The Planetary Conspiracy

Easter reports said rubber manufacturers in Pirot revived themselves; there was four times or at least twice as much of something; the Chinese came to see the site of Chinatown again. Easter was not a red letter day like last year since the regime does not need that anymore, and kids had to go to school but no one did anything to them if they didn't. The state news agency Tanjug reported an egg that could break 24 others. Positive examples contributing to the struggle against defeatism and the evil of the free press "which will take the breath away from an age, our life, unless that network is torn apart in time" as Mira Markovic said in her diary last July.

Success after success with some small problems like the winter that has lasted over six months and obstructed the government with the harvest. Recall how Markovic described snow white Moscow and how the energy minister said this winter the snow seems warm to him. Perhaps even God was influenced by that propaganda and he kept the snow coming, having taken pity on his sinful children.

This issue of VREME includes details how Yugoslav National Bank (NBJ) Governor Dragoslav Avramovic was sent West to ask for money and how his talks were ruined and the possible consequences.

New Democracy (ND), through their minister Krstic, and some others tried to play down the governor-government clash. The witchhunt against Avramovic started in the communist factions of the establishment whose opinion reflects economic trends like Brcin's Borba. They called the governor a clerk, accused him of exceeding his competencies and blamed the independent media for irresponsibly publishing his letters to the presidents of the country which include figures showing we are in a bad state, which they claim violates the codes of responsible journalism under which the press can't publish any facts and figures except the date.

The whole issue seems to be reaching dramatic proportions in expectation of the debate on the draft privatization law.

The ruling Socialists and Seselj's radicals don't like it but the three parties in the March 9 pro-European democratic coalition have been lending their support to the governor just like the democratic opposition lent support to Milosevic's man Milan Panic in 1992 when he broke away and tried to stop the war and open up towards the world. The opposition was strongest with Panic to date. The Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) called all political parties, unions and the citizens to support Avramovic last week as the primary state and patriotic task. The SPO said the people who are trying to remove the governor "are not backed up by party or ideological reasons but by the profiteer interests of individuals and clans who are getting rich by robbing millions of people".

The Democratic Party (DS) also openly supported the governor as did the Serbian Civic Alliance (GSS) which called for federal Prime Minister Radoje Kontic's resignation for obstructing the Paris talks with the IMF.

The SPO said it would go back to parliament to defend the governor. An opposition rally has been scheduled in Novi Sad for March 20 and we might see whether the indications of quality will be replaced by present faults.

In an interview to Vranjske Novine, Draskovic said the strategic goals of the Serbian Socialist Party (SPS) are mainly made public by the Yugoslav United Left (JUL) which "plans their ideology and personal and political fate" and whose latest invention is non-party pluralism which means a strategy of abolishing political parties. That, said Draskovic, "won't do since the SPS and JUL can't abolish two-thirds of Serbia, outlaw two-thirds of Serbia, ban two-thirds of Serbia".

The democratic opposition intends to wake up the passive public with a rational approach to the key political issue. The opposition is now actively exerting pressure to force the regime to abandon the logic of "wooden iron" which political confusion and the ruling ideological mystique is based on.