The New York Times

Thursday, May 27, 1999

BELGRADE

Word of Indictment Stuns the Serbs and Blights Hopes

By STEVEN ERLANGER

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Reports that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic may be indicted for war crimes Thursday, the day a Russian envoy is due here to discuss a peace settlement for Kosovo, stunned Serbs on Wednesday night and dampened hopes for an early end to the war.

As the government cracked down on anti-war dissent, charging an elected official with treason, one former confidant of Milosevic suggested that that the president might intensify the conflict by carrying it to Montenegro, Serbia's sister Yugoslav republic.

Montenegrin leader Milo Djukanovic has given shelter to democrats from Serbia. He is opposed the ethnic purges in Kosovo and poses the greatest domestic challenge to Milosevic.

If Milosevic is indicted Thursday by the tribunal in The Hague, it will greatly complicate the efforts of Russian special envoy Victor Chernomyrdin, who is expected here for talks.

"If the report is true, this will change everything," said a Serb analyst who requested anonymity. An indictment would confirm the suspicion of most Serbs that the tribunal, which operates under the United Nations, is prejudiced against them and is not an independent court. Serbs will conclude that NATO is not interested in peace, making Chernomyrdin's efforts all the more difficult.

The Yugoslav ambassador to the United Nations, Vladislav Jovanovic, on Wednesday night attacked the pending indictment and its timing. "It is a politically motivated decision that renders the tribunal an accomplice to NATO as an aggressor," he told the BBC. "This is motivated to help turn the population against our president and government."

Milosevic has always been suspicious of NATO's desire to introduce troops into Kosovo, fearing that the troops would arrest him for war crimes. He may now suspect that the indictment is a way to spurn any initiatives he makes toward a Kosovo settlement.

Milosevic is making clear that he will not tolerate anti-war dissent while the NATO bombing lasts, and may even intensify the conflict in the Balkans by mobilizing the general population to defend Kosovo and oust Djukanovic of Montenegro, in a further challenge to Washington.

The elected mayor of the southern town of Cacak, Velimir Ilic, a member of the opposition Democratic Party, is the latest to flee to Montenegro, according to Cacak residents. Officially, Ilic is on vacation, but he is now thought to have joined the head of the Democratic Party, Zoran Djindjic, there. The army has issued an arrest warrant for Ilic on the grounds of "undermining the defense capacities of the country and treasonous activities."

Six prominent democrats in Cacak, including a journalist, have been fined a total of $2,800 for taking part in unsanctioned and thus illegal gatherings of a "civic parliament" that has called on Milosevic to negotiate a rapid settlement to the Kosovo conflict. The fines, representing several months' salary, were paid Wednesday by unidentified people in Cacak.

The army and police have also cracked down in Krusevac, where mothers have been demonstrating for their soldier sons to return from Kosovo. All roads into town are being monitored, and there are police checks on anyone going in and out of town.

And in Belgrade on Wednesday, the trial opened of two Australian aid workers for CARE and a Yugoslav colleague imprisoned since March 31, on charges of espionage. The trial of the CARE workers, after its ceremonial start, was closed on security grounds to all outsiders, including the Australian ambassador to Belgrade and the mother of the Yugoslav on trial.

Thus far, there have been few severe punishments meted out to dissenters, even in Krusevac, where up to 3,000 people, many of them the mothers of conscripts, demonstrated for days and the soldiers themselves were allowed to return home, at least for a time.

In Cacak, a statement by the local branch of Milosevic's political party also accused Ilic of giving interviews to Radio Free Europe, which was described as "under the direct patronage of the CIA."

"The present local authorities in Cacak have not shown even the minimum of patriotism, even after two months of war," the statement said.

The reported indictment of Milosevic complicates peace efforts. In the past, the Clinton administration has refused to to negotiate with people indicted for war crimes in Bosnia, including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, but it did negotiate with Milosevic.

NATO is not negotiating with Milosevic now, doing it through Chernomyrdin and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who is expected to accompany Chernomyrdin to Belgrade. Finland is not a member of NATO.

But even negotiations through intermediaries deal ultimately with Milosevic, who decides Belgrade's policy.

The trial of the aid workers before a military court took place despite protests from the United Nations and other international agencies. Those on trial are Australians Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace and a Yugoslav, Branko Jelen.

Jelen's mother was led crying from the courtroom. The Australian ambassador, Charles Lamb, said he was "very disappointed to be excluded," since the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations "guarantees the right of access to trials."

On April 12, Yugoslavia displayed Pratt on Belgrade television, making an apparent confession to collecting information on Kosovo and the effects of the NATO bombing, but the confession, which Pratt's lawyer has said was made under duress, is not admissible.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, said he had appealed to Belgrade to "balance any evidence that might exist" against "the interest we all have in fostering support, sympathy, involvement and engagement" of international organizations and donors.

Vieira de Mello, ending an 11-day tour of Yugoslavia, including three days in Kosovo, also told the government that no arguments could justify the magnitude of the displacement of people in Kosovo. "The extent of the damage is deeply disturbing," he said. "People were forced to leave with various degrees of coercion, intimidation or force."

Vieira de Mello also spoke of the suffering of civilians. Unemployment had reached crisis proportions, he said, and health, water, transports and heating have suffered.

"It is a combination of anxiety, humiliation, the lack of understanding of what is happening, and immense stress of a distant and powerful enemy that can strike at any moment," he said.