[NYC-L] from IWPR's Balkan Crisis Report #368 (9/18/02)

[Jeton Ademaj]

this article shows us Kostunica's thoughts and intentions, and indicates 
just how similiar to Milosevic this guy really is...



SERBIA: KOSTUNICA REMARKS FRIGHTEN BOSNIA

Yugoslav president may regret perceived attempt to appeal to Serbian
nationalists.

By Milanka Saponja-Hadzic in Belgrade

An apparent bid by federal president Vojislav Kostunica to curry favour
with Serbian nationalists has rocked relations between Yugoslavia and
Bosnia.

While Kostunica was visiting the border town of Mali Zvornik on September
14 as part of campaigning for Serbia's presidential elections, the
Democratic Party of Serbia, DSS, leader described neighbouring Republika
Srpska, RS, as "part of the family, temporarily separated from the Serbian
motherland".

Haris Silajdzic, a Bosniak candidate for the Bosnian presidency,
described the remarks as "one step away from declaration of war", claiming
that "everything achieved in the process of normalisation" between the two
neighbouring states had been destroyed as a result.

Kostunica - who later described his comments as having been "maliciously
misinterpreted" - maintained he has no plan to reunite the RS with Serbia,
saying that he had only been calling for the eventual reunion of all of
the former Yugoslavia's Serbs within the framework of the European Union.

Belgrade officials hurried to convince Bosnia that the president's words
did not herald a sea change in Yugoslav policy, stressing that they
continued to support the Dayton agreement under which Bosnia was divided
into the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serb RS.

The day after the incident, Yugoslav foreign minister Goran Svilanovic
expressed regret over the remarks, blaming them on the heated election
atmosphere in both Yugoslavia and Bosnia.  "Belgrade is fully behind
Dayton and does not want to divide Bosnia in any way, nor damage relations
between our two countries," he said.

It would now appear that Kostunica was simply playing the nationalist card
in the run-up to the September 29 presidential ballot in Serbia.

But whatever his intention, it's not just relations with Bosnia that might
have suffered.  Some of Belgrade's international trading partners and aid
donors - who hold the key to Serbia's economic revival - are also thought
to have taken offence.

Kostunica's main rival in the presidency contest is Miroljub Labus, a
reformist supported by the ruling Democratic Opposition of Serbia, DOS.

That leaves Kostunica with the support of the large percentage of
nationalists, especially tens of thousands of Bosnian Serb and Croatian
Serb refugees who obtained voting rights in Yugoslavia.  In the event of a
second round, it is possible he will also garner the votes of the
ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party leader, Vojislav Seselj.

Despite the chorus of general disapproval, there is little doubt that
Kostunica's intemperate remarks in Mali Zvornik achieved exactly what was
intended - it won him the sympathies of many nationalists in what may be a
close-run poll.

This is not the first time the Yugoslav president has raised international
eyebrows on the subject of RS.

Kostunica supported the Bosnian Serbs armed struggle and their goal of
creating a Serbian state.  His DSS forged close links with the dominant
Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, of Radovan Karadzic - indicted by The Hague
for war crimes.

The fall of Milosevic in October 2000 led to a thaw in relations between
Belgrade and Sarajevo.  Yugoslavia and Bosnia established diplomatic ties
that December and ambassadors were exchanged a year later.

Kostunica was a little slow to adjust to the new realities.  He caused a
diplomatic incident at the start of his presidential term by attending the
funeral of a Serb nationalist poet, Jovan Ducic, in the RS heartland of
Trebinje.

He soon changed his course, though.  On his first official visit to
Sarajevo in January 2001, he said Belgrade was fully behind the Dayton
agreement.

However, the ties between Kostunica's and Karadzic's parties were not
severed. On July 30, 2001, DSS and SDS signed an agreement on cooperation
committing the two parties to "full cultural, economic and spiritual unity
between the Serbian people" - although they stressed that this could only
be achieved through Dayton.

Belgrade and Sarajevo signed two further agreements over the course of the
year, on cooperation between their foreign ministries and the
establishment of an interstate council.  A free trade agreement came into
effect this year.

Under the pressure of the international community, Belgrade also severed
military ties between the Yugoslav army, VJ, and the Republika Srpska
army, VRS.

With encouragement from Belgrade, the RS complied with a request from
Bosnia's constitutional court earlier this year for both entities to
change their constitutions to guarantee equality for Bosniaks, Serbs and
Croats.

However, in spite of this progress, relations between the two states have
not been fully normalised.  Belgrade has used every opportunity provided
by Dayton itself to treat RS as a special entity within Bosnia.  Yugoslav
and RS citizens can travel freely between the two countries using only
their ID cards, while citizens from the Federation need passports to enter
Yugoslavia.

Belgrade maintains such issues need not disturb the continuing improvement
in ties between the two countries.  Relations are "constantly being
improved, without spectacular breakthroughs," a Yugoslav foreign ministry
source told IWPR. "This is an irreversible process."

Milanka Saponja-Hadzic is a freelance journalist based in Serbia.



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