Him, Me and Louis XV

Elisabeth Laly Weymouth is one of the very rare journalists, both foreign and domestic, who have had the opportunity to meet with the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, and she is certainly the only one who managed to pose no less than 233 questions to him.  We called her up in New York with a request that she discuss how it looks being able to get to Milosevic and to talk with him, given that the citizens of his country have no chance to do neither the one nor the other.
Laly Weymouth's first impression was of the long drive from the gate to the entrance to Beli Dvor.

"My god what a beautiful house!  Even the room we spoke in was extremely beautiful."  And then: "One thing appeared surprising to me...  You know, I interview many chiefs of state and presidents of governments throughout the entire world.  They usually have many associates.  With Milosevic there was only one man present.  I asked him who he was, but he did not tell me, so I do not know even his name or whether he is his chief of cabinet or someone else.  I asked him if he has a visit card.  He said - no."
"During the entire interview, which lasted for a continuous two and a half hours, there were only the three of us in that room.  This other man did not say a word, he merely sat there.  In fact, he did say one thing - that the wonderful chairs which we sat on are from the time of Louis XV.  One American also told me that in the hallway there is a Rembrandt, but I did not see it."

"I was very focused, I kept all my questions on my lap and did not want to leave until I posed them all.  Before the interview I thought very hard about what to ask him, and I did not want to miss anything.  Newsweek's Belgrade correspondent and I spent until five in the morning taking down the interview from tapes, and he told me that no one, until now, had spoken with Milosevic in the same way.  I constantly interrupted him and 'broke into' his answers."

"I could not say how he struck me as a man.  I know a lot about Milosevic and I was not interested in any small talk with him.  I wanted to get facts.  I asked myself whether he was getting ready to kick me out, because for about 45 minutes he didn't even offer me tea.  Later they told me that this was probably because he was nervous, but I do not believe so."

"Yes, he did answer all my questions, but was very, very hard and did not back off one inch.  When I asked him why he doesn’t stop the attack on the media, he said that there is no attack on the media.  I said that there is, but he still claimed that there isn’t.  I told him, you must be joking, it is not true, you’ve got to be kidding.  Then I told him that it is grotesque to kill so many people, asked him why he did that, told him that he is responsible for that, and asked him what he had to say to that.  I wanted to know about the War Crimes Tribunal, about Karadzic and Mladic, whether they live here, about the four to seven Bosnian Serbs accused of war crimes who are living here, whether he is protecting them and why he is doing that, why he does not hand them over, why they do not cooperate.  Regarding Kosovo, he told me that he does not like the American plan, that it favors the Albanians.  I asked him whether he wishes to be a part of the West, for sanctions to be stopped, and such questions."

"Maybe it's a miracle, but he did not get angry, nor did he shout.  He answered cordially, and even if he did not answer directly to a question, he still gave an answer.  He said that the problem lies in Western public relations, and not in him.  To the question about his wife he gave a lengthy answer.  Unfortunately we did not print it all.  I told him, supposedly your wife is very powerful.  Supposedly it is she who wished to fire the chief of state security.  What is the truth?  He answered, you should read her books.  They are printed in many countries, she is a university professor.  He claimed that she does not influence his decisions, and denied claims that she is powerful."

"Others can judge this better, but I think that the interview was a pretty good one.  How did I get to him?  An intermediary got in touch with me and suggested to me in a certain way that Milosevic would be prepared to give me an interview.  Until the very last moment, I was not sure whether it would go through.  The week before I was in Russia, also for an interview, so I though - OK, I'll go to Belgrade for two days and will see what happens.  It was worth a try."

"I was told that the version printed in Politika is awful, that it had been completely twisted.  That is why we made the announcement that only our version of the interview is authentic," added Laly Weymouth at the end.

Interview: Unheard Of

The interview given to the Washington Post and Newsweek given at a time when Slobodan Milosevic is not in favor in the USA, has provoked commentaries, reactions and speculations on all sides regarding what he wished to achieve by doing this.

William Walker, Chief of the OSCE Verification Mission, announced that when he meets Milosevic in Belgrade on December 14, he will relay to him the US’s dissatisfaction with the threat of Yugoslav Army intervention in the case of eventual deployment of NATO "rescue forces" in Kosovo.  Namely, in Washington, contrary to Milosevic, they claim that the President of FRY accepted this obligation two months ago in talks with the American Envoy, Richard Holbrooke.  NATO General Secretary, Xavier Solana assessed in Madrid that "President Milosevic will be very careful about attacking" NATO forces for rescuing verifiers.

Quoting diplomatic sources in Brussels, Beta News Agency reported that the American Secretary of State Madeline Albright sent a "sharp message" to Milosevic not to send Yugoslav Army units to Montenegro with a view to bringing into question the lawfully elected government in Podgorica.

Reactions by the opposition in Serbia range from "we know nothing more than we did before the interview" (Dragoljub Micunovic, President of the Democratic Center), to "the President of FRY understood more than clearly the threats directed at him personally", and that "his basic message to Clinton is that he is ready to deal on Kosovo and to acquiesce to the Western governments in order to get financial assistance and to be able to rule for at least several more years" (Vesna Pesic, President of the Civilian Alliance of Serbia).  The assessment by Vojislav Kostunica, President of the Democratic Party of Serbia, is interesting: he thinks that only one fact is interesting in the entire interview, it being that the American plan for Kosovo must be built upon.  "It means that it is not being thrown out as the Socialist Party of Serbia Spokesman stated several days ago, but will be used as a basis for solving the issue of Kosovo," stated Kostunica, adding that "this plan only offers grounds for capitulation, and not for building upon."

Even the Montenegrin political personalities reacted with unease to the interview.  Former President of the Liberal Alliance, Slavko Perovic, stated that the interview appears "as the last straw for rescuing his well compromised position in the eyes of the international community" and that "it was necessary to leave an impression that his position still continues to be 'internationally respected'."  Novak Kilibarda, President of the People's Party, thinks that "no one in history could serve up a hoax the way Milosevic can."
The state media in Serbia made an enormous deal out of Milosevic's interview, almost as if he had sprouted another head.  Pages upon pages of Borba and Politika, for instance, are devoted to what the press in Jordan, Bulgaria and elsewhere reported, using the usual quasi-patriotic phrases such that Milosevic was in fact giving answers to questions "with the soul of all honest citizens of Yugoslavia."  Reactions were exploited for initiating a new wave of anti-American sentiments.  "Stop American Machete Policy in the Balkans," the citizens of the valley of the Danube state, while the Secretary of the Direction of JUL, Ratko Krsmanovic states that "he decisively told the nervous managers of this world and local coterie politicians that there is no dealing where the state and its defense are concerned."

When the dust raised around Milosevic's interview settles, the fact will remain that Milosevic himself initiated the talk with an American journalist.  (In Belgrade the story appeared that Richard Holbrooke himself mixed up his fingers in negotiating the interview, but Laly Weymouth denied this, stating that the whole story with Richard Holbrooke has no basis, that she and Holbrooke are good friends, but that he is very angry at her because the interview took place without his knowledge.  She stated that "a friend from New York" called her up and suggested that Milosevic would be willing to talk.)  FRY President decided to initiate the talk most probably because he wanted to tell some people something.  So what did he tell?  To our public he showed firmness on all issues -- from NATO to the university.  To the Americans he sent a message that something will come of their plan for Kosovo, which did not surprise them much, in all likelihood, while he managed to hold back on anti-American invective to which his courtiers are so accustomed.  And the interview happened, but everything remains the same, that is to say, only worse.