Milosevic's fall won't cure the little people's ills

sheena mcdonald knows Yugoslavian Serbs have a difficult choice to make We can all fall from favour. In this country it leads to - at worst - some time spent in the wilderness, counting pennies and true friends, until Fate takes pity on you and holds out a helping hand once again. There is a good chance that at least once in your life there will be a rainy day - so be prepared. And the higher you've climbed up the greasy pole, by fair means or foul, the further you have to fall.

So we are being told by learned commentators and the CIA that there is a strong likelihood that Slobo the war criminal will not win his third election. That is to say, Slobodan Milosevic will not win a third term as president of the former Yugoslavia, a much smaller entity than the Yugoslavia Tito forged earlier this century. International experts suggest he will not lose it for want of trying to rig ballots and corrupt the democratic system (in effect he controls all local television and radio).

Previously, as you know, Milosevic has waged wars of aggression against Croatia and Bosnia (these were emphatically not civil wars, whatever ignorant or biased commentators may say) in pursuit of one main aim - to hold and remain in power. The secondary aim was the putative creation of a Greater Serbia, an enlarged power-base from which he could operate.

One doomsday scenario is that he will annex Serbia's neighbour, Montenegro, still a member of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. The population of that republic is split between those who see themselves as Serbs and those who want to see an independent Montenegro. Scaremongers have suggested that a further bout of Serb aggression is only a matter of time.

But I wonder if they have read the situation right. The election is in two weeks, at a time when much of the world will be preoccupied with the Olympics in Australia. The Serb people are caught between a rock and a hard place. If they vote for Milosevic, they are voting for what they know all too well - rule by dictator, international sanctions, an increasingly impoverished country. It is not much of a prospect.

They could, of course, vote for his main rival, who is not the extreme nationalist Vuk Draskovic but Vojislav Kosturica - a man of liberal tendency who might take Serbia beyond its current state of disgrace, in a similar manner to the resurrection of Croatia, following the death of its evil old fascist president Franjo Tudjman.

Sounds ideal? There's a catch. If Milosevic is defeated by an un- fiddleable margin, Serbia risks being precipitated into the kind of red dwarf of a genuine civil war that many have feared and expected for years.

This would be a war between those who have long supported the brutal old regime out of self-interest - the army, police, mafiosi and so on - and those Serbs who want to live in the real world. They are still proud, still different, but respected for the intelligent people they are. They are tired of hearing themselves described as pariahs and automatically characterised as the black-hatted bad guys. Not much of a prospect at all.

And we are watching. He may be an indicted war-criminal, but Milosevic is at present safe where he is. The Nato action in Kosovo was a faulty attempt to redress past injustices - principally, leaving Bosnia to rot - but it has burned fingers and left unpleasant tastes in too many Western mouths.

With general elections looming in both the UK and US, we don't want to be bothered with too much foreign intervention at the moment. Western action in Iraq a decade ago demonstrated that force can achieve some results, but not achieve every desired outcome.

A Montenegrin friend, who now lives in England, is keen to point out that Montenegro remains a multi-cultural republic. I think many of its inhabitants are now resigned to Milosevic remaining a malevolent presence until his health gives out, and will therefore vote for an uneasy peace.

We are relatively happy with that in the meantime. Milosevic is contained, indicted. And we don't always bother about the little people.

The nagging trouble is that we can all fall from favour. If you have, I hope it did not happen in Serbia. Four European aid workers - two British - remain incarcerated there, and have been dropped from the UK news agenda.

One Serb journalist, Miroslav Filipovic, who spoke out against Serb atrocities in Kosovo last year, is still imprisoned in Nis in Serbia. His health is seriously deteriorating - he needs heart surgery which he can not get in a military hospital. Campaigns for his release are robust. Who knows? Perhaps Milosevic will see propaganda merit in springing him on the eve of the election.

If you have a moment's time to spare, you could sign the petition for his release at letters@iwpr.net. If Fate is to hold out a helping hand, it needs daily nudging.

And while the Olympic ideal is played out in Sydney, remember the little people around the world at the bottom of the corrupt, greasy pole.

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