Ultimate Authority

Serbian MPs last week met a group of about fifty young men sent in by the authorities to make some things clear to the opposition. Dragan Tomic, Speaker of the Serbian Parliament, and Zoran Sokolovic, Serbian Interior Minister, said that these men are parliamentary security, and specified that they work ``the night shift.'' They must be reserves. That is why none of the MPs and journalists can recall ever having seen these men in the parliament building. Tomislav Nikolic, head of the parliamentary group of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), claims he recognized two of Zeljko RaznatovicArkan#s men with whom he fought together somewhere in Krajina. Whoever they may have been, they nevertheless properly beat up the members of the SRS in the Serbian Parliament. There is a tape with this incident that is unprecedented in our history of parliamentarians: allegedly Milorad Vucelic, director of Radio Television Serbia and the head of the parliamentary group of the Serbian Socialist Party, keeps it locked somewhere.

There is one problem concerning the procedure (and perhaps the Constitution as well) that both the Speaker and the Interior Minister bypassed with their usual arrogance. Specifically, an armed person should not be allowed to enter the parliament building, while police and members of the Serbian Interior Ministry are supposed to stand guard outside. Another serious problem is reflected in the question that is supposed to be superfluous: who is allowed to beat the MPs and under what conditions? On one hand, the institution of parliamentary immunity should protect the MPs from all kinds of violence, not only from parking tickets or driving under the influence of alcohol. On the other hand, the rules of the Service regulate the implementation of means of coercion and ban unnecessary violence against any citizen. Radmilo Bogdanovic, a former, present and lifelong member of the Service holding the ministerial post (as he described himself in the Belgrade daily ``Politika ekspres'' on July 22) interprets the rules somewhat flexibly, ``One must take a beating if he resists during the arrest...'' The Radical MPs were neither ``resisting'' nor were they being ``arrested.'' They simply refused to leave the hall, i.e. it is their inviolable right to be there. The fact that the Radicals, according to the Speaker of Parliament, abused the speaker's platform is another problem and also a mistake on the part of lawmakers who failed to predict such a situation. A breach of principles is the issue. When the SRS enjoyed the status of ``the most favorite party'' they insulted their political opponents from the same platform, but no one stopped them and their Socialist allies were exhilarated.

It was hardly surprising that the police actually resorted to physical violence in the parliament: the ruling coalition was indifferent, the opposition parties did not protest, although all they can do is to protest, so what... The reactions were lukewarm and as such typical for the society that completely accepted the rule of force instead of the rule of law. ``The Parliament that Serbia would be proud of'' (which is how Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic described the new parliament before calling the early elections last fall) became the parliament where the police restores order by beating and kicking the MPs.

If this parliament is disbanded one day because someone decides that an intermediary between him and the people is unnecessary, the opposition members of the Serbian parliament will have no right to protest since they returned to the very same parliament. ``The night shift'' also returned to its police brigade and everything is under control.

The legal formulation provides the best description of the job the police is supposed to be doing. It reads: ``The protection of the public law and order, the lives and the property of citizens and the constitutional order.'' We already know what our public law and order are like, we can also see how the lives and the property of citizens are being protected, while the incident in the Serbian Parliament showed how the protection of the constitutional order works. What is our police actually doing?

Junior police inspector of the 2nd department (for curbing crime) Dragan Mladenovic tried to find an answer to the question. The 2nd department deals with crimes and robberies. Mladenovic was a member of the team working on solving the robbery of the ``Jugoskandik'' bank vault. The police probably solved this case but what reached the court in mid April 1993 was not very convincing proof: the accused were released, which resulted in an unprecedented event. The prosecutor appealed, while the Supreme Court, instead of confirming or overturning the decision on ldetention, washed its hands of everything and turned the case over to another court, to the surprise of legal experts. Nothing similar had happened before.

Inspector Mladenovic has his own version and it corroborates what judge Miroslav Todorovic determined during the ``Jugoskandik'' trial. However, it differs greatly from the most recent police interpretations that their basic suspicions and the suspects confessions are enough to send them to jail. Radmilo Bogdanovic complains that the ``people are losing trust'' in the police because ``evidence is often missing,'' and he is quite right in this respect because it is the job of the police to secure evidence. In this case some police officials were upset because the court wasn't satisfied with the evidence (or rather its absence), so that one of them threatened in front of witnesses that ``he personally would liquidate the judge.''

The story which Mladenovic repeated in public is much bigger than the ``Jugoskandik'' scandal. He gave a detailed description of violations of the rules of the service and crimes committed during the investigation of the ``Jugoskandik'' affair. Men were held under house arrest for more than twenty days, statements that they were to make before the investigative judge were dictated to them, the whole atmosphere in the police, the procedures, the secrecy, etc., everything was reminiscent of a conspiracy, and not regular police work. Mladenovic claims that two of the perpetrators, former policemen from the special units, were warned to run and are now in Prague with all the money. He speaks openly of corruption, crime and drug trafficking in the police, something that has been whispered about for years. Mladenovic's public appearance has given rise to various comments.

Mladenovic voiced even greater confessions: he started with the ``Jugoskandik'' affair, saying in his first interview to the Belgrade weekly ``Telegraf'' that the scandal was rigged so that one police faction (the Montenegrin one) would trip up the other. That other faction is headed by Radovan Stojicic Badza, Deputy Minister, Head of State Security and practically the no.3 man in the police (after the minister and the head of state security). In later public appearances Mladenovic broadened his accusations and the main target of his attacks became Radovan Stojicic Badza himself. The attacks were very strong, and considering Stojicic#s position, suicidal, according to some policemen. Radmilo Bogdanovic confirmed such fears: ``If all this were true, then Mladenovic would be stopped from talking by one of the clans in the police, I'm simplifying matters, but he would be bumped off...'' Mladenovic said that he had requested through official channels that Stojicic ban him from speaking, or at least determine the limits to which official secrets can be made public. He said that Stojicic's reply was vulgar and threatening. Mladenovic then went public, even though he knew that it was against the rules to do so without permission from the Interior Ministry and the police information service. Obviously aware of the consequences he went all out. There are honest policemen (in fact far more than is usually thought), there are also crazy policemen (fewer than is thought), but there are very few suicidal policemen. Dragan Mladenovic is obviously an intelligent and educated young man, with a brilliant career behind him. All his public appearances are consistent, articulated and lucid. Many policemen believe privately that what Mladenovic has talked about, is just the tip of the iceberg. That police corruption, with the tacit approval of superiors, which acts as encouragement, is widespread. That violence and arms, including murder, are resorted to much too easily. That cooperation with organized crime is a regular occurrence because of the close cooperation between the criminals and the authorities. That the participation of Serbian policemen in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia brought something that hadn't existed beforethe erosion of professional standards and a nonchalant attitude towards violence.

Radmilo Bogdanovic who likes to say that he is a ``pensioner,'' but whose real influence in the service must not be underrated, reacted differently to Mladenovic's claims. He first said that he didn't read the ``Telegraf'' and asked where it could be bought. Then he said that it would be necessary to see who stood behind the young man, and finally said that these were serious things, and that someone must be held responsible, and expressed surprise that the persons who had been mentionedthe Minister of the Interior and his DeputyBadza (``otherwise a great commando'') had not responded. This change in Bogdanovic's opinion points to the fact that something is not quite right. Bogdanovic knows a lot and talks to many people. Obviously, something has happened. The answer might lie in Mladenovic's passing remark on the Belgrade independent radio B92, when he said that Serbian policemen were still fighting in Bosnia ``in fortyday shifts,'' all in the context of Badza's activities.

Radovan Stojicic Badza's war history is known to some extent: he was present in Knin and its vicinity, in Eastern Slavonija (the headquarters in Borovo Selo) and in some other places. He wasn't alone. Mladenovic's selectiveness is surprising, he would have to mention others in that context. They were part of the same team and did the same things. Another thing that is strikingly absent from Mladenovic's confessions is the Serbian Police State Security. Mladenovic however, did say that he wouldn't talk about this particular service.

Political interpretations which have cropped up in the meantime suggest that Mladenovic's confession could be the start of a ``differentiation'' in the Serbian police, along the lines of a ``war lobby'' and closeness to Karadzic, rather than a purge based on corruption. Corruption has never bothered anybody, while some illintentioned comments claim that such a large service has to be financed, and this is expensive, so a little selffinancing would not be amiss. This however, makes the police dependent on their chiefs: all are guilty, everybody has something on everybody and can blackmail them, order them about and send them where they please. As consolation, they enjoy the ``greatest criminallegal protection'' through ``special laws,'' as Belgrade judge Ilija Simic said at a recent meeting of jurists.

The meaning of the ``greatest criminallegal protection'' can be seen in some examples from police practice. Namely, just as it has become very dangerous for ordinary citizens to find themselves at the wrong end of a police truncheon, so it is has become less problematic for officials to overstep their authority, or abuse their office, etc. Asked about the injuries sustained by Danica and Vuk Draskovic injuries at the time of their arrest in June 1993, Radmilo Bogdanovic said: ``That can be investigated, but I don't know if the policemen will be named, if there were five or six of them in the fight and during the arrest...'' Anyone involved in a street fight will, under the law, be named and sentenced together, unless it is determined who hurt whom or killed someone.

For example: after a cafe fight between a police patrol and five locals, which ended in injuries in the vicinity of Belgrade, a policeman fired from an automatic weapon from a distance of 80 cm into the back of one of the participants walking away from the scene with an injured leg, and killed him. The investigative team submitted criminal charges against the four local men but did not register the murder. Only after a lawyer engaged by the local men raised the question, was an investigation started. The policeman was found guilty, but the process has dragged on for a year. The policeman was never arrested.

Another example: On may 23, 1993, at 4.40 a.m. in a downtown cafe in Belgrade, the guests were preparing to leave. Two police vehicles from the Palilula police station (M611019 and M610952) pulled up. The policemen rushed out with their guns drawn and ordered the guests to line up against the wall. During the identification procedure they insulted and hit the guests, saying: ``You should all be on the front, with bullets flying around your bums! As far we're concerned, you're all criminals.'' The citizens took the blows and kept quiet. It lasted 40 minutes, and whoever moved was hit. The women were crying, and a policeman told them to go and cry on the front. One policeman told a youth to get lost, and when he started to leave another who heard it all, started hitting him. The police beat up the cafe owner with truncheons. In the end someone asked what they had done and the answer was: ``You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now get lost and watch out in future.'' They did not say what they are supposed to watch out for. At the Palilula police station the people complained and were told that it must have been a gang dressed up as policemen who go around robbing people. The police vehicles were parked under the window, the policemen who beat them were in the building. The deputy police commander advised them not to file charges, because the punishment is insignificant. He later threatened them and told them to forget the whole thing. Charges were filed, but with no effect.

Federal Justice Minister Zoran Stojanovic complained in early June that lesser criminal acts were investigated but serious ones were not. Last year there were 180,000 criminal acts (395 murders, 100 serious robberies, 1,900 robberies with thefts), while the growth rate is 90100% annually. Criminologists have cautioned that statistics are unreliable (in turns out somehow that there are fewer crimes now than in 1985), that the number of crimes is on the rise, the jails are empty, which all points to the fact that the police are not doing their job, that the good professionals have left the service and the judiciary, and that their place has been taken by patriots.

All this time ruling party officials keep repeating that they are ``fighting crime,'' while at the same time it is obvious that there is a tendency to identify the police and the judiciary, and thwart the work of the lawyers. Radmilo Bogdanovic complains that ``lawyers drag things on for months... so that the people are losing faith,'' and then says that 700,000 DM have been found hidden away by former minister Velimir Mihajlovic and that ``he must be sentenced. He couldn't have saved that, nor earned it. He is obviously guilty. The sentence should have been pronounced by now.'' At the same tome Bogdanovic fails to ask how come a certain icecream parlor owner in Belgrade, whom he always greets at football games, has money for an enormous house and various businesses, even though there is substantial suspicion with regard to the matter.

The Serbian police number approximately 80,000 men (regular forces) and many more within the reserve force. Their privileges, arrogance and strength make them the mainstay of the regime. Some believe that they share this role with the state-controlled television, but television cannot save the regime from some things which the police can (e.g. in teaching MPs how to behave). The nervous reaction of a regime which made the Serbian police into what it is now is understandable but what isn#t is why professionalism in the police has been destroyed, why the rules of the game have been lost, and why the difference between right and wrong has disappeared. In the long run, and the police are there to serve any regime, including some future one, the damage is great.