Provost Alison F. Richard and President Richard C. Levin chat with Croatian president Stjepan Mesic as he prepares to sign a guest book. Mesic visited Yale Sept. 5 on his way to the Millennium Summit at the United Nations.

Croatian chief takes on Milosevic,
Promotes own nation in campus talk

Croatian President Stjepan Mesic recalls that he once issued a dramatic warning to Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. "I said, 'Listen, Slobodan, you're going into war in order to create a great Serbia. ... But ultimately, the Serbian people are going to hang you in the main square of Belgrade. ... I ask only one thing of you: When you're hanging there, think about me, and I will think about you,'" Mesic said in a talk at Luce Hall. Mesic, who was elected as Croatia's second president in February, visited the campus on Sept. 5 while on his way to the Millennium Summit at the United Nations. His talk (presented in his native tongue and translated by Yale professor Ivo Banac) was sponsored by the European Studies Council, part of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. "I feel as if I were the seventh husband of Elizabeth Taylor," quipped Mesic at the start of his address. "Everyone knows who I am, but it's not clear what's expected of me." When the Yugoslavian republics split apart in 1990, Mesic recalled, the nation's army -- one of the "pillars" that had held Yugoslavia together -- went over to Milosevic. This was a "catastrophe," he said, noting the Serbian leader has since started four wars that have left "hundreds of thousands of people dead." Mesic described Milosevic as a "political trickster" whose "only aim is to hold onto power." Like Hitler in Nazi Germany, Milosevic is "using Serbian nationalism to homogenize Serbia," said the Croatian president. And, just as Hitler claimed the whole world was against Germany, Milosevic claims the whole world is against Serbia, he added. "This is why he is dangerous. He's fighting only for power. He's like a lion in a cage; he's the strongest in the cage, but he can't quite get out," Mesic said. Milosevic's campaign for "an ethnically clean state" is both "unreachable and unwelcome" in Europe today, said Mesic, and the Serbian leader's efforts are doomed. "Every new adventure is going to end with his destruction and the destruction of his regime," he said. First, however, "the Serbs themselves must experience a catharsis and realize that the same rules apply to them as to other European nations," he added, Unlike his Serbia counterpart, Mesic is determined to promote regional harmony as president of Croatia. For years "Croatia was isolated from Europe and in conflict with its neighbors," he said, but today the country is "trying to resolve the conflicts with its neighbors in a bilateral manner, and as far as Europe is concerned, we've moved from isolation to integration." This new philosophy is reflected in the nation's international priorities -- European integration and membership in the NATO alliance -- as well as its economic priorities, he said. The latter include building a highway stretching from the Italian border all the way to Greece ("where a highway exists, no one asks for frontiers any more," said Mesic); bringing Caspian Sea oil to the Adriatic coast through Romania; and bringing Norwegian gas to the region to "resolve problems of energy." Noting that Croatia is now a state where corruption is being routed and the "rule of law" is in effect, Mesic said he hopes this will make the nation more attractive to "foreign capital ... and American capital." Eventually, he'd like to see Croatia become a major financial center within Central Europe. 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