| What is happening in Belgrade is being watched with particular interest on the other side of the Danube - in neighboring Romania, where 11 years ago very similar events took place that crushed the Ceausescu regime. Bitterly recalling the expectations of a better life that Romanians lived with a decade ago, the Bucharest newspaper Adevarul writes: “The young people who came out bare-handed to the army and police to eliminate Milosevic thought only of their country, exhausted by the last decade. But we Romanians know from our own unfortunate experience that it will not be long before this country will be ruled by their will.”
The similarity with Romania is that, as in December 1989 in Bucharest, in October 2000 in Belgrade there is euphoria from the long-awaited and unexpected outcome. It will pass pretty quickly. All the characters remained in their places or somewhere nearby behind the scenes, and the story that is now being played out on the Yugoslav stage promises a lot of drama. The political legacy of Milosevic is compared in Bucharest with the legacy of Ceausescu: a bloodless economy, a state of national humiliation, corruption... Those who removed Milosevic from power constituted, as in the story of the overthrow of Ceausescu, a small group that relied on popular impulse and fraternized with the army in parts. But the army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and State Security structures in Yugoslavia behaved more wisely and did not open fire on people. Most likely, Kostunica will have to continue to rely on the support of the army, like Ion Iliescu in 1990.
Like the Bucharest dictator, Milosevic leaves behind him a whole retinue of the former camarilla, as well as relatives - son, wife, brother, in whose hands considerable money and commercial enterprises are concentrated. These funds, as in the case of Ceausescu, will obviously soon be redistributed among those who fall under the wing of Kostunica.
Many of Milosevic's associates, likely, like Ceausescu's former henchmen, will appear in the corridors of the new government. Romanian observers believe that Kostunica could bring ultranationalists or veterans who shed blood in Croatia, Bosnia or Kosovo closer to him. However, Milosevic himself, they predict in Bucharest, may appear before a Yugoslav tribunal, which will hand down a verdict in accordance with the sentiments of the Yugoslav people - a people who have experienced several devastating military campaigns over the past decade.
The economy of Yugoslavia, as assessed in Bucharest, has many chances for successful development, because the traditions of the market and capitalist entrepreneurship have never been interrupted here. It will be a while before real investors come into the Yugoslav economy, but political money will undoubtedly flood the country in the near future. Bucharest notes with resentment that two billion euros have already been prepared for immediate shipment to Belgrade as part of the Stability Pact. This amount is equal to what Romania will receive within three and a half years under the EU accession program. Vladimir VEDRASHKO
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