Dangerous Nepotism

Ostoja Minic from Valjevo is one of the socalled ``ecological experts.'' Reacting to a report in autumn 1990 the Sanitary Inspection in Valjevo discovered nearly 200 tons of industrial galvanic silt which Minic's firm ``ObnicaEka'' stored in a prohibited way. Minic said then that silt was not hazardous for health so that he intended to use it in the brick industry. However, the tests at the Institute for Safety showed that galvanic silt falls under poisons of the first, second and third category and that salts of heavy metals it contains can cause a concentration of toxic materials in the air and water. Minic had to return the silt to the firms which had delivered it together with the money they had paid to get rid of it. Because of this case the Republican Sanitary Inspection raised charges against Minic, but the Municipality's Public Prosecutor's Office rejected the charge because ``it did not contain the elements of a criminal act due to a lack of any consequences!'' There was no word about Ostoja Minic since last year when his experiment with ``an ecological brick'' failed.

Beginning last year the inhabitants of one of Valjevo's suburbs watched with interest a lot of land in their neighborhood being fenced in, a barrack built and piles of material, which was to be crushed, ground and mixed, being brought. In all likelihood they would have done nothing about their curiosity had not the dust from the ``plant'' begun to ``irritate their eyes and noses causing a cough.'' The stuff was delivered and unloaded at night and the workers worked only on holidays, which they found suspicious. Since they were brought up to report suspect occurrences, the local started organizing themselves and writing petitions first to the local authorities and then to the ministries...

It turned out that the firm ``Eka'' with a green ecological clover with four leaves and Ostoja Minic were behind everything. Since the barrack was erected on the peace of land which had a ban on construction the Municipal Construction Inspection passed a ruling in April that the shed be pulled down. The ruling was disregarded so the locals approached the branch office in Sabac of the Ministry for Protection of Human Environment. After they checked the location in June last year the inspectors found that the owner did not have the act on adapting the area, the construction license, the study of the effects of the premises and activities on human environment, nor the paperwork to prove the origin of raw materials, so they issued a temporary ban on the company's work. As Minic failed to ``notice'' these bans, the Department of the Ministry of Ecology in Sabac sent a complaint to the Municipal Public Prosecutor's Office in Valjevo against Minic, where they requested that the company is shut down for ten years.

Those familiar with Minic's resume claim that he enjoys protection primarily because of his ``kindred immunity'' since Zivorad Minic, the General Secretary of the Socialist Party of Serbia and the General Manager of the State Railroad Company, is his nephew.

Ostoja Minic responded to the latest developments by going on a hunt for the new location. He almost found it in the vicinity of the village of Dracic, near Valjevo, where he was born. But, nothing came of it. His fellow countrymen showed no understanding. On the contrary. Doubting his intentions, they chased away with guns the first trucks with raw materials headed for the drilling grounds. Minic believes that this is to be blamed on rumors, but that he only ``wanted to help, employ young people and leave a trace behind him so that the people in his home village would remember him.''