A Piece with Singing and Shooting

All of this is impossible in a normal state. But, in a normal state Sinisa Vucinic would be in jail or in a rubber room in a hospital, Marija Milosevic would be at home with her mother, SAJ would carry out its task immediately and quickly, and there wouldn’t have been any need for such a task had the Guard Brigade performed its duty as it should have from the very beginning; in a normal state the chief of the General Staff would mind his own business. In a normal state Ceda Jovanovic wouldn’t have to risk getting shot at by a woman’s hand in vain, and all because he had to mediate between the police and judiciary on the one hand – and a government renegade former head of state and his government renegade security staff, on the other.

POCKETS, TRAINERS, LEATHER JACKETS: But – here we have it: this isn’t a normal country. Let’s take it step by step. The police and the judiciary had come to the realization that Milosevic (from father Svetozar) Slobodan, data supplied like in a police report, had committed several criminal acts; and that there is reason to believe that the aforementioned was hiding a large amount of weapons, munitions and explosive devices forbidden for civilian use in his housing space. Bearing in mind the circumstances that Milosevic Slobodan is a former head of state and as such an object of certain respect, the judicial bodies decided to pay him a personal visit and present him with a search warrant, along with a courteous invitation for an interrogation in front of the authorized investigative judge. The team made up of the investigative judge, court summons clerk and an important police officer, with a smallish escort of other authorized officials, heads off on Friday early evening for a visit to the current residence of the aforementioned individual, to the address Uzicka street no. 11. They weren’t totally indifferent, which is why they drove there in four armored vehicles with dimmed windows, of the Mercedes 300 GL type. Since the object in question is guarded by the Guard Brigade of the Yugoslav Army from outside, at the official gates the visitors announced themselves to the two noncommissioned officers and requested to be allowed through. These noncommissioned officers called the internal security staff of the object, made up of MUP Serbian employees; from there they received orders to deny entrance to the visitors. An obvious problem emerges here: how can the police deny access to an investigative judge and fellow policemen who are carrying out certain orders? The army dodged this issue by calling upon their orders that they aren’t allowed to give access to anyone without permission from the internal security staff of MUP Serbia; telephone calls ensued which concluded with the team’s return to the Palace of Justice. That is Friday evening.

Something wasn’t quite right from the very beginning: on Friday afternoon the whole of Belgrade knew that everything was being prepared for Slobodan Milosevic’s arrest. That means that operative security was leaking from all sides; from the court, from the police, from the politicians. Not to mention that Saturday March 31 was the deadline given by the US administration for Serbia to fulfill a number of conditions for economic and other aid; one of the conditions was to arrest and extradite Milosevic to The Hague tribunal. Even the slightest indication was sufficient to show that something was happening around Uzicka street for the reporters, inquisitive people and defenders of the man and his policies. And the presence of a number of police vehicles and paramedics in that street on Friday afternoon was more than sufficient indication of it.

Since the judicial bodies and MUP didn’t find it necessary to inform the public of the failed attempt to visit Milosevic, on Friday evening rumors circulated around Belgrade that Milosevic has been arrested and taken to the Palace of Justice in that column of bullet proof vehicles; on top of that no one saw anything, except that one vehicle went through the passage into the underground garage of the Palace of Justice where prisoners are usually taken… Milosevic and his people naturally made use of this confusion and He triumphantly appeared in front of his defenders just before midnight on Friday. It was too late for most of the dailies: the next day many of them were humiliated with their front page headlines…

We now come to the strangest part of the story: since the press, defenders of the man and his policies and the inquisitive people went back to Dedinje, a team of the Special Antiterrorist Unit (SAJ) suddenly appears there. Young men wearing trainers, jeans and black leather jackets (the usual uniform of special forces in all post-communist countries) shortly after 2:30 a.m. on Saturday morning jumped out of a van and jeep, with stockings over their heads and automatic weapons and assault rifles; they threw two-three “shock bombs” over the fence of the residence and hurled themselves over the gates in an obvious attempt to take over the object of which the Guard Brigade had wisely abandoned the outside security zone in the meantime. A few machine gun bursts immediately echoed and the special units instantly returned over the gate and through the empty guardhouse which they had heroically captured, since the noncommissioned officers of the Guard had previously abandoned it. Two policemen were slightly wounded from the SAJ team, one photo reporter’s hand was scratched by a splinter. Some kind of standoff was then established between the police and the individuals who had shot at them. SAJ had specific orders to avoid a bloodshed at any cost. By the assessment of the policemen who spoke to VREME, SAJ was supposed to start off its action wearing clearly marked uniforms, and not civilian clothes. That way today’s stories would have been avoided how bounty hunters in civilian clothes appeared, wanting to abduct Slobodan Milosevic from the residence and snatch five million dollars …

“SENTA’S MANAGEMENT”: What actually happened here? It’s a long story… Namely, the residential object in Uzicka 11, which also can be accessed from Konavljanska street, is the ownership of the federal state and is under the direct jurisdiction of the cabinet of the president of FR Yugoslavia. A long time ago, the cabinet had given the whole complex over to be defended by the Yugoslav Army. The former FRY president Slobodan Milosevic – out of justified fear for himself and his family – moved there under the pretext that his family house in Tolstojeva 33 was being redecorated and building work was also being carried out. Since – rightly – he didn’t trust the army, Milosevic Slobodan came up with the following combination: the Guard will protect the outside security zone (gates and fence), and MUP of Serbia’s Units for the Protection of Objects and People, under the command of general mayor Senta Milenkovic, will protect the object itself and be responsible for the immediate, personal security of the then acting head of state. The agreement was that the Guard asks permission for access to the complex for all individuals and vehicles from the policemen within the object; moreover, the soldiers didn’t have the right to search neither the individuals nor the vehicles which the policemen within gave entrance clearance to. Everything was conducted by word of honor: such and such a vehicle has arrived with such and such people; let them through or don’t… That’s how it happened that past and despite the Guard Brigade and its guards, a terrorist group was smuggled into the residence in Uzicka street without any problems, the same group that would open fire on the authorized MUP of Serbia’s officials and its weapons in the night between Friday and Saturday. 

However, it isn’t all that simple: MUP of Serbia decided at one point to change Milosevic Slobodan’s personal security officers, and that change was supposed to reflect the reorganization of personnel and activities of protecting objects and individuals in MUP. Instead of “Senta’s management” within the Department of Public Security, that task was transferred to the Department of State Security (VI Department) and new MUP employees were appointed for those jobs. When Slobodan Milosevic’s existing security team was supposed to be replaced with a new team on Friday evening, the majority agreed to the transfer while a minority didn’t. They mainly left the object, almost all of them, but a certain number of individuals who aren’t employees of the interior ministry remained, along with a few policemen who by the very act of remaining had violated the law and were suspended by definition because they refused to obey orders; under the command of the individual Vucinic Sinisa, a member of the JUL directorate and a well known neonazi and anti-Semite, those people opened fire with the intention of killing authorized MUP employees. The government then made a decision to call off the action, in order to save lives; a standoff was established, the police surrounded the object from outside and preparations for negotiations were commenced. According to some testimonies, the commander of the police unit at the scene went into the residence to negotiate after the first attempt; Milosevic Slobodan then – allegedly – told him that he wouldn’t “arrest him alive” and was waving his gun. Allegedly the commander was shocked by the amount of arms stashed in the residence: two hand grenade launchers, three machine guns, dozens of automatic rifles, hand grenades, guns etc. All of this could mean that the intelligence preparation of this MUP action was more than inadequate: the police had to have known how many opponents and what weapons they should expect at the scene prior to sending in SAJ to humiliate itself; the last thing any police can allow itself is to be surprised. An operation of this kind – taking over an object and neutralizing the terrorists within it – cannot last longer than a few minutes, depending on the size of the object and the number of opponents, which should be correctly assessed prior to a decision on the action. The attack starts with a discreet approach at dawn, simultaneous surprise attack of all vital points of resistance, speedy entrance and neutralization (murder or capture) of the existing opponents. In such actions the police, i.e. special units, have complete freedom of action; it can – according to its own assessment of danger for itself or present hostages – kill anyone on the spot. That is the principle of antiterrorist actions which has been valid in the entire world as of 1972.

MINIMAL FORCE: While all of this was happening, from Friday afternoon to Sunday dawn, the police had other tasks, too: around Uzicka and Konavljanska street and a part of Dedinje towards Topciderska Zvezda, fairly senior citizens started gathering, worried about the fate of “freedom fighter Sloba”; that’s how the shootings were accompanied with songs; it was just like in 1990 and 1991, at the rallies. The police’s assessments was obviously on the safe side: public law and order was protected by the larger part of the available Belgrade police force, strengthened with colleagues from Mladenovac, Sopot, Pancevo and other neighboring cities. Bearing in mind the advanced years and the medical condition of the demonstrators, the policemen pushed them a number of times down Uzicka street towards Topciderska Zvezda courteously, without beating them. There, two or three times, with an energetic action, they defended them from the young people from Otpor and football supporters who came to support Slobodan Milosevic’s, their idol’s, arrest. However, idolatry didn’t last very long: early on Sunday morning they were no longer on the terrain; on Monday JUL cancelled its rally of the “defenders of the bridges” scheduled for 7 p.m., because they became aware that the people – alas – failed to rise to the defense of the “greatest Serbian son”, following repeated calls made by “JUL’s duke” Sinisa Vucinic… That outside encirclement of police acted coolly, in a disciplined manner and with minimal force.

Saturday went by in separating the demonstrators on the street and in Topciderska Zvezda and in a leisurely siege of the object itself, but also in negotiations. In a certain way, the mere duration of the action – which was ongoing as of Friday afternoon - contributed to a slow dwindling of motivation inside the residence. The mere passage of time and the all more apparent number of police around the object broke the decisiveness of those who were surrounded; beside that, their electricity, water and telephone lines were cut, and the negotiators kept mentioning a deadline after which there was to be no more talks. It can easily be assessed that those surrounded in the residence started to think about the future. Such tactics brought about a result: at the end Slobodan Milosevic decided to surrender; whether because he became aware that a decisive and final police action was inevitable, since the stakes were too high and there was no turning back from the shooting of the previous night; or because he realized that he was needlessly risking the lives of his family, friends and his own – is yet to be seen.

At that moment an idiotic incident occurred in the courtyard of the residence in Uzicka 11: around 4:38 a.m. on Sunday morning one could clearly hear five shots from the courtyard, immediately before the column of five cars started leaving the object and heading towards Central Jail. Later, MUP would explain that Marija Milosevic was shooting in the direction of Ceda Jovanovic and the vehicle in which her father and his escort were to drive off; criminal charges were raised against her, and the paraffin test shows that she did shoot. What hasn’t been explained are the intervals between those shots; it seems as though Marija Milosevic ran about, took up positions or shelter and shot from there – or she ran erratically, aiming at random. MUP believes she shot while aiming; the intervals between the shots support that theory.

QUESTIONS: When on Sunday at five a.m. everything was finished and the individual in jail, great relief was felt. However, the time to analyze the events also arrived. Namely, the following inevitable questions were raised:

• Why has the structure of the General Staff remained unchanged after October 5 and why has the arrangement remained in place for the security of the residence in Uzicka?
• Why wasn’t Slobodan Milosevic asked to leave that object immediately after October 6?
• Why didn’t the Yugoslav Army pay more attention to the events within the object which it was in charge of protecting?  Did the Yugoslav Army notice that something had happened in the meantime in the political life of Serbia and that the noose of a criminal investigation was tightening around the former head of state?
• Why didn’t the security officers and VJ’s military police take measures under their jurisdiction and on the basis of information which was accessible to all, for the defense and antiterrorist protection of the object they were in charge of protecting? Why did army personnel on guard refuse to allow the authorized bodies of the judiciary and police access to go about their duty? Did the army fail to notice that it has a new supreme commander instead of the old one?
• How was it possible that the operation of the special MUP units should be activated without the appropriate intelligence preparation – or a good assessment of the available data?
• How was it possible for a terrorist group, headed by Vucinic Sinisa, to be allowed into the residence, armed and incited to shoot at the authorized officials, when that individual had previously been known to have called for armed rebellion, to have threatened with violence and violent behavior? Why weren’t the rules of protecting the residential object in Uzicka 11 changed on time?

The new government, by confusing legalism with inertia, impressed with Milosevic’s shadow on the cloudy sky of their own fears and prejudices, became paralyzed, like a frog facing a snake; only, it failed to notice that the snake was stuffed, and its eyes made of glass. On that Friday, Slobodan Milosevic was a scarecrow filled with straw, and not the famous “Bengali Tiger” of Sasa Tijanic, Voja Kostunica’s media advisor. Empty threats of a “civil war in Serbia” and a “bloodbath” of the socialists, radicals and JUL members impressed the DOS government more than the policemen. During those 36 hours, the policemen’s patience was on the verge of snapping, as some of them said for VREME: they were – they say – prepared to die if they had to, only to finish their business with that Milosevic man. 

They finally finished it, and the policemen headed home, tired yet satisfied. After all, that’s their job.