What Happened to Milutinovic?

by Slobodanka Ast

After the post-operation report, the medical council has stopped informing the public about the medical condition of the President of Serbia. The leadership of the Dedinje Clinic has evidently opted for an old and famous version - not to reveal any details of the illness, or of the post-operation condition which seems to be quite normal so far

On April 10th, President of Serbia Milan Milutinovic underwent a "planned cardio surgical operation", it was said ten days ago by the staff of Dedinje Clinic, where Milutinovic was situated. "The routine surgical procedure ended without complications, and the post-operation state of the patient is quite regular", it is said in the report of the council, signed by Dr. Milovan Bojic, Dr. Reik Huskic and Dr. Milutin Miric.

The Danas daily revealed some more precise information: "Milutinovic underwent a triple by-pass operation", after he had had a heart attack last Sunday. Danas also published, without official confirmation, that it was originally planned that Milutinovic should leave the Clinic by the last weekend, but that his transferal to home care was postponed for a few days. Until the moment when our newspaper was ready for printing (Wednesday afternoon), President of Serbia was still situated in hospital and there was no public notification on the side of the medical council. VREME unofficially found out that Milan Milutinovic might leave the Dedinje Clinic by the end of this week. The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia (article 87, paragraph 6) says: "If the President of the Republic is temporarily unable to perform his duties, for any reason, he should be substituted by the President of the Parliament." Accordingly, in case that Milutinovic is "temporarily hindered", his function should be taken over by Dragan Tomic. The Constitution does not define the tolerable time span of that temporary replacement.

>From President Milutinovic's office, a news was spread via Danas daily that "in terms of performing the function of president, there is still no change', that Milutinovic even signed all decrees brought by the National Parliament, which were published in the Business Courier.

After the post-operation announcement, the medical council stopped informing the public about the medical condition of the President of Serbia. There was neither a formal news about the experts who performed the procedure.

Foreign newspaper agencies report that Milan Milutinovic has had serious heart problems for years, his heart attack is also mentioned; his medical condition is even more delicate since he had a high blood pressure, but not the diabetes. Above all, Milan Milutinovic smokes a lot; that can be witnessed by a statement given by a Japanese journalist to whom Milutinovic gave an interview several months ago, and published in VREME: "During the one-and-a-half-hour interview, your president finished almost the entire package of cigarettes!", commented the Japanese with surprise.

The staff of Dedinje Clinic, in agreement with the uppermost Serbian politicians, probably think it is not wise to inform the citizens of Serbia about the medical state of the President of the Republic.

Some doctors claim that such secrecy has not been kept even in the time of Tito; at that time the medical councils used to give regular reports, and it would often happen that an optimistically coloured anecdote reached the public. In those announcements, even the complications of the post-operation period were revealed. Are we this time dealing, as some are likely to think, with a political choreography, fear of the public or with something else?