Cannon Fodder Rebels

Two events have marked the third anniversary of the first baricades near Benkovac and Obrovac. In Belgrade, a delegation of the republican Association of the 1990 War Veterans, the Association of War Invalids of the Serbian Liberation Wars and Volunteers from 1912 to 1990 have laid wreaths on the monument to the Unknown Soldier. In Knin, after leaving their positions in tanks, a group of dissatisfied fighters of the Obrovac-Benkovac front destroyed the caf of Nebojsa Djujic (who several days ago celebrated making a profit of 2 million DM). They also demanded that Prime Minister of the Republic of Serb Krajina Djordje Bjegovic takes urgent measures to put an end to anarchy and overall impoverishment of the people.

Many things have changed in the three years since the events which made an overture to the series of wars on the territory of the former Yugoslavia took place. The joint state broke up, new states were created, blood was spilt unsparingly, cities and towns were destroyed, concentration camps were set up, raping, looting and slaughter took place; in others words, everything that even the worst pessimists didn't think possible did happen. However, two things remained the same: the reasons and the people who caused everything. Three years later the reasons are only deeper while a number of war-lords is increasing. Moreover, the lesser ones, created thanks to the few big ones, primarily, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, are now a threat to their spiritual parents, not allowing them to take a rest and divide the booty in peace.

Namely, the war has its expiration date as well. It turned out that the pretext together with what has come out of destruction and killing in the name of sacred national goals is more than suspicious. Prime Minister of the Serb Republic in Bosnia, Vladimir Lukic, has concluded that if ``everything is to be allowed to a Serb in the Serb Republic in Bosnia, than such state is ruined even before it has been formed.'' According to him, the killers there are on the loose protected by their commanders, various permits are forged and sold (mostly for letting the remaining Muslims and Croats from the republic), while the authorities, in cooperation with the ``criminal elements,'' are calmly watching everything, thus losing respect with the people. Besides, the overall impoverishment has reached such proportions that President of the municipality of Banjaluka Predrag Radic has warned of social unrest after October. He has also said that some fifty thousand pensioners in the municipality have not received a penny for months, and that 1,700 of them intend to occupy the center of the town and die of hunger there, instead of in their flats.

The situation in the brotherly Republic of Serb Krajina is similar. It seems that somebody crammed it into the people's heads that while they are starving and dying their representatives are leading a better life than ever. The additional problem is that such a belief is widely spread, which only makes the authorities more nervous, and is backed by dissatisfied Serb fighters in Serb tanks in Serb Knin, who are fighting for the Serbian cause. Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Serb Krajina Mile Paspalj suffered agonies when writing to Djordje Bjegovic who is the Prime Minister of the very same state. Paspalj demanded a ``property list'' for each minister, his aide, police chief and head of security, which should show what they own and how their acquired it. It is also important to make it public whether they have bodyguards, were given a vehicle to use while in office, or have any family members employed in the government, UNPROFOR, other international organizations or own a private firm. There is an urgent need to distribute the war hardships equally, just as it is important to raise the question of whether the national interests should provide a cover for ``the leaders'' to acquire unlimited and absolutist power while filling their pockets on somebody else's suffering.

However, as the time went by, ulterior motives surfaced. It became increasingly clear that it is more important to be on good terms with the local commander that to stay in the trenches all the time. It turned out that those who called into war, and themselves have never felt the smell of gunpowder, are taking humanitarian aid, getting fat, dressing better, driving good cars and traveling more often. It turned out that national heroes, like member of the Serbian Parliament Zeljko Raznatovic-Arkan, demands millions in hard currency or at least, a post office, bank or a police station for a 48 hour use, in order to seize some place with his ``Tigers'' (Arkan's paramilitary formation). It also turned out that policemen of Tomislav Mercep and Zeljko Tomljenovic were for most of the time engaged in carrying out the cleansing of freezers and other home appliances as well as their owners from Serb households in Western Slavonia (and if these were in short supply, Croat households would serve the purpose as well), that they exclusively used short automatic weapons, and that they mostly got killed fighting each other for control of the towns' wealthy sections. This was not a thorn in the side, since everybody who had weapons could cash in on that fact, while the rest, the unarmed, frightened majority intoxicated with nationalism was never asked anything anyway. However, the problems occurred when everything which was to be burnt, was burnt, and everything which was to be looted, was looted. It is a common knowledge that soldiers do not produce anything so that their income depends on whatever they seize or is paid to them. The national economies are finding it ever more difficult to finance the war, while the trench war fought with artillery, such as the one which is currently being waged has reduced the plunder to the minimum. Therefore, patriotic feelings were affected by the new situation.

Namely, it became public that the authorities, new and old at the same time, are not functioning as they are supposed to. The anarchy and the lack of perspective can no longer be justified by war, young democracy, new state and the like. The little life which is being maintained due to black-marketeers, who still manage to obtain some goods, dealers who are buying the last hard currency savings and usurers paying as little as possible for the family property collected for decades. The living can become better only if peace is established, but, on the other hand, that is not possible, since the authorities, whether self-proclaimed or elected, eventually depend on the will of the local war-lords. And there is an infinite number of them. For instance, there is Major Mauzer, the lord of life and death in Bijeljina, on whose whim it depends what will go through the corridor and how much will be paid for the passage. There is also a ``King of the Bridge,'' which is what foreign journalists call a Serb policeman on the bridge over the Drina River. He confiscates TV-cameras, cameras, and anything else which might be used `subversively' in the Bosnian Serb Republic. There are also policemen on all three sides who allow the citizens of Sarajevo to leave the besieged city for a lot of money, pillagers of convents and monasteries (there is nothing nationalist about it--purely business), smugglers of petrol, cigarettes and food... Those who know the situation well say that one month of `exporting' cigarettes into Cazinska Krajina can buy you a `golf'. Their cooperation has never been brought into question. One Serb war lord in central Bosnia has recently instructed his Croat counterpart how to search a house of the imam (Muslim religious leader). The books are of utmost importance since they are intellectuals who tend to write down everything. Thus, they found a list with the names of the members of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and 150 DM. The Croatian commander got the list and his Serb colleague the money; there is a price for every lesson. Then, the Croat taught the Serb how to do the job of ethnic cleansing professionally. The two of them got into a car and watched the members of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO) force a dozen Muslims into a van. They were told that they would be deported to Fojnica and ordered to take their valuables. The van left and stopped in a forest several kilometers away. The Muslims were informed that they would have to proceed on foot, led by a Croat commander. He lined them up, and told them to wait until he re-parked the vehicle. As soon as he moved from the line, machine-gun burst from the forest, and the Muslims fell down. Then he told his colleague, ``You see. This is how it's done. You have dead Muslims and everything they own at the same time.'' The Serb was impressed, as Serbs, who tend to be emotional, could never think of it.

It seems that the war has reached the point when the local war-lords are the ones who dictate its further course. With the control of the territories and without a possibility for more looting, they focused themselves on seizing the last hard currency reserves from the citizens through classic black marketeering in a mafia style.

For them peace means the loss of profit. The authorities are no longer capable of covering up the real situation, from which they profit as well, with national-patriotic reasons. Patriotism as such cannot be eaten. The subjects have begun to rebel. Many Sarajevans cannot explain it why some Moco is forcefully taking them to dig trenches. Is he, as the criminal Juka Prazina, the only interpreter of their national interests while he simultaneously trades in human lives with the gunners on Vogosca. Branimir Glavas, former military commander in Osijek, was forced to write to Slobodan Milosevic asking him to order the release of a group of Croat soldiers whom he had ordered to cross over to the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and mine the bridge on the Danube near Batina. Their relatives will not accept this as high Croatian interests. Finally, President of the Republic of Serb Krajina, Goran Hadzic, has demanded decisive measures against paramilitary forces in the area. According to him, they are illegal and in service of replaced politicians. But he did not mind their presence all until Rade Leskovac (leader of the Serbian Radical Party in Serb Krajina), that is, Vojislav Seselj (leader of the Serbian Radical Party) demanded his replacement in order to channel the growing dissatisfaction.

In the end, it seems that the interests are disclosed, while their bearers have revealed their true face. The Presidents of Serbia and Croatia need peace, but on condition that they at least partially achieve that which made their subjects fall in love with them. Since the state of their national economies is rapidly deteriorating, they are in a hurry to reach an agreement. Their subjects, such as Hadzic, Glavas and Lukic are trying hard to convince the people that everything will be well in the end, and that they should endure a little longer as the victory is here. All of them need peace in order to consolidate everything they have achieved by ``fire and sword'' in the war, now they need laws, not grenades and machine-guns. Lukic would say that ``the best Serb is the one who pays taxes.'' However, the only problem are the colleagues, obedient until yesterday, who will not calm down until there are still DM's on the territories under their control. The cannon meat for whose sake they allegedly work is not important to them anyhow, at least not until it rebels. But, it has already started to, from the stomach.