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Why Milosevic Plays Waiting Game with Karadzic By Donald Forbes
Carl Bildt, the International High Representative in Bosnia, and Dragoslav Avramovic, the sacked governor of the Yugoslav National Bank, revealed some reasons why this week. Bildt said Milosevic wanted to wait for Karadzic to be defeated in Bosnia's first postwar elections in September. The bank governor, a potent symbol of Yugoslavia's credibility in the West, lost a round in a battle which will ultimately decide whether Yugoslavia remains locked in its socialist past or turns to a version of Western liberalism. "The government and the forces behind it haven't made up their minds where they belong," Avramovic told Reuterss. In essence, the West is indicating that rewards beckon if Milosevic turns Karadzic in. But the political realities in Yugoslavia dictate that his self-interest could lie elsewhere. Milosevic is powerful and has shown that he can bring the Bosnian Serbs to heel when it suits him. But extraditing Karadzic — and Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, who is also wanted by the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague — would enrage the powerful hardline lobby in Belgrade to a point that could threaten even the Serbian leader's survival. The precariousness of the Bosnia peace process also encourages caution. Muslim-Croat rivalries could destroy it as easily as the spoiling tactics of the Bosnian Serbs. Milosevic knows that even if the elections go ahead, he can probably engineer Karadzic's defeat and spread his own sway over the Bosnian Serb republic. Karadzic at large is, equally, a useful bargaining chip in the waiting game Milosevic is playing while making up his mind whether he wants the West as a partner and to what extent. The conflict with Avramovic was about liberalising the economy in ways that would gradually loosen the political monoply in Yugoslavia of former and present communists. Milosevic and his ruling Socialist Party are a hangover from the postwar communist era. Their closest ally is the Marxist United Yugoslav Left (JUL) party whose leaders include Milosevic's wife Mirjana Markovic. The two parties have overlapping membership and dominate industry and government. A dozen ministers in the Serbian government double up as bosses of strategic state companies. Socialist and JUL leaders conspired to defeat Avramovic's attempts to introduce an effective privatisation programme. These forces look to the West as a source of money but not as a political model. They fear political reform would follow inevitably in the wake of economic change — as it did elsewhere in eastern Europe — and cost the ruling Left a grip on power that it cannot afford to lose. Not only would the Socialist and JUL elite be turned out of their jobs, many would undoubtedly be called to account for the official corruption that flourished under U.N. sanctions. The first action of an incoming opposition government would be to deprive the Left of its near-total control of the media, one of the cornerstones of its power. The ruling Left therefore looks east to China and Russia as an alternative to cooperation with the West. The coming Russian elections fit into the waiting strategy in the belief that a return to power by the communists would consolidate the Socialist bloc, providing Yugoslavia with a more comfortable set of partners than Western governments. Milosevic's dilemma is whether the Socialist option offers Yugoslavia, exhausted by sanctions, a viable future. Public patience in a country where living standards have fallen to the floor must be finite at some point. His government appears to hope it can find a way of securing the Western money it needs with a minimum of interference in Yugoslavia's internal political arrangements — not impossible if the West fears for the country's stability. As far as Karadzic is concerned, Milosevic can point to another reason for his inaction. NATO has 50,000 troops in Bosnia who have Karadzic in closer reach than Milosevic. |
BELGRADE, May 17 (Reuters) — The West is pressing Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to extradite Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal, knowing that he can but doubting that he will.
Berserkistan, May 16 · Resolving the Karadzic Problem: 'Now Is The Time for Action'
Berserkistan, May 13 · Bosnian Serbs in Banja Luka Fear War Will Return
Berserkistan, May 10 · Bildt Wins Commitment from Moderate Serbs in Banja Luka
Berserkistan May 5 · Banja Luka Moderates Seen as Serb Successors
Berserkistan is a world news service of Michael Linder Productions, Inc.
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