October 20, 1999

Contact: Paul D'Anieri, international programs, (785) 864-6161

SERBIAN OPPOSITION MEMBER TO TALK AT KU OCT. 21

Lawrence - Svetozar Stojanovic, a leader in the Serbian opposition movement, will talk at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, in the Big 12 Room of the Kansas Union at the University of Kansas.

Stojanovic's presentation, "Serbia, Kosovo, and the NATO World Order," will cover the state of Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic's hold on power, the effect of the NATO bombing on the opposition movement and lessons learned. His talk is free and public and is sponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies and the Office of International Programs.

"Stojanovic has been at the center of Yugoslavian politics, first in opposition to communism and now in opposition to Milosevic," said Paul D'Anieri, KU associate dean of international programs. "This is a great opportunity to hear someone so well placed and informative on this important world issue."

This fall, Stojanovic is a distinguished guest fellow at the Center for Inquiry International in Buffalo, N.Y. He is also founder and first president of the Council for Democratic Transformation of Serbia, a group of about 50 leading non-party opposition intellectuals, as well as founder and first president of the Council for Cooperation of Non-Governmental Organizations, about 100 organizations, all in the opposition to Milosevic.

"By my choice I stayed in Belgrade during the [NATO] bombing," said Stojanovic, who continues as the international director of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade. "With the de facto loss of Kosovo, the disastrous socioeconomic situation, and complete renunciation and isolation by the West, Milosevic's regime has entered its final stage," Stojanovic said in a recent interview.

"Any departure of Milosevic from the helm would mean the implosion of the entire regime. One of the most serious problems Serbia has to contend with today is that Milosevic and his cronies have come to view their continuation in power as a question of life or death," Stojanovic said.

The NATO bombing campaign made the opposition vulnerable to charges they were collaborating with the West, seriously complicating efforts to eject Milosevic from power, according to D'Anieri. "I think we'll see from Stojanovic's presentation that opposition to Milosevic is not synonymous with support for NATO," D'Anieri said.