Playing With President's Life

The safety of Slobodan Milosevic, the President of Serbia, is at the lowest possible level. This is the first of many conclusions that can be drawn from the most extraordinary accident which took place on Saturday, March 7. It endangered the President's life and made all those who care about his well- being take into consideration the way Mr. President's safety has been taken care of these days.

On that day, at 23,45 hours, Slobodan Milosevic incurred serious head and neck injuries and a light brain concussion. Owing to this, he was precluded from going to Brussels and attending one of the most important meetings concerning the future of the state he is governing.

Driving the number one man of Serbia home (in a Toyota Carina II) from an official meeting, Senta Milenkovic, a senior police inspector, spotted a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction with the long beams on. He tried to avoid it, turned off the road and crashed into a concrete wall. At 0,20 hours sharp the President was admitted to the Military Hospital, given the first aid and sent home to rest.

Three days later, at the Terazije rally, Milosevic's opponents held banners which said "Slobo, don't change your driver" and shouted "Good work, Senta", and as for all the others (all the president's men) it would have been best had they got at the same time a ready made list of questions to which every respectable state should provide an answer after an incident such as the above mentioned.

At the very top of that list is the question why the president sat in the front seat, contrary to the regulations of his security police, result of which he suffered such grave injuries.

Also, it sounds almost incredible that the president's belt was not fastened at the time of the accident, which was also one of the reasons why his injuries were so severe.

There are other questions too: why the president didn't take a professional driver with him instead of Milenkovic, why he had no escort vehicles following him, why the area through which he was passing had not been cleared of "suspect" drivers...

Keen observers of the security police regulations claim that the regular procedure (two additional vehicles with armed escorts) is evaded only in the cases when the conspiratorial nature of a meeting is more important than the possible risk. So, according to the rules, some very important and conspiratorial meeting of the chief of the Serbian state could have been the reason why on Saturday March 7 only "his trusted man" Senta Milenkovic was by his side. It follows from here that the president attended some very important conspiratorial meetings in the last few days, since many Belgraders phoned in to VREME claiming that they have seen the president frequently in the aforementioned "Toyota" during the past week (the official vehicle of the Serbian Ministry of Interior) with Senta Milenkovic in the driver's seat.

Such claim has been confirmed in writing, since on Tuesday February 18 Radio B 92 revealed that their journalists have seen the president and his wife in the now famous "toyota", steered by inspector Milenkovic at around 11 p.m. near the TV Belgrade building.

Not only did Senta Milenkovic drive at a forbidden speed that day but he also passed through red lights, shifted lanes, disobeyed one-way street sign... All in all, he severely endangered the president's safety several times.

The only justification for such driving, according to the experts, can be found in the old safety rule "avoid the daily routine", for which it is advisable to always take a different route, or change the departure time every time, or, what Milenkovic actually did, sometimes pass through red lights.

The president's escort, however, has no justification for the fact that the journalists from the Belgrade radio were not stopped and questioned, for the whole time they were following the president from Takovska street to Tolstojeva street. That could only mean that Milenkovic (for whom the experts say that he is an extraordinary professional) at that time was not "up to the task at hand".

If we consider that it is a custom (or shall we say a rule) to increase the number of police patrols even during conspiracy meetings in the area through which "the guarded one" will pass (the police is not told why they are sent to a particular part of town), it is clear that even if the rules of service had been observed the B92 reporters would have had little chance to follow Slobodan Milosevic from Takovska street to his home unobserved.

All in all, if we accept that the accident was real, and not only a well invented excuse for him to avoid going to Brussels, it seems that something is very wrong with the president's security police.

To make matters worse, this automobile accident is not the only one in the political career of the Serbian president. He had an accident while holding the office of President of the Central Committee of the Serbian Communist Party in January 1988, with "Opel Record" (the official vehicle).

Naturally, both accidents gave rise to the "murder attempt" stories. The foul tongues just laughed at it, saying that the President has a stroke of good luck every four years, both at the elections and in car accidents.

But even if we discard with all these stories, the fact remains that negligence was obviously the main factor in all the president's accidents. The negligence on the part of the head of the security police is particularly gross, especially today when the number of countries and people who are dissatisfied with the politics of the Serbian president increase the possibility of the assassination attempt. The fact that various security precaution measures are being taken testify that these threats have been taken seriously.