Marko Milosevic's New Business

The Greek weekly Ependitis reported that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's son Marko rented a luxury villa in Athens for a year and paid 150,000 DEM in advance, but that did not surprise the public in Pozarevac. Nor did his wish to start a trade business.

Circles close to Marko Milosevic gather regularly in the Rolex cafe in Pozarevac. They said he was always interested in business. They added that he started earning his first money at the cafe, unloading deliveries and saying his father doesn't finance him. When he came of age his ambitions grew.

At first they believed he earned money from racing cars but later reports came of other deals. Pozarevac residents talk about the privately owned Sprint Studio company which gave him the use of a pastry shop in the town. Renovation began but soon stopped and nothing has been done for months now.

Rumor is that the shop has been mortgaged and on hold, until the studio pays for a new shop for the local fishing club in place of space to expand the studio.

There are also rumors of a new luxury disco near the town close to Kum restaurant which is owned by Slobodan Milosevic's childhood friend.

The younger Milosevic disappeared from Pozarevac several months ago but soon he was reported to have gone into the restaurant business in northern Greece with his friend Zoran Ivanovic. Until the two got there the cafe did good business. Some say their fiasco was helped by Marko's idea to ban parking in front of the cafe so he could practice figure eights with his car.

Sources close to Marko said it's possible he has even bigger money but claim it doesn't come from his family but powerful sponsors, including the owners of the Tref and Interspid companies whose teams he raced for.

Disobedient

Marko Kekovic, until recently Novi Sad TV editor in chief, is the only one of Vucelic's ousted team that showed guts enough to speak up in the latest issue of Argument (September 22). He said he was ousted from his post and suspended and is waiting for a disciplinary hearing because RTS acting director, Dragoljub Milanovic, charged him with violating his job obligations. Kekovic admits he disobeyed Milutinovic's orders and adds: "It's right that I didn't obey Milanovic's orders in terms of editing the main evening news. I have to say that I'm still a RTS man and a journalist and I'm ashamed to say what his demands were. I know that cooperation between us isn't possible because he has no editorial policy. It's just a promotion of JUL and his policy boils down to just that. There's no other principle or criteria."

Kekovic said TV Novi Sad is a big system and simply can't be the same as Jagodina or some other correspondent bureau. "This isn't my first meeting with people who think they can do anything under the slogan United Serbia."

Lesson

Borba reported that the Yugoslav delegation, headed by Bratislava Morina, had a prominent place in the recent fourth Women's Conference in China.

Not everyone was that lucky, not everyone deserved attention there. Thanks to Morina, the Republican Refugee Commissioner, we learned that Hillary Clinton was interesting to the people who came to China but meant nothing to the Chinese. They boycotted her in the media because Mrs. Clinton allowed herself to lecture the Chinese on human rights in Tibet. If she had come with good intentions it would have been a productive for the gathering and the two countries' relations. She came to lecture the hosts on human rights, democracy and other norms in the country with the oldest culture in the world!"

Grass

Belgrade saw two gatherings on drug dependency and alcoholism last week (Yugoslav Congress and Conference of Balkan countries). At least 30,000 people are considered to be drug dependent while alcoholics make up 3% of the population.

Cannabis has been grown in Srpski Itebelj near Zrenjanin. Along with his 21 year old sister Djurica Radosava, Ivan Vukovacki (40) was sent to prison for growing 500 Marijuana plants. The plants were three meters high, towering over the corn.

Realism

During his visit to Washington last week, Bosnian army commander General Jovan Divjak was interviewed by the AP. Divjak, one of the most highly educated Bosnian army officers, showed a dose of sober realism again: "The most we can do now is consolidate our winnings," he said and warned against triumphalism. "We did not plan this action "the attack on western Bosnia" in concordance with the NATO air strikes but when they came we used the opportunity they provided by destroying telecommunication lines and preventing a coordinated defence."

He said his command believed the Serb positions in central Bosnia are indefensible because of a shortage of manpower and added that the lightly armed Bosnian army won't be able to exploit their latest victories and bring the war to a reasonable end. He repeated that his army is still only armed with light weapons and can arm only half of its 200,000 men.

Divjak said his army destroyed 20 and captured 30 tanks and now has a total of 100 which is still just one fourth of the number the Bosnian Serbs have. He added that the Bosnian Serbs have 2,000 cannons and mortars over 100 mm as opposed to the Bosnians who have 400.