In The Liberals' Claws

The dismissal of Jovica Stanisic, the head of the Serbian State security service, is still being interpreted in many ways. Some people are talking about the Fourth Plenum, others are recalling the Eighth Session of the Communist League, but there is also a party qualifying Stanisic's demise as the defeat of the liberal faction within Slobodan Milosevic's regime. The state security service is now in the hands of the public security sector for the first time in its illustrious biography.

Rade Markovic, the man who succeeded Stanisic, is only the third head of the state security service to get there outside the organization's ranks.

Why is this a relevant factor? Because public security and state security are two different trades, not only in communist states. Public security is about protecting law and order in public, the lives and property of a country's citizens as well as exercising authority when necessary. State security, by definition, deals with protecting the Constitution and intelligence work.

It is up to the prevalent political currents and legislative imagination how these definitions will be interpreted in this particular state. History remembers Osip Mandeljstam, a Russian poet, who wrote the following when he learned that a notorious NKVD officer was executed. "He was shot for being too liberal". A number of Russian heads of secret police were shot not because of what they were guilty of before God and the people, but for convenient reasons such as "liberalism". The daily Politika kept writing about a political conspiracy, but Tito neatly pardoned Rankovic and the whole affair had a happy ending. Rankovic stuck to the code of silence for the rest of his life, many ranking people thought he had died as a true Serbian nationalist when they came to his funeral. The portrait and deed of Jovica Stanisic is now becoming a myth. He went down because he was too liberal, because he wouldn't surrender Kosovo, because he didn't approve the actions taken in Kosovo from March to October, because Mira Markovic was angry with him, because he was too good a cop who had his own mind, because he was revolted with the force applied against the protesters of the 1996-97 rally, or perhaps because the Family didn't like his judgment that Milosevic's supporters from central Serbia shouldn't be confronted with the protesters. The word is that he also might have taken the fall because representatives of the major powers wanted him to.

Cold and objective analysis would probably show that the dismissal of Jovica Stanisic was caused by a bit of everything, even some thing still not being mentioned in public. None of the above stated reasons are good enough on their own. You don't sack your head of the secret service just like that, especially not people like Jovica Stanisic in the given political circumstances. You need a very good reason, like a secret service with growing power for instance.

Let's have a look at Jovica Stanisic's career: his service pursued a policy "controlled by the Constitutional Court of Serbia", "inclined to the Serbian president's personality" and all that in accord with "constitutional and lawful authorities". It pursued a policy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo. The service did its job the best it could, using various means, methods, ties and units. Missions were accomplished timely and successfully, sometimes too successfully. Stanisic's mediation in the release of UN hostages in the Bosnian Serb republic in 1995 was welcomed at home and abroad. So, why was he sacked? Did his boss know what he was doing?

The head of any secret service is a person in a very delicate position. The transfer of power among heads of security services in Britain and other western countries sometimes lasts for a year or so. They are usually succeeded by close aides, people who know the business. That's because a head of state security service keeps all the most important and the most touchy information in his head, not in a written file or, God forbid, a computer data bank.

The work of a secret service is based on mutual trust and a full consensus about a common objective. The basic job of such organizations is to gather, process and place information, while activities such as infiltration, fabrications, subversion and paramilitary activities are marginal. The secret service is a sensitive and vulnerable organism based on a code of silence.

The head of a secret service has the mission to preserve the authenticity of the given information and to tell the truth to the one receiving it. That's why Jovica Stanisic, like all other men in his position, always took the risk of taking the lash when he brought bad news when the news wasn't good. In an ideal state, truthful information will always be more important to the state than the interests of the parasites, thieves and political adversaries roaming around the court and trying to suck up to the ruler. But, what state is ideal? From the security service's point of view, it's a state appreciating the honest and genuine effort of its anonymous field agents.

That's where the drama featuring unreturned loyalty comes in. "We bled for them over there and that's all they have to say about it", is the eternal cry to those who were let down by supreme national interests. Those who don't believe it should have ask the Serbian police to withdraw from Kosovo in the past few weeks. This bitterness is very apparent in Stanisic's statement given shortly after he stepped down. The former head of the state security service will probably keep his mouth shut about what went on while he was in charge, for that’s the professional morality in his business. The question is, will other people keep quiet too.

The dismissal of Jovica Stanisic and the resultant staff changes that could follow will mark a new era in the history of the Serbian police, not to mention that consequences of possible agreements on Kosovo could pop up. All the details will see daylight some day.

The Spy Who Loved Us

Last week, the French secret service arrested Major Pierre Binel for spying. It turned out that Mr. Binel was spying for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. At the moment of his arrest, Binel was the top aide of General Pierre Virot, the French representative in NATO's Brussels headquarters. Major Binel was handed over to judge Gilbert Tielle of the anti-terrorist prosecuting department. He was charged with "collaborating with the enemy" and faces up to 15 years of imprisonment.

Major Binel told the judge that he had received no money at all for his services to the Yugoslav side. He explained that he revealed information on NATO's possible military targets in Yugoslavia because of his "pro-Serb feelings" and his desire to help the Serbs. French media said that Binel aroused suspicion with his "peculiar behaviour". The French military intelligence put him under surveillance before Alain Rochard, the French foreign minister, was notified of his case. Rochard then passed Binel's file on to the French secret service (DST).

Quite understandably, the cause caused a lot of upheaval in NATO's Brussels headquarters. The French representatives said that relations between France and NATO haven't been spoiled by the affair, but media from the US and other allies had their own opinions. Many foreign newspapers reminded of the French "pro-Serbian position" and Major Gourmelon who had an "inappropriate friendship" with Radovan Karadzic. Someone came up with the theory that classified information leaked to Yugoslavia through Greece, but more serious analysts in Brussels and Paris drew public attention to Major Pierre Binel's biography.

Major Binel was born in 1952. He joined the army in 1972 and became a graduate of the prominent Saint Sierre military academy in the 1973-75 class. He was immediately transferred to Special Staff, a formation of active officers for intelligence missions. He made lieutenant in 1976, captain in 1980, and finally major in 1993. He took part in the Gulf War as the intelligence officer of a French division. He was given a reputable US medal after the war. Binel served as the intelligence officer with the French quick reactions headquarters for quite some time (RRF). He was with the RRF in Bosnia from 1995 to 1997 and got the Foreign Legion's Medal of Honour upon his return from the former Yugoslav republic.

The final detail in Binel's illustrious career could shed some light on the scandal in which he has been accused of being a spy. The most likely script is that during his mission in Bosnia, Major Binel became sympathetic with the Serbs and made friends among them. He then allegedly got in touch with his friends' friends and passed certain information to them. According to the Paris daily Le Monde, Binel's contact was one Jovan Milanovic, a representative of the Yugoslav mission with the EU. Binel and Milanovic met four times during the period between July and October 15. Milanovic said in a telephone interview that he had received no information as such from Binel, although the French media say that there are video tapes proving that the two were up to something fishy.

However, the nature of the information Binel allegedly passed to Milanovic remains unclear. NATO's possible targets in Yugoslavia are not much of a secret in any case. The Rome daily La Republica published a list of 600 targets NATO could pick in the event of a military intervention against Yugoslavia. Possible targets are one cup of tea, but real targets that would actually be hit in an air strike are another. The NATO headquarters says that General Wesley Clarke, the NATO Commander-In-Chief for Europe (CINCEUR), was the only person authorized to determine the targets in the event of an actual attack. What is more, NATO works on a need to know basis anyway, meaning that Binel had no way of knowing relevant information that he allegedly leaked to his Serb friends. That, on the other hand, is standard defense in cases such as the one in front of us.

Foreign correspondents in Brussels are now speculating whether Binel could have possessed something far more valuable than the list of possible targets - data on electronic monitoring and electronic countermeasures. The question is, does NATO have the frequencies of Yugoslavia's anti-aircraft defense radar systems? Could the organization jam the systems or would it encounter a few nasty surprises in case of an air strike against Yugoslavia? There is no information that could shed some light on the mystery, as there is no evidence yet that Major Binel actually revealed classified information to Milanovic. With the French legislature being as slow as it is, we will have to wait a while before we get some answers.