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"After that we will create a post-election coalition, a government even for just three months, that will send Milosevic and the Socialist Party away, change the laws, re-establish links with Europe and the West, and to involve Serbia in the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe," Draskovic said

When he explained the numbers to Albright at a meeting during the OSCE summit, Draskovic said he was able to make her understand why it was useless to force him to call for street protests now with Djindjic.

"I don't want to spend the energy of the people, to go on the streets and call for the resignation of Milosevic by using whistles and their running shoes. This is not 1996," he said.

Djindjic's Alliance for Change, Draskovic scoffs, "produced a blah-blah-blah strategy. They said, in June, in 10, 15 days, Milosevic will resign. They have wasted the energy of the people and the regime is stronger than before. It is shameful they are holding demonstrations" and so few people are showing up, he complained.

"What can we do now? I think we need to stop these shameful demonstrations. Give the people time to recharge their batteries, to settle on a new strategy. To decide on a goal, a rallying call, a slogan to get them on the streets."

Musing on a rallying cry, Draskovic says, "if we have a public statement from the West that all sanctions will be lifted, and if I can show that the situation for Serbs in Kosovo is getting better, and Serbs return there, I will have the cake in my hands. In that case, I will win."

Western governments have provided Draskovic with information on who ordered what he believes was an assassination attempt against him two months ago, when his convoy was hit by a truck, killing four close associates. "Until now the Milosevic investigation didn't find two simple things: who was the driver of that truck, and who was the owner of the truck," he says. Draskovic believes leaders of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party and Milosevic's wife's party, the Yugoslav United Left, ordered the assassination.

On Monday, the Serbian daily "Blic" quoted Draskovic's party associate Borivoje Borovic, as saying the Serbian Renewal Party had proof that the sand-laden truck that his Draskovic's convoy belongs to Serbia's SDB (state security), based on registration information and various interviews. Borovic accuses the official in charge of the investigation, police general Dragan Ilic (whose wife is also in charge of the office controlling vehicle registration information), of a cover-up.

Draskovic warns the information he has obtained on who specifically ordered the attack is so sensitive, that if not broken carefully to his supporters, "it could trigger the beginning of a civil war. I must avoid that. I must prepare my supporters, and explain that it is not the voters for the Socialist Party who targeted me, but three or four men in the regime. These people are a great danger for Serbia."
salon.com | Nov. 22, 1999

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