Conspiracy Theories

Is it really our luck that the conclusion to the political drama in Serbia will unfold according to the rules of a fictional thriller.  Somehow, last spring and this winter, events are taking that direction.  Everywhere we look, we see assassination attempts and conspiracies.

THE TRUCK: On October 3, 1999, a truck carrying sand veers out of its lane on the Ibar Highway near Leskovac, resulting in the death of four SPO officials, while the leader of that party, Vuk Draskovic, barely escapes alive.  SPO claims that this is an assassination attempt, demanding for the perpetrators to be arrested.  But because the investigation is being stalled, the party begins its own investigation in which it asks for assistance from Interpol.  The team of experts brought together for this occasion are focusing on the fact that the police is not releasing the name of the owner of the truck used in the assassination.  This expert team claims that the truck was confiscated at the border crossing and that it is owned by the State Security Service, and that it is in the secret registry of vehicles intended for special operations.  Somehow at this time the border patrol officer who SPO claims confiscated the truck in question, along with another similar truck, is killed.  Previous owners of these trucks are shown on Studio B Television.  After this SPO files criminal suits against the chiefs of the State Security Service for Belgrade and for Serbia.  The police denies these claims and calls in advisors to the SPO President and SPO members of parliament for questioning, but none of them respond to the calls.  Vuk Draskovic tells the police that they should address him personally about any details concerning the assassination attempt.

OSA: The so-called Serbian Liberation Army (OSA) in the meantime takes responsibility for the assassination attempt against Draskovic.  Initial analyses, including the one in VREME magazine, indicate that this is probably a real or imaginary organization used in disinformation campaigns.  However, the public has been recently informed that members of OSA have been arrested and that they are being tried before the military court in Belgrade.

After the assassination attempt against Draskovic, several officials of the Yugoslav Left (JUL) begin remembering that Zoran Todorovic Kundak's killer is still at large but that they hope that he will soon be brought to justice.  Mirjana Markovic announces that there is a spy network at universities which is giving students money and drugs.  The Serbian Information Minister, member of the Radical Party, Mr. Vucic, accuses the independent media of accepting assistance from the West.  In his book, "End of the Serbian Fairytale" Slavoljub Djukic notes that as early as 1994 Mirjana Markovic demanded the firing of Chief of the State Security Service, Jovica Stanisic, as she was greatly disturbed by information from her associates that they are all under close police surveillance - "they are hearing in on all of us!"  According to Djukic, after a dramatic meeting with Milosevic, Stanisic was under temporary amnesty, still being useful but no longer in the president's favor.  Djukic quotes testimony by journalist Slavko Curuvija from a VREME interview with him where he said that Mira Markovic claimed in the close circle of her friends that a conspiracy is in the making and it includes Jovica Stanisic and Momcilo Perisic (former Chief of the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army).  At the end of 1998 both Stanisic and Perisic were replaced.  On April 11, 1999, on Orthodox Easter, Slavko Curuvija was killed in front of his house during the bombing of Serbia, with no relevant details about the investigation of his murder having come out to this very day.
SPIDER: In November of 1999, the State Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) of Serbia arrested five members of a reserve unit with the Yugoslav Army who are suspected of having planned the assassination of the FRY President.  These five are suspected of having acted under the code name Pauk (i.e. Spider).  In announcing this the Federal Minister for Information, Goran Matic, also suggested that this group was specialized in assassinations using trucks filled with sand.  He did not state it openly, but allowed the public to conclude that this group is behind the assassination attempt against Draskovic.

Following this the regime developed several other accusations - one directed against the Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic for alleged participation in cigarette smuggling and against the President of the Government of Republika Srpska, Dodik, who was accused of having participated in the falsification of money...

FILM NEWS: On the 55th anniversary of the Film News, Federal Minister for Information Matic released footage from the interrogation of the leader of the group "Spieder", Jugoslav Dominik Petrusic, who stated that Draskovic met with a certain Patrick, an official of the French DGSE (Direction generale de la securite exterieur).  When he was warned by the interrogator to be careful about the information he gives, he stated that in fact Draskovic spoke with Vujara (top man of Key d'Orsey for Yugoslavia), having met with him in "96/97" and "recently, when he was in Paris."  According to the interpretation of this televised footage, the transcript of which was published in the daily newspaper, "Danas", Petrusic claims that Patrick told him that he got a personally signed book from Draskovic, that Petrusic personally saw that book, but that he did not see, it is not entirely clear what; that "he knows that Draskovic said that he needed money" and that he thinks he knows what Patrick told him; "that Danica Draskovic talks more than he does..."  The SPO Members of Parliament Club announced that they will demand Matic's resignation because of the statements that he made to the effect that Vuk Draskovic met with the French secret service.  Predrag Simic, Advisor to the President of SPO, stated that accusations made against the President of SPO, who stayed in the country and with his people during the aggression, are outside of the bounds of good taste, and that it was merely an attempt at discrediting the meeting by the opposition in which a plan of action for the upcoming months was agreed upon.  It is very likely that the SPO will file criminal charges in this case.

Several details stick out like a sore thumb in this entire scenario.  One murder completely forgotten (Slavko Curuvija); one investigation completely stalled (assassination against Draskovic); one spy-terrorist organization (Spider) is facing civil charges, while another terrorist group (Osa) is facing the military court.  Details about a sensitive investigation such as the attempt at planning the assassination of the President of the Republic is announced by the Minister for Information, and not by any of the chiefs of the institutions in charge of security.  Details about such a sensitive investigation are leaking into the public (admittedly through the regime's media), which must certainly constitute a breach of the law regulating criminal investigations.  This coincides with an unprecedented campaign against all political opponents (one editorial actually states that Draskovic "is kissing the blood stained hand of the evil Piglet").  The public is not being informed as to whether anyone is responsible for the staggering inefficiency of the investigations into Curuvija's murder or into the assassination attempt against Draskovic, nor whether anyone in the government had contacts with the "Spiders" during their activities in Bosnia or during their mercenary mission in Africa, and whether anyone in the government was "looking out for them."  Did anyone in the government have contacts with the individuals because of whom so much mudslinging of Draskovic is taking place.

Instead of giving answers to key questions, the regime is exploiting a spy thriller for the defamation of its opponents.  All this is maybe targeted at the large segment of the voting public (40 percent) who are undecided.  This method might actually yield something, for as Don De Lillon writes in his book "In Dallas" (1988), "conspiracy is everything that life is not."  However, there is also the other side.  The French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) claimed in this book "Democracy in America" that the search for conspiracies merely increases elements of morbidity, paranoia and phantasms.  As things stand, the logic of these affairs is that sooner or later they would have to explode in the very tops of the government, because there are people there who would have had to have know details which are now being covered up with spectacular antics.  It appears that a deep and dangerous conflict within the government is hiding beneath all this, just as the series of affairs indicates that the government is operating in an atmosphere of paranoia and insecurity.  A government full of paranoia is a dangerous government.  The logic of the film "Colonel Redl", with all of this being quite reminiscent of the situation in that film, indicates that the discovery of a conspiracy to commit high treason can save a dynasty.  As a matter of course, conspiracies to commit high treason can only take place at a royal court, with Redl himself organizing a conspiracy and fixing things so that he is discovered and executed.  The problem is that in the film version, all the conspirators also succeed in their intentions...

Whether they want to or not, someone very high in the echelons of power will have to confront the meaning purported to by the expression that is ascribed to Joseph Fouche, Duc d'Otrante (1759-1820), Napoleon's Minister of Police: "That is worse than crime, that's a mistake..."