Rebellious Departure Of Minister Obedient

Mr. Vladislav Jovanovic saved his best move, from the viewpoint of real national interests, for the end of his 56-week-long term in office: he resigned as foreign minister because he disagreed with Mr. Milan Panic's policy, thus considerably strengthening the world's confidence in the Yugoslav prime minister. The world saw the deathly serious face of the 59-year-old diplomat only as another of Milosevic's masks. His resignation, and especially his reasons, are proof positive that Mr. Panic is eluding the Serbian president's control and that "their showdown begins now", as a prominent Belgrade professor commented on the news.

"It is no longer possible for me to remain in a government that is, more and more openly, pursuing a policy contrary to the interests of Serbia and the Serbian people", wrote the third Serbian foreign minister in the Milosevic era and the first foreign minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Mr. Jovanovic spiced his explanation, openly calculated to oust the federal prime minister by accusing him of betraying the national cause, with pathetic rot on how Mr. Panic's moves are "greatly at odds" with his "understanding of national duty and dignity". Current president of the Socialist Party of Serbia Borisav Jovic said it best: "The minister of foreign affairs had been our proposal", thus making it clear to the readers of the NIN weekly which ministers in Government were his party's candidates.

When forming his government in July, Mr. Panic first offered this post to former Yugoslav ambassador in Washington, Mr. Zivorad Kovacevic, who was dismissed from this office by Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Kovacevic would have accepted, but the Serbian regime vetoed this. This experience and the desire not to provoke unduly the already frightened and exasperated Socialists have resulted in the prime minister deciding on a transitory solution for the foreign ministry, to wit the current Yugoslav Ambassador to China Ilija Djukic.

Mr. Djukic is a career diplomat on whose highly professional qualities the protagonists of the foreign political scene in Belgrade are undivided. Those who have known him longer say that "he had nothing against" Mr. Milosevic when he came to power and that, as regards attitude to the "national question", he owes something to his Kosovo origins. He is ranked among the reasonable, whose views on the world were shaped in the first post-war Yugoslav diplomatic school. Mr. Djukic, it is believed,