I Will Not Give Up!

As a man who does not sing in the choir, as the one who, in the euphoria following the fall of Vukovar, had the courage to say that instead of celebrating we should bow our heads in shame, as a man who in the deafening noise of war drums warned that peace is what we need, as a man from the opposition who without any complexes gave support to the Serbian president after he made his U-turn towards peace... Vuk Draskovic always provides a motive for an interview. Vuk Draskovic had been arrested twice by the president of Serbia. Other opposition parties accuse him of collaborating with the regime, while he persistently repeats that the interests of the people are more important to him than the interests of his party. Last week, the leader of SPO once again attracted the attention of the public by paying another visit to Slobodan Milosevic.

"I acquainted the President of Serbia with SPO's position about the quickest, most determined and wisest way to stop a total decline, both national and of the state", Draskovic reveals the reasons behind the visit. "We want the final nail to be hammered in the coffin of the catastrophic anti-state, anti-national and anti-democratic policies which were in force a few years ago. We want to draw conclusions from the failure of those policies and start off in a new way. Serbia must go into Europe, into the world. Serbia must become European within if it wants to be strong and become part of Europe.

I think that the situation in which we found ourselves is so dramatic that we can be said to be at crossroads: we can either continue in the same direction leading to a precipice, an enforceable decline of both the nation and the state, or we can take a turning which leads to salvation, to renaissance. The new way demands new people, a new program, new policies.

"VREME": It is considered normal for a president of a state to hold talks with leaders of opposition parties, but he seems to be talking with you more often than with leaders of other opposition parties?

I never counted how many times others visited Milosevic. When I myself go to see him it is never with much enthusiasm. I usually go out of necessity, wretchedness, or a need to go. Milosevic is a very good listener, and is capable of adopting some of the things he hears, but only after a delay and after processing them in such a way that he can usurp them and present them as his own. Just compare Milosevic prior to May 1993 and Milosevic today and you will see that they are two different persons. Milosevic today pronounces whole passages from the SPO party program - "Serbia can not be defended in Knin, rather Knin can be defended in Serbia; life is our primary interest; peace-not war, cradles - not graves, wealth, not poverty, cooperation with the world, not the world's prison".

It is also true that he adopts quite a few things when it is already too late. If you take a medicine on time you will be cured, if you take it after the medicine's expiry date, you can poison yourself.

"VREME": Are you trying to say that the Serbian president is taking out-of -date medicines?

He took more or less all medicines a bit too late. He was in favour of an asymmetric federation when a confederation was on the agenda, he was in favour of a confederation when a union of sovereign states was suggested, he was in favour of a union of sovereign states when the Hague document was on the agenda, and he was in favour of the Hague document when the Devil came to claim his share, and when it was all over. Since 1993, Milosevic took part in peace initiatives and accepted projects suggested by the international community without delay. However our trouble lies in the fact that old policies which fueled national hysteria, vanity, primitivism and arrogance created a very dangerous and widespread opinion that since 1993. Milosevic has been out of his mind . Milosevic's policies created a whole array of little Napoleons, national furers, and unreasonable people which make Milosevic look like an angel. If you analyze the current political scene and compare all those who oppose Milosevic, you will realise that things could be worse than they already are, that things can be worse than bad, and that worse can not be an alternative to bad.

"VREME": In your letter to the Contact group you wrote that Milosevic changed his policies. Does it mean that you consider him no longer to be a pyromaniac in fireman's clothes?

As a politician, I prefer not to get involved into any psychological analysis of the president of Serbia - such as whether he is sincere or not, I can only conclude that he is currently pursuing a policy diametrically opposed to the one he pursued in the period between 1990 and 1992. I suppose he is not finding it easy, because people do remember such things, and there are written records of who said what and when. However he also shouldn't be finding it too difficult because the right to notice and correct one's mistakes and illusions is a fundamental human right.

I am trying to knock on the fastened door of an ideological mind which either remains closed or opens slowly with a loud squeak. I spoke to Milosevic last week, in the most dramatic moment for our nation this century, I laid out before him a project of national renaissance, the only way out of this horror, uproar, misery and death, while he even failed to mention that he sent Vladislav Jovanovic off to New York, and brought Milutinovic to Belgrade instead. I was telling him about the government of revival, about projects of regeneration - he listened and nodded, without mentioning that he was doing the exact opposite. But what does it all mean - that I must never talk to him again and must never push that door again? I will carry on pushing every door - and it will loosen; the harder I push, the more it will loosen.

"VREME": What do you say about the claims that by softening his policies, and particularly by "softening" the military might of the Bosnian and Krajina Serbs, Milosevic also weakened his negotiating position?

I agree. Milosevic can now get scared by Tudjman's glory after the fall of Krajina. Suddenly, Tudjman is stronger, because his stick is longer. I think that all those in the Balkans who believe in the power of the stick are doomed to failure. I think that Tudjman is totally out of his mind, that he is staggering like a drunkard, thinking he is some kind of a Balkan Napoleon, forgetting a key fact - he has neither seen or met General Kutuzov yet!

I think that in the eyes of the sensible, democratic world Milosevic is the winner over Tudjman. Until recently, Milosevic's stick scored points for Tudjman while now things are turning the other way.

"VREME": You were sickened at Serbian xenophobia. You were open towards the West and were convinced of its righteousness. Do you nonetheless think that in the most recent tragedy, in Krajina, the action of the West was hypocritical?

I do. I agree absolutely, but again it was assisted by our stupidity. Tudjman attacked Krajina when it suited him best, and these ideal conditions for attack were created by Serbian stupidity. Croatian offensive took place while the world stood shocked before pictures of Srebrenica, Zepa, ethnic cleansing that took place there, and crimes committed by our side, while the world was still bitter about the handcuffing of UNPROFOR troops to lamp posts. The world observed the whole affair with one eye, the one which sees only our sins and crimes. Finally, if only the Serbian side, two days before the offensive began, announced that it unconditionally accepts the Z-4 plan as a basis for future talks between Knin and Zagreb - I am sure that neither the Germans or the Americans would allow Tudjman to carry on with his adventure.

"VREME": What exactly did you have in mind when you said that there is nobody in Serbia who is not in some way responsible for the fall of Krajina?

It was repeated, for years, that Krajina can only exist as part of Greater Serbia. Such madness and absence of reality were so strong that they entered both the consciousness and the unconscious of a large proportion of people. All those who fed people with such a dangerous illusion are guilty. On the other hand, it appears that those of us who neither thought or spoke that way were incapable of explaining to the people that they were greatly mistaken, that they were being ruined by those who should have been leading them to prosperity, and that the stuff they were given as medicine was in fact poison.

"VREME": You warned of evil. You are considered to be the prophet of Serbian politics. Recent developments indicate that many of your worst prophecies came true, and you could be considered some kind of the proverbial black raven. You forecast that the war will either end in the summer, or it will intensify. How does it look now?

My worst premonitions came true. I not only warned of what will happen, but always of what will happen unless we do either this or that. We failed to do what SPO said we should, and that is why my darkest premonitions materialized. We are now coming out with another proposal, a program of national revival, but at the same time I am warning that unless we follow this road, a catastrophe will strike this nation and it will suffer for centuries to come.

If Serbia does not soon set off down this new road suggested by SPO, there will be no peace in Bosnia. The Big world will find a way to instruct either the Croatian or Muslim side to reject the new peace agreement in order to give the strengthened Muslims and Croats more time to defeat the already weakened Serbian forces, which will lead to an exodus of further half a million refugees who will all come to Serbia and turn this country into a refugee camp, a camp for the homeless, the desperate, a country of humiliation, hatred, anger. In that case, we can hardly be expected to avoid blood being spilt here in our own home. Quite a few of our seams will burst. As if it is difficult to guide the Serbs in a wrong direction. The Partisans will fight the Chetniks, Milosevic's fans will fight Seselj's, those on the left will fight those on the right, those on the right will fight those in the middle, the newcomers, the refugees will fight the natives, and in that case the possibility of a conflict erupting in Kosovo can not be excluded. Therefore, we must now chose between renaissance and the above. Those who can not see what lies ahead might reject radical reforms and a radical new course. If they do, they will have to accept responsibility for the biggest national disaster in Serbian history.

"VREME": You are the charismatic leader of the largest Serbian opposition party. You are also a charismatic participant and speaker at public rallies. If you were to organize a protest now, what would it be against?

If those leading Serbia fail to draw adequate conclusions from all that happened so far, and it will soon become clear whether they failed, and if they continue down the old road, we will have no option but to engage in all kinds of political activity, including political rallies, in order to prevent the terrible outcome of the Yugoslav crisis which I already outlined.

VREME: But that outcome seems to be increasingly less dependent on Serbia?

No, no, the keys to our misfortune are ours and the keys to salvation are also in our hands. They are not in our reach, but whether they will be taken, inserted in the lock and turned, after which the door to revival will open, does not depend on the SPO.

"VREME": Are you an optimist?

(long pause)

I am sad and miserable because others fail to see what SPO sees.