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The press has been reporting since Wednesday on the Serbian government's determination to keep living standards at present levels by keeping the current bread prices at least until September. Agriculture minister Ivko Djonovic said that will be achieved by supplying 100,000 tons of wheat from republican goods reserves. Bakers interviewed by VREME said that won't happened because flour accounts for just 20% of the price of bread. So privately owned bakeries will continue to have bread shortages while increased production in state bakeries won't rise enough to cover those shortages.

Preserving living standards through cheap bread, i.e. glorifying food for the poor, inevitably has another side. Experts at the Belgrade Center for Economic Studies (CES MECON) said the bragging by the state about a balanced budget despite the fact that it owes the central bank around 590 million dinars and that its companies owe close to 800 million dinars is the other side. Naturally, the army is also allowed to not repay its debts (estimated at around 600 million dinars) and that state can be expected to keep bread prices down even after September.

Swimming Pool

Leskovac doesn't have swimming pool and that is the favorite topic of debate in the summer in that town. About 15 years ago when the first of a number of public loans was underway, graffiti appeared saying "We Want a Pool" and a megalomaniac model of a sports center complete with artificial lake appeared in the town's biggest department store window. A sports hall was built and the start of construction on an indoor pool began in the late 1980s. The funding was swallowed by comunal problems and the uncompleted building began deteriorating. Generations of Leskovac residents continued their traditional 50 kilometer drive (in one direction) towards pools in Vladicin Han and the Nais motel.

During a debate on the republican budget, SPS deputies from Leskovac voted against an amendment by SPO deputy Bojana Ristic which included financing for the pool. They managed to get promises from the sports ministry on an investment of two million DEM and said the pool would be working early this summer. That promise wasn't met, the graffiti is gone and there is no pool. All that remains is a wish.

Information

What's happening to Moslem refugees, primarily from Zepa, who had the pleasure and honor of being at the top of the letter Milosevic sent to Izetbegovic. All the best! While Milosevic was still writing to Izetbegovic that "your soldiers were not met as enemies here but as men and neighbors" refugee commissioner Buba Morina and health minister Leposava Milicevic flew by helicopter to Mt. Tara to hear how the refugees had had enough of "war, Alija, suffering, hunger and decided to seek safety in Serbia because of its peaceful policies to end the war in Bosnia".

Reporters who tried to get there couldn't because of large numbers of army and police. The public was told by the Serbian president, Morina and indirectly by Tanjug. Sources on the ground said the army and police were handling the refugees; the information ministry said they were in the hands of the Serbian Red Cross, international Red Cross and UN High Commissioner.

Thanks to that information we discovered later that after an International Red Cross team visited them, 299 men and one woman were registered as refugees in the Branesko Polje center near Uzice. No one knows where the rest are (unofficial sources reported over 1,000).

We know that General Mladic asked to have the refugees back so he could trade them for his own people. and we know that they no longer figure in the president's letters nor on TV screens although they still keep swimming over the Drina and calling border guards to arrest them. Obviously their moment of fame is over. The information game is over.

Pain

Split weekly Feral Tribune has to pay HVO commander Tomislav Mercep 130,000 kuna (around 37,000 DEM) in damages for an article titled "The Killing Fields in Pakracka Poljana" which caused Mercep "spiritual pain". The incriminated article was published on January 4 last year and spoke of "crimes against Serbs in Pakrac, Gospic and other areas of Croatia committed by Mercep's troops according to eyewitnesses". Feral said his troops killed the Zec family in Zagreb (father, mother and 14 year old daughter) but were acquitted over procedural errors.

A district court in Zagreb ruled in Mercep's favor because "his unit which broke through at Pakrac was made up mainly of men released from jail and saw the war as their only chance". The court said witness testimony was slander and added that "it's obvious the plaintiff was never sentenced for robbery or murder and cannot be alleged to have ordered those crimes".

That ruling was made against Feral because it "seriously offends the dignity, reputation and honor of the plaintiff and cast doubts on his morals as a man and a fighter in the fatherland war who was awarded medals for success in war operations".

Mercep originally demanded 900,000 kuna. The trial now goes to a higher court.

Epson Advertisement

Epson, the producer of printers, advertised in the August issue of Croatian Soldier magazine as the best buy if you want to conceive, organize and print orders at war. The graphics and text were combined in the best possible way. The only thing that isn't clear is whether that best possible way is something the Croatian soldier needs or if Epson is betting on an increase in military orders across the world.

Reciprocity

As of October Zagreb's school of philosophy will be teaching Montenegrin studies, including the Montenegrin language, cultural heritage and literature. That decision was taken at the request of the National Community of Montenegrins in Croatia by the Zagreb University rectorate as a reciprocal measure to studies of Croatian literature which have equal treatment at the university of Niksic alongside Serbian and Montenegrin literature. That report was published in the Montenegrin press during the final Croatian army operations to take the Knin Krajina and was almost unregistered. Sensitive people asked; why now? Another question is how the program was made. The Montenafax report said the courses were drawn up by Milorad Nikcevic an Osijek university professor and approved by the Croatian authorities which also secured enough copies of two of Nikcevic's recently published books. In any case, Montenegrin studies will rank alongside other south Slavonic studies in Croatia.

We still have to wait for a reaction in Serbia and Montenegro since the state media ignored Nikcevic's books.