Serbs at the seat of a people’s revolution enjoyed a delerious moment on the streets of Belgrade this weekend, sitting, drinking, kissing eachother indiscriminately. For people who thought they’d turn to dust and ashes before Slobodan Milosevic went away, it is enough that the long, bungling brutal aftermath of Communist dictatorship is finally over, as the almost unsinkable Milosevic conceded on Friday. The week after the nightmare ended begins a nonetheless staggering reconstruction process for the battered mind of a shrunken state.
Yugoslavia’s new president Kostunica still has Milosevic to deal with: a man with a European price on his head but who thinks of himself rather as an opposition voice. Worse Kostunica has Milosevic’s people to deal with in the courts and customs, banks and state bureaucracies. Then there are Serbia’s neighbors that Milosevic bullied, and the West-so hesitant, then heavy-handed-to address. The Serbian agenda is this hour on The Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Roger Cohen, currently the New York Times Bureau Chief in Berlin. Roger Cohen covered the Balkans for The Times during the Bosnian war and wrote Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo
and Anthony Lewis, The New York Times Columnist.