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Today's protest rally in Belgrade was billed by the Serbian opposition parties as their biggest public protest so far, and a milestone on the road to driving Slobodan Milosevic from power. But such is the fragmentation among the opposition parties that they run the risk of merely consolidating Mr Milosevic's hold.
This would be a serious setback. Even governments such as the US and the UK, which are loudest in their refusal to countenance any reconstruction aid for Serbia while it is ruled by an indicted war criminal, concede that any effective plan to rebuild the Balkans must embrace Serbia over the long term.
The opposition parties had hoped today's demonstration in the capital would give momentum to their campaign of street pressure on the regime. Instead, it may prove a damp squib, and not just because it is being held in mid-August. Vuk Draskovic, the most charismatic but also the most slippery of the opposition leaders, appears unwilling to join the rally.
The division is not only through personal animosity, but over basic tactics. Most of the opposition demands the departure of Mr Milosevic before setting up a transitional government and holding elections. Mr Draskovic says elections should first be held, and Mr Milosevic would lose.
This is very risky. There are rumours the Yugoslav president might call a snap election before wartime damage to the economy begins to bite. He might win. Mr Draskovic's membership of the Yugoslav government, until he was expelled in the middle of the Kosovo war, makes his tactics suspect.
Mr Draskovic's calculation seems to be that some support from within the regime is needed to eventually topple Mr Milosevic. He may be right. In the Serb part of Bosnia, only cracks from within produced a halfway decent government.
To hasten a similar outcome in Serbia, the west can do three things. First, it can help the opposition parties, but only modestly and unofficially. The $100m which the US Congress is considering giving the Serbian opposition is excessive and would make it too easy for the Belgrade regime to brand recipients as tools of Nato. By contrast, non-governmental organisations can usefully aid opposition-held cities in Serbia and show their citizens the merit of electing democrats.
Second, only some continued western economic pressure on Belgrade is likely to produce the necessary cracks within the Milosevic regime. But third, the west needs to sharpen this pressure by setting out more clearly what it is prepared to offer Serbia once it has rid itself of Mr Milosevic. Let Belgrade see the carrot as well as the stick.