Back in Yugoslavia

...Nevertheless, after talking with hundreds of people in Yugoslavia, I strongly believe that in the unavoidable confrontation between the forces of democracy and nationalism— whatever form it assumes—democracy will win...

...To be honest, the experience was exhilarating for me...

...Regrettably, its leadership is in the hands of old-line Communists and Titoists, so the Army symbolizes not simply a united Yugoslavia but the obsolete Communist system...

...As a result, in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Hercegovina, and Macedonia the Communists were replaced by Center-Right nationalists, while in Serbia and Montenegro the Left-wing nationalists—that is, the Communists, who renamed themselves Socialists— remained in power...

...Unfortunately, in neither case can all of the changes be viewed positively...

...It is the relationship between the Serbs and the Croats...

...Most of the cities I traveled in have blossomed into modern metropolitan areas, and there are many so-called "duty-free" stores where it is possible to buy Western goods for Yugoslav currency...

...If the opposite appears to be the case in Kosovo, the reason is that present conditions are pushing the ethnic Albanians to look for ways to break away...

...Almost the entire intelligentsia opposes the divisive course being pursued by the conflicting nationalist forces as they seek to entrench themselves in power...

...The one difference between the opposition and the official press is that the former is more blatantly antiCommunist...

...The big minorities in each republic have accepted the authority of the all-Yugoslav Army...

...It is therefore important that they have the same right to a republic of their own as the other nationalities...

...Yet as the elections have shown, even this manipulation did not do the Communists any good in two thirds of the republics...

...My treatment was similar to that of the Soviet dissidents who are currently returning to their homeland and being received with much fanfare...

...Only over the past year, under pressure from the 1989 events in Eastem Europe and the destruction of the Communist Party in most of the republics, have Yugoslav authorities allowed multiparty elections...

...later in the day, I held a press conference and did TV interviews...

...Newspapers and television and radio programs in the Albanian language are currently forbidden...

...But other than the newly emerging mini-Communist parties, there are no advocates of communism today in Yugoslavia...

...Moreover, less than half a century has passed since the bloody civil war that took place during the occupation by Nazi Germany...

...Thus when the first free elections were held last October in Slovenia, the party claiming to represent a separate nation against the Communist dictatorship received the majority of votes...

...It is not surprising that the Communists were rapidly replaced by nationalists—either Right-wing, as in Croatia, or Left-wing in Serbia...

...One is inclined to agree with the former Communist leader Kocha Popovich, who recently said, "Albanians from Kosovo may be good Yugoslavs, but they will never be good Serbs...

...he has become a person without a trace of hatred who embraces the doctrine of nonviolence...

...But where preserving unity is concerned, the most critical issue facing Yugoslavia is not the turmoil in Kosovo...

...Because Serbs live almost everywhere in Yugoslavia, it is in their best interest to see unity preserved—and for a multinational country to survive, all of its peoples have to be assured equal rights...

...Having been unable to go back to my native country until now because of a public campaign against me personally initiated by Marshal Josip BrozTito, the very prospect of the trip naturally filled me with emotion —and perhaps a little apprehension...

...If you read the Yugoslav newspapers, you get the impression that a civil war has already started...

...The reason for this failure is the same in both countries: one-party monopoly...

...Still, a large part of the population in all of the republics, particularly the young, is now trying to find a political vehicle for developing a new democratic Yugoslav federation...

...The nationalists who have come to dominate the republics have contributed to an atmosphere of uncertainty by each trying to enforce their own censorship on the mass media...

...Yugoslavia is not immune...

...The dismantling of the Communist monopoly is not leading to a peaceful democratic evolution, though, but rather to a nationalistic euphoria that could bring about civil war...

...Early last November a well-known human rights activist and lawyer, Srdja Popovich, launched an independent weekly called Vreme...

...I think Ambassador Zimmerman is right...

...and Army patrols carrying machine guns are a common sight...

...After speaking with hundreds of ordinary citizens, too, I began to realize that if one did not read the newspapers or watch the news on television, one would have the impression that there is little likelihood of a civil war breaking out...

...The Albanian majority is closely watched by the Serbian police...

...The Kosovo region poses an extremely difficult problem, especially because it is a vital part of the Serbian national myth...

...It was really a beautiful feeling, because just one year ago people were still being arrested for writing such articles...

...All that can be said for certain, in my view, is that it is absurd to expect a peaceful transformation of the present Yugoslav federation into a loose confederation or into completely independent states...

...Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmerman, has compared Yugoslavia today to the noted medical mystery man "Uncle Toby," who fell into a metabolic stupor for seven years...

...I stood trial four times for my writings in this magazine and articles published elsewhere in the West, and spent a total of seven years in Yugoslav prisons...

...There were many other correspondents at the airport...

...That is why Yugoslavia cannot disunite without chaos...

...There will either be civil war or the country will remain a united federation...

...In general, I found that Yugoslavia had changed in a positive way...

...Indeed, Yugoslavia and the So viet Union have undergone corresponding changes...

...Twenty years ago his political views were a mixture of dogmatic Marxism-Leninism and Albanian nationalism...

...The "Cult of Tito" has disappeared...

...For several days in the capital articles were published about me and I made radio and TV appearances, including one on Yugoslavia's brand-new commercial television station...

...In fact, that seems sufficient justification to grant the Albanians' request for their own republic...

...Kosovo, by contrast, is clearly an occupied region...

...But then I was described as "dangerous" and "an enemy of the people...

...In Pristina I visited my old friend Adem Demaci, a gifted author with whom I was imprisoned in 1967-68...

...No longer...

...The request is being rejected at the moment not only by President Slobodan Milosevic, but also by the Serbian opposition...

...Certainly there are numerous similarities, especially regarding the question of nationalities and nationalism...

...Actually, in the past couple of years it was the Communist Party that sought to exploit the nationalist feelings of the various republics...

...I also think the same forces that won the battle against the stupor will win the battle against the cancer...

...On the other hand, it was a bit shocking to see the opposition press attempting to provoke the same type of nationalistic fervor the official Serbian press has tried to whip up...

...The Ambassador continued, "Eastern Europe, awakening from the cold storage of authoritarian repression, must now contend with the dangers of virulent nationalism...

...I met with dozens of my friends from the old days who had bravely supported me during the years of my dissident activities...

...Only in Slovenia, which does not have significant minorities, is secession theoretically possible...

...The security forces, I thought to myself, want to warn me against engaging in any dissident activity during my stay, or to take away my passport and prevent my deplaning altogether...

...Thus as matters stand, the Yugoslav Army alone might prevent a violent breakup...

...But it turned out that the control tower was merely relaying a request made by an enterprising Vechernje Novine correspondent who wanted to be the first to get a public statement from me upon my arrival...

...It was impossible for them to destroy entire nationalities, however...

...The medieval Serbian state was founded in Kosovo, so for many Serbian nationalists its loss would be akin to losing their own souls...

...Since his release last June after 28 years of incarceration, he has been dubbed the "Kosovo Mandela...

...TheU.S...

...A recent CIA report on Yugoslavia predicts a civil war in the next 18 months...

...It merely served to provoke nationalist hysteria...

...It frequently is said that Yugoslavia is a miniature USSR...

...In addition, many people appear to have begun to recognize that in a multinational society nationalism and democracy are opposing forces...

...A major difference is that here perestroika in the economic sphere started a couple of decades ago, and what is called the "Socialist market" clearly does not work much better than the Soviet "administrative command" type of economy...

...Yet it would be impossible to divide Serbs and Croats without a forcible resettlement...

...Despite the tough nationalistic propaganda in Belgrade and Zagreb, I did not meet anyone who was seriously ready to risk another conflagration of that sort...

...When the opposition takes office someday, I think its position will change...

...they would never bow to the will of separate republican armies in the light of their horrible experience during World War II...

...The bulk of the country consistsof Serbia and Croatia, with Bosnia and Hercegovina in the middle...

...I doubt that they will succeed in the end...

...This time everything was different...

...The majority of people remember those ugly days and fear their repetition...

...Between 1965 and my departure in 1978 for what I thought would be a short trip to the United States, I was also very often a focus of the Yugoslav media...

...The situation was very similar in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia...

...About half an hour before my Yugoslav Airlines jet was to land in Belgrade, a voice on the intercom asked "passenger Mihajlov" to report immediately to the cockpit...

...The magazine has an all-Yugoslav outlook—without any nationalistic deviations—and strongly supports radical economic reforms, including privatization, along with other democratic ideals...

...Albanians make up the third largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia...

...People are not afraid to talk freely about any topic...

...Serbian fears that this would lead to Kosovo's secession and unification with Albania are groundless...

...When he came out of his deep freeze, said the Ambassador, "it turned out that he had a malignant form of cancer which, after being dormant for those seven years, spread and quickly killed him...

...Their distribution is often said to resemble a leopard's skin: black, white, black, white...

...A genuine confederation is out of the question because the creation of separate republican armies would itself lead directly to civil war...

...buildings are crumbling...

...The pattern was repeated throughout my onemonth visit, as I traveled in the country's various republics...

...Except for Pristina, the capital of the Kosovo region, the atmosphere was peaceful and perfectly normal...

...I suspect—and hope —the dire CIA prediction is mostly based on an analysis ofthepress.Itistruethat the central government, led by Prime Minister Ante Markovich, is very weak and is having great difficulty instituting economic reforms...

...The streets are littered with garbage...

...Europe provides examples of large numbers of individuals with the same ethnic background living in separate areas of a country—for instance, Germans, Austrians and German-speaking Swiss citizens—yet there is no sign of their wanting to redraw the map...

...This means that Yugoslavia will survive the end of communism, just as it survived the end of the pre-World War II monarchy, even if the CIA turns out to be correct...

...Its sole objective was to retain complete power...

...The day after my arrival I walked through Belgrade and bought virtually every opposition magazine and newspaper...

...In all three of these republics the population is mixed, and both the Serbian and Croatian nationalists claim that Bosnia and Hercegovina plus part of the abutting territory is theirs...

...This is fully understandable, for during their long period of unconditional rule the Communists destroyed every sector of civil society— political parties, trade unions, professional organizations, and so on...

...At the same time, ethnic Albanians make up 80 per cent of the region's population...

...Some of them are now in power in various western republics, some are still in the opposition in the eastern part of the country...

...I visited four republics and two autonomous regions...