Shorts

Karadzic Ahead of Milosevic

Radovan Karadzic is more popular among Bosnian Serbs than Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic, say the results of the latest public opinion survey in the Bosnian Serb Republic, conducted by the United States Information Agency. The agency asked people in the Bosnian Serb Republic what they thought about the two leaders. Twenty-five percent had a "very favourable opinion" about Karadzic, while twenty percent thought so of Milosevic. Milosevic, however, was ahead of Karadzic according to the number of the people who had a "very unfavourable opinion" about him: 24 percent as compared to Karadzic's 18 percent. Thirty-seven had a "fairly favourable" opinion of Karadzic and 34 of Milosevic. Eighteen percent of the Bosnian Serbs had a "fairly unfavourable" opinion of Milosevic and 17 percent of Karadzic.

Vreme Net

Since a week ago, "Vreme" now appears also in electronic form. Look up the "Vreme" issue at the following web site: http:// www.begorad.com./ vreme

First Serbo-Croat Magazine

The refugee newspaper "Odgovor" in Belgrade and the independent newspaper "Bumerang" in Osijek have initiated "Most" (Bridge), the first joint project since the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, "Odgovor" editor-in-chief Zvonko Tarle has told Beta news agency.

The project "Most" which is sponsored by UNTAES and Peace Bridge Danube will be published fortnightly in Belgrade and Osijek. "Most" is published in 10,000 copies and 2,000 copies will be distributed to refugees free of charge.

TV Broadcast

In place of the news broadcast from Montenegro TV studio we can now hear the sounds of folk music. However, what do we do when we find out that a new educational serial entitled "Discovering China" is scheduled instead of news for the first Friday in May? Couldn't RTS editor on Friday (and all the Fridays that follow until China is completely discovered) show us what's on channel two?

Debtor

Bosnian Serb Army Commander Ratko Mladic might soon become interesting not only for the Hague tribunal but also to the Skoplje court in Macedonia. Engaged in affairs of great importance, the commander failed to pay rent for the first quarter of this year to the municipal company. The sum amounts to 245.9 Denars (nearly 9 German Marks) and if Mladic does not settle the debt, the municipal company is going to take him to court. The fact that no one is requiring money for last year's account points to the fact that Mladic, despite being very busy with Srebrenica, paid rent on time which irritates part of the local public. Unless the evidence of the municipal services was not updated, Ratko Mladic, who as a young officer served in Macedonia and got an apartment there, can still consider himself a citizen of Skoplje.

This is the serious part of the story. People, however, are delighted by some relaxing speculations. According to one of them Radovan Karadzic has eventually started paying his number one soldier according to the results of his work, so he cannot even cover the expenses of "rent and electricity." On the other hand jokes refer to the courts which are very efficient when it comes to the debts for TV subscription or garbage, but usually claim not to be in charge when it comes to more serious things. Skoplje judges are now allegedly having trouble because they have heard Mladic say that he would not be taken "to court alive." They are also concerned because of the behaviour of Macedonia's traditional allies, the Americans who are showing more readiness to help the Hague tribunal than the Skoplje court. If the Serb general goes to the Hague, they will never get the rent.

Border

The Macedonian-Bulgarian border which has until recently been totally uninteresting for the local media is becoming more and more intriguing. A number of people cross this border illegally every day. Most of these people do not intend to stay in Macedonia but to continue further on. Macedonian officers have recently found 14 Indians whose ambition was to get in to Western Europe via Macedonia. In addition to these "exotic tourists", frequent patients of the Macedonian border patrols are Kurds who wish to reach southern Italy via Albania. According to the claims of a border officer, published by the Skoplje daily "Nova Makedonija", the officers occasionally caught volunteers from Islamic countries who were on their way to Bosnia.

Among the illegal passengers, there are certainly some who wanted and managed to stay in Macedonia. In most cases these were young women from Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria who have a "sure" job waiting for them, particularly in western Macedonian inns. The border officer said that patrols daily send back 30 "waitresses" who try to cross the border illegally. The white-slavery business is in expansion on the other side of the border. Bulgarian dealers are allegedly making a fortune, but there is no information on how successful their Macedonian assistants are. According to estimates, there are 50,000 people in Sofia alone waiting for illegal transport.

Survival

On the occasion of the presentation of the latest MAP, a publication of the Institute of Economic Studies in Belgrade, Jovan Rankovic explained how the Yugoslav economy "survived." He explained that of the total 21.5 billion dinars of SRJ economy supplies, 1.8 billion were covered from the salaries that had not been paid, 4.1 billion from the budget and over 8.2 billion from the unpaid debts to banks. The remaining 6.4 billion were not covered by accumulation either, but were financed mostly from foreign bank accounts, and unpaid debts.

When the Serbian Government is planning economic policy, it is well aware that the Republic's economy does not have a single dinar of turnover capital, so the story about any alternative is the story about who is going to pay for which move. Whether the employees of industry or services, pensioners or the unemployed and smugglers. The problem now is that the aims of Marjanovic's government cannot be covered by all the categories put together.

Hesitation

U.S. Admiral Leighton Smith Jr., like his predecessors Mackenzie, Morillon, Rose and other NATO commanders in charge of the peace troops in Bosnia, has become the target of the press (and the so far "unidentified foreign diplomats") because he was too permissive toward Bosnian Serbs. Smith started off with a somewhat greater credit than the others (last September he was the commander of air-strikes on Bosnian Serb Republic), but the credit seems to have melted, according to "The New York Times." Using the statements of the most frequently quoted sources in the world - "a western diplomat" and "a western ambassador" - the daily claimed that the admiral hesitated every time Serbs opposed him, that he was trying to cheer them up and that he considered the safety of his troops more important than lasting peace, that he was too cautious and that the Serbs, of whose power he is afraid for no reason at all, consider him a weakling. As a result of all this, according to a "western diplomat," Smith will spend a great year in Bosnia, spend billions of dollars and fewer of his soldiers will get wounded than if they had stayed in America, which will not lead to peace. The diplomat is embittered because Smith allowed the Sarajevo Serbs retreating from the Serb-controlled suburbs to plunder and take away with them "Bosnian property." The "ranking diplomats" are now slandering the results of Smith's last year's air-strikes, mentioning that the admiral had opposed the air-strikes and tried to convince the politicians that they would not give the desired results.

"Vreme" has learned that Washington political circles were angry with the admiral (and the rest of the Pentagon) primarily because he is against the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic. The Pentagon's excuse is that the arrest might jeopardize the safety of U.S. troops in the field and therefore NATO's essential mission - demarcation of the warring factions and maintenance of peace. Since the beginning of the conflict in Bosnia, the Pentagon, CIA, National Security Council, State Department and the White House have not agreed on what America should do in Bosnia. The U.S. Army does not wish to be seen by either the Serbs, Croats or Muslims in Bosnia as an instrument for the accomplishment of any political goals and wishes to be primarily identified as a "demarcation power." U.S. Defence Minister William Perry has recently said that if NATO stayed in Bosnia after 20 December this year, this will be not in order to "unite the country" but solely to prevent the outbreak of a war.