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November 16, 1999 World's interrest is democratic Serbia
FS: During the war and in its aftermath there were various estimates of economic damage caused by the bombing of Yugoslavia. What are the estimates of G17? Group 17 assessed in its survey that the damage amounted to approximately thirty billion U.S. dollars. Infrastructure suffered 805 million dollar damage, economic facilities $2.9 billion and civilian non-commercial buildings and facilities $373 million. Destroyed natural resources were not taken into account. The loss of human capital was estimated at $2.3 billion. This all amounted to more than six billion dollars, but the largest item in our survey of the losses incurred was lost GDP totalling $23.2 billion. Facilities of relatively small value may be destroyed during the bombing raids, yet their proper functioning may be a prerequisite for functioning of a multitude of other, still undamaged facilities. Therefore, you are bound to incur much greater losses on that account when compared to the damage caused by the bombardment itself. Let us take, for example, a substation within the electric power system. Its cost is relatively small in these damage assessment estimates. However, several factories may stop their production due to non-existent substation. This is why the losses in GDP are by far the largest item on our damage assessment list. FS: As our economy was increasingly deteriorating, there were more and more of those who predicted social unrests. Yet, our citizens seem to have proved the claim made by the academic Kosta Mihajlovic that they could endure and withstand so much. What is the limit for accepting and reconciling with poverty?
Of course, it does not necessarily mean that the changes would not take place. They could indeed, but they will not result from inability to put up with hardships any further. No one knows when this could happen. There may be some influences from the outside, possibly from abroad combined with some internal changes. There are some novelties on our political scene as well. Efforts have been made to initiate changes in the policy of international community towards Yugoslavia, to make it adopt a more positive approach based on providing support and aid instead of the current approach focused on inflicting punishment. Thus, we could overcome the problems stemming from a conditional reflex of solidarity of common people with the authorities caused by the fact that whenever the regime is under attack, the people suffer from their punitive actions, which in turn only strengthens the regime. In short, some political changes are looming on the horizon as well as some modifications in political attitude of both domestic and international political factors. This is why some new perspectives have emerged which could effect substantial political changes, though in my view we should not cherish high hopes. As far as the ability to withstand hardships is concerned, the common people can put up with so much and for quite a long time. FS: G17 initiated the implementation of "Energy for Democracy" project. What have you done so far in this project's implementation? Unfortunately, we have not made much progress. The project came to a standstill at its very beginning. It seemed as if it could indicate a big advance regarding the change of strategy I have just mentioned. Unfortunately, neither has the energy reached Serbia from the West, nor has democracy opened up Serbia to the West. There was that misunderstanding with the opposition before the scheduled meeting which was supposed to take place in Luxembourg. Most of the opposition parties estimated that they should not attend the meeting since there was some mention of the Hague Tribunal in the document prepared beforehand. I am inclined to believe that it was not a wise thing to insist on such a formulation in that document since the opposition parties would thus run the risk of losing their political capital. Each party has to take care of its reputation on the public scene. Consequently, the opposition appeared to be hesitant at that first step, and the West reacted by postponing the implementation of the project. The option with Nis and Pirot is still on the table as a pilot programme which would test whether this whole project is actually feasible. However, this initial phase has not been launched yet. Winter and low temperatures are approaching. It seems that this project would not function the way it should. Meanwhile, the authorities managed to procure natural gas and ensured its transportation via Hungary. Subsequently, the authorities are the ones which keep us warm for the moment, not G17+, the opposition or the democratic West. I can only say I am sorry that this project has not made a good start as envisaged since it probably would yield quite positive political consequences. FS: U.S, State Department expressed certain reservations regarding the whole project. Has their attitude changed, and if it has, what might have provoked it?
FS: Is the objective of the West a democratic Serbia? I truly believe it is. Serbia today represents a sort of Chernobyl for the West. It is a country burdened with social tensions, plagued with conflicts, in which the regime manages to strengthen its positions the most when it brings about the worst kind of calamity upon its people. This is not a good thing either for our neighbours or the whole of the international community and Europe. This turmoil might give birth to larger conflicts and provoke refugee crises. The West is so allergic to refugee crises and hardly manages to provide refuge for all of them. These are the reasons lying behind the internationalisation of every crisis taking place in Serbia. It is also a concern of the wider international community whose interest is democracy taking root in Serbia thus stabilising the country and preparing the ground for a normal political and social situation. I am convinced that the world is interested in democratisation of Serbia, but I am not sure that the right methods are being applied to accomplish this objective. Apparently, the attitude of the West has been marked so far by excessive opportunism and myopic daily pragmatism. They usually took the easiest way out of the problems by settling issues with our president since he was the strongman in control of the situation who could make promises and deliver what was demanded of him. Nevertheless, this method was efficient enough over the short term, but in the long term it created more problems than solutions to the problems that were already there. The alternative for the West now is to turn to institutions, above all the parliament, and to settle its relations with Serbia using democratic channels. This would probably prove to be a less effective and more painstaking process in the short term, but it would lead to a better solution over the long term. This pragmatism of the West, that "Milosevic-is-the-strongman-of-Serbia-so-let's-work-it-out-with-him" attitude was quite comfortable and convenient for them in the short term, but in the long term it resulted in indictment for war crimes and total banishment of Milosevic from the international community. FS: Some $5-6 billion have been provided for the reconstruction of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now the international community has offered Stability Pact for the south-eastern Europe which has not amounted to much by now almost half a year since it was created. Could we be optimistic regarding this "new Marshal Plan"?
Let me go back to the Marshal Plan. It would certainly be very difficult to reconcile opposing interests and to overcome resistance of the State Department to this idea. What is important for such an action is that funds are not the only and the most important factor. Other issues are much more important like changes to the system, economic reforms, democratisation process and establishment of the rule of law. In other words, elevating the society so as to reach a higher civilisational level. Even the recipients of the largest funds within the framework of the original Marshal Plan did not benefit the most from this project. Those who used the funds to implement a comprehensive set of economic and institutional measures so as to effect structural changes achieved the best results. Those were the Germans. They received a relatively small portion of the available financial means, yet they managed to trigger off well-known German economic miracle thus becoming one of the leading countries in the world in economic terms and other areas. FS: What is the basic cause for the failure of these most recent protests against Milosevic? I do not think these protests have failed, however we certainly cannot refer to them as being successful. There are several reasons for that. Firstly, the people are for the most part disappointed in the opposition. After 1996/97exaltations with the united opposition block, the political parties started wrangling and bickering thus destroying precious political assets they had gained. It is indeed a miracle that some of these people still cling to the domestic political scene. Secondly, there is no a clear and specific objective as it was the case in 1996 when we were faced with a concrete problem. Namely, the regime rigged the elections. The authorities were caught in the act of stealing people's votes. The people understood this - it was an important ethical issue, important enough to mobilise a large number of citizens. But this is another matter. We have not caught the thief in the act this time. Also, the people are now fed up with everything and, in addition to this, poverty has struck even harder. Some people cannot even afford to pay public transport tickets in order to reach the place where the demonstrations are being held and then return home. FS: Essential prerequisite for carrying out the G17 programme of radical economic reforms is the change of the current regime. Does G17 have a concrete and specific programme which could meet this precondition?
FS: What are the political and economic implications of the Montenegro's decision to introduce deutsche mark as a parallel currency? This decision of the Montenegrin authorities could hardly be in accordance with the existing constitution written in Zabljak, Montenegro. The Montenegrins also took part in shaping this document on equal terms with their Serb counterparts. Now they are violating the provisions contained within that constitution, and this cannot possibly bring any good to anyone. As a liberal I always do protest and object to those people who violate the law since without the respect for the law we cannot establish a well-ordered society or create ambience for translating liberal ideals into practice.
It is perhaps true that systematic degradation of the Yugoslav dinar within the framework of the current monetary policy causes only damage to Montenegrin economy while Serbia may reap some benefits despite some damage inflicted to its economy. This is the prevailing view of these things. So the damaged party wants to fend off negative implications of such a monetary policy. But this is an important empirical issue which is yet to be discussed. Is Montenegro the only one suffering under the circumstances? Is, perhaps, Vojvodina experiencing more difficulties than Montenegro? Finally, there is only a fraction of these dinars on the territory of Montenegro, some 5-6%. Vojvodina suffered more damage in economic terms. I am quite sure that there are more dinars in Vojvodina, yet it has no ability to protect itself. I do not like such a defensive strategy even for legitimate purposes particularly if that strategy implies undermining of the federal state. There is another problem concerning the economic development of Montenegro. If the deutsche mark prevails over the Yugoslav dinar I wonder how they would obtain additional amount of deutsche marks to finance their economic growth and keep functioning normally. The only reasonable way is to export more goods, yet Montenegro's imports have been double the amount of its exports for the last decade. Not even in the long term could Montenegro improve its balance of trade so as to function normally with a foreign hard currency. They have not asked themselves this question, but reality will put this issue on the agenda. FS: In early 1997 "Nasa Borba" published your work in which you questioned the need of our country to have its own army. What were your arguments to sustain this claim? Would you now change your view concerning this statement? I did not claim at the time that we did not need the army. My point was that I could not understand why we needed the army and then I cited several reasons to support my argument. One of the reasons which rendered the army as such redundant was its (mis)use as an instrument to settle internal issues. I have to say that these most recent developments have only strengthened my beliefs on this issue. When the bombardment started, anything flying at an altitude above 5,000 m was not in any danger of being shot down just as if we did not have the army to confront the enemy at all. Even our antiaircraft defence forces could not do much about it. At the height of the bombing raids, we withdrew the army from Kosovo - it had to be done, there was no other way. Is it, then, an important issue what your army is like when you are withdrawing the troops? If you are already retreating and surrendering a part of your territory, then you do not need a large army with the state-of-the-art equipment and weapons, it need not even exist because it makes no difference. A retreating army has no function. What the army should look like, how large and what it should be supposed to do is still an unsettled question. This is an issue to be seriously considered, above all, by the people from the army ranks. FS: I see you still have a portrait of Tito in your office.
Boris Milicevic
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In my view, there is no such limit. It is a process which may last for quite a long time. The citizens obviously could put up with increasing hardship while their ability to withstand it also increases in the process. One should not expect that this would be the pivotal leverage for initiating crucial political changes.
They had reservations about it regardless of the fact that the Europeans were willing to turn over a new leaf and make a fresh start. Now it is being said that the U.S. would lift most of the sanctions, if not all of them, if democratic and fair elections took place. Still I am not quite sure about that. First, how to define and who would estimate whether the elections were fair and democratic. Secondly and more importantly, this implies that if the elections were not fair and democratic, whatever this might mean, the sanctions would not be lifted. Consequently, they will continue to punish the people unless the regime organises fair elections. As if the fairness of the polling process depended on the common people. This represents a continuity of a wrong policy.
It is going to be quite difficult. Above all, the Americans are not so much interested in this project like the Europeans. Though they were the ones who formulated and subsequently implemented the Marshal Plan after World War II. There was no opposition to the project on the part of the Americans, of course, nor the problem of reconciling diverse interests of the members of EU. Europe consists of a number of entities cherishing their own independent status so they have to agree first on every single issue. Sometimes it proves to be quite a difficult task. Bosnia is a good example. While Europe was making efforts to solve the Bosnian problem by means of various agreements, almost nothing was actually happening. Yet when the Americans interfered and imposed a solution of their own, the war ended thus saving so many lives of ordinary people. Some say it was not the right way to do it, that we are dealing here with the U.S. imperialism, but I say that if you appreciate life and the fact that without American interference who knows for how long that war would keep dragging on and how many people would thus fall victims to a senseless conflict, then the conclusion is simple. The Americans did a great thing for Bosnia.
No, it does not. G17 is not engaged in concrete actions which could bring about the fall of the current regime. Our view is that through our activities based on experts' estimates we are actually applying an increasing social pressure on the authorities which would accelerate the process of overthrowing the regime thus effecting necessary changes. It seems, however, that the people believe only experts now. Recently "Markplan" from Pancevo has produced an interesting survey which shows the political rating of the regime for the last five years. The results are devastating. The rating of the authorities has been steadily declining for these last five years, but simultaneously the opposition has also been losing its political ground. The people are disappointed when it comes to domestic political scene, and now they turn to other groups and organisations represented by those who are not directly involved, yet very interested in the politics. This is where G17 found its mission to contribute to the change of heart of the electorate through its public activities with the ultimate aim to initiate comprehensive political changes. This is the strategy of G17. We are not involved in engineering the overthrow of the current regime, but creating the atmosphere which could contribute to this substantial political change.
On the other hand, in practice deutsche mark has indeed replaced our dinar for the most part. All of the more substantial financial transactions are being realised in that foreign currency. Therefore, this is just a recognition of the fact we are all aware of.
Yes, I do. It is a bit complicated to explain why. First, he was undoubtedly a great man. In good and bad times alike. He did a lot of evil things as he destroyed some of the most important pillars of civilisation - he abolished private property, political pluralism and imposed bolshevik dictatorship... I am aware of all these facts. On the other hand, I am convinced that we were predestined to have socialism given the international political circumstances at the time. We could not have avoided socialism. It was not up to Yugoslavia whether it would become a socialist country or not. Not a single decision of such an importance in the past was made by ourselves and of our own accord - the great powers were always the ones to make decisions about our fate. Since we were bound to live in a socialist country, thanks God that we also had such a man instead of some Zivkov or Ceausescu.
