It Is Relatively Clear

The UDBA is being revoked? The Office for the Protection of the Constitutional Order is to be created? And will this contribute to the suppression of crime? All this has been announced last week, first during the talks with the Turkish Parliamentary delegation and later in the local media, by Radmilo Bogdanovic, member of the Main Board of SPS, acting president of the Chamber of Republics in the Federal Assembly and the chief of the Council for Defence and Security.

Interesting is the way in which Bogdanovic has announced, for the first half of 1997, the enactment of the criminal law, the law on criminal procedure and the law on the above mentioned Office for the Protection of the Constitutional Order. What has he been talking about exactly?

First of all, there is no question of any new legislative activity. According to the Constitutional Act for the Enforcement of the Constitution of SRY, enacted in 1992 (simultaneously with the Constitution), all federal laws were to be brought into accord with the Constitution of SRY until December 31, 1994, and even 37 laws were to be enacted until the end of 1992. The fact that approximately one fourth of all laws have not really been harmonized with the Constitution until today is on regular basis quoted as a proof to the thesis of the provisory and semi-legal status of SRY.

The workings on the uniform criminal law have been going on for over a year now, although there is a political agreement of the two federal entities on this issue. Currently, the Federal Government has been working on the general provisions of the new penal law (KZ), and although the deadline was set for the end of 1996, it would obviously not be finished even then.

To the experts on legal matters that we have consulted it was not completely clear why did Radmilo Bogdanovic pack the three laws together when they are not necessarily interrelated. That Bogdanovic himself has confused the matters confirms the fact that he positions the state security (i.e., the protection of the constitutional order, which is the same issue but named differently) in the context of the supression of crime. Namely, the public security institution is in charge of the suppression of crime, not the state security institution. On the other hand, there are no indications that the constitutional order has been considerably imperiled.

The following is relatively clear: the future law on the Office for the Protection of the Constitutional Order will regulate the authorizations of the Office and its relations with other intelligence and counter-intelligence offices in the country, but not the acts of exposing to danger the constitutional order because it is in the domain of the penal law which quotes some twenty acts from the area of political crime. All in all, the draft of the law exists somewhere, but not one of our sources had a chance to see it. This type of regulation is not written in the Ministry of Justice, but in some of the offices of the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs, and is not subject to the public hearing.

Along with all this, the professionals from the State Security Police who have followed Bogdanovic's mentioning of UDBA with a certain smile, believe that Bogdanovic should know that the office of such a name existed in Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1966, only to be revoked after the Plenum on Brioni. From 1966 to 1992 the job of protecting the state was under the authority of the Office for the State Security as a part of the Federal Ministry, i.e, the Secretariat for Internal Affairs.

In the war year of 1992 the famous assault of the Serbian police into the building of Federal Police in Kneza Milosa Street in Belgrade occurred, and after that nothing was the same as before. The Administration of the Public Security of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (SMUP, which still existed on paper) had occasional correspondence with the Interpol from which the Yugoslav Police had been expelled after the sanctions were imposed, so the correspondence was totally "uninstitutional". The Office for the State Security has been drastically decreased in scope - before the war it had offices all over the former Yugoslavia and was exclusively in charge of the security on the entire territory of SFRY - but it still existed formally, although idle in reality.

All jobs important for the security of Serbia - and wider - were transferred to the Department for the State Security (SDB) of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (SMUP) and its chief Jovica Stanisic, who is well known as one of a few who enjoyed the undivided confidence of Slobodan Milosevic.

Montenegro, for what else could it do, overtook those jobs for its territory, so the State Security of Montenegro's sovereignty rules over the protection of the order in the republic. So Marko Nicovic, member of the Directorate of JUL (and the former chief of the Belgrade Police) says for the Vreme that "Yugoslavia must become a united federal state. So far, the effective power was in the hands of republics. This will now move to the federal level - that which was in the hands of republics will be on the federal level... Federal offices are much more inferior to the republics', on all basis - by professionals and by all performances. That is why the office for the protection of the constitutional order is to be formed on the federal level. It will be the most important office to cement the new relations," forecasts Nicovic.

All in all, the people from the SDB SMUP, as well as the lawyers, do not take seriously the statements of Bogdanovic and wonder why the public, headed by the press, thinks that he is still an important figure in the police. They say that he would not be free to walk around and give statements were he really having an important role, because in that case he would be under better control. They also say that Bogdanovic, the way he is, is welcome for those who really have the power of decision, because he makes a fuss and attracts attention while the real job is done somewhere else. So Bogdanovic, a teacher from Jagodina, a retired policeman after 17 years spent on the jobs of public security (and he had never dealt with the state security), speaks about the commotion in the intelligence and counter-intelligence sectors, about SDB, security in the Yugoslav Army, about the office for security that is dealing with the protection in the departments of the Ministry of External Affairs in particular, and says "this law will, probably, encompass all that." There is no question of canceling any of these offices, nor is this the first country with several offices of this kind.