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Subject: Serbian Strongman Trying to Oust Key Rival; Milosevic May Be Giving Up
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 04:45:22 EST
Message-ID: <38.1992Nov3.044522@AmeriCast.com>

Serbian Strongman Trying to Oust Key Rival; Milosevic May Be Giv-
ing Up Year-Long Effort to Negotiate World Acceptance of
Regime<By Blaine Harden<Washington Post Foreign Service=

BELGRADE, Nov. 2 - Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, having
failed to win Western acceptance, is moving to purge his regime
of pro-Western rivals who have sought to negotiate an end to eth-
nic war in the former Yugoslavia.

The Milosevic-dominated federal parliament of Yugoslavia, which
now consists only of Serbia and the small republic of Montenegro,
took a first step tonight to unseat Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan
Panic, a naturalized American citizen.

Panic, who was hand-picked by Milosevic in July to give credibil-
ity to the Serb-dominated Yugoslav state, has won praise both in-
side and outside Serbia for attempting to halt the war in Bosnia.
Instead of backing Milosevic, he has demanded the resignation of
the Serbian leader, whose regime has incited and supported Serb
nationalist aggression in Bosnia and Croatia.

The lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Citizens, voted
overwhelmingly in favor of a no-confidence motion against Panic.
But Panic's aides said that they were counting on Montenegrin
deputies in the second parliamentary chamber, the House of Repub-
lics, to keep the prime minister in office. A vote in that
chamber, which is split 50-50 between Serbian and Montenegrin
delegates, is scheduled for Tuesday.

The maneuvering in Belgrade to get rid of Panic and an apparent
move today by Bosnian Serbs to pull out of international peace
talks suggests that Milosevic may be giving up on a year-long ef-
fort to negotiate world acceptance. The ouster of Panic, if it
occurs, will deprive Serbia and Montenegro of a moderate voice
that had been winning increased credibility in the West.

Panic has moved in recent weeks to improve relations with
Croatia, and he has personally reassured ethnic Albanians in the
Serbian province of Kosovo that they will be granted autonomy and
full civil rights.

The apparent move to withdraw from peace talks came when the as-
sembly representing Serbs in a self-declared state in Bosnia vot-
ed today to withdraw from U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Geneva,
according to the Tanjug news agency.  The announcement by the as-
sembly, which is widely believed to be controlled by Milosevic,
said there would be no further peace talks until the Serbian
republic of Bosnia wins international recognition. U.N. officials
say such recognition is impossible.

In Washington, State Department sources said they had conflicting
signals from Geneva about whether the Bosnian Serbs are pulling
out of the talks. As one source put it, "the Serbs engaged in a
lot of huffing and puffing, but in the end they did take part in
(Monday's) talks, and they gave no indication that they won't be
back (Tuesday).")

The parliamentary vote came after a day in which assorted
Milosevic allies took the podium to denounce Panic, a millionaire
entrepreneur of Serbian birth, as an "American spy" and a "mad-
man."

"I accuse him in advance of being the likely culprit for a civil
war in Serbia," said Brana Zrncevic, a deputy of the ruling Ser-
bian Socialist Party, which Milosevic controls.

The move to dismiss Panic was denounced today in Geneva by the
co-chairman of the U.N.  peace talks, Cyrus Vance and David Owen.
They said that Panic is a useful force for peace and reconcilia-
tion in the two-republic Yugoslav state, which was formed after
the collapse of the six-republic Yugoslav federation last year.

But judging from a series of Serbian maneuvers in the past three
days, Milosevic and his ultranationalist allies in Bosnia and
Croatia appear to have decided that criticism and increased
international isolation are worth the price of building an ethni-
cally pure "Greater Serbia."

A key subordinate to Milosevic, Gen. Ratko Mladic, who commands
Serbian fighters in Bosnia, said Saturday that the absence of
international approval will not deter the emergence of a greater
Serbian state.

"The existence of the Republic of Serbia is indisputable because
we have our own territory, our own people, our legally elected
authorities and all the attributes of a state," Mladic told a
joint session of the Bosnian and Croatian Serb assemblies.

"Whether others recognize it or not is their affair. But the ex-
istence of the Serbian army is a reality that cannot be denied by
anything. Our army is our people and our people is our army. We
don't conquer foreign territory and we can't be aggressive on our
own territory," Mladic said.

Over the weekend, assemblies of the pro-Serbian rump states in
Bosnia and bordering Croatia declared that they are joining to-
gether in a pan-Serbian state.

The declaration is a repudiation of a U.N. peace agreement that
Milosevic signed early this year to end a Serb-Croat war that
claimed at least 15,000 lives. That agreement explicitly says
that Serb-controlled land inside Croatia, territory seized by
force last year, is part of the internationally recognized Croa-
tian state.  U.N. officials have been complaining for weeks that
Milosevic's lieutenants in the Serb-controlled slice of Croatia
have been sabotaging the peace deal. They say that Serb police
are attacking non-Serbs and "disloyal" Serbs, robbing their
houses and forcing them to flee the area.

Cedrick Thornberry, director of civil affairs for the U.N.
peace-keeping operation in former Yugoslavia, said recently that
"this is being done according to a plan in order to prevent the
return of the exiled (non-Serb) people to their homes."

Milosevic tried and failed in September to force a no-confidence
vote in parliament against Panic. By trying to oust Panic and by
repudiating the prime minister's peace initiatives, Milosevic re-
cently has lost the support of Montenegro, Serbia's traditional
ethnic ally.

"We are not ready to take part in this act (of dismissing Panic)
that would leave Yugoslavia without a government and a head of
state and which ultimately might lead to chaos and a civil war,"
said Andrija Peresic, a Montenegrin member of the parlia-
ment.<02:31 11-03C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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