From: malenovi@plains.NoDak.edu (Malenovic Nikola V.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Politics ( VREME NDA 5 Sep 1992 )
Date: 5 Sep 92 18:13:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: plains.20179
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network


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     "Vreme" News Digest No. 49                             August 31, 1992
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    Politics
    --------


                  A TIME FOR WARRIORS, A TIME FOR POLITICIANS


           The  time for  politicians and  the temporary  easing of
           tensions is arriving. Serbia cannot say whether the West
           is ready  to engage in  a military intervention  against
           Radovan Karadzic (leader of Bosnian Serbs) and Belgrade,
           and the  West cannot say whether  the economic isolation
           of Serbia is enough to destabilize the Milosevic regime.
                        This is a balance of indecision

    It  has resulted  in the  London Conference,  in political  sophistry in
    murky waters.

    The West, of course, can increase its economic and political pressure on
    Serbia, but it is not sure that it will not cause unrest which Milosevic
    could convert into a war with the  Albanians in Kosovo, and thus set the
    Balkans alight. The Americans, the  Russians and Europe can easily exert
    new forms of pressure on Serbia:  they can prevent it from exporting and
    importing  agricultural   produces  and  medicine;  they   can  cut  all
    telecommunications  links; they  can forbid  international passenger and
    cargo transport through Serbia and vehicles with our license plates from
    being driven abroad; they can reject the "Yugoslav" passport and shut us
    up in  our Serbian cage,  and send back  all Yugoslav passport  owners -
    workers employed  abroad. Serbia would then  become the biggest pressure
    cooker in the world.

    Yugoslav  Prime  Minister  Milan  Panic  is  a  politician  through whom
    Belgrade is testing  and trying. Nobody is controlling  him, not because
    he  is ungovernable,  but because  through him  the war  masters relieve
    themselves  of the  burden of   their mistakes,  knowing that  he cannot
    supersede the limit of his personal  authority. He serves also for their
    future  stoning,  because  he  may  become  the  scapegoat,  accused  of
    abandoning  the  plans  of  the  Greater  Serbian  lab.  Naturally,  his
    conspiracy  could not  have been  prevented, because,  allegedly, he had
    gone too far.

    President of Yugoslavia  Dobrica Cosic felt a lot  earlier that the time
    for bargaining had come. The  Serbian armed forces mostly finished their
    task. He  agreed to everything  in London and  did not even  ask for the
    recognition  of  the   right  of  the  Serbs  outside   to  secede  from
    Herzeg-Bosnia and Croatia  in favor of "Yugoslavia". He  was modest, and
    only asked for "respect for the  equality of all people" in Bosnia. This
    is  an  enormous  aberration  for  him.  Frightened  by the necessity to
    withdraw before the  world's threats and the declining  economy at home,
    he  acquiesces  to  world  pressure,  because  he cannot achieve general
    consent  for  continuing  the  war  and  conquering  territories outside
    Serbia,  even if  he were  to organize  another ten "consultations" with
    opposition parties.  He has simply  abated; our leaders  are perfidious,
    they will sign anything - only to be able to carry on as before.

    It seems that  of the four London "Yugoslavs" only  Mr. Panic can draw a
    political profit.  The other three  are not even  thinking of giving  up
    Greater Serbia  or smaller Prevlaka.  By ostensibly making  concessions,
    they will remain indifferent before  Karadzic's new broom for ethnically
    cleansing Herzeg-Bosnia  of non-Serbs, and publicly  will wonder why Mr.
    Panic does not stop  this once and for all. Perhaps a  month or two will
    pass in mutual  accusations for betraying London, which  would give them
    enough time to go to the next London Conference with a new ethnic map, a
    clear national distribution in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    If Mr. Panic starts fulfilling the London demands to the letter, he will
    not only have to recognize Herzeg-Bosnia and Croatia, but also waive the
    right of the  Serbs outside to secede in favor  of "Yugoslavia". He will
    order  the army  and the  federal  police  to stop  all military  aid to
    Karadzic and Hadzic, he will arrest war criminals and create scandals on
    the involvement of persons in Serbia's  highest echelons of power in the
    war and crimes,  he will support the disarming of  all Serbs outside, he
    will  not recognize  Karadzic's memorandum  "Serbian Republic"  and will
    remove the intruders from Croatian houses in Vojvodina.

    This will make  Mr. Milosevic angry and he will  have to decide: to take
    on Mr. Panic or to become an ordinary citizen and leave for his hometown
    Pozarevac, where he will write his  memoirs? His book in Serbia would be
    second only  to the primer.  It will be  known immediately if  he should
    decide on a duel, because he will start by undermining Mr. Panic via the
    truth-loving  state  television.  The  attack  must  not  be too strong,
    because Mr.  Panic's fall would  drag with it  "Yugoslavia's" mask which
    conceals  Serbia's doings.  The  military  intervention would,  then, be
    closer than ever. Mr. Milosevic  will, therefore, choose to sabotage Mr.
    Panic  quietly,  irritating  him  with  numerous  blockades  coming from
    behind,  without leaving  a clear  trail back  to their  origin. So, the
    "Yugoslav" farce  remains, Mr. Panic  becomes a victim  of international
    irritability, Mr. Milosevic, hidden in the  shadows, plays the role of a
    constructive  implementer of  London,  and  outside, the  Serbs, Croats,
    Muslims and the rest continue their apocalypse.

    It  seems that  the pharmacist  from California  (MR. Milan Panic) feels
    that he can register "Yugoslavia" in  the world, safe political face and
    satisfy  his  own  passions  at  his  age  only by attacking Milosevic's
    policy. How  can he go back  to America, defeated and  without achieving
    any results, how can he admit that  the reds have chucked him out again,
    like they did forty years ago?

    And Mr. Cosic? He will await the settlement.
                                                            Dragan Veselinov


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     "Vreme" News Digest No. 49                             August 31, 1992
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