Serbia: Cuddling up to the Americans

Date: 23/08/03

Forgetting old quarrels, the Serbians look for new political gains

FOUR years ago, American aircraft were bombing Belgrade, in a mini-war that turned ex-Yugoslavia's province of Kosovo, de facto, into a United Nations protectorate. Yet last month Zoran Zivkovic, prime minister of the country that now calls itself Serbia and Montenegro, was in Washington to offer 1,000 troops for Iraq.

Some dismay at home changed his emphasis: would the UN like troops for Liberia? There is no decision on either offer yet, but what a change from the days of Slobodan Milosevic. Even before the Iraq war, the Serbians told the Americans the locations and plans of Yugoslav-built bunkers there. And soon after Mr Zivkovic's return from Washington, the defence minister, Boris Tadic, announced that 16 generals would be retired, for obstructing military reform. It is suspected that some may also have been implicated in war crimes during the Kosovo crisis, and were a source of unease to American officials.

In business matters too the Serbians are eager to please. This month the American tobacco giant Philip Morris bought a Serbian cigarette factory for €518m ($584m), making it the largest foreign investor in the country. Earlier in the year US Steel bought the ailing Smederevo steel works.

Why all this hospitality to the country's ex-enemies? Not least, to get Kosovo back. Its final status will soon be under negotiation. The Serbians have agreed to talks on technical matters with Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders, and they reckon that good relations with the United States would be a help when real issues come up.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanians have enjoyed strong American support since the 1999 war, but that may be on the wane, thanks to recent violence against both UN personnel and the province's 100,000 remaining Serbs: on August 3rd an Indian UN police officer was killed in an ambush, and last week two Serbian teenagers were shot while having a swim. No one is sure who is behind these and other incidents, but the main suspect is the so-called Albanian National Army (ANA), which was added to the UN's list of terrorist groups in April after it blew up a bridge in northern Kosovo. It has already said it carried out one of a recent spate of attacks on security forces in southern Serbia, and whispers abound linking it to Islamist terrorist groups. True or false, they do not advance the ethnic Albanians' cause.

Whether Mr Zivkovic can carry his policy through is another matter. Nebojsa Medojevic, leader of an outfit called Group for Change, says that “he wants to show the people he counts with the Americans, and that that will bring investment, aid and hope on the Kosovo question. But I'm not sure he has the political legitimacy.” Indeed, the government's approval ratings languish around 15%, and the elections, whenever they may come, could well bring the party of the former president Vojislav Kostunica to power. This Democratic Party of Serbia is both more nationalistic and more pro-EU. But for now the unlikely cuddling up to the Americans goes on.

Forgetting old quarrels, the Serbians look for new political gains.