WORK OF SOROS PROHIBITED

Registration of Soros Fund of Yugoslavia Annulled

AIM Belgrade, February 24, 1996

Registration of Soros Fund of Yugoslavia has been annulled. This decision was reached yesterday by the Supreme Court of Serbia, which means that the Fund has no right to operate on the territory of the FR of Yugoslavia any more, that all financial transactions have been interrupted, and all started projects arrested.

While representatives of the Fund are getting ready for a press conference scheduled for Thursday, unofficially we learn that in the meantime, while awaiting the blow from the regime, they have prepared a new strategy - repeated application for entry into the court register, that is, entering the legal procedure from the very beginning.

Just as a reminder, in May last year, after several-months' campaign of the regime against the Soros Fund and its founder, George Soros, "enemy of this country and its people", Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia annulled the registration of the Fund pursuant a legal catch, explaining that it had been founded in an unlawful manner, and that it had expanded its activities in relation to what it had been registered for.

To this decision of the Ministry, the Soros Fund of Yugoslavia responded with an appeal to the Supreme Cpourt of Serbia last June. The Soros Fund operates in Yugoslavia since June 1991, and apart from financing international scientific cooperation, it supported the sphere of culture in general, and abundantly offered humanitarian aid. It is, nevertheless, believed that their assistance to independent media in Serbia was "decisive", and that was what caused animosity of the regime.

One should not forget that the annullment came just a week after TV Studio B was seized by the state, which is considered to be the final blow in the campaign against independent media which began more than a year ago with the unsuccessful attack against the weekly "NIN", seizure of "Borba" and "Svetlost" from Kragujevac.

(AIM) Gordana Igric