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SERBIA’S PRUDENT
REVOLUTION
Damjan de Krnjeviç-Mi‰koviç
The fall of communist East Central Europe is now complete. A bloodless
democratic revolution has come to Serbia. The corruption-ridden 13-
year-old regime of Slobodan Milo‰eviç is gone for good; the rule of law
has returned, after all too long an absence. Milo‰eviç and his allies have
been replaced by committed and in some cases remarkably able demo-
crats. The consolidation of this change will in all likelihood make the
Balkans (of which Serbia is the most influential entity) geopolitically
stable and economically viable. The manner in which this revolution
was conducted, and the political and intellectual formation of its two
main leaders, make it appropriate to call it the Prudent Revolution.
The first and psychologically decisive phase of Serbia’s Prudent
Revolution ended on 6 October 2000, the day Milo‰eviç finally
recognized Vojislav Ko‰tunica as the democratically elected president
of Yugoslavia. (The election, in which Ko‰tunica took slightly more
than 50 percent of the vote in a five-man race, took place on September
24.) The second and politically decisive phase ended on December 23,
with the Serbian parliamentary elections. The Democratic Opposition
of Serbia (DOS), an 18-party coalition with Zoran Djindjiç leading its
electoral list, won with almost two-thirds of the popular vote, making
Djindjiç Serbia’s new prime minister. The third phase—the political,
legal, social, and economic transformation of Serbia—will continue for
as long as it takes the prudent revolutionaries to fulfill their promise of
building, in Ko‰tunica’s words, “a state without rivers of blood for bor-
ders, a good, efficient, democratic, European state, one that is free inside
Damjan de Krnjeviç-Mi‰koviç, a doctoral candidate in political science
at Boston College and an adjunct fellow at the Institute for Strategic
Studies and Development in Belgrade, has written widely on Balkan
affairs in leading American, French, and Serbian periodicals. This essay
is dedicated to Mihailo Djuriç on the occasion of his election to full
membership in the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Journal of Democracy Volume 12, Number 3 July 2001
Damjan de Krnjeviç-Mi‰koviç 97
and free abroad, that is independent, with a normal economy, industry,
banking system, social and health care, and media.”
In contrast to the leader of Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution,
Václav Havel, a playwright by training, Serbia’s two most important
prudent revolutionaries participated seriously in politics prior to their
assumption of political power. The first, 56-year-old Vojislav Ko‰tunica,
is a constitutional lawyer and scholar who has written extensively about
the political science of John Locke and Alexis de Tocqueville. He wrote
his doctoral dissertation on the role of the opposition in multiparty
democracies and later translated the Federalist into Serbian. In 1974,
he, along with several others (led by Mihailo Djuriç), was removed from
his teaching post at the University of Belgrade as a result of his vocal
opposition to constitutional reforms proposed by President Tito. In 1989,
Milo‰eviç, who by that point had become president of Serbia, offered to
reinstate him and the others to their teaching positions. All accepted,
save for Ko‰tunica, who wanted nothing to do with the communists’
superficial efforts at reconciliation with the regime’s opponents. The
second, 48-year-old Zoran Djindjiç, also got in trouble in 1974, when
he attempted to set up a noncommunist student organization at the
University of Belgrade. Soon thereafter, he left for West Germany, where
he received his Ph.D. in philosophy under Jürgen Habermas. During the
1980s, he stayed mostly in Germany, holding various teaching positions
and becoming a successful businessman. In 1989, both men helped to
found the Democratic Party (DS). Three years later, Ko‰tunica left the
DS to found his own party, the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS). Both
men served as members of Serbia’s parliament from 1990 to 1997.
It is true that Serbia’s two main prudent revolutionaries do not always
agree on all policy issues, and that they have rather different personalities.
Djindjiç is more of a Jacobin, although since becoming Serbia’s prime
minister he has begun to emphasize the crucial importance of due process
and the rule of law. A shrewd and intelligent political operative, Djindjiç
is not interested in power for its own sake, nor is he interested in getting
rich on the job. Rather, he wants to go down in history as an efficient
manager, as the man who brought Serbia out of its decade-long economic
slump. Ko‰tunica, who is more of a Girondist, has been characterized
by Timothy Garton Ash as a humble and “very serious man. Solid. Con-
sistent. Knowledgeable and capable of sophisticated rational argument.
Principled, too. But hardly a bundle of fun. Short on charisma, dull.”
Ko‰tunica wants to make politics dull, and he has begun to lead by
example. This should not be taken as a negative characteristic, especially
when one considers his predecessor. The era of the politics of personality
is over, and the era of responsible government has begun.
Their main policy disagreement centers on the question of the
centrality and importance of Serbian identity: Djindjiç is more of a pan-
European and a Clintonesque pragmatist; Ko‰tunica is a man of
Journal of Democracy98
seemingly uncompromising principle who calls himself a “democratic
nationalist,” or “a European, a democrat, and a Serb.” This difference
may help to explain the way the Milo‰eviç regime perceived, dealt with,
and reacted to some of the key political moves made by Serbia’s two
prudent statesmen during the course of the last few years.
“Together” Falls Apart
In 1996, Zoran Djindjiç became one of the main leaders of Zajedno
(Together), a fractious opposition coalition that contested local elections
throughout Serbia. The other main leader of Zajedno was Vuk Dra‰koviç
of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO). Also entering the contest was
Ko‰tunica’s DSS; the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS),
headed by Vojislav ·e‰elj, a man who habitually used to bandy about a
pistol on television and in the parliament; and a coalition led by
Milo‰eviç’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). Ko‰tunica had been invited
to join Zajedno by some in the DS, but did not do so fully because of his
deep distrust of Vuk Dra‰koviç, then widely believed to be the strongest
opposition figure in Serbia. Many analysts at the time thought this
signified the end of Ko‰tunica’s political career. Djindjiç, who also
distrusted Dra‰koviç but thought he could be handled, especially if
Ko‰tunica entered the coalition, was displeased at Ko‰tunica’s principled
stance. Milo‰eviç’s regime, especially his state-controlled media outlets,
basically ignored Ko‰tunica. This media blackout, which continued for
several years, turned out to be a blessing in disguise, for by the time
Milo‰eviç called federal presidential elections in 2000, a large part of
the Serbian electorate had not heard anything negative about Ko‰tunica.
This could not be said of any other opposition figure, and it is one of the
main reasons he was chosen, largely by Djindjiç, to be DOS’s candidate
for president of Yugoslavia.
The Zajedno coalition won handily the second round of the local
elections on November 17, gaining majorities in 14 of the most important
Serbian cities and towns, including Belgrade. The Milo‰eviç regime,
however, would not recognize their victories. Eighty-eight straight days
of massive street demonstrations followed, led by Zajedno. Ko‰tunica’s
DSS expressed solidarity with Zajedno, and many of its leaders parti-
cipated in the demonstrations, but none of them addressed the crowds.
Ko‰tunica’s goal was to maintain a separate identity from Zajedno, which
he saw as tainted by the participation of Dra‰koviç. Some members of
his party criticized his stance, and broke away to form a new one in
early 1997. The state media organs vilified Dra‰koviç and Djindjiç as
counterrevolutionaries, paid Western agents, and traitors. Police in full
battle gear confronted the protesters daily, but in the end, the regime,
yielding to the combined pressure of the protesters, the international
community, and the Serbian Orthodox Church, recognized the results of
Damjan de Krnjeviç-Mi‰koviç 99
the election. Zoran Djindjiç became the first democratically elected
mayor of Belgrade in more than 50 years.
Djindjiç immediately moved to establish a new management team
for the local television station controlled by the Belgrade city assembly.
He focused his attention on cleaning up the city and upgrading its public
transportation. But he and his fellow opposition mayors faced not only
an acute lack of resources but obstruction from the Milo‰eviç regime.
For example, several European cities and governments offered to donate
their old city buses to Belgrade and other towns, but when the buses got
to the border, the regime simply would not let them in. The independent
media also were dealt some hard blows.
By June 1997, Zajedno disbanded, with observers generally suggesting
that its disintegration was caused by Dra‰koviç’s arrogantly stated belief
that he could achieve future victories without the assistance of any other
party. Less than a month later, Milo‰eviç, prohibited by the constitution
from running for a third term as president of Serbia, had himself
appointed by the federal parliament (which he controlled) to the then
largely ceremonial office of president of Yugoslavia. Having vacated
the Serbian presidency, he called for presidential and parliamentary
elections to be held on 21 September 1997.
Both Ko‰tunica and Djindjiç decided to boycott the elections unless
certain conditions, including fair media coverage, were met, and they
called on their supporters to stay away from the polls. In contrast, Dra‰-
koviç accepted an invitation to meet with Milo‰eviç, and afterwards
declared: “At this mini-roundtable between the chief of the Socialist
Party of Serbia and the leader of the democratic opposition, honest elec-
tion conditions were agreed. I know there will be some attacks on me
when the other opposition parties hear that I have been recognized as
leader of the democratic opposition, but it is a fact.” The same day,
Dra‰koviç went to the headquarters of the Milo‰eviç-controlled Serbian
television network, appearing in the studio for the first time in years, to
accuse his former coalition partners of, among other things, vanity.
In the September 21 elections, Dra‰koviç came in third, behind the
Milo‰eviç-backed candidate and ·e‰elj, neither of whom achieved a
majority. The ensuing runoff between the top two candidates was won
by ·e‰elj but was annulled because of low turnout. So in an election
where Dra‰koviç was the only “democratic” alternative, he came in last.
Dra‰koviç blamed his poor showing on the opposition boycott and sought
revenge. His party, joined by the SPS and the SRS, voted to remove
Djindjiç from his post as mayor of Belgrade and replaced the Djindjiç-
appointed management team of the local Belgrade television station,
controlled by the Belgrade city assembly, with Dra‰koviç’s own team.
Meanwhile, a repeat election for the presidency of Serbia had to be
called. Again Dra‰koviç came in third, and again there had to be a runoff.
·e‰elj won the runoff but the SPS candidate was declared the official
Journal of Democracy100
winner with the aid of “phantom votes” from Kosovo; Kosovo’s
Albanians, who had been boycotting everything Serbian since the early
1990s, allegedly had come out to vote en masse for the Socialist Party
of Serbia. ·e‰elj was furious, but the international community looked
the other way, figuring that it was better to live with the devil you know.
As for the Serbian parliamentary elections, the SPS won a plurality of
seats but required a coalition partner to rule. Milo‰eviç began talks with
Dra‰koviç, who publicly endeavored to exact too high a price for his
cooperation. His supporters were not pleased: They saw it as a betrayal
of all he stood for, whatever that may have been. In the end, Dra‰koviç’s
charisma was not enough to overcome his imprudence, his megalomania,
and his collaboration with Milo‰eviç. During the Prudent Revolution,
more than two years later, his party did not poll over 4 percent.
In the end, the SPO did not enter the government; instead, ·e‰elj’s
SRS did. This meant that Kosovo, the only remaining object of nationalist
agitation, would once more enter center stage in the Yugoslav drama.
The likelihood of regional stability was not increased by the rise in power
of the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army, headed by the thuggish Hasim
Thaci, to the detriment of the Democratic League of Kosovo, headed by
a man of genuine statesmanship and vision, Ibrahim Rugova. The KLA
attacks on the Yugoslav military, Serbian policemen, and Kosovo Serbs
and their property gave Milo‰eviç and ·e‰elj the required pretext to
pursue a scorched earth policy in Kosovo against the Albanian popu-
lation. Once more refugees were made instruments of war. A little over
a year later, NATO began its massive 78-day bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia, a campaign that facilitated the orchestrated displacement
of close to a million Kosovo Albanians and crippled the entire civilian
infrastructure of Yugoslavia, causing more than $30 billion in material
damages and setting back the already retarded Yugoslav economy by
several more decades.
The War
During the bombing, in early May 1999, Zoran Djindjiç fled to Mon-
tenegro, the only part of Yugoslavia that Milo‰eviç did not directly con-
trol, and from there to various Western capitals. He had been called up
as an army reservist to fight for Kosovo, where, he reasoned, he would
have been killed by one of the regime’s agents. This was not just paranoia;
it was wartime, and the regime was taking advantage of the situation to
push aside or eliminate its most serious internal opponents. Predictably,
the state-controlled media called Djindjiç a traitor and a deserter, and
Dra‰koviç accused him of cowardice. In truth, Djindjiç had gone abroad
not only to escape assassination but also to lobby European governments
to give post-war aid to cities controlled by the opposition.
In contrast, Ko‰tunica had stayed in Serbia during the war. Like
Damjan de Krnjeviç-Mi‰koviç 101
Djindjiç, he supported Milo‰eviç’s overall goal of preserving Kosovo
within Serbia and eliminating the terrorist threat but opposed, in muted
tones (understandable, given the circumstances), the full-scale organized
displacement of the Albanian population of the region. Moreover, he
said publicly that the war, the culmination of the West’s Yugoslav policy,
had been more helpful to Milo‰eviç than to his opponents. He had, of
course, also opposed the NATO war against his country, but unlike
Dra‰koviç, he had declined to enter into Milo‰eviç’s so-called Govern-
ment of National Unity.
One point, however, must be made clear: Ko‰tunica is a nationalist
and a religious man of deep and decades-old conviction who spent much
of the 1990s watching unscrupulous political opportunists—Serbs,
Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Europeans, and Americans—pervert Serbian
images and history to suit their own ends. He watched as the perfectly
reasonable aspiration of maintaining a political union of Serbs in one
state, the so-called Greater Serbia project, was turned into a series of
military operations that resulted in the displacement of close to a million
Serbs and hundreds of thousands of Croats and Bosnian Muslims, and
he watched as his people’s chosen leadership enriched themselves and
their associates in the name of the people. He watched these same men
direct political and military policies that resulted in repeated accusations
of territorial aggression, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide. He watched
as the aftermath of the Kosovo conflict produced so-called reverse ethnic
cleansing, the expulsion of most of the remaining Serbs from Kosovo
by vengeful Albanians under the noses of more than 50,000 NATO
troops. He watched and suffered, politically helpless, because his people
had been manipulated by the regime into responding only to violence
against others and to vicious demagoguery, and he simply would not
abase himself in that way for a chance at gaining political power.
Ko‰tunica believed that keeping a principled distance from the horrors
of a political process controlled by the quasi-tyrannical Milo‰eviç regime
was the most prudent political stance for a man concerned with
maintaining, in the words of Federalist 37, “the inviolable attention due
to liberty and to the republican form of government.” He would not
frivolously enter a political arena devoid of civility and mutual respect,
dominated by a government that regarded every opposition party that it
could not corrupt with a taste of power as a treasonous agent of Western
governments. Ko‰tunica had no taste for the politics of hate, violence,
and opportunism, and he remained dedicated to the Tocquevillean pro-
position that long-term political, social, and economic stability and pros-
perity can arise only if liberty is pursued as a principle of action and not
simply as an abstract principle of thought. Ko‰tunica understood,
following Tocqueville, that the destruction of privilege without the recog-
nition and entrenchment of political rights in law leads only to the
establishment of new privilege, of a new ruling class.
Journal of Democracy102
This is significant, for it means that Serbia’s Prudent Revolution is
being directed by a man who believes that a disinterested interest in the
liberty of all citizens is justice, and that equality without liberty, which
is what Milo‰eviç was trying to offer, is a very real form of slavery. At
the same time, Ko‰tunica knows that to ignore the singularity of the
Serbian experience in the twentieth century and to impose on Serbia
political and legal institutions modeled on those of another country would
be a source of instability. Ko‰tunica is a liberal, however, in the good
sense of the term: He agrees with the truth of the principles of the
American and French Revolutions. One may say that he turned to a study
of American and French political thought so as to be able to borrow
correctly the just principles behind the laws of those two great nations,
but not the laws themselves. Ko‰tunica has a profound respect for the
laws of his country, even the communist ones, some of which he wants
to replace with new ones. This respect is rooted in the knowledge that
habitually ignoring laws, whether in the name of expediency or justice,
leads only to injustice. For if people get into the habit of ignoring laws,
future governmental authority erodes, as each citizen takes it upon
himself to choose which laws to obey. Today, Ko‰tunica continues to
assert that Serbia cannot enter the community of civilized Western
nations without strict adherence to the rule of law, and as president he is
doing everything in his power to make sure that continues to happen.
The Presidential Election
On 6 July 2000, Milo‰eviç, who was of course still in power and
whose term as president of Yugoslavia was set to expire in July 2001,
had the Yugoslav parliament pass a constitutional amendment requiring
that future presidents be chosen by direct popular ballot rather than by
parliament. Presidential powers were also strengthened. On July 27,
Milo‰eviç called the presidential election for September 24. On August
7, Ko‰tunica accepted DOS’s invitation to become their candidate for
president after they accepted his conditions, the most important being
that he would have the final word in how his campaign was run. DOS,
led by the thinking of Djindjiç, had chosen Ko‰tunica because his political
career was untainted by any past association with Milo‰eviç, communism,
the West, or Dra‰koviç, and he had a reputation for humility, honesty,
principle, and moderate nationalism. He was, in other words, untouch-
able. Milo‰eviç’s propaganda machine would have no material, and since
it had ignored Ko‰tunica in the past, the people did not have a negative
impression of him. That Djindjiç was able to think this through, and to
put aside any personal differences he might have had, says much about
his political judgment and his abilities as a political organizer. Ko‰tunica
saw as much, and made Djindjiç his campaign manager.
Milo‰eviç called the early elections because he thought he could win
Damjan de Krnjeviç-Mi‰koviç 103
them. Conventional wisdom has held that he had three very good reasons
to think so. First, he thought that the opposition would not unite behind
a single candidate. Second, even if they did, he thought that their
candidate would not be credible in the eyes of the electorate. Third,
public support for the opposition appeared to be dwindling. In May, a
Belgrade rally that was supposed to attract 100,000 people attracted only
10,000, and the opposition chose not to hold any more rallies. Yet these
explanations do not fully account for why he called the election for
September. I think he had to call it before the winter months set in because
he was running out of money and the country’s infrastructure was col-
lapsing. He knew, for example, that the electrical grid could not withstand
another high-demand season. In the past, he had purchased, at exorbitant
rates, power from abroad to cover the deficit, but his regime was running
out of hard-currency reserves. Moreover, the longer he waited, the less
money he would have to throw around as preelection “rewards” to pen-
sioners and employees in state-run companies. His only tactical mistake
was that he had not foreseen Ko‰tunica’s candidacy, a fatal but perfectly
reasonable mistake to make—no one else saw it either. Only six weeks
later, Ko‰tunica would become the president of Yugoslavia.
Ko‰tunica’s campaign was a model of success, carefully thought
through and masterfully implemented. Djindjiç had Ko‰tunica go all over
Serbia, knocking on doors, giving speeches (which the latter always wrote
himself), and appearing on independent media channels and in print every
chance he got. He spoke from the heart, and he told the people the
unadorned truth. Instrumental in Ko‰tunica’s victory was the courage-
ous work of the independent media, which, despite constant repression
by the regime, continued to exist and, in limited ways, to flourish. Also
instrumental were the activities of the student organization Otpor
(Resistance), whose members were trained in neighboring countries in
the techniques of grassroots political organizing by Western non-
governmental organizations, such as the Washington-based National
Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute. Slobo-
dan Homen, a 28-year-old Otpor leader, put it to the Washington Post as
follows: “Without American support, it would have been much more
difficult. There would have been a revolution anyway, but the assistance
helped us avoid bloodshed.” Otpor activists coordinated many of their
activities with Djindjiç’s well-run campaign, ensuring that the crowds
turned out in the provinces and that the people went out to vote on election
day. But without Ko‰tunica, the Prudent Revolution would not have
succeeded.
Serbs from every walk of life and from every region of the country
saw in Ko‰tunica the first viable opposition alternative to the policies of
the Milo‰eviç regime, and they responded positively and passionately
to his message of democratic liberty and economic reform tempered by
the rule of law and the standards of public morality. In the last week of
Journal of Democracy104
the race, with Ko‰tunica leading in all the polls, Milo‰eviç finally went
out on the stump, labeling the opposition leaders “rabbits, rats, and even
hyenas” loyal to the NATO masters “who bribe and pay them.” Yet he
was unable to say anything specific about Ko‰tunica. It seems that
Ko‰tunica’s prudent strategy of lying low and staying off to the side
until the moment was right had worked. In his August 7 speech accepting
DOS’s invitation, he had emphasized that “these are the first elections
that instill some realistic hope among our people,” and throughout the
campaign he kept repeating, “This is the moment.” He turned out to be
right.
On the night of September 24, when it became clear that Milo‰eviç
was going to lose, his cronies tried to stop the vote count, but the oppo-
sition representatives on the Federal Elections Commission objected.
They were forcefully ejected from the building, and the next morning
Milo‰eviç declared outright victory. The following day, however, the
Federal Elections Commission ruled that Ko‰tunica had won a plurality
but not a majority, and thus called for a runoff on October 8. Ko‰tunica’s
reaction was swift: “We are talking about political fraud and the blatant
stealing of votes.” Djindjiç’s was even more forceful: “Ko‰tunica won
in the first round and the elections are over for us. There will be no
second round.” DOS’s on-site election monitors and some international
election monitors had each compiled their own numbers, which clearly
showed Ko‰tunica as the absolute winner. In the absence of an uncor-
rupted authority to contradict them, these numbers became convincing
proof that the regime was once more not obeying its own electoral laws.
DOS called for a countrywide general strike to culminate in a massive
demonstration in the center of Belgrade at 3 p.m. on October 5 if the
regime did not recognize Ko‰tunica’s victory.
Toppling Milo‰eviç
The decision not to participate in the second round was taken against
the advice of many Western governments, who calculated that Ko‰tunica
would win. But it was a matter of principle, and Ko‰tunica did not waver.
The West also did not think that a general strike would work, failing to
understand the level of dissatisfaction with the Milo‰eviç regime among
segments of the electorate that had traditionally been his most loyal sup-
porters (workers in the provinces, pensioners, and peasants). It was not
that the weight of guilt for the suffering inflicted on Croatia, Bosnia,
and Kosovo suddenly became too much to bear for these people; rather,
it was falling wages, rising prices and crime statistics, empty store
shelves, energy shortages, and too much corruption by officials high
and low that triggered their revolt at the polls.
Djindjiç knew from his experiences during the Zajedno days that
demonstrations alone would not be enough to topple Milo‰eviç, but he
Damjan de Krnjeviç-Mi‰koviç 105
felt that a successful general strike leading up to a massive demonstration
might be enough. In many cities and towns across the country, the call
for a strike was successful. Roads and railways were blocked by demon-
strators, schools and businesses shut themselves down, and industrial
complexes became ghost towns. The miners at the Kolubara open-pit
coal mine went on strike, cutting off the only supply of energy to Serbia’s
main electric power station and threatening to put the entire country in
the dark. Workers wore T-shirts and caps emblazoned with “1 + 1 = 2”
(recalling Winston’s slogan in Orwell’s 1984). The momentum began
to build, and the ties that bind all healthy societies once more began to
bind. On the night of October 3, Milo‰eviç’s police attacked the mining
complex. Union leaders got on their telephones and within an hour
thousands of citizens from as far away as Belgrade (an hour’s drive)
flooded the area, surrounding the police lines. Then three old peasants
on a tractor drove toward the heavily armed policemen, and the police
line was broken.
October 5 began with an announcement from the Federal Consti-
tutional Court declaring the results of the election invalid and ruling
that new ones did not have to be called until the end of Milo‰eviç’s term
in office (July 2001). Milo‰eviç was getting nervous and his opponents
more determined. During the course of the morning, great convoys of
cars and buses began to arrive in Belgrade from the provinces and
suburbs, led by their mayors or their student leaders. Hundreds of
thousands of ordinary men and women, poor and angry and desperate
and hopeful, as well as veterans of Milo‰eviç’s wars, descended on the
capital. They joined the half-million Belgraders who had already gathered
in front of the federal parliament and other government-controlled
buildings. Velimir Iliç, the mayor of âaãak, a longtime opposition
stronghold, arrived on a bulldozer, having literally had to plow his way
through police blockades along the way. At a little past 3 p.m., having
heard no announcement from Milo‰eviç, the demonstrators stormed the
buildings, ignoring the onslaught of tear gas from policemen still loyal
to Milo‰eviç. Among those leading the charge was the mayor of Belgrade
and now ambassador to Washington, Milan St. Protiç, a tall, fiery, jeans-
and-cowboy-boots-wearing former professor of history with a Ph.D. from
University of California–Santa Barbara; Iliç, on top of his bulldozer; a
bearded and somewhat crazy Otpor activist in his mid-forties known as
Maki, an iconographer by calling and a revolutionary by necessity; and
the infamous fans of Belgrade’s Red Star soccer team, who knew a little
something about police methods.
By the early evening, the opposition was in control of everything
that mattered. Vojislav Ko‰tunica appeared on television to address the
nation. He began with the now famous lines, “Good evening, liberated
Serbia. Our country has begun to walk on democracy’s road, and where
there is democracy there is no place for Slobodan Milo‰eviç.” The same
Journal of Democracy106
night, along with General Neboj‰a Pavkoviç, the head of the Yugoslav
Army—which basically deserted the regime, as did the well-paid police—
Ko‰tunica went to meet his nemesis for the first time, to discuss terms.
The reasons behind the refusal of Milo‰eviç’s security services, his
police, and the army to move against the opposition are still not entirely
clear. Djindjiç and two of Milo‰eviç’s former generals who became DOS
leaders, Momãilo Peri‰iç and Vuk Obradoviç, had been making informal
contacts with such infamous Milo‰eviç insiders as General Pavkoviç,
Rade Markoviç (head of the Serbian State Security Agency), and Mihalj
Kerte‰ (director of the Federal Customs Administration) in the months
and weeks prior to the election, ensuring that a DOS victory at the polls
would not result in a victory for Milo‰eviç at the barricades. What was
promised in return for “neutrality” is not precisely known. Markoviç
and Kerte‰ were promptly removed from office as soon as it was
constitutionally possible and were eventually arrested on various charges
of corruption and misappropriation of state funds. In contrast, General
Pavkoviç remains head of the army, despite the purging of its higher
echelons by Ko‰tunica in the first few months of this year.
But such questions were far from the minds of ordinary people on the
night of October 5, during which the citizens of Serbia celebrated, danced,
sang, and toasted their liberty in the nation’s streets all night long. The
next day, Milo‰eviç appeared on television to concede, and Ko‰tunica
spent two hours on another channel taking calls from citizens, making
the argument for an orderly transfer of power and the rule of law and
trying to allay fears about the future. It seemed as though the whole
country tuned in for this appearance. Those caught in the streets
desperately tried to peer into the living rooms of private homes to catch
a glimpse. In many cases, strangers took them in so that they could all
share in the moment. In the center of Belgrade, an electronics store
distributed its entire stock of televisions to area taverns and bars. On
that day, U.S. president Bill Clinton remarked: “This is an extraordinary
victory for the people of Yugoslavia, who endured oppression and
deprivation, and who took their country back with nothing but courage,
principle, and patriotism.”
The New Government
Ko‰tunica’s Tocquevillean approach to politics helps explain his main
policy initiatives so far, starting with the way he handled the thorny
issue of organizing the interim government of Serbia as a necessary step
toward an early election for that province (enabling Djindjiç to come to
power in December). Without such an interim government, which was
composed of representatives from DOS, Dra‰koviç’s SPO, and the SPS,
and which took only a few days in October to negotiate, the Prudent
Revolution would not have fully succeeded. The result would have been
Damjan de Krnjeviç-Mi‰koviç 107
some sort of mixed regime, half-democratic, half-communist. Ko‰tunica
used his moral authority to cajole the Socialists, who were under no
obligation to yield to early elections, into accepting his proposals by
guaranteeing that his government would not take supralegal revenge on
them or their assets. It is a true measure of his worth as a statesman and
a human being that even his arch-enemies took him at his word.
A few other of Ko‰tunica’s initiatives as president are worth men-
tioning. His government has brought an end to Yugoslavia’s international
isolation by regaining membership in the UN and the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as joining the Stability Pact
for Southeast Europe and the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development and gaining membership in the International Monetary
Fund and the Council of Europe, not to mention ensuring the swift lifting
of all economic and political sanctions by the EU and the United States.
Other initiatives include the securing of crucial financial aid from various
international agencies and individual governments, and the establishment
of a South African–style Commission for Truth and Reconciliation that
will provide Yugoslav and foreign judicial organs such as the Hague
Tribunal with the evidence necessary to prosecute those suspected of
having committed crimes in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia proper
during the past ten years. As DSS vice-president Aleksandar Popoviç
put it at the news conference announcing the Commission’s estab-
lishment, “Both as a state and as a people we have to summon up the
courage to unveil the truth about what happened in the past ten years.
Otherwise our relations with our neighbors will remain burdened by a
past understood as myth, not as history. This is something we have to do
on our own, and no war crimes tribunal can do it for us.”
Ko‰tunica has also been instrumental in resolving most of the impor-
tant outstanding issues involving the distribution of the frozen assets of
Tito’s Yugoslavia among its successor states. Moreover, his government
has introduced legislation to reorganize the communist-era banking
system and to redistribute the substantial assets of the various Tito-era
communist party organs among all of Serbia’s main political parties.
The latter has resulted in the further financial weakening of the SPS,
which claimed to have inherited them. As a result, the legal, psycho-
logical, and social advantages enjoyed by the SPS during its long decade
in power have been eradicated.
But the most significant political blow to the Socialists since their
electoral trouncing last year was the April 1 arrest and incarceration of
Slobodan Milo‰eviç, after a tense 30-hour standoff involving his private
security forces, an Army brigade, and a special forces unit dispatched to
his villa to arrest him on various domestic charges. The events sur-
rounding Milo‰eviç’s capture have caused some political observers to
speculate about strains within the DOS coalition between those loyal to
Ko‰tunica and those loyal to Djindjiç. It does not appear to me, however,
Journal of Democracy108
that the actions surrounding the capture of Milo‰eviç resulted in a
permanent heightening of animosities between the two leaders of the
Prudent Revolution and their respective camps.
This is not to deny that serious strains within DOS have begun to
surface. At present, the most obvious point of disagreement is the issue
of how to approach cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). In Ko‰tunica’s view, Milo‰eviç, who
has been indicted by the ICTY on charges of crimes against humanity
and violations of the laws or customs of war for his actions during the
Kosovo conflict, should be brought to trial on war crimes and crimes
against humanity—but in Belgrade, before domestic courts, and on top
of the charges of corruption, abuse of power, economic mismanagement,
and electoral fraud. How, he asks, can the country hope to restore the
legitimacy of its judicial institutions in the eyes of its own citizenry if it
is forced to extradite its chief wrongdoers abroad for punishment? In
order for the nation as a whole to come to terms with the crimes of the
old regime, Milo‰eviç and his gang must be put on trial for crimes
committed against their own people as well as for crimes committed
against other nations. For Ko‰tunica, the renewal of the people’s trust in
Yugoslavia’s institutions is the primary condition for long-term political
stability. Serbia’s constitutional soul is at stake.
Ko‰tunica is not opposed to cooperating with the ICTY. He supported
the opening of an ICTY investigative office in Belgrade. He also supports
the measures taken by Serbia’s Justice Minister Vladan Batiç to expel
non-Yugoslav citizens indicted by the ICTY, as well as a proposed
constitutional amendment to allow for the extradition of indicted
Yugoslav citizens, including Milo‰eviç, to the Hague. The question is
how much cooperation. To oversimplify the position of Djindjiç and his
followers, their answer is clear: Whatever the international community
wants in exchange for massive aid and investment, it should get. It may
be necessary, because of domestic political pressures, to go through with
the Milo‰eviç trial, but once that is over and done with, there is no
compelling reason why he must serve his sentence in Serbia. Let the
Hague take him and do what it likes with him. Even Djindjiç, however,
is unwilling to make any clear promises on the matter. Nevertheless, in
his view the question is primarily one of expediency, economic self-
interest, and power politics. They are strong, we are weak. Therefore,
they dictate the terms and we must agree to them if we are to survive
and prosper. If our constitution or our laws prevent such cooperation,
then let us alter them. It may be noble to speak of the renewal of Serbia’s
constitutional and institutional health, but it is more urgent to renew
Serbia’s economic and financial health.
The other main point of disagreement within DOS has to do with
the future of the Yugoslav federation. Here Serbia’s two prudent revolu-
tionaries agree that a comprehensive reevaluation of the constitutional
Damjan de Krnjeviç-Mi‰koviç 109
relationship between the federal government and Serbia proper,
Montenegro, Kosovo, and Vojvodina is required. Djindjiç concurs with
Ko‰tunica’s package of proposals for “asymmetrical federalism,” which
would enshrine constitutionally different rights and powers for each unit
vis a÷ vis the federal government. In short, both support the measured
decentralization of economic and political power away from Belgrade,
and both have welcomed the decision by Milo Djukanovic, the president
of Montenegro, to hold off calling a referendum on his tiny republic’s
independence until the fall. The main advocate within DOS for immediate
constitutional and statutory change has been Nenad âanak, the leader of
the Vojvodina League of Social-Democrats (LSV), who has been insis-
ting on a speedy restoration of Vojvodina’s economic and political
autonomy within Serbia.
DOS is an 18-party coalition. It was formed to oppose Milo‰eviç, to
win the elections, and to govern the country during its period of transition.
That it will eventually break up is inevitable. That it will do so in the
near future is unlikely, though not impossible. As long as DOS’s member-
parties believe it to be in their and the country’s best interests to hold
off any major rifts, the coalition is safe. At this time, it does not appear
likely that any one party or faction will choose to follow the path of
disharmony, disunity, and destruction. Serbia has had enough of that
for the time being. She must allow herself the time to heal her numerous
and sometimes deep wounds.
Rebuilding the Economy
Both leaders of Serbia’s Prudent Revolution are committed to, and
have begun implementing, the economic and financial reforms outlined
before and during the federal election campaign by the G-17 Plus, a
Belgrade-based economic think tank. Serbia’s budget, presented at the
end of March after the conduct of a meticulous survey of the devastated
economy, aims to begin the painful process of transforming socialist
economic policies into market-oriented ones.
Among the reforms in the March budget are measures introducing
comprehensive fiscal transparency, lifting price subsidies, privatizing
or restructuring state-owned firms, liberalizing customs and tariff
restrictions, increasing governmental expenditures on human resources,
and instituting programs to retrain or financially support workers laid
off as a result of the economic reforms. In addition, the Yugoslav and
Serbian governments have put forward a new set of laws that reduce the
tax burden for the average citizen but increase the penalties for tax
evasion. The governments’ policies of strict collection of revenues have
been coupled with a determination to pay their debts to the citizenry
(unpaid wages and pensions), as well as to collect in a timely fashion
the debts that companies owe to them or their organs (unpaid back taxes
Journal of Democracy110
and utility bills). Related to the revision of the tax code is a governmental
drive to define precisely the amount of private debt companies owe to
banks and to establish a repayment schedule.
Yugoslavia has already begun to service its external debt, estimated
to be at around $12 billion, through a restructuring program strongly
supported by the international community, and has secured foreign
donations, emergency and stand-by loans, and concessions totaling close
to $500 million for the rebuilding of its badly damaged national and
local infrastructure (as well as to help begin paying back what it owes to
its citizens). In addition, the June Donor’s Conference has secured an
additional $1 billion in various forms of aid and investment guarantees—
enough to get the economy back on its feet. All this in less than a year’s
time.
The events of Serbia’s Prudent Revolution will be recorded in gol-
den letters in the annals of history, to paraphrase the words of Serbia’s
Crown Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjeviç. Serbia’s new birth of freedom
is here to stay. The scourge of communism in Europe has been eliminated,
and the fall and arrest of Milo‰eviç and his cronies have been
accomplished virtually without the shedding of blood. “The years eaten
by locusts,” as Ko‰tunica has called the lost years of the Milo‰eviç era,
are over. Once more, Serbia is able to rule herself to the best of her
ability. What economic sanctions, international isolation, and the NATO
bombings did not accomplish, the people of Serbia, speaking with one
hopeful voice, did: They toppled Milo‰eviç, legally, peacefully, and for
good. A more fitting way to end the millennium would be difficult to
imagine.
The Prudent Revolution is now well into its third phase. The public’s
trust in government and its institutions grows daily. In the realm of
politics the Serbs liberated themselves and ought to be able, by and large,
to take good care of their own affairs, but it is clear that in the realm of
economics Serbia will require Western help. In the short term, this means
aid, and it has been flowing. In the long term, this means investment.
The United States, Canada, and the EU countries must honor their
repeated pledges to rebuild a post-Milo‰eviç Yugoslavia by encouraging
large-scale private investment in the region in general and in Yugoslavia
in particular. Without capital investment, Serbia’s economic future looks
dim. A country with a troubled history that remains impoverished is not
a politically stable country. To do the job right means to do it once; to
do it any other way guarantees regional instability, with all that it entails.
The cost to the West of not investing in the right way is likely to be at
least 50 years of military engagement in the Balkans. To consolidate its
democratic victory and maintain its freedom, Serbia has asked for a little
help, and it hopes that the West will translate its admiration for Serbia’s
recent deeds into some deeds of its own.
