LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Milan Panic : From Orange County Businessman to Leader of Troubled Yugoslavia

No one is quite sure what to make of Milan Panic, the Orange County businessman who suddenly became Yugoslav prime minister. His country is being torn apart by some of the most vicious internecine warfare in modern history. Yet, he insists that historical ethnic and religious rivalries have emerged only because of the manipulation of politicians and are the dastardly work of some “bad elements.”

Difficult to accept. The violence is just too pervasive and often closely tied to official Serbian activities to be casually dismissed as the work of an irresponsible substrata. Then, too, the abject failure of numerous multinational efforts to end the killing suggests that Panic’s view minimizes the intractable nature of the schism.

Is this a disingenuous ploy, part of a political strategy or more positive-thinking gamesmanship learned in some of his tougher corporate acquisitions?

Panic, 62, who rejected both fascist and communist control of his country, found refuge in the United States in 1955. In one of those much-publicized American success stories, the immigrant with $20 ended up president of a multimillion-dollar business, ICN Pharmaceuticals.

For some 37 years, Panic (pronounced PANish) abandoned all things Yugoslav in a headlong dash into the successful California lifestyle. He stopped using his native language within family circles and now speaks Serbo-Croatian with a pronounced English accent. His interest in Yugoslavia reawakened with the breakup of communist rule and the consequent investment opportunities for an aggressive Western businessman there and throughout Eastern Europe.

Panic acquired the major government-owned pharmaceutical company in Yugoslavia and by most accounts was on the way to making it a model of employee enthusiasm and public stock ownership. His success, and his contacts in the West, apparently led to his being supported by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in July to be prime minister of what remained of Yugoslavia. Many said he was simply being used by the Serbian strongman as cover for violence against ethnic groups seeking their independence.

Since then, Panic has publicly crossed swords with Milosevic and managed to survive various parliamentary challenges. Perhaps because of those confrontations and his peace planks, he can boast of high standings in the polls. On Wednesday, the Bush Administration praised Panic’s efforts to stop Serbian aggression and suggested Washington might push to lift some of the U.N. sanctions, as the prime minister requested. Quixotic or not, Panic has emerged as a major player in this very sad drama.

Question: It’s quite a stretch from your waterfront home in Newport Beach to the carnage in Yugoslavia. Were you shocked by the degree of violence and hatred there?

Answer: I am more than shocked. It is unbelievable that humans still can do those things. But I have news for you--there is no deep hatred among the people. I think this is a product of cheap, intellectually dishonest, crippled-minded politicians who don’t have anything else to offer; the hate is a very powerful weapon. These politicians, stir up a few people. Then comes the bad element.

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Q: Politicians on both sides?

A: Politicians on all sides. All. You’ll find very rapidly that I don’t separate them. They are all the same.

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Q: But when you say all the leaders, you also include Serbia?

A: Of course. They are all the same. Then comes the worst element from everywhere. I found in jail two American mercenaries who were sentenced to death. Who were those two guys? Criminals. They were to be hanged, and I gave them to the United States Embassy. Every community has bad elements, including Los Angeles. So that element took over, and in civil war you can do all sorts of things. You become a king. You have a machine gun, there is nobody to judge--there is no court, no police.

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Q: So you’re denying that politicians tapped into some long-standing visceral ethnic and religious hostilities?

A: Categorically. That is an intellectually dishonest approach by people who try to justify killing. There are very deep feelings between the South and North in the United States from the Civil War. Why would anybody now kill for that reason? The Germans and the French have the same thing. I have Croats in my family. We don’t hate each other. One to 2 million people are intermarried. That means 10% are brothers and sisters. How can they hate each other because of religion or some other historical text?

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Q: How did Marshal Tito manage to hold Yugoslavia together, and how are people feeling now about the end of communism?

A: What his role was is that the communists in general are international people. Communists do not believe in nationalism. And so, being communist, it was easy for him to put that together. Tito, by the way, was a Croat.

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Q: It was an independent communism that cooperated with the U.S. in many ways. How does it look now?

A: I think that we and the rest of the world should be concerned about the father whose son is blown up by the democratization of the country. What do they think of democracy? They lived reasonably well. There was no killing on the streets. They didn’t have enough freedom, of course. Maybe some of them even ended up in political jails. But not that many. Not that many were shot. Look what’s happened now with our democratic system blown up. How many people died in the name of democratization? In the name of freedom?

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Q: Whose fault is that?

A: I think tremendous responsibility lies with the Western world, which was not prepared for the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. We were prepared to destroy communism with our “Star Wars” of Mr. Reagan. We are lacking a “Star Wars” of peace. We are lacking plans of how to convert this communist society, or any other society, into a peaceful, democratic society. There was no recipe, so the people took it on themselves, and that’s the birth of nationalism. I think nationalism is a disastrous concept. Hitler ran that lie.

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Q: Well, there was a recipe. And it was this laissez-faire model for all of Eastern Europe--you just get rid of the yoke of communism and then people spontaneously develop a market economy and democracy.

A: Oh, what a dream!

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Q: But this was the recipe.

A: That’s a recipe? That’s a utopia. There is a practical aspect of that. You need to establish institutions. There was no judicial system to suit a democracy. There was no accountability, no understanding of democracy. This is a dream world: Disneyland, American-style.

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Q: Well, what should the U.S. have done? This country has long claimed a commitment to self-determination. Should we now deny self-determination for the Croatians and Bosnians?

A: Absolutely not. But self-determination under democratic processes and not self-determination by guns. You cannot change the borders by shooting. The borders are changed at tables. They started shooting for territories. That was the beginning of disaster.

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Q: What can you do to prove to the U.S. that you have clout? That you are in charge?

A: I don’t want to prove anything. What choice do they have--I am the one who is working for peace. The lack of support from the United States is chipping my power away, along with the possibility of democratization of Yugoslavia and of free enterprise. I have proved that my motives are clear. I have proved point by point. I worked on opening Sarajevo airport. Sarajevo airport opened. On opening roads from Belgrade to Sarajevo. On opening airports in Belgrade for humanitarian help.

I opposed ethnic cleansing as a terrible thing which takes over in civilians in these kinds of wars. I dismissed the undersecretary of interior who was for ethnic cleansing. I am the one for peace--which is why the polls show me with the greatest support.

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Q: And troops?

A: I happen to be minister of defense. I am involved with the army which needed leadership. They were disgraced, but before they were a very professional army. I think now we have a unified army of what’s left. And it is a powerful army, because they pulled a lot of weapons and everything from everywhere into Serbia. So I have excess weapons.

I have repeatedly and publicly called for placing under U.N. control all heavy weapons--to a point where a lot of batteries of big guns are under U.N. control. I repeatedly have given public support for relief supplies for Bosnia and Herzegovnia. I have actually sent them from Yugoslavia. I have rejected changes of border by force. I’m not going to use force, even though I have it. I have ordered that neither Yugoslavia nor Serbia should finance the people in Bosnia. I have ordered no interference in Bosnia by the Yugoslav army, and no flights of planes. I want to evolve an American way in the political life of Yugoslavia.

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Q: What about the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic? At what point are you expendable to him?

A: I put that differently. You know I am far more aggressive than he ever dreamed I would be.

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Q: What do you mean by that?

A: Well, in the London conference, in front of all the people--not intentionally, cross my heart--I told him to sit down if he wanted to talk. I don’t know if that maybe gives you a little feeling of who is in charge. And he sat down.

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Q: The cynics say you were picked by the Serbian strongman to provide a base of support in the West.

A: Well, that could be destiny, too, because I just may eliminate him. Maybe I was the only one who could do that. But I won’t do that. I am not an enemy of his. He does his job, I do mine. No, but listen, he has a constituency. Sanctions are helping him. This isolation is undermining my ability to put the thing in the proper perspective for the world and for them. The children are not going to have heating oil. That is terrible for the United Nations to have done.

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Q: You want U.N. sanctions eliminated, but what about the U.N. presence?

A: The U.N. presence is great; it should be a peacekeeping force.

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Q: What is the vision of the future?

A: We are now working on opening the road to Croatia. We are trying to establish a normal relationship between the two countries. We are trying to do the same thing with Slovenia. I will do that in Bosnia as well

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Q: So you accept them as separate countries?

A: These are separate countries. Right. I mean, what can you do? But, economically, that doesn’t matter. I will put them back into an economic union.

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Q: How?

A: I will come up with a plan they will not be able to reject because it will be in the interest of their people.

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Q: What about the Serbs who find themselves outside Serbia?

A: Unfortunately, the Serbs live in the other countries now in big groups. A few million of them live in Bosnia. But Tito drew those borders. Not ethnically separating people but for whatever communist reason he had. It ended up with a big portion of Serbs living in Croatia. Those are now the problems. I propose the institution of dual citizenship in a peace treaty. Yugoslavia can defend its citizens living in other countries legally by spending money for lawyers. Not militarily. But if they (the Croatians) would start genocide, as happened in World War II, probably the people (Serbs) would arm and go over there and try to help their people. I don’t think that is now in the cards. I think everybody wants peace.

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Q: What’s the timetable?

A: I think all these things will be resolved in three to five years and those borders will be eliminated--the same as in the European Economic Community. And the people who died for those borders will be a pitiful thing to remember. Except maybe they paid with their lives so that the borders are eliminated.

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Q: Have you had some moments when you think, “Forget this, I’ll get on a plane and go home to Newport Beach?”

A: No. I have to tell you, not yet have I had that feeling. I am not a quitter. That’s what I think is part of my success--American-style.