U.S. Institute of Peace PeaceWatch

Serbia's Opposition Leaders

The leaders of the Serbian opposition coalition, Zajedno ("Together"), discuss democratization in Serbia and prospects for peace in the Balkans.

Standing left to right: Zoran Djindjic, Vuk Draskovic, Vesna Pesic, and Carl Gershman talk with meeting participants.

hree months of street protests by thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators in Serbia succeeded in developing a new political consciousness--"that we are citizens with rights," says Vesna Pesic, head of Serbia's Civic Alliance Party and one of three opposition leaders who organized the protests. "In the past, people in Serbia did not understand what human rights were; now they know from their own experience. We have started to redefine the idea of the nation as not just based on origin, language, and culture, but as a political community of free and equal citizens."

Pesic, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace in 1994-95, and the other opposition leaders--Zoran Djindjic, mayor of Belgrade and head of the Democratic Party, and Vuk Draskovic, leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement--discussed democratization in Serbia at an Institute meeting April 4. The event was co-chaired by board vice chairman Max M. Kampelman, U.S. representative on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission to Serbia in December, and Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy. Joseph Klaits, director of the Jennings Randolph fellowship program, and program officer John Crist organized the meeting.

After speaking at the Institue event, the coalition leaders met with secretary of state Madeleine Albright to urge U.S. support for a free press, fair elections, and democracy in Serbia.

Djindjic, Draskovic, and Pesic formed an alliance of their groups last year--called Zajedno ("Together")--whose common slate of opposition candidates won in 14 of the 15 largest cities in Serbia's November 1996 municipal elections. When Serbia's ultra-nationalist government, under president Slobodan Milosevic, annulled the elections, Zajedno organized daily protests in Belgrade and other cities that succeeded in reversing the annulments. The elected representatives of Zajedno--viewed internationally as a pro-European, centrist political movement--have since taken office in Serbian municipalities.

Djindjic, Draskovic, and Pesic pointed out that the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the economic sanctions against Serbia have left the Serbian economy a shambles, with industry operating at a mere 25 percent of capacity and unemployment consequently extremely high. In the face of such economic hardship, the Serbian people--many of whom blame Milosevic for their difficulties--are determined to recreate Serbia's institutions so that they will be democratic and forceful in reshaping the society, opposition leaders said. Among their goals is to foster an independent judiciary, privatize industry, and ensure a free press. While local access to the media has improved with Zajedno's representatives taking office, most people watch national television, which is still controlled by the government, they said. This will likely hinder efforts to ensure free and fair parliamentary elections, due at the end of this year. "There are no signs from the regime that it is willing to venture any further into democracy," Pesic said.

Draskovic said that the coalition supports implementation of the Dayton accords in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the punishment of all war criminals. However, he lamented that Dayton had "promoted warmakers into peacemakers" by negotiating a peace settlement with Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia. "I cannot believe the Balkans' Al Capones can be transformed into Mahatma Ghandis," he said. Zajedno's main goal is to change the political system in Serbia. Victories by the coalition in the upcoming elections can only speed up the victory of democracy in Croatia and Bosnia, he concluded.

Djindjic said that Americans have a hard time understanding the complex history of the Balkans region, with all its frustrated longings to throw off hundreds of years of authoritarian rule and create separate nations for its different peoples. That past shapes the present in ways that Americans have never experienced, he said. "To prove our identity, we have felt we needed to prove our differences," he said, adding that the result has been a kind of "narcissism of small differences" and an unwillingness to compromise. The coalition represents a fundamental change of direction. Djindjic urged Western leaders to support Zajedno because in Serbia and the Balkans today democracy is "not just a system, but a condition for survival."

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