Sugar

People feel relieved whenever they hear that a shortage is artificially-made: anything that is not natural can not last for very long. It seems that the recent shortage of sugar has been created by the manufacturers themselves because according to their own, selfish calculations the price of sugar ought to be twice what it is now. Torn between its people and the industry, tortured by the dilemma who to help first, the government is promising sugar manufacturers coal and the possibility of trading sugar for fuel... While negotiations are being held, the prices of products are on the rise, but the price increase, as well as the shortage which underlies it as an alibi, is false and the prices should normalize soon: the state has its own supplies, as well as an anti-monopoly law according to which the appropriate government minister can order the sugar manufacturers to bring the product out into the market.

Supply has no alternative. If nowhere else, sugar will appear on the market which, out of habit, we still call "black". Maybe petrol stations (i.e. people in the street selling petrol smuggled from abroad) will launch it as a new product or it will appear as regular stock on the numerous stands at flea-markets.

Gang of Four

If it appeared to you, in the last couple of weeks, that the police are stopping every vehicle occupied by young people, or indeed if you believed the information that those in charge of public order are chasing male refugees in order to hand them to the Serbian authorities in Krajina and Bosnia, please note that you are a victim of a collective hallucination, and if you heard about it all from "Nasa Borba", "Vreme", Studio-B, or Radio B-92, then you ought to know that you are a victim of a vile campaign by these mercenary media.

In the article "Time of Mercenaries", published on June 19, "Politika Ekspres" reveals that, thanks to the incriminated media in Belgrade, "another media mine was activated, similar to those we have seen in the past" and warns us that this one was timed for the moment when "the leaders of the seven most developed countries are meeting in Halifax and when a decision leading to a final peace in former Yugoslavia is expected".

Now we know who is responsible for peace being so late, and who the true dogs of war are. The media "Gang of Four", helped by the Helsinki Committee and the help line for victims of discrimination, is doing its best "for the unjust sanctions not to be suspended or lifted"...

Surrender

In return for wheat which, as the word indicates, will be surrendered to the state, peasants can expect anything but cash: they are being promised bonds, payment in installments, they expect that the delivered wheat will also pay for the taxes they haven't been paying.

As the story goes, the state will be ready for any kind of exchange (providing that it benefits from it and only under conditions which itself laid down), so the wheat will be used to pay for services, seed, fuel, fertilizer.

Why were the peasants not offered electricity in return for the crude, harvested wheat, and who will answer for this omission? The peasants would get enough vouchers for the next couple of winters, while as it is, considering that they are short of cash, they are at are a great disadvantage in the big race for electricity vouchers...

In return, for a whole couple of weeks, they will be visited by TV journalists who will ask them about the role of the state in bringing the harvest to a glorious conclusion, about whether the yield will be good, etc. Farmers will be as popular as the UN hostages the only difference being that no Jovica (Stanisic) is likeely to come to their rescue.

Beauty

All female inhabitants of FR Yugoslavia, (between 17 and 24 years of age) are eligible to take part in the recently announced beauty contest when the new Miss Yugoslavia will be chosen.

The winner, the announcement says, will take part in the Miss Universe contest - as soon as the sanctions are lifted...

In lamenting over our industry, sport, science, politics and human rights, we have not interceded enough for the rights of our young ladies. But couldn't our girls take on their rivals even before the sanctions are lifted?

Art and sport are supposed to be spared from sanctions, and beauty contests lie somewhere between the two.

Immunity

There are serious indications that the Serbian authorities will bring criminal charges against the leader of the Serb Radicals Vojislav Seselj for the alleged obstruction of an official from performing his security duties and conduct a mock trial convicting him to a long imprisonment term (not less than five years) to thus remove him from the political scene, say Seselj's lawyers . That such an assumption stands to reason, is indicated by many details of what happened in Gnjilane. For instance: when Seselj and Toma Nikolic were taken under custody to the office of Zorica Zdravkovic, magistrate in the Gnjilane Municipal Court, the two Serb Radical Party (SRS) leaders did not plead immunity, which practically means that the misdemeanour case against ,them,including the pronouncement of a possible punishment,could be completed then and there. Instead, although the circumstances permitted a smooth trial, the judge sent a fax to the Federal and Serbian Assemblies requesting from both the statement as to whether Seselj and Nikolic would be deprived of their parliamentary immunity.

When defence counsel Borivoje Borovic and Maja Nikolic arrived in Gnjilane and persuaded their clients to plead immunity, the situation grew more complicated. The police, that is some Ministry of the Interior superiors, were indignant and refused to bring Seselj and Nikolic to the judge. Nevertheless, the magistrate somehow prevailed upon the special task force members and in order to uphold the authority of magistrate Zorica Zdravkovic after several hours they brought the SRS leaders to her office.

"They pleaded immunity merely to prove that the State was not functioning and that the judiciary would be misused for police purposes", says Mr. Borovic. All that the magistrate had to do then was to dictate to the typist the ruling on the stay of the misdemeanour proceedings against V. Seselj there and then, and let him go. However, she procrastinated and kept looking at a barely unpacked fax machine, which, it seems, Counsel Borovic had "accidentally" unplugged from the wall with his foot. Finally V. Seselj, "occupation: chetnik 3vojvoda1" according to the document

was issued the ruling on the stay of the proceedings and told to present himself at the next hearing scheduled for June 14. This meant that he was free to go and that nobody could stop him. When the special task force, that is members of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, learned of this, they restrained the movement of Vojislav Seselj at gunpoint for another 34 hours. "As of that moment the institution of the court of law, Misdemeanour Act parliament and even the slightest hint of the rule of law have ceased to exist and the only authority in Gnjilane was the police which suspended the court's ruling and thereby violated all laws and the Constitution," comments Counsel Borovic.