Socialist Action /April 2001
Milosevic is Arrested: Retribution or
Diversion?
By GERRY FOLEY
As the U.S. government's ultimatum for arresting
Slobodan Milosevic on war crimes charges ran out, the police of the new
Yugoslav government finally seized the former Yugoslav president and transported
him to prison. The U.S. rulers had demanded that the Yugoslav authorities
demonstrate their decision to cooperate with The Hague Tribunal as a condition
for the granting of millions of dollars in aid.
The Yugoslav federal minister of the interior,
Zoran Zivkovic, claimed that Milosevic's arrest had nothing to do with extraditing
him for trial in The Hague. However, the fact that the assault on the former
president's fortified residence came just before the expiration of the U.S.
ultimatum made it hard to convince anybody in Yugoslavia or outside of it
that the new Belgrade government was not preparing to hand him over to the
U.S.-dominated court.
The new Yugoslav-Serbian government is desperate
for help from the imperialist countries, since the economy has continued
to deteriorate since the fall of the old regime, particularly in regard
to the supply of electricity.
The country has been ruined by a decade of disastrous
war, sanctions imposed by the imperialist governments in the name of combatting
Milosevic's ethnic cleansing, and plundering by Stalinist bureaucrats intent
on converting themselves into honest-to-goodness capitalists.
Estimates of the unemployment rate run from 25
to 50 percent. And the new government's proclamations that it intends to
accelerate privatization raise the specter of increasing unemployment even
more.
Milosevic still has the support of a significant
minority in Yugoslavia. However, the long-drawn-out confrontation at Milosevic's
residence seems to have been more a result of divisions within the new government
itself than any opposition from the Stalinist strongman's supporters.
The federal minister of the interior, Zivkovic,
blamed the army chief of staff, Nebojsja Pavkovic, for frustrating the initial
attempt to arrest Milosevic. He even called Pavkovic's attitude a "mini
coup d'etat."
Pavkovic was the chief of the Yugoslav military
during Kosovo war in which Milosevic tried to destroy the Albanian people.
He would be a prime target in any prosecution of war criminals. He also
tried to defend the Milosevic regime up to the last minute by threatening
to use the army to repress the opposition.
The new president, Vojislav Kostunica, has had
a difficult time explaining to the masses who participated in the Oct. 5
uprising why he has left Pavkovic in charge of the military.
Furthermore, the timing of Milosevic's arrest opened
a public rift between the premier, Zoran Djindjic, and Kostunica. It was
the latter's campaign for the presidency that rallied a majority of the
Serbian population for ousting the Milosevic regime.
One of the main reasons why Kostunica succeeded
where other opposition politicians in the past failed was that he clearly
differentiated himself from the imperialists, who claimed to be supporting
"democratic" change.
Djindjic, on the other hand, has made no bones
about appealing for and accepting imperialist support. In general, he is
a much more compromised figure.
But in the Yugoslav system, it is the premier who
has the real legal power, not the far more popular president. So, it was
Djindjic that decided to move against Milosevic in time to meet the U.S.
ultimatum. Kostunica was left to squirm in the face of the apparent capitulation
to imperialist pressure.
On the other hand, principled radicals among the
forces that overthrew the old regime see the arrest of Milosevic as "theater"
designed to divert attention from the need to destroy the whole apparatus
responsible for the corruption and war crimes associated with the old regime.
The new government has announced that it intends
only to try Milosevic for corruption. But it is precisely in Serbia that
the war criminals need to be tried and condemned, so that the country can
come to terms with the chauvinism that made these crimes possible.
Even after the Serbian regime's defeat in four
wars of ethnic cleansing and the overthrow by a mass uprising of the Stalinist
boss who presided over them, the legacy of Serbian chauvinism still lies
very heavy on the ground. When I was in Yugoslavia in February, I found
virtually no literature and very few persons who challenged the nationalist
myths fostered by the old regime.
Trying Milosevic in Serbia for corruption alone
and then turning him over to an international court dominated by the imperialists
can be a diabolic mechanism for avoiding the exposure of what the Milosevic
regime represented, including the backhanded support of imperialism for
it over most of the time it ruled Yugoslavia.
Despite its appearance of retribution against a
criminal, such a procedure would be a betrayal of the masses who rose up
in the streets and workplaces of Serbia to overthrow him.
Socialist Action /April 2001 |