World Without Milosevices

The decision by the Yugoslav leaders to arrest former President Slobodan Milosevic became the main political story of the last several weeks. Television channels ran live broadcasts at the gates of the former dictator’s mansion. Special editions of Belgrade newspapers came out following his arrest. The former Yugoslav leader’s supporters in the CIS were stunned, calling his arrest treason and saying that the new Yugoslav leaders have just been bought. What nonsense! As if the Yugoslav democratic opposition’s goal had not been to oust the regime and bring Milosevic and his pack to justice. And the list of their crimes does not include political ones alone. As a rule, a postsocialist unreformed country witnesses the emergence of a merciless and cynical shadow economy supported and headed by those in power. When you see beggars and brand new jeeps and Mercedes in the streets of such countries, you do not have to guess much at who the godfathers are.

One nonsensical thing about such an economy is that it can line the pockets of its architects but not feed the country. For a while at the start, the regime its people political myths, like the one on all the Serbs living in the Milosevic’s Yugoslavia. Or on a new allied state in Lukashenka’s Belarus. Soon, however, the economies in such countries fall apart and their subjects become beggars who have nothing to lose and who take to the streets in protest. The regimes are unable to put up any resistance because they are led by ersatz businessmen, not fanatical revolutionaries. This ends careers that originally seemed irreproachable.

I asked Lukashenka at his press conference in Moscow how he took the arrest of his comrade-in-arms Milosevic. Lukashenka typically called the arrest a disgrace, saying people must not be betrayed even for big money, simultaneously describing new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica as an ardent patriot who will eventually lead Yugoslavia into the Russian-Belarusian union. The media turnout at the press conference was very low, with the bulk of those present being members of the Belarusian delegation, guards, and Interfax journalists whose agency hosted the meeting. Lukashenka, who resembled a deflated balloon, tried to sound polite, literally inviting journalists to ask questions. Definitely a man with developed political hunches, Lukashenka is aware that his hour of glory is also coming to an end — even if he wins his next presidential elections.

Obviously, the arrest in Belgrade has not put him in a good mood.