A Fateful Year

Kostunica is often mentioned as a patient player, long term, who see his chances in the times after the storm blows over and people appreciate something else; primarily balanced political stands. Sources close to the DSS mention him in that context. The Socialists call him "Seselj in a tuxedo" because of his support for Karadzic and the opposition members who don't like him claim his long term planning is actually a rationalizing of his failure at the last elections when the DSS won just seven seats in the Serbian parliament.

VREME: Democratic Party leader Zoran Djindjic said recently that Slobodan Milosevic will be knocked out at the next elections. How do you knock out the man who knocked out the opposition three times?

Kostunica: "A lot of things contributed to the 3-0 score for the Socialists. They don't have an impressive majority and I don't think they can enlarge what they have. They could lose. If they were so sure of their policy results they wouldn't need all this repression and throttling of the media. They wouldn't launch an almost Stalinist elections campaign on state TV. I don't like too optimistic statements but I think the opposition has reason for optimism."

The opposition has failed so far in pushing through any of its large political demands. Political life has boiled down to a kind of vegetation and survival on the political scene is seen by some as links with Milosevic and others with Karadzic...

"Some will say that the past five-six years have been marked only by the failure of opposition parties. There have been failures undoubtedly. But 1996 is the turning point. Not just because it's an election year but in a deeper sense. It is a turning point in terms of the fate of the people and the fate of existing opposition parties and their leaders. The five unsuccessful years you mentioned are just the continuation of the 50 years of opposition to the authoritarian regime. Those failures woke the hopes of the people of Serbia at one point. I believe that hope can be awoken today. Perhaps not in the same way but it can."

Radical party leader Vojislav Seselj recently called all opposition parties to swear before the Patriarch at Easter that they won't cooperate with the Socialists and won't attack each other. You suggested a similar opposition deal over a year ago...

"A year and a half ago we felt that in the frequent discussions on a united opposition, disputes between opposition parties which were often more fierce than disputes between some parties and the authorities, an agreement on a minimum of agreement had to be reached. The opposition had to stop attacking each other and cooperating with the Socialists."

Obviously, there is more talk of cooperation among the opposition after Dayton which many opposition parties see as the biggest betrayal of Serb national interests and goals. To the Socialists, the Dayton peace is an election ace and to you in the opposition it's an infusion...

"I won't just say that. Undoubtedly the Dayton agreement put national interests in the background in some ways. But, all that does not mean the national issue is being taken off the agenda. It becomes relevant in the next elections in the sense of the responsibility of the ruling party. Responsibility for a destructive war mongering policy in 1990 and '91 which could have been avoided. That includes responsibility for the inadequate policy of capitulation that could have been avoided.

On the other hand, the Dayton agreement opened two new issues - Kosovo and the Hague. Those will be on the agenda once the campaign starts. All those issues enable a rapprochement of opposition party stands and the hardships in terms of democracy in Serbia contribute to this. It's a rapprochement of convenience and need. It stems from the fact that the situation in parliament and the media in Serbia is much worse now than it was five-six years ago."

But that opposition cooperation does not seem to be going smoothly. The idea on a parallel parliament seems to be losing momentum...

"In my opinion, that was started carelessly and it was clear from the start that it could not be achieved as a whole. I find the idea of cooperation and agreement among the opposition on a minimum of things incomparably closer. It's a healthy idea if the debates of that parliament aren't expanded unnecessarily to things that could be the seed of dispute."

March 9 is approaching. Opposition leaders have different views on how to mark that day. Vuk Draskovic seems to be expecting a lot, Djindjic declared it the start of the election campaign, Seselj insists on "a smart gathering on the streets". What does the date mean to you. Isn't it naive to believe that the regime can be shaken at gatherings like that?

"The experience of the post-communist world is that the regime can be shaken at gatherings like that only if that ambition hasn't been announced earlier. Something like that comes from the accumulated discontent of the people. In this case, that might not be the issue but we can't deny the fact that we all took part in March 9 and can't refuse to take part tomorrow. To me it's more a memory of the terrible years in the past."

Your party won't run in the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS) elections. You said you would support Karadzic and his SDS. There is a silent agreement among you on the goals of the war and that in war the SDS is not a party. The war is over, why did you decide not to appear in the elections?

"There was no agreement between us and the SDS on the goals of war but there was in our assessment of the rights of the Serb people in Bosnia. Unlike Milosevic's party and some of the opposition, in 1990-91 we did not believe the war is the best way to achieve and protect Serb national interests. On the contrary. We felt that it had to be defended through diplomacy and the media.

We said the future of Bosnia lies in securing the political subjectivity of the Serbs within Bosnia and territorial continuity. In some ways that was made official in the Dayton agreement. It could have been different with a lot less deaths. The Dayton agreement is an irrefutable fact to us. Two entities were formed in one state which is and isn't a state. It is Bosnia and it isn't. Our political goals are the same as in 1992 - supporting everyone in the RS who wants to sustain the political subjectivity of the Serbs and territorial continuity. That did not and does not mean links with any one party but DSS links to the rights of the Serb people. The cooperation established in Dayton between Alija Izetbegovic and Slobodan Milosevic does not exclude cooperation between the RS and Serbia. For us that second cooperation is more important. We are closer to the RS than Bosnia as a whole. That is our stand and we will support everyone who works towards that goal. We don't think we should take part in those elections or that anyone from Serbia has the right to tell the people who were at war what they should do now."

You are often criticized for disregarding the fact that the Pale regime is autocratic, that a lot of bad things were done there in you support for Karadzic.

Yes I have, but in the sense that the DSS stands or my own were misconstrued. Support for something that is the right of the Serbs across the Drina is not support for a political force or political figure. Those are two different things. We always urged and supported one right or one political orientation in Bosnia, not every step taken and not every political leader."

Sometimes it seemed as you were given unconditional support to every step taken. Last summer you told a press conference that the operation in Srebrenica are "a defensive action by the Serb army". Now it turns out that that defensive action could have been one of the ugliest episodes of the war...

"I am convinced that I voiced some reservations in answering that question. And there is still a maybe over Srebrenica today. There are so many examples of media manipulation that anyone who uses their brain has to think twice. If US assistant State Secretary John Shattuck, on his tour of LJubija and Omarska, said the landscape and pits covered in snow confirm claims by individual inmates of the camps there you have to stop and think. The certain thing is that there is no excuse for crime whoever commits it."

Among the opposition Slobodan Milosevic is disputed from two positions. Some accuse him of dragging Serbia into war and the sanctions with destructive and unrealistic national projects. Others criticize him for not completing that project, for getting out of the war when he had to strike hard and create a Greater Serb state. What do you criticize the Serbian President for most?

"Entering a war that could have been avoided. A lack of national goals. IN 1990-91 he had to try to give the Serb question an international framework once Tudjman opened it with his election victory in Croatia. After the fall of the Krajina, an excellent article was published by the New York Times which said the Serbs in Croatia rebelled after Croatia rebelled against Yugoslavia. The Serbs had reason to rebel because they didn't want to go through what their ancestors went through. That stand had to be defended in the media and by the diplomatic service. If they had spoken up about it things would be different.

On the other hand, Milosevic now unreservedly respects the fact that an international community exists and certain powers in it and he had to do that in 1991. The international community did not exist for him. Or at the very least it boiled down to his hopes of the revival of communism in Moscow. He shouldn't have played with those things. Milosevic did the worst possible thing; he turned the US, the most powerful country in the world, into his enemy and the enemy of the entire Serb nation."