The President and His Men

Nebojsa Covic said "commands were not in their customary states". "It’s quite clear the counter-rally had its headquarters and that many orders issued that day came from there", the VREME source said and added that "this does not mean the police chiefs were also bypassed. The source said the police has a headquarters and an operational staff dealing with the crisis. The first is at top level in the internal affairs ministry with the job of coordinating activities with other ministries. The second meets several times a day and is at the level of assistant ministers but, due to the length of the demonstrations, their deputies meet most often. That operational staff deals with specific situations, plans and orders the implementation of various measures.

"When he said there were no police on the streets," the VREME source said, "Covic must have meant the small number of security personnel. That is, he meant there was no cordon to separate people and there were no frequent patrols around the crowd. There were never more police on the streets than on that day."

At least 500 plain clothes police mingled with the crowd of Zajedno supporters, the source said. There were at least twice that many at the counter-rally. The police cleared the way for the counter-rally participants in central Belgrade: police cars with their lights flashing guided buses to their parking places, city buses were deliberately limited, the traffic police was impounding cars at full speed and at least one whole police brigade was deployed in the walkway under Terazije square.

"The goal of the police was to secure unobstructed movement for the counter-rally bussed to Terazije," the source said, "and it did its job well. As the people were bussed in, executive command was transferred to the counter-rally headquarters. That must have been agreed by the top political and police chiefs. If Jovica Stanisic (Serbian state security chief) and Radovan Stojcic Badza (the Serbian police chief) hadn’t agreed to that they wouldn’t be able to order even their maids around. I want to say that the authorities, if they dared impose a parallel command over the police, risked being left without key information and obstruction from the police. As far as I know, that hasn’t happened yet even though there were a number of opportunities. For example: the cordon that has been standing in front of the students leaves because their replacement is hours late for some reason. The commanders will get jobs in some security agency."

The counter-rally, apart from being a high risk gathering, had to appear to be a well organized demonstration because the organizers wanted just that. The police academy textbook Civil Unrest shows the whole thing was organized with the police. The pattern is easy to find: leaders inside and out, physical security provided, messengers, a strike group, people to encourage others carrying banners.

"The idea of the counter-rally was for its participants to break up the opposition. That’s all. The police weren’t there to enable that."

Covic said the police did not know where the stage for the counter-rally had been set up and since someone turned off the traffic monitoring cameras they didn’t have a real idea of what was happening on the streets.

In regards to the traffic monitoring system, the source asked who really lacked information? The police certainly didn’t. They were monitoring events on the streets using their people, both in the crowd and in teams around the crowd with cameras. As opposed to the fixed traffic monitoring cameras which often provide unfocused images, police cameramen can zoom in on any detail. The SPS/JUL leaders were at the source of information. They had several apartments and rooms in the Moskva hotel on Terazije square. Some sources reported that the entire state and party leadership were there waiting to go on stage later. They watched their followers and the threatening crowd of Belgraders from the hotel windows. There’s a rumor that Milosevic was in apartment 105 but that rumor is impossible to confirm.

The mayor said the traffic monitoring system was turned on again when he intervened just before he asked the police to separate the crowds. In other words, Covic used his influence. He said indirectly that he would never have managed that if the assistant public security minister police General Radovan Stojcic Badza and state security chief Jovica Stanisic weren’t real professionals.

"Covic had nothing to do with the police being brought out onto the streets," the VREME source said. "If there hadn’t been a shooting in Knez Mihajlova street and if it hadn’t become clear that the angered opposition would break up the counter-rally, the cordon would never have appeared no matter how many times Covic phoned. The whole thing is simple: the counter-rally people would have fled if the police hadn’t appeared."

Covic’s interview indicates he is convinced that Stanisic and Stojcic are two of "the few serious people" who told Milosevic "what is happening and asked him to solve the crisis peacefully" and added that certain JUL members exerted fierce pressure on Milosevic to have them removed.

"That is possible," the VREME source said, "just as it is possible that the two of them went to the president with files on certain JUL members, primarily Zoran Todorovic Kundak. But I doubt it. For Kundak and similar people to be able to wield this much influence, Stanisic had to have checked up on them and reported on any wrongdoing. That’s the system; Milosevic didn’t do what he did with Krajina and Bosnia working with Kundak but with Stanisic and Stojicic. So it’s no big deal if they bring him someone’s file. The sensational thing would be if someone had their files."

The existence of police files is what made Covic defend Stojicic and Stanisic, the source said.

Covic believes Stojicic did not order plain clothes police onto the streets to beat people up on December 27. That is possible. The Serbian police has two special units which the state security service can use. The first is the special purpose brigade which is reported to be based in George Washington street in Belgrade. Its members are young men who work only in plain clothes and their job is to infiltrate the underworld and opposition parties. Its members have been reported to have been dealing heroin in cafes and when they relax they show off their police ID and JUL membership cards. The other unit are the Red Berets. They are mainly men with combat experience from Krajina and Bosnia and it includes some recruited criminals. They all carry guns and ID. The Red Berets have no headquarters and officially they don’t exist. The unit members are most often employed by security agencies, casinos, discos and they get together and go into action when the need arises. Both those units can be used for black operations. There have been claims that they were involved in underworld killings.

In the context of the plain clothes police (suspected of being members of a special anti-terrorist unit) who beat people up on December 27, a statement by the anti-terrorist unit commander Zoran Simonovic Tutinac is very interesting. When three members of his unit were identified from photos he told the press that his unit had not been engaged but did not exclude the possibility that someone sent some of his men to Terazije square. He said the naming of his men had inflicted damage on the unit.

"Certainly the people in the opposition could not identify policemen in plain clothes from Prijepolje without some help from the police," the source said. "The only question is who provided that information and with what aim. The beatings could have been ordered as an act of revenge and intimidation after the shameful failure of the counter-rally. That goal was achieved more or less because there are no more marches. Then they played good cop-bad cop to settle the dust. The unsophisticated police beat people up and the sophisticated state security identified the thugs for the opposition. I think that’s nonsense. They’re all in this together and they’re very synchronized. Tutinac would never make that statement without approval from his chiefs. The admission that a special anti-terrorist unit exists and a semi-denial were made to hide the existence of the two other special units. That does not mean some men aren’t members of all those units."

The conclusion that can be reached is that the decision on whether to impose a state of emergency in Serbia is up to Slobodan Milosevic alone. the VREME source said he reads the analyses by professional policemen but accepts only what suits him. That’s true of the number of demonstrators and assessments of developments. Whatever he decides and whenever he decides it, the police chiefs will follow his orders. The counter-rally wasn’t organized to provoke a state of emergency with the help of the police but because he was convinced the counter-rally participants would win. The deviations from routine Covic mentioned aren’t proof the counter-rally was a screen for a police strike.