Panic plans media war against Milosevic

MILAN PANIC, the embattled Yugoslav Prime Minister, pledged yesterday to hit back at the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, by destroying the almost total control of Mr Milosevic's Socialist Party, the former Communist Party, over the Serbian media.

The media are considered to be the key to Mr Milosevic's long hold on power. If Mr Panic can strike at this weak point, Mr Milosevic's seemingly unshakeable control over Serbia could be disturbed.

'The media is in a situation of distress, and we are going to have to make it more open to the opposition,' Mr Panic told the Independent in an interview on his plane from Belgrade to Geneva, with a stop to meet Austrian government leaders in Vienna.

Yesterday's trip was part of a whirlwind of diplomatic activity to repair Serbia's battered image. Mr Panic has visited more than a dozen capitals in the past few weeks. But the Serbian police loyal to Mr Milosevic seized the Yugoslav Interior Ministry at the weekend, leaving Mr Panic struggling to limit the damage to his reputation at home and abroad.

Mr Panic hinted that he will run in elections on 13 December after his democracy campaign was derailed at the weekend when Serbian police seized the Interior Ministry.

He shrugged off the attack on the building as 'unimportant - it was almost empty' and said: 'I want elections and we will have elections by the end of the year. Everyone wants me to run, even some people in the Socialist Party. If I thought it would help the democratic process, I would run.'

The Prime Minister did not say whether he would run in tandem with Dobrica Cosic, the President of Yugoslavia, in opposition to Mr Milosevic's Socialists, though that combination looks the closest the opposition can manage to a 'dream ticket' which could oust the hardline Serbian leader.

The attack on the ministry seemed a deliberate move by Mr Milosevic to pull the rug from under peace talks taking place in Geneva between the Yugoslav government and Bosnian and Croatian leaders. Mr Panic desperately wants them to succeed; Mr Milosevic and other hardliners bitterly condemn them.

In spite of the setback, Mr Panic was buoyant in Vienna, convinced that the world and, more importantly, the Serbs, backed his struggle to turn Serbia into a peaceful democracy.

At a meeting with Austrian leaders he encountered a familiar problem: his hosts refused to believe he is master of his own house; they feared that helping him may inadvertently prolong the career of Mr Milosevic.

The sanctions and the embargo are starting to work, Franz Vranitzky, Austria's Chancellor, told Mr Panic. 'The solution is to end the shootings, the bombings and the 'ethnic cleansings'. We must be careful not to loosen sanctions just at the point where they are beginning to work,' the Chancellor said.

BELGRADE Mr Cosic was taken to hospital early yesterday morning on his return from the talks in Geneva, hospital sources said, Reuter reports. The sources said Mr Cosic, 72, was taken to Belgrade's Emergency Centre. They did not make clear the nature of his illness.

(Photograph omitted)