Increase of Political Violence in Serbia

To the Last Breath

AIM Podgorica, 12 July, 1999 (By AIM correspondent from Belgarde)

If the political scene of Serbia has actually been hibernating - to such an extent that the less informed believed that the opposition started inclining towards Milosevic - party activities have now bubbled over so much that many wonder whether it will be possible to quiet them down without causing a big fire. A growing wave of anti-regime protests is spreading over Serbia, and in the past several days it is possible to note an extremely significant presence of political violence that causes concern. This violence is still mostly under control of those who organise it or at least inspire it - and they are the ones who have plenty to lose in the forthcoming changes - but the spiral of violence may wrench free at any moment and prevail in the country.

In the poor town of Prokuplje in the south of Serbia which is close to Kosovo, demonstrations of the opposition coalition League for Changes were held last week. In the presence of about three thousand people - which is a lot for a region which was until recently a stronghold of the regime, leaders of member parties of this League spoke. What made an even greater impression than the gathering itself were the events that preceded it and developments that took place at the same time as the protest. As soon as it was made public that supporters of the opposition league would gather, local committee of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia called its sympathisers to gather - at the same time and at the same place! This apparently bizarre "scheduling of a local civil war" is not an authentic innovation of the Socialists from Prokuplje: this is actually an almost routine technique of "counter-demonstrations", programmed stimulation of street political violence into which the regime pushes the citizens loyal to it to square accounts with other citizens, opponents of the regime.

This cynical technique of pushing forward their followers as the shock troops was applied with tragic consequences (with the dead and the wounded) at the time of the great three-month citizens' protests caused by election theft in the winter of 1996/97. However, after the defeat in the past war, Serbia is better armed, more frustrated and seized by deeper social hopelessness than before; therefore, a "close encounter" of pro- and con- regime activists may be a trigger of great unrests, and even a civil war.

Although the Socialists in Prokuplje called off their gathering at a minute to twelve (which is a reliable sign that this was a specific "test", a precedent for a future similar act of the regime) at the mentioned oppositionist gathering there were several fights between the protesters and Milosevic's supporters who stood by, insulted and provoked its participants. A photographer of Reuters took a shot at the moment when during the opposition gathering Ratko Zecevic, leader of local Socialists, head of the district and local lord and master (almost all the towns in Serbia which are ruled by Socialists have one of the kind) shot in the air from his TT gun from the balcony of the seat of the SPS. The balcony looks upon the gathered crowd which responded by shouting "Murderers, murderers!"

The picture is quite inspiring: Ratko Zecevic stands on the balcony in a black shirt, with a wide belt, a cigarette in his mouth, his left arm put behind his body, and with his right hand shooting in the air, looking down at the crowd with contempt. Lawyers say that what Zecevic did may be qualified as "provoking general danger" and that a several-year sentence in prison is prescribed for that. Of course, it would be naive to even think that anybody could try him for that: in modern Serbia, only refusal to take up arms is punishable, and not its use for political or "patriotic" purposes. That is why this state official-gunman, although caught red-handed, does not even think about withdrawing from his post, nor does his party think about replacing him.

Ratko Zecevic is not the only head of the district who likes to use his gun: in Leskovac, the impoverished industrial city in the far south of Serbia, mass demonstrations of citizens were organised and resignation of the local boss Zivojin Stefanovic demanded as well as change of the regime in Serbia. During several days of the protests (which still continue), a group of protesters broke the windows and the fence of Stefanovic's house, and that same evening, the head of the district, agitated and scared by sudden shaking of his for years unquestioned position, threatened a fellow citizen with his gun and said that he would kill his brother (president of the local committee for human rights) "because he has started it all".

Leskovac was also a firm stronghold of the ruling coalition, so that violence can be interpreted as a sign of dramatically growing uncertainty, nervousness and fear of the authorities which feel that the ground is slowly but surely slipping away from under their feet. Sociologist Aleksa Djilas tersely defined this recently in a foreign newspaper: "If Milosevic is in trouble in Leskovac, he is really in trouble"... But the problem with Milosevic in trouble is always in the fact that he pulls himself out but making even more trouble to all the others. This time trouble is enormous, so cautious observers of the circumstances in Serbia are afraid that the response of the experienced trouble-maker will be brutal.

The wave of controlled political violence is directed primarily against the League for Change, because the Belgrade regime calmly estimates that this loose alliance of Milosevic's opponents, despite their drawbacks and previous failures of majority of their leaders, is at this moment the most capable of articulating the evidently smouldering discontent of an enormous number of cititens who are after twelve years of living in a permanent state of emergency definitely sick and tired of Milosevic's "salvation projects", greater-state adventures, populist phrase-mongering, mega-corruption arrogantly and indolently concealed by cheap leftist platitude, poverty at the threshold of Europe so great that it ranks third in the world, humiliating status of the country and its citizens literally all over the world, even in the so-called friendly countries.

Forced by developments to agree to complete withdrawal of his forces from Kosovo, the regime is faced with the accusation it had for a long time addressed to others: of "national treason". And while, exposed to brutal vengeful violence of the Albanians according to the principle violence causes violence, the Serbs are fleeing from Kosovo headed by Milosevic's local officials (who have proved to be very good runners, they have not stopped anywhere until they reached Belgrade), those who have remained in the "southern Serbian province" are left at the mercy of KFOR, the Church and the local Serb leaders who are not inclined towards Belgrade regime and an opposition leader here and there.

In order to show to the decreased number of viewers of state television that the remaining Serbs in Kosovo still trust only Milosevic (and not their own eyes), in Gracanica, Serb enclave in Kosovo near the monastery which bears the same name and which is one of the greatest Serb medieval sanctuaries, a group of "local Serbs" (who are police agents provocateurs "imported" from Serbia proper according to certain Kosovar connoisseurs, and according to lawyer Vladan Batic criminals, his former clients) physically attacked opposition leaders of the League for Changes and their hosts from the Serb Orthodox Church and an independent political organization of Kosovo Serbs.

There were a lot of punches with clenched fists, smacks and slaps, insults were hurled (while priests crossed themselves in embarassment and British members of KFOR were trying to interrupt the Serb-Serb boxing match); state television was diligently shooting and then with an appropriate hedonistic commentary, broadcast it to its viewers. That is how violence as a manner of expressing political differences was promoted as a legitimate option with a flourish of trumpets. Of course, under the condition the stick does not get the other end: then it is called terrorism and condemned with a lot of moralistic pathos.

At the moment when he is trying to somehow reach an agreement and make a deal with the still most dangerous internal opponent, president of Montenegro Milo Djukanovic (who despite sweet dreams, cannot be easily hit because he has the police, the media and utterly unconcealed support of the West), the regime is trying to "clear the ground" within Serbia, believing that in "glorious isolation" it will be able to rule for a long time to come, despite the actual loss of control of Kosovo and despite the fact that along with the Albanians the Serbs are nowadays the poorest, the most deprived of their rights and the most hopeless people in Europe. Agitation is spreading, passions are stirred everywhere. Even in the city assembly of Belgrade, a fight broke out between councilmen of Draskovic's Serb Revival Movement and Seselj's Serb Radical Party because of a very trite immediate cause. And this whole (incomplete) list of disturbing excesses in the past week was made without registering any (visible) police violence.

It seems that in this boiling atmosphere, the police as a factor of political violence has become unnecessary: the citizens have "taken things into their own hands". They were, of course, discreetly encouraged by those who are desperately preserving power in the remaining part of the country they control because that is all they - as international fugitives

• have left that guarantees their survival. The immediate future is bringing great temptation to Serbia; departure of the compromised regime has a specific "purging" effect without which there can be no indication of revival of a society whose accelerated decay has begun as soon as the current regime had set out to "restore its dignity". Nevertheless, both the regime and the opposition share responsibility: they must not allow the spiral of violence get out of hand and make the stick become the only efficient law in Serbia, and chaos the only adequate name of the system.

At the moment nothing points out to an optimistic scenario: the regime has no other possibility but by preserving power, defend its money of dubious origin, villas snatched away from their real owners, bank accounts in exotic countries and indeed, their bare lives at large; the political alternative has no choice but to force the regime to leave, on the contrary its ten-year activities will be meaningless and futile, and Serbia imprisoned and chained by its own demons. Such balance of impotence and the fact that the two parties are mutually forcing each other to go to the end, "to the last breath", cannot bring civil peace. It still is not late for a happy end, of course, if there is any civil and political responsibility left overe here.

Teofil Pancic

(AIM)