Power Struggle Dims Likelihood of Quick Arrest of Milosevic

A power struggle between Yugoslavia’s two strongest leaders has boosted deposed President Slobodan Milosevic’s chances of staying out of jail a little longer.

Just a month ago, it seemed a sure bet that the former Yugoslav leader would be locked up by midnight Saturday, a deadline set by the U.S. Congress. Officials here repeatedly assured Washington that it would not have to deliver on the congressional threat to cut off aid, saying the arrest was imminent.

But a squabble between Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and Zoran Djindjic, prime minister of the nation’s larger republic, Serbia, is tilting the odds in Milosevic’s favor and threatening to split the coalition that overthrew him in October.

It isn’t a question of whether Milosevic will be arrested but when, said Predrag Simic, foreign affairs advisor to Kostunica. Yugoslavia has too many problems already to be rushed, he said.

“In a way, we feel the pressure coming down on us is pushing us beyond what is legitimate or proper,” Simic said Wednesday in an interview. “Of course, we all want Milosevic arrested.

“But do we want Milosevic lynched, without trial?” Simic asked. “Or do we want to have Milosevic indicted, arrested and put on trial, not just for his real estate deals and other machinations but for everything that he did to this country?”

Milosevic has been indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague for the conduct of his police and army in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, as they battled ethnic Albanian rebels until North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops intervened in 1999 after a 78-day air war against Yugoslavia. The Serbian people, who once supported Milosevic’s war efforts, drove him from power and now widely accuse him of corruption and even murder.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher on Thursday denied a New York Times report that the Bush administration had already decided to certify that Yugoslavia is cooperating with the U.N. war crimes tribunal and is thus in compliance with the U.S. law.

“No decision has been made,” he told a news briefing. “We are in the process of our internal discussions of the matter.”

Boucher said the administration intends to make a decision by Saturday but could wait until after that date, though it then would have to freeze aid to Yugoslavia until the certification is issued.

Kostunica has insisted on letting justice run its course in the matter of Milosevic, no matter how long. But Kostunica’s main rival, Djindjic, controls the police in Serbia--and they will get the final order to arrest the former president.

The bitter standoff between the legalistic and nationalistic Kostunica and the more pragmatic Djindjic, once uneasy allies in the struggle to oust Milosevic, has left many here convinced that the former president will not be arrested in time to meet Washington’s deadline.

When protests forced Milosevic to accept an electoral defeat last year, the U.S. pledged at least $100 million to the new democracy. Some aid has been disbursed, to keep Serbia’s bombed-out and poorly maintained power grid working.

Congress has insisted that funds will be cut off if Yugoslav authorities do not show full cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal by midnight Saturday. In recent weeks, U.S. diplomats also have pressed for Milosevic’s arrest as a condition of further aid.

Djindjic went to Washington last week to plead for more time and sent Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic to The Hague to do the same.

Investigation Widens

In addition to the U.N. indictment, Serbian police are investigating Milosevic on charges ranging from buying a house illegally to ordering political assassinations.

His former secret police chief, Rade Markovic, is in jail while prosecutors probe claims that he organized and aided the killing of four Milosevic opponents. And on Monday, Serbian police rounded up seven more of Milosevic’s cronies.

Those arrests were ordered by officials who answer to Djindjic’s Serbian government, and several of them publicly promised that Milosevic would be a prisoner by the end of this month.

But Milosevic is still living with his wife, Mirjana Markovic--who is not related to the former secret police chief--in a federal mansion known as the “White House,” protected by Yugoslav army troops who take orders from the commander in chief: President Kostunica. The former leader leaves the walled compound with bodyguards on occasion for meetings of the Socialist Party, which he formally leads.

To Kostunica and many of his supporters, the U.S. pressure for Milosevic’s arrest represents meddling in Yugoslav affairs and an attempt to force the country’s legal system to follow the dictates of a foreign government.

Kostunica said this month that the issue is compounding his government’s other difficulties, such as an almost empty treasury, an economy in ruins and attacks by ethnic Albanian guerrillas along the border with Kosovo, still under the control of the U.N. and NATO-led peacekeepers.

“On top of all these tribulations, in which the world is more part of the problem than part of the solution, comes the story about The Hague and that we have to rush, in order that the world can get concrete evidence that we are good,” the president wrote March 8 in Nin, a leading Serbian magazine.

“One doesn’t know what we have been getting, other than verbal promises. What is certain is that big investors, and that’s what we need the most, have not been willing to invest in unsafe areas.”

Serbia’s economy is headed for more trouble as Djindjic presses ahead with reforms that, as state-owned factories are closed, will add about 500,000 workers to the 800,000 already without jobs, warned Simic, the presidential advisor.

By mid-February, Yugoslavia had received $274 million in aid, Kostunica’s government says. The U.S. ranked eighth on the list of donors, well behind the top three: Italy, Germany and Greece.

Meanwhile, opinion polls show consistent and growing support among Serbs for Milosevic’s arrest.

In a survey published March 19, 82% of those polled said Milosevic should stand trial, without specifying on what charges. Additionally, 46% of respondents supported extradition to The Hague.

Tribunal ‘Not a Court’

For years, magazine columnist Stojan Cerovic risked his life by challenging Milosevic. These days, he has to suffer angry critics for arguing that the Hague tribunal “is a political policy, not a court.”

“The Hague court is destabilizing the region by putting strong pressure on these new governments,” Cerovic said in an interview. “There is a sense that no matter what we do, it isn’t good enough.”

The student-led Otpor, or Resistance, movement that helped mobilize Serbian protests against Milosevic last year has been waging an advertising campaign this month to press for his arrest.

Like many people here, Otpor activist Teodora Smiljkovic, 23, doubts that it will happen by Saturday night but adds, “I’m sure they will arrest him very soon.”

She blames the delay on “a personal conflict” between Kostunica and Djindjic but also accepts that it isn’t easy for Serbian prosecutors to build a case for charges far more serious than a shady property deal.

“That’s why they’re arresting more people who worked around him, to try to make them witnesses [against him] or find out more about him,” Smiljkovic said. “The main problem with Milosevic is he didn’t take any notes and he only spoke to one person at a time.”

Otpor’s ad blitz has been carried out on radio, television, billboards and posters plastered throughout every city. Some posters show Milosevic’s face next to a shop with empty shelves or police beating protesters.

In another, a younger Milosevic is lighting up one of his cherished Cuban cigars next to a photo of refugees fleeing the ruins of war.

All of the posters pose the same question: “Who is guilty?”

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Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.