Milosevic (17 page)

This was a blunder. Firstly, in Yugoslav politics to put things in writing was generally a mistake.
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Secondly, Stambolic was the President of the Serbian republic, and the forthcoming Eighth Session was a meeting of the Serbian Communist Party central committee, not the Serbian government. The party was subordinate to the state, but like all political organisations, the Yugoslav Communist parties zealously guarded their territory from incursions, whether from the republic governments or federal institutions. Like British members of parliament who are perpetually dragooned into the voting lobbies by party whips, every now and again they rebelled against authority.

Ivan Stambolic's letter was not well received by Dusan Mitevic and other members of the Belgrade party committee: ‘The letter said Stambolic was not expecting any discussion about Pavlovic, and the message was that we should shut up. This was unprecedented. I said immediately that I would do what I felt, that as a Communist I would not submit to this pressure.' Mitevic scented political blood. ‘I also understood that they were losing. This letter was the proof. The president should never pressurise the party.' Nonetheless, at that meeting, the Belgrade party leadership did vote to support Pavlovic.

Milosevic then upped the stakes. On 18 September the presidency of the Serbian party met. There Stambolic tried to broker a deal between his two protégés. A reasonable and decent man, he repeatedly called for compromise and negotiation to defuse the political tension. He suggested that they meet for coffee every day. Or maybe even lemonade. Stambolic's touching suggestion showed how much the old-style compromiser was out of his depth. The time was long past for coffee or lemonade. Pavlovic was accused of impeding ‘ideological unity' by the Milosevic camp. This was a catch-all phrase which essentially meant whatever the accuser wanted.

Still, Milosevic needed something more than this. He was wobbling. Mira telephoned him, to discuss how the meeting was progressing. She told her husband that there was no going back, he was too exposed. She was right. If Milosevic blew this, there would be no second chance. Dusan Mitevic went into action. He drafted a letter saying that he and four other members of the Belgrade party committee had been pressurised by Ivan Stambolic into supporting Dragisa Pavlovic.

The next morning, Milosevic, like Neville Chamberlain on his return from Munich, held in his hand a piece of paper. His face was thunderous as he took the podium. ‘I thought the Russians had invaded, or the Third World War had begun,' recalled Stambolic. Milosevic spoke as though he had just read the letter for the first time.

Comrades, I have hesitated for the last hour or two. We have received a letter. First I asked for it to be checked as authentic, that there wasn't some mistake. Then I doubted whether one could actually read out this letter at the Presidency itself . . .
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With the full attention of the four-dozen odd people at the meeting, Milosevic backtracked slightly. A little humility was in order before the final act in this brutal piece of political theatre. ‘Maybe I will be making a mistake . . .'

By reading out the letter, Milosevic was arguing he had evidence that Stambolic was engaged in personal intrigues against the best interests of the party. Of course intrigue and plots were the lifeblood of the Serbian Communist Party, like every other political organisation. Milosevic seized the moment, and called for a vote to recommend the expulsion of Pavlovic. But only eleven out of twenty supported Milosevic. Five voted against, and four abstained. It was not a decisive enough victory over the Stambolic group. None the less Milosevic could not resist some parting words to his former friend: ‘I sincerely hope, I believe it firmly, that Comrade Stambolic was manipulated and not guilty.'

Mitevic said that his letter was influential in saving Milosevic that day. ‘The Central Committee was split . . . Stambolic's biggest problem was that he had not said he had written his first letter to us, so people got angry with him for acting behind the scenes. Even people who were against Milosevic said that they did not know this kind of thing was going on.'

Shortly before the actual Eighth Session was due to begin, a curious buzzing sound filled Milosevic's office. ‘Milosevic hums to himself when he prepares for political battle. He paces up and down, alone, and hums like a guru or dervish,' said Mihailo Crnobrnja. But not all the guru's associates were happy with his new nationalist doctrine and the attack on Pavlovic. Crnobrnja had not taken part in Milosevic's attempt in 1986 to block Pavlovic's succession to his post as head of the Belgrade
Communist Party. ‘In a sense he let me off the hook then. He did not ask me to support him, because that would have put me in a very difficult position. He did not talk to me about nationalism because he knew I did not agree with it. I liked Pavlovic very much and he was a good friend of mine. On the other hand, the message was that I should not make a show of defiance.'
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The opening day of the Eighth Session, 22 September, would prove to be a pivotal event in Yugoslav history. The meeting was supposedly about economics, but that was merely a pretext for the political assassination of Pavlovic, and, by extension, of Stambolic. Dusan Mitevic prepared to broadcast the events on live television. Thirty years earlier Tito had exploited the radio for live broadcasts of the party meeting that considered the fate of the dissident writer Milovan Djilas. Now Milosevic was learning the power of having the broadcast media under his control. He could speak directly to the nation, and reach straight into the homes of the Serbs.

Milosevic was playing for high stakes. Once he went public with the new, ‘nationalist' line – even if voiced in Titoist language – there would be no going back. If Milosevic triumphed it would be the end of the ancien régime. But if he and his group failed, Stambolic and his allies would have no option but to crush them politically. Milosevic's career would certainly be over, and if he went down, all his allies would follow. They might even be sent to prison on some or other charge. In a Communist state such things are easily arranged.

When the session opened Milosevic immediately attacked. He heaped praise on Tito as a leader who had brought unity to Yugoslavia, then accused Pavlovic of being against Tito and Yugoslavia. The charge was absurd. Pavlovic had for weeks tried to maintain brotherhood and unity between Serbs and Albanians, and calm the very nationalist hysteria that Milosevic was fostering. But there was no place for logic. In the Alice in Wonderland world of Serbian Communism, anti-logic ruled. For this was a show trial, part of a tradition that stretched back to Stalinist Russia and the Spanish Inquisition. The grand inquisitor might be Milosevic in Belgrade, Vishinsky in Moscow, or Torquemada in Spain, but the ritual was identical: some or other arbitrary standard was set, theological or ideological, which the accused could never meet. Pavlovic could just as well have been charged with secretly reading the Torah in Catholic Granada, thought-crime against Stalin, or stealing chocolate from Serbian schoolchildren.

The dry words of party rhetoric spoken by Milosevic were long
drained of any meaning. He proclaimed: ‘We expected trouble from the Kosovo separatists. But we didn't expect it from party members here. Those who obstruct our reforms violate party discipline. They can't deny it.'
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Stambolic proved to be a tough opponent. He attacked Milosevic for calling for party unity, while actually fostering dissent. Milosevic, he said, should try and avoid conflict. The country watched transfixed as the battle played out on its television screens.

The small minority of liberals at the session were not taken in. They were outnumbered, but they could still speak, for the historical record, if nothing else. A young historian called Ljubinka Trgovcevic accused Milosevic of ‘using methods which were abandoned long ago'.
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Milosevic canvassed every possible vote at the Eighth Session, including the leader of the Kosovo Albanians, Azem Vllasi. ‘Milosevic said, “Azem, get me the Kosovo delegation's votes. Help me out on this one.” I said, no way!'
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Vllasi's refusal sparked a tirade of abuse from Milosevic, who was not used to being thwarted. Milosevic called him a ‘cunt'. Vllasi retorted that Milosevic was ‘a liar and a cheat'. Some delegates carried two speeches in their pockets, depending on how the vote went, recalled Trgovcevic. ‘The atmosphere was terrible. People were standing and biting their nails. Everyone turned greyer and greyer.'

Pre-arranged telegrams of support poured in from provincial leaders, and from the Kosovo Serbs. The Milosevic bandwagon was now unstoppable. Milosevic himself stuck to Orwellian double-speak. It was not acceptable, he said, for the leaders of the Serbian Communist Party to be threatened with accusations of nationalism.

Serbian nationalists would do the greatest harm to the Serbian people today by what they offer as being allegedly the best thing, namely isolating the Serbian people . . . No one can label us Serbian nationalists because we want to, and really will, resolve the problem of Kosovo in the interests of all the people who live there.

Film of the Eighth Session shows Stambolic's gradual realisation of what was happening to him and Pavlovic. Like a bull in a Spanish arena, he is first wounded by the picadors as they advance to pierce and stab his skin. A Milosevic ally, Dusan Ckrebic, accused Stambolic of ‘behaving like a dictator'. He replied: ‘I don't understand. Why do you accuse me of being a dictator. It's not my problem, I'm not the dictator.' Then the matador – Milosevic himself – moves in for the kill.
Milosevic called the vote. Dragisa Pavlovic was expelled from the Serbian party presidency. Milosevic savoured the moment. The lonely Pozarevac schoolboy, whose mother dressed him in a white shirt and tie before he set off for the classroom each morning, had come a long way.

The course of Yugoslav history might have taken a very different turn had Pavlovic not been defeated at the Eighth Session of the Serbian Communist Party's central committee. He was the kind of thoughtful political leader who understood that, with the approaching end of Communism, Yugoslavia needed to move towards social democracy and political liberalisation. With some nudging, and enough political support, Stambolic too might have eventually moved in this direction. Pavlovic left political life and died nine years later. A few days after the Eighth Session, Stambolic met with Milosevic and General Nikola Ljubicic, one of Milosevic's key backers in the army. Stambolic was allowed to continue as Serbian President until 14 December 1987. He then followed Milosevic into the world of international banking. The new president of Serbia was a retired general, a hawk-faced former partisan called Peter Gracanin.

Stambolic was a tragic figure, who made the fatal mistake of believing that his friendship with Milosevic was protection enough. In the rural, patriarchal Serbian society from which he came, a man's word was his bond. It was simply unthinkable, something outside his mental universe, that his
kum
could betray him. Others saw what was coming. Zivorad Kovacevic had warned Stambolic about Milosevic. At a farewell lunch after his appointment as Yugoslav ambassador to the United States in 1987, Kovacevic asked Stambolic:

‘Ivan, what are you going to do with this man? Don't you see that he is preparing something against you, behind your back?' Milosevic had his people everywhere, especially in the media, but they were leaky. Stambolic said to me, ‘I believed that you would be the last man to succumb to rumours like those, which are completely groundless.' I said, ‘Ivan, you are a fool'. He was a bit offended, but said nothing.
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Kovacevic recalled a later conversation with Stambolic: ‘I asked him, “Ivan, do you remember what the last words I said to you were?” He said, “Yes, you told me that I am stupid.” I asked him what he thought now. He said, “Well, there is some truth in that”.'

Stambolic's life was soon touched by a far worse tragedy. Early in 1988 his daughter Bojana was killed in a car crash. Milosevic attended the funeral. He and Stambolic embraced. Ivan's wife Katja, for whom Milosevic had once brought back so many gifts from New York, refused to acknowledge Milosevic's presence. The friendship between Milosevic and Stambolic was over, forever.

With hindsight it is clear that sending Milosevic to Kosovo was one of the biggest political mistakes of Stambolic's career. Yet how apparent was it then that Kosovo would become such a pivotal issue? In a sense Kosovo was Yugoslavia's Northern Ireland, continually rumbling in the background, and every now and again exploding into violence. Riots and demonstrations had erupted sporadically for years, and Kosovo was a long way from Belgrade.

According to Mitevic, Stambolic should have negotiated with Milosevic. Mitevic claimed that Pavlovic, not Stambolic, was the target.

Stambolic showed that he was not a capable politician, he should not have taken anyone's side. He should have tried to make a deal with Milosevic . . . Milosevic did one thing that foreigners don't understand and that we forgot. During the 1980s there was a change of generation happening in Yugoslavia. A lot of old people, war heroes, were still in power. They kept everything for themselves. Milosevic was the only young man, from our generation, with a chance to break that generation. Everyone supported him.

Milosevic's toppling of Stambolic was supported by several factions within the party that would later turn against him. His triumph was not the result of some kind of diabolical manipulation. Certainly it was testimony to his powers of organisation, but he also understood the zeitgeist. Mihailo Crnobrnja said: ‘In those days, unfortunately, most of the people felt that Milosevic was right. There was an impatience, and an underlying sense that Serbia was getting a raw deal, and that Stambolic was not doing enough. He was working slowly and patiently to change attitudes and views by balancing political forces, not by forcing people's arms.'