We believe that Serbs have the legitimate right to live in one country. If we must fight, then, by God, we will fight. --Slobodan Milosevic, 1991
Why think about national states and ethnic purity at the end of the 20th century? The main rule of the contemporary world is integration. Nationalism isolates people. It is crippling. -Slobodan Milosevic, 1995
Milosevic wanted to talk -- and talk he did. In five hours of conversation with TIME editors in his office in Belgrade, the President of Serbia had a succinct message for the world and specifically for the Clinton Administration: Lift the U.N.-imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia, and together we can bring peace to the Balkans in a matter of months. Trust me.
It was quite a proposition from the man who was called "The Butcher of the Balkans" not so long ago. The interview was his first with an English-language publication in more than a year, and that he gave it may be itself some indication of his seriousness-or of his plight.
Milosevic, the man held responsible for much of the bloodbath in the former Yugoslavia, has decided that after three years of war in Bosnia and Croatia, after untold rapes, the loss of an estimated 250,000 lives and the forced displacement of millions in a campaign of "ethnic cleansing," he wants to be known as a peacemaker. That this is a tactical move, given his history and practice, seems beyond dispute. But whether what he offers may also constitute a real step toward an end to the tragedy of the Balkans is as unclear as his motivation.
A senior Western diplomat in Belgrade says the initiative results from the Serbs' "overloaded circuits": the Bosnian Serbs' brutal conduct of the war and the sanctions against Yugoslavia have isolated Serbia from the world community; the Bosnian Serbs show signs of becoming weary of the fight; and Belgrade has nothing more to gain from the conflict. But there is another theory: Milosevic's ultimate goal after peace is reached, he says, is some sort of re-confederated Yugoslavia. And who better to lead such a regional, pan-Slavic conglomerate than himself?
What seems clear is that Milosevic -- consummate tactician, political chameleon, master of the bob and weave and, for all that, the key player on the Balkan scene -- has determined that his interest now lies in distancing himself from the Bosnian Serbs and in the process apparently trying to put the genie of Serb nationalism back into the bottle from which he coaxed it in the '80s. If the sanctions are lifted, Milosevic says, he will personally lead a campaign to deliver the Bosnian Serbs to the peace table-and will bring off a comprehensive regional peace "within six months." What is also clear is that to lift from Serbia (or from Milosevic, or both) the burden of being an international pariah, he has made substantial efforts behind the scenes to prove his good offices.