INSTEAD OF CANNONS, IRRIGATION SYSTEMS

Decline of Military Industries in Serbia

More than 22 thousand workers of the once powerful and protected military industries have been forgotten both by the state and by the army.

AIM Belgrade, 31 May, 1997

In mid May, over 6000 workers of Zastava special- purpose industries from Kragujevac announced that they would continue last year's protest which lasted for three months, when they spent the end of the summer and the beginning of autumn in the streets. At the time, the armourers from Kragujevac demanded from the state to declare which part of the factory it needed, so they could seek solution based on that. Apart from this main demand, they also demanded, but somehow by the way, that the state give them back 70 million dollars (which it owes them from the previously exported armament), and Slobodan Milosevic was accused that by having signed the "capitulation" in Dayton - which banned production of high-calibre guns above 30 milimetre - "cut down prospects of Kragujevac induistries which were ready for production of heavy cannons and howitzers by having taken over the program from the factory in Travnik. The strike ended just before November holidays, the state gave the workers some money in cash, promised them work and talks about the status. However, except for a little money, they got nothing else, so the workers threatened they would block Kragujevac again. But, several hours before they went out into the streets, the state once again showed how easy it was to pacify the workers. They swallowed the bait consisting of yet another paid lunch and tall stories about expansion of production, and postponed the strike, enabling the state to continue dealing with "matters of the state".

Stimulation

These "matters" obviously do not include the branch of the so-called special-purpose industries. Because, about 22 thousand workers employed in Krusik from Valjevo, Sloboda from Cacak, Prvi partizan from Uzice, Zastava from Kragujevac, and Prva petoletka from Trstenik, have been forgotten both by the state and the army. One might have some understanding for the negligence of the army, because it too has been forgotten by the state. Therefore, these factories in the past ten years, but especially after the Dayton accords and the end of the war in which we had not participated, have been affected by chronic unemployment, outstanding debts, lack of production materials, irregular payment of salaries, long period of waiting for jobs, impossibility of export, frequent replacement of their management from office...

Since military factories were and still are non-market oriented organizations, development and investments, prices and export of which are determined by the state, they are practically incapable to solve problems they are faced with, especially because the state "stimulates" such state of affairs by refusing to state which of the plants it really needs (both as concerning ownership, and as concerning production for the army). And that the state still has no intention of declaring what its needs for this type of products are is, among other, illustrated by the fact that the draft law on ownership transformation does not even mention the military branch.

Although it is clear to everybody that the state has completely given up on these industries as a bad job, it seems that their managers have not realized it yet. At a meeting with managers of factories producing armament, even the military leadership clearly came out with the stance that military industries could not live on the needs of the army. The best illustration of this is the fact that for the needs of the army, only 3.4 per cent of the capacities of Prvi partizan industries were used. But, managers of military factories, like Radomir Visnjevac from Prvi partizan, who is also the president of the branch, still claim that the existing programs have no alternative, that they are the "key to survival" of these factories. They believe in consolidation, transformation, restructuring of debts, loans...

Mugabe and Zimbabwe

They still believe, although publicly and for the time being, the only one who manifested any concern was the deputy of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) Raka Radovic who discussed gyroscopes (a part of a tank) in the Republican assembly, because he had learnt about them in Prva petoletka in his native Trstenik, and some of the other busybodies from the ruling party during the election campaign. Milomir Minic (former secretary general of the SPS, and current chairman of the Chamber of Citizens of the federal assembly) also promised at the time that military industries were of top priority, that through specific business deals and projects all necessary conditions for restructuring and successful development would be created with new products for the home and the world market... Of course, the result of these consolidations is that the workers, additionally terrified by stories about redundant labour, once again "rightly" settled down for a meagre payment in cash and decided not to go on strike. There is no question about any other consolidation. And there can hardly be any. Because the market of Asia and Africa ensured by the leading position in the Non-Aligned Movement, does not exist any more for them. At least not for "rump" manufacturers of "rump" Yugoslavia. And when there is no market, there can be neither export nor hundreds millions of dollars which "special-purpose" industries made in it. And, one should be reminded that in the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties, military industries participated in the total Yugoslav export with as much as 15 per cent.

Nowadays, when even the non-aligned have abandoned us

• the only friend left is evidently Mugabe and his Zimbabwe - when Dayton "reduced" calibres of rockets and guns, when "solidarity" (paid for in cash by sackloads) with brethren from across the Drina has been interrupted, and when the army has been abandoned by the current regime, it seems that military industries can do nothing else but wither away with dignity. Because nobody wishes to be responsible for them, not even the assistant federal minister for the economy, Branislav Savic (who is actually in charge and who used to be the director of Krusik and who said that he had "nothing to do with it").

That is how those who with their cannons, tanks, mortars, rockets, ammunition... used to supply continents nowadays have a production which saisfies the needs of a single army district. They are silent in their helplessness, holding on to plants which are slowly becoming obsolete, abandoned by their best experts, waiting for charity bestowed upon them by the state, trying to transform into civilian factories. As a matter of form. Because even what they do manufacture is done much better by privately owned plants. But they are trying. Krusik has managed to construct noiseless water tanks and sensor taps for pissoirs, in Kragujevac they are ready to start manufacturing shovels and spades, in Cacak pistols for benumbing cattle are produced, as well as irrigation systems and taps for barrels, in Uzice they are manufacturing parts of medical equipment, in Trstenik they have completed the machine for plastics... But, this is all done by the way, while waiting for big deals and calibres. Although obviously there is practically no chance for anything of the kind, and the state is still silent.

Dragan Todorovic (AIM)