Boston Globe

LETTER FROM BELGRADE

NATO bombs raze dreams of democracy

By Randolph Ryan, 04/04/99

Editor's note: Randolph Ryan, a former reporter and editorial writer for the
Globe, has spent the last year in Belgrade overseeing a program for
independent journalists. Last week, from a safe haven in Szeged, Hungary, he
sent these thoughts about what is happening in Yugoslavia.
What exactly can NATO people have been thinking when they started down this
road? What is happening is tragic, and deeply ominous for the future of the
Balkans. It has shattered the hope - at least for now - that Yugoslavia's
committed, growing democracy movement would, on its own, force Slobodan
Milosevic from office.
Serbia is not a democracy in which leaders are subject to public opinion. It
is an authoritarian, ex-communist state run by a Mafioso government that,
until a couple of weeks ago, a growing majority of the people sullenly
resented, intermittently challenged, and were gradually preparing to unseat,
Ceausescu-style, if necessary.
Now, thanks to NATO, Serbia has overnight become a totalitarian state in a
frenzy of wartime mobilization.
I recognize faces on the television, people I know to detest Milosevic, now
standing arm-in-arm with Arkan, the feared paramilitary leader, and hack
politicians from the ruling political parties. "The one who throws the
bombs, he may have the best reasons in history, but that doesn't matter,"
said a friend of mine sadly as we watched a fervid anti-NATO rally on state
television. "When they bomb Serbs, they push us together."
I left Belgrade last week and came to this border town in Hungary, because
we could see this was going to happen. With all the egging-on by the
moralists, all the pressure on NATO to get even for past embarrassments,
plus NATO's wish to strike a bold pose in time for its 50th birthday, it was
obvious they were bent on doing something, anything.
It had been different during the bombing threats last October and in
February. Then, I had chosen to stay in Belgrade. I figured that NATO had to
know that Milosevic would take immediate revenge by redoubling his attacks
in Kosovo - and that without ground troops NATO would have no way,
absolutely no way, to stop him. They had to know bombs would crown Milosevic
emperor for life, and create an impossible dilemma for themselves. Last
fall, NATO did seem to understand these things.
Until now, Serbia's best hope lay in its people, the tiny outgunned group of
independent journalists and professionals and intellectuals, mostly in
Belgrade, who have struggled against Milosevic throughout the past 10 years.
When others like them left Serbia to pursue a new life in Canada or New
Zealand, these people stayed behind to fight for the future of their
country.
For being democrats, for leading street protests, for believing in open
information, they were fired from their jobs, impoverished, called for
midnight "chats" by Milosevic's secret police, denounced as quislings and
spies, sometimes beaten. Even so, they led the now-forgotten demonstrations
against Milosevic early in the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, and of course the
big Zajedno clamor in 1996 and 1997 - a three-month protest with a carnival
spirit organized by the opposition coalition - which was the only protest
the West really noticed.
These people were the hope for the Balkans. They detest nationalism and
ethnic savagery and Slobodan Milosevic with every ounce of their being.
And, bit by bit, this group was growing. Now, in the last two weeks they
have been overwhelmed and swept aside. They are furious with NATO and its
slick, hypocritical spokesmen and the slanted coverage they see on CNN,
which at times mirrors Radio Television Serbia in its bias. They are in
anguish, confused, and wild with despair.
"I used to spit on the police," says a Belgrade artist. "Now, when I see a
policeman, suddenly I feel secure. If someone powerful is attacking us,
where else can we turn for protection? I never thought it would happen, but
our villains don't seem like villains any more."
The reason that many of the democrats are preparing to leave now - the
reason I left myself - is that when the dirty work is finished in Kosovo, it
will begin at home. The regime will go after its enemies, including the
democrats and student leaders and journalists working for honest newspapers
like Danas and honest broadcasters like radio B-92. When it happens, there
will be no courts, no journalism, no possibility of street protests, not
even any Western friends to bear witness, because all Westerners knew they
had better flee when NATO bombed.
Bear in mind that 80 percent of Serbs have no tradition either of democracy
or of the kind of crime and cronyism that make up the Milosevic government.
The tradition of the majority is simply to follow their leaders, to endure
and accept their lot, which so many times in history has been to lay down
many lives in a glorious, hopeless cause.
I wouldn't say Serbs are unafraid of NATO, but their fear is tempered by
history. Belgrade was bombed by the Germans - on this day, incidentally,
Easter - in 1941. They were bombed in 1944 by the Americans - friendly fire,
of course, aimed at the Germans - and, as it happens, that too was on
Easter. Under fire from NATO missiles, some Serb knees will shake a little,
and their breathing will become fast, until the all-clear sounds.  They
lament the inconveniences of the assault - that bread and cigarettes may be
hard to get - but that goes with the territory. It's a just part of being a
Serb.
Where fear is concerned, Milosevic, of course, understands that it is NATO
that is afraid of him. He knows NATO fears to dispatch ground troops because
it does not want to be stuck guarding Kosovo for another 50 years, which is
likely if a Kosovo protectorate is created. He knows NATO cannot afford to
carry out terror bombings of civilians, or even destroy the civilian
infrastructure the way the allies did in the Gulf War in Iraq because the
Western populations would eventually rebel.
So Milosevic is sitting pretty. The military damage he incurs doesn't really
matter. After all, he needs cops and sycophants, not jets, to rule his
country. Every NATO bombing run makes him politically stronger.
Meanwhile, Serbs are standing together in solidarity, swaying together and
singing rock anthems at rallies that, pre-bombing, would have been aimed at
dumping Milosevic, and today are organized by him.
The free journalists and democrats, the human rights activists and leaders
of demonstrations, are now marginalized and silenced. They are denounced by
nationalists as traitors in the pay of the genocidal NATO Pact.
Very soon, if not already, apartment doors will be kicked down. There will
be "robberies" by "unknown elements," beatings in the streets, the
occasional disappearance. That will be the start of what the NATO bombing
has wrought.

This story ran on page C03 of the Boston Globe on 04/04/99.