http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/dailynews/milosevic000308.htmlIs Another Serb War Looming?
Milosevic Could Be Looking for a New Distraction
As farmers wake up to the fact that fuel shortages will hamper their spring crop sowing, trouble is brewing in Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic's provincial heartland.
(Dragan Filipovic/AP Photo)By Sue Masterman
V I E N N A, March 8 — Is Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic looking for another war?
NATO analysts and intelligence think tanks across the Balkans are starting to believe so. After all, it would fit into a certain pattern: Every time Milosevic finds his back against the wall, he seeks to rally Serbia in a patriotic frenzy by detonating conflict elsewhere.
It worked in Croatia. It worked in Bosnia. It worked in Kosovo. It kept Milosevic, who has been indicted for War Crimes by the International Tribunal in The Hague, in power, but it turned Serbia into a bombed and battered pariah state and sent the standard of living back to the level of the 1950s.Winter of Discontent
Last year’s NATO bombing destroyed the nation’s infrastructure. The Serb people have lived through power cuts, food and fuel shortages, and a decline in income. Bombed bridges still block the Danube, and another year of isolation looms ahead. As spring creeps across the Balkans, its people have something on their mind other than politics: survival.
At least one in four are out of work. Rampant inflation has eaten up their savings. A further two out of four report for work at jobs that exist only on paper and collect belated wages at a level approaching poverty.
The 350,000 angry Serbs who lost their homes in Kosovo and the rest of the former Yugoslavia now demand to be allowed home.
As farmers wake up to the fact that fuel shortages will hamper their spring crop sowing, trouble is brewing in Milosevic’s provincial heartland. He needs a distraction.Southern Focus
Milosevic has been shifting his disgruntled conscript army to the south, toward the borders with Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro — and well away from Belgrade. NATO is sure he is stoking trouble in the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica. They also say his provocations triggered a new ethnic Albanian liberation movement on the Kosovo border.
In Belgrade, where the divided opposition plans to take to the streets again, there have been death-threats against journalists. Studio B, the independent TV and radio station that is the mouthpiece of opposition leader Vuk Draskovic, has been raided and wrecked by masked men in police uniforms.
Milosevic denies all knowledge of the attacks.Seeking Help From Russia
His ministers are banging on doors in Moscow, trying to rally his old Russian allies and bring Serbia back to the top of the agenda in the Presidential campaign there. He is encouraging Russia to sabotage NATO aims in Kosovo, where Russian troops are still a millstone round KFOR’s neck. Milosevic fears a Serb nationalist backlash if Kosovo wins independence.
Milosevic supporters blame the systematic assassination of those once seen as the president’s allies on the CIA. But opposition leaders believe Milosevic himself was behind some of the killings of those who challenged his iron grip on the lucrative black market or threatened to jump ship.
But the main target of Milosevic’s wrath could be tiny Montenegro, the other partner in the Yugoslav Federation. He has blocked the border, cutting trade links. He has stationed more and more Yugoslav troops there, an estimated 40,000 now. Montenegro, under anti-Milosevic reformist leader Milo Djukanovic, is threatening to go it alone.
Montenegro has a large Serb minority. Djukanovic is treading carefully, with Western support, knowing that a premature bid for independence could plunge the mountainous territory into yet another blood-drenched civil war.
Without Montenegro and its 600,000 inhabitants, compared to Serbia’s 10 million, there is no Yugoslav Federation. Without the Federation Milosevic is out of a job. Enough reason, analysts say, for Milosevic, who is part Montenegrin, to fight to the death to keep control.Signs of War?
Here are some of the facts that lead analysts to believe that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is looking for another war.
- Rising discontent in Serbia: unemployment, poverty, no future.
- 350,000 Serb refugees with no prospect of going home.
- A spate of assassinations of those close to Milosevic.
- Opposition threats to take to the streets again.
- The attack on the Studio B radio and TV station.
- Death threats against opposition journalists.
- Constant provocation of ethnic Albanian (and other) minorities in Serbia.
- More troops stationed in southern Serbia.
- Encouraging Russian interference in NATO’s Kosovo policy
- Sheltering of war criminals from Bosnia and Kosovo.
- A propaganda war against Montenegro’s leaders and threats of intervention there.Copyright ©2000 ABC News Internet Ventures
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