When Legija has a Ball

It was only a question of days before the commander of the Special Operations Unit (JSO) of the republic Public Security service Milorad Lukovic (some say Ulemek) called Legija, Cema or God knows what else, would incite an incident which couldn’t be hushed up. According to expectations, that happened in the early morning hours of May 4 in the disco club Tvrdjava in Kula. It isn’t known whether Legija was drunk during his merriment in the empty club, whatever: it must be that he caused a fire with numerous gunshots aimed at the televisions and musical instruments, in which the club burned to the ground. “There is no better nor better behaved man when he is sober. But, when he gets drunk, God help us”, say the waiters. That’s how a few years ago in the club of the singer Dzej Ramadanovski, across the street from the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade, he approached the DJ with a rather high caliber revolver, plastered with alcohol, and sitting across from him suggested that they play Russian roulette, while he leaned the barrel of the revolver successively to his and to the frozen DJ’s temple. Following a few “unsuccessful attempts” when it was his partner in the game’s turn, Legija remarked: “Move your head a bit forward now.” He then pulled the trigger, a shot resonated and the gunshot made a huge hole in the glass. No one was hurt. The DJ couldn’t come to his senses for hours. Legija arrived the following day, apologized and covered the bill along with the damage like a true gentleman. Otherwise, in many other clubs, Legija amused himself in similar ways, and no one complained because of it.  

This incident in Kula evidently got out of control, and those on duty in the Ministry of Police (MUP) of Serbia seemed to be lacking in understanding and issued a statement that this was a “serious incident”, even though the disco club, which was constructed and equipped in a modern way, was worth barely, so they say, a million DM. MUP officials refused to take into account the fact that Legija publicly apologized to the citizens of Kula on account of his mischief. It seems as though all will fall into place: Legija was interrogated in the municipal court in Kula, at least for now, in the role of witness, together with three of his special policemen. Otherwise, all of them demonstrated incredible courage: they remained in the club till the last moment, i.e. until the burning roof started caving in.

It is fortunate that this incident didn’t occur on the Stolac farm, the center of Legija’s unit for whose renovation the republic Secretariat of Internal Affairs paid Geneks around five million DM so that the center would be modernly equipped – for example with special pissoirs imported from Italy, sensors and various first-class electronic inventions. The ungrateful citizens of Kula didn’t even have understanding for the periodic visits of the special units who used to come to town tipsy, beat up the young men because they were putting up Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) posters and to lean their daggers against the citizen’s necks, which newspapers wrote about. They even had reprimands because they didn’t pay their bills in the pubs, surely they deserved to be treated, for God’s sake, they were the "Red Berets" who used to make the blood freeze in the veins of the civilians during the wars of former Yugoslavia. The citizens of Kula had nothing better to do than to complain because of another small incident which occurred the day before when two special policemen from Stolac in a jeep, bullet proof, naturally, since one never knows, speeding towards excitement, downed the enemy – 12 meters of a concrete fence, pulled out two plum trees complete with roots, flew into the yard and barely managed to miss the owner Stanija Lukovic.

Still, the amusement in the disco club had far reaching consequences: the celebration of the JSO day was cancelled, planned for Saturday, May 5 with the presence of 400 guests in the Rodic motel. It was then planned that Frenki Simonovic, the founder of the Red Berets, was to get some sort of medal or recognition. As far as is known, Carla del Ponte wasn’t invited, and she would definitely do anything to be able to mingle with her people at the celebration and chat to those present.