Focus 580; Update on Yugoslavia

Program My name is David Ensor. Glad to have you with us this morning. In this part of the program we'll be talking about events in Yugoslavia over the past month or so we've seen an election a change of government. And it seems the beginning of a change of in the relationship between Serbia particularly Yugoslavia more generally and Europe and the United States some rather significant changes will try to talk a little bit this morning about what happened why to the extent that we can answer that question and then the future here for for Serbia. And our guest on the program is Carol lef. She's professor of political science at University of Illinois and she's been with us before and talk about this part of the world and also to talk about Russia and her area of study. And we're glad to have her back. And as we talk of course questions are welcome. People who are listening. If you'd like to pose a question yourself you can do that. We just ask people to try to be brief so that we can keep things moving along but to Anyone's welcome to call the number here in Champaign Urbana is 3 3 3 9 4

5 5. We do also have a toll free line so if it would be a long distance call use that number that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3. WRAL toll free 800 1:58 WLM. Well thanks very much for being here. Good morning. We had seen some interesting things happen there in Yugoslavia over the past few weeks. There was an election. It was won by Vojislav Christian it's a who was a candidate of a coalition of 18 parties. It was obvious that when he had won Mr. Milosevic tried to I think even before the votes were all counted when it looked like clearly that he had last tried to stop the count tried to say well no actually Mr. question it's a Didn't get enough votes and then when that didn't work and there was a popular demonstration in favor of the opposition than apparently Mr. Milosevic decided that force was called for. And probably we would have seen a different outcome if the security forces hadn't

decided no they weren't going to do that. What what made all this possible particularly the maybe not so much the. The vote for Mr. Bush don't answer. But the fact that people who previously had supported Slobodan Milosevic Bradley decided they were going to do it anymore. Of course that was the. $64000 question Well actually I guess these days is the million dollar question. And the public in Serbia finally gave their final answer. But yeah I think that you know I think it is rather complicated and it was rather complicated for the players too because I think one question although they might not all pose that way is the question of was this Rumania in 1909 in which a popular series of massive popular demonstrations ended in not only protesting the regime but in convincing a lot of stout lords of the remaining dictator Ceausescu to you know to switch

sides. The Army in particular or was this 1996 1997 in. Serbia where massive public demonstrations to try to try to enforce the results of especially of local elections that Milosevic was was was was. Ignoring or or announcing that that the that the regime had won. In that case although some concessions were made on the elections there was no there was no shaking of the of the support of Milosevic by you know by the key forces the security police the armed forces and so forth. And you know I just want to make the point not I mean it's only clear now after the fact you know which kind of scenario it was and that posed a very you know very grave dilemma for the forces the Democratic coalition the 18 party Democratic coalition you mentioned that had supported co-students and who who had to decide because the issue was not simply

whether they would protest. The issue was you mentioned part of the maneuvering the last of which went through well. Well Yugoslavia has. Presidential election system like the French There are two rounds. If you win 50 percent in the first round then then you win outright. If you do not win 50 percent you're one of the top two you can go on to a second round where where in this case the loss of students who would have faced off. So one of the things that Milosevic said after he said that he didn't that that hadn't had one. Then he said well yes he got more votes but not enough just barely not enough to top 50 percent so there'd have to be a second round. And I think that was the moment of truth in the thing that and I think a lot of us some observers myself included were worried about what would happen then because what the Milosevic forces decided to do was was to announce they were going to boycott that second round and that they were going to

stand on the fact that they'd already won and would not jump through more hoops for Milosevic. And you know I know I know beforehand you know I was worried about that strategy I can see they boycott the election which of course means Milosevic wins it. And yeah and there you are you have him back in power and he's been legitimated in a way. You know that they know that that would allow him to coast on for you know another few years and you know that outcome was you know was quite distressing particularly for reasons we can probably go into later. The electoral politics and strategy of this election were even more complicated than that because there was a parliamentary election as well. At the same time one of the things that certainly I was was interested in is the fact that there it did seem that that people in the military and the security apparatus that previously had been supporters of Milosevic withdrew their support

and came out in favor of the opposition and when he was relying on the fact that he could call them into the streets even to go against the opposition supporters they basically they stayed home. And what led them to change their mind about supporting Milosevic. Well if we could be sure about that then there would have been this quandary about what strategy to adopt because everyone would have been fairly sure that that it was not risky to refuse a second round election but it would appear it would appear that that several things. We're different this time than in the past. For one thing the election itself up until up until this September Milosovich had run for president before and won. And the opposition and never been able to get its act together to support a single candidate that had credibility that everyone was willing to vote for. And so there was

always a fragmented message and Milosevic won. And he you know certainly the results were messed with in previous elections. But nonetheless the you know the balance this time in the way in which the way in which the opposition unite and made the message much clearer. So that has to be considered as as one unusual fact and suggests that the weakness and the fragmentation in Milosevic's opposition was always part of the reason why he could stay on. The second thing is I think the things from year to year have only gotten worse in Yugoslavia. The economy has continued to deteriorate. You know although there are various moments when it might have been hoped that Milosevic still at the helm could have negotiated some kind of exit from a number of the sanctions and recognitions that Yugoslavia subs are subject to. You know I think by. The year 2000 it's become fairly plain and other countries have made it fairly plain

that that he's not going to be part of the solution. And I think you know I think that message also was clear to people. You know one of the things that in this election that Christine insists said and he is himself we haven't talked about him yet but I'm sure we will. A Nationalist was that Milosevic was a man of the past which is a message that I think that that a number of people including opportunists or even former loyalists of his message that a number of officials could accept and and feel calculate that the moment had come where where public loss of its sentiment was fairly clear and where the payoff for staying in his camp were. Fairly unclear. And an asking asking the police to engage in bloody repression at this particular point was asking a bit too much.

Whatever their personal sentiments might be and quite a few of them were anti Milosevic themselves. But you know there is this moment in a number of transitions where in the military and security forces have to decide which side they're on and you can always tell it's coming. But you know I think those were some of the factors that really it seems do that for someone who had the reputation of a tyrant here but Mr. Milosevic of being a savvy politician that he somehow lost touch with the public mood and that some of the things that I've read suggest that particularly a lot of the people who were in his inner circle continued to tell him everything was great. And if someone and apparently very few people did might have come along and said Well you know maybe things aren't so great that person was gone. So it sounds as if perhaps he the kind of advice and support that he was getting wasn't wasn't being straight with him and either he was you know perhaps just

choosing he was maybe choosing to believe that everything was OK when it wasn't and that he didn't in fact have his pulse very have his finger very. Very closely on the pulse of the people you know. Well that's important because this was a challenge she didn't have to face right now. He didn't have to have an election this fall. He could have waited. There was still time on you know on the electoral clock so to speak next summer was really the the end point for a new president. I His That's when his term expired and all of the elections would have had to be held earlier they would have had to be held this much or earlier. So he really did miscalculate in deciding this was a time and in this in this respect he has you know he has you know he yes he clearly had lost the pulse of the public but he wasn't missing one thing that's still true which is that that the fact that these the Serbs and some Negron we can get to that but

number Montenegrins that make up the smaller republic within Yugoslavia did not vote in this election boycotted it. But the but the people who were voting against him were voting for coastin and so not all of them not all of them were completely out of sympathy with a number of his messages including And I think this is very important. You know deep resentment of the aftermath of the the U.S. incursion. In on what is recognized even by us is Yugoslav territory in Kosovo last year which meant that which meant that that he had that that unless those nationalists clothes could be stolen from him. I mean he had an issue in which he had much in common with the public because Serbians do see themselves as victims. You know of a bombing campaign that I you know may have achieved its immediate ends but I mean it still is part of the complicated situation there and still a lot of public

resentment of Americans and West Europeans. Let me just mention here that our guest is on this part of focus 580 Carol lef professor of political science at University of Illinois were talking about U.S. labia and what has happened there and last month or so if you have questions you can call 3 3 3 w. Weil toll free 800 1:58 w whilom. Apparently Mr. Kurtz minutes or was was a good good candidate for the opposition to settle on someone who was well known and clearly known as a Milosevic opponent and someone who had a reputation as being a clean guy. And at the same time probably was sufficiently nationalist enough. He had been apparently a very outspoken critic of the naval bombing. In the course of a war and so was probably occupied enough of a middle ground so that it turned out he was. It was a pretty good candidate but to what extent what

extent is he truly a Serb nationalist and is that something that that's likely to be a difficulty when we get more and more into trying to patch up again the relationship between Serbia and the West. You know he says he's a sort of nationalist. I mean it's not it's not some kind of careful decoding we have to do. I mean I think that I think that tries to remember to go back to your question about what the cyl mean for us later on because it means a lot for a number of people who include not only us not only Westerner but for the whole region. But I mean I just want to go back to you know the kind of nationalist he was. I don't think that we need to doubt at all the intensity or sincerity of his nationalism which incidentally is ironic because Milosevic was almost certainly you know a largely an opportunist on this issue. He had been Milosevic had been a Communist Party official and this was his ticket

to the top of the leadership structure of what's now called the socialist. So I think they may have in there some name changing going on right now. As a matter of fact that was until this month called The socialists. But but Musa belonged to what you might call the innocent sort of nationalism of the 80s by which I say innocent in the sense that they were profoundly angry at the way Yugoslavia had sold out the Serbs in various ways had felt that Tito himself as a Croatian Slovene ethnic mixture and as as someone who would emphasize the you know a federal and multi national state had systematically systematically compromised the Serbian position. Well there are a whole group of them historians intellectuals in the case of students say he was a you know consulate constitutional legal. Expert. But I call them innocent in the sense that you could not I mean although they provided an intellectual context that in

fact in fact Milosovich built on. None of them you know in especially Chris Stoney's from itself had not extrapolated into the kind of thing that Milosevic was actually willing to do. I mean in other words he was he is understood to be a constitutional legal expert who takes law and and and and remaining within the boundaries of law rather seriously. So that it's not so much his his you know his nationalism that that makes him distinctive because I think only a nationalist candidate could have credibly opposed Milosevic Even so Milosevic accused him of being the lapdog of the West and in the end in Milosevic's supporters accused him of you know of being in you know just in the in the pay of the West so I mean it was anyone who ran against Milosevic would have to be a credible nationalist. The issue that you know we should

recognize is that that he was a critic of certainly of course of the NATO's action in Kosovo but also a critic of a number of things Milosevic did. You know the excesses of the last period and what that means for us what that means for everybody that was the other thing. Yeah well very very quickly the at least three sorts of things come up the relationship between essentially Serbia and Montenegro which is that's now what's left of Yugoslavia right between Serbia and Kosovo and between Serbia and Bosnia. At least he's made just since I'm hearing about about Kosovo and seem to be saying well yeah maybe we did some things that were wrong. He's talked about releasing Albanians that are in jail in Serbia. He's been to Bosnia things still don't seem to be real great if far as the Montenegrins go they still are talking about they want to go.

Here again you know all three very difficult sorts of things that at least are now seem to be kind of on the table. Just think before the elections I mean now I think that because of the high profile as everybody knows of the considerable Western sympathy for the Kosovar Albanians and for the way they were true you know they were treated within Milosevic's Yugoslavia and maybe less visible in general because it certainly doesn't make the front pages of The New York Times. Is the relationship between. This the sympathetic Western support for the tiny. Second Republic of Yugoslavia if the Serbia makes up about depending on whether you count refugees and so for let's just say about 9 million people. Montenegro the other unit of Yugoslavia is maybe six hundred fifty thousand. I mean

there's a huge disproportion between the size of the two units. Well couple of years ago a Milosevic lieutenant in Montenegro. That is someone that Milosevic had installed with his approval as prime minister in Montenegro and worked in collaboration with a young very young at that time the youngest prime minister in Europe a man named. Khan of IJ was was was. It was in the early 90s a supporter of Milosevic and two years ago after a period in which he had been critical of him on various various regards he came out openly to challenge the Milosevic leadership ran for president in Montenegro and won narrowly against a lot of his supported supported politician who is now in the federal government. And

that really. And then struck out the young. You kind of age this young. Now I guess he's about 38 37. This young economist staked out a position of pro-democracy pro-reform anti Milosevic. Positioning and on that basis I was attracting some Western aid although it's tricky since it wasn't a country in the can get IMF support or World Bank support. And so there he stood and with each passing month as long as Milosevic was in charge in you know at the at the National at the state level. Yes he was. He was moving toward greater independence he had freed the currency Montenegro from from the Yugoslav currency was pegging it to the mark joints Mark. He was treating with the West and for him and for the Kosovar Albanians and for Montenegrins who favored independence and pulling away from Serbia because SHINee says victory is

actually. A real problem because now the Western sympathy and attention should shift over to the nine million. Strong Serbian Republic with its democratically elected leader and the chances that either the cost of ours or the Montenegrins could easily get out of Yugoslavia now have been radically reduced compared to when they had Milosevic as the enemy. So there actually are a number of those smaller peoples within the boundaries of Yugoslavia who find this election a very a very mixed blessing on the one hand someone who is unlikely to launch a coup d'etat against them or engage in ethnic cleansing. On the other hand someone whose credibility is such that the West is is certainly not going to encourage Kosovar Albanians to think about independence. We've always in any case said that we want to solution in Yugoslavia we want Montenegro's independence advocates to cool it. I mean so that's one dimension of this that

this is peculiar reversal which comes with you know who the good guys are for us at any given time and who the former good guy is. You know the kind of priority we attach to the you know our previous. I don't want to call them clients but he also he he went to Bosnia and met with the Muslim Croat and Serb members of the collective presidency there and it was the first time that a leader of Yugoslavia had gone into non-Serbs Bosnian territory since the Bosnian war started in 1992. So it was a significant event right. And people talked about well and what is what does exactly this mean. Does this mean there we will see him improved relations between Bosnia and and Belgrade. Well I mean there's a prospect but of course the that whole episode that you described you probably know is a little more complicated than that. It started with the

return of the body of a Serbian nationalist poet. It was to be buried in Bosnia and you need to say he long since well before I mean it well before I even thought of running for presidency because remember of course that that strategic decision as to who to run as the candidate was a recent one because the idea that the election was coming up you know was it was a recent one. So he was going to come hell or high water he is going to go into Bosnian-Serb territory to go to the Serbian Orthodox ceremony of internment in Kerman. And at that point that's very tricky and delicate and possibly nationalistic Lee volatile at that point the West. And especially through the French envoys persuaded him that he was going to make that symbolic gesture to sort of strip it of. The possible message that it might send that he's what his real text is that he wants Bosnian-Serb territory back or something. He was

encouraged to meet with with the national state leadership of Bosnia and they did so not in Sarajevo itself but at the airport. He didn't actually go into Sarajevo that I mean you know for various reasons that's probably the correct security decision. So he talked with them and open channels of communication. But I think that the whole episode is sort of a good example of the two sided coin here that on the one hand. A legitimate Serbian leader in in in Belgrade in Cannes can help normalize relations on the other hand. You know it reopens some questions and you know knowing that he's a nationalist. It it has its potentially destabilizing side too until he clearly articulate where he stands on a number of issues. So the West is very anxious that he made clear he was not trying to overturn the Dayton settlement which he hasn't in fact publicly acknowledged to be valid. I mean Lisovicz

after all signed it no constitutional legal expert would ignore that I guess. So what about Kosovo. Certainly Mr. Christian it's and I'm sure other people in Serbia have have no no interest or would be unwilling to see Kosovo become independent. And at the same time they seem to be somewhat willing to admit that in the previous policies of the government mistakes were made. So where where does one go now with and or how does one think about what the relationship is likely to be now between Serbia and Kosovo. Yes. Yeah. Well as we were saying before it you know it on the one hand the west has never. Has never encouraged or made it as a public policy posture

of the West let's say has always officially been that Kosovo is part of Yugoslavia and yet needs to be treated better in particular needs to gain greater autonomy. And we were obviously willing to think about even officially perhaps the kind of substantial autonomy that would be very loose. You know very loose confederation which is the same kind of thing Montenegro was talking about to as its negotiating posture. OK. So so I mean it wasn't as if before the selection we had already been backing Albanian Kosovar Albanian independence in that area. But obviously this. And equally in equally clearly students it is someone who does not want to does not want to barter that territory and he feels the he feels the pull of the neck of the nationalist

historical. I'm about to say mythology but I mean that in the sense that we also have a patriotic mythology and I mean it whether it's true or false but just the way people sentiments that people feel toward a region that was historically part of the heartland of Serbia in you know centuries over centuries. This makes it difficult for I mean he is clearly willing to make gestures of conciliation toward the Albanians in that area. They've clearly gone way past that. It's been years since the the bulk of Albanian opinion in that area was really willing to to to think about a course of course of all that is is still in some way sworn into Belgrade. So then that's still a standoff. I mean and and and the Albanian position is undermined by having a more credible leader in Belgrade it's also undermined by the fact that that over the period since the ending of the official conflict the official

ending of the conflict and the placement of peacekeepers in Kosovo has not been a quiet. Transitional state I mean the international forces of various sorts continue to do a lot of the governmental functions. There's still a lot of tension a lot of Serbs have fled. The Albanians. You know the the anger of Albanians against what has had what happened to them and spilled over in various ways not all of them. I mean there are a couple of key conflict zones but it's not it's not an orderly picture it's there's no there's nobody who can step forward and say we've got this sorted out we're ready for self-government. And then without even analyzing why all this might be true it's not you know we we're not dealing with a coherent side there yet. I mean in the end you know the whole area continues to be tense and

and you know it's it's domestic control unclear you know. Well that's interesting because that goes back to the point that you made about now how in fact the with Mr.. QUESTION It's a now taking over it actually makes things more complicated because before when Milosevic was there one could could look at the continuing confusion and difficulty and that was going on in Kosovo and saying well we'll deal with that at another point they were almost like that. What you know we can put that aside but now you can't you can't say oh well we'll put that aside and I'm sure that much more attention will be focused on there and that there will be more pressure on Kosovo to kind of get its act together and that's going to be some task you know. You know and they'll be but they'll also be lots of pressure. I mean because students is in the middle of a lot of cross pressures. He wants to rejoin Europe he wants you know sanctions

lifted he wants to normalize the all the relationships and and we don't you know look at this you can see various Western countries not wanting to press him too far but still there's all this outstanding agenda and eventually he's going to have to deal with it. And and the West is going to have to deal with because we're in there. I mean we were inside the boundaries of Yugoslavia with various peacekeeping forces and that means well. I mean we may not be It depends I mean I don't know what Bush's George W. Bush's plan and should he be elected is I mean he is come out you know to talk about the future policy postures saying that we ought not to be in the Balkans that that that NATO's European NATO's forces ought to take care of Europe in the Balkans and will do the big job elsewhere. And I mean our allies were taken aback by that but I mean I'm not sure what it means but. But you know that's yet another sort of joker in the deck we don't really know what the American election might

mean for a Balkan policy. Our guest this morning here in focus Carol Lefty's professor of political science at University of Illinois. We have a caller here get two others welcome three three three W I L L toll free 800 1:58 WY. Hello. Caller here is in Aurora. That's line for. Hello. If I have friends that are Croatian and of course are very unhappy about what happened in Yugoslavia Tito was a was the unifying factor in Yugoslavia at one time. What would I'll ask you two questions and then hang up what would be the unifying factor now and do you think Tito will ever be charged for his war crimes. Thank you. OK is there a unifying factor in Yugoslavia now. It was the first question. You know I don't really think it would ever be possible. I mean Tito had a rather unique position because among other things he was he was

the organizer of in world during World War Two of a partisan force that resisted the German outsiders. I mean and and as complicated as the political situation was in Yugoslavia during the war. Ultimately when Germany was defeated there was an organized military and political force that had fought the Germans that was recognized by the West and that was also keeping the Soviet Union out. And he was in addition a Croatian in a Slovene by background and he had had around him a number of lieutenants from all forces. But the liberation mythology the fact that he came to power as as a unifier and protector of Yugoslavia I don't see how anyone else could reproduce that role. So I you know I can't imagine anyone with that kind of credibility even within rump Yugoslavia now. Now the question of whether. Yeah I think maybe the second was about the last about to Las Vegas but I know as you talk about that as

there are so many names here. That's right we can all we can all be forgiven for confusing names but that indeed is the question Mr. Christian would say have parent Lee has said Miss said some things about the possibility of putting Mr. Milosevic on trial in Yugoslavia and not handing him over to the work Grimes trial but you know doing something there at home so you know what what do we think is likely to happen to Mr. Milosevic now. Well I mean first of all you know just to started at the beginning he is a formally indicted formally indicted by the Hague War Crimes Tribunal for you know for. I think cleansing policies for a range of issues and I don't think the book might be closed on that in terms of what he might be charged with. OK that's point one. Point to the west and and various you know the EU in general and

individual Western governments are rather reluctant to charge him to push Christine it's of to move forward on this issue and to turn him over. He has explicitly said he does not want to turn him over to the War Crimes Tribunal although apparently in recent days there's been a suggestion that that may not be a blanket you know blanket refusal to cooperate with the tribunal at all. But and the suggestion that that maybe that students might allow for a trial within Serbia or within Yugoslavia for his his work crimes has been suggested and there's been an indication in the west some you know diplomatic back channels and some off the record comments that this might be the compromise. But if so it's a rather complex compromise because if you listen to both statements or rather a lot of Christenson or rather a number of Serbian nationals one of the things you will

hear is that the emphasis is tends to be a bit more on how he drags Serbia down and a bit less. On the larger you know issues of what happened to some other peoples within Yugoslavia and its connection to that. And and so it wouldn't be the it wouldn't be precisely the same. You know what. But in terms of the art of the possible I mean you know I think that you know I think that if Western leaders are actually willing to allow you know a domestic process to go forward then it may well be that that's what happens. So I think he you know I don't think it's necessarily clear that he will mean justice but I think it's very unclear that Justice at The Hague at this point. And I think that may stand clear for a number of months the parliamentary new democratic parliamentary elections are supposed to be held in December. And at the moment with students it doesn't even have a government to work with that that isn't basically the Milosevic.

Will this end it goes back to your raising the issue or just mentioning in passing Rumania and at the time that the All this was going on in Yugoslavia there were popular demonstrations and finally we saw Mr. Milosevic sort of barely accept the inevitable and and step aside. And some of the commentary some of the descriptions I also heard references to remain and I think back to that and I think to what I least in the couple of years after school was gone I heard people say that well it's true that Ceausescu was gone but other than that the people who had been running the country before were still running the country. And it it made me wonder here in this context and in terms of Yugoslavia whether in just how much when you look at the people who are in positions of power how much really has changed. Yes. We've replaced Milosevic with caution and so but what about the what about everybody else the other

people who who essentially run the state bureaucrats and and other sorts of people. Yeah yeah. And and that's a that's a very important question because it's not just a matter of whether the old faces are going to go. But in part because of the sanctions and and the you know the prolonged the prolonged rule of one man combination. Yugoslavia is incredibly corrupt and it's not just individual officeholders but a whole network of patronage and contraband smuggling in you know energy smuggling the economy the people who boomed in this economy. You know we might think of them as war profiteers and a lot of them are embedded in that governmental structure. And and some of the most visible ones include the Milosevic's son Marco. And and in addition to Milosevic and his crew there is Milosevic's

wife who had her own party her own smaller party and your own network of influence in issues and she was actually I think much more disliked than he was which on the one hand is because her party was more hard radical but it was on the other hand is because I don't I think this is not uncommon in a lot of you know in a lot of you look at a marriage like this and you know a woman in a political marriage has real credibility problems that sometimes we've seen them in the United States. But but certainly in a number of other countries when Raisa Gorbachev for example tried to have a higher profile that was not appreciated either. Anyway so so yeah there's a there's a lot still to be done. Most of the key offices including interior security issues although the Milosevic forces have agreed to sort of share the government until the elections because students it does not have control of the sapper rattus and there's still a tremendous number

of people who who are you know have other agendas or carryover agendas Who's some of whom may be cheerfully willing to just switch sides or may have always wished to switch sides. You know the media is like that some people are disgusted at the way the media just rolled over and said now we're democratic. But in many cases a lot of them are pretty unhappy you know with their jobs. But in a country with that much unemployment. You know I don't know what my moral fiber would be if I had a family in and you know this is the only job that a journalist could do well in in response to the victory of Mr.. QUESTION And President Clinton began lifting sanctions against Yugoslavia this happened I guess about 10 days ago. And Mr. Kostunica said he was ready to try to begin to normalize relations or resume normal diplomatic relations between his Gundry and the United States.

Where where now do you think things are headed in this particular relationship there be between the between the Yugoslavia and the United States. Well in the first instance of course we're undergoing a transition to an and certain By the time you know in a couple of weeks it will be clear who the next president will be and that will make some difference because I don't think we can assume that the policies will necessarily be identical. They're probably not going to be as different as the Bush statement on you know on not doing anything in you know letting Europe do the peacekeeping in do the big stuff. But but but still I mean I think that there's you know there is going to be a you know a difference in emphasis about you know about what we might do there and how far me might go there. I think that you know so I you know I you know I don't you know where where are we going to go on this. I mean I think that's one issue. I think the first step that probably is going to happen no matter who's in power where is that

there's going to be a return of Yugoslavia international institutions. You know the U.N. the IMF they've already been they have been suspended from the the continent wide actually Eurasian. Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe and you know now they're going to return to that. So there there are series of organizations that even without European integration that they were the only post communist country were not involved in a series of organizations asking the returned institutions is going to be first. And part of the reason why they can now join the U.N. is that up until now Milosevic it always claimed to be the successor of his regime to be the sucess or state of Yugoslavia as a whole and no one would buy that quite apart from you know the other policy issues that that were involved.

One thing that I you know like to bring up because it's specifically relevant to the transition and it will come a few weeks later with a little greater clarity. Incidentally this year I'm the acting director of the Russian East European Center. And there are a few forms coming up which we're either sponsoring or co-sponsoring one in particular. You know I'd like to be sure to mention on November 15. Yes but one thing. On that day we're bringing in with the European Union Center and the Arms Control Program and you know a few other sponsors panelist of experts on. On the conflict Professor Robin Remington who I think has been on this program more than once but at least once you know who is a specialist on Yugoslavia and in fact was there during the election campaign in the demonstrations before things were resolved. And we also hope to bring in you

know I think this is settled but but I'm not positive we also expect to bring in a representative of the European Union. One of the delegation delegation in Washington to come out here I think the the official who's coming is Jonathan Davidson. And he will be able to talk a bit about the intricacies of negotiating with with with the new government and the interest. You know what the issues will be what the European Union is prepared to do. I'm going to say a little bit about comparative transitions but the two but the but the value added is clearly with our two visitors and that's November 15th. It's going to be a faculty center in the evening seven o'clock on the third floor. A couple of the slightly less directly related issues to you have by students undergraduates contributed to a summer in Kosovo in which a documentary was

made and I think they also have been on your program list at Amman and Sara price. Well they're doing an actus forum on Nov. 8 at 4 o'clock in which they talk a little bit about their experience so there is another angle on the whole issue. And finally this afternoon at 4 o'clock at the International Studies building in 910 South Fifth Street you know a public lecture by Harvard University anthropologist Michel Hertzfeld he's a he's. He's going to talk about the Bosnian battlefields but but he is not military strategy he's an anthropologist so he's going to look at. He's going to look and this is a 20th century view of the issue. He's a cultural anthropologist and you know I think that also might be an interesting piece of the puzzle over the next few weeks. Well we try to get we have one color here like that and not all that's good I believe is good for people to know about events like these people here in Iran that want to take them in

his car and ran to a live one. Hello morning yes. As we try to restore this you know the World Bank and the family of nations and restore economic viability as one of your guests like the comment made to Great Britain from the U.S.'s responsibility to clean up all the uranium contamination and the other contamination from collateral damage during the war could have a store in the United Nations office and look at this right now but it's a significant issue because before economic viability can be restored. Probably. Yeah I mean it's broader actually than that in the sense that for example one of the economic lifelines of the Serbian and Yugoslavian economy in general but particularly for Serbia is the Danube and the Danube which was perfectly traversable six months before the conflict I know because I actually was did it at that time. Bridges have been destroyed although some of them have been rebuilt and

Milosevic put a lot of energy into this in fact his rebuilding program was one of the things that that sort of reinforced pronounced ambivalence about the whole situation. I mean there's a question of commercial traffic on the Danube. There's a question of of a number of you know I mean a number of transportation linkages that are less important than the Danube itself. In additional to environmental damage now the legal means by which. Are responsible what I suspect will happen is that they will not be the case that the West says I'm sorry we were very culpable. We'll fix what we did. But let's all be folded into whatever aid packages are our addressed any and the and the distinction between that which happened as a result of NATO bombing in that which happened as a result of 10 years of sanctions and so forth and the loss of his rule will not be front and center.

I'm sorry to have to interrupt you but I'm afraid I'm going to have to just because we've used the time we have at this point. And I appreciate the comments of the callers. I'm sure we'll be talking about this some more in the future but for the moment we say to our guest Carol lef professor of political science or Dubai. Thanks very much. Thank you.