From: CP6uH@plains.NoDak.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Tibor Varadi, Expert ( VREME NDA 22 Jul 1992 )
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:21:09 GMT
Organization: University of North Dakota at Grand Forks


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     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                       No. 43, July 20, 1992
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    Tibor Varadi, Expert
    --------------------


                               Harvard in Serbia


           Varadi is  well aware of the  snares awaiting the person
           who tries to  save this country. He knows  that Panic is
           the captain  of a ship of  rambunctious madmen who would
           like  best to  throw him   to the  sharks and  swing the
           rudder this way and that.  His and Panic's hope rests on
           the fact that  some of them have realized  that the ship
                    has become stranded and has almost sunk

    Standing before  an interim parliament  of a provisional  state, Dobrica
    Cosic presented  to the world  his choice -  Milan Panic -  saying (if I
    heard him  correctly) that we  are not at  all guilty, but  that we will
    improve. Serbia was  accused and punished though innocent,  the Serbs in
    Croatia  and  Bosnia  were  only  defending  themselves,  and nobody was
    interfering from  Belgrade, but in future  everything will be different.
    Serbia always was for peace, but it  will be for peace only from now on.
    The opposition  was warned, but  new elections at  all levels have  been
    promised, even though everything was  fine with the previous ones. Cosic
    even intimated  a kind of  round table between  the authorities and  the
    opposition.

    Panic  presented,  in  a  self-confident  and  joyful  manner,  his  new
    orientation which  is close to a  large part of the  opposition which is
    not represented in that parliament,  and closest to small liberal groups
    and  parties. The  truest member  of the  program and  cabinet which was
    formed in  various ways -  because the prime  minister who just  arrived
    after some thirty years had to rely on all kinds of advice - is Minister
    of Justice Tibor Varadi.

    In this government  of experts, Varadi (Harvard PhD) is  one of the rare
    experts of international renown; a  person who speaks foreign languages,
    albeit softly  but with authority.  Rational, exact, systematic,  with a
    sense  of reality  and ready  to look  for solutions  and ways out, this
    expert  in international  private law  is precisely  the kind  of person
    which nobody here has  been in need of for quite a  while back. His kind
    has  mostly disappeared,  gone, closeted  themselves in  their rooms, or
    given up  and become confirmed  soakers. It must  have been his  Central
    European self-discipline that sustained Professor Varadi.

    I do not know whose idea it was to propose him to Panic, but I would not
    be surprised if  it were because he is a  Hungarian, and a bad Hungarian
    to boot, in  the sense that everybody reasonable here  has turned into a
    bad member  of his respective national  horde. Varadi is not  a man with
    political  ambitions.  He  entered  politics  at  the  first multi-party
    elections and the Serbian Parliament as a candidate of the Union for the
    Yugoslav Democratic  Initiative (UYDI) party. He  tried several times to
    explain in a  temperate manner something to the  deaf Socialist majority
    and there his political adventure would  probably have ended were it not
    for the American.

    Since Varadi  is not somebody  who would join  just any government  with
    nothing  to lose,  the question  why Varadi  accepted is infinitely more
    interesting  than  why  he  was  proposed.  Such  a  decision  is always
    difficult  for intellectuals  who like   to keep  their hands  clean and
    answer only to themselves, especially in such a slovenly country where a
    man  in  power  will  sooner  compromise  himself than remain honorable.
    Varadi had a  hard time deciding and immediately  repented. He handed in
    his resignation  the very next  day. He did  not expect a  cabinet where
    some  reliable  cadres  would  discredit  him  in  advance,  or that his
    colleague Momcilo  Grubac, proposed as  the minister for  minorities and
    human rights,  would be left out.  He left his resignation  aside in the
    hope that something can still be fixed.

    Panic got off to a bad start,  but the fact that at least one reasonable
    and unspent person from the opposition believes that he should be helped
    is, to many,  a great encouragement. Varadi is well  aware of the snares
    awaiting the person who tries to  save this country. He knows that Panic
    is the captain  of a ship of rambunctious madmen  who would like best to
    throw him to the sharks and swing  the rudder this way and that. His and
    Panic's hope rests on the fact that  some of them have realized that the
    ship has become stranded and has almost sunk.

    If everything  does not go  to the devil,  Varadi's Ministry of  Justice
    should  be  one  of  the  most  important  and  busiest,  which he would
    certainly  contribute to.  A legal   wilderness is  awaiting him  in the
    forsaken Kosovo, where it would do good to grant mass amnesty, give back
    the workers their  jobs and the children their  school. What also awaits
    him  are  amnesty  grants  for  various  military  and war offenses, and
    resolving the  status of hundreds  of thousands of  refugees from Serbia
    and in Serbia. Varadi's Ministry will have to untangle old and intricate
    ownership  relations in  order to  pursue Panic's  privatization policy,
    without any hope that everybody will  be satisfied with their portion of
    justice.

    At  a time  when the  entire opposition  is, in  effect, boycotting  the
    Constitution, the state and the  Government, and demanding elections for
    a constituent  assembly,  Varadi  will  have  to  take  over the task of
    drawing  up an  election law  acceptable to  all. He  knows how  to seek
    compromises,  but how  does one  set the  rules which  will promise  the
    opposition a victory and the Socialists their power?

    Finally,  the most  urgent of  all tasks  would have  to be stopping the
    growing political  violence and terror,  which is endeavoring  to settle
    all disputes  and lighten problems  with the help  of weapons and  civil
    war. This  means that Varadi would  have to set in  motion the obviously
    paralyzed  District  Attorneys'  Offices  which  are  now tolerating the
    threats to and  expulsion of the non-Serbian population,  not batting an
    eye on the  armed gangs, on the preaching  of lawlessness and reprisals,
    on public insults and slander, on the systemic destruction of every kind
    of  order which  could compromise  the idea  of democracy.  It would  be
    logical to start from the biggest legal and public disgrace that goes by
    the  name of  Vojislav Seselj.  If the  quiet Hungarian  could stop  the
    vociferous bully,  people would perhaps believe  in law and the  rule of
    law.

    I do not doubt that Tibor Varadi accepted his post completely aware that
    whatever he  attempts to do of  the mentioned will be  followed by a cry
    from  the Yugoslav  Parliament: "Don't   touch!" They  will say  this to
    Panic, too,  just as they  said it on  the day they  elected him. It was
    plain  that nobody  in there  agreed with  him in  anything and that the
    Parliament would have liked best to  have him try and explain "the truth
    about Serbia" to the world again. They  count on being able to block and
    intercept him, and that this will  not be visible from the outside world
    which will believe  that Panic is changing something.  They believe that
    have a prime minister for the store  window, but that the store will not
    hold such goods.

    Whatever the reason  that prompted Milan Panic to  exchange a successful
    company  for  one  that's  gone  to  the  dogs,  he cannot agree to this
    domestic game,  simply because everything would  become clear within two
    weeks.  And,  of  course,  there  would  be  nothing doing regarding the
    sanctions. He has experience in starting  with nothing, but he still has
    to arrive  at that nothing,  which means that  he must first  remove the
    thick layers of destructive drivel. Even  those who wish him success are
    shaking their heads. They think the  American does not have the faintest
    idea what  he's got himself  into -  which  is true -  but maybe Panic's
    optimistic smile is not an expression of pure naivety and ignorance.

    It will  be a continual tug  of war over everything  with the Parliament
    and Milosevic's sharks,  but Panic is not so helpless  at that. The fate
    of this  country is no longer  decided in Belgrade but  in New York, and
    Panic's Government  is confirming its mandate  before the United Nations
    and  not  before  Milosevic's  Parliament.  By  all  accounts,  Panic is
    resolute  in his  intention to  implement everything  he has thought of,
    like he  is used to  doing in  his  company, and the  Serbian regime can
    either oust him immediately or reconcile themselves to him. Both options
    are highly unpleasant,  and there isn't a third. Panic  is counting on a
    break already being made, the moment  they called him in, and perhaps he
    is right.

    Somewhere here  lies the hope  that induced Tibor  Varadi to accept  the
    portfolio  of  justice  in  a  land  of  lawlessness.  He  will bear the
    responsibility for  everything he is  not able to  fix, just like  Panic
    courageously  intends to  stop the  war in  Bosnia as  though it  were a
    candle that simply  needs to be blown out. No  matter, if he really does
    blow, maybe something will get moving somewhere.
                                                              Stojan Cerovic


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     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                       No. 43, July 20, 1992
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