Late Wednesday evening there were one hundred thousand people listening to and applauding with conviction the words of a distinct gentleman in front of the parliament building in Belgrade.

Three university professors, the expression of the best that Serbia has to offer, were conveying the excitement of teenagers and devastating their family budgets in order to communicate live the success of the opposition leader’s latest speech.

Kostunica, the little-known 56-year-old law professor, is conquering a consensus with arms that are usually superfluous in politics:  honesty, modesty, and coherence.  On Sunday, he will try to achieve what the Balkan wars and the bombing of the great powers failed to:  the political funeral of Slobodon Milosevic and an end to a decade of bloodshed and misery.

Kostunica’s message was simple:  “This country is in need of normality.  And if normality means things that happen with regularity, a State that functions, and predictability, then God be listening and grant us one hundred years of such boredom.”

From the crowd of 100 thousand in the heart of Belgrade, amidst the tumultuous music of Bregovic, came the mocking cry, “Save Serbia, Slobo. With your own suicide.”

However, the political scene in Yugoslavia isn’t quite that simple.   As the country moves towards its appointment with history with the elections on Sunday, it is dealing not only with the wise and serious words of a wise and serious man, but also with the theatrical sleights of hand of a veteran dictator.

So while the opposition leader was obtaining acclaim in the capital, the man at the helm flew by helicopter to the Serbian enclave of Berane in the Republic of Montenegro. His presence there and his unexpected appeal to voters in very unusual and affectionate, almost fatherly tones were a slap in the face both to the democrats of Montenegro and to the West.

Berane is a small city in the Northeast, not far from Ljeva Rjeka, where the Milosevic family is from.  The president of Yugoslavia may find himself nude in a few days like the king in the fairy tale, but on Wednesday he was surrounded by an impressive military line-up of army units and special forces.  There was no subtlety to his message.  His speech may have been paternal, but the occupation style forces spoke loader than his words:  If you refuse to participate in the elections, here is the army that will crush you.

The Montenegrin police kept their distance and the foreign press and television troupes were bullied and treated like spies.   There were 25 thousand people in the square, most of them bused in from Serbia since the total population of Berane is only 20 thousand.  While the official agency Tanjug spoke of 100 thousand delirious nationalists, the Serb television cut the images in order to give a false sense of the multitudes.

The second message of the man who in theory should be arrested as soon as he crosses the Serbian border was one of utter defiance for the international community.

Serbia needs a way out of the madness, a Havel or a Walesa, a dignified return to the consideration of the world.  Kostunica offers an alternative to the myths and demagogy that have conditioned the collective consciousness and nourished the charisma of Milosevic.

“Slobodan Milosevic believes he’s the Sun King,” says Kostunica.  ‘After me, the deluge.’ He is obsessed by the parable of his own life.  Sad is the State that depends on one man only, sad the condition of the economy tied to one figure alone, sad is the country that ties it own image and its own destiny to the that of just one person …”

On Sunday the people of Yugoslavia will decide between Kostunica and Milosevic.  If they choose the former, they may have a chance for some normality for the first time in ten years.  If they choose the latter, it will surely be the deluge.

September 2000

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