yugoslavias implosion

294
ChApter 4
including the Democratic Party headed by Đindić and the Democratic
Party of Serbia headed by Koštunica). These deals—lubricated
with Western political and financial support—created an “alliance of
elites” who orchestrated the nonviolent replacement of Milošević.
The choice of Koštunica as presidential candidate, supported by
sanu, (Serbian Academy of Sciences and Art or Srpska akademija
nauka i umetnosti), the spc, and the Yugoslav Army, was calculated
to prevent post–October 5 Serbia from abandoning Milošević’s
national policy. The manner in which presidential power was transferred
in the wake of October 5 allowed the newly reconfigured elite
to build upon Milošević’s policies, especially in terms of perpetuating
the nationalist agenda, and consequently to maintain criminal and
repressive state and parastatal structures.
Serbia’s society can never be truly integrated into the wider
European community until it distances itself from the crimes committed
by the Milošević régime. This is the only way to affirm
the rule of law and make a moral break with the past. Yet the
reconfigured political elite lacked the moral credibility to inspire and
lead such a bold step. The same conservative circles that had created
and then—in league with the mafia, a force that by 2000 permeated
Serbian society—removed Milošević resisted the new era’s trends.
They strongly opposed change, arguing that by embracing new values—democracy
and pluralism—Serbs would destroy their traditional
solidarity and the country would be sold to foreigners for the
benefit of international financial circles. At the same time, the elite
either denied the existence of a Greater Serbia agenda or blamed the
“inferior” status of Serbia in Yugoslavia, as well as war crimes, on
the former Communist regime. 501
501 In a guest appearance on TV Studio B in January 2003, Faculty of Law Professor Radoslav
Stojanović said he had nothing against the Hague Tribunal because “the Communist crimes
are being tried there for the first time .” He regarded the Milošević regime as the successor of
the Communist regime, ignoring the fact that Milošević received plebiscitary support—that
is, from both Communists and non-Communists—to carry out the Serb national program .