Serbian Spin on Meeting Points Up U.S. Dilemma

It took only a couple of hours for the besieged government of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to use the visit of a U.S. official to its advantage.

Even as thousands of demonstrators rallied in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital, in protests well into their third week, a U.S. commercial officer met with a senior official of Milosevic’s regime in view of state television cameras.

As anyone could have predicted, the night’s news broadcasts on the only television Yugoslavs can watch portrayed a visit of support, a new effort by the Clinton administration to “improve economic relations” between the United States and Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.

The meeting Tuesday underscored the dilemma that growing opposition to Milosevic poses for Washington.

Milosevic has been the man relied on by a series of U.S. mediators, especially star negotiator Richard Holbrooke, to draft the Bosnia-Herzegovina peace accord, keep the Bosnian Serbs more or less in line and ensure regional stability.

Despite his reputation as a ruthless, power-hungry manipulator, Milosevic’s affability and his penchant for fine food, whiskey and off-color humor made him one of Holbrooke’s favorites throughout the arduous peace negotiations.

And in the year since the peace accord negotiated in Dayton, Ohio, was signed, Holbrooke’s successor, Assistant Secretary of State John Kornblum, has repeatedly flown to Belgrade to seek Milosevic out when it came to exacting Bosnian Serb cooperation.

But now support for Milosevic means condoning blatant electoral fraud, the gagging of free press and the trampling of basic democratic rights--something Washington wants no part of.

U.S. officials have condemned specific steps Milosevic is taking, and Wednesday moved to undercut Belgrade’s shutdown of independent Radio B-92 by having the U.S. government’s Voice of America broadcast reports from Radio B-92 correspondents into Serbia. VOA said it was expanding its Serbian-language transmissions from two to 2 1/3 hours daily to accommodate the reports.

But the reality is that the Clinton administration, with little leverage against Milosevic, is reluctant to push too hard, lest the precariously balanced Balkan house of cards begins to tumble, analysts say.

“Actually, I didn’t expect as much support [for the opposition forces] as we are seeing” from Washington, said Milan Protic, director of the Institute for Balkan Studies, a think tank in Belgrade. “They have so much at stake, so much invested in Milosevic. U.S. diplomacy since 1994 has been a tremendous effort based on dealing with Milosevic no matter how rough it got.”

Meanwhile, there were no signs of letup in protests triggered by Milosevic’s decision to annul Nov. 17 municipal elections in which many opposition candidates apparently won. On Wednesday, crowds that diplomats and journalists said were the largest so far rallied outside the federal parliament building and marched to the door of Milosevic’s offices.

And in the first sign of an anticipated purge of Milosevic’s Socialist Party, Mile Ilic--the Socialist leader of Serbia’s second-largest city, Nis--was fired. Ilic, whose reputation for corruption was exceeded only by his ego, was a lightning rod for opposition attacks and is said to have botched his party’s electoral efforts in Nis, where some of the most egregious fraud took place.

Milosevic still appears determined to wait out the political storm, diplomats said. His use of the U.S. commercial officer’s Tuesday visit as an attempt to portray international support for his regime dismayed some Western officials but was, in fact, a classic Milosevic tactic.

The U.S. Embassy in Belgrade scrambled to put out the word that the meeting with Vice President Nedeljko Sipovac, a close ally of Milosevic, was part of its routine business. It involved an impending sale of weather-radar equipment to Yugoslavia, and the message delivered included a reminder that the U.S. government will not provide financial assistance because of continuing, limited economic sanctions against Belgrade.

State television, controlled by Milosevic, mentioned the radar equipment but failed to discuss the sanctions.

Opposition leaders behind the daily demonstrations have complained that Washington and European powers are not showing them enough support. In the past few days, they have met with U.S. Embassy officials. They also have issued repeated statements about their support for the Dayton accord.

Leverage that the West can use on Milosevic was diminished when United Nations economic sanctions were lifted two months ago. Originally imposed to punish Yugoslav involvement in starting the Bosnian war, the sanctions helped to cripple the country’s already mismanaged economy.

To reimpose sanctions now would require action by the U.N. Security Council, which includes faithful Yugoslav ally Russia. U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns conceded this week that there are no imminent plans to attempt to renew sanctions.

The only component of sanctions that remains, the so-called outer wall, bars the rump Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, from membership in international groups, including financial agencies that might provide aid or loans.

The United States this week canceled Yugoslavia’s invitation to an economic conference in Geneva and will block an exploratory mission to Belgrade by the International Monetary Fund, U.S. sources said.

Also on Wednesday, the United States, Britain and other European countries attending a multinational conference in London on implementing peace in Bosnia lambasted Milosevic. Kornblum, the assistant secretary of state, said the United States would ask the conference to approve a statement lamenting what he termed the Milosevic government’s failure to respect its pledges to move toward democracy.

Meeting with Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic as the conference opened, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott warned that the United States considers “the state of democracy in Serbia deplorable,” Kornblum said.

Times staff writer William D. Montalbano in London contributed to this report.