Harsh Word: Corruption

The assassination of the former SDB employee, Momir Gavrilovic brought the Serbian Government and the leadership of DOS (the Democratic Opposition of Serbia) to the biggest crisis so far. Recalling the sources close to the FRY President's office, Belgrade Blic daily published on August 8th that, a short time before he was murdered, the said Gavrilovic had spoken to the counsellors of the FRY President Vojislav Kostunica. On that occasion, he 1) handed in the information about the liaison between the current government's pick of the bunch and some leaders of the organised crime in Serbia; 2) submitted some classified documents which attest to his claims; 3) particularly pointed to the cooperation of certain individuals from the government with the members of the 'Surcin clan'.

'The cream of the actual government' does not have to mean anything, or it can mean everything: about one hundred people occupy the offices around the President of Yugoslavia, President of Serbia, Federal Prime Minister, Serbian Prime Minister, ministers, presidents of both parliaments, presidents of courts, the National Bank Governor, 18 members of DOS leadership, and so on. Was it due to high temperatures, or to the reconstruction of the Serbian Government, that the Serbian Minister of Justice Vladan Batic and the Serbian Government's Vice President Zarko Korac recognised their government in that expression and demanded from Blic to reveal that mysterious source from the FRY President's office that spreads false information. The editor-in-chief of Blic daily, Veselin Simonovic cold-bloodedly responded that it had not been the practice of his newspaper to discover its sources even during Slobodan Milosevic's regime, so it would not do it then.

To claim that there is no corruption in the government of a country, which is in its first year of transition, is far from plausible. People tend not to suspect the government, so the irritation demonstrated by the Serbian ministers, the Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Union about the issue only managed to spread suspicion. The feeling of mistrust is a usual means of political performance, just like material evidence is to prosecutors and lawyers.

Vojislav Kostunica pressed on that very button last week, when he interrupted his vacation and addressed the nation by saying that Gavrilovic has visited him in his office 'more than once' and that he 'was worried about the degree of criminalisation of our society, and wished to point to the penetration of organised corruption into the economic sphere, the power of certain clans, and what he as an experienced police officer considered as not appropriate response, or rather not appropriate behaviour of the authorised organs...'

Kostunica then added: 'Why wouldn't I use an even harsher word - he was talking about corruption!'

Those who mocked Kostunica's legalism are now repeating that nothing would have happened 'had Pera gone to the police on time', as one faded graffito on a Belgrade wall suggests.

DSS (the Democratic Party of Serbia) keeps repeating the question: 'Why did the late Gavrilovic circumference all authorised institutions and went directly to Kostunica's office...' The suggestion is that it is the only institution that enjoys general credibility, or it may also be that Gavrilovic was led by personal mistrust towards the police service for which he worked until 1999.

Kostunica evidently doesn't believe that the submitted evidence contains the key for elucidating that case completely. The statement from his office goes as follows: 'It is hard to believe that the secret of Gavrilovic's assassination lies behind the content of his conversation with the President of FRY and his associates. If however that happens to be the case, that the social and institutional crisis in our country has reached unprecedented dimensions.' Then, Vojislav Seselj, who 'came to a conclusion' that the Serbian Prime Minister was eavesdropping the office of the Yugoslav President, would be right! Batic responded: 'Even if it comes from Seselj, it is too much. No one should take his statements for granted, especially when they are not well-intentioned.' Even if it turned out that someone from the grey zone eavesdropped that dialogue in Kostunica's office, it would be an alarming signal of the local mafia's power and a security vacuum, but it would not add to the complication of the current situation.

Only DOS leaders could make the crisis more complicated, only if they opt for a 'discussion on methods' and personal affairs, which means to push the major issue - the suspicion that 'the current state apparatus has aids' - behind. If that description of the mafia environment, which was put forward by the ex DB officer is true, and President Kostunica, who enjoys enormous trust evidently believes that it is, than the suspicion is a political fact and cannot be deterred by a disagreement about intrigues in the Federal President's office.

The affair actually makes plain that Slobodan Milosevic is really imprisoned in The Hague and that the time of DOS ministers' waving with the papers about frauds and embezzlements of the former regime is over. The new opposition, the leaders of which have one by one been taken into custody (236 of them), has not had an answer then. Yet, it seems that it doesn't have it now either.

Members of the new DOS nomenclature were emphasising that they would not be corrupt like their predecessors; that they would cut off the roots of mafia state, etc. However, they had no courage to commence at least one court trial, let alone to bring it to an end. If Jezda had not turned himself in, they would not have had a single big case outside of the previous political nomenclature.

Nevertheless, they did, in spite of the parliament's obstruction, pass the Law on Taxation of Extra Profiteers, the application of which will, along with some controversies, begin in August. The general impression was spoiled by Mladjan Dinkic's and Djindjic's story about the introduction of the working breakfast. It turned out that that company Lutra, the co-owner of which is Serbian Minister of Police, Dusan Mihajlovic, is also due to pay the extra profit tax. It is said that Lutra will regularly pay all that is prescribed by the new law, while some (like Nikola Milosevic) reminded Mihajlovic that it was inappropriate for the current police minister to have been involved in the consumption of the primary issue. There is also the embarrassing shade of Cane Subotic's plane used for tobacco smuggling, while some German newspapers started speculating about the possibility that the tobacco smoke might overshadow the image of the energetic Serbian reformers. Kostunica was holding the anti-corruption issue high above, not only in the pre-election campaign, but also in almost every speech addressed to the public. In an interview given on January 16th 2001, he mentioned corruption control as one among the three priorities of the new government.

During the summer, Kostunica asked for a dialogue a propos the reconstruction of the Serbian Government (in an interview for VREME at the beginning of July, he specifically mentions that he is very displeased with the work of the ministries of justice and police), though the media managed to turn it all into the question of DSS's craving more places in the Serbian Government. Djindjic defended those two ministries because they are symbolically connected to the decision of the extradition of the former President Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague.

Kostunica's reference to the issue of corruption in the media is most frequently interpreted as an 'attack on Djindjic', since from November 2000, after the disputes a propos the cases of general Nebojsa Pavkovic and the former DB chief Rade Markovic , and particularly after the detainment of Slobodan Milosevic (April) and his extradition (June), a classification of political scene has been made by dividing the current regime to Djindjic's practical reformists and Kostunica's conservative moderate nationalists.

This affair shows that DOS is now pretty much shortened, though the fact that politicians don't trust each other does not have to bear negative connotations. Covic and Mihajlovic are warning against the exhaustion of energy due to constant disputes, and that is not far from true.

Leaders of DOS are not supposed to be fully united, their job is to argue, they are only required to sit down and figure out a system of efficient self-control and control of all state structures. Otherwise, the state would remain 'locked up' even if the state prisons were completely full of prisoners.