SPS Stampedo

The state media, which are following with incredible attention the activities of nearly every village committee of the Serbian Socialist Party (SPS) these days when the ruling party is making preparations for its upcoming Congress, curiously overlooked a news item from the beginning of this week concerning preparations by the remaining Serbs in Kosovo Polje to send a petition to SPS President Slobodan Milosevic and this Party's leaders, Gorica Gajevic and Milomir Minic.  The petition that has been signed already by several hundred Serbs in Kosovo Polje demands that the SPS leadership review the actions of Bogdan Kecman, Dobrica Lazic, Dragoljub Velickovic, Zdravko Budimirovic, Novica Sojevic, Miloje Jelic, Djordje Simic, Dragan Velickovic, Stevan Marinkovic, Radenko Krulj, Zivorad and Ljiljana Bijkovic, Vojislav Vucinic, Zivojin Djorovic, Ljubomir Vujovic and another dozen former officials of this party who once had permanent residences in this community.

It appears that the demands made in this petition by the present residents of Kosovo Polje for the persons appearing on this list to return immediately to Kosovo and to their homes, for a criminal investigation to begin against these persons for property they took with them, for the actions of these persons to be reviewed at the upcoming SPS Congress, and for some of them to be stripped of their seats in parliament - all this does not appear to have been sufficiently interesting for the state run media who once used to report on every gathering made by Serbs in the region, be it in field or forest.

MONEY AND PRIVILEGES:  The residents of Kosovo Polje who claim to have been left high and dry are addressing Slobodan Milosevic directly in this petition and are informing him that those who fled from Kosovo and still continue to hold membership in the SPS used to claim that it was precisely he, Slobodan Milosevic, who gave up on the residents of Kosovo Polje.  "Those Serb traitors who went around after the signing of the agreement in Kumanovo, visiting all of our houses and telling us that 'President Milosevic is a traitor.'  And that 'He [Milosevic - ed.] sold out Kosovo and Metohija.'  Bogdan Kecman was foremost in such statements, and now he is in Belgrade, claiming that we are all Hashim Tachi's allies and co-terrorists.  They were not at all interested in saving our lives, but only in taking with them enormous wealth which they could only take with them once they got the entire people to flee in refugee convoys," are some of the statements made in this petition directed at the SPS leadership.  The petition concludes with criticism directed at the very top of the SPS: "Your doors are always open to them [i.e. the persons appearing on the list of names submitted with the petition - ed.], while according to those same people, the doors to your cabinet remain permanently closed to us."

The names of the majority of people mentioned in this petition are not familiar to the wider public, but to all those who used to go by "the who's who in Kosovo," many of the names on this list are hardly insignificant.  The best known name is certainly that of Bogdan Kecman, who used to be one of the leaders in the anti-bureaucratic revolution, and in recent years has been Director of Jugopetrol for Kosovo and Director of Bozur, a fairly marginalized organization which had as its objective to bring together old residents of this region.  At the beginning of last year Radenko Krulj had been appointed Rector of the Pristina University, but he was stripped of that title several weeks ago when the new Rector, Jagos Zelenovic, was appointed.  Besides being remembered as one of the leaders of the Serb reawakening in Kosovo, Vojislav Vucinic is also remembered by the fact that on December 24, 1996, he aimed his gun at the opposition at those meetings in Belgrade when Serbia headed closer to civil war than ever before.  Before the last war, Ljubomir Vujovic was Director of "Boro and Ramiz" Mall in Pristina and owner of Hotel Herzegovina in Kosovo Polje, which was rented for a while by a part of the American Verification Mission in Kosovo.  However, it is interesting that the authors of the petition failed to include several other prominent SPS officials who fled from Kosovo Polje, even though these number among the members of the Head Committee of the SPS.

In explaining the reasons for putting together a petition of this sort, President of the Serbian National Parliament in Kosovo Polje, Sveto Grujic, pointed above all that the members of the Socialist Party of Serbia from this region are understandably bitter, in fact angry with all those who appear to have only waited for this kind of situation to develop.  Grujic says that the majority of them supported a general exodus, spreading fear and panic, and telling people that Albanian gangs will soon show up and will slice everyone's throat.  In addition to all this, all those who were mentioned in the petition "were very illspirited in their claims that Slobodan Milosevic is a traitor who sold out Kosovo, which is the lowest kind of treachery."

"Individuals must be held accountable for treachery because even two months after the coming of the KFOR to Kosovo, not a single Albanian has shown up here.  They had nowhere to return.  Because of the possible fiasco in the most important SPS stronghold in Souther Serbia, these people must be held accountable before the Serbian people, before the SPS, before Slobodan Milosevic, before history and the future generations," states Grujic.

EASY TARGET: According to him, around 7,000 Serbs remain in Kosovo Polje, of which "90 percent support the SPS."  Even though initially, certain individuals counseled a general exodus, this was not accepted.  Thanks to this around 90 percent of the houses and apartments belonging to Serbs in Kosovo Polje were salvaged on account of this.  However, later, because of a sense of insecurity and loss of freedom, around 300 Serb homes were sold in Kosovo Polje.  Among the ones who remained there was a feeling that it would have been better to burn those houses to the ground and to destroy them because all selling of property encourages everyone's sense of insecurity and inspires them to do the same thing.  Sveto Grujic tells VREME that the persons listed in the petition have still not been ousted from the SPS because of party unity and that party's policy of, above all else, "affirming that which characterized the battle for liberation, for patriotism, dignity and the maintaining of sovereignty."  But the Socialists from Kosovo Polje demand that none of the people on the petition list should be permitted to hold official positions in the SPS.  "After the Congress, courage must be summoned to call these people to account, for illegally acquired property to be taken away from those who are in its present possession, and for that property to be distributed to those who fell in the name of freedom, independence and the territorial integrity of Serbia and Yugoslavia.  It is shameful to permit anyone to buy Kosovo Polje for money.  No one in Kosovo had this privilege thus far.  Kosovo Polje could go to ruin because of such people," Grujic states.

One Serb from Kosovo who left that region for good in December and who is quite familiar with the local population, confirms the fact that some people really did flee from Kosovo Polje, taking with them considerable wealth: "Whether everything they took with them belonged exclusively to them or whether they took with them stuff they were instructed to take, I don't know.  But I do know that the people who remained there were very touched by this."  As the last remaining Serb enclave after Kosovska Mitrovica, right up to the beginning of November, Kosovo Polje was still relatively safe.  Even though it sounds slightly sarcastic, in the initial months of the KFOR in Kosovo, there were not too many victims in this enclave, by comparison with other Serb enclaves.  At the beginning of November, two people were killed at the Serb market in the Village of Bresije from a grenade that was fired from close range, while over thirty people were injured.  This was the signal for local Serbs that Kosovo Polje will henceforth become an easy target.
Many former Kosovo officials left Pristina in June of last year when remaining in that city had become too much of a risk.  Former President of the SPS Regional Council, Vojislav Zivkovic, went to Smederevo where he is presently working as a consultant with Serbian Telecom.  Several other high officials from Kosovo found jobs in the Serbian Telecom.  Certain regional institutions have been transferred to Nis, Kragujevac and Kursumlija.  These are cities in which many former officials are living in exile and according to appointment.  Zivorad Igic, President of the SPS Regional Council and member of the Head Committee of this party was the last well known politicians to flee from Kosovo, and only after he had been beaten up in front of the house where he used to live.  In an interview for VREME, Igic claims that despite the difficult situation in Kosovo which is the result of activities by Albanian terrorists and separatist, the party elections for the Socialist Party of Serbia in this part of the Republic are being brought to a successful conclusion.  "Over 90 percent of the scheduled community meetings have been held and new leaders were chosen, and what is most important, the party network has been established, along with the entire party infrastructure, which has been under fire since the coming of the UN security forces and their Civil Mission, along with the Serb and Montenegrin populations in Kosovo and Metohija," Igic states, adding that soon a regional SPS meeting will be held as part of the final preparations for the Fourth Party Congress of the Socialist Party of Serbia.  The elections held thus far among the Socialists in Kosovo and Metohija and those elsewhere indicate the enormous vitality of this party, Mr. Igic points out, and merely confirms that it "is the most popular, best organized and politically and socially most influential political party among the Serb and Montenegrin people in that part of Serbia, and not just there."

TAUNTING THE BEAST: A VREME source indicates that SPS party elections had been carried out in all areas in Kosovo where Serbs are still living, excluding Preoce, where SPS representatives were driven away by the local resident.  For instance, the SPS Municipal Council for Pristina met at Gracanica.  Three days later, people from Kecman's Bozur organized a citizens' meeting with the objective of replacing all newly elected SPS officials, claiming that they had not been chosen by the people, but that they had been appointed from above.  Our source informs us that the party elections were in fact carried out on the basis of candidates who had been chosen ahead of time, which resulted in sharp feelings among the remaining local Serbs, especially given the fact that more than half of the appointed candidates no longer live in the places in which they are supposed to have been elected.  However, the main agenda at the majority of such citizens' meetings was the traitorous nature of people like Bishop Artemije and Moma Trajkovic.  It appears that their greatest fault is the fact that they accepted cooperation with the UNMIK and the KFOR, instead of allowing the Yugoslav State to do this.  "Perhaps the people in the ruling party feel that they did a good job, but my impression is that there is no real contact with the people, nor can there be any real contact under conditions in which the majority has left Kosovo."

The SPS leadership has not issued any official statements regarding whether those individuals who are member of this party and who left Kosovo are in the right.  Some of them have been replaced without too much noise.  Zoran Andjelkovic was the only one who directly said anything on this subject (as far back as last summer) when he admitted that as President of the Temporary Executive Council of Kosovo he was compelled to use police escorts to bring back some community presidents by force to their communities in Kosovo (in Prizren, for instance).  At that time Andjelkovic admitted that it is no longer easy to be a Serb in Pristina, nor in any other place in Kosovo, and that this carries with it a great risk.  "However, courage is the characteristic of certain individuals and no one should be forced into being courageous if he or she lacks this personal character trait, for such a person will only pose a danger to him-/herself and to the community at large.  If a person finds him or herself in a position where they are required to be brave - I'm not thinking of official duty, but personal duty to people to whom one pledged allegiance and whom one begged and urged to remain in Kosovo - then such a person must not tell the people to remain in Kosovo, while he or she chooses to escape," stated Andjelkovic.

It can be concluded from the reaction of the state media to the petition put together by the Socialists of Kosovo Polje that taunting the Kosovar beast, even if it means doing this through the exiled officials, is a thankless task, and as a result it might very well happen that this petition will only reach Belgrade after the upcoming Congress.  At the same time, there are those who think that this story from Kosovo Polje might be used as a basis for an overhaul of the party ranks in the coming days.
And finally, this entire story has two ends.  No one who fled from Kosovo fearing for their life and the lives of their family can be criticized or chastised.  Assuming, of course, that they did not need entire convoys of trucks to move their belongings and someone else's belongings.  However, there is also the practice which was common in Ancient Rome when after a scaffold was taken down from some public work or building, the main architect and construction foreman were required to spend the initial few days within the walls which they designed and built.  In this way, if there was any fault in the design, the calculation or the quality of the construction, the architect and the construction foreman would feel it on their own heads first.