The Mob

We have seen and heard more than enough over the last few years of those for whom apprehension always seemed to be greater than hope, or was it vice versa, however we have not seen anyone who aims for a national elite label, who would say out loud that our bills far surpass the depths of our pockets. We are counting churches in Kosovo, of which we have closed down certain ones ourselves, while lead and zinc is being counted by Novak Bijelic (with the help of a certain Greek). We shouted that Trieste is ours, having forgotten that in the 19th century, Serbs opened banks in Trieste not aided by burglary tools, but by diligence and a knack for trade. We are a heavenly nation, however that is no reason why we should walk naked and barefoot in this world. We wouldn’t like to compete with anyone, we would rather start a fight immediately. Our most elite nationalists believe that Montenegrins are Serbs, regardless of the convincing denials contained in the fact that the former have raised pensions by 26 percent, while Serbs have lowered them by 10 percent. No honest economic nationalist exists here, who could coordinate the Serbian national program with the end of the millennium. What we had were ignoramuses and rascals who claimed that the Slovenians and Croatians were exploiting us, and that they would starve to death in the dark, since they can’t survive without our food and electricity. The Serbian nationalists as a rule believe that people can survive on air, which should be placed on a fork depicting a certain fresco painting. They refuse to tackle telephone bills while they are settling - historical ones.

The information which follows cost me a meager thirty or so cents, and even had I placed the call from VREME’s editorial office and not from home, VREME wouldn’t be bankrupted, even though placing a call to the number 9812 would cost twice as much from the office; however, had I called America instead of Serbian Telekom’s department of information, we would have paid a fortune. According to information given by that department, which answers calls on the above mentioned number, following the latest price increase of 92.5 percent of the services of telephoning, one minute’s call to the US costs 50 dinars and 24 cents. One minute’s call to Germany costs 27 dinars and 62 cents. This is the price for so-called businesses while household calls, oh wonder of wonders, are cheaper by one half. If a certain important business deal forces you to talk to your US partner for two hours, your bill shall be, roughly, around 600 dinars, and for that amount, merely adding a measly 200 dollars, you can fly across the Atlantic and, even worse, return to this gangster country.

I made a grave error when, about a year ago, immediately following the signing of the agreement on the sale of 49 percent of Serbian Telekom (July 9, 1997), I wrote in this same news magazine that it is irrelevant for which price the rights to manage strategic resources of the country have been sold to the Italians and the Greeks, since the merger of two great European corporations with the domestic system of business dealings and management shall efficiently influence and bring about a desirable change in the overall relations in society. A grave mistake, since the Greeks and the Italians turned out to be greater Serbs than us. Naturally, what I have in mind here is the Serb who has attained power and is now shearing people like sheep. I totally understand the aspirations of  the STET and OTE companies to maximize their profit, however, that domestic traitors should aid them to such an extent, well, that must have surpassed even the Greek-Italian expectations, and I also believe that the domestic partner is more than satisfied with the foreigners’ cooperation.

SHADY BUSINESS: Namely, being as naive as I am, having been created as such by God himself, I believed that someone who is brave enough to slam one billion 568 million DEM on Milosevic’s table has a long-term interest, and all that is now happening only points out that the Greek and Italian companies have made one of those shady business deals whose logic boils down to extracting what has been deposited, plus a 30 percent profit over the next eight years, which is the duration of the monopoly as defined in the agreement on a fixed telephone system.

I do not doubt that the directors of these companies would be, as people would say, hung by their balls in the main Athens or Rome square, if one of the stipulations which has remained valid here, even a year after the distinguished signators of the Green Paper on Telecommunications of the European Union came here to help develop us, was active in their business relations with their domestic citizens. Namely, word is of the stipulation by which citizens and legal entities pay up to two thousand DEM for installing a telephone line by which they become investors of this multinational hocus-pocus, while not acquiring the right to get their money back nor the right to acquire the company’s stocks. This gangster measure was introduced in December 1992, and it is plainly evident that the citizens, while paying for the so-called telephone, compensated the failure of the Loan for the Revival of Serbia, along with all the other failures, including the then current war operations.

According to the calculations of the Development of Democracy Fund, in 1996 only, on the basis of this stipulation, the citizens paid into the PTT’s funds around 500 million DEM. If this amount is taken as trustworthy, and as average, it is not difficult to calculate that from this robbery the government amassed in the five year period starting from 1993 to 1997, around 2.5 billion DEM, which highly surpasses the Greek-Italian investment and which should, if justice existed, mean that the citizens would, in keeping with the assessment of the value of Serbian Telekom, at the moment when it was being sold to foreign partners, acquire over 50 percent of this company’s stocks.

PAYMENT INUJUSTICE: If they would “hang by their balls” for this, what do you think would happen to them when a Greek or Italian would have to pay twice as much for a telephone call than the price which his cousin who is temporarily working abroad, in let’s say, Germany would. One minute’s call from the Serbian house phone with it’s cousin in Munich costs 14 dinars, and if the cousin calls you instead, he would pay approximately 7 dinars. Let’s for example say that your cousin is having a hard time in Munich and is underpaid, and that you are earning a decent, i.e. average income of around 150 DEM here. It then turns out that your call is not only twice as expensive, but if we introduce the factor of monthly wages into this game of numbers, then your cousin who is having a tough time in Munich with 1500 DEM per month, in reality makes phone calls which are almost 20 times cheaper.

But, one should not cry over spilt milk. The arrangements in this gangster company were made so that no amount of wining could help. Foreign conquerors have 49 percent, local gangsters 51 percent of the shares - and when they are justifying the price increase, then Belgrade’s cold blooded leeches claim that the foreigners have demanded a correlation of the price of an impulse with the devaluation of the dinar - and when you complain to the foreigners of the injustices which arise from the monopolistic and unprofessional conduct of Serbian Telekom, they are prepared to shrug their shoulders with the excuse that they find it strange as well, but they are only minority owners. It is highly irrational to remind such people of the words of Mirko Marjanovic, the Prime Minister of Serbia, who, on that occasion, while the ink was still drying on that agreement, said: “Serbian Telekom, owing to this strategic investment which brings with it financial strength and the first-class expertise of it’s foreign partners, shall quickly be modernized and shall increase it’s efficiency.

MODERN DAY MIRACLE: Of course, life has taught all of us here not to believe all that politicians utter, some politicians more than others, and Marjanovic most of all, but it was difficult to believe that the entire financial burden of the otherwise necessary modernization of the telephone system would fall on the citizen’s backs, since economic logic said that foreign partners would find an interest in investing into that modernization in order to increase their own profit. However, what they came upon here is Eldorado itself. They discovered the “golden fleece”, never having left the conference room where the agreement was signed. They found the hen which lays golden eggs, which doesn’t even need to be fed. In the course of this robbery it is not necessary to wear a mask, nor is it recommended that one should scream “hands up”, as people won’t be able to place calls if you do.

Of all the modern day miracles, only one is in mass use here: the network is now computerized, and when your payment is late, they “disconnect” you from the network while sitting in their armchairs. Which is also the answer to the question why people pay their telephone bills en mass, while not paying their electricity, heating, water and other such “communal services” ones. Your telephone is “cut” in a rotten way, from afar, while you can hit the employee of the Power Company at the moment he approaches your electricity pole. However, let’s be honest, that modern day miracle existed even before the Greeks and the Italians stepped on the scene. However, if you believed that with the appearance of two serious telecommunication houses, you would start getting serious, decent bills with clear itemized statements: who you called, when you called, how much that cost etc., then you’re mistaken. The bill is a lump sum one, just like when you buy potatoes, parsley and onions at a certain open market booth and pay for it all together. Only a small number of subscribers are “connected” to the telephone exchanges from which they can, in a just way, skim through your consumption, while most function by word only, according to the - “you owe me” system. And if you’re connected to a telephone exchange which is “intelligent” enough to group your telephone potatoes and your telephone onions into separate files, you have to write a special request in advance, as though you’re demanding money from them, and not as though you’re inquiring into the reason why you’re parting with your money, and if it happens that Telekom has made no mistakes, they then charge you for that “service” with 50 impulses, to prevent you from ever asking again, and to keep you quiet while paying up, happy that they haven’t started hitting you as well.

HOW TO SCARE OFF SERBS: This telephone case anatomy can naturally be continued to the point of the  “most minuscule particles”. However, what stands out here are merely certain striking and bizarre details, while in the general sense another interesting phenomenon occurs. Privatization and foreign investments which are executed in such a manner shall invoke in the otherwise autistic and xenophobic Serbs additional resistance towards any other foreigner’s meddling into our affairs, with the belief that all foreigners are Italians, all Italians Greeks, and all Greeks are members of the Socialist  Party of Serbia, so that the government might attain an additional profit which, perhaps, it didn’t count on while calculating how to punish us for the privilege of placing phone calls.

The presence of foreign capital and investment truly do not agree with them long term, because it would put a stop to any of the established monopolies on the domestic market. A massive influx of that capital would gradually annul the power of such an established country. The regime aims to attain total control over all capital which would appear here, and shall let it flow in only in those cases where mutual interest to maintain the nature of the regime, as such, is crystal clear, since only in this system can Serbs remain in the position of a Bantu tribe at the moment when it perceived white slave dealers.