With Surrender, Milosevic Now Must Face the Music at Home

In yielding to NATO and agreeing to withdraw his army and police forces from Kosovo, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has surrendered on nearly every point except the one that matters most to him: his supremacy as the leader of Yugoslavia.

But the war he provoked by defying NATO has lasted far longer than either side calculated, leaving him to preside over an isolated and ruined country that may ultimately prove more unruly than the one he mastered for the last decade.

As they welcomed the news that peace may soon be at hand after more than 10 weeks of punishing bombardment, many Serbs said Thursday that they felt all along that Milosevic’s capitulation was inevitable. Facing the 19-nation Western alliance, he succumbed to pressures of mounting economic losses and army casualties, his own indictment last week by an international tribunal on war crimes charges and--the final straw--loss of crucial Russian backing for his negotiating position.

Now he must not only try to rebuild the country but also explain to its 11 million people why he picked this fight in the first place.

The settlement Milosevic accepted Thursday differs little from the NATO ultimatum he faced in late March. It would make Kosovo--a province of Yugoslavia’s main republic, Serbia, and a place with genuine historical and religious importance to Serbs--essentially a protectorate run by NATO for the benefit of the province’s ethnic Albanian majority, who seek a high degree of political autonomy or outright independence.

Instead of accepting that ultimatum, which would have been humiliating, Milosevic chose a quixotic struggle against an overwhelming foe, apparently in the belief that even a defeat would boost his authority and nationalist credentials.

In doing so, he took a risk that the conflict might get out of hand, that he might be overthrown by a demoralized Yugoslav army, captured by invading ground troops NATO threatened to send or killed by one of the bombs that alliance planes kept dropping on his residences and bunkers.

Just as he has done in previous bloody conflicts that have dismembered Yugoslavia over the last decade, however, Milosevic showed that he knows when to pull back and accept defeat.

For more than a month, he had been counting on Russian envoy Viktor S. Chernomyrdin to help forge a compromise with NATO that would have allowed him to keep thousands of Yugoslav troops and police in Kosovo. On Wednesday, however, Chernomyrdin came in the role of enforcer, telling Milosevic that he had no choice but to accept the West’s demands.

Just as NATO underestimated Milosevic’s will to resist, the Yugoslav leader misjudged NATO’s firmness. As allied bombers missed their targets and civilian casualties mounted across Yugoslavia, his aides kept predicting that public opinion in the West would turn against the bombing assault and fracture the alliance.

“He kept thinking that if he kept holding on one more day, one more week, something, anything might happen to save him,” said Bratislav Grubacic, a political analyst who edits the independent VIP Daily News Report.

Instead, the allies inflicted mounting casualties on his forces while suffering almost none of their own.

Then the international war crimes tribunal’s indictment last week raised the stakes, adding to the pressure on Milosevic to end the war while he could still protect himself. “The indictment shook him seriously,” Grubacic said. “He realized he was running out of maneuvering room.”

Thursday’s agreement contains nothing that poses an explicit threat to Milosevic’s power, but it is hard to see how else he benefits.

“From the point of view of national pride, he will become a historical figure; in Serbia, there’s something to be said for resisting so long against a powerful enemy,” said Aleksa Djilas, a prominent Belgrade historian. “But from the point of view of pragmatic politics, it’s a disaster because our country is devastated.”

Economists in Yugoslavia say the bombing has cost at least $100 billion in lost production and damage to bridges, highways, railroads, power generators and other infrastructure. The potential for postwar unrest is considerable, with at least half a million people out of work, soon to be joined by thousands of army conscripts and reservists returning in defeat from Kosovo. Fuel and electricity shortages could diminish the fall harvest and force millions to endure a winter in unheated homes.

The political fallout is just starting.

Vojislav Seselj, a hawkish deputy prime minister of Serbia, threatened Thursday to resign if NATO troops come into Kosovo as peacekeepers, as the agreement foresees. Serbia’s main opposition Democratic Party said Milosevic should have made peace with NATO before the bombing started--because the deal he got Thursday was not much better.

Milosevic’s best weapon against such criticism has always been his control of the media, coupled with periodic crackdowns on dissenters. Opposition leaders predicted that wartime curbs on free expression will stay in place for some time as Milosevic struggles to explain the peace agreement to a wary public.

“He must have two or three months of monopoly on the media and on politics to convince people that he won,” said Zoran Djindjic, president of the Democratic Party. “His position depends on what people in Serbia believe: Who is responsible for the war, Milosevic or NATO? Who won the war, Milosevic or NATO?”

That effort began Thursday night with a timid broadcast on state television, referring to the settlement as “the peace document” but offering few details. Citing two fig-leaf concessions to Milosevic, it said the deal was good for Yugoslavia because Kosovo will remain part of the country and NATO’s peacekeeping mission will come in under a U.N. flag.

“We have in fact defended ourselves successfully. We have remained undefeated,” said a statement by Milosevic’s Socialist Party that was read on the air.

The newscast closed by showing interviews with seven young people, all unidentified, who were gathered for the daily government-organized anti-NATO demonstration on a bridge here in the Yugoslav and Serbian capital. “The decision by our leadership reflects the mood of the majority,” one man said.

Milosevic’s long-term position could depend on how much reconstruction aid he gets from the West. The settlement calls for such assistance, but the European Union’s parliament was quick to say it would not send any as long as the Yugoslav leader remains in power.

Political analysts here speculate that Milosevic may turn to the West by bringing opposition leader Vuk Draskovic back into the government. Draskovic, leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, was fired last month for urging the government to reach a peace settlement.

At a news conference Thursday, Draskovic called for “a new pro-European democratic Serbia. This is the only future, the only way out for us.”

“If [the West] continues to make pressure on Milosevic after the peace agreement, we’ll have political isolation of this government, with economic and financial consequences for the country,” said Djindjic, Draskovic’s rival among the opposition forces. “I hope in this very complicated situation we can explain to people that without Milosevic we can get help and money.

“If people understand that survival is linked to removing Milosevic from power, it is a good starting point,” he added. “It depends on the international community.”

Times staff writer David Holley in Podgorica, Montenegro, contributed to this report.