Washington changes
strategy on Milosevic
and sanctions
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Washington
The US has abruptly changed course in its policy
towards Serbia, dropping a demand that Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic be removed from power
before sanctions are lifted.
Instead, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said
sanctions - initially a flight ban and oil embargo - would
be removed once a free and fair election was held,
despite the risk that Milosevic might win.
"We believe it is vital that the people of Serbia
understand that if they have the courage to bring down
the walls of repression that separate them from a
democratic future, they will not face that future alone,"
Ms Albright said after meeting eight Serbian opposition
leaders.
The opposition has been notoriously splintered and the
new US approach is intended to answer concerns that
the anti-Milosevic vote could be so split as to allow him
to win.
US officials said the group - which did not include
perhaps the most prominent Serb opposition politician,
former deputy premier Vuk Draskovic - had assured
them they would be able to mount a united front against
Milosevic in a democratic election.
"We believe there has been a substantial increase in the
'togetherness' quotient of the opposition," said one
senior State Department official.
Ms Albright flatly refused to consider the question of
what would happen if Milosevic won.
"I find it really, really, really hard to believe that
Milosevic might win a free and fair election," she said,
noting rising internal discontent toward the Belgrade
regime.
"I expect that the people of Serbia who have suffered
under the boot of Slobodan Milosevic . . . will choose
correctly," she said, before turning testy under repeated
questioning of the possibility of a Milosevic victory.
The State Department official, seeking to soften the
secretary's tone, later said Washington considered the
risk of Milosevic winning a genuinely fair ballot "to be so
remote as to not to be a policy-making consideration".
They said the legitimacy of any ballot in Serbia would be
judged by the Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe. |
