Serbian Purge May Presage Implosion

Wounded by setbacks in Kosovo and severe economic sanctions, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has continued a purge of potential challengers by dumping his army commander.

Gen. Momcilo Perisic, who was fired Tuesday night, is the fifth senior official whom Milosevic has removed since agreeing a month ago to pull security forces out of Kosovo, the separatist Serbian province, to avoid NATO airstrikes.

On Oct. 27, Milosevic replaced Jovica Stanisic, the secret-police chief responsible for rooting out the regime’s political enemies. Three days later, Milosevic fired his air force commander, Gen. Ljubisa Velickovic. Two leaders of Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia were the next to go.

British analyst Christopher Bennett said he sees Milosevic’s moves, and a broader campaign against dissent, as proof that the Yugoslav leader is finally losing his grip, both on power and reality.

“I actually think Serbia will implode within the next six months,” Bennett said here in the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he directs Balkans research for the International Crisis Group, an independent watchdog. “I say this especially because economically, the place is really on its knees right now. It’s remarkable that it has survived this long.”

After almost seven years of punishment under economic sanctions, Milosevic’s regime is running out of ways to keep the economy, and his government, from collapsing, Bennett said.

“He is so isolated now,” Bennett said. “It’s not a long-term solution to purge yet more dissenting voices within a society. These can only be short-term measures. I view it as the death throes of the regime.”

Rabid Serbian nationalists led by Milosevic’s coalition partner, Vojislav Seselj, are using the public anger over economic decay and foreign threats over Kosovo to strengthen their own hand.

They have issued parliamentary decrees to intimidate the small, independent media with huge fines--or outright closure as enemies of the nation. And a Milosevic ally is leading another purge of free-minded intellectuals at Belgrade University.

Analysts also see the dark hand of Milosevic’s wife, Mirjana Markovic, in the current purge. Markovic, the hard-line leader of the neo-Communist Yugoslav United Left, sees threats to her husband’s rule around every corner.

The ouster last month of Stanisic, Milosevic’s security chief, was a key move because he was one of the few people able to restrain Milosevic, Seselj and his allies, Bennett said.

Perisic, the army chief of staff fired Tuesday, was a senior commander of Serbian forces that shelled Croatian and Bosnian towns during the Yugoslav federation’s disintegration earlier this decade. He was widely blamed for the “ethnic cleansing” that drove thousands of people from their homes.

Perisic took charge of the Yugoslav army as chief of staff in 1993, and as Serbia became more isolated, he challenged the same iron-fisted policy that he once loyally carried out for Milosevic.

When Serbia’s paramilitary police and soldiers destroyed hundreds of ethnic Albanian villages in Kosovo this summer, Perisic was considered a voice of restraint.

With the threat of North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrikes looming over Serbia last month, Perisic publicly attacked his own masters by blaming the war, in part, on “certain politicians who want to stay in power.”

Perisic’s replacement, Lt. Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, is expected to be far more obedient if Milosevic orders the military to take back territory it lost to separatist Kosovo guerrillas when it withdrew under NATO pressure.

By getting rid of Perisic, Milosevic may also be signaling the limits of his patience with Montenegro, Serbia’s tiny partner in what is left of Yugoslavia.

Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic is a reformer opposed to Milosevic and his hard-line Serbian nationalist allies. He reportedly tried to defend Perisic, using his position on Yugoslavia’s three-member Supreme Defense Council.

If Bennett and other analysts are right and Milosevic is leading the remnants of the Yugoslav federation to a complete breakup, Montenegro may be the next Balkan war zone.

“We already have an anarchic situation in Kosovo,” Bennett said. “We have an anarchic situation in [neighboring] Albania itself, and we’re heading for that with Serbia as well.

“I believe that we’re going to see tension with Montenegro because it’s attempting to save itself” from being pulled down with Serbia, he added. And if that leads to war, “it could actually turn into something quite savage.”