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January 29, 2000 Prof. Zarko Korac, President of the Socialdemocratic Union No one could possibly vote for absolute personal disaster
FS: Last week there was a meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Budva. What are the results of that meeting? This was the third meeting in a row of the group previously established by the representatives of the European Union, the US and democratic opposition of Serbia. The first meeting in Budva was a constitutive one, in Berlin we had strong promotion at the international scene of our cooperation and the third one was actually the first gathering focused on practical issues. This meeting consisted of two parts. First, we exchanged our views, especially in relation to January 10 and our efforts to create a joint platform of the Serbian democratic opposition. We discussed our future course of action given our mutual cooperation. We also looked into issues like whether projects should be first discussed and approved by the opposition. Then we talked about specific problems as we see them. They asked us what was our view of January 10 and of current political situation in Serbia. They wanted us to present our standpoint on possible solution to the crisis, early elections, conditions for holding elections in Serbia. So this was an exchange of views and arguments. During the second part of the meeting we talked about concrete projects and there are several projects on the table at the moment. Some of these projects had been presented to them before January 10 and most of these projects had been drawn up by Avramovic. One of the problems here was whether he'd be the only one in charge of specific projects or other people could also be engaged in this. My impression was that the EU was rather slow in responding to our requests, even though Energy for Democracy was the first concrete result of our cooperation. On Monday two issues will be discussed at the EU ministerial meeting: our renewed vigorous efforts aimed at suspension of some of the sanctions - namely, oil embargo and air flights, and the expansion of the project Energy for Democracy to include six more cities and towns - Subotica, Novi Sad, Sombor, Beograd, Kraljevo and Kragujevac. Of course, we asked for much more and we'll keep on demanding. Certainly, we demanded that sanctions be suspended, but I'm not sure that they would indeed suspend sanctions at the moment. FS: What were the reactions of the West to January 10 and everything that followed afterwards?
For a moment, perhaps, Milosevic's managed to take the initiative, but he's lost it by now. This brutalisation, threats with trials, calling on public prosecutor to say something about the statements of the opposition political parties indicates that the regime's in serious trouble and that it has no answer to the challenge of the united opposition bloc, except for the intensification of internal repression. This intimidation produces quite the opposite effects, it's counterproductive since it brings about the homogenisation of the opposition. However, what may worry us is the fact that the regime and its key players are unable to realise that this is counterproductive for the regime itself. When it comes to the escalation of threats and intimidation, they've taken a new course of action recently - stealing broadcasting equipment of Studio B, and now we've heard about this indeed ludicrous demand that the prosecutor estimate whether the public statements given by the two biggest opposition blocs, the Alliance for Change and the Serbian Renewal Movement, constitute a criminal offence. In other words, a criterion according to which other political forces should conform to the political standards of the ruling coalition is being introduced onto the public scene, which proves that our regime hasn't abandoned totalitarian and Stalinist political philosophy, so they think that the public prosecutor should estimate whether the statements of the political parties are proper and suitable in political terms, which actually constitutes the most outrageous infringement on parliamentary freedoms. There's no such a country in which public prosecutors deal with statements given by political parties. Of course, the regime has more means at its disposal, including the media, to promote its views and respond to statements of the opposition political parties, but it has no arguments so it resorts to threats and arrests. I think this trend will continue. This is a major characteristic of the present moment - increase of the regime's internal violence against those who don't share their views. FS: How far is the regime prepared to go in heightening tensions?
I think that a process of differentiation within the regime's ranks is bound to happen. The fact that mostly the people who are officially in charge of these things take part in this media harangue against the opposition, like the information minister, but that it's not the case with many other exponents of the regime, shows that a lot of people have some reservations with respect to the regime's actions. FS: The opposition demands early elections in April. However, the opposition parties haven't reached a concrete mutual agreement on this issue. How many "columns" of opposition blocs will take part in the elections and what is to follow afterwards? If the opposition is to take Croatia as a model, who will appoint the prime minister, the president of the parliament, the president of the republic, etc.? The situation's more complex than this. Not only that a precise date for the elections hasn't been set -- the only thing we know is that local elections have to be held soon -- but we also don't even know which electoral system will be used in those elections. Reactions of the opposition will depend on what the new electoral law will be like. This most recent legislation on local government adopted by the Serbian parliament, which is, by the way, a scandalous law, deprives local governments of every right, even the right to give names to streets in their cities and towns and this Local Self-Management Act also determines that local elections are to be held in accordance with one-round majority system. If the opposition were to take part in those local elections, it would have to make one municipal election list. However, if we are to have proportional representation, then we could have, like in Croatia, at least two election lists. The opposition's preparing all viable strategies for all possible moves on the part of the authorities. This is precisely what the regime finds to be quite discomforting. The process of the opposition's homogenisation isn't only a hollow story for the media with pictures of the opposition leaders gathered together. At issue here are two things: working out a detailed strategy "what if" and, more importantly, establishing a media team which would determine which political leaders will take part in panels and discussions with the people throughout Serbia. So we'll put up strong resistance to media lynch by talking to the common people and discussing every issue. In my view, this strategy will yield satisfactory results. (Cellular phone's ringing. Zarko Korac says: I'm sorry, this is how my life looks like. Hello, yes..."). FS: SDP has received intense media attention lately. To what extent is the rest of the opposition bloc, either its left or right - conservative wing, or even those political groups with no distinct ideological profile, aware of the need to decentralise Serbia, which is one of the key objectives of the SDP?
As far as the ideological and political classification and structure of the Serbian political parties are concerned, we still don't have it. Actually, here we have a demand which overshadows any other demands - the change of the regime, and only then will comprehensive changes take place in Serbia. As to your question whether political parties will become aware of the need to decentralise Serbia, I could say that many of them will be compelled to accept it. However, the fact that they're now cooperating with those parties insisting on the need to protect singular national, religious and cultural characteristics of ethnic groups in Serbia and that some of them are in favour of regionalisation, indicates that this process has been set in motion. Now it's less conspicuous, but only when the Milosevic's regime collapses, the ball will start rolling and changes will take place. This is the beginning of a process which should open up Serbia to the world. It's also important to say that this is a broad coalition and that it could function only on the basis of the least common denominator. You can't demand the Vojvodina's autonomy at the very beginning, which should be more clearly defined anyway - either substantial or lesser degree of autonomy. This issue will be also put on the agenda if the opposition continues to work together. FS: Except for the media, what about other conditions for the elections? What is the opposition view of the number of electoral units and the control of voting lists? We're demanding that there be one or up to nine electoral units. We're quite flexible in that respect. It would be a paradox if this authoritarian regime had a very cooperative partner - they aren't cooperative at all. However, we'll discuss all possible options, ranging from boycott to participation in the elections under conditions imposed by the regime. Certainly, we're trying hard to achieve as democratic conditions for the elections as possible - we're trying to reach some compromise between the authorities and the opposition.
One of our demands will be to make public voting lists, just the way it was done in Montenegro, so that anyone could check on those lists. As you probably know, there were corrections of the voting lists concerning certain irregularities which were demanded by both parties. We can't expect that the Serbian regime would do what the Montenegrin authorities did, but we'd like to see that happen in Serbia. FS: In an interview given to the Washington Post you said that Milosevic was an excellent tactician and that he easily managed to exploit the weaknesses of his political opponents. What would be the weakness of the opposition bloc which Milosevic might exploit now? Milosevic is in a very difficult position now. He managed to survive politically in the aftermath of the most recent war which resulted in the loss of Kosovo. From now on, Serbia will never exercise political control over Kosovo. Right now the only remaining issue is whether the Serbs will stay to live in Kosovo and what would happen with this province in the future, but the international community will be predominantly in charge of finding solution to this problem, neither the Serbs nor Albanians. Milosevic has launched his propagandistic campaign and the project of partial reconstruction of the country. However, this process of reconstruction has been falsely portrayed by the regime's propaganda. Milosevic is isolated. The results of the general elections in Russia aren't what he's hoped for. He hopes that the new US government would be less hostile towards his regime, which is only partly true. The coordinates of the American Balkan policy are firmly fixed. Then, there's the indictment for war crimes by the Hague Tribunal. 600 of the most prominent representatives of the regime can't go abroad. The countries which are open to his regime are China, to some extent Russia, some Asian and Latin American countries, all of which have no economic power to help FRY. Discontent among the citizens is steadily increasing, the process of pauperisation is accelerating while Serbia's rapidly collapsing. People in Serbian cities and towns are already literally starving. Now you can see so many people who search for food in garbage containers. Take, for example, Kragujevac. The people are literally starving and there are 18,000 unfortunate refugees from Kosovo, and in addition to this, a large number of the unemployed as well. Therefore, Milosevic has very few options left so he resorts to his old methods. He's patient, he's waiting and buying time. The opposition mustn't lose its nerve and it should bear in mind that this is a long-lasting process. You've mentioned April, but I'm afraid there'll be no elections then. This could drag on for months, even a year more. But it's important to persevere. Milosevic will have to hold elections since anything else would be a dictatorship which would imply loyalty on the part of the police force and the army, which I wouldn't count on if I were in his place. Besides, Napoleon once said that you could come to power on bayonets, but you can't sit on them. There'll be still a lot of difficult situations, threats, violence, but in the end, the Milosevic's regime will lose. FS: So, the opposition must be patient. Will the Serbian citizens be patient enough?
The regime's on the defensive, despite its propagandistic offensive in the media, so I firmly believe that they would have to schedule elections and they'll certainly lose heavily. I'm certain of this since no one could possibly vote for his/her absolute disaster, and voting for the ruling coalition would entail total destruction of Serbia in economic and social terms which would turn Serbia into one of the most impoverished countries in Europe and the whole world. Boris Milicevic
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Quite positive. A united opposition bloc or the opposition parties with a joint agenda and platform is certainly a winning combination in Serbia. Thus, two extremely important things could be accomplished - to confront and oppose the process of brutalisation of public life in Serbia, threats, media propaganda and persecution, and secondly, hold on to a chance for Serbia to effect a democratic solution to this crisis. Paradoxically, the regime seems to be seeking a solution to the crisis in an unconstitutional way by means of arrests, threats, bans imposed on newspapers, and now, by stealing broadcasting equipment of the independent media outlets, political trials, etc., while the opposition demands democratic elections. The opposition bloc is actually offering a democratic perspective to the citizens of Serbia which means that crises are to be solved democratically through institutions. This is very important and it's also important that the opposition now has gained the upper hand.
The regime will cautiously thread its way to see how far it could go since, regardless of isolation, the regime doesn't live in a vacuum. There's reality, Europe and the whole world around us and they watch every step the regime makes. Of course, there are doubts whether all those people who are supposed to be engaged in this process initiated by the regime are loyal. Finally, the regime certainly knows, as it conducts public opinion polls of its own, that the majority of the Serbian citizens don't support it anymore. There are three limiting factors: external factor, questionable loyalty of the people from within the regime's institutions and the Serbian public opinion. Therefore, the regime's room for manoeuvre is rapidly shrinking.
One should always cautiously evaluate the situation in which we live in when it comes to politics. It was a commonplace a month ago that the opposition is divided, weak and hopeless. And then something very important happened on January 10 - all the opposition groups gathered together and started to cooperate. Also the representatives of the minority political parties from our coalition were invited to take part - the leading party of the Vojvodina's Hungarian ethnic minority, the Alliance of the Vojvodina's Hungarians as well as the Coalition Sandzak, led by Rasim Ljajic, which is an alternative political party in Sandzak. This latter organisation represents a civil, pro-European and Bosnian, i.e., Moslem political party. The fact that the opposition's signed an agreement together with these parties proves that it has recognised the multiethnic character of Serbia since there's been a prominent tendency among some opposition parties to envisage Serbia which doesn't exist, far removed from reality.
When it comes to control of voting lists and electoral process, the regime was manipulating the most in Kosovo. According to our estimates, it managed to win some 20 to 27 mandates in Kosovo. Now it will be much more difficult for the regime to rig the elections since we'll be also able to cover all the electoral units in Serbia. Local elections are very important precisely because of the voting lists. Regardless of the fact that the central electoral commission is in control of voting lists - and this issue, by the way, isn't regulated by the law the way it should be, local municipalities could have a more direct control of who's actually a local resident with voting rights. This is why it's very important for the opposition to stay in power at the local level.
The citizens of Serbia are frightened and disappointed. They fear possible violence which the regime might resort to so as to stay in power and the people are also disappointed with what the opposition's achieved so far, its squabbles and incompetence. When you lose one's confidence, it's difficult to regain one's trust afterwards, and the opposition won't surely regain the people's confidence after a few joint meetings. However, if this process continues, if the opposition starts talking with the ordinary people, if it admits its mistakes and failures in the past, if it openly says that now it thinks differently, then, in my view, some of the lost confidence could be regained. Finally, the Serbian citizens have no alternative - this is the opposition they're stuck with. I think that mutual confidence will be restored once again and the Serbian citizens will express their discontent in various ways. Economic and social situation will be so difficult that this discontent is bound to pour out even if the opposition doesn't call on citizens to show publicly what they think of the regime. All those events which have taken place in Leskovac, Valjevo and other parts of Serbia is only the beginning. You shouldn't think that those events are only isolated incidents. This is bound to happen again and again.
