements issued by opposition parties about who he had met with, things he had turned down or been forced to accept. Three war years have passed in this way.

In the summer of 1991, when the world powers still urged the preservation of Yugoslavia, Milosevic, who allegedly supported the concept of Yugoslavia, along with the JNA and all the secessionists in the country, toppled Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic and his government through whom the world had been trying to help Yugoslavia. In autumn 1991, Milosevic assessed that Europe was biased and proclaimed the fact that the United Nations had taken over the problem, a salvation.

Yugoslav Presidency President at the time Borisav Jovic then spoke of ``nonaligned friends.'' He makes no difference between the fact that Josip Broz Tito's funeral was attended by 209 state and party delegations (38 heads of state, including Russia), while the founding of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. the federation of Serbia and Montenegro) was attended by three ambassadors (including the ambassador of Luxembourg).

Milosevic speaks English, and thinks that this makes a diplomatic service unnecessary. A month after announcing peace and an opening towards the world, Milosevic proclaimed the United Nations an enemy. Milosevic has conducted foreign policy without diplomacy, or rather, in spite of it.

In an atmosphere of the state's disintegration, Milosevic is suspicious of career diplomats and resorts to a form of underground diplomacy. The entire Russian Communist and nationalist opposition have passed here, including half the old Russian nomenclature and a part of the USSR Academy of Arts and Sciences. Thanks to private business which in this way ensures for itself a patriotic image and business deals in Russia and elsewhere, Moscow's entire politburo has been transformed into writers. They have been printed in numerous editions which surpass Solzhenitsyn's entire opus printed in the West.

Zhirinovski did not receive the same welcome as Eduard Limonov, a writer, and the man who spent a weekend shooting down on Sarajevo. There is room for all, including Aleksandar Vengerovski who said recently: ``We'll stop gas supplies to Europe and send you oil in tanks.'' Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Pavle said modestly that we only needed love. Things went even further when Serbian top government official Kosutic met with Italian fascists. Many world con men have visited this country at the taxpayers' expense.

This policy is so bad that one wonders if it is the result of stupidity, incompetency of simply bad intentions. The Yugoslav Government started legal proceedings against NATO, and on being told that this was not possible, sued all 16 member countries individually. Federal PM Radoje Kontic's credibility was undermined by sending him off to America where no one wished to meet him. Another example: while demonizing the world, we also go begging for money from it. A begging letter was written to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which replied that Yugoslavia was no longer its member. No protocol office in the world would allow itself such nonchalant behavior and reduce its federal foreign minister to the status of a federal unit chaperon, a ``governor'' as former Yugoslav PM Milan Panic once said. There is a strict hierarchy in the diplomatic service. The foreign minister is an independent figure and he is part of the President's entourage during state visits, sometimes he is also part of the prime minister's team, but it is the deputy foreign minister who is usually present on such occasions. On the rare occasions when Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic meets with foreign visitors or travels somewhere, he usually takes Federal Foreign Minister Vladislav Jovanovic along with him. This however, should not lead anyone to the conclusion that Jovanovic has much influence. On the contrary. During Milosevic's recent visit to Romania, Jovanovic managed to set up an agreement on friendship between the two countries, and it is expected that the document will be signed in Bucharest by the end of the month. Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic who is supposed to sign this document might have learned of the matter from a bulletin which quoted Romanian papers which were the first to bring the information.

In Tito's day, diplomacy was the exclusive domain of the head of state. ``In Tito's time, it happened sometimes that some complex issues were resolved via diplomatic channels without the knowledge of Parliament or even the Government, and this did lead to a certain amount of tension. It never happened however, that the diplomatic service was bypassed on issues concerning foreign affairs!,'' said Novak Pribicevic talking to VREME. At one time Pribicevic was considered to have a great future in the diplomatic service. He left in 1991 and is now involved in private business.

So many mistakes have been made that the only explanation is that the matter concerns crass stupidity. Reactions by Human Rights Minister Margit Savovic, in cases of flagrant human rights violations, are such, that the only conclusion arrived at, is that her government has no intention of protecting human rights. Sir Henry Wotton, a 16th century English diplomat and poet, wrote that a representative was an honorable man sent abroad to lie for the good of the state. The current elite in power have taken this metaphor literally. The difference is that those chosen to spread the truth, lie a lot, and they don't do so for the good of the state, and they are not honorable men. Former Information Minister Milivoje Pavlovic lied blatantly during his term in office (all we need remember is his statement that Serbian Renewal MovementSPO leader Vuk Draskovic had hurt himself, after Vuk had been brutally beaten up by the police). It seems that Pavlovic is planned for an ambassadorial post.

The waiting list is interesting. Even though we do not have many ambassadors in the world at present (many countries have lowered the level of diplomatic contacts because of sanctions), the state authorities are not in a hurry to fill the existing ones. Russia and China have ambassadors in Yugoslavia, while Yugoslavia has a charges d'affaires in Moscow and Beijing.

Pribicevic told VREME that all these gaffes were just a reflection of the existing xenophobia. An example to point is the refusal to renew the CSCE mission's mandate. There have been too many cases when visas have been refused, even to businessmen who wished to invest their capital in Yugoslavia. The state-condoned blockade of the Danube River is another form of self-imposed isolation. On the other hand, international negotiators have succumbed to the illusion that the warlords might create a stable framework for the resolving of the crisis. It would be necessary to negotiate, however, with all those who were against the war from the start and with the victims of the war. The world which functions according to some well-established values, and where one's word and signature mean something, and a threat or promise produce some kind of a result, has been faced here with a very different kind of reality. Pribicevic, who was once Yugoslavia's Ambassador to Albania, described the atmosphere of isolationism in the country. There was a very strong feeling of pride that Albania would endure the confrontation with the whole world which was anti Albanian. Promises and pledges were made that Albania would persevere on its chosen course. The past became a vital point of reference, because it was proof of one's superiority (partly because of aspirations towards Kosovo, but not just because of that). On the other hand, when Yugoslav TV showed the soap serial ``Dynasty,'' the streets in Tirana would be deserted. ``Dynasty'' was the average Albanian's idea of America. Thus, their concept of the world was as unrealistic as the one offered to them by the authorities. When it became clear that the regime was going to fall, the belief spread that Albania would soon reach undreamed prosperity.

An illusion has been created here too, namely, that the lifting of sanctions will lead to a speedy increase in the standard of living. The Albanians were soon disillusioned. This disillusionment says a lot to those who are willing to listen, namely, that the price of isolation must be paid, even after it has stopped.

Embassy Caretakers

Embassies, consulates, cultural centers, land and the property of the former common state abroad were inventoried in late 1991, before the disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in order that a division of assets might be carried out. Most of it has remained the property of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which is recognized by a small number of countries.

Socialist Yugoslavia acquired most of the buildings between 1945 and 1990. None of the buildings inherited from the Kingdom of Serbia have been preserved in their initial form. With money received from the sale of these buildings others have been bought, so that Serbia will insist on certain rights when it comes to settling property accounts with the other republics``inheritors'' of the Socialist Yugoslavia.

When it comes to gifts, the issue becomes even more complicated. One of the most valuable buildings, the magnificent ambassadorial residence in the heart of Paris, close to the Foreign Ministry, was given to King Aleksandar by the French Government. The value of the embassy building in Addis Ababa and its 11,000 sq meters of grounds (only the Yugoslav Embassy in Moscow is bigger) is estimated at 5 million dollars. It was the Emperor Haile Sellasie's personal gift to President Tito. Who will get the building in Argentine, an anonymous gift made in 1929, but known to have been made by Croatian emigrants?

The circumstances under which some of the buildings have been acquired are murky. The manner in which the embassy in Budapest was acquired in 1940, is listed as ``unknown'' in official documents.

The carpet in the embassy in Ankara is a gift from Kemal Ataturk. The embassy in Czechoslovakia is famous for its collection of paintings by Vlaho Bukovac. The Yugoslav Embassy in Beijing (the building is leased) has a precious vase, which under Chinese regulations cannot leave the country. Its owner, a former Yugoslav diplomat, left it to the Embassy ``as a gift.''

The collection of 2,600 art works, mostly paintings, vases, sculptures, silverware, and antique furniture worldwide, are part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia property, and should also be entered in the division of assets. Some information indicates that a part of this property has already found its way to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

In short, negotiations on the division of assets could prove very complicated.