Why is Sandzak Silent?

Besides arresting activists in Sjenica and Tutin for handing out propagandist material and writing graffitti, the police did not permit the Coalition for Sandzak of Rasim Ljajic to hold its rally

AIM Podgorica, 31 May, 2000

(By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

While for about a fortnight all around central Serbia students' organisations and opposition parties are protesting and seeking modes of fighting the growing repression of Milosevic's regime, Sandzak is ruled by silence of hopelessness and fear disturbed by sporadic attempts to throw sand in the eyes of the regime. In the beginning of May two activists of Sandzak coalition were arrested and interrogated by the police in Sjenica for distributing propagandist material on which the following was written: “We were with you when it was the most difficult”. Some time before that, two young men from Tutin were arrested for writing graffitti.

A few days ago the police forbade a protest rally of the Coalition for Sandzak at which other leaders of united opposition of Serbia which the Coalition of Sandzak is part of were expected to address the citizens. The leader of this Coalition Rasim Ljajic signed in the police a statement that he personally would bear the consequences if conflicts with the police broke out at the time of gathering of citizens. Ljajic was directly told that his supporters would be scattered and that coalition party activists were not allowed to distribute any propagandist material which would call to gathering. In the statement for AIM Rasim Ljajic says: “They gave us three reasons in the police why we were not permitted to hold the rally. The first is that the illegitimate and coercive municipal council decided that gatherings outdoors were banned in Novi Pazar. The second reason is, as they stated in the police, that they are afraid of simultaneous gathering of supporters of some other party, which might, according to them, bring about a conflict, and the third reason is that we have announced that Otpor would take care of security of the rally”.

To the question whether the Coalition for Sandzak would organise a rally in some other city Ljajic answered in the negative “because they would get the same answers from the persons in charge in the MUP (ministry of the interior of Serbia both in Sjenica and in Tutin”.

Nevertheless, something is happening in Novi Pazar. Two non-governmental organisations, Partnership for Democratic Changes and Nezavisnost (Independence) United Branch Trade Union, yesterday completed their joint campaign under symbolic title “for all those who turn on the light in the dark”. Activists of these two organisations pasting stickers on switches in all buildings in Novi Pazar and made it clear that it is possible to express discontent with the regime in many different ways. At the same time they handed out leaflets with a message to the workers of Serbia. “We wanted to express our discontent with the increasing information darkness which prevails in this country but especially here in the Serbian part of Sandzak where there is not a single free electronic media”, said for AIM Raif Mekic, regional commissioner of Nezavisnost and added that not a single local television station enabled presenting data on unemployment and salaries in this region because this did not speak in favour of the ruling parties.

F. Ibrovic, one of the activists who were putting up stickers and handing out leaflets says: “The people don't like to see someone putting up something in the hall of their buildings that is against the regime, they are afraid. A woman was trying to scrub our sticker off the window with hot water Some shout at us not to put up stickers because the police would kill us, others curse, yell at us to put it up on our own walls, and some ask us to give them the stickers so they too could put them up somewhere”. It seems, however, that the “people” are tired and scared, so they do not care either for demonstrations or stickers.

In the past ten years, inhabitants of Sandzak had, mildly speaking, unpleasant close encounters with the police. Men in blue created the image of well paid bullies who have not disobeyed the regime once in the past ten years nor retreated in front of any protesters. The citizens of Novi Pazar experienced the firmness of cordons of MUP of Serbia back in 1990 already when supporters of Serb Revival Movement clashed with the then united Party of Democratic Action. Similar happened in 1994 at a football game between Pristina and Novi Pazar when the citizens of Pazar were shocked by the presence of by now late Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan. A group of about one thousand fans of the local team stoned two buses which had brought fans of the club from Pristina. For everything that happened fans from Pristina did not have to answer, but those from Novi Pazar most certainly did.

One of those who were beaten up then is Edzevit Djerekarac who is still interested in politics and listens to almost all news programs of foreign radio stations. For AIM he declares: “Those were different times, Arkan came to Pazar now they are pressuring us from all sides, but there is noone who I would come out for to protest because of Studio B. Has this Studio B ever reported when they were beating us up over here? It is quite another thing when people in Belgrade protest and when people in Pazar do it, I have been here at all demonstrations organised by SDA once. I know what it's like”.

“When we do it, it is quite different”, says Fikret Hasanovic, pensioner who sells jeans in front of the marketplace holding them in his hands because as he says he has “no money for excise tax”. There is also an opinion which might be said to be shared by majority in Sandzak, and this is that Milosevic is the problem of the Serb people and that the Serbs alone should solve it on their own. In coffee-teahouses of Novi Pazar which are full all the time and in which politics is the most frequent topic of conversation you can hear people of different age, education and wealth saying: “They put him in office, let them get rid of him now”.

Lack of confidence existing among the Serbs and the Bosniacs in Sandzak is one of the reasons for the silence here in the midst of the protests in Serbia. Among the Serb population in Sandzak it is believed that political issues in Serbia are the problem of the majority nation in Serbia. The Bosniacs have a similar opinion, but not a single civil party ever tried to express any kind of protest against the regime. This is a politically sensitive region so it is better for the parties to preserve the position they have acquired than to risk losing the favour of the voters. Disappointed in the opposition and expectations from the regime, the citizens in Sandzak, like a large number of the citizens in Serbia, are completely quiet. They are mostly, with their heads bent down, silent and suffering, waiting for the misfortune to pass.

Enes Halilovic

(AIM)