Ballet Dancer

The ballet troupe at Belgade's National Theater is back on the scene after a break of almost nine months. Jovanka Bjegovic is no longer the director. That's what theater manager Aleksandar Bercek decided this autumn: he met the demands of the ballet and dismissed Bjegovic in the epilogue to a story that began early this year when most of the troupe went on strike demanding her resignation. Over a period of four months Bercek tried literally everything: he banned strikers from practicing in the building, gave them salaries of 3 to 11 Dinars, locked doors, accused strikers of rebelling against the state and the people. The manager was categorical: "When I leave, she leaves (Jovanka)". So under a formula he tried and tested before, Bercek brought in well paid dancers of high quality to stage Swan Lake and the manager even threatened to dance himself if the need be. After a long delay, opening night came luckily without Bercek.

The troupe continued their strike until the end of the season and intended to go on into the next season but Bercek changed his mind and managed to convince Bjegovic to leave. He did it all quietly without consulting the strikers.

Dusan Simic, a long time troupe member, was appointed director. The strikers went back to work, but in ballet every month dancers don't rehearse takes years to restore. Audiences will judge how fast the troupe is recovering.

 

Optimists

In a regular telephone poll by the Partner agency, 53% of the polled said the Yugoslav Army has to react if Croatia attacks Baranja; 20.7% feel it should stay away; while 26.3% don't know what the army should do.

Of the Ohio talks, a third of the polled said they don't know how long they'll last but a large percentage (29.7%) feel they will be over in a week or less.

47% of the polled said they were against the ban on live TV coverage of Serbian parliament sessions and 41.2% said they don't miss the broadcasts.

 

Aspect

Belgrade's alternative TV channels have been advertising another instant invention recently: five novels abridged to 100 pages with quotes and critical analysis: "The Damned Yard" and "Bridge on the Drina" by Ivo Andric; "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoyevski; "The Stranger" by Camus and "Roots" by Dobrica Cosic. The publisher is aiming for high school students with the understanding that reading takes up so much of their free time.

The quanity of books that children are forced to read in school are often their only touch with literature. Now they can avoid even that.

 

Godfather

Belgrade's NIS Jugopetrol doesn't know what to do with all of its gasoline so has decided to open "the most modern gas station in Europe". Politika Ekspres was chosen to be godfather and has already dubbed the station Usce (perhaps in homage to the times when the people's demonstrations happened in that part of Belgrade and as a monument to the times when there was gasoline to be bought at stations).

The complex with shops, slot machines, etc. takes up 602 square meters and another 6,000 square meters of lawn.

 

Unfit to Inherit

"The following cannot, under the law or will, inherit or gain from a legacy (are unfit):

1. anyone who killed or tried to kill the person leaving the inheritance;

2. anyone who used forced, threats or trickery to make a person make or change a will or any part of a will or prevented him from doing so;

3. anyone who intends to prevent the implementation of a last will or hides or falsifies that will;

4. anyone who has violated legal obligations to support the person leaving a legacy or if they deny them necessary aid;

5. draft age men with military obligations who left the country to avoid their duties in defending it and does not return to the country before the leaver of a legacy dies.

That is what the law on inheritance, adopted by the Serbian parliament on October 31, says (article 4, unfitness for inheritance).

Article five of that law says "the leaver of inheritance can forgive unfitness except in cases of draft age men who left the country to avoid duties in defending it", and article six says "unfitness does not obstruct the next generation and they inherit as if the unfit had died before the person who left the legacy".

The new articles were adopted without debate at a session of parliament after deputies from the four strongest opposition parties walked out over the ban on TV coverage but parliament committees disputed that article. Milovan Radovanovic suggested deleting the article on preventing deserters from inheriting saying their draft dodging should be legally punished but that the birthright of deserters should not be taken away. Similar suggestions were voiced by Vladan Batic, Mirko Petrovic, Drasko Petrovic (DSS) and Milan Mikovic (SPO) who pointed out that returning to the country cannot be the only criteria to determine who is fit and who is unfit to inherit. The government did not accept the amendment saying that "the defence of the country is the highest moral duty in society which must be reflected in regulations on inheritance".

 

New Charges in The Hague

The international war crimes tribunal in the Hague raised charges against three former JNA officers for war crimes committed near Vukovar late in 1991. The three officers are Guards brigade Major Veselin Sljivancanin, Colonel Mile Mrksic and Captain Miroslav Radic.

Under the charges they "took 261 people from Vukovar hospital in the autumn of 1991 to a nearby farm in Ovcar where the prisoners were beaten for hours and then killed and buried in a mass grave. The charges also list the victims. Sljivancanin was commander of the combined forces (JNA, volunteers, territorial defence, paramilitaries) in Vukovar at the time.