[ALBSA-Info] Yugoslavia Steps Up Anti-West Talk/Yugoslav PM deals blow to Serb opposition hopes

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

#1.
Yugoslavia Steps Up Anti-West Talk

By JOVANA GEC

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Trailing in polls days before key elections, 
President Slobodan Milosevic's allies turned up their anti-Western propaganda 
campaign Thursday, claiming plots have been crafted abroad to bring the 
opposition to power in Yugoslavia. 

Yugoslavia's prime minister, meanwhile, said Milosevic would remain in office 
until the middle of next year even if he loses Sunday's vote because the 
constitution allows him to finish his current term, which expires in June. 

The comment, made by Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic to a private television 
station in Montenegro, was the clearest public sign so far that Milosevic 
will hang on to power regardless of the outcome of Sunday's vote. 

``I absolutely believe President Milosevic will win the election,'' Bulatovic 
said. ``No matter, the president's mandate expires next year.'' 

Legal experts dispute Bulatovic's interpretation, noting the constitution 
also calls for a new president to be sworn in within 15 days of the election. 
Under previous rules, Milosevic was named by parliament in 1997 for a 
four-year term. But this year he changed the constitution to allow for direct 
elections and called an early ballot. 

Bulatovic's comments followed a day of increasingly confrontational rhetoric, 
in which a top Yugoslav army commander even claimed the West's plans may 
include infiltration of his troops during Sunday's elections. 

Such conspiracy theories have been spun for weeks by government officials, 
leading to fears that they were preparing ground for the possible annulment 
of the presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections if Milosevic loses 
- and force, if needed, against opposition supporters. 

The army chief of staff, Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, recently described the 
elections as ``D-Day'' for the army. On Thursday, he softened his customary 
all-out support for Milosevic by saying the military would recognize a 
victory by opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica. 

But opposition supporters fear that is empty rhetoric, because - by declaring 
that any opposition win is in reality an anti-government coup - authorities 
have ruled out recognizing a defeat of Milosevic and his party in the 
presidential and parliamentary elections. 

Milosevic is shown trailing Kostunica in all polls published here ahead of 
the elections. The incumbent's popularity plummeted after last year's NATO 
bombing, which led to Milosevic's giving up Kosovo. 

Milosevic's key aide, Nikola Sainovic, said Thursday that a NATO-led campaign 
to remove Milosevic from power by force is at work in Western capitals. 

``They (NATO and opposition) have created a whole structure and organization, 
and they are making such a fuss that it all became clear,'' said Sainovic, 
referring to growing optimism among pro-democracy Serbs about an election 
victory. 

The pro-Western president of Montenegro, the republic that along with Serbia 
makes up Yugoslavia, warned Thursday that Milosevic would use force to stay 
in power. 

``I don't expect Milosevic will ever concede losing the ballot,'' Milo 
Djukanovic told The Associated Press. ``What's more, I am convinced that he 
will - if need be - use force.'' 

Chief of Staff Pavkovic, speaking on Montenegro's state TV, warned that 
foreign soldiers might try to move into Yugoslavia during elections and that 
his troops would be ready. 

``As a serious army we have to be ready to prevent any surprises,'' Pavkovic 
said. ``If someone intervenes, there won't be peace.'' 

He told Tanjug the military will ``defend the country's freedom ... and a 
country cannot be free if it is colonized and enslaved.'' 

Independent analysts also predict that Milosevic will try to rig the vote in 
his favor. An independent election monitoring group claimed Thursday that it 
has come into possession of ballots with Milosevic's name already circled. 

``He has so much to lose,'' Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's former supreme allied 
commander, Europe, said of Milosevic. ``We have to anticipate anything that 
he will do to stay in power.'' 

Very few visas have been granted to Western journalists, and even nationals 
of the few countries who don't need visas but work for Western news 
organizations have been told they cannot enter the country without a special 
letter of authorization, which is rarely being issued. 


#2.
Yugoslav PM deals blow to Serb opposition hopes

By Fredrik Dahl

BELGRADE, Sept 22 (Reuters) - A senior Yugoslav official has thrown a 
question mark over the outcome of crucial weekend elections by saying 
President Slobodan Milosevic, who called them, will serve his original 
four-year term whatever the result. 

Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic, a Montenegrin ally of the Serbian 
strongman, said the current presidential mandate would run until it expires 
in the middle of next year. 

``Under the constitutional law, the mandate of the president cannot be 
shortened. It will last until its expiry, which will be until mid-2001,'' he 
told the private television station TV Elmag in Yugoslavia's smaller republic 
Montenegro on Thursday. 

The premier's remarks followed warnings by the army's chief of staff that the 
West planned to sabotage the polls, and it would intervene if they did. 

Milosevic, isolated internationally and indicted by a U.N. criminal for 
alleged war crimes, called the presidential and parliamentary polls for 
September 24 confidant that he could extend his term in power, and thereby 
guarantee his freedom. 

But independent opinion polls, dismissed as Western propaganda by the 
authorities, have shown him trailing well behind opposition candidate 
Vojislav Kostunica, fuelling opposition fears that he would declare victory 
whatever the result. 

Opponents of Milosevic had expressed concern that constitutional changes he 
pushed through parliament in July to pave the way for Sunday's vote left the 
timing of a possible handover of power unclear. 

MILOSEVIC TO ALSO NOMINATE PREMIER 

Bulatovic left no doubt as to the intentions of the authorities, also saying 
that Milosevic would nominate a prime minister after the presidential and 
parliamentary elections. 

Under the constitution, parliament votes on the presidential nominee for 
prime minister. 

Up to now the Yugoslav parliament has been packed with Milosevic loyalists 
and a boycott of Sunday's polls by the pro-Western leadership of Montenegro, 
which argues that they are unconstitutional, means this is likely to continue.
 

The latest opinion polls also show the opposition parties ahead in elections 
for the parliament, but the Montenegro boycott would give Milosevic an 
in-built advantage, analysts said. 

Bulatovic was speaking as the Serbian opposition ended their campaign for 
political change in a determined mood, saying the time had come to oust 
Milosevic at the ballot box. 

On the last day of campaigning before a period of pre-election silence, tens 
of thousands of people attended separate events in the capital and in the 
northern city of Novi Sad on Thursday evening. 

Leaders of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), a bloc grouping 18 
parties and one trade union, led the rally in Novi Sad, the capital of 
Serbia's northern Vojvodina province. 

``We are here with you in order to rid people of their fears and take the 
country out of darkness,'' one opposition leader, Momcilo Perisic of the 
Movement for Democratic Serbia, told a crowd of roughly 30,000 people. 

In Belgrade, around 20,000 people listened to rock music in a park beneath 
the Ottoman-era Kalemegdan fortress where the Sava and Danube rivers meet, 
braving pouring rain. 

``Young people in Serbia are against Milosevic,'' said opposition activist 
Aleksandar Djukic. ``The last 10 years have been horrible for us.'' 

Serbian opposition leaders blame Milosevic for widespread poverty and 
international isolation following the violent disintegration of old socialist 
Yugoslavia in the 1990s, vowing to implement radical reform if they come to 
power. 

Milosevic, with a tight grip on state media, has launched a fierce counter 
attack, describing his opponents at carefully choreographed campaign rallies 
as enemies to the people paid by the West to destroy Serbia. 

The Yugoslav army echoed government warnings of Western plans to sabotage the 
vote. 

ARMY CHIEF WARNS AGAINST OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE 

Chief-of-staff General Nebojsa Pavkovic was quoted as saying the army knew of 
a plan for disturbances on election day ``provoked by special units of 
foreign armed forces who would be infiltrated into Yugoslav territory.'' 

``If someone interferes from outside, it will not be quiet,'' Beta news 
agency cited him as telling Montenegrin state television in an interview late 
on Wednesday. 

But Kostunica hit back, saying his opponent would have neither army or police 
on his side if he tried to use force. 

``We have reports that the army is not ready to be pushed into a Serb-Serb 
conflict. Neither are police,'' he told a local independent television 
station, vowing that the opposition would defend every single vote. 

Perisic, a former Yugoslav army chief, also appeared unfazed, telling the 
rally in Novi Sad: ``They are frightening us with the army, but the army was 
always with the people. Whoever abuses force will be the first to suffer from 
that force.''