Living Dangerously

On Tuesday, March 12, Nebojsa Deljanin was buried at the Mladenovac cemetery. He was a worker at the Petar Drapsin foundry.

The reasons for his death have drawn a lot of interest. Mladenovac is full of stories about the death of Deljanin and four other Drapsin workers.

Aleksandar Rakic (43), Miodrag Masic (43), Vladimir Mihajlovic (44), Milojica Zabunovic (47) and Deljanin (44) died from February 2 to March 8. Their co-workers panicked and refused to work after Deljanin died until they had medical checkups and doctors and toxicologists investigated their working environment. They're waiting for documents that will show if they can go back to work or not.

The only thing they won't accept is that the five men died of methyl alcohol poisoning and they wonder why only men from their branch of the foundry are dying; how is that they died in the space of several days of each other when none of them drank alone; how come Mihajlovic died when he didn't smoke or drink and they want to know why the first autopsy came only after Deljanin died.

They don't accept the alcohol theory and they began providing answers themselves. The rumors are poison salts, radioactive materials, poison.

Milun Stanojevic, deputy general director of the foundry, is starting to lose his nerves over the rumors. He's threatening to sue reporters who turned his words around.

"There's no mystery," he said and added that working conditions certainly didn't cause the death of the five men. He said working conditions were harsh in all three foundry plants. "Conditions have improved for the workers there with special meals, winter and summer vacations, protective gear. Now everything is going wrong. The conditions are harsh but they did not cause the deaths," he said.

When deputy labor minister Veljovic visited Drapsin he wanted to know why the air conditioning wasn't working. He was told repairs would cost 300-400,000 dinars which the foundry can't afford.

Up to 30% of the foundry workers went on vacations organized by the union until the beginning of the 1990s, now not even 5% do.

The harsh conditions in the foundry always mixed with alcohol, foundry employees said in their restaurant and ordered another drink. "You used to know what you're drinking." "It's safe here," a waitress said, "everyone's drinking and no one has died." A technologist said he had an offer to sell liquor of any kind all he had to do was say what colors he wanted and what flavor.

After all the rumors, everyone goes back to methyl alcohol. The results of the autopsy were public knowledge on the day of the funeral: Deljanin had 4.9% alcohol in his blood and 67% of that was methyl.

"Methyl alcohol poisoning is hard to recognize. Up to six small drinks is not dangerous, then it becomes lethal," Dr. Zoran Sekularac said. He heads the workers' medical center in Mladenovac. We found him in his office right after he got back from Belgrade, with findings by experts that none of the deaths were caused by harsh working conditions. "These people suffered from respiratory ailments more than others, primarily because of the gases," Sekularac said. They still remember him at the foundry as a good doctor.

Perica Vucinic

 

Montenegro

Police Games

Filip Vujanovic, Montenegro's police minister, recently appointed Srdja Perovic to the post of head of the Podgorica security center and Ranko Micanovic to the post of inspector in the Danilovgrad security department. Their appointments would not merit any media coverage if they weren't the very policemen who were thrown off the force with wide media coverage last year along with Zeljko Jocic (Podgorica security center chief then), Jovan Cerovic (deputy department chief) and Dragisa Bulatovic (head of the crime fighting center) by a newly appointed minister Vujanovic.

Criminal proceedings against them haven't ended yet nor has their counter-suit because of the dismissals.

The story began in April 1995 when an explosive device blew up in front of the house in Spuz near Danilovgrad that was home to 12 Moslem refugees. The Podgorica security center reacted swiftly as did investigating judge Ratko Cupic who headed the local district court. Bozina Veskovic was arrested and was reported by Cupic to have confessed without being pressured.

Cupic set a detention period but the state security service said they also had a voluntary confession from Vlatko Radojevic. Radojevic was handed over to the security center after 12 hours in detention at the security service with complete disregard of the law. The judge stuck him in jail as well and a rumor broke out that both had been killed. Spuz residents organized a protest rally and stopped traffic on the Danilovgrad-Podgorica road demanding the release of the two bombers which happened soon.

The then police minister Nikola Pejakovic decided to suspend the five police officers and apologized to Veskovic and Radojevic. It turned out that the decision was taken just before he was due to leave his post and he could no longer conceal the clash between the two police services. Pejakovic's aides were also dismissed including state security chief Bosko Bojovic.

Where Pejakovic stopped Vujanovic continued. Jocic and his group were persistent in proving that they didn't abuse Veskovic and that Veskovic did commit the crime and that Radojevic was planted by the security service.

Doctors at the Podgorica clinical center discounted any chances of Veskovic having been beaten and the only ones left to claim his maltreatment were prison doctors Minas Tomic and Bozina Veskovic whose beliefs are only accepted by the minister and the disciplinary committee.

In the meantime, Bojovic transferred to a post in the Serbian state security and the press reported that he took files on Montenegrin president Momir Bulatovic and Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic with him. The investigation against Jocic and his men hasn't ended only because the judge hasn't been able to get Pejakovic to testify. Pejakovic is in Bar waiting to become part of the diplomatic service.

The crime council at the Danilovgrad court has tried Vlatko Radojevic and sentenced him to the minimum punishment of four months in jail. Luka Ivanovic, who Radojevic said provided the explosives, got a month and Veskovic who helped make the device was set free.

Velizar Brajovic