|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
| YUGOSLAV ELECTIONS | |
 September 27, 2000  |
|
|
Rallies erupt in the streets of Belgrade as Slobodan Milosevic calls for a runoff.
|
|
NEBOJSA BAKAREC, Opposition Delegate: They are in very great fear that we are going to find that inside, that -- because they are giving false results -- because they have the exact results that we have, only they have, they have some people from Milosevic regime are demanding them and they are asking them to give the false results. |
|||||||||||||||||||
| A divided nation | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
WOMAN (Translated): He is our president and he will be our president. We all love him, and that's why we voted for him. America cannot tell us for whom to vote and what to do. GWEN IFILL: Milosevic is making no plans to go. SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC, President of Yugoslavia: (Translated) I expect that the political scene of Serbia will be cleaned…and that will enable faster economic development of our country.
TONY BLAIR: And I say to Milosevic, "You lost. Go. Your country and the world has suffered enough from you." (Cheers and applause) |
|
|||||||||||||||||||
| A figurehead to the West | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
GWEN IFILL: Milosevic has been in power since 1987. He surprised observers at home and abroad last month when he called for early elections. In the 13 years he's been its president, the Yugoslav Federation has crumbled. In 1991, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia became independent countries. Bosnia declared independence a year later, eventually becoming a divided nation. Today, all that's left is the republics of Serbia, which includes the province of Kosovo and Montenegro. Serbia has been torn apart by war. A year and a half ago, NATO bombs forced Milosevic's troops out of Kosovo, which today is overseen by a multinational peacekeeping force. And in 1995, NATO launched air attacks against Bosnian Serbs who were fighting against Serbian Muslims and Croats. The bombing brought the Serbs to the negotiating table, leading to the Dayton Peace Accords. There is no official count, but it is widely assumed that hundreds of thousands died in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990's. As a result, Milosevic has been indicted for war crimes by the International Tribunal in the Hague. Kostunica was Milosevic's major challenger during the month-long presidential campaign. The 56-year-old former constitutional lawyer pledged to restore Yugoslavia's reputation. But he has said he would not extradite Milosevic to be tried for war crimes, and he has criticized the West for focusing too much on Milosevic. VOJISLAV KOSTUNICA (Translated): He is seen as someone who is the strongman in this region, the only person the Americans, Washington, could talk to. And that is the fact I want to highlight, and our hardships came out of that because the international community saw only Milosevic. They saw him as the only negotiator.
DRAGISA BURZAN, Vice Prime Minister, Montenegro: So I would say that this will unfortunately lead to additional commotion, possible innocent victims, and I thought that it would be very good for him, after 15 years of the evil he created here, to leave Serbia at least once in an upright position. GWEN IFILL: Last week, Milosevic made his first visit to Montenegro since 1997. At a campaign rally, he lashed out at the West and the opposition, calling them "rabbits, rats, and even hyenas who wish to transform this gigantic nation into a poodle at the whim of its foreign master." |
||||||||||||||||||||
| Protesting in the streets | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
GWEN IFILL: For more on the election in Yugoslavia we turn to Charles Ingrao, Professor of History at Purdue University; Dusko Doder, co-author of the biography "Milosevic," and a former Washington Post correspondent, who has reported extensively from Yugoslavia; and Obrad Kesic, a Balkan affairs analyst who meets often with Serbian political party leaders. Mr. Kesic, we saw 200,000 people at last count in the Balkan square in Belgrade. What does this mean?
GWEN IFILL: The opposition has decided not to accept this runoff? Can that stand? OBRAD KESIC: I think as long as they have support in these numbers, definitely. That is a big question now can they maintain it over the next several days, and will Milosevic listen to the voice of the people. The larger the gatherings, the more pressure on him. It's important to keep this momentum going. GWEN IFILL: How about that, Dusko Doder, a smart idea to turn down this opportunity for a runoff? DUSKO DODER, Journalist/Author: I'm not so sure, because you may have a Fujimori situation. What you have in Serbia right now is sort of a Shakespearean drama, where you have the dictator who cannot go anywhere, he is an indicted war criminal, he has no place to go, perhaps China or Russia, but that's not for certain they would accept him, and he's fighting for his life. Now, he is very dangerous in this situation, he's going to try to maneuver and try to find a way out of it. Now it seems to me one of the ways out of it is, unless there's a continuous presence of people in the street for a long time, you will have people accept the idea, well, there's a runoff, so if you won once you will win twice. GWEN IFILL: So you think one scene of protest is not enough, it has to be continuing protest? DUSKO DODER: Right. In 1996- 97, for three months there were hundreds of thousands of people in Belgrade marching every day, and they didn't bring him down. In this situation it's something that's very important. For the first time that the West has come, and the United States in particular, has come unequivocally on the side of opposition promising lifting of sanctions. I think people understand it because they have suffered now for ten years of deprivation. The country is an economic basket case. And there is some hope there. GWEN IFILL: Mr. Ingrao, will that make the difference?
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
| As it plays out | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
GWEN IFILL: Professor, do you think there's going to be a runoff? CHARLES INGRAO: I think there are three possibilities here. At this point the most likely possibility is that there will not be a runoff; that Milosevic will have to concede as his own apparatus is starting to dissolve. Everybody knows that Kostunica won the election, and I think the first major mistake he made was in letting that particular evidence seep into the public sphere. If he survives the next ten days and there is a runoff, there's probably going to be a boycott by the opposition. Milosevic will declare victory, but then the second crisis he will have is there will be massive street demonstrations and probably the first civil disobedience Serbia has had since the 1990's when he came to power. If he still is in power despite that, and certainly the special police are supporting him at this point although the army is not, if he's still in power, then Kostunica can turn to the international community, can form a parallel government, and once he does that I think he'll get recognized by most of the countries in the international community. And if Russia joins that, then he's finished. GWEN IFILL: Professor Ingrao has just laid out a very complicated series of event which could happen here. Which do you think is most likely, Mr. Kesic? OBRAD KESIC: It's difficult to speculate because there's other scenarios as well, he has other options that he can choose. For example, he can choose to go into the federal parliament which was announced that they have control, and the opposition isn't contesting that announcement that his coalition is controlling the federal parliament. He can try to use that to manipulate a power struggle between let's say the prime ministership and the presidency. He did this in 1992, if you remember, when Milan Panic was prime minister and Dolvic Petrocic, [ph] was president; he effectively held power as the president of Serbia at that time. So he's used to manipulating the system, the constitution, to serve his ends. What we need to pay attention to right now is how much pressure is being applied to him. The number of street protesters is important because that creates the mechanism for the scenario that Professor Ingrao laid out, that the cracks within his ruling structure can widen and that people will begin to abandon him even at a quicker rate. GWEN IFILL: So Mr. Doder, we have been talking about all the things Milosevic can do to hang on the power. What can Kostunica do to try to seize it?
GWEN IFILL: Professor Ingrao, so we're thinking that Mr. Kostunica can win, but lose? CHARLES INGRAO: Well, I think he made a wise decision, because Milosevic is right now trying to perform a strategic retreat. He's lost the battle this weekend, he wants to regroup his forces to fight again. He only has to win once. And what Kostunica and the opposition have done is they're going to try to deprive him of the chance to have a runoff. Like a good general he wants to finish the battle now, and not give Milosevic a chance to retreat. So they have to make no deals with Milosevic, they should not temporize, they should really go for the jugular. And I think that that's their best chance. But one way or another, Milosevic will fall by one of these scenarios. GWEN IFILL: How about Milosevic's control over the army, does that strengthen him or does it weaken him at this point? CHARLES INGRAO: Well, what I've been told is that 80 percent of the army voted for Kostunica. There were polls taken, the army voted separately, and I've been told they got 83 percent of the vote. Whether that's exaggerated or not is not important. The fact is the army has never been in Milosevic's camp, only the people at the top who were his own appointees. If the army is going to intervene to save him, the MUP, the special police themselves will not be able to put this revolt down, because in the last century the Serbian Yugoslav military have intervened twice in crises, and I would suggest that to prevent a civil war the military will come in on the side of the people. They are patriots. GWEN IFILL: What do you think about the situation with the military? OBRAD KESIC: I think that that analysis is basically right. Milosevic has never controlled the middle officer core, and that's essential in terms of controlling the heart of the military, and definitely there's no talk about the conscripts, because the Yugoslav military to a large extent is comprised of conscripts, and all these young recruits are the center of opposition to him. This movement OTPOR [ph], is basically comprised of people from 18 to 35 years of age and many of their fellow colleagues are now in the military. GWEN IFILL: How about the political savvyness of the political opposition - Mr. Doder suggested that they're kind of new to this, they may be outwitted yet by Milosevic? OBRAD KESIC: I don't know if they'll be outwitted, but definitely they're a little bit unprepared. I have to be honest with you -- I think that they were as surprised by the extent of their victory as Milosevic was. So the question is can they think very quickly, focus their energies into providing a concrete goal for the masses that are rallying around them because in the past when there were large amounts of people in the streets of Yugoslavia in '92 and 1996 and '97, one of the problems was that the leadership of the opposition didn't have a clear vision, couldn't articulate what was the end game. And I think with this case, one of the major factors that's different now from then is there's a newfound confidence of, within average people, people have lost their fear for the most part of the Milosevic repressive apparatus of power. So they're willing to stand up, and it's just important now for the opposition to point a direction. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||
| The West's role | ||||||||||||||||||||
| GWEN IFILL: You alluded earlier, Mr. Doder, to the U.S.
or the western role in this; sanctions obviously has been the extent of
our role, so much in the Balkans in the last few years. Do you think this
has had any effect or will have any future effect on the outcome of this?
DUSKO DODER: I think the sanctions have helped Milosevic basically. I think this time what's different is that we have said if the opposition wins, we'll lift sanctions. GWEN IFILL: Explain how that helps Milosevic. DUSKO DODER: Because they're not sanctions against him. He's not suffering, the population is suffering. The per capita income say in 1990 was $800 per month, today it's $50. You can imagine the drop in the living standard -- devastation, everything. Social fabric was devastated, young people, anybody who had half a brain left the country. They're in Canada, Australia, and the United States, everywhere. So I think what Milosevic's rule has been an absolute disaster, it was bloodstained. And I think the country has had enough. But Milosevic at no point, in my experience, I got there in end of 1990, had more than 25 percent of the population. And these were the veterans, the police, the old Communist apparatus, retired people, depending on the government. GWEN IFILL: So Professor Ingrao, does the West play a role here in your opinion? CHARLES INGRAO: Yes, I think it does. And I think it has had. I would disagree with Dr. Doder. I think that sanctions, it's a blunt instrument, it imprecise, it does more damage than you want, but I think both the sanctions and four defeats in warfare have hurt Milosevic. The Serbs who went to the polls this weekend will not admit it. They despise the United States, but they despise Milosevic and they blame him for Yugoslavia's economic crisis. So I think even though they don't perhaps want to admit it I think sanctions have had an effect. What the West can now do is offer what it has offered every state that surrounds Serbia, that is to say offer economic aid, the promise of eventual integration into the Western European community, and that is going to give them the leverage they need to work with Kostunica to arrive at a satisfactory solution of this crisis. GWEN IFILL: Mr. Kesic, let's assume for a moment that the voters have the final say in this. What is it that the voters can do, say, act in the next few weeks to have their will be done? OBRAD KESIC: Well, in '96 and '97, earlier we heard said by Professor Ingrao that they failed to achieve that last push to get people, to get Milosevic out of power. This time around what needs to be done is this level of mass support for the opposition has to be maintained. So you need the streets flooded with people, you need the opposition clear, clearly defining what the end game is, what's the goal for having these people out on the streets. And more importantly, I think what needs to happen is that they need to weather this out. They were very close in '96 and '97. People were beginning to abandon Milosevic from his own government. Now this has occurred during the elections, after the elections people have resigned from his party. We know there are deep divisions within his party and we know of divisions within his security forces. The question is time, and people have on the patient. There isn't a magic bullet unfortunately for this. GWEN IFILL: Dusko. Doder do you agree with that? DUSKO DODER: I agree with that, yes. GWEN IFILL: Okay, we'll leave it there, then. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us. |
||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||
 | |||||
| |||||
|
|
| |||
| |||||
| |||||
| Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station. | |||||
GWEN
IFILL: The thousands who rallied in a Belgrade Square tonight defied
the government of Slobodan Milosevic. Serbia's true leader, they said,
is now opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica. But Milosevic is not
conceding defeat. Yesterday, state-run television announced that neither
candidate had received 50 percent of the vote, and that a runoff would
be held a week from Sunday. The official preliminary tally gave Kostunica
48 percent of the vote; Milosevic, 40 percent. Alleging fraud, dozens
of Milosevic opponents tried to check the votes for themselves at the
Election Commissions building. Only one was permitted inside.
GWEN
IFILL: But the Milosevic allies are holding rallies of their own, confident
that their candidate will ultimately prevail. And many Serbs do support
Milosevic, including some living in Kosovo. 
GWEN
IFILL: More than 70 percent of the country's seven and half million
people cast ballots last Sunday for the presidency, the parliament,
and local offices. The Milosevic government permitted no international
observers, and deployed 700 troops to monitor the balloting. Western
leaders, saying the election count has not been fair, have called on
Milosevic to step down. 
GWEN
IFILL: Kostunica and his allies have received U.S. assistance. Washington
sent $77 million to Serbian opposition groups. U.S. leaders are particularly
worried about action Milosevic might take against the independent-minded
Republic of Montenegro. Officials there said three-quarters of the voters
boycotted Sunday's election, which they suspect was rigged by Milosevic
allies. They also fear unrest over the next two weeks. 
OBRAD
KESIC, Balkan Affairs Analyst: I think it's very encouraging. There
was a question mark before this rally of whether or not the people would
stand behind the democratic opposition, and the announcement that they
wouldn't go into the second round of elections, and this is very encouraging.
The people are behind him. 
CHARLES
INGRAO, Purdue University: I don't think that Milosevic is going to
be removed by a lost election or a lost war, or by massive demonstrations.
He is going to fall from power when his patronage system deserts him.
And what we've seen this weekend in the reports of the election results
from his own appointed election commission is a crack within the system,
the three, four thousand officials who are loyal to him who get their
patronage from him and their power, their money. What I'm encouraged
by is that there are cracks in this patronage system, and once we get
a psychosis of transition where people in the patronage system recognize
that Milosevic is on the way out, then he is going to fall very quickly.
The question is when that's going to take place. But I think he is finished,
this is a case of what the final scenario will be. 
DUSKO
DODER: I think Mr. Kostunica is fairly new person to politics. He lacks
charisma, he's sort of the lowest common denominator, and that was his
strength because all the other opposition leaders are prima donnas,
and that's why they could never get together. That's why Milosevic was
able to manipulate one against the other. Here the man was a serious
man, but the presidency itself is not that important. See Milosevic
has absolute majority in parliament. He can become prime minister, make
Kostunica a president, create a paralysis of power and slowly push him
out. This guy is like a snake, he's very clever. I think the most important
thing is the manifestation of popular discontent in the streets. That
can bring him down. 
