Save Serbia With Your Signature

Only in 24 hours the petition for the resignation of Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia, was signed by 50,000 people all over Serbia. People didn't mind waiting in lines to put their signature. There have been sporadic verbal provocations but no serious conflicts. The motives of the signatories were most accurately described by Dragan Domazet, the president of the Regional Board of the Democratic Party in Nis: "Serbia can go on only with a different leadership!" The motto of this action is: "Save Serbia with your signature". Will the sufficient number of signatures cause the change of authorities? Or limit their power? Or redefine the national programme? Chances are that the fiercest clash so far between the opposition and Milosevic's regime will soon take place.

Milosevic is being reproached for not keeping his electoral promises to transform Serbia into a democratic state, for betraying the national programme and abandoning the concept of federation... The citizens of Serbia were promised prosperity and the standard of living fell by 50%, the inflation is ten times higher and the foreign currency saving funds were robbed; the top circles of the Socialist Party are suffering from corruption and the notorious "protection of Serbs" resulted in thousands of refugees with officially undefined status; there are 28,500 new members of the Veterans' Association; the issue of invalids is unsettled...

The academic Milos Macura said in an interview to the Belgrade TV (February 9) that by the end of 1991 there were 500,000 refugees - 190,000 Serbs and 310,000 Croats - but that only 9% of Croats compared to 43% of Serbs had to leave their homes. Although he didn't mention these figures in order to illustrate the disastrous results of the Serbian politics but to prove that a genocide is being carried out by the Croatian regime, he clearly illustrated the efficiency of the political method used in Serbia.

The Serbian public is confronted with the defeat or a Pyrrhic victory. Serbia is entering the stage of moral, political and social agony. The ever more numerous strikes (which have, until now, been successfully controlled) will soon be impossible to handle. Many factories have been closed down because of the war and the international boycott. The independent union of metal workers has recently announced that "the state of war cannot be used as a justification and a pretext for disregarding the regulations passed by Serbian Parliament and the government". The experts from the Institute for Economic research say that in the next year, in Belgrade area only, around 60,000 people are likely to lose their jobs (in Yugoslav terms, the present figure of 1.600,000 unemployed will increase by another 500,000). The famous loan was a disaster, men are deprived of their passports, the street violence is increasing, the families are facing poverty and uncertainty. Milomir Babic, the president of the Farmers' Association, told VREME that agriculture is so badly affected that a shortage of food can be expected in winter of 1992-1993. The recent measures of the Serbian government, he said, are all just window-dressing. He thinks the fact that a loaf of bread costs as much as a kilo of a low quality fertilizer explains it all. The Democratic Party says in its latest announcement that the previous Serbian regime has failed, and SPO (Serbian Renewal Movement) stresses in its recent proclamation that Serbia today is "one man's property" and "a European ghetto".

Although it has depicted well the catastrophe Serbia is facing, the opposition is trying to overthrow Milosevic by entering the ring where he has been knocking everybody down - by accusing him of betraying the national cause. It may be that the reopening of the Kosovo Pandora box, which Milosevic closed by force, is what he fears the most. The Declaration of the national interests of Serbia by the Democratic Party mentions that "the present way of 'solving' the problems in Kosovo and Metohija has caused a complete political and economic disaster in there regions. The immigration of Serbs didn't stop. Furthermore, the incompetence of the ruling party resulted in a rift between Serbian natives in Kosovo and the "newcomers", thus granting itself an unlimited political monopoly over the region and remarkable financial and material benefits...

It is also said in the Declaration that the national interest of Serbia and the Serbian people has been defined by a small group of people or by Milosevic himself, which lead to the rule of self-will and to autocracy, while the exclusion of the political institutions from the public life made them worthless and ruined their authority (especially the parliament and the government).

Due to the lack of confidence in the institutions of the system, various extremist movements are springing up, offering "quick" and "radical" solutions with uttermost aggressiveness.

The democrats think that Serbia should be constituted as a sovereign state within the existing borders and that Serbs living in other republics should be given the right to decide what kind of state they wish to live in. That actually means that the Democratic Party is advocating a federation of Serbian states, but also offers the option of some kind of South-Slavic association.

Draskovic (the leader of SPO), however, keeps insisting on "4+2" formula - the federation of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia&Herzegovina in confederation with Slovenia and Croatia.

Although the Democratic Party is acting as a national party, Milosevic is trying to neutralize its offensive claiming that the democrats "are for Serbia within the existing borders". Zoran Djindjic, the president of the Executive Board of the Democratic Party, has a ready answer: "We don't think the incomplete Yugoslavia is a good solution ... It is yet another irresponsible political option... We wouldn't dream of turning our backs to Serbs outside Serbia. Serbia should be the back bone of the association of the future Serbian states, which would be open for other non-Serbian ones to join.

An SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) official has recently said that "the Democratic Party is becoming increasingly nationalist". Some left wing parties and the peace movement officials think that the Serbian unity the democrats are calling for could sow discord among Serbs and non-Serbian population in other republics. The democrats, however, say that division of the Serbian people according to the present (administrative) borders would turn the Balkans into an unstable region with the constant threat of armed conflicts. The democrats are still offended by the negligence of the public concerning their anti-war stand and their efforts to "stop the conflicts, avoid military and terrorist incidents and establish stable peace, which is the precondition for all further negotiations". Zoran Djindjic says that his party wishes to prove that "it repudiates Milosevic's ideological and political debts" and that "the national interest of the Serbian people can be defended by democratic means. The present situation is such that the fight for the Serbian national interest is identified with repression and war" and that "it turns out that it is unbecoming to talk about the national interests of the Serbian people. The reason for Milosevic's defeat lies in the fact that he never had a political answer to this crucial question".

Asked by "The Time" magazine correspondent Mrs. Desa Trevisan why the signing of the petition wasn't organized earlier, Djindjic said: "Don't change horses in midstream". Djindjic also said that Milosevic should not be blamed only for causing the war but also for causing "the general national disaster". The announcement made by SPO reads: "Yugoslavia is no more. We lost both Balkan Wars and World War I. All the Serbian casualties in this century were made useless by the ruling regime and all our victories were turned into defeats... Serbia is no more. And what is there left in the non-existent Serbia? Nothing, except the TV Bastille and Milosevic's yes-men, the misery, deceit, general decay. Serbia today is one man's property, left without a single friend. It is on the edge of the abyss and is dying..." SPO demands that "the Serbian Parliament proclaims the independent Republic of Serbia with all the traditional insignia from before 1918, forms the Serbian army, issue a decree permitting the return of the Karadjordjevic dynasty to Serbia..."

SPO also demands the immediate resignation of the President of Serbia, the President of the Government and of all ministers, the formation of an interim government and the holding of the elections for a constituent assembly. The demand for Milosevic's resignation was supported by several opposition parties. Although the coordination between the parties is not on a high level, it is clear that the democratic opposition shares the same aims.

The socialists from Novi Sad have qualified the petition as "another attempt of the opposition to overthrow the legally elected authorities". The socialists from Valjevo qualified the latest move of the opposition as "non-patriotic" and even "treacherous". Petar Skundric, the SPS secretary, called the initiative ridiculous and said that "the opposition envies Milosevic for having a just and all-encompassing solution to the Yugoslav crisis which is getting strong support in Serbia and abroad". Tomislav Raicevic, an SPS member from Pozarevac, says that "now that the situation has calmed down the request for Milosevic's resignation is merely the product of the struggle for power". The socialists are still proving their adherence to the old faith when they were the only ones who could be involved in the legal struggle for power while others who attempted the same were seen as traitors.

It should be expected that the shaken regime will soon become even more nervous and ready for new irresponsible actions. Despite all this, Milosevic is still very strong, but one shouldn't forget that he was much stronger last March when he said: "If we don't know how to work, we sure know how to fight". Serbia is facing a turbulent period. Anyone who claims to know what the future will bring is lying.