Global Policy Forum

By Alexandra Niksic

Yugoslavia's deeply divided government faced a make-or-break challenge Friday as parliament prepared to debate legislation that could permit the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic to face war crimes charges at the UN tribunal in The Hague.

Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus warned that the joint federation would "fall apart" if parliament does not adopt the draft law at a still unscheduled session.

"Without this law, there will be no federal government... no federal state, the country will fall apart and serious problems will appear," Labus told reporters here.

Yugoslavia faces mounting international economic pressure, with the United States blocking a 249 million dollar (290 million euro) loan to the country earlier this month at the IMF to protest the lack of cooperation on war crimes.

Washington has also threatened to boycott an international donors conference scheduled for June 29, where Belgrade hopes to gain about one billion dollars to help revive its economy, devastated by years of war, mismanagement, sanctions, and isolation. A deeply divided Yugoslav government, comprising the ministers from Serbia's ruling coalition, the DOS, and Montenegrin Socialist people's party (SNP), finally adopted a draft law Thursday for cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). But the SNP ministers voted against the law, and warned Friday their deputies in the federal parliament would not back the legislation.

"We will not support the draft which previews the extradition of the Yugoslav citizens" to The Hague-based court, Dragan Koprivica of the SNP told reporters in the Montenegrin capital Podgorica. Unless the Montenegrin party -- which supported Milosevic until his ouster last October -- gives its support, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia will be unable to obtain a majority of votes in the parliament. Milosevic, currently in jail on charges of corruption and abuse of power, and four of his former associates have been indicted by the ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity for the crackdown of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority in 1998-1999.

Labus urged Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to attend the as-yet unscheduled parliament session, "as the only man who can influence the SNP, to use his authority" during the vote over the draft.

"We must clearly state what the price is if the law is not adopted... the whole process of stabilisation will halt and the doors of Europe will be closed for us," Labus said. He added that the "decision in the parliament is crucial for the future of Yugoslavia." "It is not about The Hague or about guilt... it is all about our country's place in Europe and what our future would look like," Labus said.

Another high-ranking DOS official, Goran Vesic, said it was necessary to tell Yugoslavia's citizens that without the draft, the country would again fall into "isolation, sanctions and economic catastrophe."

Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic said Serbia's reformers "expect support" from its coalition partners. "We want to avoid poverty among the population, which is already enormous, but will be even bigger if we do not make decisive steps... like the law on cooperation with the ICTY," Svilanovic said.

The World Bank recently said in a report that Yugoslavia would need more than 20 billion dollars in foreign assistance over the next five years to revive its economy and production, as well as to satisfy the international debts. Almost one million people living in Serbia are poor, each earning on average 55 dollars per month, a survey sponsored by the World Food Programme showed this week. Another million -- out of a total population of eight million -- live close to the poverty line.

However, Kostunica, one of the toughest critics of the ICTY, did not hide his bitterness at the stepped-up pressure, saying that extraditing war crimes suspects will not be a "magic wand". "We need not to have illusions that the extradition (of those indicted by the ICTY) will be a magic wand which would solve all our problems," he said. "Those acting as if Milosevic is still in power in Belgrade, seem as they want to have instability and not stability in the region," Kostunica said.

Milosevic's arrest on April 1st came at the eleventh hour -- only hours before another US-imposed deadline to take the former president into custody or have financial support withheld.