Death List

Last week's spectacular liquidation of Zoran Uskokovic Skole counts among the "longest" liquidation registered on the streets of Belgrade, both in terms of space and time it took up.  As far as space is concerned, the assassins began their work in the Belgrade neighborhood of Vidikoviac, where the first burst of fire was discharged into Uskokovic's Audi from another Audi, and concluded many miles later in the neighborhood of Labudovo Brdo, where after mutual exchange of automatic fire, the deadly shots were finally made.  Beside Skole, also murdered was his bodyguard (as in many earlier such cases), otherwise "a policemen on sick-leave."  As far as time is concerned, the liquidation of Zoran Uskokovic Skole took the most time of all liquidations - it began three days earlier in the entrance to the building where he lives, where a powerful explosive, evidently intended for him, was activated.

The high speed chase Uskokovic was involved in was not the first one for him, but it was the last.  As far back as 1992, a hundred policemen were chasing him around the Belgrade neighborhood of Kanarevo Brdo, under suspicion that he killed two people, one of who was a police officer.  He was finally arrested, but served only one year and seven months of a 20 year sentence he was given for committing the double murder.  After that, in recent years he was only mentioned as a "successful businessman" and owner of restaurants in Stockholm and Athens, and a hotel under construction in Barcelona.  His name found the front page after the murder of Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, when one Belgrade newspaper, most probably quoting certain police sources, mentioned Uskokovic as the "logistical organizer" of that murder.  Uskokovic himself quickly denied such rumors and returned to the country at the beginning of March in order to show that he has nothing to fear.

Several days prior to Uskokovic's murder, in the center of Belgrade the Director of Yugoslav Air Transport (JAT), Zika Petrovic, was murdered.  Petrovic was a prominent industrial leader and a spotless individual who it was difficult to suppose would ever meet his end in such a way - he was discovered in a pool of blood on the curb, lying next to his Audi, without anyone having heard or seen anything.  In many similar liquidations (there were all too many for a country with thousands of policemen), the subsequent investigations inevitably did not yield anything, regardless of whether anything was seen or heard, or whether a murder carried the signature of the cruelest Mafiosi.

The endless series of mysterious and unsolved murders which, beside the crime bosses, is ever increasingly including the political and industrial leaders, is raising an entire slew of questions and suspicions.  The primary question is that politics, the economy and crime have become so intertwined here that it is increasingly difficult to draw a clear line between them, that is to say that every new liquidation can be "justified" in at least ten different ways.  Recently, when a well known Belgrade crime figure was killed, who was officially also an established businessman, it was found out that the same man also worked part-time on other ventures: "someone," for instance, paid him to go with his gang with baseball bats and to beat up demonstrators and anti-regime protests.  This have even gone so far that certain Belgrade betting houses are now including bets on who is next in line to be knocked off.  Beside bets on football clubs like Lacio, Manchester or Real Madrid, money is being wagered on who could be next in line for the newspaper death notices.  Supposedly the highest betting name is on a man who officially belongs to the world of politics, but apparently also does other things.

Former professor at the Law Faculty in Belgrade (fired for political reasons), Ph.D. Dragor Hiber is warning in many of his public appearances that the connection between politics, the economy and crime is all to dangerous.  As a consultant for legal and economic issues, Ph.D. Hiber is often in a position to see how the system functions and has concluded from an analysis of motives for the series of murders since the beginning of this year that a lot of things are at play, from crime gang settlements, to so-called business conflicts or purely political murders.  And how is it possible for all this to end up unsolved in the largest majority of cases?  We begin the interview with VREME from the latest, spectacular murder of Zoran Uskokovic Skole.

HIBER:  In many aspects this murder is paradigmatic and sums up the essence of the problem.  After Arkan's murder, Uskokovic was accused in the newspapers for being the technical organizer of that assassination.  He defended himself, also through the newspapers, and then, to give substance to his defense, he returned to Belgrade from abroad, where he was residing.  Three days prior to his final liquidation, there was an assassination attempt, or what could be seen as a warning with a bomb with destructive power.  If there was any hint for the police to react, it was precisely this bomb.  If the police did not want or could not give him protection, then at least of the 100,000 policemen, one thousand could have been assigned to provide him cover 24 hours per day.  It was an easy opportunity to catch a group of assassins (it is said that on the average such a group has five members) in the act, of course I'm speaking sarcastically.  There was only one policemen, in the car with the victim, who ended up being a victim himself, which is also paradigmatic.  Just as a police colonel was a victim in Arkan's murder, and just as former or active policemen were on the other side in the Arkan assassination.

VREME:  There are many murders and victims in recent time, but an initial glance indicates that they belong to very different worlds?

HIBER:  I am not familiar with crime statistics in general, but it is clear from a cursory view that already in significant numbers a special kind of murder has appeared, an assassination which is not situational, is not the result of a fight, nor has family roots, nor is a classic act of looting, but is a liquidation of a specific victim - liquidations that were sufficiently prepared and carried out with a degree of professionalism that our police cannot uncover them.  By saying "cannot uncover them" I want to say that it really is a big question what our police want to uncover in actual fact.  Therefore, the only key to this type of crime are the victims themselves.  Their personalities, which does not mean their individual characteristics (crooked, bad, mean, violent), but rather their public personalities.  All these individuals were known to the public from earlier.  And they were know as very successful in their professions of classic criminals, which means in the modern world both manager and owner of legal and legalized economic ventures.  Everyone who was killed here had the profile of a criminal who had some legal business on the side.  They were all well known even before their liquidations.  For the majority of them it is characteristic that they spent a phase of their life in the past ten years either in the midst or on the fringes of political life.  Arkan is not even worth mentioning in this context, but many others were also connected with politics, either on this or the other side.  Some even changed sides.

VREME:  However, even the people whose only official profession is politics are being killed?

HIBER:  The other group of victims includes so-called industrialists.  This sort of business here presumes above all public or state property.  In the past this began with Radojica Nikcevic with the co-op Sumadija, with Zoran Todorovic Kundak as examplary, and of course, the latest victim in this story is Zika Petrovic, Director of JAT.  They were all industrialists, but in order to be able to become that, they had to be connected with politics, or were simultaneously political officials.  The third group of victims are government officials, therefore politicians.  Pavle Bulatovic, Badza and once again Kundak, which means that this division is not that clear because many personalities are included in more than one group.  In rare multiple murders it happened that the victims were members of at least two of the above groups.  Sometimes they are small policemen who serve as body guards or as assassins.  In the case of Arkan, the murdered policeman was a high police official.  If the social class of these victims is looked at more closely, it will be seen that many of them were either directly or indirectly connected.  In the past ten years, especially since the 1992 sanctions, practical melting occurred between three seemingly disparate areas such as organized or professional crime, the economy and executive authority or politics, and within it especially the police and the justice system as the technical area of government.

VREME:  Where is the official state in this entire story?

HIBER:  The official state initially kept silent, then began rendering services, returned whatever was taken by mistake, gave permits...  Then parts of the state began giving protection, with this being clear now, but they are also entering business on their own.  The customs take away and redistribute smuggled goods, automobiles and such.  The Chief of Customs even authorizes customs officials to a racket of a bottle of whisky and two boxes of cigarettes per day, so that they do not become more greedy.  The policemen initially begin thinking that they can move into any apartment, but then everyone gets their share on the basis of their place in the hierarchy.  The starting policemen gets several packs of Marlboro per day, and upwards.  The justice system begins with change of job and mild sentences, while the latest victim, Skole spends at most a year and a half for a brutal murder.  A former court president attended a marriage of a famous industrialist, Di Steffano, with this ring of fire coming to a close in a very transparent way.  Everything is possible in this, even for Pavle Bulatovic to get Darko Asanin out of an Athinian prison with the help of the Greek Ambassador at the time, which was a huge diplomatic-justice scandal in Greece at the time.  Politician's children become top businessmen, managing the biggest businesses.  All that is a good argument for saying that the connection between the victims is not a criminological fact which will facilitate investigation, but a picture of a system with a group of people who are supposed to dabble a little in the economy, a little in politics, a little in crime, with the whole needing to produce money and brute power over people.  And that is precisely why because of the interconnectedness with every murder, the police has enormous difficulties in answering the real criminological question - what was the motive.  Because the motive can be found everywhere.

VREME:  The government claims that the criminals are killing each other off because of a narrowing market, and that politicians and industrialists are victims of terrorism and foreign secret services.

HIBER:  If the motive is really political, then there are at least several suppositions.  The first is that state connected death squads are in fact doing all this.  For me this is highly unlikely - that we have independent elements of the police and the justice system which in the name of higher justice are carrying out orders by very high centers of power.  For such groups are always the extended arm of the state.  The second supposition is that the opposition is doing all this.  This story is even less likely because it presumes perfect logistics, organizational ability and confidence - everything which this opposition clearly demonstrates a lack of for over ten years now.  The third hypothesis is that these are terrorist acts by some ideological, nationalist or other such group.  These are classic stories of Ustashe, Mujahadin organizations, or the KLA.  The basic weakness of such a hypothesis is that it presumes a political motive which does not put its existence in the service of murder, but in the service of publicity.  Assassins must leave a signature, while here there are none.  The fourth thesis is that special agencies of certain states or groups are involved.  This is an Orwellian thesis - they objective then is not change in the country, because they would aim at higher targets, and would pick victims whose loss could destabilize the state.  None of the victims of assassinations belonged to this circle.  Not even Pavle Bulatovic.

VREME: Does this symbiosis between the government, the economy and crime, and the fact that around a hundred families control everything in Serbia, make more difficult all political developments here?

HIBER:  The list of reasons because of which the regime would want to stay in power at all cost is very long.  Financial interests, responsibility, the Hague...  This solidification of interests among the ruling oligarchy is important, but not a crucial reason.  In medium range terms this enormous concentration of institutional and non-institutional power, of legal and illegal instruments, and finally of money, is not what will ensure the strength and the longevity of this regime.  On the contrary.  I am convinced that what we have is a temporary admixture, a mixture which is destined for ruin by the very laws of nature.  If there are, and there are around a hundred families which directly or indirectly control everything, there is interaction among them regarding the division of profits.  There is a mutable hierarchy and a natural need for someone of lower rank to enter the highest ranks.  This will inevitably disintegrate, but we still remain with the dilemma whether what we have now will be replaced with a new group, one that was educated according to this mode, or with the same objectives and consequences.