Visionaries

"Permit us to express our wish which we believe is shared by the whole country and to launch the initiative to nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize for all you have done in your grand peace mission", says the Socialist Party of Serbia City Board letter sent to President Milosevic (and signed by Mile Ilic, leader of SPS Nis branch). The letter is dated 20 November 1995, the day before the signing of the peace accord. "Today, comrade Milosevic, is a historical day for Serbia, for Yugoslavia, for the Serbian people, for the citizens of Serbia, for the Balkans and the whole international community", the Nis Socialists concluded on the day before the peace accord in Dayton was signed. They had advantage over the President and, before the accord in Dayton was signed, they concluded that it has achieved the goals of the Serbian people's heroic struggle.

Expecting the successful end to the talks in Dayton, the Nis Socialists served barbecue and whiskey in their headqaurters. When it became clear that the accord would not be signed that day, the present journalists were handed the Nis Socialists' letter to Milosevic and advised to publish it as soon as the accord is signed.

Basket

Inspired by the Yugoslav national basketball team's victory at the Athens European Championship this year, the Belgrade mareketing agency Ultra art this summer launched the campaign "200 Basketball Boards for Belgrade".

With the help of the sponsors - the city authorities, the Serbian Sports Ministry and several small Belgrade companies - 252 new basketball boards have been put up in school-yards and sports grounds.

Belgrade is said to need 500 basketball boards, so Ultra art will continue its campaign.

Obituaty

The motive for killing Coca-Cola's Director Milorad Zecevic has not been clarified although ten days have passed since the murder, although all the "technical details" are more or less known. As Vreme wrote in its last issue, Zecevic was killed in his office on Monday, 6 November. Dragoljub Garic from Batajnica managed to enter Zecevic's office that morning and fire three bullets into the Coca-Cola Director. Garic was arrested and the media published information (from unofficial sources) that Garic's wife had closely cooperated with Zecevic, that the two men had known each other and that Garic had visited Zecevic in his office before.

The information was soon denied, and Dragoljub Garic was described as mentally ill, that he had believed someone was breaking up his marriage and that morning, after failing to see a director of another firm, he went to Zecevic's office and killed him. The story about the "murder without a motive" committed by a "psychologically disturbed person" was argumented by an obituary published on Sunday, 12 November, six days after Zecevic was killed. In it, the Garic family expresses its condolences to the Zecevic family, explaining that Dragoljub had been "demonstrating signs of a mental illness and that the family was negotiating with mental institutions and state bodies about placing him in an institution. Unfortunately, the interventions were too late." The Garic family also explains that Dragoljub had in his "sick fixation chosen as his victim an innocent, honorable and extremely eminent man", inflicting misery upon the Zecevic family and shame upon the Garic family.

Vreme unofficially learned in the Belgrade Court that Dragoljub Garic claims that he did know Zecevic, but that he had met him only once, six years ago. Garic's statement, however, seems much too confused and incoherent so that the court experts will have the last say about Garic's metnal health and trustworthiness of his statements.