Milosevic (19 page)

Milosevic's propagandists deliberately fostered a national sense of self-pity and bitterness, knowing what a powerful chord it would strike in the Serbian national psyche. For these were troubling times. It was clear that Yugoslavia was in a state of growing political and economic chaos. Serbs – indeed all Yugoslav nationalities – were right to be fearful for their future if the country fell apart. To be a Serb was no longer just a nationality, or ethnic identity. Threatened on all sides by malevolent, inchoate enemies, being a Serb became a full-time occupation. The Croats and Slovenes had their national leaders, and the Serbs too needed and sought a protector. In Milosevic they believed they had found one.

Milosevic was also aided by Yugoslavia's unique political structure. Political power was steadily dissipating from the Yugoslav federal state to the six republics. The growing confusion about the role of the federal authorities was creating a power vacuum. The republics took ever more control. As Serbia became more powerful, its political elite increasingly switched from Titoism to Milosevicism. Even among some of the older, partisan generation, it seemed that Serb patriotism had deeper roots than Yugoslavism. The fundamental structure of the power networks did not alter, their personnel merely changed loyalties. Few had any moral or ideological qualms. Not just in Yugoslavia but across the Communist world, political and economic self-interest had long ago replaced any vestiges of Marxist idealism. State ownership was seen as a licence for institutionalised corruption and creaming off as much as possible for personal gain. Milovan Djilas's prescient analysis remained as valid as ever. During the 1950s he had described how, under Tito, Yugoslavia had been ruled by a new class of professional bureaucrats and privileged officials who sought only their own advancement through their ‘unscrupulous ambition'.

Party members feel that authority, control over property, brings with it the privileges of this world. Consequently, unscrupulous ambition, duplicity, toadyism and jealousy inevitably must increase . . . Careerism and an ever-expanding bureaucracy are the incurable diseases of Communism . . . The only thing that is required to
get on the road is sincere and complete loyalty to the party or the new class.
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The only difference was that under Milosevic the professional Titoists became professional Serbs. The transition did not prove troubling. Milosevic would not interfere with their privileges.

Milosevic's next target was the leadership of the northern Serbian province of Voivodina. Voivodina stretched from the Hungarian border, down to the capital Novi Sad, perched on the Danube, an hour's drive from Belgrade. Historically the region had not been part of Serbia, but of the Austro-Hungarian empire, ruled from Vienna and Budapest. It had been awarded to Yugoslavia after the collapse of the Habsburg empire in 1918.

The province still considered itself part of Mittel-Europa. Its cosmopolitan ethnic mix included Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Bosnians and Croats, as well as Serbs. Its people were independent minded, proud of their multi-cultural tradition. Novi Sad was a pleasant city with a historic centre of fine secessionist buildings, and an open main square lined by terrace cafés. The local Serbs were not seduced by Serbian nationalism, and looked down on the post-war immigrants whom Tito had brought north from Montenegro and southern Serbia to fill the houses of the expelled ethnic German minority. They were more narrow-minded and insular.

The Voivodina leadership, such as senior party official Bosko Krunic, were wary of both Ivan Stambolic and Milosevic. They feared that they were Serbian centralisers who wanted to reduce, or abolish, the autonomy granted to Voivodina in the 1974 constitution.

But they had not anticipated the methods that Milosevic would use to achieve his aims on the fateful night of 6 October 1988. An angry mob, at least 15,000 strong, had surrounded the Voivodina government building, pelting it with rocks and yoghurt and demanding that the entire Voivodina leadership resign. In a one-party state such violent and frightening events were unheard of.

Bosko Krunic recalled:

It was clear that this had been carefully planned. The placards and the demonstrators' rhetoric were vicious and dangerous. It was as if Milosevic himself was talking about Serbs and Serbia. Under my window alone there were two hundred people, all shouting that we were traitors and thieves, and to kill Azem Vllasi [the Kosovo Albanian
leader]. During the evening the crowd grew bigger. There was a group of people from Cacak waving placards saying they had come to sort things out. The demonstrators were roaming across the city.
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Over a hundred windows were broken. Frightened staff inside took refuge in the basement, fearful that the mob would storm the building. The police were unable, or unwilling, to hold the crowd back and several dozen were injured in the melée. The leadership consulted Yugoslav President Raif Dizdarevic. He insisted that they resign. According to Krunic:

Some in the Voivodina leadership were opposed, because they knew that Milosevic was organising this, and this was not a reason to step down. They wanted a proper meeting, with discussions and political debates, not something that was decided by a mob on the street. I thought by resigning it would take the pressure off, as I was one of the most attacked, and the political situation would then settle down. I thought it would be a good tactic so that we could then have further debates.

Milosevic had won. Toppling the Voivodina leadership was the first of what became known as the ‘anti-bureaucratic' revolutions. At the Eighth Session Milosevic had exploited the widespread feeling in the party leadership that it was time for the old generation to stand down. The anti-bureaucratic revolution took that revolutionary dynamic, the righteous anger of those who feel their time has come, a stage further. Political battles were now fought not by anonymous, unaccountable apparatchiks in closed, smoky rooms, but by the people, on the streets. It was intoxicating and it was dangerous.

Next to be targeted was the southern republic of Montenegro, the homeland of Milosevic's parents. The majority of Montenegrins are culturally very close to Serbs, worshipping in the Orthodox faith and sharing the same cultural heritage. Many of them anyway favour union with Serbia. Milosevic's brother Borislav had declared himself of Montenegrin nationality, while Slobodan decided he was a Serb. Milosevic found easy recruits there for his nationalist, centralising campaign. On 7 October, two days after Voivodina's yoghurt revolution, demonstrators poured onto the streets of the capital Podgorica to protest against police repression, after police had broken up a gathering of striking steel
workers. For the next three months a young Communist official named Momir Bulatovic organised a relentless political campaign against Montenegro's leaders, eventually forcing their resignations. Such was the deference and servility the thirty-four-year-old showed to Milosevic, he was soon nicknamed ‘the waiter'.
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But by spring 1989 the waiter was giving orders, not taking them.

Those who tried to resist Milosevic's advance such as Zivan Berisavljevic, the former Yugoslav ambassador to London, and an influential figure in Novi Sad, paid a high personal cost. Milosevic wanted Berisavljevic ‘on-message', after the Eighth Session but the two men had not clicked when Milosevic had visited London as president of UBB. So Milosevic sent his envoy, Milan Milutinovic, a smooth talker who would later become Milosevic's ambassador to Greece, and eventually president of Serbia. ‘Milutinovic said in essence Milosevic could offer me whatever I wanted, as long as I would be under his command. I told Milutinovic to pass my best regards to Milosevic. But I was never in the habit of regularly meeting and talking with Milosevic. In particular I didn't have the feeling that he was the kind of person to promote me. I told Milutinovic to advise Milosevic to ask the people in Voivodina first, before I would make a deal. If they agreed, then I might agree. But otherwise, I would not be Milosevic's tool and Serbia's man in Voivodina.'
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A propaganda barrage was immediately unleashed against Berisavljevic. His years of service to his country counted for nothing and his reputation was systematically shredded by a stream of poisonous articles in the national and local media. Berisavljevic's wife, a completely innocent party in this exchange, was also savaged and her career destroyed. Berisavljevic recalled: ‘Day by day the articles claimed I was a traitor to the nation. I was demonised and great pressure was put on my family. My wife was an eminent banker, she was vice president of Voivodina Bank, in charge of foreign currency. She was sacked, and attacked in these articles as if she was corrupt and a thief. We had no possibility to defend ourselves. No one would publish our answer, no judge would dare to accept a libel case and even prominent lawyers were afraid to defend me.'

The campaign lasted two years. Its bitter legacy remains. ‘There were death threats, people telephoned late at night threatening my daughter would be killed, my car was damaged in the presence of the police. You can still feel strong traces of this demonisation here in public opinion, which is logical if you read for years that someone is anti-Serb, that he is a secessionist or even a British spy. This was how Milosevic frightened,
blackmailed and marginalised a lot of people. They followed him not because they were his supporters, but because they were scared.'

Milosevic's roving circus of protests, known as ‘rallies for truth', took place all over the country during 1988 and early 1989. The demonstrators demanded unity for Serbia, support for the Kosovo Serbs, and the abolition of autonomy for Kosovo. These events gave Milosevic a direct, almost visceral connection to ordinary Serbs, as he simultaneously fostered and exploited their deepest fears for the future. This was classic populism, allowing Milosevic to sidestep the discredited bureaucrats and officials that represented the old order. ‘Down with the armchair sitters,' his supporters shouted.

Although the rallies were presented as an expression of the ‘spontaneous will of the people', they were nothing of the sort. They were highly planned and organised by Milosevic and the Serbian secret service, the SDB, designed to maintain a delicate balance between inciting fear and intimidation and actual violence. (It was a deliberate choice to provide demonstrators with pots of yoghurt, as well as rocks, for example.) Milosevic did not want the mob to physically attack opposition leaders: That would have triggered a backlash, and brought in the federal authorities to restore order.

An ethnic Hungarian called Mihalj Kertes played a key role in organising the Novi Sad protest. Kertes was connected to the SDB, and would soon become one of Milosevic's most important allies. He was Milosevic's answer to those who claimed he was a Serbian nationalist. Kertes declared that if he, an ethnic Hungarian, had nothing to fear from Serbia, then neither did anyone else. Milosevic had taken control of the Serbian SDB soon after he became head of the Serbian Communist Party in 1986. Each of the six Yugoslav republics boasted its own secret service. (There was also a Yugoslav SDB, reporting to the Federal Presidency.) In a one-party state, the ruling party and the secret services are entwined in a symbiotic relationship. The party needs the secret service to guard against any threats to its rule, while the secret service needs the ruling party to guarantee its privileges and power. During the late 1980s the growing political power of the republics was reflected in the increasing strength of their security services.

The man who ran the Serbian SDB, in effect Milosevic's intelligence chief, was Jovica Stanisic. He was from the same town as Mihalj Kertes, Backa Palanka in Voivodina. His family was of Montenegrin origin, one
of the inner immigrants who had moved to Voivodina after the Second World War. Born in 1950, Stanisic studied political science and law in Belgrade, and joined the secret service after leaving university. A keen mind and highly-developed political sensors helped him rise quickly up the intelligence hierarchy to a senior position, and he became one of Milosevic's most important allies, playing an extremely significant role in the Serbian leader's consolidation of power. Stanisic is a highly secretive person, rarely seen in public. According to one source, his former classmates could not even trace his telephone number to invite him to a university graduation reunion.

Eastern European secret policemen are often assumed to be unimaginative robots. A Communist-era joke goes like this: Why do secret policemen go around in threes? One who can read, one who can write, and one to keep an eye on the two dangerous intellectuals. This is quite wrong, at least among senior officers. One reason for the endurance of the Communist regimes is that high-level intelligence officials were often sophisticated and clever individuals, who understood how the world really worked. This did not mean they were ethical or moral people, but they were efficient. The man who, more than any other, brought Mikhail Gorbachev to power was Yuri Andropov, chairman of the KGB. Milosevic was no Gorbachev, but he understood the value of accurate information. Buoyed by his triumphs in Voivodina, Milosevic turned to Kosovo. On 17 November 1988, the entire Kosovo party leadership was simply sacked. A group of miners from Trepca marched fifty-five kilometres to Pristina in protest. There they joined students for a demonstration that lasted days, demanding that their leaders be reinstated, to no avail.

Two days later the biggest ever public gathering was held in Belgrade. Serbian media claimed that up to one million people attended the ‘meeting of all meetings'. The rally purported to celebrate ‘Brotherhood and Unity'. But its true purpose was to celebrate and reinforce Milosevic's control over Kosovo. Across Serbia employees were directed by their bosses to take the day off, and enjoy the free food, drink and transport supplied to ferry them to the capital. Milosevic addressed the rally: ‘Every nation has a love which warms its heart. For Serbia it is Kosovo. That is why Kosovo will remain in Serbia.'
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The poet Milovan Vitezovic proclaimed: ‘The people have happened'. It became the catch phrase of the Serbian nationalist renaissance.