Conclusion of One Scandal

Mr. Milan Milutinovic, the federal minister of foreign affairs, has announced the Ministry's response with regards to the various articles on the scandalous lordly behavior and shady dealings with the diplomatic residencies and apartments in Belgrade, and especially as a reaction to the article as published in VREME under the caption Corruption in Tails (VREME no. 298 of February 1, 1997) as well as on later articles of the Vecernje Novosti daily on the same subject, which were induced by the unusual seizure of the residency of the Australian ambassador Mr. Noel Campbell. There were no reactions. The Ministry has probably understood that it is better to keep silent on the questions which were launched in public than to illuminate the opened-up Pandora's box from their angle. The assessment was, probably, based on the idea that "mixed up kettles" need to be left in such a state, since the activities which we had written about, from shady dealings with foreign currency funds collected throughout our consular offices abroad all the way to the renovations inside the Ministry building, are more easily concluded and hidden when kettles aren't in order.

Maybe calculations on the true value of the proverb that "silence is golden" was also based on the belief that the Australian government shall at the end swallow its bitter pill and accept another solution -which is exactly what happened. The Australians were initially presented with an offer to move into a building in Bulevar Mira, which they had turned down due to inadequate housing conditions. An agreement was somehow reached: the Australian charge d' affaires is to acquire a new solution for his residency as of February 15, and when he is to move in we need yet to see. The only thing that is certain is that he shall be evicted by that date. In the meantime, until that new house from the contract is put in order, Mr. Campbell will use one of the buildings which is already being used by one of the embassy's employees and which does not meet the conditions of a residency building, and the Australian government shall not pay rent for that house in the next 33 years. This is how they shall be reimbursed for around one million dollars which was invested into the maintenance and alterations on the residency from which they had been kicked out.

Yet such an arrangement opens up numerous questions. People have been kicked out of their residency for which they were prepared to pay 14,000 dollars per month instead of the 7,000 dollars they were paying until the eviction notices were sent. They have now been enabled to make use of another house, for which they had also been paying rent, free of charge. Someone seems to be very keen on the land in number 6 Banjickih Zrtava street when such harmful business transactions are made. The diplomatic grapevine has it that the confiscated house of Momcilo Nincic, the pre-war diplomat and professor of the University of Belgrade, has taken the fancy of Minister Milutinovic himself, who would - so the story goes- deviating from international customs, like to have a residency just as Lilic or Milosevic do. However, it seems that word is of the magical attraction of the park which surrounds the otherwise modest house. That park, following the article published in VREME, is described by a former tenant from those post-war years and her childhood days as: "That isn't a plot, that's Tasmajdan". Therefore, it is most probable that the around one hectare large plot is to be divided into three parts, and the most interesting thing shall be to wait a while and see who shall acquire bits of that land. The diplomatic scandal has been hushed up, yet the new one is most likely only beginning.