The Secret of the Safe in Kolarceva Street

One can talk to the employees of "Jugoeksport" who have been on strike since 23 May 1995 only through iron bars on the gate of the company building in Kolarceva Street. They open the gate to no one. They have been forced by their troubles not to: on Friday, 26 April, a group of strike-breakers with the help of the police managed to break in and reach their offices in order to implement their month-old intention - to eventually resume work.

"The group consisting mostly of directors and managers broke into the company building swearing and threatening," said president of the strike committee Tatjana Pavlovic. "They strutted around a little, had something to drink and I don't know how, they were all out of the building at the same moment that evening. We took advantage of the situation and locked the gate again. We secured it much better so that the same mistake wouldn't happen again. The next day they threatened us with a boring machine, but soon gave up."

One can easily notice that the gate was additionally secured: on top of the hard bars, there are chains, locks and a bolted metal piece the origin of which, they say, is top secret.

A steel safe which weighs about 300 kilos is secured even better. The safe is in a cupboard in the first-floor office of the general director. When the strikers took the building a year ago, they noticed the safe right away.

"We were thinking about breaking into the safe in the presence of a committee and a lawyer because we had reason to believe that it contained documents which could be of great importance for us," said Tatjana Pavlovic. "However, no authorized locksmith was willing to open it and we did not want to have criminals do it for us, nor to open the safe ourselves, so we welded it because we were afraid that someone who knew the combination could break in and empty it."

In order to understand why the strikers were so concerned about the contents of the safe, one should examine the original cause of the strike which began when "Jugoeksport" employees learned that as of 28 April 1995 the company was a stock company with 60 percent of private and 40 percent of socially-owned capital.

"Transformation was carried out without our knowledge and illegally because interim managing bodies imposed by the Serbian Government have no right to carry out ownership transformation," said Janko Holik, a member of the strike committee. "The commercial court registered the stock company although the documentation was not complete, which was not in accordance with law. Besides, the structure changed in only 17 companies of the corporation, which contained majority of employees and minority of capital, while another 16 companies, where most of the capital had been concentrated, simply disappeared. The property which we had been making for decades was simply plundered; we could not let that happen so we went on strike which has lasted for a year."

The Serbian Government kept changing members of the interim managerial board until they imposed the present-day ones: the president is Radmilo Bogdanovic, the former police minister and members of the managerial board, in addition to three "Jugoeksport" employees are Dobrivoje Budimirovic Bidza, JAT director Zika Petrovic, Federal Trade Minister Deputy Tomislav Milenkovic, advisor in the Serbian Government Milenko Ostojic.

"We believe that the safe contains documents which could resolve the ownership issue, because we still don't know who owns the 60 percent of private capital in the disputed registration," said Tatjana Pavlovic. "There may be some documents which would help us find out what happened to 88 valuable paintings from "Jugoeksport's" collection, estimated at about two million German Marks."

The strikers suspect that there might be something else in the safe: perhaps some money or documents that might compromise someone. The strikers said that in their latest negotiations with the interim management in February and March they had proposed to Radmilo Bogdanovic, Milorad Andjelic and Tomislav Milenkovic that the safe be opened in the presence of a committee which would include members of the interim management and strike committee. "They did not comment on our proposal, they did not say a word, but we got the impression that they did not like the idea at all," says Tanja Pavlovic.

The strikers deny that their motives might be political ones. They say that this is union struggle and that they demand nothing else but the observance of law. And law threatens to become the cheapest Serbian word.

Uros Komlenovic

Croatia

Guards of Yugo-Holiday Cottages

While the ranking officials are praising the implementation of the Law on temporary takeover and management of the property in Western Slavonija, the application of the Law in Supetar on the island of Brac in Croatia has caused a storm. Media have informed the public about the case of several hundred holiday cottages on Dalmatia's largest island, which belong to citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Supetar was the first in Croatia to begin implementing the above mentioned law which regulates the takeover and management by the Croatian Government of the property of citizens of F.R. Yugoslavia who are not using it personally, and also of the citizens of Croatia who had left after operations Flash and Tempest, as well as of all those who left Croatia after 17 August 1990. Supetar committee for the temporary takeover and management of property in early April sent to 72 addresses letters demanding the temporary owners to leave at once the houses which belong to citizens of F.R.Y. This arose dissatisfaction among the new owners who are now refusing to leave.

The committee established that of the 416 holiday cottages in Supetar, as many as 218 are the property of F.R.Y. citizens and that new tenants have moved into 113 Yugo-cottages. Only 41 of these have legal grounds. Some of the houses had been broken into and plundered and electricity and water supplies were cut off for them and were re-installed when new tenants moved in. Some of them claim that they are using the houses with the written or oral consent of the owners, knowing that no such agreement is legitimate according to Croatian laws. Their explanation is that it is better for them to be in than for the houses to dilapidate or be plundered.

The Law on takeover and management of certain property was adopted after operation "Tempest." All these forms of property are controlled and managed by the state. The law initially foresaw that the property limited in this way be returned to their original owners if they came back to Croatia within 90 days from the day the law took effect. However, after the short deadline was suspended, an even more uncertain provision was introduced. On 26 January 1996 the deadline was suspended, but the ownership issues were to be solved in an agreement on the normalization of relationships between Croatia and F.R.Y.

The authorities are obviously waiting for the course of events to eventually offer a solution. At the same time they are showing no intention to protect the property for which the state is supposedly responsible. The fact that provisions of this law were made partly under international pressure and their discord with real life prove that this is just one in a range of Croatian laws for international use.

Pero Jurisin (AIM)