Instructions

How to evade conscription, that is 'organized control of persons' by the Serbian Ministry of the Interior? The self-proclaimed Association of Deserters of All Serb Lands has issued the following instructions:

1. Become the Prime Minister of Serbia.

2. If you fail under 1., do not sleep at your lawful address.

3. Do not go out.

4. If you must go out, take the side streets, use the urban transport as little as possible; if you can, use it only during rush hours.

5. Look around. For safety, keep near cigarette vendors. When they take flight, do the same.

6. Do not frequent pubs and the like. Do not go to see "Underground". Do not attend folk concerts, especially when advertized as 'for refugees free'.

7. Do not check with the authories if you are on the conscription roster. Even if you are not, you will be.

8. Never open the door yourself. If you are alone in the flat, it means that no one is there. Move from the digs they paid a visit to once. They are bound to be back

9. Find a fence.

10. Think hard whose toe you might have trod on. Think which one of them has your address.

Dictionary

Filip Visnjic Publishing House has issued the Serbian-Croat and Greek-Serbian Dictionary by Jelena Servini-Perisic.

Its director and editor, Jagos Djuretic, says that in addition to its lexicographic vale, the dictionary will "be a specific contribution to the promotion and enrichment of cultural and other ties between the two friendly peoples". It should not be expected that the dictionary will be a hit during the Struggle against Hellenophilia Week (occasioned by the "treason" of spectators at the basketball finals) although its four hundred pages bound in hardcover include a pronunciation guide and a reminder for tourists.

Airport (1)

Once upon a time the building of the Belgrade Airport could be entered, as is the custom in the civilised world, through some twenty doors designed so that one came and went in all directions. Of late, one enters and leaves the Belgrade Airport (embracing several units, i.e. buildings) through one and only one door. Reason: security measures, there is only one x-ray device placed by the entrance/exit door. It is easy to imagine what it looks like when a person returns from abroad: luggage-laden international passengers disembark in the basement, miles away from the only door; climbing the stairs (needless to say, the escalator is out of work) and walking through the building, takes roughly as much time as to fly from Belgrade to Vienna.

In a nutshell: one entrance, one door, one airline.

Airport (2)

Last month, the Federal Customs Administration passed an ordinance which was immediately put into effect, i.e. mirror. A mirror substitutes for the glass panel separating the passengers from the non-passengers. Now nobody can see anybody, nobody can, say, pass over the money for the customs duty, briefly - those meeting the passengers can only look at their reflection in the customs looking-glass. Malicious tongues claim that bars are being prepared to take the place of mirrors but this should not be taken seriously: bars are see-through.

Wheat

The paradoxal situation with the farmers claiming that they cannot earn their livelihood unless paid 55 paras (0.55 Dinars) per kilogram of this year's wheat and cover their basic outlays unless paid 35 paras per kilogram, and the market price of some 18 paras for a kilogram of last year's wheat, has not been resolved even by Marjanovic's price of 28 paras/kilogram for this year's marketable harvest estimated at 3,850,000 metric tonnes.

If last year's reserves indeed amount to 1,200,000 metric tonnes, then the Serbian Government's promise that it will purchase this year's harvest in its entirety can be interpreted as its "desire to protect the agricultural producers". The Government, however, is not all that naive because it promises to pay the indicated 28 paras per kilogram either in four installments or through barter deals. If the farmers opt to sell for cash, then - in real terms - they stand to lose one-quarter of the price offered today, that is if this year's inflation rate of 5-6 percent per month does not gain momentum.

Eager Beavers

Some papers keep missing the right connection. Politika Ekspres claimed first that the news about the conscription of the trans-Drina Serbs was invented by independent media trying at all cost to prevent the otherwise inevitable abolition of unfair and undeserved santions off Yugoslavia in the nearest future. Then in the competent quarters it was said that the trans-Drina Serbs were not only caught and sent to the war, but that it was the right thing to do. Last week, the same daily scolded the "humanitarians" for saying the same because the "combing" of the unregistered and those with "unregulated status does not mean sending them to the armies of the Republic Srpska and Republic Serb Krajina armies". At the same time, both armies boast of the successful effort, and the Serbian Ministry of the Interior promises that those taken away "by mistake" will be returned from the front. The grapevine at Sumatovac has it that this eager-beaver editorial policy could be the reason behind the announced change of the editor-in chief.