Financial Police in Non-Governmental Organisations

Auditors Sent to Intimidate

AIM Podgorica, 12 June, 2000

(By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

Financial police has knocked at the doors of non-governmental organisations. Escorted by policemen, they are for a few days already checking the books in Belgrade Helsinki Committee, Centre for Anti-War Action, organisation "Women in Black". Premises of the Forum for Ethnic Relations were immediately shut and sealed. And everything would have been alright and pursuant the law if this police had checked only the "flow of money" which it is charged to do. However, in some NGOs, the activists were interrogated about all their activities.

The diligent control followed immediately after the announcement that the new law on NGOs was in preparation, the draft of which has not been made public yet. According to what it was possible to learn, the new law prescribes more rigid requirements for foundation of non-governmental organisations. For instance, they cannot be founded by foreigners nor can foreigners be their heads. In the future it will be necessary to collect one hundred signatures in order to found a non-governmental organisation. More rigid requirements are also prescribed when obtaining permits for work are concerned.

It is interesting that in the ten years for how long NGOs exist here, this is the first time that the financial police has come to check their books, practically at the same time to all of them. Yesterday at the press conference, in his comment on the visits of auditors, Nikola Sainovic, deputy federal prime minister said that "there are many NGOs and their activities differ, ranging from humanitarian ones to direct services of NATO". Since the regime has lately promoted almost all those whose political views differ or have anything to do with foreign countries, from traitors into terrorists, this sudden simultaneous visit of financial police is experienced by some as political pressure, exerted this time on the non-governmental sector.

Dusan Janjic, president of the Forum for Ethnic Relations, is not in Belgrade, so according to unofficial information, on Wednesday financial police entered the premises of this organisation and sealed them because its head was not present. Only the books were taken from the book-keeper. The decision on sealing the office has not been issued, and we were unofficially informed that they called the director of the Institute of Social Sciences in whose building the office of the Forum is located and asked him to write the decision that this office was sealed.

According to the words of Vileta Djikanovic, activist of the "Women in Black", on Wednesday three inspectors came to their office, two of them were from the police. She says that that they introduced themselves as being from the department of economic crime. President Stasa Zajevic was subjected to classical police interrogation, claims Djikanovic. She herself was asked who had founded the "Women in Black", why she had become an activist, when the organisation had been founded. They were interested the most in the contacts with Kosovo and even took contact telephone numbers in Pristina although they are not in use any more. At the same time they criticised this organisation for not defending the Serbs in Kosovo equally as it advocated protection of the rights of the Albanians and similar. "They called me at home", Vileta Djikanovic explains, and "ordered me to come to the office the next day at ten o'clock. They took all the filing folders in which correspondence, addresses were kept, and allowed the activists to copy documents. The issued a certificate on temporary confiscation of documents", says Vileta Djikanovic for AIM.

Sonja Biserko, president of Helsinki Committee, says that financial police is in their premises for a week already and that their work is within legal limits – they are controlling books. This is the first auditing since opening of the office. According to her opinion, it is obvious that it is a campaign which cannot be observed outside the context in which we live. In a few days the true aim of this auditing will be seen: whether it is intimidation before new laws are passed or the forthcoming elections. In any case, this is an expression of paranoia of the regime, Sonja Biserko believes.

Vesna Pesic, member of the management board of the Centre for Anti-War Action, says that auditors are doing their job in her office – controlling the books and that they are correct. Since 1991 when the Centre was founded, this is the first visit of financial police. Non-governmental organisations as a rule do not have special experts, so that anybody who wishes can find what they want, Pesic notes. She stresses that she does not know what their aim is. One possibility is, she says, that they wish to intimidate people by sentencing NGOs to pay fines like in the case of media, and the other is that they might even shut them down. Vesna Pesic reminds that there are no legal limits for reception of donations from abroad, which is a ban referring only to political organisations. Therefore, in this sense no offence has been committed.

“This is a campaign intended to intimidate the citizens and intensify xenophobia, and it is an attack on non-governmental organisations”, claims Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco from Yugoslav Committee of Lawyers: “In the country in which jurisprudence and laws are violated for ten years, in which banks do not operate, where those who think differently are called spies and terrorists, where a special law against such people is in preparation, it is normal that arrival of financial police causes an unpleasant feeling. People are afraid in such conditions that they might have made a mistake and of what sort of sanctions might follow. With its actions the state has forced the citizens to live a life in the underground, and laws serve as a cover for daily politics”, this lawyer claims. According to her opinion, had the Law on Information now in force been consistently implemented, “state media would have been shut down by now, because they are the ones which lie and stir up hatred, while independent media have introduced self-censorship”. The state cannot be accused of terrorism by anyone, but it accuses anybody it pleases. Biljana Kovasevic-Vuco believes that we are dealing with “sophisticated repression and notes that the law on terrorism need not be passed at all, because it has already psychologically achieved its goal – intimidation of the citizens”.

Vesna Vujic

(AIM)