After Hours

The Banja Luka war presidency decided to close down schools and colleges. A curfew was imposed (11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.) and bars and restaurants were closed once again.

The exception is the cafe in the banski Dvori which was packed with reporters waiting for the end of the 54th session of the Bosnian Serb parliament and the restaurant at the Hotel Bosna which by some miracle did not have its name changed after the war started. The top RS leaders stay at that hotel.

Banja Luka residents view the Hotel Bosna as the place they might find out something about the fate of the city but they can only get into it after meeting the meticulous and powerful security which locals say is armed well enough to defend the entire RS even before 12 of its towns fell.

 

Meeting

A police patrol was seen on October 18 at the corner of Misarska and General Zdanova streets in Belgrade stopping a taxi and asking the driver and passenger for identification.

Taxis were the preferred transportation for Krajina men of army age who did not want to return to the front but it seems they are no longer safe. The taxis turn came after cars with suspicious plates and buses were raided and yielded what they could.

Perhaps the mere fact that the patrol stopped the taxi has nothing to do with the hunt for Krajina men; perhaps this is just routine or stepped up measures to combat crime.

 

Donkeys

A month after the accident on Skadarsko lake when an undetermined amount of heating oil spilled into its waters, the names of the people who are responsible have not been released. Last week, the environmental protection ministry issued a statement saying the men responsible had been discovered, charges had been raised and they had been ordered to clean up the mess.

Water samples were taken seven days after the spill and the results that were published provided no more than could plainly be seen at the lake. The polluted bay in which the tanker, owned by an unknown, sank is still deserted with no one there to clean it. Fishermen and hunters said there are no birds or fish in the bay and added that the lake was alive with traffic; traders are smuggling goods to and fro.

From a business perspective, everything is legal and regular and they are doing good by saving Montenegro from dying under the weight of the sanctions. In that context, several of them sent a warning to VREME's correspondent over an article on the accident adding that the correspondent got to the Bozaj border crossing in a car not on a donkey thanks to them.

The question is whether the money from the smuggled goods can restore the lake to what it was before the spill. The polluted water is also reducing the number of donkeys which were plentiful on the banks of the lake once and the lake itself is becoming increasingly lifeless.

 

Referendum on Non-Slovenes

Slovenian rightist party parliament members finally managed to start gathering signatures under the referendum law to hold a referendum on taking Slovenian citizenship away from people who got it under article 40 (i.e. the 160,000 non-Slovenes who were permanent residents of the republic on December 23, 1990 prior to the plebiscite on independence).

They started collecting the signatures on October 17. Drnovsek's Liberal democrat party and the renewed communists spoke to call citizens to boycott the referendum.

 

Gligorov Recovering

The council of doctors taking care of Macedonian President Kiro Glirogov after the car bomb attack is issuing increasingly pleasant statements. First, early last week, they said Gligorov had been out of bed, then they said he might leave the hospital soon. Some even indicated he could resume some of his duties.

The wounded Macedonian president got visits from US joint chiefs chairman General John Shalikashvili and the UN Secretary General's special envoy Yasushi Akashi who came to Skoplje on a parting visit before he retires on November 1.

 

Poll On Education Workers

A poll published recently by the Serbian Education Workers' Union stated that elementary and high school teachers are mainly poor women who are not happy with the school programs but are not willing to get things changed. Polled teachers know little of the school systems in the rest of Europe, they think they should get retirement benefits, sometimes they trade foreign currency to survive and many would gladly change their profession. Opinions on religious classes are divided.

That is a resume of the anonymous poll which covered 17 towns in Serbia, including 30 elementary and 20 high schools. 4,000 questionnaires were passed around and 1,313 were returned.

The poll shows that 69% of teachers are women, that they are mainly older than 41 (60%) and that 21% do not have their own apartments. 93% of teachers said their salaries weren't big enough to cover basic needs. 18% of them have additional incomes, 14% own land and just 2% said they sell farm products. The same number rent out housing. 11% of teachers tutor privately, 18% get help from relatives and 17% admitted to exchanging foreign currency to supplement their incomes.

78% are unhappy with school programs. 67% of teachers in elementary schools believe things should be reorganized, 26% said they didn't know what to do. Just 54% of high school teachers want reorganization and 42% said they didn't know what to do. The Union said those responses were customary since changes could bring unwanted things. The salaries are bad but unemployment is worse.

Teachers are much more united on union issues. 82% of them feel they should get early retirement benefits. Over a third (68%) feel teaching affects their mental and physical abilities negatively, perhaps that's why 38% said they would like to change jobs.

 

Mira Markovic

After she read Ivan Stambolic's book with understandable curiosity, Mira Markovic Milosevic has relaunched her idea on writing a book about the same period. Her column in Duga magazine said: "Ever since that September 1987, I have been planning to write a book about those times".

Politika daily editors chose to publish those parts of her diary column in Duga in which Markovic focuses on Stambolic's book.

Markovic starts her review of the book saying that even historic events such as the Eighth Session (of the League of Communists of Serbia when Milosevic took over) are easily forgotten.

She feels that Stambolic is not the real author of the book but just chose a bizarre style of writing: "Sly as he always was, he chose the question and answer form as an original way to have someone else write his book. The author of the questions is the author of the answers. Ivan Stambolic is just a source of information." That happened because the book is signed by an author "who has no talent for writing.

Besides disputing the authorship, Markovic criticized the book for "being full of untruths from start to end". The crucial untruth of the book is the version of the Eighth Session. Unlike the author whoever he is, Markovic thinks the session "is a historic code for wanted or at least introduced changes in Serbia in the mid-1980s."

The fact that our authors do not share her opinion of the session, Markovic said, is the result of the fact that the session has been described to date "by the people who lost or their interpreters. The people who won are keeping quiet." Markovic the sociologist has an explanation for those failings. "That is mainly an interpretation of the Eighth Session from the point of view of the 1990s. From the point of view of today and what is considered politically positive today. And that is the defense of Serb interests." She believes that interpretation is the reason why authors go in the wrong direction into untrue interpretations.

Markovic also provides guidelines for interpreting the spirit of the session. She feels the only truth is that "The Eighth Session was backed by ideas of social reform. Every reduction of that effort to just resolving the Serb issue is not only incorrect but also favors everyone who wants to show that the session was the cause, or at least the start, of the expansion of Serb nationalism which played a decisive role in the break-up of Yugoslavia."

Markovic ends her review with a confession which illustrates her plan to write a book about the Eighth Session: "Today, eight years later, I would like to write that book, not only because of events then but also because of today's people. The ones who speak untruths and the ones who keep their silence. I don't know whether I'll manage to do that but I would really like to write a book about the Eighth Session."