Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Panic looks to Clinton for relief Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 15:13:22 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \HD Panic looks to Clinton for relief \BY Andrew Borowiec \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Milan Panic, Yugoslavia's beleaguered prime minister, is counting on President-elect Bill Clinton to break the civil war deadlock in the Balkans before neocommunists oust him from power, a special envoy from Belgrade said yesterday. Mr. Panic expects "understanding and support" from the future Democratic administration, chiefly because Mr. Clinton "is a better educated man" than his predecessor, according to Radmila Milentijevic, minister-at-large in the Panic government. She stressed Mr. Clinton's record as a Rhodes scholar at Britain's Oxford University. Mr. Bush is a graduate of Yale University. Like Mr. Panic, Mrs. Milentijevic is a naturalized U.S. citizen and a registered Democrat. One of the first tasks on her current trip here was to vote - a straight Democratic ticket - in the U.S. presidential election. She said Mr. Panic, who narrowly survived a vote of confidence in the Yugoslav parliament on Nov. 3, is seriously threatened by Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic, a man generally considered to favor hard-line communism. Unless the United States helps lift the punitive economic embargo on the remnants of Yugoslavia and persuades Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina to negotiate peace, Mr. Panic may lose his battle for political survival, Mrs. Milentijevic said in an interview. She stressed that Mr. Panic intends to use what she described as "high-powered contacts" in the Democratic Party to influence Mr. Clinton, keep close contact with the new administration and help eradicate the negative image of Serbs in the Western media. In addition to Mrs. Milentijevic, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Ilija Djukic has arrived in New York to lobby for the lifting of the economic sanctions and establish contact with the Democratic transition team. Of utmost poriority is to unblock "tons and tons" of relief supplies donated by Serbian organizations in the United States, she said, and lift the ban on oil shipments without which schools and hospitals may have to close during the bitter Balkan winter. On the Yugoslav battlefield, Serbian and Croatian forces yesterday fought around the southwestern town of Mostar, center of a region that produces a potent white wine. Croatian forces claimed gains in their offensive along the southern war front. Serbian irregulars shelled towns held by Muslim government forces in northern Bosnia while there was relative calm in Sarajevo, the besieged capital. In another development, Bosnian Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic proposed a peace plan for the embattled former Yugoslav republic, including withdrawal of all Croatian troops, the release of civilian hostages and a cease-fire that would honor the existing front lines. If the plan is rejected, the Serbs will continue to fight, Mr. Karadzic said in Belgrade. Mrs. Milentijevic confirmed considerable territorial gains by the Serbian forces because "the Serbs are better fighters, better equipped and better trained. Every time they win a battle they win territory." She said the federal government was impotent in trying to control various Serbian militias and defended accusations of atrocities committed by Serbs as part of "any civil war." "Muslims and Croats are doing the same to Serbs except the press doesn't report it," she said. Mrs. Milentijevic precluded any compromise by the two-republic Yugoslav federation in Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians demand independence. Serbs traditionally regard Kosovo as their historic heartland. "Kosovo is not going to be an independent republic," she said. "Integrity of Serbia's borders will be protected. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM