United States To Send Aid To Serbian Opposition

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will direct its post-war humanitarian aid to Serbian communities that oppose Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and pursue democratic change, a State Department official said Tuesday.

As Western governments and aid agencies begin the daunting task of rebuilding the Balkans after the Kosovo war, Washington is making clear that its assistance comes with a price.

``It would be our intent to channel humanitarian aid as a priority to those municipalities and localities where democratic change is most vibrant and successful,'' said State Department spokesman James Rubin.

His comments seemed designed to encourage Serbs who in recent days staged protests against Milosevic in various Serbian cities.

Washington has long maintained that Milosevic, indicted for Kosovo-related war crimes and blamed for causing that and three other Balkan wars, was the key problem in the region.

President Clinton in June urged Serbs to get rid of Milosevic.

He and other officials insisted that while the United States will help Europe -- the major donor -- rebuild the Balkans, no U.S. aid will be provided for projects that could prolong Milosevic's rule.

One of the hard-nosed U.S. calculations could involve the Danube River, Rubin told a news briefing.

The United States and its allies could decide to clear the river of war-damaged bridges to allow river commerce to resume, but not reconstruct bridges that are critical to Serbia's economy, he said.

Some European countries and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan have urged a more liberal approach to aid distribution, but Rubin said any differences with the U.N. and U.S. allies on this were marginal.

He maintained the tough U.S. line Tuesday.

``We've made that quite clear and we think that the sooner that the people of Serbia take the necessary steps to democratize, to push for real democratic change, and not have a dictatorial regime in charge, pursuing these ruinous policies, the better off the people of Serbia will be,'' he said.

``Clearly that opportunity now exists for Serbia to rejoin Europe and rejoin the international community ... But none of that can happen unless the people of Serbia are successful in their own efforts to promote real change there,'' he said.

Rubin said the United States has the luxury of using a political calculus to make aid decisions in this instance because Serbia is not facing starvation -- like Sudan -- or some other epidemic.

This approach has worked in Bosnia, where municipalities that have pursued democratic and cooperative policies have been rewarded, and those that pursued isolationist and reactionary policies have not been rewarded, he said.

Finance ministers from the Group of Seven nations and the heads of international financial institutions met in Brussels Tuesday to map priorities for rebuilding the Balkans, a task estimated to cost billions of dollars.