Logs

Ahead of June 17, the day he scheduled a rally in Belgrade, Serbian Radical Party (SRS) leader Vojislav Seselj popped over to Valjevo, the city which saw the start of his political career - where as Chetnik Voivoda he took over the leadership of the Serbian Chetnik Movement. At the time he stood on a bench in the park, surrounded by Belgrade kids who followed him for ten grilled minced meat fingers and a beer, and spoke of the Chetnik movement, the monarchy, the King...

As the only "true patriot" the Voivoda would be caliph in place of the caliph in a country which would be called Greater Serbia. Because: "There will be no borders on the Drina River, let Islam, the Krauts and the Latins know that this is our favorite song -We'll be a Greater Serbia."

That's what the songs and the Voivoda say, and then why shouldn't the people. And several thousand came to see and learn of the "salvation and prosperity" offered by the Radicals. Seselj and his comrades repeated that the "Red bandits" were guilty of everything, that the biggest thieves and traitors were in their ranks, headed by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. And this was the reason they received salaries. SRS Vice President Toma Nikolic had a question for Milosevic: what were his international mediators doing behind closed doors when they were signing whatever it was they were signing? Adding: "There isn't a head that a bullet can't go through, and his is no exception, because no sacrifice for Serbia is too great if the goal is achieved."

Being the leader, Seselj diffused the situation and put things in perspective, saying that Milosevic had to go because he was no longer a patriot. And what next? The recipe is simple: "If the border on the Drina is annulled, if we can't trade with the world, we can with our brethren. We'll give them food and ammunition and they'll send us logs and all that Serbia needs."

Had the Voivoda mentioned those grilled minced meat fingers, then he might have inspired someone, this way, the people can't get enthusiastic over logs.

Pros

Rally driver and the President's son, Marko Milosevic, took part in the 42nd International "Acropolis Rally" in Greece. Part of the Belgrade press carried the following comments:

In an article headlined "Milosevic Drives Well" the Belgrade daily "Politika" does not mention Milosevic Jr.'s placing. It does say the following: "Marko Milosevic (20) was the youngest driver, and drove very well on a very difficult and unfamiliar track. Most of the other drivers had driven this rally before. It is considered to be one of the most difficult in the world. The track is macadam, full of holes, stones and surprises..."

"Nasa Borba" did not write of the "Acropolis Rally" until Milosevic Jr. dropped out of the race. In its political postcard from Greece it brought an article headlined "Marko Milosevic's Failure", saying that the President's son held 45th place out of 52 drivers before dropping out of the race.

The Roman Script

For a long time the fighters for the national cause insisted that the only script which suited the Serbs, especially the "true" ones, was the Cyrillic script. At the start of the hysteria which followed the disintegration of Socialist Yugoslavia, an atmosphere was created in which the usage of the roman script was tantamount to treachery. This is how it came about that a bank clerk angrily told one off and held a speech on patriotism because of one's signature in roman letters, and tobacconists refused to sell papers printed in the roman script. There were even tragicomic situations when professors at schools, in protest against the new world order, tried to persuade the children to write their English lessons in the Cyrillic script. It seems that the times are changing, and it was possible to read in some dailies last week that the world "wants to take away our roman script". Those working in world data banks seem to have taken our patriots at their word - especially their claims that Cyrillic is "our" script. Recently a retroactive separation of the former Serbo-Croatian language into Serbian and Croatian took place, so that all books, be they literary, scientific or otherwise were automatically filed under Serbian or Croatian according to script. It is feared that Serbian writers like Milos Crnjanski and Milorad Pavic could be filed under "famous Croatian authors" in computerized data bases.

The competent authorities will contact UNESCO in order to avoid the bureaucratic separation of the two languages. In the future we will be able to sign our checks in both Cyrillic and roman scripts, and English will continue to be written with roman letters.

Discovery

A text by the elderly Mirsad Baksic appeared in the Zagreb-based paper "Panorama" on May 29 in which he addresses the "honest Croatian public". Baksic is described as a Croatian Army brigadier and editor of the collection "Famous Croats of the Islamic Faith". The readers are told of certain "opposition Croatian politicians who have established an ugly political practice of giving interviews to 'independent' papers in the so-called Yugoslavia in which they analyze and assess military, economic and political relations in Croatia, the observation of human rights and the freedom of individuals, often with catastrophic forecasts with regard to Croatia and Croats."

The opposition politician is Stipe Mesic (interview to the Belgrade weekly VREME) and an anonymous gentleman (interview to the Belgrade weekly "Telegraf").

Brigadier Baksic says he has no intention of conducting a debate on the stands of the above mentioned gentlemen. The danger comes from people who write for these weeklies and present themselves as independent, which they manifest by criticizing Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's policy and the Yugoslav Army, accusing them of failure in creating a Greater Serbia. It never occurs to them, however, to question the realization of the project of a Greater Serbia, and especially not the idea behind this project..." And so on and so forth, the rhetoric is more or less familiar (see article "On Ugly Ties and Human Rights" in VREME no. 234).

Brigadier Mirsad Baksic has gone a step further and has informed the general public and VREME editorial staff of their editor-in-chief. He says: "... the real editor-in-chief of VREME is Ljubodrag Stojadinovic, the executor of Slobodan Milosevic's policy and a former chief of the Department for Information with the Yugoslav Army General Staff, which has a separate department for Special Warfare. A top expert, educated in the Soviet Union and Libya... and planted in VREME by Milosevic himself. The weekly is unfortunately used by Western diplomats who trust, and in their naivete believe, that the comparative methods used by this weekly in presenting political circumstances in Croatia and Serbia, give an objective picture of the situation..."

P.S. Would Mr. Stojadinovic please come to the office and pick up his salary. - Editorial Office.

Witches

The Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU) is finally taking the anathema off its notorious Memorandum, writes the Belgrade daily "Politika Ekspres" in an exclusive scoop. The critical issue of the document which "changed the course of history", after being "snatched away mysteriously and published", is expected to come out this autumn. Academician Kosta Mihajlovic disclosed some interesting details to an eager public on the pages of "Ekspres Politika". The issue "will challenge claims by political and ideological constructors in that the Memorandum represented the Serbian national program, the foundation of a Greater Serbia, a platform for the breaking up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and subsequently ethnic cleansing and the war-mongering cries of the Serbian leadership".

The roles of individual politicians in the acceptance and interpretation of the Memorandum and the fierce political showdowns which followed will also be explained. Mihajlovic said that the stands of Milos Minic, Milovan Djilas, Stipe Mesic and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic will be revealed. According to academician Mihajlovic and "Ekspres Politika": "Slobodan Milosevic, head of the Serbian Communists at the time, in accordance with the political climate, attacked the Memorandum discreetly, and as President of Serbia he is most responsible for the lifting of the anathema from this text".

Academician Mihajlovic said that the "Fate of the Memorandum is similar to that of women who long ago were accused of being witches and had to prove their innocence". The comparison is utterly nonsensical: unlike the witches who were burned at the stake whether or not they proved their innocence, it has been decided that new life must be breathed into the corpse of the SANU Memorandum, if only in the guise of a "critical issue".

The Left

The "Balkan Forum" of Leftist parties will be held in Athens this weekend. Yugoslavia, or more precisely, Serbia (since no Leftist party from Montenegro is mentioned) will be represented by the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the pinkish Yugoslav United Left (JUL) and the Green Party.

Ebola

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced last week that the main impact of the Ebola virus in Zaire had passed and that the epidemic was under control. By last Thursday 205 cases of the disease were registered, of which 153 died.

Last week's attempt by the competent Yugoslav health authorities at putting a Zairian couple in preventive quarantine in Avala failed after the local villagers blocked the road and stopped all traffic on the Belgrade-Mladenovac road.