A Fist in the Eye of the Regime

Last Monday afternoon the Belgrade office of the Resistance published a list of information about the activities of this organization: in exactly one and a half year the police arrested and questioned around 400 activists of the Resistance who spent a sum total of 11,000 hours without freedom.  The next day, on Tuesday, May 9, this was already old news.  On the day when the opposition planned to hold a meeting of protest in Pozarevac, spurred on by the battering of members of the Resistance in this city, another twenty members of this organization were arrested and questioned, while the entry for the "number of hours spent beyond freedom" increased by another hundred hours.

The fact that the regime is fearful of the Resistance and that the actions of this student organization (often bordering on "spoofs" and extremely serious moves) irritate it is clear without these numbers.  Whoever in the government got hold of a microphone in recent days, almost immediately directed invective against Otpor, describing this organization as a "Fascist gang," "militant rubble", a mass of "failed students, drug addicts, foreign sycophants, losers, terrorists...," but certainly "Fascists."  Some of these epithets are being stated by the highest state officials, and that is why it is very unusual that no one among those who "like to teach Fascists a lesson" has not yet taken the life of a single member of Resistance.  Newspapers which are writing about the "Fascists" from the Resistance, including police and medical records, deserve to be included in instruction booklets on "how to recognize Fascism."  The expression "failed students and losers" is being used on the radio, the same radio which was taken over by the permanent students of Belgrade's universities and by the people whose children who never saw a university lecture hall, but managed to get rich thanks to connections in the government.

What must certainly irritate the regime in the case of the Resistance is the unusual structure of this organization.  The Resistance has no leader.  There is no hierarchy and that is why it is difficult to point a finger at any one, to take a precise look at their marks, their family, their medical record or to count the number of times they meet with persons of the opposite sex.  One of the twenty spokesmen of the Resistance is Ivan Marovic, a twenty-six-year-old student of mechanical engineering.  "Of course, I'm by no means an ideologue of the Movement, there is no such thing in the Resistance, but am merely one of those who appear more often in public," states Marovic.

At the beginning of the interview for VREME, he jokingly observed that the spokesman for JUL, Ivan Markovic, has only one extra letter to his name, a "k", but that his work method is considerably different.  For instance, when Marovic states the Resistance sympathizers and activists were battered in Pozarevac, no one can actually locate the battered individuals, but only for a period of six days.  Then they are released from prison with a diagnosis - dislocated nose, eye injuries, stitched forehead, etc. - so that people logically ask how these "dangerous" members of the Resistance only looked on the first day that they were arrested.

Several times during our interview, Ivan Marovic noted the non-violent nature of his organization, pointing out comical aspect of the present attempt by the regime to portray the Resistance as a terrorist organization.  "That is the stupidest possible method of Satanizing the Resistance," states Marovic.  "If they continued with the story that we are supposedly a group of lazy students who prefer to spend their times on politics instead of studying, the people could have even believed such a story.  And then we could hold polemics regarding why we are spending our time on politics, and not on studying.  The assertion that we are terrorists is a call to lynch.  That is why on May 13, on the Day of State Security, we plan to appear in front of police stations and to hand ourselves over.  If we are terrorists, as Minister of Police Vlajko Stoiljkovic calls us, then our proper place should be in jail.  But if we are not terrorists and if we are not arrested on that day, then Vlajko Stojiljkovic, Nikola Sainovic, Ivan Markovic and all those who are making such statements will be forced to stop doing so.  It should not be possible for people in their positions to make such statements merely for political reasons.  They should be serious people and an accusation of terrorism is also a very serious one.  Their statements should be accompanied by action."

Marovic does not personally expect a banning of the Resistance which would force them to work illegally.  He claims that the Resistance is above an idea for a popular movement, with eventual bans being ineffectual under such circumstances.  For nearly a year since its founding (October 1998), this organization has been working without any infrastructure and without any offices, and that is why it could easily get used to this method of work should it become necessary.  However, our interviewee emphasizes one of the main slogans of the Resistance: "The greater the repression, the greater the resistance."  Marovic adds that "we feed off the regime's repression, and in every city where our people have been arrested, the movement grew because new people joined, sometime even pensioners, ready to continue the resistance.  The developments mostly followed this pattern: members of the Resistance show up in some provincial place where they put up posters, deal out flyers or put up graffiti; they are then arrested by the police, with the story about this growing to such an extent that in the same place a Resistance office crops up the next day."

Right up to the recent incidents in Pozarevac, members of the Resistance were not subjected to any greater trials and tribulations than mere routine arrests and questionings, excepting the occasional slap in the face while unfolding banners.  Marovic claims that in the majority of cases, the police behaved correctly and decently toward them.  During the recent march from Novi Sad to Belgrade, two police cars accompanied the Resistance procession and on one occasion protected them from drunken thugs.  However, in Pozarevac, something completely different occurred.  The entire incident had its pre-history in which several local thugs made threats against members of the Resistance, with incidents of being tied up to chairs and threats that chain saws will be used, if necessary.  When asked if the Resistance kept silent regarding such threats so that young activists with this organization in many towns would not change their minds, Marovic answered in the negative.  "No, on the contrary, we publicized those earlier incidents in Pozarevac also, but it appears that the majority of the public did not take notice of this.  There they began with threats, with battering of activists and sympathizers occurring only later, which created a scandal on the highest state level.  A far more important fact in the entire story, than the actual battering, is that local thugs in Pozarevac got the protection from the highest members of state, with the victims being proclaimed as potential killers.  Prior to the entire incident, the police had been informed of everything, bud failed to show up," Marovic states.

As early as March of this year, the Resistance grew into an all-people's movement from a mere student organization, branching out into a network of organizations in places through the country, places that are very far from university centers, often in places where the opposition did not have very solid roots.  Recently, in Kursumlija, even the community president attended the founding meeting of the Resistance in that town; he is otherwise a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia and was immediately fired from office and was kicked out of the party.  It could easily be said that today the Resistance has a higher membership than many political parties (estimates range as high as twenty thousand) whose leaders often come to the Resistance offices with the query: "Kids, how can we help you?"  The majority of those "kids", including Ivan Marovic, have experience from earlier student protests.  Our interviewee agrees with the impression that in comparison to certain previous student movements, the Resistance is far less of an elitist venture and is perhaps even more overt.  "It seems to me," Marovic says, "that this time we managed to avoid the trappings of student elitism.  Differences by comparison with earlier student movements are very great.  Above all we kept in mind their mistakes.  We did not want to venture out into the street immediately, but instead tried to go out into the streets once that would yield results.  We spent a lot of time on organizational policies: we have no leadership, and by that very fact all possibility of abuse of the leadership position in the movement is avoided.  The Resistance is far more serious than many similar, earlier attempts.  Now we are even known in places where the opposition is quite weak, for instance in Srbobran, Sic, and in Pozarevac itself.  Speaking honestly, we managed to raise more trouble there in the past month and a half than the opposition managed to do in the past ten years.  We are trying hard not to waste the energy we have, but to concentrate it carefully on actions which yield maximum results.  Our objective is to make popular the idea of resistance, to influence a great number of people in Serbia in becoming critical of the government.  To be ready to express civil disobedience and ready for a non-violent political fight for our rights against an undemocratic regime."

On Tuesday evening, news agencies reported that the first President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, writer Dobrica Cosic, became a member of the Resistance, which could be used by the regime for further accusations against the Resistance for being "a gathering place for students who never completed university."  On the same evening after the meeting in Pozarevac was called off and after a new wave of repression, the Resistance proposed to all opposition parties that a crisis headquarters be created for following the situation.  In the days and months which follow, a flood of repression is being expected, and hence the idea of a crisis center.

Ivan Marovic, one of those who is authorized to speak in the name of the Resistance, expects to be called to serve the army in the coming months.  He is convinced that while he serves the army, "phase one" of what the Resistance fights for (for a change of regime) will be finished.  But then "phase two" follows, in which it will be necessary to once again rebuild the institutions of this society where there will once again be work for the Resistance.  Who knows, perhaps then this organization might end up cooperating with the new opposition, with a reformed SPS, for instance.  When asked what he will do when he finishes his army service, Marovic shrugs his shoulders and says: "I really don't know.  I can hardly remember the times when Milosevic was not in power and I really don't know how life without him looks.  The only thing I'm sure of is that when I finish my army service, the Minister of Defense will not be the same as today."

OPPOSITION AS A TOOL

Ever since the Resistance was founded, a public debate has been taking place regarding who this organization belongs to - that is to say, does Vuk Draskovic (Serbian Renewal Movement) or Zoran Djindjic (Democratic Party) own "the majority shares" in it.  Following such barometers, it would seem that the Resistance frequently changed "ownership."  Shortly after the incident in Pozarevac, the regime's reports claimed that these "young Fascists" are under the control of the Serbian Renewal Movement.  Ivan Marovic says that members of the Resistance were bothered initially by constant questions of who they belong to.  Later they realized that what is at issue is a popular way of thinking here which does not accept authenticity and independence.  "In a society where there are around 160 political parties, 5-6 professional organizations and in which everyone - from journalists and writers, right down to Chetniks - have several associations representing them, the question 'who do you belong to' sounds very logical.  The Resistance is unique and only belongs to itself - we are neither with Djindjic or with Vuk, even though many of our members are also members of individual parties.  The regime evidently has a lot of problems with us - the majority of members of the Resistance are young people without families or children and it is difficult to blackmail them or terrorize them effectively; the majority are unemployed and cannot be bought with promises of a promotion at work or with better salaries; they are young people without blemishes in their pasts; we are an organization without a leader.  Simply put, they have no one to attack and to make divisions among us, and thus create two or three Resistance movements.  That is why all they are left with are attempts at disqualifying us on the basis of ideology, but this is very slippery and steep ground for them and they cannot expect to win.  In any case, probably the best answer to the question 'who stands behind us' was given by Vladan Pavlov who spoke at the meeting in Belgrade - he motioned with his hand behind him to the stage where all the opposition leaders were standing," Ivan Marovic told us.

However, Marovic does not exclude the possibility of attempts at abuse of the Resistance by particular political parties with the objective of serving their interests, adding that such things are completely legitimate in politics.  As far as the Resistance itself is concerned, for them the opposition is merely a tool which should be used in the process of a peaceful change of the regime.  Regardless of the kind of opposition this is, Marovic says that it is the only opposition we have; and since there is no time to create a new opposition, members of the Resistance will give it support in the next election.  In return, they demand that the opposition concentrate totally on the basic goal - the change of the regime in the elections so that the door that has been closed to Serbia in many neighboring countries ten years ago, can finally be opened.