Is Milosevic finished? Some people are convinced of it. They look at the peace terms and ask what he gained by subjecting them to 72 days of punishment from NATO’s bombers. Milosevic is hard put to reply, especially since most of his state-controlled broadcast facilities have been destroyed. Serb TV was his primary tool for sculpting public opinion. And Kosovo’s Serbs were always his most loyal supporters–until now. They helped bring him to power in 1987 and eliminate his biggest rivals in 1988. After hearing of the Kosovo deal last week, a Belgrade entrepreneur predicted: “From today the countdown has begun for the end of Milosevic.” Don’t bet on it. Survival is what Milosevic does. He weathered the storm over Krajina. He remained firmly in power even as Yugoslavia shriveled to little more than a third of its former area. He’s there now, while many Serbs wonder if they are headed for all-out civil war.
If he chooses, Milosevic can claim victory of sorts. The new plan backs off from some of the points the Serbs rejected in March when talks collapsed in France. For one thing, the old proposal would have given NATO’s forces special immunities and privileges anywhere in what’s left of Yugoslavia. And the Rambouillet plan, as it was called, was an implicit step toward a referendum on full independence for Kosovo. Serbia won those battles. Technically, at least, the peacekeepers will be sent in by the United Nations, not NATO. Their area of operations will be restricted to Kosovo–and the breakaway province is defined as a part of Yugoslavia.
Still, for many Serbs the word victory has a hollow sound after the NATO bombing. Rather than trying to claim credit, Milosevic has sufficient political wisdom to focus instead on spreading the blame. Which is easy enough. Many high-ranking Serbs were vehemently opposed to any retreat from Kosovo. Serbia’s ultranationalist deputy prime minister, Vojislav Seselj, head of the Serbian Radical Party, is still trying to block the peace deal and is likely to quit the government–or be thrown out–within the next few days. The plan has been endorsed by all four of the other major parties in Serbia’s Parliament, including the United Yugoslav Left, headed by Mirjana Markovic, the redoubtable First Lady. Nevertheless, the Radicals have dedicated friends in the military. Many Serbs worry that some officers might break ranks and support Seselj against the government.
Fear of a bloody nationalist revolt is turning some veteran enemies of Milosevic’s into his allies. If a mutiny splits the military, Serbia’s moderates and their Western friends could help him keep control. They want him eased out of office gently and democratically, not shoved aside by frustrated ethnic cleansers. The top candidate to become Milosevic’s new best friend is Vuk Draskovic, the emotional, charismatic former journalist who heads the liberal Serbian Renewal Movement. In 1996 he led a grass-roots attempt to dump the president. Two years later Draskovic joined the Yugoslav government as deputy prime minister. This April Milosevic sacked him for advocating peace in Kosovo. Now he’s favored to be named as Yugoslavia’s prime minister to head a national-salvation government.
Draskovic has his plan all sketched out. Yugoslavia’s Constitution, long ignored, gives primary authority to the prime minister. The president–Milosevic–has a basically ceremonial role, “like the queen of England,” says Draskovic. As soon as Milosevic has been safely marginalized, Europe is ready to begin rebuilding the country, society, politics and all. “If the economy opens,” a European diplomat in Belgrade predicts, “you will see new alliances, new political opportunities.” By early autumn, Draskovic tells NEWSWEEK, the country will be ready for elections. With luck and care, the balloting should be the cleanest in Yugoslavia’s history. And that will decide Milosevic’s fate, Draskovic says: “Who will stay in power will be the decision of our voters.”
There’s one problem: Milosevic surely has ideas of his own. He’s not about to surrender to the Hague tribunal for trial as an accused war criminal. He’s no more likely to give up his dictatorship quietly. Milosevic is notorious among Serbs for using crisis and bloodshed to tighten his grip on power. Amid rumors of armed rebellion, he now purports to be the country’s only hope for stability. And even more upheaval is on the way. International-relief officials say some 50,000 Serb civilians abandoned their homes in Kosovo even before the start of the NATO bombing in March. When Belgrade’s forces pull out, the remainder of the province’s 150,000 or so Serb inhabitants are expected to follow.
To stay behind would be to court destruction. All Serb men in Kosovo were issued weapons when the bombing began, and most were conscripted. Many took part, willingly or otherwise, in atrocities and cleansing operations against their former Albanian neighbors. Now any Serbs who dare to remain in Kosovo can expect to be targets for revenge. Most would be too frightened to stay, even if NATO assigned each of them a personal bodyguard. A prominent Kosovo Serb made that prediction back in March–before the Serbs had chased 1 million ethnic Albanians from the land of their birth.
The new wave of Serb refugees may be hard to control. They will be joining an estimated 600,000 Serb exiles from Bosnia and Croatia who are already trying to scrape out a living amid the wreckage of Milosevic’s Yugoslavia. The trick for Milosevic will be to make sure they keep blaming their woes on NATO and the discredited Radicals, not on their own president. The most effective way to channel the Serbs’ anger may be to stir up yet another ethnic war for them to fight. Even within Yugoslavia’s drastically shrunken boundaries, there are still a few potential ethnic battlegrounds to exploit: Montenegro, Sandzak, Vojvodina. Those places may not have Kosovo’s historic and cultural resonance for the Serbs. Even so, the ultranationalists are busily continuing to incite ethnic hatred there.
The violence wouldn’t necessarily stop there, though. Only half in jest, people in Belgrade have begun saying Serbs would cleanse their own people if they had no one else left to victimize. Milosevic might reflect a monstrous wish buried in many Serbs’ souls: an ill-controlled longing for self-destruction. It’s probably just another crackpot theory. But the sense of impending apocalypse just refuses to go away. Even Milosevic, the nation’s master survivor, may have brought disaster upon himself at last.
