Attack on Constitutional Rights of Citizens

Measure which Intends to Change the People

AIM Belgrade, 15 February, 1998

Adopted with an ambitious, but impractical aspiration to financially discipline the citizens, the Decree of the government of Serbia showed two things: that the regime, in order to preserve power, was ready to dig deep into the purses of its citizens and that Yugoslavia had no currency of its own. Its implementation has threatened, among other, the right to work and limited the right to movement

The decree of the government of Serbia adopted with the ambitions to introduce financial discipline in trade turned into a boomerang of political nature, because the citizens, even the most naive and the most benign ones, realised that the regime has made a move which shows that it is ready to sacrifice the whole nation in order to save itself. The ominous January lull which frightened many, turned into a February tempest because the citizens were touched where it hurts the most - they felt the hand of the state in their own pockets.

The regime decided to take such a drastic step because it does not have a material and financial basis for its preservation of power any more. The essence of the controversial decree lies in the attempt to squeeze the very last dinar, or German mark, out of the citizens who are keeping them concealed under their pillows. Just in January, a deficit of 198 million dollars was made in the exchange with the world, and the foreign currency reserves in the central bank have almost completely melted.

Since Yugoslavia is still under sanctions and surrounded by a sanitary corridor intended to protect the world from the Yugoslav contageous disease, the regime is forced to draw its financial reserves from the pockets of its citizens, and in order to make it inconspicuous, it explained its move by resoluteness to introduce financial discipline. Lack of financial discipline is characteristic for Yugoslav economy, because it is dominated by privileges and other conveniences established in government ministries, accessible only to persons close to the regime.

There is a strong feeling of bitterness among the public against such persons, and it is certain that any measure aimed at introducing financial discipline would be welcomed by the citizens. The measure is, however, directed against innocent citizens, and it finally revealed the true nature of the rule of the regime. Citizens are in its way and that is why they should be subjected to all forms of torture for as long as they can stand it. This is the true sense of the decree.

When recently a foreign diplomat presented to Slobodan Milosevic the difficult economic situation in Yugoslavia, warning him that it was high time he changed his policy if he wished his nation well, he flatly refused it and said that information about economic circumstances were not true. For Milosevic's interlocutor, but the entire international community as well, that was the end of the conversation with him about it, and it is highly questionable whether the Yugoslav leader will ever have the oppotunity to get such an offer again.

Milosevic himself is aware of it, too, and soon after that invited president of Belorussia Lukashenko to visit him. In the end of the visit, the guest made the assessment that both countries were in a difficult situation, but that Yugoslavia was in a worse position. When it became clear that the guest was equally poor as the host, the decree appeared as the last possibility to collect money from the citizens in order to prolong the agony in which the regime has found itself, even at the price of further impoverishment of the largest possible number of its citizens.

Most of the dust because of the decree was raised by the layers of the population which will not be vitally threatened by its implementation, because people from real-estate agencies, lawyers, and even those who are selling or buying real estate belong in the category of those who are well-off. In the end they will overthrow the controversial regulation because the decree is preventing them to continue to do their profitable business, and they have the power and knowledge to do it. In just five days, over one hundred appeals arrived in constitutional courts of Serbia and Yugoslavia, demanding that the decree be evaluated and annulled as contrary to the constitution.

The decree has however affected the ordinary citizens, even those who are not possible participants in sale and purchase of real estate. The most affected are those who are engaged in small business in order to survive, together with the members of their families. They were simply "forgotten", because they are not clients of agencies nor any of the influential structures. Everybody is in trounble, from the citizen who is working in a cigarette booth all day long to anyone engaged in any public activity.

In order to discipline citizens, the regime limited freedom of movement, because issuing and prolongation of validity of passports has been conditioned by regularly paid taxes by the decree. However, tax records in municipal administration agencies are chaotic and in such disorder that the citizens are often summoned to pay taxes they had paid years ago. Nevertheless, the state charged daily interest for these debts of 0.2 per cent. It turns out that last year the official inflation was 8.5 per cent, but the state interest was 73 per cent. By charding interest for interest, the imposed expenses exceed 130 per cent, and it makes this the largest interest in the world.

Such enormous interest rates show that the regime has no confidence in the domestic currency and it found solution in the expensive money, just as the citizens are running away from the dinar and exchanging it for German marks and other foreign currency. The decree has just confirmed that Yugoslavia does not have a real currency which can be used only for purchasing bread, milk and fruit, but this regulation actually has no economic and financial meaning, which the regime is trying to ascribe to it. The decree has encroached upon the ground of fundamental constitutional rights and freedoms of the citizens, because it has questioned exercising of the accomplished civilisation achievements which exist everywhere in the world. The right to work and the freedom of movement have been threatened. If things continue in this sense, it is just a matter of time when even the right to think will be punishable.

Things have reached the point after which, if the regime persists in the implementation of the decree, it can begin to fill prisons. It is evident that the police has already started hue and cry against citizens who, in the attempt to catch one of the scarce buses, are running across streets outside pedestrian crossings. On the other side they are welcomed by a group of policemen who demand that they pay a fine of 105 dinars. In view of the fact that the fine exceeds 10 per cent of the average (monthly) salary, it belongs in the group of the most severe ones in the world. As the citizens have no money to pay such high fines, mass arrests are expected, so the regime will have to invest into construction of new jails. The moves the regime has started to make are unambiguously indicating its intention to change not itself, but the people.

The new Serbian president Milan Milutinovic observed that the decree was untenable, and discreetly sent a message to the government to reconsider its content, but on that same day he was roughly reprimanded by the minister of finance that changes of the decree were out of the question. That is how the decree showed where the centre of power lies. The president of Serbia whose post permits him to reject laws if he thinks that they are contrary to the Constitution cannot veto a decree, because the signal for its passing has come from another place. That is how Milutinovic, at the very beginning of his mandate, proved to be weak for the post at which his predecessor (Slobodan Milosevic) acquired the leading position with unlimited possibilities to rule.

A combination of other political circumstances both in Serbia and in Yugoslavia, could create an ambience in which the decree which had intended to chase the hare in the end chases away a wolf, that is, to further unstabilise political conditions in the country in which uncertain position of the citizens, in the economic and the social resoect, spreads like a flu epidemic.

ENTREFILET

What is Prescibed by the Decree

The latest decree on measures of financial discipline created by the government of the Republic of Serbia suspends market and introduces command economy. The citizens of Serbia will not be able to buy or sell their apartments, cars, land, as they wish, but as the state sees fit. The decree also abolishes the category of gifts, which is the oldest known right.

The central bank will control all the accounts on which entrepreneurs keep their money, and all the employed citizens will have to open current accounts in banks in order to receive their salaries, and employers will be able to get only 1,000 dinars (about 200 German marks on the black market) per employee a month, including money for business trips. Briefly put: in Serbia since a few days ago, the rule is enforced according to which the state is entitled to dispose of the property of the citizens and money of enterprises and citizens, depriving them of the fundamental constitutional right to freely dispose of their property and money they had earned. The result of the decree is complete dying down of real estate sale and long queues in front of windows of municipal and republican administration where various certificates are issued.

The mentioned decree also obliges the citizens to submit certificates that they had paid taxes whenever they seek to be issued a new passport or wish to have its validity prolonged.

Ratomir Petkovic

(AIM)

Ratomir Petkoviå (AIM)