Who's Affraid of Big, Bad Vuk...

On Thursday, July 1, Vuk Draskovic decided to die. An hour or so before his letter announcing that he was starting on a hunger strike and that he would die if need be appeared in public, the Criminal Council of the District Court in Belgrade extended his pre-trial detention, and that of his wife Danica Draskovic, for another two months. An hour later, even those who had found Vuk's letter to be somewhat pathetic, had to admit that with it, the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) leader had done two important things.

After 31 days in jail, Vuk had finished with his dilemmas and decided to fight. With this decision he had once again taken the place of Serbia's number one opposition leader, and had drawn all the others into the fray. On Friday the papers were full of statements to the effect that practically all opposition parties were standing behind Vuk Draskovic's name. Slobodan Rakitic, the man whom Vuk had designated as his successor in the SPO, told VREME optimistically: "The opposition is once again united for a cause."

After the Court's decision, the team of lawyers handling Vuk's defence, filed charges against the Central Prison's governor, the head of the Belgrade Police, former Serbian Interior Minister and eminence grise Radmilo Bogdanovic, current Serbian Interior Minister Zoran Sokolovic, Justice Minister Ilic, the Information Minister and the Minister of Health. On the same day the SPO submitted a request for the holding of a rally at the Sveti Sava plateau. The meeting has been scheduled for Sunday, and by the time this number went to the press, the municipal police had not replied either positively or negatively. DEPOS (alliance of democratic parties in Serbia, ed. note) met again on Friday with the intention of taking a stand, while members of the Iron Regiment of the Serbian Guard (SPO paramilitary formation) continued with a hunger strike (they will probably be joined in this by some SPO deputies), and said that they would be coming to Belgrade.

The start of the week did not indicate that it would be full of events towards the end. Vuk was wasting away in hospital, not yet sure what he could and should do. This has been testified by some journalists who managed to reach him and who later didn't write a single word about the meeting, respecting Vuk's wish to keep the temperature down and not stir up too great a fuss.

Rallies devoted to Vuk and Danica did not change this situation much, even though Vuk's lawyers claim that they were getting signals from the authorities to the effect that Vuk would have to remain in jail some more since his "rating had grown and on leaving jail would be able to attract a critical mass of demonstrators". This is why it was thought that Vuk and Danica would be freed after Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day, 28 June). Vuk also faced the worst fate for a politician, to become a political anonymity after jail, with a few helpful moves by the authorities.

It seems that Vuk was aware of this (and perhaps wished it), because he asked Slobodan Rakitic at the start of the week to withdraw his resignation as SPO vice-president and take over the leadership of the SPO until Vuk's leaving jail. Many have linked this request with that part of Vuk's personality which was seen during the arrest in 1991, and during this arrest, and which is characterized by promises that he would never again take part in politics. "I'll write books," was Vuk's message on both occasions.

"If they hadn't arrested him, Vuk would have had a broken up demonstration, and one dead policeman, and he would have been finished," said Serbian National Renewal Party (SNO) leader Mirko Jovic in early June during a debate on whether the authorities hated or feared Vuk Draskovic more. The debate did not reach a conclusion, but it is a fact that the authorities often, either out of fear or hatred, make mistakes with regard to Vuk Draskovic. This became a topical issue during the middle of last week again.

Sources close to the Serbian judiciary told VREME last week that Radmilo Bogdanovic and top SPS official Borisav Jovic had visited the Palace of Justice, and that they were present during the drawing up of a bill of indictment against Vuk and Danica Draskovic.

According to the same sources, Jovic and Bogdanovic insisted that Vuk be charged under Act 114 of the Penal Law (the toppling of the constitutional order), but public prosecutor Miodrag Tmusic refused to do so. It has also been learned that there were discussions on whether Vuk should be accused for obstructing an official in his line of duty and for inflicting serious bodily harm to an official, since testimonies by eyewitnesses given during the enquiry showed that it would not be possible to prove Vuk's guilt. In the end these charges remained in the indictment, along with the charge of participating in a group committing violence, and for being the leader, something that Vuk was accused of after March 9, 1991. Danica Draskovic stands accused of the same charges, so that it must be concluded that the Serbian regime, after some doubts, has decided to prosecute Vuk and Danica as criminals, and so close their case.

The unnecessary haste with which everything has been done, speaks in favor of the fear and hatred thesis, and, as usually happens in such cases, a mistake was made. The pre-trial detention period was extended, so that miserable, confused and indecisive Vuk Draskovic was literally forced to stand straight and retaliate, and in written form too. As in a crime story, not typical of a people who do not have masters of this genre (among other reasons because everybody knows from the beginning that the killer is the best man or best friend, or brother), even before the final events, letters played a vital role in everything. They just flew around Belgrade. Jovan Koprivica was the first to come up with one.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's former room mate, Vuk's friend, and a friend of Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, and a lawyer by vocation, the above mentioned Koprivica appeared in the restaurant of the Palace of Justice, and woke up the crowd of sleepy journalists with the first in a series of letters. The letter was signed by Vuk Draskovic and it named Koprivica as Vuk's and Danica's main lawyer. The story which accompanied the letter was even more interesting.

Briefly, Koprivica announced that Vuk would seek abolition, which in law means only one thing - that the accused (Vuk) first admits his guilt, and then the authorities (Milosevic) magnanimously forgive him his sins. As far as the regime is concerned there could be no better end to the affair. The fact that Draskovic had "admitted" to his lawyers that he had signed a letter given to him by Koprivica, speaks in favor of the thesis that the rebellious opposition leader had reached that state in jail when it is possible to make a man admit to whatever one wants. It was a nice plan, except for a mistake made by the impatient Serbian leadership. It was too much to expect that Vuk would swallow an extension of the pre-trial detention and abolition. One of the two had to be dropped, or they should have waited a little with abolition, letting Vuk rot in jail.

In this way the authorities just alerted Draskovic and his circle and the result was another letter. Vuk wrote it, and it was distributed to journalists ahead of a press conference called by Koprivica at the International Press Center. In the letter Vuk withdrew power of attorney he had given to Koprivica and other lawyers to make public statements in his name.

In this way, all that Koprivica had wished to say at the press conference was devalued, and the story that Vuk had sought Seselj's help and that of League of Communists - Movement for Yugoslavia Party leadership member and Milosevic's wife Mirjana Markovic in order to get out of jail, was aborted before even being launched. Vuk said that he wished to die, so that headlines such as "Seselj visits Vuk" or "Vuk writes to Mira Markovic" carried by some papers close to the regime, took on an entirely different meaning to that which the authorities wished. The letters decided the game. The last line where Vuk says: "There is no force which will stop me from dying and making them responsible for my death," was serious enough for Serbian Television not to mention it in its prime time news program. Somebody, somewhere, has started wondering: "How to deal with Vuk now".

Vuk's lawyer Vladimir Gajic believes that another written document should help in deciding the fate of Vuk and Danica Draskovic. This pertains to the views of the team of doctors (signed by Vaso Antunovic) and issued at the court's request on the methods of treatment to be followed for Vuk and Danica. The statement says that Vuk requires "therapy and medical treatment in a non-traumatic environment, in a friendly, familiar and information-rich environment" (definitely not a description of the Central Prison), while Danica requires "urgent treatment in an adequate in-patient clinic for physical therapy" (the description fits Igalo, a health centre on the Montenegrin coast).

Vuk's lawyers believe that the Supreme Court with which they have lodged a complaint, cannot pass over these formulations. "If they were to do so, it would mean that they had simply decided to kill Vuk", said Gajic adding that the Criminal Council's explanation that the pre-trial detention period was being extended "in order to avoid disturbing the citizens and the family of the deceased policeman", was absolutely incorrect, since a free Vuk would certainly have to spend the next few months in hospital.

After the above mentioned line of thinking, it remains to be seen how the regime will react to Vuk's best desperate move of his career. By saying on Thursday, July 1, that he wished die, Vuk Draskovic has taken the offensive and prolonged his political life for the umpteenth time. All that follows now, will not depend on him.