June 8, 1996

Commentary: Caught in Milosevic's Web

By MORTON I. ABRAMOWITZ

ASHINGTON -- When the United States and its partners pulled together the Bosnian peace accord, they tried to ensnare the region's warmongers in a web of peace. Six months later, it's hard to tell who ensnared whom.

The Dayton accord is a tangled web. The President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, who incited and sustained ethnic cleansing and the partition of Bosnia, made the accord possible, but he has fulfilled his promises only minimally. Last Sunday, he reportedly told Secretary of State Warren Christopher that he cannot remove the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, indicted war criminals, who foil progress at every turn.

Mr. Milosevic has not just damaged Bosnia, he has reduced Serbia to a backwater. The country's gross domestic product has dropped by more than half since 1989, and unemployment is estimated at 30 to 50 percent. He props up the costly state sector and recently dismissed the head of the national bank for refusing to inflate the currency to finance the vast deficits.

Mr. Milosevic's only interest is to stay in power. He straitjackets the independent media and oppresses the political opposition. To that end, Mr. Milosevic sees Washington as the arbiter of what happens in the former Yugoslavia. He needs a relationship with us for legitimacy and economic benefits.

But he doesn't play the supplicant. He understands the Clinton Administration's political stakes in the Dayton agreement. Emboldened, he has turned aside our paltry efforts to encourage greater freedom -- for example, he closed the Soros Foundation's Belgrade office, which promoted an open society.

Historically, Serbia has been central to Balkan stability. But only a Serbia that promotes democracy and economic reform can insure stability. And stability also requires defusing Serb-Albanian tensions in Kosovo. Mr. Milosevic is not likely to do any of that, except if it is necessary to save his own skin.

Political change could bring someone even worse to power. But it also could help more constructive leaders emerge. While Washington cannot determine Serbian politics, it can start treating Mr. Milosevic differently. The Clinton Administration and the West should stop sending high-level officials to see him. We can condition normalized relations on better treatment of the media and the opposition. We can give far more financial and moral support to struggling democrats. And we can block Serbia's access to international financial institutions until it cooperates with the war crimes tribunal.

Sooner or later, we must face the fact that Mr. Milosevic is poison to the Balkans. Instead of returning the Spiderman's kiss, we better start planning to kiss him off.

Morton I. Abramowitz is president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.