The Grin of the Hanged

Last year after Dobrica Cosic was elected Federal President one Montenegrin who went to the market in Podgorica to buy a water-melon met some people there who chanced to be from Velika Drenova (Cosic's birthplace) and even be Cosic's relatives. He congratulated them on the election of the Federal President, and the peasants replied, "The old man has made a mistake for the first time!" Radonja Zekovic, a member of parliament, told this anecdote in a yet another agonizing parliamentary debate, where "the question of Dobrica Cosic" was put on the agenda, without a previous announcement, and was solved according to the rules of a classical party execution, even in absence of the accused.

The first testimony about Cosic's reaction to a routine and fast-move ousting from the office was given by Dragoljub Micunovic (leader of the Democratic Party), who said, "Cosic is in a good mood. He feels relieved to have a great load off his mind." This was "the grin of the hanged", as the Polish would put it.

It might not be appropriate to mention it now that two years ago Dobrica Cosic called Milosevic "the most popular Serb of 20th century", and now he has concluded that this very same politician is "an ideological student of Tito and Stalin" who maintains a "combat unity" with the Serbian Radicals, adding that he, in his power lust, had "carried out a putsch with the help of the Parliament" because he came to "a panicky realization" that Cosic had verbally lost the way. The description is correct, psychologically speaking. Someone on the fallen-out General Staff who is fighting for the Marshal's baton or covering up his crimes, must have really denounced Cosic or listened on him, of which Cosic complained earlier.

In essence, Milosevic who has changed the party's name, state and borders, while holding on to power, has proved that staying in power is his top priority.

The conflict between Milosevic and Cosic received extensive publicity last December. It was assessed that the army officers and the opposition sided with Cosic, while Milosevic had the support of his party leadership as well as the members of the police and Krajina militias. Serbian Interior Minister, Zoran Sokolovic, then simply took over the Federal Police building. Afterwards, Milosevic, together with his Minister of the Police, Sokolovic, calmly had his picture taken with General Zivota Panic, Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army, in order to shatter speculations that the army is against the Serbian regime. After Cosic's replacement, General Panic had his picture taken next to Milosevic, which does not mean that he will shake beliefs that Milosevic is against him. In December Cosic also shared the table with the army (over "the army beans") and announced a meeting on the top to deblock the Federal Police building. He said then that the take-over of the police headquarters was an unconstitutional act, but nobody seemed to have been touched by this. And, now, he has bitterly concluded that the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia refused to discuss the usurpation as an unconstitutional act. On one occasion, academic Mihajlo Markovic explained that the building had been seized so that Milan Panic (Former Federal Prime Minister) was prevented from making foreign contacts through the communications center there.

It is not exactly clear until when did Cosic actually think that an agreement with Milosevic was possible. After his meaningful silence last spring when the petitions for the resignation of Slobodan Milosevic appeared, Cosic demanded that the ruling party "abandon the policy of dictates and accomplished acts" and that "the destruction and obstruction of the opposition ends."

The day when he was elected Cosic had to pass by the students, pure and beautiful losers, who were protesting. That morning he was in the Academy, where the tension prevailed. Namely, the academics, who had joined the Democratic Movement of Serbia (DEPOS) were disappointed because Cosic failed to support them. Cosic now says that he lacked wider support because he refused to accept the main request of the opposition, which is the removal of Slobodan Milosevic at any price. He had to pay dearly for that, which went so far that he was dragged around the Parliament as if he were the least important person there. With absolutely no respect for the authority and facts, which is typical of thugs, they passed a vote that Cosic had violated the Constitution, that they themselves do not observe. Had Cosic humiliated himself by once again joining that company, it would have looked as if some old feeble professor walked into a country pub where the local dandies played bingo drinking warm beer.

At the beginning of his mandate Cosic received a group of his old friends who gathered in DEPOS and were disappointed with the fact that Cosic abandoned them. At first they told him that they refused to recognize him as the President, even though they had known him for years. They addressed him exclusively as Mr. Cosic, which was friendly teasing.

After a two hour long conversation, the friends from DEPOS kindly left, not trying to hide their disappointment with a friend who made it clear to them that he feared that Milosevic's resignation would result in chaos and antagonisms. After Vojislav Kostunica, leader of the Democratic Party of Serbia, suggested that Cosic was not expected to act constitutionally, but unconstitutionally, politically and not legally, regarding the whole issue, that he was to use his, presumably, significant authority, and not his insignificant competencies, Cosic was left with no answer, his gaze fixed on some spot. It somehow seems that his gaze rests there even nowadays.

Namely, immediately after he came to power, Cosic did promise the elections on all levels, which did take place, but under the conditions dictated by Milosevic. Cosic has now corrected his hesitant evaluation made in December and stated that the opposition and critical public do not consider the elections to be fair. He hesitated as it was much to difficult to him to utter support to the part of the opposition ("They are supporting me," he said). A compromise option in the election fell through, and the entire opposition was knocked down. Cosic accurately assessed that Serbia had opted for extremism, instead of democracy, which was not forgiven to him. He did not manage to improve the disastrous election results with a formula of "the government of the national salvation," even if he may have tried by the end of his mandate.

As the head of the state, Cosic made a wrong assessment that subtleties might mean something to Milosevic. He never allowed himself to openly oppose the current head of Serbia, who is also the most influential member of the Military Council.

Ex-Prime Minister Milan Panic realized, as soon as he arrived, that he had to fight Milosevic, and not to outwit him, as he denied power to the federal authorities. At the end of Cosic's mandate, Milosevic did not even allow Cosic the protocol coverage on television. On May 20th, 1993, as the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Dobrica Cosic stated that Television Belgrade showed no respect in its reports for the President's personality and threatened that he would no longer "oblige the television," without specifying what it meant. A response by the editor in chief of the news program of Television Belgrade was cruel. According to Cosic, a year earlier, this television station, run by Milorad Vucelic, was no less biased than "the other station", when it vilified and libeled the students.

Cosic has also quoted his disagreement with Seselj's and even Milosevic's proposal that Milan Panic be replaced and arrested as one point in his dispute with Serbian President Milosevic. When they attacked Panic with all available means last autumn, Cosic commended Panic by saying that Panic had managed to reveal "a peace-loving and democratic face of our ostracized and isolated country", despite his "inability to adapt to the local situation, which is hard to be comprehended by the people from other surroundings." He succeeded in defending him once more last autumn, giving him support in the December elections, although it was apparent that Panic's liberalism was intimately very remote to him. Still in human terms, Cosic was fair to Milan Panic. Panic says that Cosic even advised him not to return to the country, which, as we realize now, was in the fear of not being able to protect Panic's arrest. After Cosic's replacement, Panic bravely announced that he was coming to Belgrade to talk to Cosic and the opposition.

After the elections neither could sustain the attack by the Socialists and the Radicals. The campaign lasted for five months in Cosic's case. The international circumstances or the fact that the Montenegrins opposed his replacement might account for this. Although the relations between Cosic and the Montenegrins were strained, they were fair to Cosic in the end. Svetozar Marovic (the Democratic Party of Socialists) said that the majority had won that day, whereas morals lost. Yet, their group of MP's did not enthusiastically oppose putting Cosic's replacement on the agenda, they were careful enough not to dirty their hands with it.

Cosic and Milosevic may have had a most serious conflict over the paramilitary unit. Responding to the objection made during a discussion about the minorities, that it was cynical to discuss the minority rights while bombs were going off in Pljevlja and Bijelo Polje, President's Advisor, Svetozar Stojanovic, informed the representatives of the minorities that on that day Cosic was told about "the trouble there", that he called the General Staff in person and "once again ordered that the strictest possible measures be taken so that the paramilitary formations are disarmed and their members immediately arrested." In the meantime, the Pljevlja story continued as a "voluntary surrender" of a certain amount of weapons, and was followed by a Ceko Dacevic (leader of the Serbian Radical Party in Sandzak and a terrorist) trial. It concluded with Ceko Dacevic becoming an MP and a member of the Federal Parliament's Board for Security. It is not clear whether General Boskovic's disclosing of a state secret is connected with this event. Milosevic should have somewhere in his drawer a letter by the European Community, in which it was demanded that the Serbian President fulfills his promises about suppressing the paramilitary formations and stopping Vojislav Seselj(leader of the Serbian Radical Party) and Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan (leader of the main Serbian paramilitary formation). But, he has not only ignored it, but used Seselj as "an executioner of the preparatory works."

Milosevic has most likely reacted emotionally, by passing a swift judgment on Cosic, thus trying to curry favor with the extremists in the military, police, and in the Parliament, who are personally involved in the war. Two extra parentheses will be added to his newly-born peace-making being, and we will get new sanctions. According to the principle, which says all power in one hand and which the Socialists are not even trying to hide, Milosevic has, as Cosic says, imposed Vladislav Jovanovic as the country's Foreign Minister, and snatched the foreign policy from the hands of the Federal President. The Montenegrins are, therefore, strengthening their foreign policy, which might mean that Cosic's replacement could be an overture to some new settling of accounts. According to some indications, it is Federal Prime Minister, Radoje Kontic's turn now. A possible affair in Podgorica is not to be ruled out.

Was Cosic harder on the Bosnian issue than Milosevic? Not really. Cosic was probably involved in the Bosnian events in his own way. Shortly before the war broke out, Cosic advised the Serbian intellectuals in a letter that a national division be done in Bosnia. This made Cosic different from some extremists, but he should have anticipated the tragic consequences as a result of the operation and warned of them. His speech in Pale was softer than Milosevic's, who was mad as a hornet. He defended the Bosnian Serbs even when the charges of war crimes were pronounced against them. According to one version, without Cosic, it will be very difficult for Milosevic to maintain the relations with Radovan Karadzic, Bosnian Serb leader, who now feels victorious over his big brother.

Nevertheless, the Western press described Cosic's replacement as a departure of a moderate. Cosic found the reasons for Yugoslavia's disintegration outside of the territory of Yugoslavia, in an incomprehensible game of interests of the great, while he reduced the Serbian guilt to the guilt of the one who is provoked, and warned that the talks about the end of the war in Bosnia, the Serbs in Croatia, about the borders and the special status of Sandzak and Kosovo, would be held with the missiles pointed at us.

Cosic was visibly upset when Milan Panic, having grasped the reality, reiterated that his Government recognized "Tito's borders", despite Cosic's warning. However, the negotiations with Tudjman were initiated by Cosic before his departure for London. He explained the need for the negotiations by saying that many people had been brought into an existentially unenviable situation, as their status was not regulated, that their property rights were thwarted, that they were unable to receive their pensions and use their medical insurance.

Before his mandate was ended, Cosic said that Croatia had not fulfilled a single condition for continuing the negotiations. Cosic's approach left the impression of foreign observers that he was further away from the West, which started nursing warm feelings towards Milosevic.

Cosic is going home. The time of compromise is over. Milosevic and Seselj are locked in a firm embrace.