Koschnick Stoned

Extremist Croats in Mostar demolished the offices of the city's EU administrator Hans Koschnick on Wednesday, February 7. A group of demonstrators stoned the Ero hotel where the administrator is based, took over the first floor and tore up an EU flag.

Koschnick spent a frightening hour in his car which was almost destroyed by demonstrators that overwhelmed it. They pounded on the car and shouted: Go back to East Germany you communist.

The German foreign ministry said Koschnick had to seek refuge in an international forces police station. IFOR sent in three armored cars to get him out. EU personnel were evacuated. The Croat police blocked the demonstrators near the demarcation line in the city pushing them into a department store.

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel condemned the attack fiercely and demanded guarantees for Koschnick's safety. NATO warned the Croats over what it called an unfortunate incident and the Mostar Croats broke off all contacts with the EU proclaiming its mission is over.

The demonstrations were caused by Koschnick's decision to split Mostar into six municipalities and a central administrative zone which would house the main city institutions. That decision on Mostar as an undivided city was supported by the State Department and the EU and opposed by the Croats. Koschnick said the guarantors of the Dayton agreement will have to decide the status of Mostar.

Clashes in Mostar gained in ferocity over the implementation of the Dayton agreement. Early in December a young man was killed in an incident and the Croat police withdrew from joint patrols with the EU police. US and European diplomats intervened unsuccessfully with arbitration at top levels (Clinton, Solana, Kinkel, Agnelli) while IFOR patrolled the demarcation line. At one point, Koschnick said the EU will pick up and leave.

Reviving Inflation

A more comfortable monetary police won't cause a revival of production as the Serbian government is claiming but a return to hyperinflation. January's inflation stood at 9.5% and its momentum at the end of the month showed that monetary valves were opened in December, experts at the Belgrade Institute of Economic Science claimed on February 5. In December (while NBJ Governor Avramovic was in hospital) the money mass grew by 720 and primary emission placements by 366 million dinars. The cause for concern is that the growth in the money mass didn't go where it should have and the economy is facing a plunge into hyperinflation if the emission of unbacked dinars continues, Monthly Analysis and Predictions (MAP) editor Stojan Stamenkovic said. That approach to hyperinflation has already been felt in terms of salaries which dropped in real terms by 23% last year.

The Institute got confirmation that its experts are right. A day earlier, Serbian industry minister Oskar Fodor couldn't find anything good to say about NBJ monetary policies at a meeting in the economic chamber. He said the policy is suppressing production and the only way out is stimulating production growth. He didn't even praise the increased foreign currency reserves and criticized the NBJ for showing how poor the population and economy have become by buying foreign currency.

Normalization in FRY-Croatia Relations

The FRY bureau in Zagreb and Croatian bureau in Belgrade should soon grow into consulates. "It's just a technical issue," Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic said during a visit to Beijing. Fonet's China corespondent Aleksandar Novacic reported that Granic avoided saying how a full normalization of relations could be achieved. He stressed that FRY Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic "will pay a very important visit to Zagreb in February and five documents have been prepared on economic cooperation, regulating road and rail traffic and postal services. If they are signed it will be a big step forward."

Goldstein Letter to Tudjman

Prominent Croatian intellectual, Erazmuz magazine editor and former Jewish community leader, Slavko Goldstein warned Croatian President Franjo Tudjman that he will start court proceedings against him if the Jasenovac memorial center is turned into a monument to all Croatian war victims. In his open letter to Tudjman in Split weekly Feral Tribune, Goldstein said Tudjman's intention of changing Jasenovac (proposed to parliament) "drew sharp reactions in part of the Croatian and international public". The organization of Jewish communities in Croatia reacted sharply, he said.

Goldstein added that the victims of the Jasenovac death camp were killed "by members of the Ustashi Defence military formation" ... and that most of the members of that criminal organization were captured and killed somewhere between Bleiburg, Dravograd and Maribor. "Now you want to bring the bones of the killers to Jasenovac and bury them next to the bones of their victims." Goldstein called the Croatian president to "give up the morbid digging up of bones and redesigning of graves" and "stop the wave of neo-Ustashi vandalism threatening Croatia".

Zoro

The hooligans who harassed two girls in Kumodraska Street in Belgrade were first opposed by a couple, but without success. The villains directed their strength and aggression toward the saviours, and who knows how the chain reaction would have ended if a young man had not appeared out of the darkness at the decisive moment. All that is known about him is that he is young, about 20. He hit one of the hooligans in the head and fired a shot in the leg of the other. The remaining two unhurt troublemakers made sure they disappeared before the police arrived and the unknown lad got the nickname Zoro.

He, however, did not appear in Ustanicka Street where the neighbours opposed the cruel but obviously authorized lumberjacks. The latter had the right and duty to cut down the trees in one part of Ustanicka St. for the construction of a business centre, which has been cancelled for years because of the people's protests.

The neighbours, some of them with their bare hands and others with sticks and boards, resisted, but the lumberjacks, taught by the last Wednesday's experience, brought along ten tough guys. Thanks to them, the citizens were pushed away and an unidentified citizen fired a shot in the air from his window in order to bring the wild lumberjacks to their senses.

The shot put an end to the fight and attracted the attention of the police, so the street conflict ended without casualties.