Race Without Progress

On March 31, the American Congress will decide at the recommendations of the State Department and the White House whether the FRY fulfills all the conditions for continuing to get American aid.  This decision does not only determine whether we will get the few hundred million dollars of direct aid from Washington, but whether our acceptance to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will be approved, along with the credits promised to us by those institutions.  Still, it seems that no one in Belgrade is getting excited at the fact that this deadline is drawing uncomfortably near.  Like bad students used to passing to the next grade with the help of teachers good will, our leaders appear convinced that the honeymoon with the international community will last indefinitely.

Technically, the decision by the American Congress is tied to Belgrade’s cooperation with the International Tribunal for War Crimes, although in reality things are a little more complicated than that.  In a confidential State Department document which was viewed by VREME it is indicated that concrete moves are expected from Yugoslavia in three areas.  Point one, the Yugoslav authorities are expected to cooperated in “handing over individuals accused of war crimes” and in “permitting access to relevant documents” to Hague Tribunal prosecutors.  This document evidently on purpose does not specify who of the seventy individuals under Hague Tribunal indictments who are assumed to be living on the territory of the FRY should be handed over, nor does it indicate to which archives access should be permitted.  The remaining two demands concern respect for the rights of minorities (more or less fulfilled), and a halt to paying out pensions to officers of the Republika Srpska Army through the financial department of the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army (will be fulfilled).

ROUNDABOUT TO THE GOAL:  It is clear that the conditions specified in the first demand will be the most difficult to fulfill, despite the flexible wording which leaves room for compromise.  Unofficially, diplomatic sources claim that despite the overall impression, the West, for now, is not insisting on the handing over of Milosevic, Ratko Mladic or Colonel Veselin Sljivancanin, although every step in that direction would certainly meet with approval.  Instead of this, diplomatic sources indicate that it would be sufficient to hand over some of the “small fry” whose capture would not produce passionate reactions in the Yugoslav public eye.  Carla del Ponte submitted sealed indictments for two such individuals to the Yugoslav authorities on her visit to Belgrade: these individuals are citizens of Republika Srpska and their names are not generally known to Yugoslav public at large, nor are there significant legal hurdles present in their deportation: one member of the Serbian Government suggested recently that these tow individuals should be captured discretely and taken over the Raca River, so that it appears as if the SFOR captured them, and not our police.  The problem with this solution which makes Carla del Ponte happy and keeps our face up is that what is demanded of Yugoslavia is to cooperate with the Hague Tribunal openly and officially, and not secretly and on the sly, regardless of how much the latter method suits our politicians.

Unfortunately, the Federal Minister of Justice, Momcilo Grubac stated this week that four to six months remain before the law on regulation cooperation with the Hague Tribunal is due to be passed, which not only brakes the American Congress deadline, but also the last deadline set by Carla del Ponte.  She announced that if there is no cooperation with the Tribunal, that she will recommend as early as April to the Security Council of the United Nations that new sanctions should be imposed on Yugoslavia.  Del Ponte is otherwise sending signals on all sides that her patience is at an end: after having visited the European Union, demanding for pressures against the FRY to be stepped up, she stated in an interview for Swiss radio that President Kostunica is “a nationalist and a man of the past.”  She received word from Belgrade, via Kostunica’s Foreign Relations Aid, Predrag Simic, that “what Carla del Ponte thinks is of little significance to the Serbian people.”  Simic pointed out that the former Chilean Dictator Pinochet “has been on the loose for decades without any making any fuss about it.”  This gesture reduced the one problem of supreme significance to this country to a level of street talk.

LOST TIME:  What is dangerous is that Simic and those who think like him are probably right in their assessments that a very real possibility exists for the American Congress to decide on March 31 for all aid to Yugoslavia to be blocked, or that the chances of the Security Council voting in new sanctions against Yugoslavia are minima.  Following the October turnaround, the West accepted Yugoslavia all to warmly in order to turn its back on it now.  However, Yugoslav authorities are deluding themselves if they believe that they can continue to ignore the demands of the Tribunal and that they will meet with equal sympathy next time around.  In other words, Yugoslavia will be demanded to make up for lost time in the last six months, otherwise sanctions will really be imposed once more.  At the same time, it is not necessary for those sanctions to be approved by the American Congress of the Security Council: Vice-President of the Federal Government Miroljub Labus reminded us recently that the FRY owes around 18 billion dollars, which is unbearable for a country in our economic position.  In other words, the West need not impose formal sanctions against us: it is sufficient for them to refuse to reprogram our debt in order for the beggar’s cloak which we presently muffle ourselves with to be blown off with the wind of economic reality.  In the meantime, our authorities are demanding that the West recognize our subjective difficulties and objective conditions, while at the same time exploiting endlessly two advantages which we really have: restraint of the Army and the Police in the Presevo Valley and unquestionable improvement of relations with our neighbors.  These two advantages are precisely the reason why we are permitted to brake the deadline this time around, but they will not serve us as well next time.

The worst thing is that the issue war crimes is reduced in our public eye (and the international public eye) to the question of handing over a particular individual to the Hague Tribunal.  As far as the rest of the world is concerned, they are not living here so that they probably don’t care how many murderers are walking our streets.  For us who live here, however, the arrest of those people and their bringing to justice should be a priority – not because of Carla del Ponte or because of economic credits, but because of us ourselves and our children.  In any case, the fact that war crimes against other peoples and “domestic” crimes against Serbs is something that has become inseparable became evident recently when it was announced that one of the suspects in the dump truck assassination attempt against Vuk Draskovic was a prominent members of Arkan’s Tigers and later the Red Berrets, the Yugoslav Army’s special units.  In the meantime, despite assurances by our government that our justice system is sufficiently equipped to handle the issue of war crimes, no progress in that direction has been noted.

The situation is little different with the conditions set in order for Yugoslavia to be freed from Milosevic’s heritage.  Perhaps privatization, the institution of law and reform of the tax system are not connected with deadlines or credits, but they are more directly connected with Kostunica’s promise to make Serbia “a normal, boring country.”  The time for reform is passing, but we remain engulfed in the dust cloud which has been raised around the question of when Slobodan Milosevic will be arrested, with Kristian Amanpour remaining to wonder upon her arrival to Belgrade why we changed our regime at all.  Finally, the consequences of not fulfilling the expectations of the American Congress and of Carla del Ponte are nothing compared to the consequences of not fulfilling even minimal expectations of the Serbian people.  Up to now, both the latter and the former have shown more patience than this government believes it deserves.