Security Day

May 13 is 500th anniversary of the founding of the Yugoslav Corps of People's Defense (KNOJ) which lay the ground for the famous People's Protection Service (OZNA) formed later and subsequently divided into the Secretariats of Internal Affairs (SUP) with their respective police forces and the State Security (UDB). In 1966 UDB changed its name into SDB (altogether 8 services) in which both the Croatian (SZUP) and the Serbian (DB) (four of them: Belgrade, Podgorica, Pale and Ilok) Secret Services originated. The other half of those celebrating May 13 comprises workers of the military secret service that used to be called the Counter intelligence Service (KOS) and later the JNA Security made up of the Secret Service and the Military Police. All former Yugoslav republics kept their military police. Secret services multiplied by a simple division and the civilian authorities created several intelligence services: military secret service, federal secret service, federal diplomatic secret service, and semi legal republic secret services (everybody spied on their emigration).

The arrival of a new ideology of ethnic purity in 1987 led to a new and revolutionary merging of politics and police. Just as Komintern, NKVD and the Red Army once exported the revolution within the framework of the concept ``warm heart, cool head, and clean hands,'' (``warm heart'' implying an utmost devotion to the communist ideology and the party), the former communists, SDB and JNA began exporting the Serbian cause. A footprint of Serbian Interior Ministry's Security Service was prominent from the very beginning (June 1990) among the Serbs in Croatia and later among the Serbs from Bosnia. The socalled paramilitary formations, as their leaders admitted, were trained, armed and controlled ``along the military line'' of the Serbian Interior Ministry. The war always began with the police: the police stations were divided along national lines; policemen were the first and the most important echelon of the interethnic war, which makes sense in tactical terms: they know the terrain and the people and do not shun violence. SDB and the police thus made a full spiral downwards: from brotherhood and unity together with the defense of the constitutional order to ethnic purity; from the public peace and order to slaughters of unarmed civilians; from the protection of life and property to institutional looting and mass murders. The line of command can already be discerned: from Mihalj Kertes who left a trail of arms in his wake and promises of Greater Serbia, through informal coordination bodies and advisory groups, lines of subordination

of ``volunteers'' and paramilitaries, lines of supplying arms, money, fuel, and equipment, and reverse lines of shipping back the booty and transport services. Originally the avant-garde of the working class, the police turned into the avantgarde of the ethnic war. The military secret service followed the trend but show some resistance. That is the reason why the ``Opera'' affair was arranged and its chief with Yugoslav orientation were eliminated. After a one-year-long rule of General Nedeljko Boskovic (who is yet to explain his role in a series of affairs), KOS now holds to itself as it has nothing else to do. The role of the Yugoslav Army (VJ) has become marginal.

The police is on decline when it comes to its professional skills. It used to be among the most efficient in Europe in sense of preserving the public peace and order and curbing crime. Mid 1980's marked the beginning of the erosion of professional standards when criminal elements closely connected with the political police through informers' links gained strength. Disturbed by democratization of the public life and frustrated by already visible signs of the breakdown of the communist ideology, the police got increasingly preoccupied with the emigration which they considered as a the main threat to the regime following the old times inertia. In the fight against the emigration, it used criminals in ever growing numbers and offered them immunity in the country in turn. The scum thus got the sense of power because the police allowed them to. A number of affairs ensued. Common to all of them is that the criminals involved in these affairs were simultaneously secret service informers. The final analysis shows that the rules of law and order were deliberately sacrificed for dubious tactical advantages (infiltrations, settling of accounts, parapolice operations). The trend was only enforced by the outbreak of the war: the criminals were systematically recruited to do special operations outside Serbia, as a compensation for the crippled and discontent JNA infantry and a backbone of paramilitary units under police control (and often command). The secret service operative split into three groups: the first waged wars outside Serbia, the second infiltrated among the opposition, and the third dealt with financial scams for the sake of the regime. All three commandments of the police trade were neglected: the public peace and order, the protection of life and property, and the defense of the constitutional order. The public peace and order were sacrificed for the sake of good relations and financial cooperation with the groupings of the organised crime; the protection of life and property for political interests (return favors to allies and informers); the protection of the constitutional order turned into cynical police violence, infiltration and dictatorship.

One can hold many things against the old communist police. It was a totalitarian regime after all. However, generally speaking the respect of interior rules of the Service was greater than it is today. Corruption was an exception and one had to pay dearly if caught and people were caught. Nowadays policemen collect bribes publicly in the streets; the `protection tariffs' for a cafe or a drugstore as well as officers entitled to collect them are well known and established; it is also known which local gangsters work together with a certain precinct, how and for how much money; it is also known who may kill and escape without punishment, not to mention a series of unsolved banking, industrial and financial affairs and clearly political murders (the police is consistently ignoring all requests by the court to act in a number of cases). The citizens of this country are abducted and murdered by allied paramilitaries. Everybody knows who they are and nothing is being done. Unidentified secret services kidnap the citizens from the streets and question them, and again nothing is being done. Meanwhile, the police makes a show of arresting everyone who sold a DM for 1.20 Dinars and chases cigarette dealers.