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NewsPro Archive
September 2000
Hopes for independence in ex-Montenegro capital
CETINJE, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - Steeped in a history of resistance to attackers from the Turks to the Nazis, people in the former capital of Montenegro are starting to dream of independence from Yugoslavia. "Cetinje is at the heart of Montenegrin history.... The desire for a free and independent state is stronger here than anywhere else in Montenegro," said Savo Paraca, the mayor of the southern mountain town of 18,000 people. Only 4 percent of Cetinje"s electorate voted in Yugoslav presidential and parliamentary elections last Sunday, the lowest rate in Montenegro, in a slap at Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and other forces favoring continued ties to Belgrade. Overall turnout in Montenegro, the sole republic still in Yugoslavia along with its bigger sister Serbia, was 28.5 percent. The pro-Western government in Montenegro had urged a boycott, saying the vote was unconstitutional. Many citizens in the picturesque but dilapidated town, where 13 foreign nations once had embassies, hope a power struggle between Milosevic and his Serb challenger Vojislav Kostunica for the presidency will end up helping Montenegrin independence. "This is where a free Montenegro was born," said Radmila Kovacevic, a 49-year-old painter. "I feel a debt to my ancestors to fight for independence." "I think that Montenegro is heading for independence now, no matter whether Kostunica or Milosevic wins," she added. MILOSEVIC BOOSTS INDEPENDENCE PRESSURE Others say pressures for Montenegro to secede will increase if Milosevic, indicted last year by a U.N. court for alleged war crimes, clings to power. A Kostunica win could raise chances of reforms in Serbia and dampen Montenegrins" separatist ardor. "For 13 years we"ve lived under the dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic. We want independence, especially if he stays on," said Vesko Stojkovic, 34. From the late 15th century, Cetinje became the heart of a principality that managed to survive on the fringes of the Ottoman and Austrian empires. It became the Montenegrin capital on independence in 1878 and was the seat of King Nicola I when Montenegro became a kingdom in 1910. Eight years later, it came under Yugoslav rule. The Montenegrin government of President Milo Djukanovic has said the country will stay in Yugoslavia if Serbia becomes democratic. If it does not, Montenegro may secede. Cetinje is not typical of Montenegro, where enough people still favor Yugoslavia to prompt fears of instability if the republic were to break away, even though the number of those seeking independence has grown in recent years. Even here some people still want links with Belgrade. "I voted. A lot more people wanted to but they were scared of coming out," said Vidosava Martinovic, a 47-year-old factory worker. "We should stay with Yugoslavia." Many recall heroic tales of resistance. In one 19th century battle, the town"s defenders kept back the Turks by taking metal letters from a printing press and melting them into bullets. In the Second World War, Cetinje was overrun by the Nazis and the Italians but 49 local fighters won awards for heroism, the most for any city in Montenegro. Paraca said Cetinje was punished for its monarchist past when the capital was moved east to Titograd, now called Podgorica, after the war. He said it hoped to get back some government ministries and embassies.
The Times: Milosevic allies admit defeat
FROM MISHA GLENNY IN BELGRADE
KEY figures in President Milosevic's party turned against him last night, as thousands of Serbs took to the streets of Belgrade in support of Vojislav Kostunica, his opponent in the presidential elections last Sunday.
Sources close to the leadership of Mr Milosevic's Socialist Party said that several members of the party's Executive Committee had told him at a meeting that he should accept the outright victory of Mr Kostunica in the first round of the elections. "It was an extremely heated meeting, with several close colleagues telling Milosevic that the game was up," the source said.
A senior western diplomat told The Times that "at the leadership meeting, the atmosphere was rebellious and some of those present said that Milosevic should concede Kostunica's victory".
There are signs, however, that the opposition is unsure how to orchestrate its campaign of civil disobedience, which began yesterday with strikes and protests throughout the country.
Just 25,000 demonstrators, mainly schoolchildren and students, attended an afternoon rally at Republic Square in Belgrade. In spite of the low turnout, the protest quickly assumed a carnival atmosphere, with many youngsters swaying to rock music blasting from one opposition party's headquarters.
"Our parents were unable to finish this job, so now it is up to us," Svetlana, 17, a schoolgirl from Belgrade, said.
Last night Vojislav Kostunica, the opposition leader, called for an internationally monitored recount of last Sunday's vote in what he said was a "goodwill gesture" to end the impasse with Mr Milosevic. The offer was in response to a Greek initiative, which sees Mr Kostunica taking part in a second round.
In Montenegro, the reformist President Djukanovic broke his silence to praise the "victory" of Mr Kostunica, to whom he pledged his support in an attempt to heal the rifts caused by his call for a boycott of last Sunday's elections.
"The opposition will benefit from our support, as it always did, even during the elections we boycotted," he said.
Waving a huge blue-and-white banner of the Democratic Party, Nikola Djuric, 25, a baker, said he had not yet taken time off work, but he was ready to strike for "however long it takes, if it gets rid of that man", as he referred to President Milosevic.
The organisers said that the restricted numbers were due to the demonstration being held in the middle of the day, but they also pointed out that the main independent radio station in Belgrade, Radio Index, was jammed to prevent news of the protest spreading.
Sympathy demonstrations were held in other cities, including in the leading town in southern Serbia, Nis, and Novi Sad, the capital of the northern province, Vojvodina. The opposition demands that President Milosevic recognise the outright victory that it insists Mr Kostunica won in the first round of Yugoslavia's presidential elections. But the Government-controlled election commission says that Mr Kostunica failed to win 50 per cent of the vote and must face a second ballot a week tomorrow.
The Independent: Belgrade braced for five days of defiance
General strike call prompts Milosevic bid to stem defections after courts and state media declare support for Kostunica
By Steve Crawshaw in Belgrade
30 September 2000
Serbia began grinding to a standstill yesterday in advance of five days of general strikes called by the opposition to start on Monday.
The authorities clamped down still further on international reporting of what many could prove to be the death throes of the Milosevic regime. Jacky Rowland, the BBC correspondent in Belgrade, was told she had 48 hours to leave the country after being accused of biased reporting on the election. Following enormous reluctance by Belgrade to grant visas for this historic election, and following a number of expulsions in recent weeks, the number of foreign journalists remaining in Belgrade is now tiny.
Thousands of Serbs gathered again in the centre of Belgrade and in cities across the country in defiance of President Slobodan Milosevic's attempts to steal the election victory from the opposition leader, Vojislav Kostunica. Some theatres and cinemas closed, as did universities and schools.
The opposition has called for a nation-wide campaign of civil disobedience but Mr Kostunica is anxious to avoid any moves that could provoke a Milosevic crackdown. Earlier yesterday, Zoran Djindjic, the head of the opposition election campaign, met with 40 diplomats accredited in Belgrade to brief them on what the opposition has said was a major election fraud by Mr Milosevic and to see how the EU could help.
An opposition source said diplomats were interested in the possibility of a run-off. "They did not suggest there should be a second round but were just inquiring about it," the source said.
Earlier Mr Kostunica made a specific appeal to Greece to use its influence over Mr Milosevic to agree to a recount of the votes from last Sunday's vote. "I appeal to all well-intentioned people to help ease tension which could destabilise not only the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia but the whole Balkan region, to get involved" in the recount, Mr Kostunica said in a statement.
Splits in the Milosevic regime continued apace. Even parts of the state TV network began to suffer from internal mutiny. Journalists at TV Novi Sad, part of the main RTS Serbian TV network, threatened to go on strike if the station refused access to the opposition coalition; the journalists demanded that the opposition election figures – which show a clear-cut, 52 per cent victory for Mr Kostunica – should be broadcast.
The independent Beta news agency said that uniformed and plainclothes police were in the building.
The defection of state TV journalists to the opposition – enabling previously unseen and unheard pictures to be broadcast – proved to be a key turning point in some of the east European revolutions that ended communism in 1989.
Even the traditional instruments of the Milosevic regime began to indicate their loyalty could no longer be relied upon. A court was reported to have closed in solidarity with the opposition demands. The courts have traditionally been ready to do Mr Milosevic's bidding.
The opposition began to refer to its candidate as President Kostunica of Yugoslavia. In a simultaneously conciliatory and defiant tone, Mr Kostunica said it was "more than necessary" to have a recount, in view of the "more than obvious" differences between the figures carefully collated from official return sheets by the opposition and the figures claimed, without substantiation, by the government.
Because the reach of independent media is patchy at best, part of the purpose of yesterday's rallies was to ensure that people across the country were aware of the opposition's demands and the plans for next week's strike. Already yesterday some factories closed. The atmosphere at the rallies was relaxed, almost celebratory. Despite the dismal history of the opposition, there is considerable confidence now that this time will prove to be different.
Part of the confidence comes not just from the clear-cut electoral victory – the first time that the opposition has truly defeated Mr Milosevic at the polls – but also from the sense that the regime is beginning to crumble. Representatives of the the Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition met army and police chiefs for talks in the provinces.
Mr Kostunica and his colleagues are eager to achieve a handover of power without bloodshed, a possibility that until a few days ago still seemed unthinkable.
The opposition also sought meetings with the bosses of Serbian state television, to demand air-time to explain the position of the opposition, including the nature of next week's strikes. The strikes are limited to five days, a neat Monday-to-Friday self-contained set of pressures, in the hope that the response will be so overwhelming that the regime will start to crack and offer new compromises – and perhaps, even – though most Serbs still find it impossible to imagine that that day is near – that Mr Milosevic and his family will be bundled on to a plane to Moscow or elsewhere.
Zoran Djindjic, the opposition;s campaign manager andone of the main opposition leaders in the huge demonstrations of winter 1996-97, was cheered by the crowds in Belgrade when he quoted a popular new opposition slogan directed at Mr Milosevic: "Leave, before we come to you." Another popular, more brutal slogan says: "Slobo, save Serbia – kill yourself." Mr Milosevic's parents committed suicide.
The La Times: Anti-Milosevic Protests, Strikes Sputter Forward
Balkans: As opposition prepares for big strike, many fear that president has too much time to regroup.
BUDVA, Yugoslavia--The protest movement aimed at driving Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic from power sputtered forward Friday with rallies and a few scattered strikes.
The opposition hopes to build up a full head of steam by Monday, when it has called on supporters to go on strike for five days and bring Serbia, the larger of Yugoslavia's two republics, to a standstill. But many already are asking whether the slow start has given Milosevic and his allies too much time to regroup.
About 20,000 protesters rallied Friday night in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital. Opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica, who has declared himself president-elect after a disputed election Sunday, did not appear onstage.
At least 150,000 joyous Kostunica supporters packed central Belgrade on Wednesday to celebrate his self-declared victory, in one of the largest demonstrations ever against Milosevic's 13-year rule.
Yugoslavia's Federal Electoral Commission, which is dominated by Milosevic supporters, declared this week that none of the four candidates won an outright majority in the presidential election. It ordered a runoff Oct. 8 between Kostunica as the top vote-getter and the second-place Milosevic.
Milosevic has announced that he will be a candidate. Kostunica's aides continue to insist that their candidate won Sunday, based on ballot-count reports filed to the commission by the nation's nearly 11,000 polling stations, and say he will not participate in the second round. They charge that the Yugoslav leader would steal a runoff vote by fraud, though their boycott strategy could allow Milosevic to declare victory by default.
Their charges of fraud in Sunday's count were backed Friday by the United Nations' administrator in Kosovo. Bernard Kouchner, who oversees the Serbian province in the wake of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's air war against Yugoslavia last year, said the electoral commission's count from Kosovo was "a lie" and "a manipulation."
Speaking at the United Nations, Kouchner dismissed as "fiction" the Milosevic regime's claims that 140,000 people, including 8,173 ethnic Albanians, voted in the province. U.N. observers who monitored all voting stations in Kosovo had reported earlier this week that fewer than 45,000 people cast ballots.
Kostunica has formally written to several governments asking them to participate in an internationally supervised recount of Sunday's results, and so far Norway and Greece have agreed to send monitors, Vladeta Jankovic, Kostunica's deputy, told the cheering crowd Friday night.
"A recount is the only way to absolutely confirm our success," he said. "We have nothing to hide."
If Yugoslav officials deny visas to the monitors, "that means they have something to hide," Jankovic added.
The state-run Radio-Television Serbia counterattacked earlier Friday with a lengthy report that pointed out what it said were discrepancies in the opposition's count.
While Kostunica's own party headquarters declared that he had received 51.34% of the ballots, the 18-party coalition backing him put the figure at 54.66%. Those figures showed that the opposition can't be trusted, the state TV report claimed.
Coming from what has long been Milosevic's biggest propaganda tool, the criticism was far from convincing. But it could plant doubts in enough people's minds to undercut the opposition further as both camps settle in for what most expect to be a long confrontation.
The opposition's five-day campaign of strikes and civil disobedience got an early start Friday in a few opposition-controlled towns and cities such as Nis, Yugoslavia's third-largest city, and Cacak.
About 3,000 high school students gathered in Nis' central square to shout anti-Milosevic slogans. In Cacak, teachers and pupils at two high schools and most primary schools went on strike, Reuters news service reported.
"You are the youth and the brains of this country," Cacak Mayor Velimir Ilic, a staunch opponent of Milosevic, told the protesters. "You were the first to enter the strike in Serbia. You should be an example to the others."
Along with its street demonstrations, the opposition is also trying to send Milosevic a message with a new tactic: protest postcards. Activists handed out thousands of them on the streets of Belgrade on Friday, with instructions that read: "If you agree with this message, affix a postage stamp, sign this and throw the postcard into the nearest mailbox."
One of the cards shows a photo montage of Milosevic and his neo-Communist wife, Mirjana Markovic. Milosevic's head is on an ape's body, while his wife's sits atop the naked form of a much younger woman. She is sitting on Milosevic's hairy shoulder. The name "King Kong" is printed beneath Milosevic.
The mailing address is printed on the back of the postcard. It is Milosevic's former home in Belgrade at 15 Uzicka St., which NATO warplanes bombed during 78 days of airstrikes last year.
"Dear Mr. Milosevic," the postcard's message reads. "After 10 years of misery which you brought to the former Yugoslavia, Serbia and the Serbian people, it is time for you to step down before it becomes too late, both for you and for us."
The Guardian: 'The story is over but no one dares say that to Milosevic'
Opposition gear up for general strike to unseat Yugoslav leader
Special report: Serbia
Maggie O' Kane in Belgrade
Saturday September 30, 2000
Students walked out of classrooms, nurses and doctors came on to the streets and taxi drivers blocked the roads all over Serbia yesterday in preparation for a general strike. The marathon campaign of civil disobedience is due to start on Monday.
Opposition leaders have launched a two-pronged attack on the struggling president, Slobodan Milosevic. They are calling for a national protest campaign against him for refusing to accept defeat as president and are challenging his version of the election results in court.
Mr Milosevic is refusing to cede power saying that his opponent did not win an outright victory. The opposition has accused him of election fraud. "The whole story is over but nobody dares to say that to Mr Milosevic," said Zoran Sekulich, editor of the independent news agency Fonet in Belgrade. "It's now or never."
The opposition parties have called for an five days of protests but say more will follow in their attempt to unseat Mr Milosevic from power peacefully. "We will continue with the rallies over the weekend and start a general strike on Monday to grind Serbia to a halt," said one of the opposition leaders, Zoran Djinjic.
They want Mr Milosevic to cancel a run-off for the presidency ordered by the state-run election commission.
Yesterday the opposition revealed details of what they say was election fraud in Kosovo, where Mr Milosevic claimed he had won 140,000 votes. K-For, the international force administering the province, says only 45,000 people voted and polling stations where these votes were said to have come from never opened.
Although the general strike is not due to begin until Monday, crowds chanting "He's finished" and "Slobodan save Serbia and kill yourself" gathered in most of the major cities.
The largest crowd was expected last night in Belgrade, where more than 200,000 turned out for an opposition concert and rally earlier in the week. The mood in the city is one of growing confidence and irreverence. Insulting postcards of the president as a gorilla with the face of his wife Mira superimposed on the naked body of a woman are circulating, as well as badges reading "It's over" and "You're finished".
In Cacak, another strong opposition town, teachers and pupils from primary and secondary schools were on the streets. The mayor of Cacak, Velja Ilic, told them: "You are the youth and brains of this country. You were the first to enter the strike in Serbia, you should be an example to others."
Blocked from access to the state-controlled television in Belgrade, the opposition campaign is being run by word of mouth and through the former student radio station Index.
Yesterday, journalists at one former state-run television station in Novi Sad also went on strike and said they would produce their own independent news. Last night the top story on state television was the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's volleyball win at the Sydney Olympics, but they also showed for the first time seven minutes of the opposition rally. They also reported accusations of election fraud by Mr Milosevic's party workers. For 13 years the state-controlled Radio Television Serbia has been one of Mr Milosevic's most important tools.
The opposition have asked for direct meetings with army and police and there were unconfirmed reports yesterday that the army had agreed.
They also want Russian help to prove that Vojislav Kostunica, the main opposition candidate, has won the election. According to the independent Belgrade newspaper Danas, copies of the election results had been sent to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, by diplomatic bag. The opposition insists that Mr Kostunica defeated Mr Milosevic by 51% to 36%.
There have been few signs of police activity. At rallies and protests during the week, they spent their time chatting with demonstrators. Last night in Belgrade, as thousands flooded on to the streets of the capital, the only police around in the area were directing the traffic and offering helpful assessments of crowd numbers to journalists.
The New York Times: Montenegrins Gauging Effects of Yugoslav Vote
By CARLOTTA GALL
ODGORICA, Montenegro, Sept. 29 — Even while the outcome of the Yugoslav presidential elections remains uncertain, Montenegro's leaders are sizing up the leading candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, and maneuvering for negotiations over the future of their republic.
Slobodan Milosevic's departure would not immediately dissolve the differences between Montenegro and Serbia, the two last remaining republics of Yugoslavia. Such a move could herald a realignment in this tiny coastal republic, which largely boycotted the elections, and sharpen the debate over independence.
President Milo Djukanovic laid out his position today in an interview with the leading daily here, Vijesti, welcoming the success of the Serbian opposition in the election on Sunday and the defeat of Mr. Milosevic's policies. "I hope there will be change in Serbia, and a healing of relations between Montenegro and Serbia and stability in the region," Mr. Djukanovic said.
Until Mr. Milosevic leaves, Mr. Djukanovic said, the most important thing is to avoid any conflict.
At a news conference on Thursday, Prime Minister Filip Vujanovic called for Mr. Kostunica to fulfill promises he made in the campaign to redefine the status and relationship of the two republics. In particular, Mr. Vujanovic said, Mr. Kostunica should dissolve the federal Parliament, which is filled just by the pro-Milosevic parties from Montenegro. "Kostunica has pledged to dissolve the federal Parliament and rectify the damage done to the Constitution," he said, referring to changes that Mr. Milosevic pushed through in July.
In a meeting with the government in Montenegro before the elections, Mr. Kostunica and other leaders of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia agreed to dismiss the Parliament in 18 months. "We hope it will be even shorter," Mr. Vujanovic said.
The Montenegro government has not had representatives in the Parliament for two years. The government has also been shut out of federal bodies like the National Bank of Yugoslavia and the Supreme Military Council, which oversees the armed forces in war.
Government ministers said Montenegro had advanced so much in recent years that even a return to the 1992 Yugoslav Constitution was no longer acceptable. They want a new relationship with Serbia based on the platform that they proposed last year to Mr. Milosevic, which he ignored. It is a plan for a very loose confederation, and refers to a union of separate sovereign states, each controlling the troops on its soil but conducting foreign and economic policy together.
While the platform is a document for negotiation, it is, in the words of a Western diplomat, fairly extravagant and may not go down well in Serbia or Mr. Kostunica, a moderate Serbian nationalist and a lawyer. Mr. Kostunica showed his annoyance at the Montenegrin government, supposedly his democratic allies, for boycotting the elections and thus denying him the extra help of votes from Montenegrins.
At a rally on Wednesday in Belgrade, he said he had won "despite some democrats in Serbia and Montenegro who turned their back on us." He lumped the Montenegrins together with Vuk Draskovic, an opposition figure who heads the Serbian Renewal Movement and who had refused to back Mr. Kostunica.
Mr. Djukanovic defended his boycott as a reaction to Mr. Milosevic's constitutional changes, which diminished Montenegro's standing in the federation. "It was clear we had to boycott," he said. "We were defending Montenegro's most important values."
He added that even while boycotting, the Montenegrins gave crucial assistance to the opposition on Sunday, supplying observers to monitor the vote and preventing large-scale fraud in Montenegro.
Government aides said the Democratic Opposition of Serbia and the Montenegrin leadership had been in close contact over the election results.
Nevertheless, Mr. Kostunica has also reportedly made overtures to the main Montenegrin opposition leader, Predrag Bulatovic, vice president of the Socialist People's Party, which supported Mr. Milosevic in the election. Mr. Bulatovic's party now commands all but one of the Montenegrin seats in the federal Parliament and is the largest party in the lower Chamber of Citizens.
Mr. Bulatovic, who commands considerable respect and popularity in Montenegro, said that he had not had any contacts with Mr. Kostunica but that he had also distanced himself from Mr. Milosevic since the election.
"We are a party with our own program," he said in an interview. "We are not tied to anyone. Milosevic is not written into our manifesto. We are fighting for equality of Serbia and Montenegro within a Yugoslav Federation, and everyone who respects this can be with us."
One sign of Mr. Bulatovic's influence is in press reports that Mr. Kostunica may offer him the post of federal prime minister. He may find in him an easier negotiator on Montenegro's future than Mr. Djukanovic. As if hinting at his greater flexibility, Mr. Bulatovic said this week that he saw no reason to change the Constitution as it stands.
The Montenegrin government retains the one strong piece of leverage, a call for an independence referendum. But divisions exist even on that issue.
"You will see a huge shuffle here," a minister said. "Take away Mr. Milosevic, and then we will quarrel about many things."
The Times : Victor's dilemma
Milosevic hands victorious rival poisoned chalice
FROM RICHARD BEESTON IN BELGRADE
BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 26 — The government-controlled Federal Election Commission announced tonight that President Slobodan Milosevic was trailing his challenger, Vojislav Kostunica, but rejected Mr. Kostunica's claim to an outright victory.
The commission said the opposition candidate had fallen short of the 50 percent required for a first-round win and called for a runoff to take place on Oct. 8. Opposition leaders immediately called the commission's figures fraudulent and said they would not take part in a runoff. They said that Mr. Kostunica had won almost 55 percent of the votes, and that he said he had rejected a government feeler, through intermediaries, for a second round.
"This is an offer that must be rejected," Mr. Kostunica said in a statement. "The victory is obvious, and we will defend it by all nonviolent means. The people have given their political no to Milosevic and his policies. Our first duty is to carry out that verdict."
The state television broke into the main evening news program with the announcement that Mr. Milosevic, with 40.23 percent, had come in second to Mr. Kostunica, with 48.22 percent, with a turnout of about 64.65 percent. Opposition members of the commission said they had not been involved in the tallying.
The opposition said that by its own figures, gathered from election monitors in each constituency who had signed the returns before they had been shipped to Belgrade for final approval by the election commission, Mr. Kostunica was beating Mr. Milosevic by 54.66 percent to 35.01 percent. The opposition said that the turnout had been 74 percent, and that its monitors had counted more than 98 percent of the votes.
Accordingly, Mr. Kostunica declared that a second round was unnecessary. "There is no single reason, not moral or political, by which we would accept such trampling on the electoral will of the people," he said. But Mr. Kostunica promised to avoid "careless moves that could raise tensions in society, that could lead to unforeseeable consequences."
In Washington, President Clinton praised the voters and offered to remove economic sanctions if democratic change prevails against any efforts by Mr. Milosevic to "cling to power."
The opposition has scheduled rallies in Belgrade and other cities for Wednesday night to defend what it called Mr. Kostunica's victory — rallies that could prove confrontational, depending on how the police respond.
The risk for Mr. Kostunica, a constitutional lawyer who is a moderate nationalist, an anti-Communist and a democrat, is that if the popular will proves insufficiently forceful, the boycott of a second round could let Mr. Milosevic claim an unopposed victory and remain president.
In 1996 thousands of Belgrade citizens marched for three months to defend the opposition's victory in local elections, which Mr. Milosevic had challenged in the courts, before he relented.
Tonight Belgrade's squares were largely empty, although some people were out on their terraces banging pots and pans, and an independent radio station, Radio Indeks, said its telephone lines were clogged by angry listeners. About 9 p.m., its signal was jammed. On the street, Ljiljana Zivkovic, 50, an accountant, said simply: "They can't steal the votes anymore. We'll make them leave."
In the opposition strongholds of Cacak and Novi Sad, large rallies were reported, with 15,000 and 5,000 people respectively, to protest the commission's announcement.
In an important message, the leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle, who met with Mr. Kostunica today, urged Mr. Milosevic "to accept the electoral will of the people and contribute to the welfare of the nation and the state."
The patriarch "called on everyone, including the army and police, to defend the interests of people and the state rather than individuals," a church statement said.
The official announcement on state television that Mr. Milosevic was trailing was already an extraordinary admission that the government's campaign had gone badly wrong. It followed what government officials have described as a furious debate about how to handle Mr. Milosevic's first electoral defeat ever.
Proposals that Mr. Milosevic declare outright victory in the first round appear to have been rejected as too confrontational and risky.
A second round, especially with Mr. Milosevic trailing, at least keeps his options open and can be taken by some Serbs as democratic and non- confrontational. It will be harder for Mr. Kostunica to complain that his victory has been stolen, given what would appear to be near certainty that he would win a second round.
Most important, the tactic buys time for the government to consider its next step, and perhaps to bargain for a secure exit, especially with Western countries that have been sending word to Mr. Milosevic that his position is untenable and he must consider how to save himself from a system that could crumble rapidly.
But the effort to throw the election into a second round was interpreted by the opposition as a clumsy effort by Mr. Milosevic to escape his fate.
"A second round gives Milosevic 10 more days to find a pretext to call off the election, falsify it or postpone it," said one opposition leader. "It's a trap for us."
Before the election on Sunday, even Mr. Kostunica said he thought a second round would be necessary and hoped that Mr. Milosevic would not cancel the election altogether. But the breadth of the anti-government swing on Sunday took the opposition by surprise.
"This is a big fraud," said Zoran Djindjic, leader of the coalition that backs Mr. Kostunica, speaking of the call for a second round. "In last two days, we knew that they were preparing something to get Milosevic into the second round. But we have proof of our figures, and we will defend the people's vote to the end."
At the same time, Mr. Djindjic urged patience. He said the opposition would demand to see the commission's figures, and compare them with the opposition's.
"We have 98 percent of the facts in our hands," he said. "We know they are trying to manipulate the results from Kosovo." He alleged that the commission had taken 400,000 votes from Mr. Kostunica and had given 200,000 to Mr. Milosevic.
The commission has 28 members, 2 from the governing coalition and 2 from the opposition coalition, but with a majority appointed by the government. Mr. Milosevic was in the shadows today, but the commission is considered to be acting on his behalf.
Opposition representatives say they have been locked out of any counting. Tonight, one of Mr. Kostunica's representatives on the commission, Djordje Mamula, said at least 4 percent of Mr. Kostunica's votes had been stolen from him. "I don't know how their gummy mathematics work," he said.
Belgraders love to reminisce about the happy days of the winter of 1996, when thousands of protesters marched every day for three months after Mr. Milosevic challenged the opposition's victories in local elections. He finally backed down.
This year, the government has already conceded a huge defeat in local elections — the opposition will govern nearly 100 towns and cities in Serbia — but now Mr. Milosevic's own future is at stake.
While Belgrade was quiet tonight, with no rally scheduled, people were angry. Snjezana, 32, a shop attendant, said: "I'm not afraid. They can say whatever they want. But they are defeated — history. If we have to defend our victory on the street, we'll do that. We've had enough."
A lawyer of 35, Branomir Misic, said: "We were out on the street so many times. And this time we will be there again. There is no way out for them."
Zarko Korac, an opposition political leader, said tonight that victory could not be taken from the nearly three million people who had voted for Mr. Kostunica. "Milosevic is fighting for his political survival," he said. "But democracy is about accepting the will of the people. This was a political verdict, a referendum on Milosevic, and he lost it."
In the presidential election, Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Kostunica had three other competitors — Tomislav Nikolic of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, who got 5.1 percent of the vote according to the election commission; Vojislav Mihailovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement, who got 2.59 percent; and Miodrag Vidojkovic of the Affirmative Party, who got 0.8 percent.
People also voted for both houses of the federal Parliament. Despite the opposition's strong showing in Serbia, Mr. Milosevic will control both houses and can form a federal government with no other partners.
He will do so because his allied party won the seats reserved for Serbia's sister republic, Montenegro, after the Montenegrin president, Milo Djukanovic, urged his citizens to boycott the elections, saying they were unconstitutional.
In Montenegro itself, fears of a Milosevic move on Mr. Djukanovic were receding. Special police troops remained on alert and were guarding state buildings dressed in full combat gear and helmets, but Deputy Prime Minister Dragisa Burzan said in an interview that he believed that government fears that Mr. Milosevic might order the Yugoslav Army to take over government institutions or impose a state of emergency in the republic were receding.
`'If he survives he will be very dangerous," Mr. Burzan said of Mr. Milosevic. "But now he cannot influence the generals as he could even yesterday."
Fallen idol
Disaffected hometown spurns its most famous son
FROM RICHARD BEESTON IN POZAREVAC
OF ALL the many defeats suffered by President Milosevic in Sunday's elections across Serbia, none is more humiliating than the result in his home town, where most voters have turned their backs on Pozarevac's most famous son. For ten years this sleepy market town southeast of Belgrade has been regarded as a fiefdom of the Milosevic family, where the Serb leader grew up and met his wife Mira Markovic at the local school. Their children were raised here and to this day the family keeps close links to Pozarevac through their son Marko, the most powerful local businessman.
However, the strong personal ties counted for nothing on Sunday when 23,230 voters backed Vojislav Kostunica, the opposition candidate, with Mr Milosevic trailing at 21,075, according to unofficial results.
Yesterday the whispered talk of the town was that the defeat here was probably more damaging to the regime than anywhere else in the country. Although most people were too fearful of reprisal to discuss the matter, they seemed giddy with excitement at the blow they had struck against the system and the ruling family under whose shadow they have been living.
"Despite the pressure on candidates not to stand, the people of Pozarevac finally said 'no' to the President," Anka Gogic-Mitic, an opposition activist, said. "We have had enough."
Mr Milosevic's defeat appeared to have been triggered by resentment at his family's influence across Serbia. "They think they own the place," a disgruntled, unemployed worker said. "They use their power to set up businesses, but they suck out the profits. They don't care that we have unemployment, bad salaries and unpaid farmers. Now they really know what people think. We want change."
Even his closest supporters must wonder, if Mr Milosevic is unable to control events in his own home town, what hope he has of continuing to rule the whole country.
The army
Loyalty of troops is put in doubt
BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR AND JAMES LANDALE
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC may no longer be able to count on the total loyalty of the army. Any orders to mount a military attack either in Montenegro, Kosovo or elsewhere in Yugoslavia could split the forces, Nato sources said yesterday. Military intelligence, however, reported no signs of obvious preparations for any military action in Serbia or Montenegro.
Although most of the Yugoslav Army (VJ) troops based in the Republic of Montenegro were "out of their barracks", the sources said they could be on normal training exercises.
In one alliance assessment, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the Nato Secretary-General, said he remained concerned that any post-election tension in Yugoslavia could spill into neighbouring regions. But he said there was no concentration of Nato forces on the border with Yugoslavia.
Nato officials said the alliance was anxious to avoid saying or doing anything that would give the Yugoslav leader an excuse to order his troops on to the streets to keep him in power.
Speaking at the Labour Party annual conference in Brighton, Tony Blair told the Yugoslav President: "You lost. Go. Your country and the world have suffered enough." Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, told Mr Milosevic not to use "naked power" to cling on to office and gave warning that Western powers had plenty of military might near Serbia.
However, Goran Svilanovic, of the Civic Alliance of Serbia, said: "No one can benefit from statements like these." Momcilo Perisic, leader of the Movement for Democractic Serbia, said: "I am begging some unhinged world leaders to spare us any counter-productive help because they have made many promises and done many things that have caused our people to suffer."
The New York Times : Milosevic Seeking a Runoff Election After His Setback
By STEVEN ERLANGER
BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 26 — The government-controlled Federal Election Commission announced tonight that President Slobodan Milosevic was trailing his challenger, Vojislav Kostunica, but rejected Mr. Kostunica's claim to an outright victory.
The commission said the opposition candidate had fallen short of the 50 percent required for a first-round win and called for a runoff to take place on Oct. 8. Opposition leaders immediately called the commission's figures fraudulent and said they would not take part in a runoff. They said that Mr. Kostunica had won almost 55 percent of the votes, and that he said he had rejected a government feeler, through intermediaries, for a second round.
"This is an offer that must be rejected," Mr. Kostunica said in a statement. "The victory is obvious, and we will defend it by all nonviolent means. The people have given their political no to Milosevic and his policies. Our first duty is to carry out that verdict."
The state television broke into the main evening news program with the announcement that Mr. Milosevic, with 40.23 percent, had come in second to Mr. Kostunica, with 48.22 percent, with a turnout of about 64.65 percent. Opposition members of the commission said they had not been involved in the tallying.
The opposition said that by its own figures, gathered from election monitors in each constituency who had signed the returns before they had been shipped to Belgrade for final approval by the election commission, Mr. Kostunica was beating Mr. Milosevic by 54.66 percent to 35.01 percent. The opposition said that the turnout had been 74 percent, and that its monitors had counted more than 98 percent of the votes.
Accordingly, Mr. Kostunica declared that a second round was unnecessary. "There is no single reason, not moral or political, by which we would accept such trampling on the electoral will of the people," he said. But Mr. Kostunica promised to avoid "careless moves that could raise tensions in society, that could lead to unforeseeable consequences."
In Washington, President Clinton praised the voters and offered to remove economic sanctions if democratic change prevails against any efforts by Mr. Milosevic to "cling to power."
The opposition has scheduled rallies in Belgrade and other cities for Wednesday night to defend what it called Mr. Kostunica's victory — rallies that could prove confrontational, depending on how the police respond.
The risk for Mr. Kostunica, a constitutional lawyer who is a moderate nationalist, an anti-Communist and a democrat, is that if the popular will proves insufficiently forceful, the boycott of a second round could let Mr. Milosevic claim an unopposed victory and remain president.
In 1996 thousands of Belgrade citizens marched for three months to defend the opposition's victory in local elections, which Mr. Milosevic had challenged in the courts, before he relented.
Tonight Belgrade's squares were largely empty, although some people were out on their terraces banging pots and pans, and an independent radio station, Radio Indeks, said its telephone lines were clogged by angry listeners. About 9 p.m., its signal was jammed. On the street, Ljiljana Zivkovic, 50, an accountant, said simply: "They can't steal the votes anymore. We'll make them leave."
In the opposition strongholds of Cacak and Novi Sad, large rallies were reported, with 15,000 and 5,000 people respectively, to protest the commission's announcement.
In an important message, the leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle, who met with Mr. Kostunica today, urged Mr. Milosevic "to accept the electoral will of the people and contribute to the welfare of the nation and the state."
The patriarch "called on everyone, including the army and police, to defend the interests of people and the state rather than individuals," a church statement said.
The official announcement on state television that Mr. Milosevic was trailing was already an extraordinary admission that the government's campaign had gone badly wrong. It followed what government officials have described as a furious debate about how to handle Mr. Milosevic's first electoral defeat ever.
Proposals that Mr. Milosevic declare outright victory in the first round appear to have been rejected as too confrontational and risky.
A second round, especially with Mr. Milosevic trailing, at least keeps his options open and can be taken by some Serbs as democratic and non- confrontational. It will be harder for Mr. Kostunica to complain that his victory has been stolen, given what would appear to be near certainty that he would win a second round.
Most important, the tactic buys time for the government to consider its next step, and perhaps to bargain for a secure exit, especially with Western countries that have been sending word to Mr. Milosevic that his position is untenable and he must consider how to save himself from a system that could crumble rapidly.
But the effort to throw the election into a second round was interpreted by the opposition as a clumsy effort by Mr. Milosevic to escape his fate.
"A second round gives Milosevic 10 more days to find a pretext to call off the election, falsify it or postpone it," said one opposition leader. "It's a trap for us."
Before the election on Sunday, even Mr. Kostunica said he thought a second round would be necessary and hoped that Mr. Milosevic would not cancel the election altogether. But the breadth of the anti-government swing on Sunday took the opposition by surprise.
"This is a big fraud," said Zoran Djindjic, leader of the coalition that backs Mr. Kostunica, speaking of the call for a second round. "In last two days, we knew that they were preparing something to get Milosevic into the second round. But we have proof of our figures, and we will defend the people's vote to the end."
At the same time, Mr. Djindjic urged patience. He said the opposition would demand to see the commission's figures, and compare them with the opposition's.
"We have 98 percent of the facts in our hands," he said. "We know they are trying to manipulate the results from Kosovo." He alleged that the commission had taken 400,000 votes from Mr. Kostunica and had given 200,000 to Mr. Milosevic.
The commission has 28 members, 2 from the governing coalition and 2 from the opposition coalition, but with a majority appointed by the government. Mr. Milosevic was in the shadows today, but the commission is considered to be acting on his behalf.
Opposition representatives say they have been locked out of any counting. Tonight, one of Mr. Kostunica's representatives on the commission, Djordje Mamula, said at least 4 percent of Mr. Kostunica's votes had been stolen from him. "I don't know how their gummy mathematics work," he said.
Belgraders love to reminisce about the happy days of the winter of 1996, when thousands of protesters marched every day for three months after Mr. Milosevic challenged the opposition's victories in local elections. He finally backed down.
This year, the government has already conceded a huge defeat in local elections — the opposition will govern nearly 100 towns and cities in Serbia — but now Mr. Milosevic's own future is at stake.
While Belgrade was quiet tonight, with no rally scheduled, people were angry. Snjezana, 32, a shop attendant, said: "I'm not afraid. They can say whatever they want. But they are defeated — history. If we have to defend our victory on the street, we'll do that. We've had enough."
A lawyer of 35, Branomir Misic, said: "We were out on the street so many times. And this time we will be there again. There is no way out for them."
Zarko Korac, an opposition political leader, said tonight that victory could not be taken from the nearly three million people who had voted for Mr. Kostunica. "Milosevic is fighting for his political survival," he said. "But democracy is about accepting the will of the people. This was a political verdict, a referendum on Milosevic, and he lost it."
In the presidential election, Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Kostunica had three other competitors — Tomislav Nikolic of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, who got 5.1 percent of the vote according to the election commission; Vojislav Mihailovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement, who got 2.59 percent; and Miodrag Vidojkovic of the Affirmative Party, who got 0.8 percent.
People also voted for both houses of the federal Parliament. Despite the opposition's strong showing in Serbia, Mr. Milosevic will control both houses and can form a federal government with no other partners.
He will do so because his allied party won the seats reserved for Serbia's sister republic, Montenegro, after the Montenegrin president, Milo Djukanovic, urged his citizens to boycott the elections, saying they were unconstitutional.
In Montenegro itself, fears of a Milosevic move on Mr. Djukanovic were receding. Special police troops remained on alert and were guarding state buildings dressed in full combat gear and helmets, but Deputy Prime Minister Dragisa Burzan said in an interview that he believed that government fears that Mr. Milosevic might order the Yugoslav Army to take over government institutions or impose a state of emergency in the republic were receding.
`'If he survives he will be very dangerous," Mr. Burzan said of Mr. Milosevic. "But now he cannot influence the generals as he could even yesterday."
The Guardian : Milosevic buys time as wife decides next move
First couple increasingly isolated as president heads off defeat with call for runoff
Special report: Serbia
Maggie O'Kane in Belgrade
Wednesday September 27, 2000
If the procession of visitors to the former residence of the king of Yugoslavia - now the home of President Slobodan Milosevic and his powerful wife, Mira Markovic - means anything, it paints a bleak picture of what is in store for the people of Serbia.
The couple have been at Beli Dvor, or White Court, since casting their votes in the elections on Sunday morning.
According to reliable sources, the guests since then have included Zoran Janackovic, a former secret police chief and now ambassador to Macedonia, followed by the current head of the Serbian police, Vlajko Stojiljkovic, and the head of state security, Rado Markovic. Yesterday afternoon they had a visit from General Nebojsa Pavkovic, who runs the army.
President Milosevic has enjoyed 13 years at the top after coming to power in September 1987.
But now his people have rejected him in favour of a 56-year-old lawyer, Vojislav Kostunica, who has united Serbia against Mr Milosevic and his wife. And the signs of what is to come are ominous.
"Initially they were in complete shock when the results came through and he especially was stunned by them. They never expected the opposition to get their act together so quickly," said the former information ministry head, Aleksandar Tijanic.
"He doesn't watch TV and his party people told him he was assured of victory. At first they could not believe it," he added.
"They were convinced that they were going to win. For the first 24 hours there was a real battle between Milosevic and his wife to choose between the soft option of letting go of power and the hard one that could eventually mean police on the streets."
Their strategy was decided after a three-hour meeting in the White Court on Tuesday morning with the leaders of both their parties, said Nebojsa Covic, the former leader of the Belgrade Socialist party and the ex-mayor of Belgrade. Ms Markovic leads the Yugoslav United Left party.
"The meeting began at 9am at their residence and ended at 12. After that they announced his victory at a press conference and said there would be another round."
"They are preparing to go for another round," said Mr Covic. "Some of his people told him that he should recognise the elections but the problem is his ego and his wife. They are both very sick people now."
"She sees herself a some sort of Rosa Luxemburg, or Karl Marx, with a mission to save Serbian communism at whatever price," Slavoljub Djukic, the author of four books on Slobodan Milosevic and Mira Markovic said.
"In a way he is the softer one. The one thing that Milosevic treasures above all else - even power - is his family and if they were under threat as they are now, I think he would consider other options. There are countries that could take them - China - but it will be she that decides."
Mr Covic, who also agreed that it would be Ms Markovic, not Mr Milosevic, who decides Serbia's fate, said he believed that they were buying time to discredit the elections before crushing the protests.
"It is true that the paramilitaries and parapolice are available to them. It is a sort of criminal police force that in cludes: the Legion, which has around 500 men; Frenki's Boys, about 1,400 of them [a vicious paramilitary force that fought in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo] and finally about 1,600 men in the 7th brigade who are loyal to him and based in Montenegro."
The presidential couple have been an extraordinary and devastating political unit for over 40 years since meeting at school.
"She chose him and she made him president," said Mr Covic, who for four years was part of the inner circle. "I was in the house regularly, for dinner, for talks. While I was mayor of Belgrade three years ago I was there every day."
Mr Covic believes that now, as then, Ms Markovic is insistent that her husband does not accept the election results.
"She is mad. It is as simple as that and she is very powerful," he said.
In a reference to demonstrations in Belgrade at the rigging of local elections, Mr Covic added: "During the protests in 1997 I tried to persuade him that he couldn't just null the elections and he would eventually have to give in.
"Then he would appear to soften and go home and then he would be back the next morning as hardline as ever. She cleaned his mind then and she is doing it again now," he said.
"Over the last two years even his speeches reflect her language. He has started using her words. Words for the opposition like 'lesbians', 'hyenas', 'rats'. That is Mira talking and now she is in charge."
Speaking before the election commission's announcement of the runoff, he added: "My prediction is that they will have a second round and then find some way to discredit the elections.
"Then they will bring the parapolice on to the streets and it will be a very dangerous time for everyone."
As if on cue, the phone in the former mayor's office rang. His workers told him that the gov ernment was declaring that the results from 26 out of 70 polling stations in one area of Belgrade would be declared invalid.
The reasons given included the stations staying open late, the fact that they had more ballots than they were supposed to have, and the distance of party posters from the entrance to the polling station, which was said to be less than the required 50 metres.
"It's starting," he said.
The Independent : Milosevic admits historic defeat but refuses to go
Second round of voting will buy time for beleaguered regime after ruling that opposition failed to secure sufficient majority
By Rupert Cornwell and Vesna Peric Zimonjic in Belgrade
27 September 2000
Election authorities in Yugoslavia conceded last night that the opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica had beaten Slobodan Milosevic in this week's presidential poll, but they said he had fallen short of the majority needed for outright victory and a second round of voting would be needed.
In a sign that the Belgrade regime is seeking to avoid a potentially bloody confrontation with opposition supporters, the move was designed to acknowledge Mr Kostunica'spopularity while allowing President Milosevic the breathing space he needs to consider his strategy.
State television claimed that Mr Kostunica had won 48.22 per cent of the votes and Mr Milosevic 40.23 per cent, according to what it said were preliminary results based on 10,153 polling stations out of about 10,500. The "run-off" poll must be held within 15 days of the first vote.
The opposition had earlier claimed that Mr Kostunica won an outright victory in the first round with 54.66 per cent against 35.01 per cent for Mr Milosevic, after 98.5 per cent of the votes had been counted.
Minutes before the official election announcement on state television, opposition officials rejected the idea of a second round. The Democratic Party head, Zoran Djindjic, told a news conference: "We cannot change the electoral will of the citizens because that would be a crime for which the penalty may be three years in jail."
Zarko Korac, of the Social Democratic Union, said: "If 2.9 million people have given their judgement, no one has the right to negotiate that. Balkan observers said the recourse to a second round of voting was a typical Milosevic manoeuvre, buying time in which to try to reinforce his grip on power. "He's a master of using time." said one Western diplomat. "It would give him at least another 10 to 12 days to figure out what to do and that could include all sorts of things like trying to drive wedges among the opposition, trying to bribe some of them off, whatever else." He added that Mr Milosevic might also try to provoke some crisis that would indefinitely postpone the second round of voting.
In the bluntest Western warning yet to Mr Milosevic, Britain told the Yugoslav President yesterday not to use force to hang on to power, stressing that the allies who had driven him from Kosovo still had a strong military presence in the region.
Addressing the Labour conference in Brighton, Tony Blair told Mr Milosevic bluntly, "You lost. Go." Earlier, Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, declared that "naked power" was the only way a beaten and discredited president could stay on. But, he noted, Nato had substantial forces on hand in the Balkans: "He should not be attempting any further military venture." As if to underline the point, George Robertson, Nato's secretary general, cut short a trip to the Caucasus to chair a meeting today of the North Atlantic Council, the alliance's political arm, which authorised last year's bombing. Mr Robertson said Nato was "worried there might be a spillover of violence fromSerbia".
Mr Cook was evidently referring to the widely expressed fear that the Yugoslav leader might seek a diversion from political defeat at home by unleashing his army against Serbia's reluctant and pro-Western sister republic Montenegro, or by stirring up fresh trouble in Kosovo.
But in Belgrade, where memories of the bombing by Nato are still fresh, opposition leaders warned that such language was counterproductive, merely enabling a desperate Mr Milosevic to brandish anew the spectre of a foreign military attack on Serbia.
One activist said: "If they want Milosevic to leave they should keep quiet. They should stay out of this. Elections are our business." Momcilo Perisic, leader of the small Movement for Democratic Serbia, went further, accusing "unhinged world leaders" of doing "many things which have only caused suffering for our people".
Mr Cook's stick was in sharp contrast to the carrot offered by Hubert Vedrine, speaking on behalf of the EU, of which France holds the presidency. Whatever Belgrade might claim, Mr Kostunica had won an "indisputable" victory.
Milosevic can't count on army
Serb forces Strong-arm tactics unlikely
Special report: Serbia
Maggie O'Kane in Belgrade
Tuesday September 26, 2000
Slobodan Milosevic's hold on power may be crumbling. The loyalty of the police force can no longer be guaranteed and the army is unlikely to support the use of force against peaceful protesters, Belgrade observers said yesterday.
"Beating up people for a president who is finished is not good for any policeman's job prospects," said Ljubodrag Stojadikovic, a former army spokesman who resigned last year. "If Milosevic tries to use the army it will be the last act of a drowning man."
His remarks came as Milan Panic, a former Yugoslav prime minister who lost to Mr Milosevic in the last Serbian presidential elections in 1992, called on the army and police not to take part in repression. "I want to remind the army and police that their duty is not to shoot or use force against their own people," he said.
He also urged western governments immediately to recognise the opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, as Yugoslavia's new president.
The 120,000 strong Serbian police force is huge by regional standards. In the winter of 1996 and 1997 it was involved in quelling three months of protests when Mr Milosevic rigged local elections.
The opposition fears there is now a real risk that Mr Milosevic's special forces, a section of the police loyal to him and used in Bosnia, Croatia and the Kosovo war, could come to see their only future as going down fighting with him.
There are estimated to be around 30,000 police in the special forces - many of them highly trained - who could be used to crush the demonstrators declaring victory for Mr Kostunica. Throughout his hold on power Mr Milosevic has successfully deployed the police and internal security as his personal protection force. They have also been used to organise unrest in Bosnia and Croatia.
It was his former head of secret police, Jovica Stanisic, who gave Belgrade prisoners the option of serving their sentence in the capital or as paramilitaries in Bosnia and Croatia (where they could loot) and who arranged for the first stocks of weapons for these wars to come from Serbian police stores.
"The only factory that is getting new workers in Serbia is the police," said Jovan Dulovic, who has specialised for 20 years in police affairs for the small independent magazine Vreme. "The special force can be in Belgrade in a few hours."
Despite threats by the top ranks of the army that they will back Mr Milosevic, the army in Serbia is obsessed with legality and the role of constitution. There is a great deal of anger that Mr Milosevic allowed them to be humiliated in the Kosovan and Bosnian wars and that their once proud reputation was dragged into the dirt in these conflicts.
Johan Stanovic, a 21-year-old taxi driver, who was injured in the Kosovo war, said: "There is no way that guys like me and the guys I was in the army with will go on to the streets for him. The army is supposed to fight wars, not beat their own people."
Milosevic may force runoff
President's aides vow he will fight on as opposition declares victory : Milosevic may force election runoff
Special report: Serbia
Maggie O'Kane in Belgrade
Tuesday September 26, 2000
Slobodan Milosevic, struggling to retain his grip on the Yugoslav presidency, sought yesterday to force a second round runoff in the face of a deafening chorus of domestic and international calls for him to relinquish power.
All unofficial polls - except for those carried out by Mr Milosevic's Socialist party and some of its allies - put him more than 20% behind his main challenger, Vojislav Kostunica, who has managed to unite a fractured opposition. Mr Milosevic, cornered, is now fighting for time.
Mr Kostunica, 56, a law professor, claimed victory in Sunday's ballot and demanded that the state election commission release the official count: "This is a peoples' victory," he declared. "We will defend our victory by peaceful means and we will protest for as long as it takes."
As the commission delayed the announcement of the results, both sides issued widely conflicting unofficial results. The Democratic Opposition of Serbia claimed that with the votes counted at 60% of polling stations, Mr Kostunica was leading on 55.31%, against to Mr Milosevic's 34.19%.
But Gorica Gajevic, the general secretary of Mr Milosevic's Socialist party, said that with 37 % of the ballots counted, the president was ahead, on 45 % to Mr Kostunica's 40%."This result gives us optimism that we can win in the first round," he added.
There was no word from Mr Milosevic himself, and fears persisted that the authorities would resort to violence to retain their grip on power.
Western countries piled the pressure on the Yugoslav leader to accept defeat. Germany, Britain, Italy, France and the European Union all declared that Mr Milosevic had lost in Sunday's vote. The US said it doubted Mr Milosevic could make any "credible claim of victory".
Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, said: "Today Milosevic is a beaten, broken-backed president. My message to him today is, be honest with your people. Get out of the way and let Serbia get out of the prison you have turned it into."
The fightback began yesterday afternoon at a press conference for domestic consumption, in which Mr Gajevic insisted that Mr Milosevic had taken the first round of the election but that the margin was small, so he would fight a second round in a fortnight to give him absolute victory.
But even former Milosevic allies such as the ultranationalist Radical party agree that he has lost. Analysts said Mr Milosevic's camp was divided between those advising him to declare an outright victory and those saying he should play for time. Even a runoff would represent a loss of face.
Milos Aligridoc, a member of the opposition said yesterday: "[A runoff] would mean absolute humiliation for him and he is not a man who likes to be humiliated ."
Belgrade was calm yesterday but pressure is beginning to mount against the business people involved with the rul ing party, who have long controlled the wealthy shopping streets and the black market in cigarettes, petrol and whisky.
The opposition was out on the streets of Belgrade again last night, celebrating victory. Everywhere people are discussing Mr Milosevic's fate.
"I go for the Ceaucescu option myself,"said one housewife. "Although, I think he will be killed by someone inside his own circle who wants to become a hero of the Serbian people."
The state election commission was locked out of its office in the federal parliament building yesterday, as it has been since Sunday night, effectively suspending the official count. Mirko Popovic, a member of the commission, said that technically they could be called in time to announce the official result on Thursday.
Result according to pro- and anti-Milosevic camps
•Main opposition bloc
Milosevic 34%
Kostunica 55%
•Serbian Radical party
Milosevic 37.9%
Kostunica 53.5%
•Socialist party
Milosevic 45%
Kostunica 40%
•Yugoslav Left party
Milosevic 56.3%
Kostunica 31.4%
The Guardian: Montenegrins breathe easier as strongman fades
Boycott Tensions ease in sister state
Special report: Serbia
Jonathan Steele and Nick Wood in Pristina
Tuesday September 26, 2000
Relief spread through the pro-western government of Montenegro yesterday, its leaders apparently convinced that Slobodan Milosevic would have less chance of provoking violence after faring badly in Yugoslavia's elections.
Montenegro's deputy prime minister, Dragisa Burzan, said he believed that the main opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, had won an outright victory in the presidential poll, and predicted that Mr Milosevic would soon be forced from power.
"I'd expect quite a quick removal of Milosevic. It cannot be more than at most a month of manoeuvring," he said in Podgorica.
Mr Burzan said the president was growing desperate as his support ebbed and claimed that the atmosphere in Mr Milosevic's inner circle was "like a funeral".
He was confident, he said, that the Yugoslav army and police would not support Mr Milosevic after seeing that he had such narrow backing.
He felt that low levels of support for Mr Milosevic also helped to cut the chances of armed intervention in Montenegro which has very mixed feelings about its federation with Serbia; together they make up Yugoslavia. "Tension is less _ I think he will be focused only on Serbia at the moment. I think he cannot now undertake anything in Montenegro."
As rumours grew of disarray among the Serbian ruling elite in Belgrade, there were reports that the Yugoslav prime minister, Momir Bulatovic, a Montenegrin and a Milosevic loyalist, had resigned.
But the main pro-Belgrade party in Montenegro dismissed the reports. "I wouldn't pay much attention to this. It's not true," Zoran Zizic, the deputy leader of the Socialist Peoples' party, said in Podgorica. He went on to accuse the Montena-Fax news agency of spreading wrong information.
Earlier, quoting a senior source in the Socialist Peoples' party, the agency had said that Mr Bulatovic had resigned after failing to meet a demand from President Milosevic to provide him with "an extra 100,000 votes".
"Having realised the election result was disastrous, Milosevic issued an ultimatum to Bulatovic to allocate another 100,000 votes through the military leadership and [army chief of staff] General Nebojsa Pavkovic," the agency said.
It quoted the party source as saying that "forged election material was to be transported to Podgorica by a military plane under General Pavkovic's orders, to be passed on to the election commission for 'verification'".
Mr Zizic called the report "media lies". He said that turnout in Montenegro, which has barely 5% of the Yugoslav electorate, was slightly below the 130,000 originally estimated, but reiterated that his party had won 90% of votes counted so far.
The Montenegrin government boycotted the vote and denounced it as an unconstitutional farce. It left pro-Belgrade parties to organise their own elections in makeshift polling stations.
Meanwhile, as the first results emerged in the province of Kosovo in Serbia, a mixture of apathy and resignation set in among Serbs there.
In spite of numerous allegations of electoral fraud, both Mr Milosevic's ruling Serbian Socialist party (SPS) and the opposition alliance of parties trying to oust him agreed he got the majority of votes.
In the divided town of Mitrovice, Mr Milosevic had claimed his party had won with 3,500 votes, compared with 800 for Mr Kostunica. In other towns the SPS claimed three-quarters of the vote.
The leader of the Serbian Democratic party in Mitrovice, Dragisa Djokovic, put the large margin down to the fact that many opposition supporters were not on the voting lists. But he admitted that many of the 100,000 Serbs in Kosovo had voted for Mr Milosevic in the hope that Yugoslav troops would one day return to the province. Kosovo's Albanian community boycotted Sunday's vote.
Mr Djokovic said: "There are a lot of reasons, one of them is people's disappointment in the international community."
For the most part, Kosovo's interest in the election results has been muted. TVs and radios in Mitrovice's cafes and shops could be heard announcing the results, but few people seemed pay attention.
Most roadside stallholders were reluctant to say who they had voted for. But one woman selling clothing said with a smile: "I have always voted for him. I don't know why, it's just a sort of tradition."
Nearby a man selling wires and batteries implied he had voted for Mr Kostunica. "People are afraid to vote for change, they think change is something terrible."
Back at the opposition's headquarters Mr Djokovic said the key to the next few days would lie in Serbia.
"Belgrade decides what happens here. Our primary concern here is to have peace and avoid any incident."
The New York Times: Yugoslavia's Opposition Leader Claims Victory
Over Milosevic
By STEVEN ERLANGER
ELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 25 — The opposition candidate in the Yugoslav presidential election claimed victory today over Slobodan Milosevic in elections on Sunday. But with official vote counting suspended, there were concerns about whether Mr. Milosevic is willing to acknowledge defeat.
Supporters of Vojislav Kostunica, the opposition candidate, said that according to their tally of more than 65 percent of the vote, he was ahead of Mr. Milosevic by 55 to 34 percent, or well on his way to a clear first- round victory.
"According to our count, a first- round victory is certain," Mr. Kostunica declared. "Dawn is coming to Serbia."
Even if the opposition's assertion of a first-round victory is not accepted, Milosevic allies fear that the elections could mark the beginning of the end of his 13-year rule. Tonight more than 20,000 people gathered in central Belgrade for a concert and rally to celebrate the victory hopes of Mr. Kostunica (pronounced kosh-TOON- eet-zah).
But Mr. Milosevic's government today said, in effect, not so fast. After a long night and day of debate within the ruling coalition headed by Mr. Milosevic and his wife, Mirjana Markovic, together with the heads of the police and the army, the decision seemed to be to buy time. No official results were released, and indications were that they could come as late as Thursday, the legal deadline.
By the ruling coalition's count, based on some 37 percent of the vote, Mr. Milosevic leads the race, 45 percent to 40 percent. A Socialist Party official, Gorica Gajevic, said those results show "the probability that our candidate Slobodan Milosevic will win in the first round."
But an effort to tough out a declaration of a first-round win would be difficult for the party, given the apparent size of Mr. Milosevic's defeat — but he and Ms. Markovic may decide to try.
"The defeat is too obvious to be denied," said one former official of the party. "They didn't expect such poor results. Even a small defeat is a problem for Milosevic. Now it's hard for him to find a way out without creating a crisis inside the system."
The United States and its Western allies, who have made ousting Mr. Milosevic a priority and who made war against Yugoslavia last year over Kosovo, urged Mr. Milosevic to accept defeat. While they originally cast doubt on the freedom and fairness of the elections, Western officials are now hailing them as a marvelous demonstration of the popular will.
Richard Boucher, a State Department spokesman, said today that if Mr. Milosevic accepts defeat and democratic change takes place, Washington would take steps to lift sanctions against Serbia.
Last week Mr. Milosevic's federal prime minister, Momir Bulatovic, said Mr. Milosevic's mandate as president runs through its original term of July 2001, regardless of the outcome of the elections. The Constitution is unclear on the point, but other laws indicate that his mandate should end within 10 days of losing the election.
Mr. Kostunica, a 56-year-old constitutional lawyer, is a moderate nationalist, deeply critical of the NATO bombing war over Yugoslavia. He has criticized its legal justification, and called the bombing of civilian targets possible war crimes. He also says he will not hand over Mr. Milosevic to the international criminal tribunal in The Hague.
Mr. Kostunica describes himself as a Western-oriented liberal democrat and once translated The Federalist Papers into Serbian.
Ljubisa Ristic, president of Mrs. Markovic's party, the Yugoslav United Left, suggested that if there was a runoff, the government would accept "the will of the people."
A second round, judging by the first, would mean a crushing defeat for Mr. Milosevic, and some in his party were said to have argued against the tactic, urging recognition of the defeat. Milosevic officials say they won control of the federal Parliament largely because the government of the sister republic, Montenegro, decided to boycott the election.
A number of officials, especially in Ms. Markovic's party, reportedly argued that any concession could mean the rapid disintegration of Mr. Milosevic's control over Serbia, and they urged delay, a second round or even the rerunning of the elections.
But opposition leaders said today that if their final tally still indicates that they won a first-round victory, they will demand it, even if the Federal Election Commission disagrees and calls for a second round.
Opposition leaders said the commission, which must verify the vote totals reached at local polling stations, had stopped its work early Monday morning and had not resumed counting, a delay the opposition regarded as suspicious and another effort by the government to buy time.
Each party has representatives at the polls who are informed of those counts, but the electoral commission in Belgrade has not announced vote totals. The commission contains two representatives from each political coalition, but a majority of its 28 members are appointed by the government. Its task is formally technical, to total local polling results and rule on any disparities.
The opposition intends to call a rally in Belgrade and other towns across Serbia for Wednesday night to demonstrate for recognition of its victory, an opposition leader said.
"If the Socialists declare victory or say we go to a second round, and it goes against the voting data we gather, we must defend our vote," said Zarko Korac. "Why should we accept his offer for a second round, if it's illegal? Our problems are in a way beginning. We have to get him to concede his defeat."
While the opposition and Mr. Kostunica appear to have little taste for street revolution, many experts believe that the size of Mr. Milosevic's apparent defeat will quickly become known, despite his control over the state media, and that even the police will be reluctant to beat or shoot demonstrators now. While the police broke up rallies against him after his defeat in Kosovo, Mr. Milosevic was still widely accepted as the legitimate and legal president of Yugoslavia. Now matters are not quite so clear.
"The numbers speak for us," Mr. Kostunica said today. "We will fight in democratic ways. The truth is our strongest weapon. We don't want to provoke internal tensions and foreign intervention."
The opposition also did extremely well in municipalities, sweeping Belgrade and other large cities despite a split with the Serbian Renewal Movement of Vuk Draskovic, which suffered enormous defeats along with the Radical Party of the ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj. Mr. Draskovic admitted today that he had been wrong to run a campaign separate from Mr. Kostunica. Both Mr. Draskovic and Mr. Seselj offered to resign — offers their parties are unlikely to accept.
Mr. Kostunica's insistence on unity at both federal and local levels proved to have been wise in the landslide of anti-government voting.
While the pro-Western president of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, succeeded in protecting his base by boycotting the federal election, the boycott handed Mr. Milosevic control of both houses of the federal Parliament, which he could not have won otherwise.
Even if he takes office, Mr. Kostunica — already contemplating choices for the Yugoslav prime minister — does not have a large amount of formal powers. Mr. Milosevic really runs the country from his position at the apex of the Socialist Party and its web of politicians and businessmen. But if Mr. Milosevic is beaten, his own party will have to look beyond him and Mr. Kostunica will be a major voice and symbol of democratic change.
Montenegro : Republic claims votes 'stolen'
FROM JANINE DI GIOVANNI IN PODGORICA
MONTENEGRO'S Government, led by President Djukanovic, accused Belgrade yesterday of claiming thousands of false votes in Sunday's Yugoslav elections.
"The SNP stole the vote, around 30,000. Actually it's probably more, but I like to be objective," said Ranko Krivokapic, vice-president of the ruling Social Democratic Party, which boycotted the elections.
There are about 440,000 registered voters in Montenegro. Only a quarter are thought to have voted, itself a bigger protest against Mr Milosevic than originally expected. Fraudulent votes took many forms. The most common was to use the names of the dead, but other Milosevic supporters simply voted as many times as they liked under the gaze of the Yugoslav Second Army, loyal to Mr Milosevic.
Montenegrins, edging closer to independence, are becoming more defiant against the Milosevic regime. Their economy is moving steadily ahead and they see Belgrade as an albatross around their necks.
"The time for Montenegrin independence is close, a matter of months," Mr Krivokapic said. "And it will be done, we hope, with normal procedures - normal referendum, normal controls."
The Times: Moscow calls time on 'beaten' Milosevic
BY ALICE LAGNADO IN MOSCOW AND MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR
RUSSIA, the main ally of the beleaguered regime in Belgrade, hinted yesterday that Slobodan Milosevic's time was up.
The acknowledgment came after a meeting in Moscow between President Putin and Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor. "We agreed . . . that it looks as though Serbia and Yugoslavia have decided in favour of democratic change," Herr Schröder said.
Mr Putin's apparent agreement that Mr Milosevic may have been defeated in Sunday's presidential elections is seen in European capitals as a significant development. Moscow traditionally has sided with the Yugoslav leader and was vigorously opposed to the Nato bombing campaign to repel the Yugoslav Army from Kosovo last year.
By using Herr Schröder as a mouthpiece, President Putin appeared to have resorted to a traditional diplomatic tactic to voice what he did not want bluntly to admit himself.
Igor Ivanov, Russia's Foreign Minister, while refraining from commenting on who had won, said however that there had been no serious irregularities in the voting process.
Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, denied that claim. He said that President Milosevic had tried to "intimidate, bully and silence the opposition" in Yugoslavia but clearly had been defeated.
Pre-empting the final result, not due until today at the earliest, Mr Cook described Mr Milosevic as a "beaten, broken-backed" President. Speaking at the Labour Party conference in Brighton, he said: "We know he is preparing to rig the result, but the scale of this defeat is too great even for him to fix it."
Mr Cook advised Mr Milosevic to "get out of the way and let Serbia get out of the prison you have turned it into".
Crown Prince Alexander, pretender to the Yugoslav throne, extended his congratulations to Vojislav Kostunica, the opposition candidate, and urged Mr Milosevic to hand over power immediately in an orderly manner. In a statememt in London, he called on the people of Serbia and Montenegro to put aside their differences and said that there must be no revenge. "All sides must remain calm," he said.
Lamberto Dini, the Italian Foreign Minister, said that if Mr Milosevic tried to claim victory, it would have "disastrous consequences".
In a statement, the European Union said: "According to all available information, it is clear that any attempt by Milosevic to declare himself the victor would be fraudulent."
The statement, agreed by all 15 EU members, said that the large election turnout demonstrated that the people of Serbia wanted change.
"They wanted to speak up, regardless of intimidation, manoeuvring, pressure and all sorts of manipulation by the Belgrade regime leading up to this ballot," the EU said.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said that it had received reports of widespread fraud and intimidation during the voting and concluded that Dr Kostunica, the main opposition leader, had taken a clear lead.
West calls on 'broken backed' Milosevic to quit
By Rupert Cornwell in London and Vesna Peric Zimonjic in Belgrade
26 September 2000
The Yugoslav opposition last night claimed a resounding victory for their candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, in the presidential election on Sunday, but defiant supporters of Slobodan Milosevic declared their man was heading for a clear win.
The major Western nations piled on the pressure to drive President Milosevic from power, saying he had been routed in the elections, and that anything but a clear opposition victory would be a fraudulent sham. Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, said the Yugoslav leader was a "beaten, broken-backed president" whose best service to his people would be to leave power at once. As a mixture of exhilaration, confusion and fear gripped Belgrade in the aftermath of the vote, claims of the result conflicted wildly. Mr Milosevic himself remained silent, but Gorica Gajevic, secretary general of his ruling Socialist Party, said that with 37 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Milosevic led Mr Kostunica by 45 per cent to 40 per cent.
However, the Democratic Party of Serbia said that with almost two thirds of the vote counted, Mr Kostunica held a commanding 55 per cent to 35 per cent edge advantage -- an overall majority which, if confirmed, would remove the need for a run-off vote on 8 October.
One theory last night was that Mr Milosevic would seek a second vote, which could offer a two-week breathing space in which to gather his battered forces. But his precise intentions were a mystery amid signs he was struggling to come to terms with a stunning poll defeat and the greatest threat to his 13 years in power.
No official results are expected until today at the earliest but, ominously, opposition monitors on the government's electoral commission said the body appeared not to be processing results yesterday – increasing suspicions that the outcome would be manipulated by the Milosevic camp.
With uncertainty swirling over the cornered president's intentions, the verbal offensive by Britain, France, the United States and other Nato members was clearly co-ordinated. It was designed to discredit in advance any victory that might be claimed by the Milosevic camp as nothing more than blatant vote-rigging, and to embolden demonstrators as they took to the streets again to demand recognition of a Kostunicavictory.
Initial post-election rallies in the capital and other cities went off peacefully on Sunday. But last night's were expected to be tenser affairs, with the possibility of violence that would provide a pretext for a security clampdown. Fears also persisted that despite warnings from the West, Mr Milosevic might seek to provoke a showdown in Montenegro, Serbia's sole and independent-minded sister republic in the rump of Yugoslavia, which boycotted the vote.
In Washington, a National Security Council spokesman insisted that opinion polls, a high turn-out and evidence of vote-tampering ruled out any "credible claim of victory" by Mr Milosevic. The only dissenting voice came from Russia, which refused yesterday to prejudge the outcome, saying the voting appeared to have been fair.
The Independent: Beaten but unbowed, Slobodan Milosevic once again plays the despot of the Balkans
By Steve Crawshaw in Montenegro
26 September 2000
Every time that he has faced challenges in the past, the Serb leader has somehow survived – bruised, but still displaying his sphinx-like half-smile – to fight another day.
Yesterday, with the walls of his blood-stained regime crumbling around him, Slobodan Milosevic was in no mood to concede defeat as the results came pouring in during the pre-dawn hours. But the news was devastating for the man who has personally directed the bloodiest conflicts in Europe since the Second World War. He had even lost control of his hometown, Pozarevac, where he and his wife, Mira Markovic, launched their uniquely Balkan political partnership so many years ago.
His instinct, as ever, was to stonewall, and as morning broke over an expectant Belgrade he sent Nikola Sainovic, who like his leader has a war crimes indictment hanging over his head, to announce to the media that their president of the past 13 years had triumphed yet again over "the enemies of the Serbian people".
Sainovic brazened it out in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He doubted there would even be a need for a run-off vote – required if no candidate gets more than 50 per cent – because he said, to the incredulity of those gathered around him, "our candidate is leading".
In true Alice in Wonderland fashion he maintained that Mr Milosevic was leading by 44 per cent while Vojislav Kostunica had 41 per cent – contradicting the figures being posted on the ruling party's web site, which showed Kostunica leading with 44 per cent to 41 per cent for Mr Milosevic with 20 per cent of the vote counted. And as the bad news continued to pour in all day, the stonewalling continued.
Theoretically, one can see the latest dramas in Yugoslavia as just another example of a scenario that we have seen many times before. Mr Milosevic seems fatally weakened; he pulls an astonishing rabbit out of the hat; then, within a few months, everybody has forgotten that his position was ever under threat.
It still seems a fair bet that Mr Milosevic will produce one more rabbit – bedraggled and surprising in equal measure – before the bloody game ends. Equally, however, the cards are now stacked against him as they never have been before. Today, for the first time in a decade, many traditional Milosevic loyalists are beginning to wonder how and when they should jump ship.
One of the great Western misunderstandings of recent years has been the belief that Mr Milosevic owed power only to election fraud. Certainly, he has stolen votes; certainly, he has denied opposition election victories; but the other bitter truth about Serbia is that millions of Serbs have remained ready to vote for him for many reasons ranging from doggedness to apathy to fear of upheaval – compounded by an often justified contempt for the venal and divided opposition. Mr Milosevic's control of the media meant that alternative truths were scarcely heard. Even when Serbs had access to the truth – via the small but brave independent press, or via satellite television – many refused to believe what they heard, about Serb crimes in Bosnia or Kosovo, for example. Instead, they continued to see themselves as victims of an international conspiracy. Optimists may hope that the result of Sunday's election – undoubtedly an opposition victory, whatever the government may say – will be the beginning of the end of this poisonous self-delusion.
One can focus, as the United States did yesterday, on the irregularities of the polling process itself. But those irregularities, though real, did not prevent the final election result. There is little reason to doubt the opposition's election figures, which confirm what the opinion polls had suggested: a clear victory for Mr Milosevic's challenger, Mr Kostunica. In that sense, despite everything, the elections turned out "fair". It is the official admission of the result – not the flaws in the process – which matters most.
Mr Kostunica does not look set to be the world's favourite democrat. He is not a Vaclav Havel who will preach tolerance and help everybody to live happily ever after. His own track record as a nationalist is clear. He does, however, offer the possibility that Serbia can break its own brutalist mould of the past 10 years, so that some hope of sanity can return.
The fact that the regime still refuses to recognise Mr Kostunica's victory makes it more likely that we will see repression and bloodshed before the change finally comes. But the non-recognition of an obvious truth – after 13 years, Serbs have had enough of the man who they once believed to be their saviour – does not change the likely end result. For Mr Milosevic, the clock is ticking.
Although Serbs themselves have often been reluctant to admit it, the reason why Mr Milosevic is still in power is because too few people cared enough to get him out. In Leipzig, Prague, and Bucharest in 1989, crowds dislodged immovable regimes, each of which was ready to use force to stay in power. The threat or use of force merely redoubled the crowds anger and defiance. At a certain point, the instrument of repression gave way under its own weight; rats started to defect from the sinking ship, as fast as their corrupt little legs could carry them. Mr Milosevic and his closest comrades must fear that that moment is now arriving for them, too.
None of which means that the Milosevic era is already over, as everybody in Serbia knows from past experience. In winter 1996-97, Mr Milosevic faced huge street protests which pushed him to the political brink. On New Year's Eve, standing amidst crowds packed so tightly into the city centre that none of us could move, I was convinced that his time was over; Serb friends were equally confident. When the regime admitted opposition victories in local elections which Mr Milosevic had previously denied, that seemed the first crack in the edifice, before a final collapse of the regime. In reality, Mr Milosevic then sat on his hands, allowed the protesters to get bored – and waited for the opposition to knife each other in the back and front, which they quickly did. Within months, Mr Milosevic's position was again strong.
To some extent, the future of Serbia will be decided in the days and weeks to come in smoky offices, and in endless mobile phone calls, as deals are done, broken, and re-made. Above all, however, the future will be decided on Serbia's streets – by the crowds, or, if Mr Milosevic is very fortunate, by the lack of them.
The Independent : Montenegro on alert as 'twilight' poll is held
Tension mounts in a town which is so divided there are two fire brigades; ballot in Kosovo descends into chaos
By Steve Crawshaw in Kolasin, Montenegro
25 September 2000
"Anybody who is normal is worried in these crazy times." For one police officer in the town of Kolasin in northern Montenegro, yesterday's Yugoslav elections were less about the vote itself than the tension created. "What's been happening around us all this time is worrying. We're on a state of alert."
He did not wish to be quoted by name, but otherwise was frank. Is the endgame near for the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic? "I think so – and I'm rejoicing."
The elections in Montenegro, Serbia's small sister republic in what remains of Yugoslavia, had more than a touch of the surreal. The pro-Western government of Montenegro regards the elections as illegitimate. It stopped just short of banning them, however – allowing a twilight, not-quite election to take place.
In Kolasin, as in much of northern Montenegro, the pro-Milosevic opposition is strong. Tension in the run-up to the elections was high. The army promised on the eve of the poll to "secure polling stations" to "prevent incidents" – to Montenegro's considerable alarm.
In Kolasin yesterday, the two sides stopped short of direct conflict. In the shade of the pine trees outside the Bjelasica Hotel, a group of police special forces – Montenegro's élite force, loyal to the President, Milo Djukanovic – waited to be called out in case things turned nasty. "For the moment, it's peaceful. That's what we're working for," said one. Both sides look to different armed forces to protect them. Thus, the pro-Milosevic deputy mayor, Mile Sukovic, said he had a telephone number for the army, should it be needed. Mr Sukovic knew who would win. "Milosevic – who else?"
The divisions in Kolasin run through every aspect of life. For the past year, the town has even had two fire brigades. One supports the pro-Milosevic party that rules the town council; the other supports the Montenegrin government. Only in the direst emergency do they work together.
In Montenegro, unlike in Serbia – where every vote, fraud permitting, should count – those who chose to vote were stating their political preference by taking part. You could search long and hard for a Milosevic critic at the improvised polling stations that supporters of the Yugoslav President had opened across the republic. More typical was Jovan Marovic, 65, who declared: "Milosevic is a hero of the world. He makes peace and looks after all of us." Dessa Vlachovic, 20 years younger, agreed. "Everyone in the West is against him – here [in Yugoslavia], everyone is for him." Suggestions that Milosevic was lagging in the polls were dismissed: "That's all lies."
Many polling stations were organised in private houses, usually belonging to supporters of the pro-Milosevic Socialist National Party, and in other unusual premises, from restaurants to bomb shelters. Even the press accreditation for the elections was issued by the SNP, sister party of Milosevic's ruling Socialist Party in Belgrade.
Montenegrin voters who boycotted the polls were venomous at the mention of Mr Milosevic – or affected disdain. "I am for a sovereign and independent Montenegro," said one woman. "Things like this don't affect me." Each month that Mr Milosevic stays in power, the likelihood increases that Montenegro will seek to break away – even though the cost may be civil war.
Both sides are gearing up to accuse the other of fraud. The opposition had already claimed that Mr Milosevic was ready to "steal" the election results. Then, on the eve of the vote, Belgrade counter-accused. It announced that the Serb opposition was preparing to proclaim victory – and was hoping to establish an alternative Serb government in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica. This was denied by the Montenegrin authorities and the Serb opposition alike – though it is no secret that the sympathetic political climate in Montenegro has allowed Serb opposition politicians to operate freely here in a way that they are unable to do at home in Belgrade.
The police officer in Kolasin pointed out that Mr Milosevic, an indicted war criminal, has little to lose. "It's difficult to know if he will give up peacefully. If he hands over his power, he hands over his life and family."
Any democratic Serb government would be obliged to hand him to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
In the days and weeks ahead, it will become clear whether the Serb opposition is strong enough to oust Mr Milosevic. If not, the danger of renewed bloodshed in Kolasin and elsewhere in Montenegro is real.
The Chicago Tribune : MILOSEVIC HAS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO WIN
THE SERB LEADER'S MAIN OPPONENT IS AHEAD IN PRE-ELECTION POLLS, BUT SERBS ARE RESIGNED TO ANOTHER TERM FOR THE VILIFIED INCUMBENT.
By Tom Hundley
Tribune Correspondent
September 24, 2000
STRPCE, Yugoslavia -- The numbers look bad for incumbent President Slobodan Milosevic. Every reliable poll has him trailing challenger Vojislav Kostunica by a wide margin.
But numbers don't always add up in the Balkans, and Milosevic's supporters are confident their man will somehow pull off a win in Sunday's presidential election.
"Kostunica won't get much support here," promised Svetislav Durlevic, secretary of the municipal assembly in Strpce, a Serb enclave and once-popular ski resort in southern Kosovo.
Durlevic, who is responsible for running the election in Strpce, is a member of Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia. So are virtually all the polling board members who will oversee voting at the 33 polling stations in Strpce. So are the election commissioners who will tally the votes.
The unmarked, unnumbered ballots for Sunday's election were in three large plastic bags heaped behind his desk.
Newly rewritten Yugoslav election laws invite fraud, and Milosevic's low standing in opinion polls practically guarantees it.
Durlevic isn't the only one predicting victory for Milosevic. Western diplomats, observers from various international organizations in the region and dispirited Serbs who say they will take part in the election all seem to believe the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
"I expect Slobodan Milosevic to win the election and that he will do it through gross fraud," said a senior Western diplomat in Kosovo. "Milosevic believes he has control of the process. Otherwise, he would have stopped it."
The only element of suspense seems to be whether Milosevic will win in the first round or whether he will allow a potentially explosive situation to go to a second round of voting in two weeks.
Under the law, if none of the five candidates in Sunday's ballot passes the 50 percent threshold, the top two finishers go to a runoff. Opinion polls indicate that in a head-to-head race, Kostunica's margin over Milosevic would be even greater, leading most analysts to conclude Milosevic will try to lock up a first-round win.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch, the New York-based human-rights organization, "Pro-government parties dominate election commissions and polling boards, which conduct the elections. In the Federal Electoral Commission and district electoral commissions, the pro-government members outnumber the opposition by 6-1. All polling boards, which run the voting at polling stations, are dominated by members of Milosevic's coalition.
"There is no exhaustive list of voters' names and ID numbers, making it virtually impossible to identify persons registered to vote in more than one polling station or election district. Voters do not countersign the voting register; instead a polling board member simply circles the number next to the name of the voter casting his or her ballot, which facilitates ballot stuffing," the report continued.
"Voting results are expressed only in digits [numerals], not in words; in well-documented cases during the 1996 and 1997 elections, digits were simply added to the numbers indicating the vote for the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia after the polling board had counted the votes," the report said.
To have as free a hand as possible in conducting the elections, the Yugoslav government has barred international monitors, except for a select few from countries such as Libya and Iraq.
In Kosovo, one of the few places where the international community has a chance to observe the election, the opportunity has nearly been squandered.
The United Nations Mission in Kosovo, which administers the province, at first rejected the idea of allowing Milosevic to conduct elections in the province. That seemed undemocratic, so it changed its mind. But to avoid lending legitimacy to rigged elections, the UN and other international agencies won't monitor or even observe the vote. Instead, according to a senior Western diplomat in Kosovo, they will merely "witness" the vote.
In particular they will try to witness the expected non-voting by Kosovo Albanians--potentially a bountiful source of fraudulent votes for Milosevic.
"We expect that many Kosovo Albanians will be surprised to wake up on Monday morning to discover that they voted for Milosevic," said a senior administration official in Washington.
The Clinton administration appears to have resigned itself to a Milosevic "victory" no matter what the actual votes add up to. Its best hope is that if, as expected, the election is stolen, the opposition will quickly mobilize to expose the fraud and that Milosevic will be delegitimized in the eyes of most Serbs even as he clings to power.
"It's part of the long-term process of undermining Milosevic and building up the democratic forces in Serbia," the official said.
But in this election, the Serb leader still holds most of the important cards. In the year since the NATO air campaign he has all but suffocated the independent media in Serbia despite U.S. efforts to revive it.
At the same time, he uses state television to heap abuse on opposition candidates, labeling them traitors or NATO lackeys. The main government newspaper refers to the opposition as "well-fed dogs," while Milosevic, at a recent campaign rally, ridiculed his opponents as "rabid rats and hyenas."
Kostunica, a low-key lawyer and former professor, seems to have struck a chord with ordinary Serbs. He has not been tainted by the infighting and backbiting of Serbia's fractious opposition parties and he has been careful to avoid any association with the U.S.
During the Kosovo war, he staunchly defended Yugoslavia's right to crack down on Albanian separatists and bitterly criticized the NATO bombing campaign as unjustified interference.
He is an ardent and articulate defender of the Serb nation. His personality can be prickly, and his attacks on American "arrogance" are harsh. But his outlook is European, and his democratic credentials appear to be genuine.
A measure of the regime's nervousness was the decision, reported Saturday in Belgrade, to post Yugoslav soldiers at polling stations in Montenegro, Serbia's small sister republic in what remains of Yugoslavia. Montenegro has a pro-West government that is boycotting these elections, though Milosevic supporters are expected to vote.
The regime also has accused the opposition of planning to set up a shadow government or parallel government in Montenegro, an allegation that could serve as a pretext for a heavy-handed crackdown if Serbs take to the streets to protest a Milosevic victory.
Even true believers such as Durlevic, Milosevic's man in Strpce, sense the danger.
"I think a first-round victory for Milosevic will be difficult," he said. "You [Americans] are financing the opposition, you're giving them a lot of support."
But he warned that this alleged attempt by the U.S. to influence the Serb election could backfire. "Because you never can tell with the Serbs."
The Guardian : Milosevic claims poll win
Special report: Serbia
Maggie O'Kane in Belgrade
President Slobodan Milosevic was fighting for his political life last night with the same audacity that has kept him in power for 13 years.
After a turnout in yesterday's elections that may be as high as 60% in Serbia and 75% in the rest of the country, he responded to the threat by staging a victory concert on the main square of the capital.
It began an hour before the polls closed, wrongfooting the plans of his main challenger the Belgrade lawyer Vojislav Kostunica to hold a rally in the same square. The danger of violent clashes grew as both sides in Yugoslavia's hotly contested election accused each other of fraud.
As supporters gathered in Belgrade city centre, state television announced an overwhelming lead for Mr Milosevic in voting in the Serb-populated villages of northern Kosovo. The claim was dismissed by the opposition as "pure manipulation".
Hundreds of thousands voted in Serbia, its sister republic of Montenegro, and UN-administered Kosovo after Mr Milosevic called an early election.
Confident of catching the opposition off-guard, he was surprised by its unity and Mr Kostunica's strength in the latest opinion polls, which suggested that Mr Milosevic's 13 years of power would end if the balloting and count were free and fair.
Mr Milosevic put on a show of looking relaxed and confident as he voted with his wife, Mirjana Markovic, in an exclusive Belgrade suburb, and expressed optimism about the vote in a comment carried by state news agency Tanjug.
"I expect the political scene in Serbia to be clarified, creating the conditions for lasting stability and even faster economic development," he said, referring to efforts to rebuild the country after last year's Nato air strikes.
Mr Kostunica, the candidate of the 18-party alliance known as Democratic Opposition of Serbia, also voted in Belgrade. "It should be shown that the authorities in a democracy are changeable," he said, accusing the government of trying to confuse voters and justify any future moves to preserve power at all cost.
During the afternoon, as the opposition workers were arriving to prepare for their concert, they discovered that President Milosevic's party workers were already building a huge concert stage to the left of the square.
State television, which is controlled by Mr Milosevic had set up in front of the national museum in preparation for a live broadcast when the president's victory would be announced. Serbia was informed of Mr Milosevic's victory before the votes had been counted. "The political landscape has now been cleaned," the president said.
A Serbian traditional band was dressed in blue uniforms and began its concert with second world war songs while confused young people who had come to what they thought was an opposition rally milled around in confusion.
"Staging the concert on Republicca Square is designed to provoke us and give him the chance to crack down. They need a reason to use the police and the army," Steva Markovic, a 41-year-old opposition activist and computer analyst said.
Most of the people who arrived at the floodlit square were young and anti-Milosevic: "He is going to choke us again," a 21-year-old philosophy student said. Others stood in depressed silence. "The queues outside my polling station were the longest I have ever seen in my life," Davor Petrovic said. "I'm sure it will be a big turnout but we hadn't even finished voting when he did this. No one knows what to do."
As the voting got under way the federal prime minister, Momir Bulatovic, who is a regime loyalist said that under the constitution Mr Milosevic was obliged to remain in power until 2001, regardless of the election result - a suggestion aimed at discouraging his opponents from voting.
An uneasy fear has been seeping across the country for days. Even opposition supporters confident of victory at the ballot box are terrified that Mr Milosevic will not step down without bloodshed. Psychologist Zorica Razicsaid: "I think tonight nothing will happen, but on Monday I think people will be killed on the streets of Belgrade," she said.
On the eve of the poll, the election authorities announced a change in voting procedure that many believe breaches the fundamental right of privacy for voters. The Federal Election Commission ruled that every ballot slip would be checked by the local election board ostensibly to ensure that only one slip was put into the ballot box.
In southern Serbia, where voting fraud was most feared, 370 polling stations had no representative of the opposition on the board, an opposition spokesman said.
The Belgrade-based Centre for Free Elections and Democracy listed dozens of irregularities and said the poll was a "complete mess". Marko Blagojevic, its spokesman, said that in Leskovac, the voting lists were not opened up for inspection and voting was taking place without people needing identification.
The New York Times : Both Sides Claim to Hold the Lead in Yugoslav Vote
By STEVEN ERLANGER
BELGRADE, Serbia, Monday, Sept. 25 — Enthusiastic leaders of the opposition to President Slobodan Milosevic said early today that their candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, was leading by wide margins in watershed elections for president held on Sunday, but government spokesmen insisted that their sampling indicated that Mr. Milosevic was ahead.
Mr. Milosevic, who has ruled this country for the last 13 years, called the election nine months early — after changing the Constitution in a day — in an effort to prolong and legitimize his hold on power. While no official figures had been released six hours after the polls closed, opposition leaders said he had badly miscalculated in his first attempt at direct election since 1992.
Certainly, government officials who had predicted an early evening declaration of victory for Mr. Milosevic in the first round, with the incumbent taking more than 50 percent of the vote, were mistaken. Some officials in Mr. Milosevic's ruling Socialist Party said privately that the mood was grim, and that there was some confusion about how to respond to the vote.
There were indications early this morning that the Socialists might choose to allow a second-round runoff between Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Kostunica rather than simply declare victory by means of a voting fraud that could require Mr. Milosevic to claim a million phantom votes. A runoff on Oct. 8 would in effect challenge the opposition to respond in the streets if it felt cheated of a victory then.
The United States and other Western powers have invested much effort and money in trying to unite Serbia's opposition, promote independent media and oust Mr. Milosevic, against whom NATO fought a three-month bombing war last year for control of Kosovo.
An opposition spokesman, Cedomir Jovanovic, said the results he had received made it clear that a second-round runoff between Mr. Milosevic and his main opponent, a 56- year-old lawyer backed by 18 opposition parties, would be required if Mr. Kostunica did not win outright. Figures released by the opposition said turnout was nearly 78 percent in Serbia and about 25 percent in the tiny sister republic of Montenegro, whose pro-Western president had urged a boycott the vote.
At 3:30 this morning (9:30 p.m. Sunday, Eastern time), Nikola Sainovic, the Yugoslav deputy prime minister and a spokesman for the Socialist Party, said that, with 900,000 votes counted, Mr. Milosevic was leading with 44 percent of the vote to 41 percent for Mr. Kostunica.
Polling experts noted that a lower turnout would require Mr. Milosevic to win or manufacture fewer votes in order to claim a first-round victory. The Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj, which is an increasingly disaffected partner of Mr. Milosevic in the government and is considered a watchful counter of votes in this election, offered a larger sample of 600,000 votes. That sample showed Mr. Kostunica with 49 percent to Mr. Milosevic's 41 percent. But again, it was impossible to judge how representative the sample was.
Some Socialist Party officials were said to be arguing for a second round, hoping to keep the turnout down, but opposition leaders, pollsters and analysts believe that a second round would produce a definitive victory for Mr. Kostunica.
People also voted for both houses of the Yugoslav Parliament and for local governments, but the counting of those votes is slower. The opposition claimed big victories in Belgrade, which it already controls, and said it had lost no towns.
Vladimir Stambuk, vice president of the Serbian Parliament and a senior member of the party of Mr. Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, said, "The turnout is very large, and it's clearly a kind of referendum."
Officials of the Serbian Renewal Movement, an opposition party which did not back Mr. Kostunica, said he was winning by wide margins over Mr. Milosevic in central Serbia and in large cities, while Mr. Milosevic was running ahead, though less dramatically, in more rural eastern and southern Serbia.
The State Department said Sunday night that it believed that more than 70 percent of the population had voted in the election. "We congratulate the people of Yugoslavia on their commitment to democracy," said Richard A. Boucher, a department spokesman. He said that there were numerous reliable accounts of irregularities during the voting.
In Belgrade and other Serbian cities there were rival rallies and concerts. The opposition had planned to rally in the capital's Square of the Republic, but the government set up a loud concert instead. Some surprised opposition supporters yelled "red thieves" at the stage.
The opposition moved down the street to a smaller square, and some 5,000 people gathered to hear scattered results, chant slogans and cheer for Mr. Kostunica. They chanted: "Kostunica, save Serbia from this madhouse" and "Slobo, save Serbia and kill yourself."
The police separated the crowds but there was no violence.
In Belgrade, Milan Spasic, a 52- year-old lawyer, said: "We want change, but with this guy we'll never have it. We'll have only blood."
Mr. Milosevic, who was indicted last year by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, is widely blamed for igniting the wars that marked the breakup of the old Yugoslavia in the 1990's.
Milos Cervenic, 26, a metalworker, spoke hopefully of an opposition victory. "I'm expecting to live like a man at last, to not be ashamed of being a Serb anymore," he said.
In Montenegro, President Milo Djukanovic, who urged a boycott, dismissed the elections as a show. "Milosevic intends to continue his dictatorship in Belgrade," he said.
Under the original Constitution, Mr. Milosevic could serve only a single term as president, which would end next July. His ally, Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic, has said Mr. Milosevic will serve out his term no matter what the results of the elections may be.
In Montenegro itself, the elections caused little stir, with a large majority not voting. Special police units loyal to Mr. Djukanovic were on guard at state buildings in full combat gear but Yugoslav Army units, whose commanders have openly supported Mr. Milosevic, mostly kept in their barracks.
In Serbia and Montenegro there were complaints of electoral abuses, including inflated voter tallies, missing curtains and the banning of opposition monitors from a few polling places. The police and soldiers voted in barracks, away from the scrutiny of party representatives.
In Kosovo, which is run by the United Nations, Western troops and officials attempted to keep a count of those who voted, to try to defeat any effort by Belgrade to inflate the numbers. Western officials said that fewer than 40,000 people appeared to vote. State news media said Mr. Milosevic had done very well in Kosovo.
The Times : Milosevic harnesses one-horse towns
RICHARD BEESTON IN SMEDEREVO
Posters for Vojislav Kostunica, rival candidate for the presidency, dominate Nis
Photograph: KOSTADIN KAMENOV/AP ©
IF ONLY the rest of Serbia were as loyal as this drab industrial town on the Danube, then President Milosevic could comfortably put his feet up and cruise to a landslide re-election victory tomorrow.
Smederevo, 30 miles southeast of Belgrade, is a one-factory town, with a tradition of voting for the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), whose inhabitants, through conviction and sometimes fear, believe that they need Mr Milosevic as much as he needs them in the closing days of his flagging campaign.
With only one day to go before the polls open, the Serb leader is depending on the ordinary workers, in towns and villages where his support is still strong, to come out and save him in the greatest political test he has faced since coming to power more than a decade ago.
Mladen, a painter-decorator wearing a communist-era black leather cap, looked surprised when asked who he would be voting for, as though there was little choice in the matter.
"Slobodan Milosevic, of course. A vote for anyone else means voting for our enemies, it means our destruction," he said, politely noting that only last year Nato aircraft knocked out the town's bridge and oil depot.
"The world, apart from the Russians, hates us because we are Orthodox. If Milosevic is no longer there to defend us, we will lose Montenegro, then [the Hungarian region of] Vojvodino and then [the Muslim region of] Sandzak," he said emphatically.
His opinion was not the ranting of some paranoid ultra-nationalist but the conviction shared by many ordinary Serbs, who have been fed on a steady diet of anti-Western propaganda and sincerely believe that the nation state faces an existential challenge.
While the nationalist theme certainly has popular backing - with all four main presidential candidates espousing the Serb cause - there are also far more practical means of ensuring that this town, and many others across the country, votes the way the Milosevic regime wants.
The main employer here is the Sartid metalworks factory, a state-owned enterprise, run by Dusan Matkovic, one the main figures in the SPS hierarchy. Workers claimed that they had been instructed to vote for Mr Milosevic and were warned that without him the factory would most likely collapse - and with it the town's future.
The story can be heard repeatedly across Serbia. Although the country's economy has been in sharp decline caused by a decade of wars, refugees and economic sanctions, workers who do still have jobs in state enterprises cling to their jobs even more tightly.
"Why go and muck everything up?" asked Snejen, a retired worker. "The present is not perfect but it gives enough for people to survive. The alternative could be much worse."
Although Mr Milosevic has projected his rule in a nationalist guise, he remains at heart a product of the Yugoslav Communist Party he served in the 1980s before rising to become President of Serbia in 1989.
While communist ideology has largely been discredited and state controls dismantled across the former Soviet bloc, the hybrid form still lives on in Serbia, where the economy, the media and the security forces remain under tight central control.
Television news usually consists of coverage of party meetings, the opening of bridges and the inspection of factories, with the only foreign news usually concentrating on bad news from the West, like terrorist attacks, natural disasters and political scandals.
The big test now for Mr Milosevic is whether his obsolete system of government, already swept aside throughout the Balkans, can survive what is in effect a national referendum.
It has remained intact through a decade of turmoil and the state apparatus will use all its considerable power to make sure that it is still in place on Monday morning.
It is clear that the system will remain intact in Smederevo and other Milosevic strongholds, but this time that may not be enough to save him.
Poll will decide nation's fate
President Milosevic faces his toughest political challenge tomorrow when millions of his countrymen go to the polls in an election he cannot afford to lose but seems unable to win legitimately (Richard Beeston writes).
Final opinion polls suggest that he is as many as 20 points behind Vojislav Kostunica, the leader of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia. The two other contenders are Tomislav Nikolic, of the ultra-nationalist Serb Radical Party, and Vojilsav Mihajlovic, of the Serbian Renewal Movement.
The vote is essentially a referendum on where Serbia should go in the new century. Mr Milosevic represents continued hostility to the West, to the free market and the global economy, while promising to maintain a socialist state and strengthen ties with China and Russia. Mr Kostunica has pledged to lead Serbia out of its international isolation, to make peace with its neighbours and bring the country into the heart of Europe.
The elections are being held simultaneously for the presidency of Yugoslavia, both chambers of the federal parliament, the parliament of the autonomous province of Vojvodina and for Serbia's municipalities.
Polling station witnesses watch for cheating
FROM JAMES PRINGLE IN KOSOVO
THE United Nations will deploy teams throughout Kosovo tomorrow to see whether President Milosevic of Yugoslavia tries to cheat in presidential and federal elections by stealing the votes of up to a million Albanians.
Most Albanians are expected to boycott the polls. The 46,000-strong Nato-led Kosovo force, Kfor, is strengthening security as the situation grows more tense. But it will not provide security at the polling stations.
The UN teams, who will be looking for fraud and ballot-rigging, include diplomats from Britain, the United States, Germany and other states. They have volunteered to act as witnesses by standing outside polling stations, counting people who enter.
Nadia Younes, a spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (Unmik), said that while the UN did not recognise the Yugoslav elections as legitimate, and while the volunteers were neither election monitors nor observers, they would be on hand "to witness what is going on".
She said: "We will bear witness to any inflated claims. We will be in a position to address the magnitude of what is happening."
Bernard Kouchner, the head of Unmik and Kosovo's de facto Governor, has called the holding of elections in Kosovo a "farce" and a "provocation". The Council of Europe said this week that the election "will not be, in all probability, free and fair".
The Yugoslav authorities have not told Unmik how many polling stations there will be but Belgrade has said there could be as many as 300 in a province with little security for the Serb minority, which numbers about 100,000.
It is anticipated that Mr Milosevic's operators will stuff ballot boxes with unused Albanian votes in his name.
Troops kill Montenegrin for insulting President
FROM JOHN PHILLIPS IN PODGORICA
PRO-SERB special forces shot and killed a Montenegrin policeman for insulting President Milosevic yesterday, worsening tension between Belgrade and the tiny Balkan republic as Montenegrins are braced for tomorrow's Yugoslav presidential elections.
The incident happened in the early hours outside the Stori Bunar (Old Well) pub in Zlatica, a pro-Serb suburb on the northern outskirts of Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, diplomatic sources and bar staff said.
Two plain-clothed Montenegrin policemen returning from duty in the north of the republic went to the bar and met seven uniformed members of the 7th Battalion, an elite Yugoslav Army unit deployed in Montenegro by Belgrade in response to the republic's campaign for independence.
An argument developed after the Montenegrins declined to sing Serbian traditional songs and made uncomplimentary remarks about the Yugoslav President, as the soldiers, evidently inspired by Montenegro's fiery grape brandy, poured scorn on Milo Djukanovic, the Montenegrin President, and refused to sing Montenegrin songs.
A police source said: "They went outside to try to resolve their differences with a fair fist-fight. But since they were outnumbered, one of the policemen went to his car to get his gun as a precaution. One of the soldiers saw that he was armed and fired six shots at the policeman, killing him instantly."
The incident happened as Montenegrins anxiously await the results of tomorrow's elections amid persistent rumours in Podgorica that President Milosevic might connive to topple Mr Djukanovic as a diversion from a Serbian opposition victory.
The Montenegrin leader has urged his compatriots to boycott the election on the ground that the republic was not consulted about recent constitutional changes implemented by Mr Milosevic.
The United States this week began military manoeuvres with Croatia off the Adriatic coast in what Washington has indicated is a warning to Belgrade not to threaten Montenegro's autonomy. Thousands of Yugoslav Army troops have been withdrawn from barracks around Podgorica and other cities in Montenegro over the past two weeks as an apparent precaution against being targeted by Nato war planes, should the situation deteriorate, the independent Montenegro newspaper Monitor reported.
After the shooting, the gunman fled to northern Montenegro, but was arrested near the Serbian border, diplomatic sources said.
Balkans experts said the incident would increase Montenegrin resentment at the unwelcome presence of the troops in the republic.
The affair was the worst such episode since Yugoslav soldiers shut down Podgorica's airport last December. The Army condemned the violent behaviour and vowed to try to stop it happening again.
Tiny country teeters on the brink of bloody civil war
BY MISHA GLENNY
WITH its breathtaking mountains and spectacular, unspoilt Adriatic resorts, Montenegro is one of the most beautiful parts of Europe. But for the past six months it has also been a land teetering on the brink of civil war, which tomorrow's elections may finally ignite.
There is a sinister atmosphere in Serbia's tiny sister republic, one familiar to those who knew Croatia and Bosnia before the outbreak of war in the early 1990s.
Guns are being cleaned; old friendships have been broken off; villages and clans have proclaimed their loyalty either to Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav President, or to Milo Djukanovic, his Montenegrin counterpart.
The Yugoslav Army, Mr Milosevic's key ally in Montenegro, has boosted its ranks by forming the 7th Battalion. Made up exclusively of pro-Milosevic Serbians, the 7th Battalion has been flexing its menacing muscles in a series of manoeuvres recently.
President Djukanovic has responded by creating special police units to halt the threat from Belgrade. "The Montenegrins cannot match the Yugoslav Army's heavy weapons but there are thousands of troops or heavily armed police on both sides," Dragisa Burzan, the Montenegrin Deputy Prime Minister, said last week. "[If war broke out] this would be a high intensity conflict, closer to full-scale civil war than anything yet unleashed by Milosevic."
President Djukanovic is unlikely to pull the trigger to start the war. Despite flirting with the idea of holding a referendum on independence, he knows that such a move would lead to war immediately and that he would shoulder some of the blame, so he continues to be committed to the joint state with Serbia. He has insisted on autonomy though, including the right to maintain close relations with the West.
Provocation is much more likely to come from Mr Milosevic. Montenegro is by far the most powerful weapon at his disposal if he begins to feel his position in Serbia is no longer secure after the elections. In the past he has not hesitated to ignite bloody chaos in neighbouring territories with the aim of strengthening his grip inside Serbia. To judge by the uncompromising tone of his speech in the Montenegrin town of Berane on Wednesday, he may be prepared to do it again. "Think carefully about how and where you want to live," he warned, adding that it was in their best interests to live "in a free and independent country together with Serbia".
The risk of war in Montenegro is a tremendous headache for the US and Europe. Nato leaders, including George Robertson, the Secretary General, and Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, have engaged in some robust finger-wagging at Mr Milosevic over Montenegro recently. Nato refused, however, to deploy ground troops during the Kosovo war and no Western leader has indicated that there has been a shift in military doctrine since then. If Montenegro erupted, it would not be another Kosovo, with Yugoslav Army troops massacring a defenceless population. It would be a hell-hole similar to the civil war in Montenegro during the Second World War, described with terrifying vividness by Milovan Djilas, the partisan leader. Trying to identify who was slaughtering whom would be extremely difficult; air power would certainly not keep the two sides apart.
Such a conflict would also bring disturbing ramifications for the rest of the region, especially for neighbouring Kosovo. Montenegro boasts a substantial Albanian minority which has in recent years supported Mr Djukanovic.
If Serbia were to swallow part of Montenegro (the north-east of the republic is notably more pro-Belgrade than the southern areas around Podgorica, the capital), the tiny rump would be left with a much larger Albanian minority, raising fears of another Kosovo down the line.
If Mr Milosevic decides to leave Montenegro well alone, it will still take many years to defuse the tremendous tension that has built up there over the past six months.
The Washington Post : Ruling Party In Control of Yugoslav Vote
Ethnic Albanian suporters chant during a rally of Aliance for the Future of Kosova (AAK) in the capital Pristina on Friday. (Visar Kryeziu - AP)
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 23, 2000; Page A16
STRPCE, Yugoslavia, Sept. 22 –– When voters in this scenic mountain village arrive at an elementary school to cast a ballot for president of Yugoslavia on Sunday, their names will first have to be matched against a master voting list compiled by officials in the ruling Socialist Party.
Chances are that the person who hands them a ballot will be an official of the ruling party. And after the voters have circled their selection on a printed page and deposited it in a box sealed by twine and wax, the results will be tallied by an election commission consisting mostly of ruling party members.
"You know who will win here," said Lubomir Regic, a retired construction worker, raising his eyebrows. "Of course, it will be Milosevic."
With the vote drawing near, President Slobodan Milosevic is the second choice, according to non-government opinion polls, as the opposition mounts a vigorous campaign. Still, many people here assume that he will announce victory after the vote, regardless of the actual numbers. The reason is the kind of control that the government will exercise in this village.
Strpce is in Kosovo province, which was occupied by NATO troops last year but is still legally part of Yugoslavia. Yugoslav officials running the polling here and reports from other parts of Yugoslavia indicate that its local practices will be standard all over the country.
The government has invited lawmakers from 52 friendly countries, including Angola, Belarus and Iraq, to monitor the elections. But it is not allowing trained, independent domestic volunteers or Western observers. Domestic and foreign journalists will have no guaranteed access to polling stations. And in two regions of the country, the republic of Montenegro and Kosovo, where many people are boycotting the vote, many voting stations will be located in the homes of Milosevic supporters.
The nation's estimated 108,000 military personnel are slated to vote with their units, whose leaders have publicly endorsed Milosevic. Other voting will take place in factories and offices, without monitors.
The election observation unit of the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe--the continent's principal voting watchdog--concluded in a recent report that "the scope for abuse is . . . considerable" in Yugoslavia. A separate study by New York-based Human Rights Watch went further, alleging that "Yugoslav election law facilitates fraud."
Here in Strpce, an enclave of about 11,000 Serbs, Yugoslavia's dominant ethnic group, located near a closed ski resort in a south-central region of Kosovo, people have had only the government-controlled newspaper to read of late. Unemployment is widespread, and virtually all those who work depend on the Milosevic government for their meager paychecks or pensions.
Election preparations are being overseen by Svetislav Durlevic, the 32-year-old secretary of the municipal assembly, a member of the ruling Socialist Party who said he, too, expects Milosevic will win--at least in a runoff election, if not on the first ballot.
Durlevic said he likes his job, which entitles him to an automobile, a cell phone, a modest fund for business lunches and a monthly salary of roughly $130. That makes him relatively well-to-do in a country whose economy has been battered by war and economic sanctions. Only Milosevic will ensure that Serbia "will remain free and independent, not one in a series of American servants," he said.
Durlevic stores the approved list of voters in Strpce, drawn from municipal and police records, inside a locked safe in his office at the municipal building. His counterparts throughout the country have amassed similar lists, and--according to Human Rights Watch--no one outside the government knows whether they contain duplicates or include voters who have moved or are deceased.
Those who vote at one of the 33 polling stations in the area will not be called on to sign a register, Durlevic said. Such signatures are a common feature in Western elections and are meant to inhibit repeat voting. Instead, people will simply circle one of the five numbers adjacent to the names of the presidential candidates.
Durlevic said he recently drove to the city of Vranje, to the northeast, to retrieve 9,681 ballots for voters in his municipality. This number seems large, considering a U.N. estimate last January that put the municipality's population--including children--at 11,012. But it is not clear whether the geographic areas match exactly.
Durlevic said that of the ballots he retrieved, 2,141 have been allocated to voters residing in three ethnic Albanian villages. He conceded that few of the Albanians will vote, since they have boycotted Yugoslav institutions for more than a decade. But he said that the government must respect their right to vote.
Opposition politicians have a different interpretation. They have alleged that the ruling party deliberately sent as many as 850,000 extra ballots to Kosovo and central Serbia, and that many will be returned with Milosevic's name circled by party functionaries.
The allegation is being taken seriously by the U.N. mission in Kosovo, which plans to deploy as many as 200 monitoring teams to check the size of the vote within the province.
Durlevic and an aide promised the election would be conducted fairly. With two days to go, Durlevic was happy to show a visitor some of the ballots--colored white for president and blue for the federal assembly, and bearing no printed numbers.
He said that many members of each station's election commission, who will count the votes after the polls close at 7 p.m. in Strpce, are Socialist Party members. At least one member of each opposition party is entitled to monitor the count, he said, provided they apply to the government for permission in advance and receive approval.
Durlevic could not recall the names of any opposition party officials, however, and said he was unsure if any will be present.
The Guardian : UN appoints watchers as fear of Milosevic poll-rigging grows
Special report: Serbia
Nicholas Wood in Pristina and Jonathan Steele
Saturday September 23, 2000
United Nations officials in Kosovo were hastily putting together a team of election "witnesses" yesterday to count the voters who turn out for Sunday's crucial Yugoslav presidential and parliamentary elections.
The UN has denounced the elections as neither free nor fair, and said previously that it would do no more than provide security for Serbs in Kosovo who wanted to vote - it is assumed that Albanian Kosovans will boycott the poll.
It has changed its mind under heavy pressure from the US, Britain and other Nato countries which want to reduce President Slobodan Milosevic's chance of rigging the ballot.
As it became clear that, in the absence of supervision, Mr Milosevic could use the Kosovan votes to bump up his total, the UN decided to appoint monitors.
In Serbia itself no monitors, local or from Nato countries, have been accredited. Only the political parties will be able to have someone in the polling stations, but with restricted rights to examine the count and the lists of total votes.
Anxious not to give credibility to the poll, the UN team in Kosovo will stay out of the election buildings and count voters, not votes, to have some check on turnout padding.
Officials say they are operating on opinion poll predictions that Mr Milosevic needs 500,000 extra votes to secure the 50% required for a first-round win.
The head of the UN administration, Bernard Kouchner, is expected to announce the number seen entering and leaving polling stations late on Sunday evening.
The UN acted as Western officials stepped up their warning of fraud on Sunday.
In Zagreb the European Union external relations commissioner, Chris Patten, said Mr Milosevic might use "Stalinist" methods to keep power after the election.
"While many of us believe that the overwhelming majority in Serbia want the long night represented by Milosevic's regime to come to an end, I am not sure that is a view entirely held by Mr Milosevic," he told reporters after talks with Croatian officials.
"If Milosevic hangs on, I think many people predict growing economic and humanitarian problems in Serbia. That is one reason why we want to see ... substantial and rapid change as soon as possible," he added.
The Nato secretary-general, Lord Robertson, said he hoped Yugoslav opposition parties would win by too large a margin for Mr Milosevic to falsify the result.
"I hope the people of Serbia use the opportunity they have to accept the welcome Europe extends to them if they turn their backs on the politics of ethnic hatred. I hope they'll make it impossible for him to pretend he has won when he has lost."
He warned Mr Milosevic against undermining Milo Djukanovic, the pro-western president of Montenegro.
"Djukanovic has the right to fulfill the mandate given him by the people of Montenegro. Milosevic shouldn't miscalculate the determination of the international community in this matter," he said.
Senior Serb figures also called for free elections. Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox church and a frequent critic of Mr Milosevic, said ballot-rigging could lead to bloodshed.
"The voice of the people is the voice of God," he said. "If someone tries to change the people's will there is a danger of unforeseeable consequences for our people and country."
Milorad Dodik, the west-backed prime minister of the Bosnian Serb republic, urged Mr Milosevic to quit, saying no other leader had caused the Serb people so much misery.
"What is left? What will we remember you for?" he wrote in an open letter.
"Wars? Hyperinflation? The loss of Kosovo? Turning Serbs into a refugee tribe on tractors? Graves, ruins? These, Slobodan, are the monuments of your rule."
With campaigning now officially over, several of Mr Milosevic's critics reacted angrily yesterday to a statement by his close ally, the federal prime minister Momir Bulatovic, that the president might stay in power until next summer even if he lost the vote.
"Under the constitutional law, the mandate of the president cannot be shortened. It will last until its expiry, which will be until mid-2001," he told a Montenegrin television station.
Mr Milosevic called the elec tions early in the hope of catching the opposition off guard, but it united unexpectedly quickly round Vojislav Kostunica, who leads in every poll. Zoran Djindjic of the Democratic party said the Bulatovic statement proved the president was running scared.
The Montenegrin prime minister, Filip Vujanovic, also attacked the suggestion that Mr Milosevic could legally stay on if he lost. It was "completely ridiculous".
His government is boycotting the elections as unconstitutional. Pro-Belgrade parties in the republic will organise their own voting.
But Mr Vujanovic added a rare note of optimism. He said he doubted that Mr Milosevic would lash out at Montenegro.
"I don't see high risks of conflicts in Montenegro after the elections," he said. There was no evidence of a Yugoslav army build-up in Montenegro.
Western analysts suggest various ways Mr Milosevic may have in mind to cling on to power. One is pressure on Montenegro as a way of trying to justify a state of emergency and a clampdown on all opposition parties and media.
The New York Times : U.S. Anti-Milosevic Plan Faces Major Test at Polls
By JANE PERLEZ
WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 — After more than seven years opposing President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia on the battlefield and in the negotiating room, the Clinton administration is making one last stand against him — among the voters.
In a high-profile strategy that began a year ago, the administration has helped finance an opposition movement that is backing Vojislav Kostunica in his campaign to unseat Mr. Milosevic from the Yugoslav presidency in voting on Sunday.
Even if, as almost everyone expects, Mr. Milosevic simply declares himself the victor, Washington is hoping that angry voters will take to the streets in a way that eventually drives him from office, much as Ferdinand E. Marcos was ousted in the Philippines in 1986.
The strategy largely reflects the thinking of Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who has made democracy a centerpiece of her tenure and has cast Mr. Milosevic as her most bitter enemy.
But the plan, which has ranged from bringing fractious opposition leaders here to meet Dr. Albright in her seventh-floor suite at the State Department to pumping million of dollars into voter education groups and the independent media, has its risks.
For one thing, Mr. Kostunica is a Serbian nationalist who does not necessarily support the NATO presence in Kosovo. Without an official American presence in Serbia, it is difficult to gauge how much of the $25 million spent on the opposition over the last year has been fruitfully used. In fact, the blatant American campaign against Mr. Milosevic has given him a powerful theme for his campaign.
The administration officials who devised the strategy said they believed that Mr. Milosevic, regardless of the vote tallies, would manipulate the results and declare victory. In the best case, the officials said, they hoped that opposition protests would eventually lead Mr. Milosevic's all- important army and security forces to turn against him.
"The people of Yugoslavia are standing up," said James C. O'Brien, special adviser to President Clinton and Dr. Albright on democracy in the Balkans. "They believe it's time for change. There is the potential for seismic change in Yugoslavia."
The administration, Mr. O'Brien suggested, hopes that the elections will provide a "crucial moment, like the Berlin Wall falling." But he said Washington would settle for a "tide turning."
The national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger, noted recently that "people power" spelled the end in Manila in 1986 and that the same movement could occur now in Belgrade.
Other officials acknowledged, however, that it was unclear how motivated the opposition would be to protest, whether it could rouse a weary population to rally in great numbers and whether the security forces would turn against Mr. Milosevic.
To encourage opposition activities in Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia, the United States has spent $25 million in the last year, according to Donald L. Pressley, the assistant administrator at the United States Agency for International Development. Nearly half of the money, $11 million, was spent on helping unions, media organizations and civic associations, Mr. Pressley said.
Two groups here, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, were allocated $4 million to help groups in Serbia campaign door to door and to develop other get-out-the-vote techniques, Mr. Pressley said. Much of the remaining money went to Serbian cities like Nis and Novi Sad, which are run by independent mayors.
Because American officials are barred from Serbia, a satellite embassy, under the direction of Ambassador William Montgomery, was established in Budapest in the summer to be the fulcrum for the effort to build democracy in Serbia. From Budapest, conferences have been organized in southern Hungary to bring Serbians together with turnout experts from Central Europe.
The Agency for International Development has given contracts to establish nongovernmental organizations like Freedom House and the German Marshall Fund, which give grants to Central European groups that have access to Serbia, Mr. Pressley said.
Thus, O.K. 98, a group that helped unseat Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar in Slovakia in 1998, is working alongside Serbian groups in door-to- door canvassing, he said.
In Serbia, there have been complaints that some of the foreign activity enriches individuals with cash, cell phones and faxes. Mr. Pressley said that $1.5 million of the $25 million effort was earmarked for audits and that A.I.D.'s Budapest operation for Serbia included an auditor.
Administration officials, following their usual policy, refused to confirm or deny the existence of covert operations in Yugoslavia.
One main reason for optimism in the administration is that officials apparently believe that their carefully devised effort to build democracy has helped magnify interest in the opposition candidate, Mr. Kostunica.
Rarely in more than seven years of dealing with Mr. Milosevic has the Clinton administration sounded so upbeat. Nor have officials been so willing to advertise their policy. One official said this week that he had to warn about too much euphoria inside the State Department.
The administration has had little to do with Mr. Kostunica, a law professor who has maintained a fierce independence from American policy and who has said that if he came to power he would not send Mr. Milosevic to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The tribunal indicted Mr. Milosevic last year for what it said were crimes committed by his security forces in Kosovo.
Dr. Albright has watched enthusiastically as more than a dozen parties in Serbia's famously fractured opposition decided to back Mr. Kostunica. Administration officials are also upbeat because, they say, they believe that Mr. Milosevic miscalculated by suddenly calling the elections in July, making this his first direct electoral test since 1992.
The unanswered question in the strategy is what happens after the vote. In his 13 years in power, Mr. Milosevic has repeatedly shown his ability to maneuver, manipulating allies and rivals to maintain his grip.
Some administration officials said they believed that if Mr. Milosevic did not lose by a wide margin and, therefore, did not resort to extensive fraud, there would be a less compelling case for protest.
Other officials argue that ordinary people, buffeted by a bad economy and accepting of official propaganda that the opposition is backed by foreign interests, lack the passion for an enduring show of protest.
Other questions concern whether the police and soldiers are prepared to use large-scale force against fellow Serbs. If they are, that raises a question about how much the administration should encourage protest.
"Is this going to be like 1956?" asked one senior administration official, recalling the Western hints to the Hungarians that help would be on the way if the Soviet Union quashed the uprising.
In the last several days, Bratislav Grubacic, a Serbian journalist who is widely read in the Western diplomatic community, has warned that Mr. Milosevic will attempt to stay in power at any cost. "The bigger danger for the Serbs," Mr. Grubacic wrote, "is that the authorities could apply repressive measures such as those in Beijing's Tiananmen Square."
The Guardian : How Milosevic can ensure he's an each-way winner
Special report: Serbia
Jonathan Steele
Friday September 22, 2000
Yugoslavia's army chief ratcheted up the tension yesterday ahead of Sunday's election by claiming that Nato countries planned to send in special forces to help rivals of President Slobodan Milosevic seize power.
General Nebojsa Pavkovic's assertion sounded like a pretext for Mr Milosevic to clamp down on protesters or declare a state of emergency if he loses on Sunday - as all opinion polls predict he will. Voters will be choosing a federal parliament, local mayors and the Yugoslav presidency.
The army knew of a plan, Gen Pavkovic said, under which there would be disturbances on Sunday "provoked by special units of foreign armed forces who would be infiltrated into Yugoslav territory on that day".
They would come from the Serb part of Bosnia, from Montenegro and from Kosovo. They would dress in Yugoslav army and police uniforms, he said, and would stage provocations "under the guise of extending aid to the 'victors' - the opposition".
"Threats are being addressed to our country at the moment and as a serious army it is our duty to make all the preparations to prevent any surprises," he added.
Although the general also said the army would accept a genuine opposition victory, he is a Milosevic loyalist. Mr Milosevic has called the vote a choice between "patriotism and treachery" and the hint of military action worries western policymakers.
European Union foreign ministers offered voters a massive inducement this week to oust the president by announcing that foreign sanctions would be lifted if there was "democratic change".
The chief opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, is a moderate nationalist who has walked a careful line in recent days by strongly criticising the United States while showing more sympathy for European positions. But he still calls for the unconditional lifting of sanctions and has denounced Nato's bombing of Yugoslavia last year.
While western governments can offer an end to sanctions, they cannot agree on what to do if Mr Milosevic "steals" Sunday's election by declaring victory on the basis of fraud and ballot-rigging.
Diplomats are uncertain how the president will play the election and are unwilling to speculate on his options or their reactions. The only certainties are that Mr Milosevic called the polls early thinking he would win easily because of the opposition's disunity, and that he is as surprised as any one by his opponents' strength.
The International Crisis Group, a think-tank that aims to strengthen the capacity of the international community to anticipate conflict, and which has good contacts in Washington and London, this week outlined four scenarios for Sunday's poll.
Fearing defeat, the Yugoslav president may call it off after "provoking some sort of internal crisis through a staged terrorist attack or simulated military coup, or major disruption in Montenegro". This is unlikely, says the ICG, because it would damage his image of being confident and in control.
Scenario two, is "the big steal" in which he cheats. A third option is that he plays by the rules on Sunday and accepts defeat knowing that under the constitution he need not hand over power until his mandate ends next August. In the meantime he transfers all power to the Serbian presidency and organises an election victory in Serbia next spring, leaving Mr Kostunica to inherit an empty shell as Yugoslav president.
The last option is again that Mr Milosevic accepts a Kostunica victory but over the next few months allows Montenegro to secede, thereby destroying Yugoslavia and leaving Mr Kostunica with no role.
Like most observers, the ICG believes the "big steal" is the likeliest. All will depend on the opposition's reaction, it says.
The opposition might accept cheating in the presidential vote while using its new strength in parliament and town halls to consolidate power for the long haul. Alternatively, it may mount street protests and confront the government, but Mr Kostunica has repeatedly said he does not want bloodshed.
The Independent : 'Milosovic can stay as president if he loses poll', says his PM
By Katarina Kratovac
22 September 2000
With Slobodan Milosevic trailing in the polls, one of his key lieutenants says the Yugoslav president will remain in office until June even if he loses this weekend's election.
"The current president can stay in power until the middle of next year because the constitution allows him to do so," Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic told the private Elmag TV in Montenegro late Thursday.
Some legal experts question that interpretation, since the constitution also requires a new president to be sworn in within 15 days of Sunday's election. Milosevic, who assumed the presidency in 1997, called early balloting after amending the constitution to provide for direct election of the chief of state, who had formerly been chosen by parliament.
Bulatovic's comment was broadcast shortly before the pre–election ban on campaigning that began at midnight Thursday. That also effectively prevents the opposition from responding to the claim.
On Thursday's final night of campaigning, more than 20,000 people took to the streets in Novi Sad, Serbia's second largest city, to show their support for opposition presidential candidate Vojislav Kostunica.
Despite heavy rain, Kostunica's supporters were enthusiastic, chanting, "Down with Milosevic," and brandishing posters reading "He's finished."
Meanwhile, in Prague, Wesley Clark, NATO's former commander in Europe, said that he did not think there would be a peaceful transition of power if Milosevic loses Sunday's ballot.
Speaking after a conference on Balkan reconstruction, Clark issued a stark warning to Milosevic, who many expect will rig the vote to stay in power.
"Were I in Milosevic's position ... I would not exclude international intervention," Clark said.
NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson told Germany's n–tv station that the alliance "feared the worst" and had little hope that Yugoslav elections would be free and fair.
In Montenegro, Yugoslavia's junior republic, the pro–Western president Milo Djukanovic, predicted Milosevic will proclaim victory despite losing at the polls to Kostunica.
"I don't expect Milosevic will ever concede losing the ballot," Djukanovic told The Associated Press.
Although Kostunica will be the real winner, "Milosevic will declare victory" after polls close at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) Sunday, and if needed, use force to stay in power, Djukanovic said.
Although Djukanovic's independence–minded government is boycotting the elections, Montenegrins who back Milosevic will be allowed to vote there, chiefly in private homes turned into makeshift polling stations.
Any failure to oust Milosevic will mean likely violence, in Serbia between police and opposition supporters claiming the regime cheated, and in Montenegro between pro–Djukanovic police and federal army units supporting Milosevic. Montenegrin government officials have said they would formally secede if Milosevic remains president.
On Thursday, Milosevic's allies turned up their anti–Western propaganda, claiming alleged Western plots to bring the opposition to power in the elections.
Yugoslavia's army chief, Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, who recently described the elections as "D–Day" for the army, claimed the West's plans could include infiltration of his troops during Sunday's elections – only a latest in conspiracy theories spun here by government officials.
Pavkovic warned that Yugoslav soldiers were prepared if foreign troops tried to move into the country.
Milosevic consistently links those who oppose him to foreign enemies – shorthand for NATO, the United States and other Western democracies – and portrays himself as the defender of a sovereign Yugoslavia against a hostile outside world led by Washington.
For Milosevic's camp, opposition leaders are opportunistic Western stooges and Yugoslavia's traitors.
The government on Thursday protested against a European Union pledge to lift sanctions if upcoming elections lead to Milosevic's ousting, labeling the EU message a "gross interference" into the country's internal affairs.
The opposition tried to end its campaign on a note of confidence.
"We have no armed forces if Milosevic goes on the warpath again," Zoran Djindjic of the Democrats told the crowd in Novi Sad. "Our job is to win these elections through our campaign and then defend our ballots on the streets."
Nenad Canak, an opposition leader from Novi Sad, wished Yugoslavs "wake up on Monday without the nightmare called Milosevic."
The Christian Science Monitor : Milosevic defensive as vote nears
Yugoslavs vote Sunday. An opposition leader is ahead, but officials say the president will win.
By Alex Todorovic
BELGRADE
No matter who is declared the winner of the elections in Yugoslavia this weekend, President Slobodan Milosevic's main challenger, Vojislav Kostunica, has permanently altered the political landscape.
Although independent opinion polls show Mr. Kostunica seven to 10 points ahead, opposition politicians and foreign officials expect election fraud will guarantee a Milosevic victory.
But Yugoslavia analysts note that the campaign has profoundly affected Mr. Milosevic's ability to manipulate the opposition and has put the president on the defensive. Milosevic, who rarely appears in public, addressed two rallies in the past week.
"After this election, nothing will be the same," says Alexandar Tijanic, a prominent journalist and former minister of information. "President Milosevic will no longer be able to speak in the name of the Serbian people and Kostunica is a new kind of opposition leader."
Analysts say the Kostunica campaign has undermined Milosevic's formula for political success. Over the past decade, he has exploited fierce rivalries among Serbia's charismatic political leaders – especially Vuk Draskovic and Zoran Djindjic – to divide the opposition. "The previous leaders are now in the background, while Kostunica's campaign is bigger than any political party and represents a movement that can't be manipulated," says Mr. Tijanic.
In the past, Milosevic has been very successful at whipping up patriotic zeal. Now, he has divided the country into patriots and traitors, lovers of freedom and NATO slaves. A trial of the leaders of NATO countries that conducted airstrikes against Yugoslavia last year over Kosovo is scheduled to wrap up today. Each NATO leader had an appointed lawyer and an empty chair before the presiding judge, with the first seat reserved for President Clinton. The trial, which is being shown on state television, featured personal testimony and graphic video footage, including the bombing of Radio Television Serbia, which human rights group Amnesty International labeled a war crime.
"In Libya, there is an official holiday called 'Day of Hatred,' which is directed against the West.... The trial this week has been our very own 'Week of Hatred' and its timing is designed to pound in the message we've been hearing all year, that the Serbian opposition is supported by NATO countries that were bombing us," says Nenad Stefanovic, a strategist with the opposition Democratic Party.
The "NATO lackey" label doesn't stick to Kostunica, however. While the West has poured millions of dollars into supporting Serbia's opposition, Kostunica isn't on its list of favored candidates. A moderate nationalist, he is a harsh critic of the UN's peacekeeping mission in Kosovo and of the NATO bombing campaign.
"It's remarkable that Kostunica has been able to come out of nowhere and establish so much trust in such a short period of time," says Svetlana Djordjezic, political editor of Nin, an independent Belgrade weekly.
Kostunica's popularity also has exacerbated tensions within the three-party ruling coalition made up of Milosevic's Socialist Party, the Yugoslav United Left (JUL) under his wife, Mira Markovic, and Vojislav Seselj's Radical Party.
Ms. Markovic is running for a seat in the federal parliament in what analysts see as a bid to emerge from wielding a strong background influence to a visible role in running the country alongside Milosevic.
Mr. Seselj's party dramatically resigned from the governing board of Radio Television Serbia, claiming the state-controlled national network focused exclusively on the first couple's parties. The pair have made an unprecedented number of campaign appearances. At a certain risk, Milosevic made a historic visit on Wednesday to Montenegro, Serbia's smaller partner in the Yugoslav federation, where he spoke to tens of thousands of supporters.
Montenegro's pro-Western president, Milo Djukanovic, once threatened to arrest Milosevic for war crimes if he came to the republic. The visit emphasized that Montenegro is still a part of Yugoslavia despite Mr. Djukanovic's efforts to distance himself from Belgrade.
Milosevic called the opposition "rats and hyenas" in his Montenegro speech, and in Belgrade accused the opposition of "abusing children and the youth through sects and other intelligence organizations, terrorist groups, and the narco-mafia." Markovic has cast the elections as an ideological fight between the fascism of a "new world order" and poor nations battling for their freedom.
The contrast between the sides was further underlined on Wednesday evening, when Kostunica also held a rally in Belgrade. As he waded through a cheerful crowd of 100,000 downtown, supporters chanted, "Save Serbia from this madhouse, Kostunica" and "He's finished," a popular reference to the president. Milosevic, by contrast, spoke to about 15,000 supporters, many of whom were bused in from the suburbs, in a sports arena that was surrounded by police.
The subject of conversation across Belgrade is what will happen once the polls close on Sunday. The first results are not expected until Monday, but the opposition has urged supporters to take to the streets to celebrate victory. There is speculation that if he loses the vote, Milosevic may trigger unrest as an excuse to impose martial law.
The head of the Yugoslav Army warned that the military would not tolerate disturbances that threatened the stability of the country, suggesting that foreign troops may try to infiltrate over the weekend. In broadcast comments yesterday, Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic said, "We have to be ready to prevent any surprises." He added, "If someone intervenes, there won't be peace."
The Washington Post : West's Interest Surges In Yugoslavia's Election
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 22, 2000; Page A01
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Sept. 21 – Two months ago, Western governments uniformly predicted that elections called for Sunday in Yugoslavia by President Slobodan Milosevic would have little impact on the nation's future. Milosevic would certainly be the official victor, they said, either through massive vote theft or suppression of dissent.
But three days before the vote, an unexpectedly strong showing by Milosevic's chief opponent in the past month has some U.S. and European officials hoping for another outcome: a vote that sets in motion his downfall.
As a result, Western governments are now tripping over one another to advertise to Yugoslavia's voters the potential benefits of political change. Statements from Washington and European capitals predict trade and foreign aid. This is your chance to become part of the new Europe, they say, hoping to win over nationalist Serbs who are the base of Milosevic's support.
Norway last week came out with a specific dollar figure: $15 million if the opposition takes power.
And under pressure from the Clinton administration and the European Union, the U.N. mission now running the Serbian province of Kosovo, which was occupied by NATO troops last year but is legally still part of Yugoslavia, has reversed its plan to treat the election as an illegitimate ploy unworthy of its attention.
Instead, U.N. officials will go to dozens of polling stations in Kosovo to "bear witness" to how many voters actually show up at the polls, officials say.
The idea is to be prepared to question any exaggerated claims by the Yugoslav government about the number of votes Milosevic collects from supporters in Kosovo, and thus help stoke post-election sentiment against him.
Western analysts say Milosevic has manipulated past elections and could do so again through such tactics as withholding voter lists from outside observers and keeping those observers out of polling stations. In recent weeks, they note, police have arrested and otherwise harassed opposition supporters and journalists.
No Western consensus exists, however, about how quickly the long-standing international sanctions against Yugoslavia should be lifted to reward Milosevic's principal challenger, lawyer Vojislav Kostunica, if he unseats Milosevic.
During a visit here today, the European Union's commissioner of external relations, Chris Patten, noted that the United States and Europe have long disagreed over how effective the sanctions against Yugoslavia have been. "I am sure we will proceed in step," he said about their potential withdrawal. But EU ministers and the Clinton administration this week released separate statements forecasting slightly different policies on the issue.
The disagreement has not come to a boil yet because most experts still do not rate Milosevic's ouster as a high probability. At age 59, Milosevic has already survived three military routs – in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo – in which tens of thousand of Serbs died. He has also proven extraordinarily adept at convincing Serbs that foreigners are principally responsible for the nation's desperate economic troubles.
Milosevic called the Sept. 24 election in a burst of confidence that the outcome would be favorable, Western analysts say. His aides, who control the vote-counting process, have repeatedly said he is certain to win a majority on the first ballot. Public opinion polls concluding that Kostunica is more popular are Western-funded inventions, they claim. The United States has been helping bankroll opposition activities.
But U.S. and European officials say that if a large portion of the Yugoslav population becomes convinced that he stole the elections, people could turn out in the streets in large numbers, as they did for several weeks after the 1996 election. This time, protests could spawn major defections from within his circle, leaving him without a base of power, they say.
The issue of how the West should respond to an opposition victory is complicated by recent changes made by Milosevic and his supporters to the Yugoslav constitution. Even if he conceded defeat, the new provisions would allow him to remain in office until the end of his four-year term next summer.
Many experts also have predicted that the ruling Socialist Party could continue to dominate parliament. That would create a divided government even if Kostunica gained the presidency.
But even if Kostunica achieved full power, his rise would not automatically turn on the aid spigots full blast. He has taken many positions at odds with those of Western countries. For instance, he promised during the campaign not to allow Serbian policy to be influenced by the West. He said he would seek the withdrawal of NATO troops from Kosovo. And he promised not to cooperate with the International War Crimes Tribunal, which last year indicted Milosevic and four of his top aides for alleged crimes in Kosovo and wants to put them on trial.
After the election of a new president and prime minister in nearby Croatia last winter, U.S. and European officials said the government could gain access to international loans and substantial foreign investment only if it cooperated fully with the tribunal. But several diplomats have said the West's position on Yugoslavia's cooperation is less clear-cut.
On Tuesday, for example, the European Union declared on behalf of its 15 members and 14 other European countries that "a choice leading to democratic change will entail a radical change in the European Union's policy with regard to Serbia [the dominant republic of Yugoslavia]: We will lift the sanctions . . . we will support the necessary economic and political reforms by providing Serbia with economic aid for its reconstruction and we will support the reintegration of [Yugoslavia] . . . into the international community."
The sanctions on Yugoslavia include a widely flouted ban on the sale of fuel, a ban on foreign investments and a ban on international loans.
The Clinton administration, in contrast, has made a less sweeping statement that "when a democratic transition takes place, we will take steps to remove sanctions."
James C. O'Brien, special assistant to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright for Balkans policy, told a conference in Washington this week that a Kostunica victory would not cause the United States to back away from its basic positions on Yugoslavia.
The United States will insist on a Yugoslavia that respects the rule of law, the Dayton agreement that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war and the United Nations, O'Brien said. If Yugoslavia is to join Europe, it must give up its ambition to annex the Serbian part of Bosnia and must accept the U.N. administration of Kosovo, he said.
The New York Times : Coalition Partner of Milosevic Attacks Him Over Elections
By STEVEN ERLANGER
BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 21 — The leader of the Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj, made a bitter attack today on "the undemocratic propaganda methods" of the political coalition of President Slobodan Milosevic and his wife, Mirjana Markovic — a coalition Mr. Seselj has supported in both the federal and Serbian parliaments.
"The elections have been prepared in a completely irregular fashion," Mr. Seselj said at a news conference, saying that if Sunday's voting results are faked, "it will further destabilize the country." He said that if the elections were fair, it was "absolutely impossible" for any candidate to win the presidency in the first round, as many opposition leaders believe Mr. Milosevic intends to do, fairly or otherwise.
Without any apparent irony, Mr. Seselj accused Mr. Milosevic and his wife of "turning state media into their propaganda outlets," of "instrumentalizing the army and the police for political ends," and of "using all the financial resources of the state for their campaign," including the spending of reserves from the state bank. "There's nothing anyone can do about it," he said. "They are above the law."
Mr. Seselj and his Radical Party are ultranationalists and ambitious for power, and it has been clear for some time that Mr. Milosevic wants to use these elections to cut back Mr. Seselj's influence. In previous elections, Mr. Milosevic has given Mr. Seselj and his party considerable air time, in order to create a coalition partner on the patriotic right. This time, Mr. Seselj complained today, his party is being shut out of its fair share of time on state television.
The Radicals and the Serbian Renewal Movement — hitherto the largest opposition party, led by Mr. Seselj's sometime friend, sometime enemy Vuk Draskovic — look to be the main losers from this election. In the byzantine world of Serbian politics, they are already talking about cooperating in the Serbian Parliament, where the two parties control a majority of the seats and could combine to call early elections.
Despite his sharp criticism of Mr. Milosevic today, however, Mr. Seselj did not rule out any form of coalition after the election, so long as it is fair, he said.
But it was possible to hear his attacks as a warning to Mr. Milosevic that the Radicals can be dangerous in the vital Serbian Parliament if their desires are ignored.
At another news conference today, Nikola Sainovic, deputy prime minister and a spokesman for Mr. Milosevic's party, said the election campaign "has been very correct," adding that "all parties got time" on state television. He said the election would be free and fair, but he warned that NATO countries, helping the opposition to organize, "will participate in the stealing of the election."
He said he expected the Milosevic coalition to win "an absolute majority," both in parliamentary elections and in the first round of presidential elections.
In an instance of the way the state-owned press can manipulate the news, the tabloid Vecerni Novosti today printed a computer-distorted photograph of the crowd at Mr. Milosevic's rally on Wednesday at Berane, in Montenegro. The photograph has clearly been extended by at least a third of its length by adding another photograph of the same crowd taken at a different moment. Comparing the trees in the background and the faces at the front of the photograph, the repetition is obvious, with the same faces appearing twice in the crowd, though with slightly different expressions.
The New York Times : As Election Nears, Yugoslavia's Main Rivals Lash Out
By STEVEN ERLANGER with CARLOTTA GALL
BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 20 — With Yugoslavia's presidential election only days away, the two main rivals held competing rallies here tonight, speaking as if to two separate nations, with President Slobodan Milosevic taking up the fight for his future in an extraordinarily personal fashion.
For the first time in memory, Mr. Milosevic made two appearances in a single day, delivering slashing attacks on opposition leaders at rallies in Montenegro and later tonight in Belgrade, calling them "rabbits, rats and even hyenas" who had "the loyalty of dogs" to the NATO masters "who bribe and pay them."
Tonight in Belgrade his main opponent, Vojislav Kostunica, appeared before an enormous excited crowd estimated at 100,000, urging them to vote for his own vision of "a normal European democratic country" where "the government is not afraid of the people, and the people are not afraid of their government."
The election is Sunday, and the campaign has suddenly seemed to take on weight and moment, with Mr. Milosevic trying to beat back the challenge of those he considers traitors, while the opposition gathered courage from numbers and from the obvious nervousness of the regime.
Mr. Kostunica, hoarse and tired from his campaign of retail politics all over Serbia, urged courage on the crowd, saying, "There is a great chance and hope that after these elections, we will begin a new life in different Serbia."
Rather than a country "that is hostage to one man," he said, "I know you want to live in a good, democratic European state, one that is free inside and free abroad, too, that is independent, with a normal economy, industry, banking system, social and health care and media."
The crowd shouted slogans like "He's finished!" about Mr. Milosevic, and "Save Serbia from this madhouse, Kostunica!" (pronounced KOSH-too-nee-tsa).
The mood was happy, helped by the performance of two famous Yugoslav musicians, Bajaga and Bora Djordjevic, who endorsed Mr. Kostunica. Nebojsa Ristic, a television journalist jailed for 339 days by the government for supporting free speech, also spoke to endorse Mr. Kostunica.
Speaking on an outdoor stage in front of the Parliament, Mr. Kostunica was flanked by the leaders of 18 opposition parties who chose him as their joint candidate. While some have said they are uncomfortable with his deeply felt nationalism, they decided that Mr. Kostunica, a constitutional lawyer, was their best answer to Mr. Milosevic's appeal to Serbian patriotism.
Mr. Kostunica, both in his speech and an earlier appearance on state television, spoke in strong terms tonight about "NATO's criminal bombing of Yugoslavia" last year and the damage the war did "to the international legal order."
He repeated his assertion that the tribunal in The Hague that indicted Mr. Milosevic for war crimes at the end of the Kosovo war "is an American tribunal — not a court, but a political instrument."
And he said again that he disagreed with the indictment of Mr. Milosevic, "which puts Serbia in a difficult position" and gives Mr. Milosevic "no way out except to make the whole country his hostage."
Mr. Milosevic's appearance in Montenegro was his first visit to Serbia's sister republic in four years, and he went to a carefully protected military airfield in Berane, just across the border from Serbia, an indication of how little he can call this republic his own.
The president of the Montenegro republic, Milo Djukanovic, split with Mr. Milosevic in 1998 and has turned to the West while edging toward independence from Serbia. Mr. Djukanovic has urged a boycott of the Yugoslav elections, but up to a third of Montenegro's 440,000 voters are likely to cast ballots in any case.
In slashing style before some 10,000 people, Mr. Milosevic mocked Mr. Djukanovic and Serbia's opposition leaders as those "bribed and blackmailed by the mighty," calling them rats "who want to turn this great nation into a permed poodle."
He said that Mr. Djukanovic would surrender Montenegro's true freedom and independence, and that its traditional musical instruments and costumes would be reduced to museum exhibits "for American stars and British spinsters to see after they swim free on the beaches of Sveti Stefan," a famous Montenegrin resort.
While bellicose, he was also conciliatory, urging Montenegrins to carefully consider their future. "I think your interests are to live with Serbia, but it is up to you whether or not you wish to live with Serbia or if you choose another way," he said. "Whatever happens, I wish you good luck."
In a conservative blue suit and white shirt, Mr. Milosevic appeared confident. "How long Yugoslavia will survive will depend on the Montenegrin and Serbian people," he said. "If they want to live together, no one will be able to separate them."
The crowd, many bused in from other parts of northern Montenegro and some from Serbia, cheered and clapped for Mr. Milosevic, who stayed barely 35 minutes, shouting, "We love you, Slobo!" and "We are all Yugoslavia!"
He then returned to Belgrade, apparently by helicopter, for a second rally tonight, opening a sports hall orginally begun for a 1994 world basketball championship that international sanctions made impossible to hold here.
Speaking before a conservatively dressed crowd estimated at 15,000 people, who gave him standing ovations and rhythmic applause, Mr. Milosevic continued to attack his opposition as tools of the same Western countries that bombed Yugoslavia. He said the opposition was inspired by the West "to spread terrorism and crime" and "to destroy families through religious sects, spy groups and drug lords."
"Those alleged political parties, united or on their own — it makes no difference — are tasked with spreading lies and defeatism, provoking crime and terrorism, inciting chauvinism," he said. He accused the opposition of "abusing children and youth through sects and other intelligence organizations, terrorist groups and the narco-mafia."
His appearance in Montenegro was the main feature on state television, whose news broadcast was also shown simultaneously on every channel in Belgrade, something unprecedented even during the war, when state television was bombed by the Atlantic alliance. (One young girl of seven was infuriated when "Baywatch" was pre-empted by Mr. Milosevic in Montenegro, asking her mother whether something was wrong with the television.)
Opposition politicians interpreted Mr. Milosevic's appeareances as a sign of nervousness about the results of the election; he continues to trail Mr. Kostunica in the polls.
If no one wins more than 50 percent of the vote on Sunday, a runoff between the two top finishers will be held two weeks later. But opposition leaders say Mr. Milosevic will find a way — even through electoral fraud — to declare victory in the first round.
The opposition also appealed today to the army and the police not to let themselves be used to save Mr. Milosevic if he loses the elections. "Your sacred duty is to defend the country and peace in it, and this means to respect the will of the people," the opposition said.
As if in response, the chief of staff of the Yugoslav military, Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, said tonight that the army would accept Mr. Kostunica as head of state if he wins the elections. General Pavkovic, who has come out in open support of Mr. Milosevic, repeated his view that the military will support the elected head of state.
"There is no debate over the fact that the military will accept the victory of Vojislav Kostunica if he is elected president," the general said on Montenegrin state television.
It was less clear what would happen if both Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Kostunica declare victory, or if the opposition goes into the streets to protest a rigged victory by Mr. Milosevic.
The IHT : Milosevic, in Montenegro, Calls His Foes Tools of West
BERANE, Yugoslavia - The Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, sought Wednesday to raise the stakes in campaigning for Sunday's crucial elections, warning Montenegro that it was a question of life or death for the federation.
But the republic's pro-Western president, Milo Djukanovic, hit back, accusing the Yugoslav strongman of trying to scare voters ahead of the polls because he knew he had little chance of winning, and said Montenegro would defend itself if attacked.
Mr. Milosevic, isolated internationally as an indicted war criminal and making his first trip in four years to Serbia's tiny sister republic, told 20,000 supporters that federal Yugoslavia faced the biggest test in its history.
''The survival of the state depends on the Serbian and Montenegrin people,'' Mr. Milosevic said.
''The outside world has nothing better to do than try to provoke conflict between Serbs and Montenegrins.''
The visit came as a new opinion poll in Belgrade showed Mr. Milosevic, seeking to hold onto power as the best guarantee of freedom from arrest for alleged war crimes, was trailing the main opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, by 6 percentage points.
The survey by the respected Belgrade-based Strategic Marketing agency showed that 32.5 percent would vote for Mr. Kostunica and 26.6 percent for Mr. Milosevic in the federal presidential and parliamentary elections Sunday.
Mr. Djukanovic told Russian ORT public television: ''If Milosevic decides to provoke a military conflict with Montenegro, then we would have no choice but to defend the state and our freedom.''
Opponents and analysts fear that Mr. Milosevic will either rig the results to show he won or provoke a crisis, possibly in Montenegro, so he can declare a state of emergency. ''It is more and more clear to Milosevic that his chances of winning at these elections in a legal way are minimal - they practically do not exist,'' Mr. Djukanovic said.
''Therefore, he is trying to scare the Yugoslav public with speculation about introducing a state of emergency.''
Mr. Djukanovic insisted that Montenegro backed the solving of political disputes by peaceful means but expected the worst.
''Is it possible that things will go as far as a conflict and Milosevic will use some kind of pretext to declare a state of emergency?'' he asked.
Mr. Milosevic returned later on Wednesday to Belgrade, where he and Mr. Kostunica held rallies in different parts of the capital.
About 100,000 people gathered in the city center and more were still arriving ahead of Mr. Kostunica's rally, as the police kept a low profile.
In contrast, Mr. Milosevic addressed 15,000 people in a sports stadium, many of them bused in, amid tight security.
In the troubled Serbian province of Kosovo, which is under international administration, the first batch of 2,000 extra troops started arriving to reinforce security ahead of the elections amid renewed threats of violence.
Kosovo's own United Nations-organized local elections are still five weeks away, on Oct. 28.
But some of the estimated 100,000 Serb minority remaining in the province will participate in Sunday's polls.
Tuesday's discovery of what NATO says was a Serbian terrorist cell in a major Serbian enclave, and reports of an armed clash between Albanian guerrillas and Serbian forces on Kosovo's doorstep, underlined the potential for trouble.
Senior officials of Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party said earlier this month that he would also visit Kosovo to campaign for the elections. NATO-led peacekeepers responded by saying he would be arrested if he tried to come.
In Belgrade, Serbia's main opposition bloc called on the army and the police not to allow themselves to be used against their own people during and after the polls Sunday.
The Democratic Opposition of Serbia said the army was aware that the majority of Yugoslavs wanted change, and that elections provided a means to bring that about peacefully.
In Montenegro, Mr. Milosevic directed a thinly veiled barb at Mr. Djukanovic, accusing the West of bribing politicians, prompting the crowd to chant: ''Milo thief, Milo thief.''
''I see your interest in a free and independent country together with Serbia, together with all those who live in Yugoslavia today,'' he told the crowd of Serbs and pro-Serbs.
They responded with chants of ''Slobo, Slobo - Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia!''
The Independent : Montenegro fears attack by Serb enemy within
By Paul Wood
21 September 2000
"Zeljko" says he used to be a criminal; now he is a policeman. An enforcer for a vicious Belgrade protection racket, he almost killed one of his victims and was told to expect a five-year sentence.
But he is not in jail. Instead, the Belgrade authorities offered him an alternative, sending him to join the Yugoslav Army's 7th Battalion Military Police in Montenegro.
The 7th Battalion is the unit most feared by the Montenegrin government, which maintains it is a paramilitary force that will be used by Yugoslavia's President, Slobodan Milosevic, if he decides to seize power in the republic. It has been steadily taking on reservists from among Milosevic loyalists in the Montenegrin population. And, according to Zeljko, it is also being filled with personnel from Serbia, many with his sort of paramilitary experience in Bosnia and Kosovo, some from the Belgrade underworld.
Taking recruits from criminal gangs in Serbia was a method of recruiting that led to some of the worst atrocities of the earlier conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. That it is taking place in Montenegro is an ominous sign of what Belgrade intends.
"I was blackmailed into joining. It was my only way to avoid jail. If I don't do this job well, I could get three to five years," Zeljko said. Asked what his orders were, he replied: "Just offensive action. We are training how to take vital objectives in as short a time as possible."
The Yugoslav elections on Sunday are expected to confirm President Milosevic in power. Montenegro, Serbia's much smaller partner in the Yugoslav federation, is boycotting the poll, saying it will not be conducted fairly.
Under its reformist pro-western leader, Milo Djukanovic, Montenegro has been steadily breaking away from Belgrade. His government fears that the time after the poll will be the most dangerous for the republic. It believes Mr Milosevic will then feel he has the strength to act – and that hecalculates the United States, preoccupied with its own presidential race, will not intervene.
The Montenegrin Foreign Minister, Branko Lukova, said the West had to be prepared to make a Kosovo-style intervention. "If we are the victims of violence, we would be expecting the international community to use all possible means to assist Montenegro, including economic assistance, military assistance, no-fly zones, whatever," he said.
The European Union's call to the people of Serbia to vote against President Milosevic will probably not worry the Yugoslav leader – in fact the declaration could not have been better designed to fit with Belgrade's propaganda. Mr Milosevic's government has all along sought to portray him as the defender of Yugoslav interests against foreign conspirators seeking to undermine the country with the help of"enemies within" – the opposition, the student resistance, disloyal journalists or miscellaneous spies.
That is why the Montenegrin authorities are so sensitive to charges that Western governments have been helping them to train special police units, which would be used in a conflict with Belgrade. Such stories, whether true or not, play right into the hands of Mr Milosevic, who likes to portray the Montenegrin government as a tool of the Nato "aggressor" states.
The Montenegrins cannot match the Yugoslav army's heavy weapons or air support. But there are thousands of troops or heavily armed police on both sides. A conflict would be high intensity, probably closer to full-scale war than anything unleashed by President Milosevic in the break-up of the old Yugoslavia.
"The orders to the police will be very clear," the Deputy Prime Minister, Dragisa Burzan, said. "To defend the institutions, to defend the country, to defend the democracy we have built – so the police will have no orders to surrender. [Mr Milosevic] understands it quite clearly – that he cannot repeat here what he did in Bosnia and Croatia."
The Guardian : Tensions rise as Milosevic faces defeat
US navy sends reinforcements to Adriatic ahead of poll
Jonathan Steele
The Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, flew to an army base in Montenegro yesterday to denounce his opponents as "rabbits, rats and even hyenas" and warn the west not to interfere in elections on Sunday, which the opinion polls indicate that he cannot win.
Scores of Mr Milosevic's critics have been detained and with tension rising the chief opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, has warned that the president could use fraud to stay in power. Western governments fear he will use the army to crush protests if he is declared the winner. A US aircraft carrier is being sent to the Adriatic.
It was Mr Milosevic's first visit to Montenegro - which with Serbia makes up Yugoslavia - since he became federal president three years ago. His helicopter brought him to the rally near the town of Berane, within 15 miles of Kosovo, where Nato-led troops could have arrested him on war crimes charges brought by the Hague tribunal last year.
The republic of Montenegro is deeply divided and its pro-western government, led by Milo Djukanovic, is boycotting the Yugoslav election. A former Serbian information minister, Aleksandar Tijanic, warned that Mr Milosevic was preparing to arrest the Montenegrin president.
Mr Djukanovic said last night that Montenegro would defend itself if Mr Milosevic provoked a military clash. Speaking to Russian television, he said: "If Milosevic decides to provoke a military conflict with Montenegro, we would have no choice but to defend our freedom."
A US navy spokeswoman confirmed yesterday that the aircraft carrier George Washington would arrive in the Adriatic from the Persian Gulf on about September 30. "This is much the normal tour of duty," the spokeswoman said. "There hasn't been a carrier in the Adriatic for about three or four months and the George Washington is on its way back to the Atlantic."
Mr Milosevic yesterday told a crowd of 10,000 supporters bussed in from nearby towns: "Our country is the focus of much attention from the world's strongest nations, as if mankind has no other worries but how ... Serbs and Montenegrins will govern their joint state." Many in the crowd shouted "Slobo, Slobo" and "We are all Yugoslavia".
He has clamped down on the independent media and ordered police to confiscate computers and other material from Serbian election monitoring groups. Under the law, independent observers have no right to enter polling stations or attend the count.
Despite the pressures, the opposition has done remarkably well by uniting behind Mr Kostunica, a Belgrade lawyer, Only the maverick Serbian Renewal Movement is running a separate candidate. An opinion poll by the Belgrade-based Strategic Marketing agency gave Mr Kostunica 32.5% of the vote to Mr Milosevic's 26.6%. The Centre for Policy Studies gave Mr Kostunica 41% to Mr Milosevic's 20%.
Mr Milosevic has support in rural areas and has manipulated the campaign through control of state television. State controls on the price of staple goods have also cushioned the realities of a weak economy. But years of war and corruption at the top have disillusioned many urban voters.
Warning of vote rigging, Mr Kostunica told a rally at the weekend: "They are bullies, liars and thieves and have stolen years of our lives and dignity. Now they are preparing to steal the elections".
Mr Milosevic could cheat by falsifying votes from Kosovo. The UN has allowed the poll to go ahead there but will not be running or supervising it. In the last Serbian presidential elections as many as 200,000 Albanians supposedly voted for Mr Milosevic's right-hand man. Because of the boycott in Montenegro, Mr Milosevic can also steal votes which are cast in army camps and town halls run by the pro-Belgrade party.
The EU has offered to lift sanctions if the election "leads to democratic change". The wording was chosen with care as the Yugoslav constitution is so ambiguous it could allow Mr Milosevic to serve out his term until next July, even if the opposition wins. But most observers believe he is more likely simply to declare victory and hope to ride out - or shoot out - any protests.
The Times : Vote may not settle Serbia's divisions
FROM RICHARD BEESTON IN BELGRADE
TENS of thousands of President Milosevic's opponents flooded into the streets of central Belgrade last night, staging the largest rally of this Yugoslav election campaign and boosting the hopes of his challenger, Vojislav Kostunica.
For several hours the Danube river became a political dividing line as campaigning for Sunday's election reached a climax. About 10,000 of Mr Milosevic's supporters packed a sports hall on the north side of the city, while Mr Kostunica addressed a crowd several times that size in the city's main Pioneer Square.
With both sides predicting comfortable victories on Sunday, the demonstrations of support could be the last time that the rival supporters gather so peacefully. The Serb public has been polarised by the campaign, which offers the country a stark choice: continuing under Mr Milosevic's defiantly nationalist rule, or breaking with a decade of conflict and elect Mr Kostunica, who has vowed to make peace with Serbia's enemies.
Mr Kostunica promised the crowds that if he was elected "Serbia would start a new life" and described a country prepared to put a decade of conflict behind it and ready to return to the community of nations, just over a year after Nato's Kosovo campaign.
"This state is like a sinking ship," he told the crowd, made up of supporters from the Democratic Opposition of Serbia alliance. "We want to build a nation where the state serves the people, not where the people serve the state."
Many of his supporters, gathering on a humid evening were drawn from the traditional ranks of the opposition, the urban middle class and the country's student movement, which led street protests against Mr Milosevic in 1996.
However, there were indications that his message appeared to have attracted support beyond Belgrade's intelligentsia to the working class, traditionally the bedrock of Mr Milosevic's support.
Mr Milosevic said that the elections would be a referendum on whether Yugoslavia remained independent or became subject to Western colonial rule. He said that opposition politicians were stooges of the West and he compared them to "locators" - the missile guidance equipment used by Nato during its 1999 bombing campaign - who "have our children and youth as the main strategic targets after failed war of the Alliance against our country."
Earlier in Belgrade, Dragan, a former soldier who now does odd jobs to survive, said that if Mr Milosevic stayed in power, "I will go abroad; if he is kicked out I will stay." Although not persuaded that Mr Kostunica's mild-mannered style was the answer to the country's problems, Dragan insisted that anything would be better than the status quo. "If Kostunica is no good we can get rid of him at the next election - that is the whole point of democracy."
Yet as most people will tell you here, getting rid of the incumbent is not just a case of voting him out or brandishing the posters that declare confidently: "He's finished". Mr Milosevic's rally was a demonstration of raw power.
Mr Milosevic does not expect to win by kissing babies and shaking hands but by pulling the levers of power, which remain in his hands. Socialist Party of Serbia activists are expected to get supporters out to vote; big commercial enterprises, which owe their prosperity to the Government, are under orders to provide money and people to the campaign effort, which is broadcast round the clock on state television.
There is residual support for Mr Milosevic in traditional rural areas and nationalist strongholds, where the view of the world is still seen exclusively through the prism of the state-run media and where Serb nationhood remains the dominant political emotion.Many of those who support him most ardently are refugees who lost their homes in the Balkan wars of the past decade, instigated in large part by Mr Milosevic.
What is so bizarre about the election campaign is that it has all the trappings of a Western democratic contest, with opinion polls, political advertisements and debates in the press. Yet the accepted wisdom is that Mr Milosevic will not respect the ballot in the likely event that he loses.
Montenegro: Serbia's nervous neighbour
By Balkans reporter Paul Wood in Montenegro
"Marko" - we cannot use his real name - says he used to be a criminal; now he is a policeman.
An enforcer for a vicious Belgrade protection racket, he explains how he almost killed someone while collecting money for his bosses and was told to expect a five-year sentence.
But he is not in jail: instead the Belgrade authorities offered him an alternative, sending him to join the Yugoslav Army's Seventh Battalion Military Police in Montenegro.
The battalion is the unit most feared by the Montenegrin government, who say it is a paramilitary force which will be used by President Milosevic if he decides to take power in the republic.
It has certainly been taking on reservists from among Milosevic loyalists in the Montenegrin population.
And according to Marko, the battalion is also being filled with personnel from Serbia, many like him with paramilitary experience in Bosnia and Kosovo, some from the Belgrade underworld. It is a method of recruitment which led to some of the worst atrocities of those two conflicts.
"I was blackmailed into joining. It was my only way to avoid jail. If I don't do this job well I could get three to five years," he said.
I asked if his orders and training were for offensive action or to stop trouble.
"Just offensive action. We are training how to take vital objectives in as short a time as possible," Marko said.
Dangerous time
The Yugoslav elections are to be held on 24 September and are expected to see President Slobodan Milosevic confirmed in power.
Montenegro, Serbia's smaller partner in the Yugoslav Federation, is boycotting the poll, saying it will not be conducted fairly.
Under its reformist pro-western leader, Milo Djukanovic, Montenegro has been steadily breaking away from Belgrade.
His government fears that the time after the poll will be the most dangerous for the republic. The government believes President Milosevic will feel he has the strength to act after the election - and that he calculates the Americans, preoccupied with their own presidential race, will not intervene.
Montenegrin Foreign Minister Branko Lukova says the West must be prepared to carry out a Kosovo-style intervention.
"If we are the victims of violence, we would be expecting the international community to use all possible means to assist Montenegro, including economic assistance, military assistance, no fly zones, whatever," Mr Lukova said.
Independence
Private polls carried out for the Montenegrin government, and shown to the BBC, suggest that around two thirds of people in the Republic want independence.
That figure is disputed by the one party not boycotting the Presidential election in Montenegro, the Socialist People's Party (SNP), which is loyal to Belgrade.
Emilo Labudovic, an SNP member, said that the Montenegrin coalition government was not taking part in the election, or organising a referendum on independence, for the same reason: they were afraid they would lose in both cases.
The SNP is fighting to keep Montenegro within Yugoslavia.
"Yugoslavia is its people, it is more than Milosevic or Djukanovic. The national, economic, historical and cultural interests of Montenegro all lie in Yugoslavia. The idea of Yugoslavia will not be extinguished here," Mr Labudovic said.
Government monopolies
He is backed by the West, but Milka Tadic, editor of the influential Montenegrin weekly Monitor, warned the West to be careful.
"We cannot compare Mr Djukanvoic to a western style leader. The Montenegrin government is unfortunately corrupted, it would like to keep a monopoly in the media, in the economy, in many fields. They do not want real reforms here," Ms Tadic said.
Supporters of the Djukanovic government - those who want independence - may just be in the majority. But to all intents and purposes, the country is split over the issue.
Civil war memories
In the 1920s Montenegrins fought a bloody civil war over the same issue, union with Serbia.
It was a war which pitted brother against brother, father against son - could such a conflict happen in Montenegro today?
We went to the tiny village of Godinje, a picturesque collection of about 30 houses on the hills above Lake Skadar.
Djukanovic has been steadily breaking away from Belgrade
The village voted 18 to 14 for the government party, the DPS, against the SNP. The headman of the village, and DPS representative, Pero Lekovic, came to blows at a public meeting with the local SNP leader, who is also his cousin.
I asked Mr Lekovic why he couldn't sit down and talk to the SNP representative, who was after all a member of his own family.
He replied: "No, as long as I live, no. He is a completely dead person to me."
I put the same question to the SNP man, his cousin, Zoran Lekovic. He was adamant: "No never. A man has to choose his company carefully. As far as I'm concerned there is nothing for us to talk about."
Two fire brigades
These divisions run right through Montenegrin life. Although ominous, sometimes the effects are unintentionally comic.
The town of Kolashin even has two separate fire brigades, organised on party lines.
"This town should be in the Guinness book of records, such a small place with two fire brigades: politics did that," the head of the SNP fire brigade Zeljko Darmanovic told me.
The other fire brigade is run by a government loyalist, Radomir Begovic, who says he's suffered a dirty tricks campaign for being a member of the DPS.
"In the winter, the other fire brigade sent council workers to pile up snow in front of the garage doors so we couldn't get the engine out. We had to call the police."
Mr Darmanovic was having none of that: "It's all political. That man just left the station, locking the doors and taking all our equipment, including our fire engine. We had to borrow one from Serbia."
I put it to Mr Begovic that the people of Kolashin could only lose in this situation, especially if there was a big fire which might require the use of both fire engines.
He was unapologetic: "It would be better if we could work together. We on this side are ready for that but it does not depend on us, they're the ones not ready for any co-operation."
Military preparations
Montenegro has been training elite special police units to stop a Yugoslav attack if it comes.
"We can be dragged into conflict very easily, I am very much sure Milosevic is planning one," Montenegrin Deputy Prime Minister, Dragisa Burzan, told me.
We have been sending messages and Mr Milosevic understands it quite clearly - that he cannot repeat here what he did in Bosnia and Croatia
Montenegrin Deputy Prime Minister Dragisa Burzan
The Montenegrins cannot match the Yugoslav Army's heavy weapons or air support. But there are thousands of troops or heavily armed police on both sides.
This would be a high intensity conflict, closer to full scale war than anything yet unleashed by President Milosevic in the break-up of the old Yugoslavia.
Mr Burzan said: "The orders to the police will be very clear: to defend the institutions, to defend the country, to defend the democracy we have built - so the police will have no orders to surrender.
"We have been sending messages and he [Mr Milosevic] understands it quite clearly - that he cannot repeat here what he did in Bosnia and Croatia."
Milosevic visit sets Montenegro on edge
FROM RICHARD BEESTON IN BELGRADE
THERE were growing fears yesterday that Montenegro, the junior partner in what is left of Yugoslavia, could be sucked into the political turmoil sweeping Serbia as a result of the bitterly contested presidential elections taking place at the weekend.
Although Montenegro is officially boycotting the election, because its leaders regard the polls as illegal, President Milosevic enjoys strong support in the north of the country and is planning his first visit there since coming to power more than a decade ago.
Local officials are making preparations for his arrival as early as today in the town of Berane, which some fear could spark violence between units of the Yugoslav Army loyal to Belgrade and local paramilitary police under the command of the Montenegrin leadership.
"Milosevic will not come to Montenegro with cannon and tanks but on the wings of popular will," Momir Bulatovic, the Yugoslav Prime Minister and Mr Milosevic's closest ally in the neighbouring state, said. "He is coming to Montenegro for us to elect the man who will truly represent us in the country and the world."
Those sentiments were not shared by others in Montenegro and yesterday senior figures in the leadership admitted that they feared being dragged into a conflict with Mr Milosevic similar to the wars triggered in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Montenegrins are particularly concerned about the Seventh Battalion of the Yugoslav Army, a paramilitary unit that has recently been strengthened and has conducted provocative excercises near the capital, Podgorica.
"We would be expecting the international community to use all possible means to protect Montenegro, including economic assistance and military assistance, like no-fly zones," Franko Lukovac, Montenegro's Foreign Minister, said.
The New York Times: Milosevic, Trailing in Polls, Rails Against NATO
By STEVEN ERLANGER
ELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 19 — In his race for re-election, President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia is running against NATO and the United States, not against his democratic opposition.
He is not entirely mistaken to do so. The United States and its European allies have made it clear that they want Mr. Milosevic ousted, and they have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to get it done.
Portraying himself as the defender of Yugoslavia's sovereignty against a hostile, hegemonic West led by Washington, Mr. Milosevic and his government argue that opposition leaders are merely the paid, traitorous tools of enemies who are continuing their war against him by other means. In March 1999, NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign to drive Serbian forces out of Kosovo.
The Yugoslav elections are on Sunday, but there has hardly been a day since the bombing began that state television news has not railed against "NATO aggressors."
With the campaign at its height, the government has spread its attacks to include all opposition political parties, independent newspapers, magazines and electronic media, the student organization known as Otpor — or Resistance — and any nongovernmental organization working to promote democracy, human rights or even economic reforms.
While Mr. Milosevic is trailing the main opposition leader, Vojislav Kostunica, in opinion polls, the anti- Western campaign is having an impact. The money from the West is going to most of the institutions that the government attacks for receiving it — sometimes in direct aid, sometimes in indirect aid like computers and broadcasting equipment, and sometimes in suitcases of cash carried across the border between Yugoslavia and Hungary or Serbia and Montenegro. Most of those organizations and news media could not exist without foreign aid in this society, which is poor and repressive and whose market is distorted by foreign economic sanctions.
Even with foreign aid, government restrictions on newsprint supplies and high and repeated fines after suspiciously quick court cases make it hard for the independent news media to reach their natural market.
As for the opinion polls that show Mr. Kostunica in the lead, the information minister, Goran Matic, charges that the polls are orchestrated and manipulated by the Americans and the Central Intelligence Agency, who help pay for them. According to Mr. Matic, Mr. Milosevic is actually far ahead of Mr. Kostunica, and the polls simply serve as a vehicle for the opposition to claim that the government stole the election once Mr. Milosevic wins.
Mr. Matic asserts that the Atlantic alliance has come up with various scenarios, such as infiltrating soldiers wearing Yugoslav Army and police uniforms, to make it possible for the opposition to start civil unrest in the streets after the election while claiming that the police and the army are actually on their side.
Mr. Matic has attacked various nongovernmental organizations, including the Center for Free Elections and Democracy, which is trying to monitor the fairness of the election, as paid instruments of American and alliance policy. Many such organizations have been raided by the police, who confiscate computer files and also appear to be gathering evidence about foreign payments.
"President Milosevic will win this election," said Ljubisa Ristic, the president of the Yugolav United Left party, founded by Mr. Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic. "This is not Hollywood." Washington and the West, she said, "are like little kids, wanting something to happen so much they're fooling themselves."
Mr. Ristic said the alliance's war produced a new solidarity among Yugoslavs and "killed many illusions people had about the West and about their own opposition leaders, who went to the countries that were bombing us to seek their support."
The issues, Mr. Ristic said, are clear now. "It's a decisive time," he said. "This is not an election so much as a referendum, a decision on being an independent country or a colony. People see what's happened in Kosovo, what happens when NATO troops enter the country, and they are not going to allow the alliance's hand- picked candidates to win."
Even before the Kosovo war, the United States was spending up to $10 million a year to back opposition parties, independent news media and other institutions opposed to Mr. Milosevic. The war itself cost billions of dollars. This fiscal year, through September, the administration is spending $25 million to support Serbian "democratization," with an unknown amount of money spent covertly to help the failed rallies of last year, which did not bring down Mr. Milosevic, or to influence the current election. For next year, the administration is requesting $41.5 million in open aid to Serbian democratization, though Congress is likely to cut that request.
Independent journalists and broadcasters here have been told by American aid officials "not to worry about how much they're spending now," that plenty more is in the pipeline, said one knowledgable aid worker. Others in the opposition complain that the Americans are clumsy, sending e-mails from "state.gov" — the State Department's address — summoning people to impolitic meetings with American officials in Budapest, Montenegro or Dubrovnik, Croatia.
But there is little effort to disguise the fact that Western money pays for much of the polling, advertising, printing and other costs of the opposition political campaign — one way, to be sure, to give opposition leaders a better chance to get their message across in a quasi-authoritarian system where television in particular is in the firm hands of the government.
While that spending allows the opposition to be heard more broadly, deepening the opposition to Mr. Milosevic, it also allows the government here to argue that it has real enemies, and that the Serbian opposition is in league with them.
Just today, in the state-run newspaper Politika, a long article used public information from the United States — including Congressional testimony and Web site material — to show that the United States is financing the opposition.
" `Independent,' `nongovernmental' and `democratic' are the standard phrases the C.I.A. uses to describe organizations established all over the world to destroy the governments and the societies that the U.S. government wants to colonize and control," the paper wrote.
The Congressional testimony, from July 29, 1999, cited American officials then involved with Yugoslav policy, like Robert Gelbard and James Pardew, telling Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware about their projects. They describe the creation of a "ring around Serbia" of radio stations broadcasting into Serbia from Bosnia and Montenegro, the spending of $16.5 million in the previous two years to support "democratization in Serbia," and another $20 million to support Montenegro's president, Milo Djukanovic, who broke away from Mr. Milosevic in 1998.
The testimony listed some of the recipients of American aid here, including various newspapers, magazines, news agencies and broadcasters opposed to Mr. Milosevic, as well as various nongovernmental organizations engaged in legal defense and human rights and projects to bring promising Yugoslav journalists to the United States for professional training.
All such projects are portrayed by Politika and state television as a way to undermine the legal government, and the recipients are labeled traitors to their country.
Opposition leaders like Mr. Kostunica regard such tactics by the government as crass propaganda, but even he is skeptical of American intentions in paying for nongovernmental organizations, some of whom, he believes, are even unconsciously working for American imperial goals and not necessarily Serbian values.
Other democratic leaders, like Zoran Djindjic and Zarko Korac, regard such attacks as an indication of Mr. Milosevic's desperation and anxiety on the eve of the first election he is likely to lose in his entire political career. Given the stakes for Mr. Milosevic, they believe that he will do all he can, including the wholesale stealing of votes, to ensure a victory in the first round of voting.
"The stakes are fundamental for Milosevic," Mr. Korac said. "These elections are crucial, not necessarily for the immediate handover of power, but because for the first time Mr. Milosevic will be delegitimized in the eyes of his own people. He was an elected dictator, with popular and legal legitimacy. But from now on he's a true dictator, and he will only be able to rule by force — that's a big step for Serbia."
Milosevic's Wife Joins in Campaign
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press Writer
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Struggling in the polls just days before elections, Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) has turned to his Marxist wife for help - and her withering diatribes against the opposition and the West are setting the tone for Sunday's vote.
For the first time, Mirjana Markovic is openly campaigning with her husband and running for a federal parliament seat.
One of the world's most autocratic leaders, Milosevic faces a popular challenger, Vojislav Kostunica, in the presidential race. Polls show Kostunica in a clear lead.
In fiery campaign speeches, Markovic divides the country into patriots and traitors. The elections, she tells voters, are a do-or-die battle in the defense of the state against ``evil'' Western ``neocolonialism.''
``NATO (news - web sites) has again attacked Yugoslavia through traitor opposition,'' Markovic, 58, told a recent campaign rally. Political opponents, she added, were ``mental retards'' and ``dumb.''
Her tough tone leaves no doubt that the Milosevic regime is prepared to go all the way to fight any opposition victory in the elections.
Markovic, dubbed by her many enemies as ``the Lady Macbeth of the Balkans'' and ``the Red Witch,'' had a key role in Milosevic's climb to power.
When Milosevic's popularity plummeted in 1993 because of his shift from communism to nationalism, Markovic formed her own left-wing JUL party to keep true Marxist followers in the ruling party fold.
The co-founders of Markovic's party say that at their opening meeting, she asked: ``Which is the strongest organization in the world?''
``The Mafia,'' someone in the crowd replied.
Critics say JUL - which combines extreme-left rhetoric with the practices of early capitalism - was formed along Mafia lines, with no popular backing, but strict rules that made its leaders rich and powerful.
The party only once - in 1998 in Serbia's sister republic of Montenegro - ran alone in the elections, receiving less than 1 percent of the vote.
Markovic and Milosevic met in high school in their hometown of Pozarevac, in central Serbia. She came from a distinguished communist family and boasted that one day her Slobo would be as prominent a leader as Josip Broz Tito, the communist president of Yugoslavia at the time.
In 1987, Markovic, a sociology professor at Belgrade University, was instrumental in helping Milosevic - then a raising communist party apparatchik - oust their longtime friend and patron Ivan Stambolic as the head of Serbia's Communist Party.
Last month, Stambolic was abducted in Belgrade and has not seen since. The opposition has accused Milosevic's secret police of being behind the kidnapping, alleging Stambolic knew too much about the Milosevic family.
Even more hard-line than Milosevic, Markovic persuaded her husband not to recognize opposition victories in local elections in 1996, triggering months of demonstrations before he changed his mind.
When independent media editor Slavko Curuvija challenged Milosevic's decision to go to war with NATO over Kosovo last year, she publicly charged he was helping the alliance target bombs at Belgrade. Soon after, Curuvija was assassinated. His killers were never named.
Biographer Slavoljub Djukic, author of a book on the ruling couple, depicts Milosevic as a beleaguered, emotionless leader detached from everyday reality, who trusts no one but his wife.
Markovic, he writes, is a reclusive woman who maintains her husband and country are the targets of domestic and international plots.
Their goal, those who know the couple say, is to stay in power - and escape the fate of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, who were toppled in an anti-communist uprising in 1989 and executed.
``Without Mira,'' as Mirjana is known in Serbia, ``Sloba would not be where he is now,'' Djukic said.
Markovic, a short, plump woman who always wears dark dresses and no makeup, is detested by opposition supporters.
Even some of Milosevic's associates dislike her, maintaining her tirades against the opposition and the West, delivered in her high-pitched voice, are irritants to both Milosevic's allies and foes.
``There is no better propaganda for the opposition then when state media carries Mira's speeches,'' said the head of the opposition election campaign, Cedomir Jovanovic.
``Her speeches are so irritating that even Milosevic's supporters switch channels when they see her.''
The New York Times : Old Ties to Serbia Still Bind Many in Montenegro
By STEVEN ERLANGER
KOLASIN, Montenegro — Here in the stirring, ragged mountains of northern Montenegro, the Yugoslav Army patrols from the Breza barracks on one side of town, while the Montenegrin special police, dressed in army fatigues and carrying automatic weapons, roam from their barracks in a resort hotel, the Bjelasica, that once catered to skiers.
They follow each other on the narrow roads with Balkan braggadocio, but neither side appears eager to fight. "We keep an eye on each other," said one policeman. "But everyone's tired of blood." Fatigue may be an insufficient tourniquet, however.
Tiny Montenegro is the last remaining republic with Serbia in what is left of Yugoslavia, but under President Milo Djukanovic it is moving gingerly toward independence. Mr. Djukanovic has decided to boycott the elections called for Sept. 24 by the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, who changed the Constitution to win another term.
Here in Kolasin, a stronghold of pro-Yugoslav feeling, Montenegrins will go to vote anyway, casting their ballots for unity. Mr. Djukanovic, who broke away from Mr. Milosevic in 1997 and split Montenegro's governing party, is regarded as a traitor to centuries of Montenegrin-Serbian brotherhood. Mr. Milosevic's brother, Borislav, now the Yugoslav ambassador in Moscow, was born here, and their father is buried nearby; President Milosevic is not just a native son, but a fixture in the cosmos.
"Until Milosevic dies he will be president of Yugoslavia," Dragomir Bulatovic said with fervor. "It wouldn't be Yugoslavia unless Milosevic were president. We'd be like San Marino and controlled by the United States."
His friend, Milan Bulatovic, concurred. "What Milosevic accomplished last year in Serbia, rebuilding the country, couldn't be done anywhere else in the world," he said. "Here, Djukanovic just wants to sell the country to foreigners."
Major complaints here center on Mr. Djukanovic's management of the economy: dumping the Yugoslav dinar for the German mark, closing former state-owned enterprises, like a wood factory and a department store, swapping the management of another firm and laying off most of its workers, albeit — for the moment — at 70 percent of their pay.
Along the chilly streets of low wooden houses and crumbling, angular public buildings constructed in the modernist-socialist style, skeptical citizens emerged from coffee houses to interrogate a foreigner, riled by the presence of an American whose government bombed Yugoslavia last year.
"You killed our children!" one man shouted, but Drasko Popovic told him to calm down, then apologized. This is a pro-Milosevic town, he said, run by the pro-Milosevic Socialist People's Party of Momir Bulatovic, and most people in this part of Montenegro, closest to Serbia, will vote in the elections.
Most of the 5,000 people in town, and some 9,000 more in surrounding villages, want to stay united with Serbia, Mr. Popovic said. "We don't like those people who are trying to push us apart to make money for themselves."
About 35 percent to 40 percent of Montenegro's 650,000 people support the union with Serbia, too large a minority for Mr. Djukanovic to ignore or idly antagonize. There are fears in the capital, Podgorica, that Mr. Milosevic will manipulate pro- Serbian feelings in this region and use the army — and a special paramilitary grouping called the Seventh Battalion, some of whose members are also billeted here — to foment what could look like a civil war.
Mr. Popovic was chatting with his friend, Branko Kukovic, who has just published a book of patriotic poems about Serbs in Montenegro and Herzegovina called "The Guardians of Freedom." The book's preface is some 15 pages of intricate historical data about the undying bond between Serbia and Montenegro.
Some of Mr. Djukanovic's special police sped up in their new white Land Rovers and then slammed on the brakes. "The police are Milo's army, and he's doing what the Croats and the others did before they broke away," said Mr. Kukovic. "But here it just helps Milosevic with the Serbs who support his cause. It makes people angry."
Mr. Kukovic seemed especially agitated that the Montenegrin authorities were even splitting the Serbian Orthodox Church, setting up a Montenegrin Orthodox Church, and he said that would be the subject of his next book.
But he is not a pessimist. "We'll find enough clever people not to have a civil war," he said.
Still, attitudes are not uniform. In a dark little coffee shop, Djuro Bojic, 18, sported a sweatshirt that read: "Montenegro Independent."
Kolasin is a center of pro-Milosevic feeling, he said, "but some people are changing their minds — they begin to think that Milosevic may be finished." This election "is very, very touchy," he said, and there is little affection for Mr. Milosevic's main challenger, the Serbian opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica.
"This town is very, very tense," Mr. Bojic said. "People get drunk, and there are a lot of fights over political issues. It's so stupid, but it's very, very deep. I know examples of fathers sending sons away, because the son was for Milo and he was for Momir," referring to Mr. Djukanovic and Mr. Bulatovic, as usual in Montenegro, by their first names.
Yugoslav soldiers act like bullies, he said. "They're pushing hard," he added. The Seventh Battalion, he said, is hot-tempered and recently broke up a friendly soccer match in nearby Bijelo Polje by taking out guns and shooting in the air.
Mr. Bojic is no great fan of Mr. Djukanovic, favoring instead a smaller pro-independence party. But in the elections, he will be rooting for Mr. Milosevic. "I never supported him more," Mr. Bojic said, grinning widely. "Because if Milosevic wins, we'll definitely have independence here."
The Sunday Times : Milosevic raises spectre of civil war
Misha Glenny
EIGHTEEN months after Nato dropped the first bombs of the Kosovo campaign on Belgrade, the people of the Serbian capital are bracing themselves for more trouble. There is a real prospect that seven days from now the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, may be voted from office after 14 destructive years in power. There is also a real prospect that he will not go peacefully.
For a long time many in the Balkans have feared that Milosevic's ultimate political threat remains that if he goes down, he will fall in a blaze of chaos, igniting civil war in Serbia or war in neighbouring Montenegro.
The election campaign has already been marked by unprecedented violence, betraying an unusual nervousness on the regime's part.
Throughout Serbia police have targeted Resistance, a youth movement that supports Vojislav Kostunica, the main opposition candidate. Last weekend five teenagers were tied by their feet, hung from a ceiling and beaten in the southern town of Vladicin Han.
A senior official in Milosevic's Socialist party justified the attacks on Resistance by calling it "a fascist organisation", even though most of its members are schoolchildren and students.
Two weeks ago unknown assailants kidnapped Ivan Stambolic, a former president of Serbia, when it was rumoured he would lead the opposition slate for the parliamentary elections.
For two decades Stambolic was Milosevic's mentor, assisting his rise through the communist hierarchy. Then, in 1987, Milosevic turned on his old friend unexpectedly at a party meeting, seizing power and provoking the memorable headline at the time: "Et tu, Slobo?"
Now, it seems, the drama is approaching its denouement. "There's a rumbling you can feel throughout the city," one Belgrade resident said on Friday. "Society has had enough and it is ready to tell this to Milosevic through the ballot box."
Most opinion polls confirm that Kostunica is leading Milosevic by about 20 points, although one independent survey suggests the vote will be much closer. Kostunica is more cautious about the result than most of his supporters.
"Anything can happen after next week's elections," said Braca Grubacic, one of the most respected commentators in Belgrade. "We are now entering the twilight zone of Serbian politics."
There are four possible scenarios. First, the opposition is worried that Milosevic will rig the vote. The chaotic status of Kosovo and the presence of tens of thousands of Serbian refugees in two neighbouring districts, Prokuplje and Vranje, offers him an opportunity for a substantial "adjustment" of the vote.
Milosevic has rigged ballots before but he has never faced defeat on this scale. Result: the opposition would almost certainly take to the streets in large numbers for a showdown with security forces.
Second, Milosevic discards the presidency and assumes instead the prime ministership of Serbia. In theory, the Serbian prime minister wields much greater power. Result: an institutional standoff that would eventually be decided by the police and army.
Third, Milosevic may trigger a civil war in Montenegro as a diversionary tactic. This has been a threat for several months. Montenegro is divided between pro and anti-Milosevic factions who are armed and prepared to fight.
Last week Tony Blair and Madeleine Albright, the American secretary of state, issued veiled threats to Milosevic that if he attacked Montenegro, Nato would not stand idly by. However, it is difficult to see how the West could intervene in a country where war would pit village against village and clan against clan. The United States would be especially reserved in its response as its own presidential election approaches.
But it is the fourth scenario that most diplomats and intelligence agencies are concentrating on. "A likely outcome is that both the opposition and Milosevic will promptly proclaim victory, regardless of the facts. This would take us into very uncertain territory," said a senior western diplomat.
For uncertain territory, read violence and even a short, sharp civil war. Over the past decade, Milosevic has built the police force into a praetorian guard, well armed, well paid and loyal to the president. But although the army leadership backs Milosevic, western intelligence sources maintain he is unable to rely on a large part of the junior officer corps.
"It would be a short civil war," according to an American source, "and one which Milosevic would probably lose."
Defeat for Milosevic would be not only a blow to his pride, but a threat to his personal security. As an indicted war criminal he cannot leave the country without being arrested on the orders of the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague. He would almost certainly face a long term of imprisonment.
But his chances of enjoying a peaceful retirement in Serbia are equally slim. Unprotected by power, he would be vulnerable to what analysts call "the Ceausescu scenario" - a reference to the summary execution of the Romanian dictator.
Nobody counted on this course of events when Milosevic called snap elections in mid-summer. The decision came after his supporters steamrollered through a constitutional reform enabling the Yugoslav president to stand for an unprecedented third term.
Most Serbs assumed the result would be a foregone conclusion. For more than a decade, the Serbian leader has used every trick in the book to maintain his grip on power - violent nationalism, anti-capitalism, war, police repression, capitalism, snuggling up to the West, going to war with Nato. It has worked every time.
Serbia's fractious opposition never looked capable of denting Milosevic's powerful apparatus. This consists chiefly of a subservient but well-armed police force and a criminal mafia that has grown fat on war booty and sanctions-busting.
Now, it seems ordinary Serbs have reached breaking point. Isolated, reviled by the outside world and desperately poor, they have rallied behind a presidential candidate who is free from the otherwise ubiquitous stench of corruption. Kostunica also has a charisma not based on hysterical nationalism.
In the past 10 days, signs that Milosevic is losing his grip have proliferated. Vojislav Seselj, the ultra-nationalist leader of the Radicals, has jumped ship. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote next Sunday, there will be a second round and Seselj has announced his party will not support Milosevic in the runoff.
Then came the unexpected resignation of Zoran Lilic, one of Milosevic's closest advisers in the Socialist party and his predecessor as president.
The party's old guard resent their leader's ambitious wife, Mira Markovic, who runs her own left-wing party, JUL. At key stages in his career, Markovic has urged her husband to take a hard line.
The Greek government, Milosevic's one friend in the West, made it clear last week that it has had enough of him.
George Papandreou, the Greek foreign minister, met Milosevic in Belgrade. According to a senior Greek government official, Milosevic got "a big shock".
Milosevic's departure would not solve the problems of the Balkans, but it would reduce dramatically the security headaches for the rest of Europe. With crucial elections in Bosnia and Kosovo due within five weeks of the Serbian vote, western diplomats are keeping their fingers crossed that the fallout from the poll will not be too destabilising. But few are sanguine.
"I fear we are in for big trouble after next week, and nobody really knows which way it is going to go," one diplomat said. It is going to be a rough ride this autumn in the Balkans.
Newsweek : The Man Who Isn’t Slobo
A foe who can win—if Milosevic allows a fair vote
By Zoran Cirjakovic and Russell Watson
September 25 issue — People who know him well say Vojislav Kostunica is shy and lazy, with little charisma and few communication skills. He is a political loner; critics used to call his organization a “van party,” claiming that all of its members could fit into a single vehicle. In a country steeped in machismo, Kostunica’s opponents gleefully point out that he has two pet cats but never fathered any children.
EVEN SO, HE COULD WELL BE Yugoslavia’s next president. Looking at the opinion polls, it’s hard to see how Kostunica can lose the presidential election, scheduled for a first round on Sept. 24. But many Yugoslavs find it even harder to believe that his main opponent, President Slobodan Milosevic, will allow him to win.
Kostunica is supported by a coalition of 18 opposition parties, which picked him because more popular opponents of Milosevic had been discredited by corruption or ties to the hated West. Kostunica has a reputation for incorruptibility, and now that a majority of voters seems to want Milosevic out, the challenger has the president worried enough to lash out. As Kostunica campaigned last week, pro-Milosevic thugs pelted him with eggs, tomatoes and rocks, driving him from the platform. “Milosevic is weaker than ever,” Kostunica insisted later.
An independent poll published last week gave the challenger 43 percent of the votes in the first round, in which five candidates are running. Milosevic got only 21 percent. The same poll gave Kostunica a 49-26 lead over Milosevic in a two-way runoff, which would be held on Oct. 8, if necessary. The catch is that many Yugoslavs believe Milosevic will steal the election—and get away with it.
“I am not saying that Kostunica would be an ideal president, but the only thing that matters now is that he is perfectly immune to all possible accusations by the regime—no corruption, no scandals, not a traitor, not a servant of the West.”
— STOJAN CEROVIC liberal commentator
Opposition leaders think Milosevic will fraudulently claim the votes of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, as he has done before. He also stands to gain votes in Montenegro, Serbia’s junior partner in the Yugoslav federation.
There the pro-independence president, Milo Djukanovic, has called for a boycott of the election, leaving the field to Milosevic.
If Milosevic does steal the election, the West won’t be able to do much about it. There’s little the NATO allies can offer him as an inducement to go quietly, and it isn’t clear that a back channel even exists for negotiations on his future. At home, however, a vote-stealing Milosevic would probably face massive street demonstrations, which could persuade some of his more powerful cronies to desert him. Milosevic would still control the federal Parliament, and one of his henchmen holds the presidency of Serbia, the major component of the federation. But the Serbian presidency could easily be lost in an election two years from now.
If Milosevic loses and accepts defeat, the picture turns brighter. With Kostunica as federal president, the country’s European neighbors would scramble to lift economic sanctions on Yugoslavia and do business there. “The money would begin to flow,” says a senior official of the European Union. Not that Kostunica, 56, would be a friend to the West. Although he is an outspoken advocate of Western-style democracy, he hotly denounces NATO for its bombing of Yugoslavia. An ardent nationalist, he insists that if he is elected, he will not extradite Milosevic to face the war-crimes charges pending against him.
Kostunica is acceptable to many Serbs because of what he hasn’t done in public life. Unlike better-known opposition leaders, such as Vuk Draskovic and Zoran Djindjic, he never tried to make political deals with Milosevic. And he has not enriched himself, as many opposition leaders did after winning municipal elections in 1996. A law professor, Kostunica still drives a battered Yugo and spends his holidays in a modest cottage. “I am not saying that Kostunica would be an ideal president,” writes liberal commentator Stojan Cerovic, “but the only thing that matters now is that he is perfectly immune to all possible accusations by the regime—no corruption, no scandals, not a traitor, not a servant of the West.”
If Kostunica can win by a large enough majority, his supporters say, even Milosevic may not be able to steal the election. “We should pinch our noses and vote for Kostunica,” says Nenad Canak, a liberal who disagrees with the candidate on almost every issue. Under Milosevic, Serbia has become “the black hole of the Balkans,” as one EU official puts it. If Milosevic clings to power, the hole will only get deeper.
The LA Times : Concerning Serb Elections, Let's Look the Other Way
By ANNA HUSARSKA
Next Sunday, presidential, parliamentary and local elections will be held in Yugoslavia--or more precisely in Serbia, since Montenegro, its smaller partner republic, declared its nonparticipation.
The Serbian opposition is, alas, internally divided, rather nationalist and not very popular outside the urban centers. Apparently the opposition, in choosing to go ahead with the game called by the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, calculated that being a part of a farce is better than being an outsider to a farce.
But nobody should be fooled: The conditions are not there for these elections to be free and fair. Past experience shows that Milosevic cheats; nothing will stop him from cheating this time. It is therefore more than likely that a few days after the Sept. 24 elections, people in Serbia and outside will declare the elections stolen. Therefore, would it not seem judicious to observe the whole electoral process?
No. Given that it is unlikely that the international community could muster enough qualified people who would be allowed in to observe, it is strongly advisable for foreign institutions, organizations and groups not to observe, at least not officially or even overtly, lest it gives the elections an air of a bona fide democracy.
The regional elections observer, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, has canceled its exploratory mission because it did not obtain the required visas. And Milosevic has said that monitors from NATO countries will not be admitted. Of course, Serbia is not entirely without friends; one can picture a motley multi-continental group of rubber-stampers as observers from Belarus, China, Libya, Iraq, Myanmar and Venezuela.
But even if some legitimate international organization were to be admitted, it should not accept the role of fig leaf. Here is why:
* No government, and especially not one with such an appalling electoral cheating record as Yugoslavia, should be allowed to pick and choose who can monitor its elections.
* It is late in the game; the OSCE usually sends a long-term observation mission to the country six to eight weeks before an election.
* Given the centralized power in Serbia--Milosevic and his wife, Mirjana Markovic, constitute a one-bedroom dictatorship--there is little chance that irregularities of tabulation, most of them probably happening at the high level, would be caught by outsiders.
* Spot observation by diplomats would be unlikely to observe anything else than the Potemkin-village appearance of voting stations--if indeed the diplomats were even allowed into the stations.
* Covert monitoring from bona fide organizations would lack credibility and could be risky: The recent arrests by the Yugoslav army of British, Canadian and Dutch nationals in Montenegro shows that Milosevic does not shy away from detaining foreigners.
So would the elections be better left unmonitored? Not necessarily. The Serb opposition and their Montenegrin friends can and will come up with monitoring teams. They live with the system, they speak the language, they have monitored before. They have seen cheating before and so they are better qualified to see it when it happens again.
There is another argument for letting Serbs--at least officially--observe their own elections: Not only the ruling clique but also much of the political opposition has been hostile to foreigners, suspicious of international involvement and rather openly anti-American. Any Western involvement, especially by the U.S., would be denounced by Milosevic as meddling.
So it is safer and more productive to discreetly channel aid to Serbia through the independent media, democratic-minded mayors and nongovernmental organizations and wait for them to report not if but how Milosevic stole the elections. After all, the point of participating in such a sham is to energize the opposition, and this only the Serbs themselves can do.
Anna Husarska Is the Senior Political Analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Think Tank That Has Been Working in the Balkans Since the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. Web Site: Http://www.crisisweb.org
The Times : Bush on Spot as G.O.P. Pushes to Pull Out G.I.'s From Kosovo
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 — House and Senate negotiators are fighting over a deadline for withdrawing American troops from Kosovo, renewing a clash with President Clinton and putting Gov. George W. Bush on the spot again, since he lobbied Senate Republicans to drop a similar provision earlier this year.
At issue is a proposal to cut off money for nearly 6,000 United States ground forces in Kosovo by April 1, forcing their withdrawal unless Congress authorizes an extension.
In May, the Senate rejected a similar measure, 53 to 47, with at least two or three Republicans saying they were swayed by Governor Bush, who called it a "legislative overreach" that would tie his hands if he became president. But House Republicans quietly attached a comparable provision to the Pentagon's $310 billion budget bill for fiscal year 2001.
House and Senate leaders are now meeting in a conference committee to reconcile the two versions of the military budget bills — one with the provision, the other without. The contentious language was one of the last sticking points negotiators faced in finishing the bill before Congress adjourns for the year.
By tonight, there were signs that Congressional Republicans were relenting. "I think we'll work something out," said Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee and who sponsored the original Senate measure. The House version was sponsored by Representative John R. Kasich, Republican of Ohio.
The dispute comes at an awkward time for Mr. Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, who has accused the Clinton administration of allowing the military's combat readiness to erode, in part by dispatching American forces on far- flung peacekeeping missions to places like Kosovo.
A spokesman for Mr. Bush, Ray Sullivan, said today that the governor objected to the Republican-written language for the same reasons that he balked at the Senate provision in May. "He views it as a legislative overreach on the powers of the president," said Mr. Sullivan, who added that Congressional Republicans were aware of Mr. Bush's views.
Critics say the provision would undermine the unity and morale of NATO's peacekeeping operation, which involves forces from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other nations in and out of Europe.
In a letter sent late today to Senator Warner, Mr. Clinton warned that imposing an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal would also send a dangerous signal of uncertain American resolve to President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia before that country's elections scheduled for Sept. 24.
Under the provision, Mr. Clinton's successor would be required to certify to Congress that Washington's European allies were meeting their commitments in Kosovo for reconstruction aid, police officers, food and medicines. Without that certification, the measure required that money be spent in Kosovo only for a withdrawal of American troops.
The measure would require the allies to be responsible for at least 50 percent of reconstruction aid, 85 percent of humanitarian assistance and 90 percent of police officers in Kosovo. The allies are now providing 87 percent of the reconstruction aid, 73 percent of the humanitarian assistance and 87 percent of the police, the White House said. Some of the contributions are from non-European countries.
In a letter last month to Mr. Warner, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen criticized the provision, saying it was "unacceptable because it is counterproductive to peace in Kosovo and could seriously jeopardize relations between the United States and its NATO allies."
"If enacted this provision would take decision-making on the deployment of U.S. forces out of the hands of Congress and the president and put it into the hands of European governments — a dangerous precedent," said Mr. Cohen, who is the only Republican in the cabinet.
"This provision would create uncertainty about U.S. intentions and resoluteness, and could encourage an extremist element to take actions that could put American forces at increased risk, in the hope of triggering their withdrawal," he concluded.
But many Congressional Republicans say the provision is essential to relieve the burden on American ground troops in Kosovo and pressure European countries to pay a larger share of the reconstruction and policing costs for Kosovo.
"We feel pretty strongly about it," said Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader. "The question is, how long will we have people over there, and when will we have a clear definition of what they're doing?"
Representative Floyd D. Spence of South Carolina, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, agreed: "We're tied down too much in different places right now. People are scattered all over the world, our readiness is down and our equipment is wearing out. We have to have our allies do more."
But Democrats echoed Mr. Cohen's dire warnings. "These arbitrary limits are not going to be helpful," said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the panel's senior Democrat and a top negotiator in the conference committee, said: "It undermines the coalition and creates terrible morale for our troops to let them know they're coming out."
The New York Times : Bush on Spot as G.O.P. Pushes to Pull Out G.I.'s From Kosovo
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 — House and Senate negotiators are fighting over a deadline for withdrawing American troops from Kosovo, renewing a clash with President Clinton and putting Gov. George W. Bush on the spot again, since he lobbied Senate Republicans to drop a similar provision earlier this year.
At issue is a proposal to cut off money for nearly 6,000 United States ground forces in Kosovo by April 1, forcing their withdrawal unless Congress authorizes an extension.
In May, the Senate rejected a similar measure, 53 to 47, with at least two or three Republicans saying they were swayed by Governor Bush, who called it a "legislative overreach" that would tie his hands if he became president. But House Republicans quietly attached a comparable provision to the Pentagon's $310 billion budget bill for fiscal year 2001.
House and Senate leaders are now meeting in a conference committee to reconcile the two versions of the military budget bills — one with the provision, the other without. The contentious language was one of the last sticking points negotiators faced in finishing the bill before Congress adjourns for the year.
By tonight, there were signs that Congressional Republicans were relenting. "I think we'll work something out," said Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee and who sponsored the original Senate measure. The House version was sponsored by Representative John R. Kasich, Republican of Ohio.
The dispute comes at an awkward time for Mr. Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, who has accused the Clinton administration of allowing the military's combat readiness to erode, in part by dispatching American forces on far- flung peacekeeping missions to places like Kosovo.
A spokesman for Mr. Bush, Ray Sullivan, said today that the governor objected to the Republican-written language for the same reasons that he balked at the Senate provision in May. "He views it as a legislative overreach on the powers of the president," said Mr. Sullivan, who added that Congressional Republicans were aware of Mr. Bush's views.
Critics say the provision would undermine the unity and morale of NATO's peacekeeping operation, which involves forces from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other nations in and out of Europe.
In a letter sent late today to Senator Warner, Mr. Clinton warned that imposing an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal would also send a dangerous signal of uncertain American resolve to President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia before that country's elections scheduled for Sept. 24.
Under the provision, Mr. Clinton's successor would be required to certify to Congress that Washington's European allies were meeting their commitments in Kosovo for reconstruction aid, police officers, food and medicines. Without that certification, the measure required that money be spent in Kosovo only for a withdrawal of American troops.
The measure would require the allies to be responsible for at least 50 percent of reconstruction aid, 85 percent of humanitarian assistance and 90 percent of police officers in Kosovo. The allies are now providing 87 percent of the reconstruction aid, 73 percent of the humanitarian assistance and 87 percent of the police, the White House said. Some of the contributions are from non-European countries.
In a letter last month to Mr. Warner, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen criticized the provision, saying it was "unacceptable because it is counterproductive to peace in Kosovo and could seriously jeopardize relations between the United States and its NATO allies."
"If enacted this provision would take decision-making on the deployment of U.S. forces out of the hands of Congress and the president and put it into the hands of European governments — a dangerous precedent," said Mr. Cohen, who is the only Republican in the cabinet.
"This provision would create uncertainty about U.S. intentions and resoluteness, and could encourage an extremist element to take actions that could put American forces at increased risk, in the hope of triggering their withdrawal," he concluded.
But many Congressional Republicans say the provision is essential to relieve the burden on American ground troops in Kosovo and pressure European countries to pay a larger share of the reconstruction and policing costs for Kosovo.
"We feel pretty strongly about it," said Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader. "The question is, how long will we have people over there, and when will we have a clear definition of what they're doing?"
Representative Floyd D. Spence of South Carolina, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, agreed: "We're tied down too much in different places right now. People are scattered all over the world, our readiness is down and our equipment is wearing out. We have to have our allies do more."
But Democrats echoed Mr. Cohen's dire warnings. "These arbitrary limits are not going to be helpful," said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the panel's senior Democrat and a top negotiator in the conference committee, said: "It undermines the coalition and creates terrible morale for our troops to let them know they're coming out."
The Guardian : Mob stones Milosevic rival
Serb challenger driven out of town by organised thugs for trying to make election speech in Kosovo
Special report: Serbia
Nick Wood in Mitrovice, northern Kosovo
Supporters of Slobodan Milosevic broke up a campaign rally in Kosovo yesterday by the Yugoslav leader's main challenger in the presidential race, striking Vojislav Kostunica in the face with a stone and setting upon a convoy of cars protecting him.
French troops of the K-For peacekeeping force in Kosovo stood by without intervening.
Pelted by rotten tomatoes, Mr Kostunica, the candidate put up by an alliance comprising most of Yugoslavia's opposition parties, was bundled off the platform by his bodyguards after trying to address Serb inhabitants of the divided city of Mitrovice in northern Kosovo.
Then Mr Milosevic's supporters, some of them bussed in for the purpose, set about attacking Mr Kostunica's convoy. The soft-spoken university professor was hit with a stone below his eye.
Wiping the blood from a small cut under his eye, the challenger said Mr Milosevic must feel threatened if he was resorting to violence. "I am ashamed because I am a Serb, but I am also very satisfied because this means that Milosevic is weaker than ever," he said.
The rally in Mitrovice was intended to be a moment of glory for Mr Kostunica, who was touring Kosovo's Serb enclaves on his first visit to the province as a presidential candidate. The largely male crowd appeared uninterested, however, in being told this was the man who could beat Slobodan Milosevic.
"He [Milosevic] put you up to this - God will forgive you but God will not forgive him," Mr Kostunica shouted at his attackers.
After trying to talk for 10 minutes he and his entourage were forced to withdraw. In front of them the row of cars in which they had arrived came under attack from crowds smashing windows and slashing tyres.
Mr Kostunica blamed plainclothes police planted in the crowd for the violence, and criticised Nato peacekeepers for failing to intervene even though they were standing at the edge of the crowd. French soldiers with riot shields and tear gas canisters, were eventually ordered to disperse the gathering.
The acknowledged leader of Mitrovice's Serb community, Oliver Ivanovic, watched the crowd's behavior uneasily, and blamed Mr Milosevic's forces. "Our dismay is that much greater that we did not prevent Mr Kostunica from being exposed to such an extremely unpleasant situation," he said. "We all know that he was the only Serb politician who really took to heart the plight of our people here."
At a press conference afterwards Mr Kostunica taunted Mr Milosovic by inviting him to visit Kosovo. K-For has vowed to arrest the Yugoslav leader as an indicted war criminal if he sets foot in Kosovo.
Mr Kostunica accused Mr Milosevic of neglecting hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled the province since Serb forces were driven out by Nato in June 1999.
But the main opposition candidate cast doubt on the fairness of both the local elections being overseen by the UN in Kosovo and the presidential elections: "I was very sceptical about local elections in October so I am sceptical about these elections in September because the situation is not normal in the rest of Kosovo because of Albanian terrorism and here because of Milosevic's terrorism as you have seen here."
Earlier yesterday, Mr Kostunica's convoy was held up at the Serbian border with Kosovo as K-For officials refused to let his party through. Overnight, Serbian Socialist party supporters put up Milosevic posters with the slogan, "Under the flag of freedom". Mr Kostunica's publicity matter was torn down.
Mr Kostunica bitterly attacked international sanctions against Yugoslavia, which helped to produce the resentment behind "some of the stones that we saw today".
"We are his [Mr Milosevic's] hostages and the hostages of the International Community."
The UN says election balloting can take place in Kosovo, but not inside UN buildings. The opposition says this will help Mr Milosevic's party, which is organising the voting expected to take place in private households.
Leader: Milosevic Won't Accept Loss
By ALEN MLATISUMA, Associated Press Writer
PODGORICA, Yugoslavia (AP) - The prime minister of Montenegro, Yugoslavia's smaller republic, said Wednesday that President Slobodan Milosevic would never concede defeat in elections even if the ballot count goes against him.
``I believe Mr. Milosevic would never acknowledge a defeat in the elections and would do everything to stay in power,'' Prime Minister Filip Vujanovic said.
Milosevic's behavior has always been ``undemocratic,'' Vujanovic said, adding he saw no reason for the autocratic ruler to change should he lose the Sept. 24 Yugoslav presidential elections.
The elections will be decided in Serbia, the much larger Yugoslav republic and Milosevic's power base, and Vujanovic said that it would be ``up to the Serbian people and progressive forces within Serbia to struggle and achieve democracy - something I am convinced is entirely possible.''
Tensions have been growing in Montenegro in recent weeks ahead of the Yugoslav presidential and parliamentary elections. Vujanovic's pro-Western government has called on Montenegrins to boycott the vote, citing constitutional changes imposed by Milosevic that weaken the republic's clout in the two-state federation.
Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, considered a chief Milosevic foe, has claimed that if his tiny republic of 600,000 participated in the vote, it would give legitimacy to the Belgrade regime and prolong its survival.
Montenegro is also hesitant to proclaim outright independence, fearing clashes within the republic, also bitterly split between those who back the reformist leadership and those loyal to Milosevic.
Milosevic's regime has attacked Vujanovic's government for its ties to the West, describing it as a traitor set on destroying Yugoslavia. Anti-Western sentiments in Yugoslavia remain strong following the NATO bombing campaign last year.
Despite the boycott, Montenegro has said it would not prevent those loyal to Milosevic from voting on Montenegrin territory.
Vujanovic also said Montenegrin officials and Milosevic's supporters are involved in discussions on how to organize the balloting in Montenegro in order to avoid further rise of tensions.
Should Montenegrin officials be denied the opportunity to observe the balloting, Vujanovic said they would be convinced of a carefully planned and premeditated election fraud.
Vujanovic also rejected recent claims by Milosevic's chief Montenegrin associate, Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic, that 180,000 Montenegrins signed a petition supporting Milosevic's presidential candidacy. The claim is ``just a simple marketing move'' he said.
Also Wednesday, NATO peacekeepers stopped a high-ranking Serbian official and presidential candidate for about one hour in Kosovo before allowing him to leave the province.
Local villagers near Zvecan, in northern Kosovo, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Tomislav Nikolic and some 30 persons from his entourage were stopped after NATO troops discovered arms in the convoy. Nikolic, an ultranationalist, is running against Milosevic.
Reports that the NATO peacekeepers confiscated arms belonging to a Radical Party security guard traveling with Nikolic could not be immediately confirmed.
Their Day in Court
Westerners Plead Innocent at Terror Hearing in Yugoslavia
B E L G R A D E, Yugoslavia, Aug. 9 — Two Canadians and two Britons pleaded innocent today at the opening of a hearing at Belgrade’s military court into whether to raise formal, terrorism-related charges against them, their lawyer said.
Djordje Djurisic, lawyer for detained British policemen Adrian Prangnell and John Yore, told reporters outside the court that a closed hearing had begun for them and the Canadians, Shaun Going, 45, and his nephew Liam Hall, arrested together last week.
Prangnell, 41, and Yore, 31, were detained by the Yugoslav army while returning from a brief holiday in Montenegro, Yugoslavia’s smaller, Western-leaning republic, on Aug. 2. Both had been helping the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe in the vital work of training Kosovo’s new police force.
A lawyer in Montenegro said Tuesday a military prosecutor there had proposed charges of violating the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, bringing in armed groups, arms and ammunition, attempted terrorism and coercion of the military.
“This is only a preliminary investigation, an examination of the suspects, nothing else,” Djursic said. “The public prosecutor will decide whether he will file charges …. It is too early to say whether there will be an indictment at all.”
Today’s hearing lasted nine hours and Djurisic said the legal proceedings would continue with testimony from witnesses Friday. He said it could be some time before the military prosecutor announces a decision on whether to lodge charges.
“We can count on 15 days or three weeks before we will know what the final decision is, whether the charges will be raised,” he said.
Speaking Issues
Djurisic said he had a chance to see the detainees, and they appeared to be in good shape, but he not had a chance to speak with them at length. “They have denied all the charges,” he said.
Canadian and British diplomats also visited the court today in the hope of attending the hearing and meeting the detainees. But after five hours inside, they emerged saying they had been denied access.
“We haven’t been to see the accused. We still haven’t received consular access. We are still trying,” said Robert Gordon, Britain’s top diplomat in Belgrade.
“We were told consular access will be granted tomorrow morning,” he said.
Prangnell was allowed his first phone contact with British officials in Belgrade on Tuesday, when he requested legal representation. The monitored phone call was described as “calm.” But Prangnell also described his treatment, and that of the other three, by their Yugoslav military captors as “firm.”
The four men appeared well if subdued when they were paraded on Belgrade television last week, but “firm” was probably the nearest Prangnell could say under the noses of his captors to indicate that they have been pushed around.
Britain’s Foreign Office has said Yugoslavia is in breach of the Geneva Convention by not allowing consular access to the men.
Craig Bale of the Canadian Embassy in Belgrade said lawyers Djurisic, who is representing the Britons, and Ivan Jankovic, representing the Canadians, were discussing the case with the investigating judge.
The lawyers were proposed by the embassies after Prangnell telephoned Gordon on Tuesday and requested independent legal counsel. Previously they had been assigned a lawyer by the military authorities who had arrested them in Montenegro.
Djurisic and Jankovic defended two Australian aid workers for the CARE organization who were arrested during NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia last year and charged with espionage before being released by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Westerners Accused of Terrorism
The four Westerners are being accused of planning terrorist activities in Montenegro. If charged, tried and found guilty, they could face 15 years in jail.
Other cases in the past have resulted in show trials and convictions, followed by a prompt release after a visit to Belgrade by a leading figure such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Yugoslav authorities have said the investigation into the case could take six months, but diplomatic observers expect a swift show trial with which Milosevic would try to score points before the first round of elections on Sept. 24. There is little chance, they say, of the men being freed until the elections are over.
The evidence against the men is based on equipment the Yugoslav army claims it found in the car belonging to the two Canadians. This included 20 yards of detonating cable and 38 yards of slow burning fuse plus 79 detonator caps and “pliers for creating explosive devices,” the army said.
Going runs a construction and mining company in the capital of Kosovo, Pristina. His main base is in Albania. Part of his job is quarrying, for which such equipment might be used. There is no explanation of why he chose to take it to Montenegro, having been warned such an expedition could be risky.
Montenegro, with its anti-Milosevic leadership, does not require visas for holiday travel. The Yugoslav army, which also patrols the borders, does demand them. The men are also charged with illegal entry into Yugoslavia.
The Dutch Version
Aug. 9 — The Netherlands is also expressing “extreme irritation” with Belgrade’s continued refusal to allow them any access to another group of foreign captives — four Dutchmen, ostensibly on a “survival holiday,” who were picked up at the Montenegrin-Serbian border four weeks ago.
But they have ruled out moves such as asking for Russian mediation, as Britain’s Foreign Office has done. The four were tourists, they say, not employees of an international organization.
The background of the four, linked to the ultra-right scene, is also posing problems for the Dutch. The leader of the group, Bas van Schaik, 31, is a bouncer in an Amsterdam bar and makes a living as a knife grinder. He also keeps dangerous dogs, one of which the group took with them. The group wore military-style uniforms and were very keen on survival and paramilitary weekends.
Van Schaik confessed on Serb television that the aim of the group was to kidnap President Milosevic, who has a $5 million bounty on his head as one of the most wanted indicted war criminals at the War Crimes court in The Hague. They would “bring his head home in a box” or smuggle him out in a ski box.
Friends of van Schaik who have watched the TV pictures claim he was either drugged or beaten into submission in order to make any such statement.
Yugoslavia: Missing Serb Leader Was 'Man Who Invented Milosevic'
By Don Hill
Ivan Stambolic -- past president of Serbia and the latest former associate of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to disappear -- vowed that he had retired from politics, and his family says he had no enemies. Still. many in Serbia believe that government authorities engineered his mysterious vanishing. RFE/RL correspondent Don Hill tells the story.
Prague, 31 August 2000 (RFE/RL) -- To a casual observer, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic might seem to be having a run of terrible luck. Over the last decade, a number of Milosevic's former friends and political associates have met with accidents, been gunned down by unknown assailants or simply disappeared.
The latest of these, former Serb president Ivan Stambolic, went out for his regular morning run last Friday -- and has not been heard from since.
On Saturday (Aug 26), three Serbian opposition parties said they were convinced that Milosevic's organization was behind Stambolic's vanishing month before scheduled presidential elections. The New Democracy party said this in a statement: "When darkness starts to swallow up people, [all] of us have reason for concern."
Ivan Stambolic is more than merely a Serbian intellectual and political has-been. In the words of Ljubica Markovic, the director of Serbia's independent news agency BETA, Stambolic was Milosevic's "political father."
In 1987, Josip Broz Tito -- who by the force of his personality had held Yugoslavia's Bosnians, Serbs, Croats and other ethnic groups together as one country for 35 years -- was seven years dead. The Serbian province of Kosovo was restive amid growing confrontations between Kosovar Albanians and its then Serb majority. The Serbian president tapped his protege, a little known bureaucrat named Slobodan Milosevic, to go to Kosovo to calm the situation. That president was Ivan Stambolic.
Milosevic did not bring calm to Kosovo. Instead, he made a fiery nationalistic speech promising the Serbs they never again would be defeated. He said: "Unless you fight for Serbia, your ancestors will be betrayed, your descendants will be shamed. These are your lands, your fields, your gardens, your memories."
With that single speech, Milosevic reawakened the slumbering ogre of Serbian nationalism. BETA Director Markovic said in a telephone interview from Belgrade that under Tito any appeal to such narrow nationalism had been prohibited.
"It was a forbidden topic at that time. No nationalism was ever permitted in Yugoslavia. And Serb nationalism was the first one to arise, to be raised, to be put on the agenda by Mr. Milosevic, and that caused a sort of scandal."
Milosevic became an instant Serb nationalist hero. That was the beginning of his political career. When he returned home in triumph, President Stambolic publicly denounced him for embarking on the dangerous course of appealing to Serb nationalism. That was the beginning of the end of Stambolic' political career.
A year later, a Milosevic faction forced Stambolic from office. Milosevic threw his old boss and sponsor a bone. He appointed Stambolic director of the Yugoslav Bank for International Cooperation.
Markovic remembers that Stambolic took on his new job with grace and skill, making the bank a force for economic good in the country until Milosevic abruptly replaced him with a crony. Still, the BETA director says she remains of mixed mind about Stambolic. In her words:
"I can't say I'm an admirer, but I respect very much what he did after he was kicked out of political life [but] only after that. Because before that, he was a member of the communist establishment, very strong, very decisive. He was leading cleansing campaigns against the Serbian media. He was not very liberally oriented at that time."
When, six years ago, Markovic and a handful of colleagues sought to establish BETA, now Serbia's most influential independent news organization, banker Stambolic -- the former antagonist of a free press -- helped arrange a vital bank loan.
Markovic says she wasn't close to Stambolic, but was told by colleagues who were that he was remorseful over his role in Milosevic's rise. Stambolic's name had appeared in recent public opinion polls as a possible candidate to run against Milosevic in next month's presidential elections. He told friends that at 65 he considered his political life over. It was a time for younger, newer faces, he said.
Even so, Stambolic continued to be outspoken and public in his criticism of Milosevic. He also frequently gave advice to Milosevic's foes in Montenegro, even traveling to the smaller Yugoslav republic on several recent occasions.
BETA broke the story last Friday (Aug 25) about the former president's disappearance. For six days, the Milosevic government and its state-controlled news outlets remained ominously silent about the incident. Markovic agrees with those who believe that Stambolic is the latest victim of Milosevic's forces.
"My personal opinion at the first moment I heard it (the disappearance report) was that the regime is behind it, that they're cooking something up, and that they want to press him and that he will be released in two or three days. Now those hopes are fading away."
Vojislav Kustunica is the presidential candidate of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia and has emerged in the polls as likely to defeat Milosevic in a fair election. He told a press conference Monday (Aug 28), "This is part of a wider, extremely worrying process which speaks about the situation we live in."
The Milosevic regime has closed the coming election to most international observers.
The New York Times: Elections Near, Rivalries Split Opposition to Milosevic
By STEVEN ERLANGER
ELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 4 — A split in the opposition to President Slobodan Milosevic is putting at risk its main achievement so far: its control over Serbia's major cities, including radio and television stations.
American officials are pressing opposition politicians to settle their differences to present a united slate of candidates for the local elections on Sept. 24, but so far without success. Otherwise, they fear, Mr. Milosevic can regain lost ground and win back some cities.
This could happen even though the opposition is probably more united and popular now than it has been since its victory in the last local elections, in 1996.
In the race for president of Yugoslavia, Mr. Milosevic is trailing the main opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, in opinion polls. The polls indicate that a large majority of Serbs want change in the elections, which are for the federal presidency, the federal Parliament and municipal governments.
But a game of mutual blackmail over the presidential race is blocking opposition unity on the local level, much to the confusion of ordinary voters and to the distress of local government officials, who do not share the rivalries of their national party bosses.
Some senior opposition politicians, who expect Mr. Milosevic to try to retain the presidency through vote fraud or other means, say one of his main goals is to take back some cities before vital Serbian elections, which are due next year. Serbia, long Mr. Milosevic's power base, dominates Montenegro, the other republic remaining in Yugoslavia.
Opposition control over major cities like Kragujevac, Kraljevo and Uzice is at stake, with even Belgrade, the capital, at risk, say both opposition officials and members of the governing coalition.
"I think Milosevic called these elections more to win back some cities than for any other reason," said Goran Svilanovic, leader of the Civil Alliance, part of the united opposition backing Mr. Kostunica. "This is the real fight."
Mr. Svilanovic said the opposition must be realistic.
"I know how many people want to wake up one day and find Milosevic gone, but it's a step-by-step fight," he said. "We need to take pieces of his power and enlarge the number of cities we control. And if we lose some of these cities, these parties may not exist in a year, when we're facing Serbian elections."
A united opposition could win cities currently controlled by the government he said.
Milan Milosevic, a political analyst with the magazine Vreme (and no relation to the president), said that President Milosevic's coalition will win the federal elections because of a boycott by Montenegro, and that his coalition badly wants victories in the local races.
"President Milosevic solves one problem at a time, the one in front of him," the commentator said. "These elections will start the real game, which will go on for the next year. He's a fighter, and he'll continue to fight."
President Milosevic has ruled by dividing the opposition. After his losses in 1996, he won Serbian elections handily in 1997 when one part of the opposition, led by Zoran Djindjic of the Democratic Party, boycotted the election. Another part, led by Mr. Djindjic's archrival, Vuk Draskovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement, did not boycott the vote.
Regardless of the national rivalry, the two groups continue to cooperate in many city governments.
The mercurial Mr. Draskovic, who lives in Montenegro, is keeping aloof from the rest of the opposition, which has banded together to support Mr. Kostunica. By doing so, Mr. Draskovic seems to be harming his own party, which had been the largest and best organized opposition group.
Mr. Draskovic insisted on running his own candidate for the presidency — Vojislav Mihailovic, the mayor of Belgrade — and on running his own candidates for the federal Parliament. While he is facing great pressure from his party to unite with the rest of the opposition on the local level, it is Mr. Kostunica, backed by Mr. Djindjic, who is playing hardball.
Mr. Draskovic now wants joint slates on the local level. But Mr. Kostunica and Mr. Djindjic insist that Mr. Draskovic and his party first withdraw Mr. Mihailovic, who has no chance of winning.
Some experts and American officials say Mr. Kostunica, and especially Mr. Djindjic, also see this as a chance to finish off the difficult Mr. Draskovic as a serious opposition leader.
"The old personal rivalries and suspicions between Djindjic and Draskovic are a factor," one official said. "Djindjic smells Draskovic's blood in the water."
In interviews, both Mr. Kostunica and Mr. Djindjic deny any such motivation, saying it is Mr. Draskovic who is hurting the opposition by remaining aloof and running Mr. Mihailovic as a spoiler.
"Mr. Milosevic is happy that Mihailovic is running, and this makes me careful," Mr. Djindjic said. "On the presidential level, we need a black-and-white race to win a million more votes than Milosevic. We can't afford to be confused on the local level and be attacked by our coalition partners."
The difficulty stems from changes in the local elections made last year by Mr. Milosevic's government — to a winner-take-all system, eliminating a second-round runoff between the two top finishers. So a divided opposition could be beaten by a determined member of the ruling coalition.
Under such a system, Mr. Milosevic would have done well in the 1996 local elections, rather than losing them in the second round. Even so, it took months of daily demonstrations and marches for him to acknowledge his defeat in those local elections.
But now, after the NATO bombing last year and the increased repression of dissent, it is not clear that Serbs have the energy or optimism to demonstrate again or to confront the regime openly, even if the voting seem to be manipulated.
Mr. Kostunica and Mr. Djindjic say there is no chance now for a united opposition slate on the local level, but American officials continue to push, as do Mr. Draskovic's aides, pressed by local officials. One of their main arguments is that even if Mr. Mihailovic stays in the presidential race, he will not win enough votes to make much of a difference in the results, since many members of Mr. Draskovic's party will vote for Mr. Kostunica anyway.
The New York Times : Milosevic Foe Leading Field in Yugoslavia
By STEVEN ERLANGER
BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 2 -- Vojislav Kostunica, a constitutional lawyer, was fired from the Belgrade University law faculty in 1974 for defending a senior professor jailed for criticizing the government. In 1989, when Serbia's new leader, Slobodan Milosevic, tried to co-opt intellectuals and offered to rehire those fired then, only Mr. Kostunica refused.
Now Mr. Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, anti-Communist and democrat, is trying to take Mr. Milosevic's job as Yugoslavia's president in elections later this month. He is the most serious opposition candidate ever to challenge Mr. Milosevic, and polls suggest that Mr. Kostunica, now 56, ought to be able to win.
It is an election being closely watched by Washington and NATO, which bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days last year over Kosovo and have labored since to push Mr. Milosevic out of office.
For Mr. Milosevic, who has been indicted for war crimes, this election has turned into a battle for his political survival. He called it nine months early to shore up his international legitimacy, but now he may be forced to steal votes in order to prevail.
"In some sense, it's a matter of life and death for him," Mr. Kostunica said in a long interview here. "It's why I hesitated in the beginning. I thought Milosevic must have considered everything very carefully, but I overestimated the rationale in his decision. Now I think he miscalculated, and I'm sure he did not expect my candidacy."
Mr. Kostunica, who describes himself as a generally pessimistic man, now senses "a feeling of victory in the air." He said: "This is the moment -- people can't keep living, or surviving, like this. Individuals come up to me and say, 'Save us,' and they are sincere. And they say, 'I'm hungry.' People know that if Milosevic stays in power they will go on living like this. It's an important feeling. But it frightens me, too."
Why? "It's frightening because the stakes are so high for him," Mr. Kostunica said slowly. "Milosevic will do everything he can to win in the first round," even if it risks popular anger over fraud, sets off a new round of opposition demonstrations and undermines the renewed democratic legitimacy he seeks.
Mr. Kostunica is one of four major candidates. If no one wins more than 50 percent of the votes on Sept. 24, there would be a second-round runoff between the two top finishers on Oct. 8. In a free and fair, head-to-head race with Mr. Milosevic, all the polls show, Mr. Kostunica (pronounced, kosh-TOON-itza) is almost sure to win.
But Mr. Kostunica is not convinced that Mr. Milosevic will allow himself to be beaten or has any intention of handing over power peacefully. He expects widespread vote stealing and even raises the possibility that Mr. Milosevic will postpone these elections by creating some military "emergency," Mr. Kostunica believes.
This skepticism about the election results -- no matter the vote -- is widespread, and is among the opposition's greatest problems. While some 35 percent of voters in the polls back Mr. Kostunica compared to some 25 percent for Mr. Milosevic, about 16 percent back other candidates and 24 percent say they will not vote or are undecided. But more than 45 percent say they expect Mr. Milosevic will remain in power after the elections in any case.
"People are fatalistic about the way they see these elections," Mr. Kostunica concedes. "Our biggest challenge is to convince people that their vote, which does not require too much investment from them, can change Serbia." Mr. Milosevic, on the other hand, with state television and a disciplined party behind him, will try to keep turnout low, while seeking to win with high and uncheckable vote totals from Kosovo itself, refugees from Kosovo in southern Serbia, the army and the police, Mr. Kostunica said.
Mr. Milosevic's campaign is concentrating on his defense of the Serbs against the united might and perceived injustice of the West, his administrative competence, his work to rebuild the country after the bombing and his promises of stability and development. His slogan is "Under the flag of freedom, for Yugoslavia."
Even a Milosevic defeat would not suddenly change Yugoslavia, Mr. Kostunica cautions. With Montenegro's government boycotting the election, Mr. Milosevic's coalition should retain control over the federal Parliament, as they continue to run Serbia, the larger of Yugoslavia's remaining two republics since the country all but disintegrated in the 1990's. And with the opposition still divided on the local level, despite American pressure to unite, the ruling parties could win back some cities they lost in 1996.
"This the moment when the first step will be made," Mr. Kostunica said. "What's problematic is that the first step is the presidential elections, where Milosevic is running, and so where it's the easiest, it's also the hardest."
For the Yugoslavs, Mr. Kostunica's virtues are many: a reputation for modesty, honesty and principle; a belief in democracy and the rule of law; a career untainted by any previous cooperation with the Milosevic regime; a clear patriotism and sense of nationhood; and a nuanced but sharply critical stance toward the United States and the Western countries that bombed Yugoslavia last year.
His main campaign poster plays on his incorruptibility, saying: "Who can look you straight in the eyes? Kostunica." It is a quiet commentary on the accusations often made against other opposition leaders like Vuk Draskovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement and Zoran Djindjic of the Democratic Party, who are seen as having been tarnished by their past associations either with Mr. Milosevic or the West.
Mr. Kostunica's patriotism, his criticism of the war-crimes tribunal at The Hague as a political instrument, his support for Serbs in Kosovo and his skepticism toward the West made him a good choice for a democratic opposition accused over and over again by Mr. Milosevic of being traitors in the pay of Washington and the NATO countries that bombed Yugoslavia.
It was easy for the regime and state television to attack Mr. Djindjic and Mr. Draskovic, who was filmed kissing the hand of Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, for being Western lackeys. But it can only accuse Mr. Kostunica of being allied with them -- of shaking the hand of the man who kissed the hand of Dr. Albright.
As the federal information minister, Goran Matic, said: "The West picked Kostunica because he could look like a genuine Serbian candidate. But he is the candidate of Madeleine Albright, and Milosevic is the candidate of the people of Yugoslavia, and they will vote for the man who defended them."
There have been a few personal attacks. The Radical Party leader, Vojislav Seselj, has insinuated that Mr. Kostunica is somehow unmanly because, although married, he has no children and is very fond of his two cats. "I think it's just silly," Mr. Kostunica said. "A friend told me that when he heard the story about the cats he realized they couldn't find anything else."
State-controlled news media have also made contradictory charges that Mr. Kostunica, who was once pictured with an assault rifle in Kosovo, is too nationalist, but also that he intends to break up Serbia, since he is supported by Muslim parties in Sandzak and opposition parties in Vojvodina that seek greater autonomy.
In the interests of unity, Mr. Djindjic and the other opposition leaders threw their support to Mr. Kostunica; only Mr. Draskovic refused to join the united opposition, naming his own presidential candidate, the Belgrade mayor, Vojislav Mihailovic, whose presence in the race will make it nearly impossible for Mr. Kostunica to win in the first round.
In a rally Friday night kicking off his campaign, Mr. Kostunica vowed to defend Yugoslavia and bring it back into Europe; promised generosity and no revenge toward the regime and its servants; and pledged his "word of honor" to "try to change this state of ours for the better in accordance with God's and human laws, and to never let power change me."
A rather shy and reserved man, he seemed almost overwhelmed by the response to his words.
Mr. Kostunica, despite his criticism of Western arrogance and hypocrisy now, is a believer in democracy and the rule of law. He translated "The Federalist Papers" into Serbo-Croatian in 1981, and was a member of a committee to defend freedom of speech in the early 1980's, when the post-Tito regime cracked down on advocates of nationalism ranging from Franjo Tudjman in Croatia and Mr. Seselj in Serbia to Alija Izetbegovic in Bosnia and Adem Demaci in Kosovo.
He helped found the Democratic Party in 1989, when, as he said, "I lived in that democratic air. But my picture of the West was rather idealistic. I haven't changed my values or pro-Western attitudes despite my criticism of the United States during the war; I see it as defending the West from itself, insisting on original democratic and liberal values."
At the same time, he thinks there must be a counterbalance to American power, that the tribunal in The Hague is an instrument of American political goals rather than a model of legal justice, and that Washington too often insists on supporting politicians, like Biljana Plavsic and Milorad Dodik in Bosnia, who do not have realistic support in the larger population.
He thinks that Washington has helped Mr. Milosevic remain in power first by supporting him and then by attacking him and punishing all Serbs with bombs and sanctions, making the country hostages in "a private war."
Tactically, of course, it is also important for Mr. Kostunica to keep his distance from Western oral and financial support for the opposition here and for his own candidacy. He has set up his own campaign structure, separate from the alliance operation Mr. Djindjic runs, to protect himself from too much Western taint. And Mr. Kostunica has criticized the Americans for setting up a Belgrade embassy in exile in Budapest to assist Serbia's democrats, saying that such a goal is a "kiss of death for all truly democratic and patriotic forces in Serbia."
Still, he says, he wants Yugoslavia to rejoin Europe and the West, "and I'm prepared to take steps to ensure it." Handing over Mr. Milosevic to The Hague, however, would not be a priority, he said.
"Everyone in this country is in need of some stability and peace," said Mr. Kostunica. "That's my message to the state apparatus, the army and the police, who need it, too. They also don't see a clear future if nothing changes here, and many of them are also tired of all this."
Mr. Kostunica finds it hopeful that "someone who has never been part of the Communist nomenklatura appears to have a chance" to take the country into a different future. "I sometimes have a vague, irrational feeling that if it happens, it would be a form of justice," he said quietly.
"It would be a validation of the beliefs that our families had for the last 50 years, and it would be some sort of God's justice."
The Sunday Times : KLA faces trials for war crimes on Serbs Inquiry turns on Albanians
Tom Walker, Diplomatic Correspondent
INTERNATIONAL war crimes investigators are for the first time focusing on atrocities against Serbian civilians that were committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Sources close to prosecutors in the Hague confirmed last week that its forensic experts were checking five sites where war crimes were allegedly carried out by members of the KLA. Their findings could lead to a request to Nato's Kfor troops to arrest several senior figures in the new Kosovo Albanian elite, including possibly Hashim Thaci, the KLA's former political leader, or Ramush Haridinaj, one of his main political rivals.
United Nations sources have already revealed that Agim Ceku, the guerrillas' former commander, may be the subject of a secret "sealed" indictment for his activities while fighting for the Croatian army against the Serbs. Like Thaci and Haridinaj, Ceku, who now heads the Kosovo Protection Corps, the local defence force, has denied wrong-doing.
The investigation could radically alter the international perception of the conflict, in which Albanians were seen as the largely innocent victims of Serbian aggression. After a year of growing concern about hundreds of revenge killings of Serbs by Albanians in the province, there are signs that the public relations pendulum may begin to swing the Serbs' way.
The investigations by the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia are among its most secretive, with officials fearing retaliation by the Albanians. "The operations of the KLA clearly involved many activities we should scrutinise," said one Hague official.
"There's a real problem in unravelling their cell structure, but we may well end up pointing the finger at senior figures. The difficulty then will be persuading any Nato nation to arrest them."
All five sites were discovered by the Serbian police as they regained territory lost to the KLA in the summer of 1998. As Albanian villages were being destroyed in the Serbian police offensives that grabbed the international media spotlight, the plight of the rural Serbian peasantry was often ignored and dozens of villagers and farmers were abducted, tortured and left in mass graves.
Three of the areas under investigation are thought to be the villages of Klecka and Glodjane and the town of Orahovac.
The killings in Klecka have been linked to Thaci, who now heads the Democratic party of Kosovo. The Belgrade media made great play of the discovery in August 1998 of what it claimed were 22 Serbian bodies in a lime kiln in Klecka.
Glodjane, further west in the Decane area bordering Albania, was fiercely contested by the Serbs and Albanians. In September 1998 the Serbian media centre in Pristina claimed that the bodies of 34 people had been found in a canal there. They were a mixture of Serbian farmers, some gypsies and Albanians suspected of being collaborators. The local commander at the time was Haradinaj, now head of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo.
In Orahovac, an ancient Balkan maze of cobbled streets and mixed ethnicities, at least 50 Serbs were abducted by the KLA in July 1998, never to be seen again. In the autumn hundreds of angry Serbs marched six miles through the hills to Dragobilj, the local KLA headquarters and one of the few places where Islamic mujaheddin fighters were seen. The protest failed to persuade the KLA to give any details of the missing Serbs.
Most inquiries made so far have been met with silence and few witnesses are thought likely to be brave enough to reveal the brutality of the KLA.
One former Albanian commander, who now lives in the West, told The Sunday Times that he saw two Serbian policemen tied to the backs of Jeeps and dragged to their deaths during the fighting around Glodjane. He said he had no intention of talking to the war crimes prosecutors and wished to forget Kosovo altogether.
The Serbs, too, are unlikely to co-operate with the Hague because Belgrade refuses to recognise the tribunal. Milosevic and Milan Milutinovic, the Serbian president, are both indicted by the tribunal, and Milosevic is believed to have offered a bolthole to Radovan Karadzic, the most wanted suspect of the Bosnian conflict.
"We're not permitted to make any interviews in Serbia proper and that is a considerable hindrance," said Paul Risley, spokesman for Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's senior prosecutor.
It is also not clear whether investigations into the KLA's activities can be extended into the period after Nato entered Kosovo in June 1999. Authorities in Belgrade claim there have been 1,041 murders in the province since then - with 910 of the victims being Serbs or Montenegrins. In the most recent attacks on Serbs, an eight-year-old child was killed by a hit-and-run driver near the town of Lipljan last month, and a hand grenade was lobbed into a basketball court injuring 10 children north of Pristina. A farmer aged 80 was machine-gunned to death in the nearby village of Crkvna Vodica while he was tending his cattle.
The claims of genocide being made by the Albanians at Belgrade two years ago are now being thrown back at them, but the war crimes tribunal remains dispassionate. "We're not seeing genocide at the moment, but severe human rights violations. There is no evidence that any group wants to annihilate the Serbs rather than just force them out," said an official.
Milosevic builds bunker bolthole
AS Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president, faces the prospect of defeat at the polls for the first time in his political career, it has emerged that he has begun building an underground bunker complex for himself beneath a villa in eastern Serbia once used by Marshal Tito, writes Tom Walker.
The extensive renovations of the former Yugoslav dictator's residence on a mountain known as Crni Vrh near the town of Bor come amid speculation in Belgrade about Milosevic's likely next move.
The formation of a new army unit designated to re-turn to Kosovo suggests Milosevic is willing to make more mayhem, but the strange goings-on at Crni Vrh indicate that he is contemplating life as a private citizen wanted for war crimes.
There is speculation that the bunker may provide him with refuge from international investigators trying to bring him to trial or even his own fellow countrymen if the popular mood turns against him.
News of the extensions under the villa - known to locals as "the forbidden city" - leaked out after Marko, Milosevic's freewheeling son, returned from a visit there, and told staff at his private Madonna discotheque in the clan's home town of Pozarevac that his father feared the worst. Only the villa's roof is visible from the nearest road, but powerful lights illuminate the site at night. Villagers say Milosevic normally travels there by helicopter, and he is said to have spent much of the Nato air campaign in a command bunker there.
The elections, set for September 24, will probably determine whether Milosevic has to retreat to Crni Vrh for his own safety. Already his security forces appear to be doing everything possible to turn the election his way, with the formation of an elite army unit in southern Kosovo an obvious ploy to swing voters.
About 1,000 infantry, backed by 200 tanks, armoured vehicles and helicopters, have begun exercises known as Return 2000, a clear reference to the army's desire to take up a clause in the Nato military agreement for Kosovo that allows limited numbers of Yugoslav soldiers back into the province.
The Guardian : Rival opens fight in Milosevic territory
Special report: Serbia
Gillian Sandford in Zajecar
Monday September 4, 2000
The leading opposition candidate for the presidency of Yugoslavia, Vojislav Kostunica, played on the nationalist pride of the thousands of people who gathered to hear him launch his election campaign in the Socialist heartland of eastern Serbia.
A buzz of approval ran through the main square in Zajecar, close to the Bulgarian border, as they heard him say: "Everyone in Serbia still has some heroic blood. And we will show how worthy we are of our ancestors on September 24."
He is looking for the votes of people who have traditionally supported Slobodan Milosevic and he made his challenge far away from Belgrade, the capital.
Mr Kostunica is the candidate of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DOS), a coalition of 19 opposition groups. According to the latest opinion polls he is leading President Milosevic by 51% to 31%.
Just over 70,000 people live in the Zajecar region. According to a DOS official, Cedomir Jovanovic, around a third of them are without work, although the official figure is lower.
The town has a core of opposition supporters, but in the villages the Socialists keep an iron grip on the loyalty of the old and uneducated peasant farmers.
Mr Kostunica berated communism and the Milosevic regime for stamping out democracy in Yugoslavia
"Reality has been fabricated." he said. "So don't be surprised if you hear in this big factory of lies that there were 10 of you here."
He promised to restore normal life and return Yugoslavia back to the world community.
Afterwards he led an enthusiastic group to the town's Orthodox church, said a prayer, and then had a private conversation with Archbishop Justin: a symbolic gesture which implied that the weight of the church was behind him and will help sway voters to his cause.
Outside the church a pensioner, Danilo Petkovic, 65, said: "I will vote for him. I would give him two, if I could. But we are not like the communists. We are the honest ones. I think 80% of Zajecar will vote for him."
But the real Socialist supporters are in isolated villages, where the daily news comes from state television and many people do not read newspapers.
The three hundred villagers of Gornji Bela Reka live 18 miles from Zajeca, close to the Bulgarian border.
Milivoje Veljkovic, 58, a peasant farmer there, said "Milosevic is with the people. He has shown it. Ever since he came into power he has fought for Serbia and Yugoslavia.
"Milosevic has looked after people. Everyone has a pension. I think everyone in the village thinks the same as me."
Asked about the hard times and the Nato bombing, he said: "I blame the ones from outside who are creating rules for us. All the countries that bombed us didn't have any reason, because we didn't attack anybody."
On the way to a nearby village an elderly woman in mourning black sat on a stone and watching her two goats. Bosanka Stojanovic, 70, said: "What do we expect from elections? Who has been up to now will stay. It hasn't been bad, so it won't be bad in the future."
With her pension of less than £10 a month she survives with her two goats, three sheep and a small plot of land. "Yes, I will vote for Milosevic," she said, smiling with her few remaining teeth.
•The EU will revise its policy towards Serbia radically if voters opt for democracy in the elections, the French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, said yesterday.
He was speaking for the French presidency of the EU at a foreign ministers meeting in Evian, and said all 15 members supported the statement.
The Times : Tito's heir a challenge to Milosevic
BY DANIEL MCGRORY IN SARAJEVO
OPPONENTS of President Milosevic are trying to enlist the most famous name in their fractured country's history to join the campaign for this month's elections.
They have approached the youngest grandchild of Josip Broz Tito, founder of Yugoslavia, after opinion polls showed nostalgia and support among all ages for the days when they lived under the same flag.
The candidate that they are trying to lure - Svetlana Broz - is an image-maker's ideal: a tall, blonde, elegantly dressed woman who is herself a recent victim of Mr Milosevic's vindictiveness. Her lineage makes her an obvious figure for the increasingly desperate opposition movements, as does her proven televisual ability to deliver perfectly crafted insults about the Milosevic regime.
There is no doubt that among all ages there is a growing affection for the days of her grandfather's communist rule, even among those barely old enough to remember his funeral in 1980. It does not matter to those seeking to exploit this nostalgic longing for all things Tito that it does not bear close historical scrutiny.
Dr Broz, 45, enthusiastically fosters the image that life under Tito's communism provided all her countrymen with creature comforts and safety. "I'm not being selfish because my family were in power, nor am I being foolishly nostalgic about the good old days, but it was better for all of us when we were Yugoslavs. We all had a car, a place to live and everyone I knew had a summer house and enough to eat."
There will be many of her generation who did not enjoy such privileges, although she says: "I have lost count of the people, of all ages and ethnic groups, who say that living under communism was a lot better than the present madness. The Broz name represents a country where we could live together and living standards were good."
She recognises that the real attraction for those who yearn for Tito's days is that it was better than their present leadership. "We are living under our version of Hitler, who has brought us a decade of war, so anything is better than this."
Thus far Dr Broz has resisted invitations from some in groups such as Vuk Drascovic's SPO party who are keen for her to appear on their platforms. She explains that while her affection for her grandfather is undiminished, it does not yet extend to wanting to follow him into politics.
She describes how her political skills were sharpened during fierce arguments with her grandfather, who, she says, contrary to his acerbic public image, tolerated her teenage rebellion, which included refusing to join the Communist Party.
"I was approached when I was 14 and at school to join the party. At the time I wanted to, but my father said I wasn't disciplined enough to toe the party line. I wasn't a member, but Tito never chastised us for it.
"At home he didn't want to talk politics all the time, though I did argue with him when he put various nationalist leaders in prison. I think now maybe he was right because when they got out of prison these were the bigots who started our wars. I could see after grandfather died there were many trying to break up Yugoslavia, but I did not foresee the bloodshed and nor did he."
Evidence of the popular support for Tito, who died 20 years ago aged 88, are the bouquets of fresh flowers that appear daily around his bronze statute in the centre of Sarajevo, she says. It, too, bears the scars of the recent siege, with bullet holes through the army greatcoat he is wearing and the implant of where a mortar shell landed close to the statue's plinth. She noted that statues of him have been stripped from Belgrade. Loyalists cannot even visit Tito's grave because it is in the garden of one of Mr Milosevic's official residences.
"Perhaps when he is arrested and standing in the dock at The Hague answering to his war crimes, my family and others will be allowed to visit my grandfather's grave," Dr Broz said.
"People say my grandfather was a dictator, but we were a people at peace. Milosevic is the dictator and we are at war with each other. He kills people to stay in power."
The impression that the West had of Tito in those Cold War days, as a scowling dictator who punished anyone who defied his Communist Party's rule, makes her laugh out loud. Photographs always showed him as a gnarled, bad-tempered figure, grimacing at the camera.
"Of course he wasn't like that. I don't remember him raising his voice," she says, showing the few black-and- white family photographs she still has of her embracing the old dictator.
Many other pictures that Dr Broz had went missing after a break-in at her home. The only other things taken were computer discs and recordings of conversations she had made with families in Bosnia who had risked their lives to help others from a different ethnic community.
She blames Mr Milosevic's secret police for the break-in. She shrugs and says: "I reported the theft, but the police refused to investigate. I just started all over again on what I called Good People in Evil Times. She published it in Banja Luka, capital of the self-proclaimed Serb Republic, which is a haven of literary freedom compared with Belgrade. For the moment, she has stopped working as a doctor to write more books, believing that this will do more to bring down the Milosevic regime, but, swearing that there are no offshore trust funds in Tito's name, she is going back to work as a doctor in November. What spare time she has will be spent writing a follow-up to her bestseller.
"This is about mixed marriages. There were about a third in Sarajevo before the war and what I have discovered, which is really gratifying, is that through the war about a third were mixed and that is still the story today. I have six bloodlines in me after all the mixed marriages in my family." Tito was half-Croat and married a Russian who he met in Siberia during the First World War. Her father, Zarko, fought with the Red Army and lost an arm in the battle for Moscow. Svetlana is the product of his third marriage to a Czech doctor who lived in Bosnia during the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Noticeably she refuses to call herself a Serb and will not refer to anyone she knows by their ethnic origins. She jokes that the Broz family has so many different blood lines it is impossible to categorise.
She realises that her outspoken condemnations, which are frequently aired on television and in magazines, make her a target for Mr Milosevic's vengeance, which is why this mother of two grown-up children has fled her family home in Belgrade and moved to the "enemy capital", Sarajevo. While she is talking, she glances nervously over her shoulder, a habit to see if anyone is eavesdropping.
"Friends ask: 'Aren't you afraid he might have someone to shoot you?' I tell them: 'Death is horrible, but it would be worse to be in one of his jails.' "
To avoid that risk, she usually travels overnight across the border and seldom stays longer than 24 hours, just long enough to visit her son, Ivan, 21, who is at university in Belgrade. Her daughter, Sonia, 18, has just finished school there and has taken her mother's advice to study medicine in Slovenia.
"I hope they don't leave our country altogether, but it is their choice. I refuse to call myself, or anyone else, Serb, Croat, Muslim or any such thing. I still think of us as Yugoslavs, but it's easier to believe we can be European. That thought keeps me sane."
There are aspects of present life in Sarajevo that she finds distasteful, in particular the presence of so many gangsters around the city centre who, by common consent, appear to run the place.
They are not hard to spot in their Porsche and Mercedes convertibles, their shoulder holsters visible under their hand-stitched linen jackets. From their tables in the more fashionable restaurants, they operate prostitution and smuggling rackets in drugs and tobacco, boastful they can bribe their way out of any prosecution.
She says: "I'm not sure they would behave like this if my grandfather were still around, but men like Milosevic rely upon them to get him money and to protect him."
It is up to historians, she says, to judge Tito's legacy. Ask what she would like hers to be, she describes how she wants to establish a "peace park" in Sarajevo. Ideally it would be modelled on Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, so that visitors could salute the righteous people who helped to save the city and those trapped in its siege, but could also learn about those responsible for the worst carnage in Europe since her grandfather fought Hitler.
The Guardian : Britain faces fight to keep Serb sanctions
Andrew Osborn in Brussels
Friday September 1, 2000
France will exploit its current position as EU president this weekend to push for sanctions against Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia to be watered down or even dropped, a move which Britain opposes strongly.
The timing of the initiative is particularly sensitive since Yugoslav parliamentary and presidential elections are due to be held on September 24 and supporters of the sanctions believe that any change in policy now risks boosting Mr Milosevic's popularity.
Britain's foreign secretary, Robin Cook, is likely to find himself virtually isolated, however, when he meets his European counterparts this weekend for a meeting in the French resort of Evian.
Only the Netherlands and Denmark are said to back Britain's hard line and other countries have made no secret of the fact that they believe the sanctions are flawed and ineffective.
Although the Evian meeting is informal and is not expected to yield any concrete decisions, the Foreign Office will be aware that such meetings are often used to pave the way for formal decisions shortly afterwards.
Consensus on the sanctions - which include an oil embargo, a ban on doing business with most Yugoslav firms, and travel restrictions on government officials - crumbled in July at a similar EU meeting.
Hubert Védrine, the French foreign minister, said in a recent letter to European foreign ministers: "It's obvious that our action (towards Serbia) has not yielded the desired results and that several of us are of the opinion that some of the measures we have imposed like the sanctions remain ineffective and even counter-productive.
"It will be indispensable to evaluate our policy on the eve of these very important elections."
The stated aim of the sanctions was to undermine Mr Milosevic but many countries are convinced that they have served only to impoverish ordinary Serbs and have allowed the Yugoslav strongman to portray himself and his country as the victim of international bullying.
Britain begs to differ, however, and believes that the current "carrot and stick" approach which is designed to hurt the Milosevic regime while simultaneously promoting democracy should be continued.
Foreign Office officials played down the prospect of confrontation on the issue and said they had no problem discussing different scenarios for action after the elections. They acknowledged, however, that they were still "firmly" opposed to any move to lift the sanctions.
"You've got to play this incredibly carefully because Mr Milosevic has made a career of pretending that Yugoslavia is being bullied," one official said.
Serbia is not the only subject on the agenda this weekend. France is expected to float for the first time a controversial idea to hold yet another landmark EU summit to reform the 15-nation bloc. A major summit is already planned for Nice in December with the aim of preparing for enlargement, and the French are keen to start thinking about further reforms afterwards.
There are fears in Britain that the idea of yet another summit would be to make progress on the contentious idea of a two-speed Europe. There is also speculation that such a summit might be used to draw up a European constitution, the stuff of nightmares for Britain's eurosceptics.
The EU's highly criticised £7bn a year programme of external aid is also up for review. Slammed by the commissioner in charge of it, Chris Patten, and dubbed the worst aid system in the world by Clare Short, it is in need of an overhaul. Ministers are pushing for a greater say in deciding its priorities and are likely to get their way.
The final topic on the agenda will be the Middle East. With a Palestinian threat to declare an independent state on September 13 if the peace process does not produce an agreement, the EU must consider how it would respond to such a dramatic development.
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