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"The biggest thing that Milosevic can do for the citizens of Serbia is to resign because of a number of wrong political decisions which have, amid a huge diplomatic and military pressure on Yugoslavia, resulted in the deaths of a large number of citizens and the destruction of the largest part of the country's infrastructure," said Goran Svilanovic, the head of the pacifist Serbian political party Civic Alliance of Serbia. "He must resign so that we can obtain, within the peace package, what we were basically offered before the bombing."

That sentiment was echoed by Serbian opposition leader Zoran Djindjic. "I wonder if it was necessary to take 70 days of bombing to accept what -- as everybody in their right minds knew -- had to be accepted," Djindjic said Thursday from the capital of the pro-Western, smaller Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, where he has sought refuge from the threat of assassination by increasingly powerful anti-democratic groups in Serbia.

Emphasizing that no reconstruction assistance would be provided to a Serbia with Milosevic, who was last week indicted for war crimes, at the helm, Washington gave the Serbian people an economic incentive to dump their leader.

"There are a number of steps that we think need to be taken before we could support the Serbian integration into the rest of Europe, including reconstruction assistance that we would not be prepared to provide unless and until they pursue a democratic course," said State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin.

Analysts in the Serbian capital said serious questions about Milosevic's political responsibility would come only after the Serbian population got relief from the airstrikes and the hardships they have created.

"First, people would desperately like to see the end of these airstrikes," said Nenad Stefanovic, a political analyst and writer for the independent, opposition Belgrade weekly Vreme. "In Belgrade we are living without electricity, without running water. If NATO keeps bombing for two or three more days, we may be without electricity for the next six months."

"After airstrikes end, then the Serbian public may begin to think about political responsibility for what has happened here," added Stefanovic, by mobile phone from Belgrade Friday. "This war has provoked very anti-American, very anti-West feelings. Because if you see your kids living in bomb shelters, and a lot of civilians killed, you must be against those people who bombed your country. But people here will soon start to realize that a lot of people died for nothing. And then I think this question of political responsibility will appear more and more."
salon.com | June 5, 1999

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