NEWS ANALYSIS : Krajina Loss Has Serbian Leader on Defensive

Overwhelmed by the arrival this month of more than 150,000 desperate and angry Serbian refugees, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic resorted to a tried-and-true technique: He ordered television to restrain its coverage of the influx.

No pictures of the masses on tractors crossing the border, or of the families languishing in processing centers. Emphasis on the donations of food and clothing. And while you’re at it, the government told state television stations, broadcast more positive reports on the economy.

It was vintage Milosevic as he struggles to mitigate one of the biggest crises in his notorious political career.

Losing the Krajina, homeland to Croatian Serbs who thought they were fighting for Milosevic’s onetime vision of a Greater Serbia, has brought extraordinary pressure to bear on the Serbian president whose hold on power has been considered unshakable. The refugees are the flesh-and-bone personification of the most humiliating Serbian defeat in decades; ardent nationalists are furious, the army is restless, the Serbian Orthodox church is protesting.

Said Vuk Draskovic, one of many politicians eager to seize the opportunity to attack the Serbian leader: “The fall of the Krajina Serb republic means the defeat of Milosevic’s policy--a policy of confronting the Serbs with the rest of the world, a policy of national hysteria [and] old-fashioned ideologies . . . that should be thrown on the garbage heap.”

The strength of Milosevic is important because his cooperation is crucial to any peace settlement for the Balkans. Western officials believe he continues to wield considerable influence over his former proteges, the Serbian separatists fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina and, until this month, in Croatia’s Krajina region.

Serbs were driven from the Krajina when the Croatian army launched a lightning offensive Aug. 4.

Apparently thinking that the Krajina crisis had weakened Milosevic and made him more willing to negotiate, a senior-level U.S. delegation came calling in Belgrade last week. But the delegation headed by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke left Friday with no signs of progress. Saturday, the mission was put on hold after three members of the delegation were killed in an accident en route to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

Milosevic, whose Socialist Party of Serbia controls much of the state apparatus, remains the most powerful politician in the Balkans. Regarded as a war criminal by some, a national hero by others, the former Communist Party official rose to his position of unchallenged authority with fiery nationalist rhetoric and a pledge to protect Serbs throughout the disintegrating Yugoslav federation. He gave inspirational and material support to rebel Serbs whose war of secession triggered Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.

In response, the United Nations slapped economic sanctions on Belgrade. In a bid to have the sanctions lifted, Milosevic began distancing himself from the Bosnian and Krajina Serbs in 1993 and had a public falling out with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic over Karadzic’s refusal to sign an international peace agreement.

With each step away from the Bosnian and Krajina Serbs, Milosevic risked the wrath of nationalists at home. But nothing compared to the reaction to the Croatian capture of the Krajina, territory that rebel Serbs had seized four years earlier.

More than 10,000 demonstrators rallied on a rainy night in Belgrade earlier this month and bitterly cursed Milosevic as a vile traitor to the Serbian people. A group broke off from the demonstration, stormed down a central street and stoned the embassies of the United States and Germany--both seen as allies of Croatia.

And not a single one of the arriving refugees has a kind word for Milosevic, whom they accuse of wholesale betrayal. Despite Milosevic’s efforts to detour them away from Belgrade by resettling them throughout the country, the refugees have become a pitiable sight, puttering along Serbia’s highways in tractors and carts stacked high with blankets, clothes and old women.

Given the enormous political trouble that the fall of the Krajina is causing for Milosevic, did he miscalculate by allowing it to happen?

In the Byzantine, conspiracy-driven world of the Balkans, there are many theories about how and why the Krajina fell so quickly. By all accounts, Milosevic refused to come to the aid of the Krajina Serbs; they, in turn, were apparently stunned at the lack of help and collapsed within hours.

They fled in a massive exodus eastward to Serbia, and the damage to Milosevic was done.

“Milosevic may have felt it was inevitable that the Krajina would go,” said one veteran European diplomat. “He still has the same infrastructure support: the media, the police, the party. They don’t look much weaker. But his failure to react did confuse a lot of people, and within the party there is quite substantial opposition to the policy of not doing anything.”

Diplomats and analysts say Milosevic may have calculated that he could weather the storm of criticism and defuse the anger of the refugees. Such would be the price for the lifting of sanctions and the re-integration of rump Yugoslavia into the international community, which presumably Milosevic could earn by staying out of the wars in Bosnia and Croatia.

The lifting of sanctions is a key component of the U.S. negotiations with Milosevic.

Even if the influx of refugees damages Milosevic, analysts here suggest the master tactician will find ways to exploit the crisis to his advantage. One political liability--the refugees--replaces the perhaps larger threat posed by the Krajina renegades.

“It hurts in the short term, but in the long term Milosevic is liquidating a source of political enemies,” said Milan Bosic, an analyst with the Serbian Renewal Movement political party. “[The Krajina Serbs] are extremely radical nationalists, the enemies of any moderate policy. Krajina now will never emerge as a state, and when you don’t have your own land, your own political apparatus, you are less of a threat. . . . They are not as dangerous as if they had their own country.”

The next test for Milosevic and the policy of restraint will be the part of Serb-held Croatia known as Eastern Slavonia. If Croatia attempts to take it back by force, most observers here predict, Milosevic will unleash his national army to fight for it in what would probably become a large-scale war.

In the past week to 10 days, diplomats have reported a heavy buildup of Croatian and Yugoslav troops on both sides of Eastern Slavonia, a fertile, oil-rich sliver of land that borders northwest Serbia and Hungary. Alarmed at the shows of force, the Hungarian government also went on alert.

Residents on the Serbian side of Eastern Slavonia have reported seeing a large number of Yugoslav army tanks rolling through the area in the last several days.

Milosevic has carefully sought to turn the blame for the Krajina debacle on others. Through the television and newspapers he controls, he said both the Krajina and Bosnian Serbs doomed themselves by failing to go along with past peace plans.

The crisis exposed a bitter power struggle between Milosevic and Karadzic, who in the middle of the Croatian offensive suddenly tried to fire his army commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic.

Milosevic sides with Mladic, who easily resisted Karadzic’s attempt to dump him. An increasingly isolated Karadzic has since backed down, and observers in Belgrade are betting that his days are numbered.

Milosevic and Mladic both come from Yugoslavia’s Communist past, while Karadzic is a product of right-wing nationalism. Milosevic wants to replace Karadzic in order to be better able to control the Bosnian Serbs and make them toe the line in peace negotiations, analysts said.

For example, Milosevic is said to have favored the Serbian takeover of the last three Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia--Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde--because they border on his Serbia. But he does not favor Karadzic’s desire to hold out for a part of Sarajevo.

Said Slavo Dukic, an author who has written two books about Milosevic: “Opposition to Milosevic is growing, but his power is safe. There is no alternative right now.”