Wipe Your Tears and Keep Quiet

When this issue of VREME comes into your hands, 70 days will have passed since the assassination of Radovan Stojicic Badza, Lieutenant General of the Police, Chief of the Public Security Service of MUP of Serbia and, at the time of death, the acting official of the Minister of Domestic Affairs of Serbia. Seventy day is neither an occasion for commemorating or for holding speeches, but should the police be reminded again of how its top man was gunned down? Yes, they should. Of course, the investigation continues — they are trying hard, doing the best they can. It’s no easy work, if we only recall the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the President of the U.S.A., or of Olaf Palme, Swedish Prime Minister, or of Aldo More, Italian Prime Minister, not to mention countless others. Truth be told, the police did search the entire area, they cast their nets everywhere, they put out the word among their underworld contacts, and carried out a complete criminal investigation which such a top priority case deserves. And seventy days have already passed...

While detectives searched and searched during those seventy days, and the policemen worked, that is to say, carried out investigations in this case, many things occurred in the meantime. The stunned public soon cooled to the news of the assassination, so that the impression left by this act can now be described as marginally significant. People shrugged their shoulders and said, "what can you do", while several tasteless and cynical jokes arose around this incident. There are two reasons for this: first, we saw so much in the past ten years, and one more murder, carried out in a way that tens of other similar ones were carried out, is hardly expected to cause much surprise; second, a public whose senses have been dulled by ten years of war, suffering, murder, frustration and poverty, can hardly be expected to identify with the state and its police. The Serbian Premier Marko Marjanovic illustrated best the prevailing attitude with his famous answer to the question whether he is concerned for his safety after Badza’s all too early death, when he said that he has nothing to fear, because "everything he does, he does honestly". The Premier’s scandalous faux pas in commenting on the assassination of the acting official of a Minister was only a marginal contribution to otherwise constant rumor, speculation and bar room theorizing regarding this assassination. The investigation is certainly not helped by the imaginativeness of those rumors which are not based on its possible conclusion, but which reflect public mood and expectations.

According to official sources, it has been concluded once and for all that the assassination was a case of an organized crime vendetta, which means that Lieutenant General Stojicic died honorably and in the line of duty.

Then from the highest source came a suggestion that an accomplishment award bearing the name of the deceased be instituted. "At that moment it struck me that the real perpetrator of this crime will never be found", states one anonymous policeman. "It all happened a bit too fast to be for real". In the meantime, people renting apartments were interrogated, along with people walking dogs in the area in where the murder took place, as well as those owning the particular "Ford" model sighted at the crime scene; one embassy offered the use of its video surveillance tapes for the critical time in question. The investigation still continues. There are cases in the history of our police force which were solved years after the perpetration of the crime: the memory of the police is powerful and permanent, being its prime investigative tool. Even computers help in this: thousands of names, places, vehicles, schedules, physical descriptions, and whereabouts of individuals are entered into a program which seeks similarities, analogies and patterns.

However, the main problem is so large and omnipresent that few people actually notice it. It is not limited to the police, but can be noticed throughout this unhappy society in the form of an all pervasive sickness — of a general deregulation and abrogation of all value systems and professional standards. The case of the assassination of Gen. Stojicic and the reactions of the public and the police are only one manifestation — all be it a worrisome one — of that sickness. Gen. Stojicic is not the first high police official in this world to be assassinated while doing his job: many generals of the Italian karabiniere, to not go any further, have died at the hands of political terrorists and the mafia. The difference is in something else; it is to be found in the political context of the given society. Italian, British, French, Spanish and German police forces have been fighting and still continue to fight against identifiable adversaries — the mafia, the "Red Brigades", IRA, various terrorist organizations, ETA, RAF, etc. — from the position of a legal system with integrity, which uphold laws, the constitution and the state, and protects the lives and property of citizens. Our police force has not been able to identify its mysterious adversary which from 1991 began carrying out assassinations bearing a familiar signature, ultimately extending its invisible hand to the very top of the police force, and dangerously close to the ruling Family. Who are these invisible people?

In the ten years of rule of the "Great Deregulator" (in the words of Srdja Popovic) this regime has managed to destroy the moral fiber of this society: it has managed to make a civil war army out of the police, and to make a new aristocracy out of criminals who have local tax free privileges (rackets), as well as privileges in the legal system (through beatings, assassinations and the like). These privileges are earned through faithful service of a master and the adherence to the principle "to each his own". This new aristocracy has its own guardians, priests, jesters, its newspapers and journalists, its radio and TV stations, and its swarm of flies who faithfully buzz with patriotism. Strategically and from the long range point of view the function of these new aristocrats is twofold: first, they serve their sovereign in putting down his subjects, which is something he is prone to anyway; second, he believes that such vassals will be indispensable when judgment day comes, which is where he is deluding himself — those who are capable of doing the things that have been done thus far, are capable of doing anything, including biting the hand that feeds them at the crucial moment when that hand needs them most. Without the cooperation, and perhaps even collusion of the police, such a social class could not have arisen, let alone survived.

Creating his ill-fated patriotic front, the Great Deregulator had sacrificed first the army, then the police to a bankrupt political project. The main objectives, let us remind ourselves, of a police force are to keep public peace, to protect the lives and property of citizens, and to uphold the constitution. In the former Yugoslavia, the corruption of the police was managed generally with efficiency. Radmilo Bogdanovic had inherited from his predecessor Svetomir Lalovic a well-organized and orderly police force following the Eighth Communist Party Congress (Lalovic had pursued all cases of corruption with due diligence). With the arrival of the multiparty system, the ground was set for the dissolution of Yugoslavia, while the compartmentalization of the Balkan wars brought about new circumstances and obligations, at which time the forces of the State Security Service were called upon. On March 9, 1991 the police was for the first time misused in compartmentalizing state security. Then, with the beginning of hostilities in Croatia, a growing number of policemen found their way to the front lines outside Serbia; this practice culminated in 1994 and 1995 in Croatia and Bosnia. Policemen discuss openly six week tours of duty at the front lines, two to three months at a time. Those unlucky enough to have been born on the territories of Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina were not given any choice — either you go, or you lose your job. How the policemen who endured that felt, only they will live to tell. It is one thing to be a policeman in Belgrade, Backa Palanka, Srbica or Pirot; it is quite another to be fighting shoulder to shoulder with various Serbian armies and paramilitary units in some godforsaken Vukovar. They returned from there with experiences which are best left untold. That is one part of the story of our present police force.

The other part concerns the growing use of the MUP in serving party rather than state interests. Policemen have naturally rebelled and continue to rebel against such instrumentalization, though in vain, as the chiefs know well who it is they serve. Thus the MUP is strategically faced with the dilemma with which the former JNA was faced in 1991: guarding the party and letting the state go to ruins, or guarding the state, and letting the party fend for itself. The JNA opted for the party, and lost both the nation, the party, and ultimately itself. With that experience, Gen. Momcilo Perisic recently warned the police not to try to act as the army, lest it should reap the same rewards — those of disgrace and pennilessness. Gen. Perisic uttered that warning, knowing full well its implications: the trend of political instrumentalization of the police has been happening for some time now. It began with brigade formations, continued with the Police Academy which, beside its special subjects, took over those of the Military Academy, along with the Army’s instructors, and is continuing with the institution of military titles and the broadening of specializations (on May 13, the police parachute unit was on parade). There are indications that the MUP is controlled by graduates of the Military Academy (through decades every class at the Military Academy had its company of policemen-to-be). That company now upholds the political instrumentalization of the police, which is of little surprise given the demoralized state the army finds itself in.

While all that was happening out in the open, the streets saw quite a different phenomenon. The regime made no distinction between policemen and other citizens: participation of both segments of the population in the black market economy was tolerated. Citizens and working people smuggled everything they could smuggle, from which the policemen took their cut. The caricature of a state was created, with its economy and a tax system all in one: the black market became the economy; the police racket became fiscal policy. Higher up, it often happened that the local chief of police worked hand-in-hand with the local mafia racketeer; lower down, the breaking of small but crucial codes of professional behavior was tolerated — namely, when an illegal confiscation of an illegal pack of cigarettes became accepted as a matter of protocol, soon that practice would be extended to far weightier business. That is exactly what happened as this nation found itself in a situation where enormous sums of money changed hands outside the normal, tax regulated channels. Simultaneously, all citizens, including policemen, found themselves in the position of committing two to three criminal acts on a continuing basis. That is otherwise known as lawlessness. Is it any surprise that no one even blinked at the mention of stories about "Badza’s deals and all his money", about "the bag with 700,000 DEM’s", and about "the connection with Kertes’ man"? Neither "yes", nor "no"; neither black, nor white.

Our police force, the MUP of Serbia, is fairly large, well-organized, disciplined, well-trained and equipped. Under professional command and with correct orders it is a precise and efficient instrument of the government, as we had occasion to see. The role of policemen can be tragic and shattering, as is the case with many jobs where a community is served. If anyone saw harm from the use and misuse of the police force up to now, it is probably the police itself which comes first in line. By its very nature, the calling of a policeman instinctively and logically precludes lawfulness and honesty. All corruption and misuse of the police force leads to terrible consequences; corruption spreads with equal speed from within, as from without, if it is not curbed in due time. At this moment, not even the most pragmatic policemen finds himself in an easy position: policemen are by the very nature of their job realistic people who are in direct contact with reality, mainly in its worst forms; bitter experience tells them that there is something very wrong with the present state of affairs; on the other hand, it is clear that regimes come and go, while the police force remains, because it is irreplaceable, especially when public safety is at stake. A good policemen is created with years of experience and pounding of the pavement; if they were addressed, they would be the first to wish for a normal state where thieves are arrested and put in jail, without regard for position, connections, patriotic awards, and where corrupted policemen lose their jobs immediately, if it stops at that. Everything else goes against the state and the police force, where the greatest harm comes from the policy of setting the police against the citizens — a premeditated policy whose goal is to isolate the police and to guarantee a back door for cynical manipulators when the day for settling accounts comes, and when the police force will be left hanging.

However, the police force is founded on subordination and discipline. Regardless of what policemen thought about the deceased Gen. Stojicic, all they could do at his funeral was to wipe their tears and keep quiet.

The Death of News

It must be a strange country when within three days the newspapers announce (1) the assassination of the effective chief of police, (2) in the presence of his son, (3) in a restaurant called "Mama Mia"; (4) of a man reputed for his participation in recent Yugoslav wars; (5) of a man whose funeral assembles in tears all the chiefs of the country, up-and-coming politicians and men with international warrants for arrest; (6) of a man whose name receives a newly forged achievement award; (7) of a policeman who was accused of illegality, (8) in a city in which ten unsolved assassinations previously took place; (9) in a country whose President declared a war against crime no less than two times.

It must be a very strange country, and its public must be very strange, if it is at all possible to conclude from the cited facts that there is anything public in such a country.

At the Top

Pavle Celik, the former commander of a special brigade of the federal Ministry of Police (MUP), spoke in a recent interview with VREME about the advantages of a Serbian regime "which has a very large police force. Milosevic has been building a strong police force over the years, giving it greater priority than the army". According to his calculations, "for the regions of Serbia, Montenegro and Republica Srpska, 40,000 policemen would be sufficient by international standards, whereas the Yugoslav police force has no fewer than 150,000 members! I researched and compared the statistics for 16 democratic nations of Western Europe for policemen per capita. In Austria one policemen guards 300 citizens; in Belgium, 267; in Finland, 427; in France, 284; in the Republic of Ireland, 290; in Iceland, 444; in Italy, 208; in Luxembourg, 467; in Holland, 332; in Norway, 491; in Portugal, 258; in Spain, 308; in Sweden, 340; in Switzerland, 455; in Great Britain, 417; and in Germany, 308. As far as Serbia is concerned, one policeman guard 63 citizens! That is by far the highest policeman per capita ratio in Europe. In Slovenia, for instance, the ratio is one policeman to 280 citizens".

Mistrust

According to research from the Center for Research of Political and Public Opinion of the Social Sciences Institute in Belgrade, conducted in December of last year, the trust placed in the police force was slightly higher than in May of the same year (37:40 ratio of those questioned); whereas mistrust of the police went down (from 57% in May, to 52% in December). The research results of the same institute are confronting the regime and its institutions in Serbia with a crisis of legitimacy which is reflected in open mistrust of a large part of the public. Only the army, the church, education, healthcare and SANU enjoy greater trust than mistrust. Only 12% of our citizens thinks that this system is good, which is 6 to 7 times less than in other countries — in Poland and Czechoslovakia, the public support of the system is at 76%.

The Police are not the Army

A recent public appearance of General Momcilo Perisic stressed that the police should not be doing the work of the army, nor the other way around. On the Day of the Yugoslav Army, he gave the following answer to the question on the comparative membership of the army and the police, characterizing the question as contentious: "The army has 103,000 soldiers, and I am not interested in how many policemen there are. We are equally the soldiers of all citizens in this country. We are not depoliticized only formally, but essentially. The army should do its job, and the police its job, which is vouched by the Bosnian experience. IFOR and SFORA were far more successful than UNPROFOR or JNA simply because they refused to take on the role of the police."

Corruption

In research conducted by VREME on corruption in February of this year, a question was posed on who is best qualified to deal with the problem of kickbacks. According to those questioned, the leading party is in the lead with 21% along with the institutions of the system: the parliament (9.5%), the legal system (10%), and only then the police (6.5%).

The often repeated promise of Milosevic that one of his main policies is the fight against crime is considered unfulfilled by the majority of those questioned (58%), while only an insignificant proportion think that the promise was fulfilled (4.5%). The answers to the questionnaire also included the following statements: "That is ridiculous; he dealt out DB cards to all the criminals"; "Forget it — in January alone there were five-six murders in less than ten days, none of which have been solved yet".

Without pretense it can be concluded that corruption is integral to the method of governing in Serbia, where whole segments of society are beyond any public control; for instance, the State Security Service (SDB) which can be called the backbone of this regime without much exaggeration.