Closed Season

Banja Luka has been having daily five-hour power cuts since July 19 with warnings that they could grow to 10 hours if consumption doesn't drop. Since Banja Luka residents still remember the time two years ago when they were left without electricity for 45 days, the five hour cuts are bearable.

The good news is that cafes are working again after a one month ban, but they have to close by 10 p.m.

Banja Luka students will be OK until September 30. The young men who don't pass their exams by then and don't enroll for the new school year can look forward to being drafted and spending time on the front. There never was a better motivation for study.

Demobilized

Judge Vidoje Maksimovic and entrepreneur Milomir Lazic (both from Valjevo) got the opportunity to see the Bosnia front up close for 10 days after being arrested. When the competent authorities found the mistake they were sent home. They got on the draft lists because one had lived in Brcko, the other in Drvar. So how did they get there? Both were called into their local police stations for "informative interviews", got taken to the fire brigade building in Valjevo then on to Loznica and the front; Maksimovic to Ilidza, Lazic to Drvar. Their efforts to prove it was all a mistake failed. Maksimovic told the local media that he failed to convince the police he had immunity as a judge. "They said the government had lifted all immunity in this case." So how were they released? Maksimovic assumes a demand came from the Serbian justice minister; he was given a document confirming he was drafted by mistake. Lazic had ulcer problems and was given permission to go home.

Lazic called Valjevo residents to contribute cigarettes and other things for him to take to Drvar.

VREME called Maksimovic to interview him and he agreed but disappeared. At home they said he was at work; at work they said he was at home. We shouldn't blame the man for shrinking from interviews.

Law Suit

Judging by the persistence of Milutin Miletic from Varos village, VREME could be sued soon for not printing the plaintiff's question after he sent it to us three times.

On February 6, VREME published questions nine celebrities would ask the government if they were members of parliament.

We suggested readers should send their questions and added that VREME would print them but 10 days later it was clear that would amount to nothing; we got very few letters and we forgot the whole thing.

But, one of the letters included Miletic's question: "Which society is better capitalist or socialist and why?"

The plaintiff was not discouraged; he sent in two more letters with the same question that was eating away at him and which he was sure the government would answer. He kept copies of the letters and telegrams and got confirmation from the post office that he sent them.

We got a copy of the charges he filed on July 19 which said: "(...) When VREME or the government saw for the question that their anti-national activities would be discovered, they willfully and against the law, and to the detriment of the plaintiff and society, refused to meet their public promise."

In the hope that this article will be compensation enough for the mental efforts invested by the plaintiff, the money and time he spent, and his expectations, we are publishing the incriminated question once again (Which society is better capitalist or socialist and why?), but we do not consider ourselves obliged to publish all the letters we will receive in response.

The Emperor is Naked

When Miroslav Radulovic, editor in chief of the Borske Novine, finished printing his latest edition, he wiped the sweat off his brow happily. It was hot, Bor residents have faced 12-hour water shortages since the summer started and Radulovic decided to cheer them up. He got hold of a copy of Niksic magazine Onogost Standard. Like Split's Feral Tribune, Onogost published staged pictures of naked presidents Tudjman, Milosevic, Lilic, Bulatovic in the company of Seselj, Kontic, Vladislav Jovanovic and Radoman Bozovic.

Radulovic asked his colleagues in Niksic and they assured him they had no problems because of the pictures. He felt that if the famed sensitivity of the Montenegrins hadn't been hurt, no one in Serbia would object.

At 2 p.m. three men appeared in the Borske Novine offices: two in plain clothes one in uniform. "They confiscated 70 copies of the newspaper which I had in the office. I had many more at home, but they didn't have a search warrant," Radulovic said.

They gave him two documents confirming the temporary confiscation of the newspapers and one copy of Onogost over suspicion of a crime being committed: public mockery of the Serbian president.

Borske Novine is a privately owned fortnightly with a circulation of about 2,000 and is the only independent publication in the area with a population of 60,000. Radulovic believes the authorities were just waiting for the right excuse since the newspaper includes a lot of things they aren't happy with.

But the statesmen on the pictures should not take offense, the most interesting bits are not shown clearly. What is clear is that their heads were superimposed on the bodies of young men who lead healthy athletic lives.

So while Radulovic waits for a court ruling, many local newspapers have voiced solidarity including Svetlost Kragujevac, Novi Pancevac, Smederavac and Vranjske Novine who said they'd publish the photographs in their next issue.

The Case of Cicak

Zoran Cicak is no longer a member of the directorate of the Yugoslav Left, nor chairman of its documents committee. A JUL statement said the Monday, July 17, meeting of the directorate and a "number of members of the JUL main board" decided to strip him of all the posts he held in the organization. They also gave reasons: "The directorate assessed that Zoran Cicak's recent public appearances, statements of unfounded stands which are not backed by the JUL leadership, have created great political damage to the overall policies and the identity of JUL. The directorate has decided that Cicak can no longer present JUL stands in public, nor represent JUL in any form".

Political circles assume the last straw was his interview to Argument magazine. In a lengthy interview for the magazine last weekend, Cicak said ruling party parliament deputy Brana Crncevic is an orthodox nationalist and war-monger, and he didn't have any kind words for the "nationalist wing" in the SPS, more specifically Mihailo Markovic, Borisav Jovic and Milorad Vucelic.

"I personally believe Markovic, Jovic and Vucelic are an obstacle to setting up the Serbian political scene as a healthy political scene once the sanctions are lifted... To me they are a paradigm of past times, not some future Serbia."

Cicak broke party discipline in earlier public appearances. Last October he told Borba that he was worried about "the influence of Ratko Mladic and his political protectors are trying to achieve in the Yugoslav Army".

Last winter, Cicak spoke to Duga magazine and accused Markovic, Jovic and Vucelic of war-mongering policies. He was slapped down then by Goran Latinovic, chairman of the republic board of the League of Communists-Movement for Yugoslavia.

Cicak had a classical career as a youth apparatchik, remembered for his public attack on the TV Belgrade Youth Channel which resulted in a ban on the predecessor of independent stations. He is said to be so firm in his communist convictions that he's "prepared to give up his own mother for them". Lately, he has been seen as the advocate of JUL's liberal wing, seen in the company of independent journalists and at their parties. From the moment he was ousted, reporters can't get to him. Time will show whether that has something to do with indications that one day when all this is cleared up, the party will taken him back. But only if the boy keeps quiet in the meantime.