Serb Leader Brushes Off U.S. Criticism of Regime

In his first comments on street demonstrations that have roiled Serbia for almost four weeks, President Slobodan Milosevic on Friday dismissed out of hand complaints raised by the Clinton administration, but he also invited international monitors to inspect the way disputed elections were conducted.

Milosevic, in a letter to Secretary of State Warren Christopher, accused his pro-democracy opponents of “political terrorism” and vandalism and called the claim that he stole elections by annulling opposition victories “a fabrication.”

“The truth is what I’ve written to you,” Milosevic said, mildly scolding Christopher for believing “unofficial” reports of electoral fraud, huge protests and the beating of demonstrators.

The U.S. administration dismissed the letter, though officials found a small ray of hope in the Serbian leader’s comments about outside moderators and the electoral process.

Ever since courts controlled by Milosevic threw out Nov. 17 municipal elections won by the opposition, huge crowds have demonstrated daily to protest the Serbian strongman’s authoritarian rule. He has preferred to ignore the crowds, while his proxies have dismissed the protesters as fascist malcontents.

With his letter, released in Belgrade on Friday, some analysts said that Milosevic may have been opening a door to new elections by inviting what he called a “reputable” delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to travel to Serbia “to inform itself correctly.”

He may also simply have been buying time: The OSCE is known for its slow-moving bureaucracy and its failure to adequately monitor recent elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania that were riddled with irregularities.

“I would welcome the possibility of a way out but recognize as well that this could be a way to buy time for Milosevic, given the way the OSCE works,” a Western diplomat said. “I am highly skeptical that we are at the point where the logjam broke.”

OSCE sources said they were awaiting an official communication from Milosevic but that it would be unreasonable to ask the organization to investigate elections more than a month after they occurred.

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Meanwhile, opposition leaders said Friday that they were coming under increasing pressure from Western mediators to accept new elections, which would mean abandoning their principal goal--recognition of the victories they already obtained.

While publicly insisting that recognition remains the “basic demand,” a senior opposition official said the coalition would be willing to go along with a new round of voting if certain conditions were met, including the presence of monitors and access to electronic media with a national scope.

Leaders of the opposition coalition known as Zajedno, or Together, were especially disheartened by Thursday’s visit to Belgrade of Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini. He met separately with Milosevic and with Zajedno officials, then told reporters that reinstating the original election results “seems to be something that is not in the cards.”

Dini’s comments led to speculation that the international community might be trying to force the opposition into an undesirable compromise, though U.S. officials said their position--that the “democratic will” of the Serbian people should be respected--remained unchanged.

Vuk Draskovic, a principal leader of the opposition coalition, was scheduled to meet with John Kornblum, an assistant secretary of state, this weekend in Geneva; that would be the highest-level U.S. contact for the opposition since its electoral triumph.

Milosevic’s letter was in response to one written to him by Christopher on Monday, in which the American said: “Serbia’s future lies not in authoritarianism and isolation but in full participation in the Dayton [Bosnia peace] process and in the rebuilding of peace and prosperity in the region.”

Milosevic’s denial that violence had ever been used against demonstrators came despite well-documented reports of at least two severe beatings that occurred while the victims were in police custody. And--despite witness reports of ballot stuffing and the doctoring of tally sheets in Belgrade and in Serbia’s second city, Nis--he said elections conducted by his regime were pristine.

“We know of no other place in the world that is more democratic,” Milosevic asserted.

He ordered his letter, described by some critics as Orwellian in its portrayal of events in Serbia--the larger republic that, with Montenegro, makes up the rump nation of Yugoslavia--to be read on radio and television and published on the front pages of state-run newspapers, because “citizens have a right to be completely informed.”

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In Washington, the administration dismissed Milosevic’s “rather tendentious letter” and vowed to continue pressing the Serbian government to recognize opposition victories in the local elections.

“The United States rejects President Milosevic’s legalistic arguments . . . that try to whitewash the simple truth: There has been a blatant disregard of the democratic will of the Serbian people, and the Serbian government has annulled elections, which now should be restored,” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said, adding: “We’re going to keep the pressure on.”

He characterized as “positive” the apparent Serbian offer to let the OSCE review the Nov. 17 results. But, he said, “the offer was couched in such negative and legalistic terms that it is prudent for us to be skeptical.”

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Zoran Djindjic, another principal Zajedno leader, called Milosevic’s letter delusional, saying: “The only unknown thing is, who is he trying to deceive? Is he trying to deceive himself, Christopher or his own people?”

Draskovic scoffed at the letter.

“Such a letter is an insult for our state,” he said Friday to tens of thousands of supporters who once again marched through central Belgrade.

Draskovic went on to make the kind of provocative statement that makes some Western officials nervous about the flamboyant politician. He pledged to send Milosevic to the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague.

“When the indictment from The Hague comes, Serbia will extradite him in the name of Serbian honor,” he called to the crowd.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.