AVERSION TO OPEN SOCIETY

Interview with Ms. Sonja Liht, President of the Executive Board of the Soros Foundation of Yugoslavia

AIM, Belgrade, July 2, 1995

The state is trying to stifle the Soros Foundation in Yugoslavia. If it succeeds, it will be for the first time that the Soros Foundation is banned in a country. Occasional attacks, mini- and mega- campaigns, negative judgements about George Soros as a "stock exchange fixer" and a signatory of the letter of world famous intellectuals about the necessity to bomb Bosnian Serbs, followed the operation of the Foundation from the very beginning. And then, not long ago, a decree arrived from the Ministry of Culture of Serbia saying that the Soros Foundartion is deleted from the court register, due to "various legal inadequacies", which practically means banning its operation. The President of the Executive Board of the Soros Foundation, Ms. Sonja Liht, speaks about this for the AIM.

AIM: Were there really any inadequacies?

• In the name of the "Open society", Mr Soros signed a contract with the Federal Executive Council. On June 17, 1991, it was signed by George Soros and the former Federal Minister of Science, Technology and Development. This act marked the establishment of the Soros Foundation in Yugoslavia. Afterwards, it was registered in the Ministry of Culture of Serbia. Contrary to Mr Soros, the Federal Executive Council did not pay its part of the founding deposit, but participated in a different way. For instance, it provided a van and a driver for transportation of drugs. We did not insist that the Federal Executive Council pays its part of the deposit, believing that the Government in a time of war has more urgent matters to attend to than sponsorship. This made no obstacles for us to be registered in the Ministry of Culture of Serbia, which is now, after four years of our successful operation, actually annulling its own decree, referring, among other, to the Law on Administrative Procedure which ceased to be valid as of 1987. I must admit that, in time, we have broadened our registration to include humanitarian activities and medical programs, although it did not refer to these fields. The original registration referred to activities aimed at preservation of the creative potentials of this country, but we believed that it was our duty to help the sick and the hundgry who suffered consequences of the war and the sanctions. We wanted to register our humanitarian Foundation, but we were told at the Ministry of Culture that it was not necessary, since we had already been registered.

AIM: You appealed to the Supreme Court. What if the answer will be negative?

• The Supreme court is the final instance. After that we have noone to appeal to. If they abolish us, we will try to register again. I am an optimist, though, I don't believe in negative decisions.

AIM: The Soros Foundation is attacked in Croatia too. What is it resented for over there?

• The situation is similar over there and here. The attacks have started there earlier than they did here. But, in Croatia there is a permanent pressure, and not a campaign. It is a matter of a similar aversion to the idea of democracy and the open society.

AIM: Apart from the medical institutions, social welfare centres, refugee camps and institutions in the sphere of science and culture, and independent media and non-governmental organizations are your users. Can it be said that the attack against the Soros Foundation is an attack against them, too?

• There is an obvious intention to intimidate our users. However, they are not frightened. We received more applications than ever for our latest competition. When it failed to achieve its goal by intimidation, the state resorted to the ultimate means to murder the Foundation, according to a tested recipe - the so called lawful-legalistic means. And yet, I believe that there are still reasonable forces in the country, even among the leading politicians, which will realize that it is not in their interest to close down an institution such as this one. Not only because an enormous part of our assistance goes to state institutions - medical institutions and centres for refugees, but because they are aware that it is impossible to preserve this society without opening it to the world and without communication with it. If the Soros Foundation is thrown out of Yugoslavia in such a brutal manner, it will be a bad example for all those who wish to invest capital in this country, because they will not be sure that after three or four years of successful operation, the state would not delete their registration too, or nationalize their property.

AIM: With a few honourable exceptions, the public watched the strike at the Soros Foundation in silence. Even some of your major users did not react. How do you interpret that?

• First - about the media. The Government, Brcin's Borba, devoted three times more space to us than some of the independent media. But, Brcin's journalists do not ask anything, they know everything in advance, they know all the answers. This journal manifests open hatred towards the Soros Foundation. We have no complaints against writing of the journal Politika, they truly do work professionally. A member of our Executive Board explained best why the public is silent. When it is publicly stated that the Soros Foundation is an agent of the special war, that we work for foreign powers, that we educate traitors of their homeland, that we are like Hitler, it is a direct provocation which the public directly responds to by an absence of support.

AIM: How do your users in the medical profession react?

• Just a few people from medical institutions we assisted contacted us concerning this. They are in a terrible scrape. Each and every one of them is aware how much the Soros Foundation helped their institutions, not only by drugs and medical equipment, but also by enabling them to remain in contact with scientific institutions in the world, which is extremely important for medical science. We assist medical personnel by going to international seminars, specializations, we offer scholarships. A group of medical personnel is just leaving to London for specialization, and a group of psychiatrists is going to an important seminar in Vienna. Therefore, they are aware what the Soros Foundation means for them, but on the other hand, fear has taken possession of these people. Of course, there are those who are concerned more about their own careers than the destiny of the patients, but I wish to stress that there are an awful lot of honest and highly professional people among them, who are abiding by the principles of physicians' ethics, and I would not like to be in their shoes. They tell me that their institutions would not have survived had there been no assistance of ours, some have even publicized that, but you feel frustration in these people all the time.

AIM: What will this new situation bring to the patients?

• A few days ago, at one of the clinics of the Clinical Centre of Serbia, we were told that they dare not accept our drugs any more, because thy are afraid of Stamatovic, Director of the Clinical Centre of Serbia. What this means for the patients is not difficit to conclude, because there are less and less drugs. I am mentioning Brcin's Borba again. After my press conference where I expressed my concern that the humanitarian aid for Yugoslavia would be diminishing, and the Soros Foundation which filled this gap was being abolished, a certain journalist called Matic commented on my statement and said: "Mrs. Liht obviously does not know that an enormous number of economic and humanitarian organizations are coming to this country wishing to be engaged here and wishing to help in the humanitarian sphere". That very same journalist, just two days later, wrote that international humanitarian organizations are announcing reduction of aid to the FR of Yugoslavia and suspension of social welfare programs.

AIM: How does Mr Soros react to these attacks?

• He has grown used to them. In Hungary, an extremist nationalist, Mr Curka, who is also a great "hater" of the Serbs, but which the Serb nationalist and journalist of the Duga, Dragos Kalajic evidently does not know since he quotes him, called George Soros a dirty Jewish rat. There were similar attacks in Romania and Slovakia, too.

AIM: The Foundation is being closed down, and you are in full swing - scientists, journalists, theatre people are coming and going as if nothing has happened.

• Young people work here. On the average, they are between 28 and 30 years old. They are devoted to the idea that this society must be assisted not only by ten-million-dollars worth of drugs which have been spent so far, but by support of creative potentials of this country and efforts to make a democratic and open society of Yugoslavia. We are aware that we must not give up. Sometimes we feel like Kalimero (a little chicken from a cartoon which was always pushed around). I have a wish to go out to Terazije 9in the centre of Belgrade) and yell: "Injustice, injustice" like it does. This, of course, can be of no help. That is why we are still carrying out our programs. We are just preparing summer camps for children and artists' colonies. But, we are surrounded with much apathy and fatigue. This war has lasted long, the economic crisis even longer. We are holding out because, despite circumstances, there is a powerful democratic potential here. A new wave of a Different Serbia is appearing. They are young people who are founding journals and radio stations around Serbia, struggling to keep this society from going down completely under a flood of criminality, corruption, apathy. We are supporting them with all our might and giving them hope, especially because they are suffering pressure of the authorities in their environments. I would like to end this conversation with what Mr Soros has said to me: "I do not understand much of what is going on in your country, but I see that there are people who wish that country to be normal, open and democratic. As long as these people believe in the Soros Foundation, as long as you in the Foundation believe in these people and are ready to work for them, I will be ready to support them."

Milica Lucic-Cavic