Raspberries

Once again Srbijanka, Valjevo came up with the Raspberry Day dedicated, as the name shows, to Its Majesty the Raspberry, a red fruit yielding green currency notes. And so, once more, paying homage to the raspberries, there gathered in Brankovina hosts, men of station, singers, music, tents, TV - and, here and there, raspberries and their producers.

The festival was to be inaugurated by the President of State Lilic in person but nothing came of it. The opening was left to an industrial marketing expert since the local Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) officials, reinforced by their superior secretaries (Minic) and ministers (Brcin) were too busy electing the district SPS chairman. The best raspberry producers - who displayed their product on several square metres, in contrast with the music "displayed" over several ares, and tents spreading over several hectares - had already been pronounced when the seats in front of the stage (solemnly dressed for the occasion in a military camouflage net) were taken by the SPS group headed by Minister Brcin who had just, in his capacity of the party coordinator, promoted the municipal mayor Mica Ilic to the the rank of the district SPS chairman. After such serious business, even the swaying of seductive Gala failed to regale the state-party workers, but not so Nikola Urosevic Gedza (who won fame with the anthem "Chetniks, Get Ready, Get Ready") with a song entitled Serb Yokel, Serb Cap, Giant. Then the guests, together with the

attending populace, were invited to the next item on the program, taking place over the grave of Desanka Maksimovic.

However, upon noticing that the local archpriest was delivering the memorial service at the site, the officials, headed by Brcin - who, as the minister for information was informed immediately what it was all about - 'missed' the poet's grave, and, in a body, turned to the program in the central tent where they had more possibility for continual discussion. The demand for that kind of discussion was evidenced by the fact that in order to get a seat in one of the five tents a policeman was forced to brandish his pistol. Official, of course.

Monuments

If one is to judge by the number of "historic" events scheduled for this year's St. Vid's Day, in the domestic policy of the state of Serbia a new turning point must be coming soon. Uncovering the monument to Tsar Dusan in Prizren in the course of "a magnificent ceremony" the republican Minister and Prefect of the Kosovo District Aleksa Jokic stated, among other things, that the "erection of a monument to this pivotal personality of the Serb Middle Ages was long on the list of our unfinished businesses". The business has been finished even if with a delay of, roughly, 650 years.

Slightly more timely (barely 606 years late) was finished the business with Milos Obilic in Obilicevo. The ceremony there, announced as the greatest since the celebration of the 600th anniversary of the Kosovo battle at Gazimestan, was somewhat marred by the altercation with Bishop Artemije, who refused to consecrate the monument to Obilic (5x3m) at a time set by the organizer and requested to do that at the beginning of the official ceremony. Federal deputy Zivorad Igic called upon the bishop through the press to change his mind and consecrate the monument at a time suited to the organizing committee. On the same occasion, the public was informed that the newly-established charter Milos Obilic (in gold) would be conferred upon President Slobodan Milosevic for "merits in creating integral Serbia".

Integral Serbs, however, were right on time to start the quarrel about which of the two monuments to St. Sava would be uncovered in Prijepolje next September - the bas-relief based on the image from a Mileseva fresco, or a stone statute three metres high. There is no reason why both should not be erected since a precedent has been set already - and also in Prijepolje - with Vladimir Peric Valter, WWII defender of Sarajevo .

Release

Without much ado and any disturbance from the public, Zeljko Maksimovic Maksa (32) who on March 17 killed policeman Goran Radulovic (27) with four pistol shots, was released from custody. It turned out that Radulovic had been mistaken to request the identification documents from Maksimovic

in the process of showing his gun to a friend. Be that as it may, Maksimovic did not hesitate to fire at the policeman; the policeman fell and Maksimovic "certified" him with another shot.

The decimated Belgrade underground forecast straight away that Maksa would be released and the proceedings against him stayed since he was a man, they claimed, who had "killed more people on behalf of the authorities than a SS division". Immediately after the murder, the press close to the police came up with the explanation that it was all a fatal misunderstanding and that Maksimovic did not know that Radulovic was a policeman even if the latter had introduced himself. True, he did not produce the official card and Maksimovic, well, thought that it was some jerk out to kill him. Otherwise, in the history of the Belgrade judiciary there is on record only one stay of the criminal proceedings: in 1983 against Zeljko Raznatovic who - also misguidedly - wounded severely two policeman trying to arrest him acting upon - according to the Belgrade Police Headquarters - an arrest warrant for "the bandit-gambler". All other cop-killers moved from detention straight to their long imprisonment terms.

"The use of jerks in the operative work is a common occurrence", explains Bozidar Spasic, until recently an operative in the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

Immunity

The Belgrade District Court still hopes to identify those who, of a number of policemen through the hands and baseball bats of which passed Dusan Lukic from Velika Mostanica, took part in the battery and inflicted mortal injuries on him. In an interview last week Petar Zekovic, chief of the Belgrade police celebrated for rash statements ("Only one unsolved murder case", Politika, July 13, 1994) said: "The abuse of office was precisely one of the reasons for the introduction of official badges and identification numbers. A citizen thus knows exactly which law enforcement officer he was in contact with" (Politika, June 25, 1995). Before he expired in the Clinical Centre from the sustained injuries (disrupted kidneys, lacerated liver, broken ribs, brain damage...), Lukic identified almost all of the policemen who had battered him a few days earlier. Along with the criminal charges his family submitted to the Prosecutor's Office included the names of those who had beaten him, but this does not seem to have helped the official identification. The police say that Lukic, in fact, tried to jump through the window (Milan Nedic syndrome) and got hurt in the event.

Charter

From Tivat to Belgrade and back, you can fly in two ways: by a regular or by a charter flight. The latter, norms effective worldwide aside, costs twice as much as the former (one-way charter fare is 150 Dinars). As a rule, regular flights are sold out, and those who insist on flying have no choice but to come up with the money. The regular fare is about 80 Dinars, less than 40 DM at the real rate of exchange, which is chicken feed indeed and fully agreeable with the socialist economic axiom: it is cheap and unavailable. The statistics rubs its hands contentedly: the air traffic fares have not gone up (it only monitors regular flight fares) which is once again in line with the socialist axiom which runs: swear falsely and lie if you want to stay alive.

Traffic Lights

Most Banja Luka traffic lights, switched off when the war began, are back at work again but it appears that under the changed socio-demographic circumstances, the traffic lights are no longer needed since the drivers mostly disregard them; avowed lovers of urban speeding, driving in the wrong direction, and, by and large, owning expensive cars, are not impressed with the traffic lights, and for them the cross-roads are still deregulated (pedestrians advised to exercise extreme caution).

And it cannot be said that the rowdies move from the bar to the wheel: for the first time since 1992 the bars and pubs in the Republic Srpska are closed down. True, grills and coffee-shops continue in operation, and with a li'l bit of luck beer or wine-and-soda can be found there.

The Communist Youth

The Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia has founded its youth organization - LCYY. The founding convention was held on June 18 in the Josip Broz Tito Memorial Centre in Belgrade and the representatives of the new organization took flowers to Tito's tomb and with banners and placards walked through the city to national hero Ivo Lola Ribar's tomb in Kalemegdan. LCYY will have seven secretaries whose names, according to Branko Lozo, Central Committee of the LCY president, are classified because of the war in parts of the previous Yugoslavia. Nasa Borba learns that the president is a certain Goran Markovic from Bosnia-Herzegovina. LCYY will be joined, it is announced, by the Che Guevara Organization from Pristina and a group from the Faculty of Law in Belgrade. One assumed from Branko Lozo's words that "today the young are made by

force to join the ranks of nationalistic armies" that the LCYY members would react to the latest wave of mobilization of Bosnians and Krajinians in Belgrade, but so far their voice has not been heard. Maybe they are saving energy for the investigation about the "breach" of tests for the secondary schools or some other party task.

It may be noted that the New Communist Movement of Yugoslavia responded to the foundation of LCYY. In its communication it is said that they founded LCYY as early as 1992 and that the establishment of a new organization means "deception of the public and usurpation of the name of LCYY".