U.S. to attend meet on aid to Yugoslavia

By Batuk Gathani

BRUSSELS, JUNE 28. Nine months after the fall of Mr. Slobodan Milosevic as President of Yugoslavia, a historic conference on aid to the country takes place here on Friday.

The Yugoslavia Aid Conference will be jointly chaired by the European Commission and the World Bank. The main agenda is devise an aid programme of $1.2 billions to restructure the country's economy.

The United States confirmed on Wednesday night that it would also attend the conference in view of the moves to extradite Mr. Milosevic to the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. The U.S. administration has been under pressure in Congress not to participate in the conference unless Mr. Milosevic was extradited to the Hague.

History was made in Belgrade in November last when the newly- elected parliamentarians in the post-Milosevic era approved the country's first communist-free Government in more than half a century. This happened after elections that led to the downfall of Mr. Milosevic.

The new Government of Yugoslavia is dominated by a pro-democracy coalition that supports the President, Mr. Vojislav Kostounica. His Government is striving to end years of isolation and decline of the country. During the last nine months, the Government has liberalised trade and introduced a new reform programme to eliminate the vestiges of the socialist era. Yugoslavia is still in the grip of poverty with salaries remaining very low and an unemployment rate of nearly 50 per cent. In the past 10 years, the industrial output has fallen by 60 per cent.

According to European Union officials, the new Government will soon embark on a programme of political, economic and fiscal reforms with help from the E.U., U.S. and other NATO countries. Yugoslavia is also coming out of its self-imposed diplomatic ``purdah''.

The Western Governments now have the satisfaction of being able to hold Mr. Milosevic accountable for violating human rights and triggering a major ethnic conflict in the Balkans. However, in Yugoslavia, there is intense political pressure from Serbian nationalists to abandon the current efforts to extradite Mr. Milosevic and others. The issue has also split the Yugoslavian Cabinet.

The West is busy mending its diplomatic and economic fences with what is left of the Yugoslavian Federation as the country may soon become a member of organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the Council of Europe.

Depending on the pace and scale of democratic and economic reforms, Yugoslavia may also apply for membership of the European Union. Last October, the U.S. Congress approved a $100- million package to Yugoslavia with the proviso that the aid would be suspended after March 2001 if the country failed to cooperate with the Hague court. Most Yugoslavians have serious reservations about complying with American and Western demands on the human rights issue.

Historically, Russia and Greece are rated as the only two ``real allies'' of the Serb nation. Senior Russian officials and Ministers visit Belgrade regularly. At the same time, European Governments are also wary of creating another Muslim state in the Kosovo region. Europeans also feel that the so- called American ``fast diplomacy'' for ``instant solutions'' has yet to pay dividends in the Balkans. The Europeans are frustrated by the reality that the E.U. still lacks a common foreign and defence policy. The NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia two years ago were bitterly opposed by Russia, France and Greece. Moderate NATO allies like Germany had ``second thoughts'' about launching NATO air strikes. At the same time, prospects of an Islamic ``greater Albania'' emerging on the E.U.'s border is also a worrying issue.

Currently, there is some speculation about structuring a general Balkan conference to ``clear up the mess'' after over a decade of ethnic strife between Orthodox Christians and Muslims which has created two ``new colonies'' on the European soil - Bosnia and Kosovo. With the civil war escalating in the third region, Macedonia may be soon emerging. The first two are now run by international civil servants under NATO's military command, as the whole Balkan region remains unstable with ethnic and political strife.

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Section  : International
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