The Rocking of an Empty Chair

Choosing between the risk of destroying Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic and the evaluation that only constant strengthening of pressure can remove the regime in Serbia, the west has opted for a continuation of the confrontation with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. The New York Times on Friday carried a statement by an unnamed high ranking US. administration official that "the aim of the stricter implementation of the sanctions is to increase the dissatisfied citizens' pressure on the president of Serbia." The official also said the administration hoped the pressure would create more support for Panic, the New York daily wrote. What is involved here is a surprisingly erroneous evaluation by the US. administration: the prevailing conviction in democratic opposition circles in Belgrade is that the west has gone unreasonably far with the drilling of Serbia with the help of a whip alone and with no sugar candy for Panic. The consequence is that it will appear in the role of the executor of the federal government, thus easing the task for Milosevic. And this despite the fact, as Lord David Owen put it, that "it would be stupid not to admit that Belgrade's stand is now more helpful and progressive than before."

The rushing diplomatic terminators have continued their work, forcing Panic into a "Russian roulette" -- to announce, without ensuring prior support, that "the new Yugoslavia and the new government" will submit a request for new membership in the United Nations. Forecasting where a new conflict between the federal prime minister and the Serbian regime could lead, the editorial office of the Belgrade daily BORBA at noon last Thursday began preparing the front page with Panic's resignation. The day ended, however, with yet another postponement of the confrontation: Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic convened the council for adjusting stands on state policy (a constitutionally and legally disputed body which, due to its make-up, Belgrade journalists like to call "the junta") and subsequently announced that "after a lengthy debate" a "joint standpoint" was reached which, "on certain preconditions," gives Panic "room to continue our peaceful and constructive policy with the aim of returning the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the world community..."

Milosevic, Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic and Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff General Zivota Panic are members of the "junta," but it was not revealed whether they also participated in the "lengthy debate."

Panic's interview to TANJUG late that night was of a defensive nature: "We do not have much choice" with regard to the new candidacy for admission to the world organization, but what is concerned is "only a political statement on intentions" and it is, after all, "known that the policy of the leaderships in these parts so far has led to this (the sanctions)," Panic said. By the closing of this issue of Vreme, the protectors of the interests of the ruling party of Serbia had calmed down. They did not ramble on about the "unacceptable conditions" for Yugoslavia's re-admission to the United Nations, such as the "demilitarization of regions" where minorities live "with the perspective of returning Serbia to the borders before the Balkan wars."

Serbian Prime Minister Radoman Bozovic, however, indicated even before Panic's trip to Peking what course the hunt would take: "I have the impression that some things from Ante Markovic's government are still being dragged through, and things which are against Serbia's interests." And so the circle was closed: Milosevic's regime is applying on Panic the recipe already tested on Markovic, and, just as it had failed to support Panic's predecessor, the west is leaving the current federal authorities to their fate.

Panic, like Markovic, had prospects of surviving politically only as long as he constantly moved forward, proving by deeds that his approach, as opposed to the failures of Milosevic's concept ("You have lost the game 15-0, it is time to change the team), guaranteed success. A disastrous failure, such as Yugoslavia's expulsion from the world organization, will annul everything he has achieved so far.

Vecernje Novosti, Milosevic's only remaining organ of the press, has already recalled that the people had been promised things would improve with Panic, whereas they are actually getting worse. Those who argue that the west has indirectly supported the federal prime minister, since the European Community (E.C.) last Saturday gave up imposing new punitive measures against Yugoslavia, are not convincing. It only made life simpler for itself by not taking on new, complicated and hard to fulfill obligations. Instead, it opted for an incomparably more striking move in media terms: the first expulsion of a country from the world community. The international public, disappointed at the absence of a "Balkan Storm" which would do away with "the butcher of the Balkans," will get something in replacement. This should appease it since there has been no proof so far that the west is capable of neutralizing regional ethnic wars, which will most probably mark the end of the century in eastern Eurasia. The fact that half a million allied troops failed to compel the Iraqis to topple Saddam Hussein is somehow fading in public attention.

Along with this, the west is still searching for a solution of the political "Rubik's cube:" how to reconcile the right of the people to self-determination with the dogma on the invariability of existing borders. A Bonn professor and vice-president of the Badinter Commission, which gave its legal opinion on the "Yugoslav situation," told his Belgrade colleague recently that its members were now having "second thoughts" about the validity of their findings. However, the admission that the west has still not learned much from its initial mistakes in the approach to the Yugoslav crisis on how to overcome it comes only indirectly. Such admission would benefit the regime in Serbia. "Nothing comes to mind any more with regard to Sarajevo and Serbia," German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel recently confided to listeners in a Cologne radio program. Kinkel added that he would be "grateful for any advise" on the question.

Similar doubts obviously prevail in Washington. Officials from Belgrade who recently met with leading figures in US. diplomacy conveyed the impression that its only firm goal in the Balkans is to remove the current president of Serbia from the political scene. Milosevic's complete departure, they say, is the precondition for "a new era" in Washington's relations with Belgrade. But, they add, they did not get the impression that anyone in the State Department or the UN headquarters had a vision of lasting peace in the Balkans. "To avoid being drawn into the Balkan mire" and "to be freed of the misery" are the main slogans.

Meanwhile, the west's attitude offers the regime in Serbia valuable propaganda advantages. Yugoslavia's expulsion from the world organization, for example, would finally prove the thesis used as a basis for turning Serbian state television audiences into morons: the request for Yugoslavia's expulsion was submitted, besides the E.C. and the US., also by Turkey, on behalf of the 47 members of the Organization of Islamic States, Austria, Hungary, Australia, Albania, as well as Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina -- the so to speak historical anti-Serb conspiratorial society. "What is involved is a new game in which (Yugoslavia), like at the recent Olympics, can participate only on the condition that it take off its hat or flag," the earlier-mentioned "highest circulation Yugoslav daily" said.

Supporters of the theory on the planetary anti-Yugoslav conspiracy would also be encouraged. The British news agency Reuters said Yugoslavia's expulsion from the UN would be "a bitter pill for Russia," in view of its historical role as the protector of the Slav brothers, as well as the pronounced opposition in the country to further actions against Serbia.

However, even before Panic's departure into "the skies of Asia," as Cosic put it, news "leaked out" in the UN headquarters that the western countries had promised in the Security Council that Yugoslavia will be able to request re-admission to the world organization "if it fulfills certain conditions." Precisely the fact that these conditions were not defined in advance provided justification for the Cassandras of the Serbian regime to begin lamenting over the "huge psychological consequences" which the "removing of continuity" would have "since it means losing identity," as Smilja Avramov put it.

The federal government, judging by the draft resolution which the European Community countries intend to propose to the Security Council, will not after all lose its place in the UN this week at the opening of the UN General Assembly session. The model drawn up in 1974, when the General Assembly Accreditation Committee refused to accept the credentials of the South African delegation, is likely to be implemented. Depending on the development of the political situation, by the end of the General Assembly session in December, the Security Council will once again review the fate of Yugoslavia's membership. In the meantime, Yugoslavia will not be able to participate in the work of the General Assembly, but will remain in other UN institutions.

The postponement of the tightening of the rope to the end is obviously the product of an agreement between the west and Russia. Russian foreign ministry spokesman Sergei Yasztrzembski's statement early this week that a formula should be found "which could perhaps in the initial stage satisfy all" now becomes clear. Time is being gained until, for example, the holding of the November elections in Yugoslavia, after which the political scene in this part of the Balkans could look quite different.

The basic motive for intensifying pressure on Belgrade is to create conditions in which, under external pressure, the internal boiling would reach such a point as to melt the current regime in Serbia. It is more probable, however, that the federal government will disappear first, and with it the Californian Serb who smiles less and less frequently. He survives as prime minister only thanks to the vital political interest of Milosevic's regime to avoid a further deterioration of relations with the international community. The unwanted and probably unexpected price of satisfying this interest is the transformation of Panic into Milosevic's popular alternative. Five years after taking over power, the Serbian President has for the first time been forced, if not into a defensive, then at least into an "enduring" stand. Panic's usability disappears if it becomes all the same whether he is still around or not. He could possibly be kept for some time as a suitable goal towards "national traitors," opposite the "firm stand in the defense of Serbianism." The president's favorite deputy has already been lashing out at Panic as precisely such a target. Panic's expulsion in the Federal Parliament will be an appropriate pre-election spectacle. The raging gladiators in the parliament benches will hardly wait for Neron to turn his thumb in the adequate surroundings: everything around is burning.

Cosic's walk along the thin rope between Panic and Milosevic cannot bear another stronger gust of the icy wind from the west. The father figure of the nation is also quickly losing his usability as a new facade for the worn out face of the authorities. He is now forced to save Serbianism from the intellectual wasteland into which he led it with his nationalist ideology and weaving of behind-the-scenes political webs. Now he must choose in what direction to fall -- either into the arms of Milosevic or among his opponents. In any case, from the throne.

The first baby which dies in some Belgrade maternity hospital because there are no antibiotics or heating, or both, will complete the blackening out of the consciousness of the people, filled with growing hatred towards that fattened and cynical world which is not, to be true, returning them to the Stone Age with bombs, but is nevertheless driving them into a cage. When great hunger and cold set in, the question of who first inflamed them and then led them to a cage will be quite academic. Milosevic's departure will then not be followed by a bang of enthusiasm, but by the whimper of the haggard. A wasteland will remain.