No Happy Ending in Sight

Straying, endless quarrels, changing ideology along with joining and breaking-up of parties have made the opposition leaders unable to anticipate a way out of the catastrophe. They continued to write the rebuttals in which they expressed the policy of the Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in other words. The galloping crisis has hypnotized them so that they did not even dare defend their unemployed voters (whose support to the Democratic Movement of Serbia is above the average) under the pretext that they cannot make any concrete promises to them. The Socialists and the Radicals who have devalued the authority of the Parliament have chased away the aged Dobrica Cosic (the former President of Yugoslavia) in a crueler manner than King Lear's daughters did their father.

Judging by the opinion poll conducted by the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade, only 6.6% of those polled claimed in May that there was "a great likelihood" that they would take part in the demonstrations against Slobodan Milosevic. Yet, there is a little likelihood that the authorities yielded under that pressure, but it is possible that they were afraid of an uncontrollable chain of events. However arrogant they may be, their wish to introduce political torture has abated in the meantime.

The state structures did not have the impudence to try and save their professional honour as the medical guild did, first by the move of the Executive board and the Ethical Committee of the Serbian Medical Society, and then with the findings by the Consultants of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, who forced the state to admit that Vuk Draskovic suffered injuries.

The state squirmed like a worm and had a strong police force secure the hospital. It is interesting that of all ministers who were either directly or indirectly involved in this caseonly the Health Minister was sacrificed, although there were many more candidates.

Therefore, the state has done nothing to defend the authority of the institutions thus proving that its work is based on the principle of force, and not of authority. In June 1993 the regime ingratiated itself with the poor classes, and frightened them at the same time. According to the research done by the Public Opinion Institute in May 1993 the curve of those who have confidence in the police completely coincides with the concentration of the voters of the Serbian Socialist Party (SPS); the farmers proved to be most loyal to the police, and are followed by unqualified workers, housewives and pensioners, all of whom represent those categories who give their votes to the SPS.

Without an apparent connection with the Draskovic affair, strikes erupted in Serbia: JAT (The Yugoslav Airlines), railway, the "Yugo" car manufacturer ... It seems that Draskovic will have a main role in the forthcoming period and enjoy some advantages over the other opposition leaders because of his personal sacrifice, which will for at least some time overshadow his gullibility and instability. Now there is a little more quality on the political scene than when he was dragged into prison. Some civilian institutions have proved that they are alive, while the echoes his case provoked in the world may indicate that the world has discovered there is opposition in Serbia and, perhaps, announced a kind of the selective approach to the isolated Belgrade, not placing the regime and its opponents into the same bag. The happy ending seems to be remote, while xenophobia, authoritarianism and galloping poverty dominate Serbia. It seems that only he who remains composed and lucidly utters three words, "Bread, justice and peace" will stand a chance in the future events.

There is no happy end in sight in Serbia, after the Draskovic affair was done with. Reports from Kragujevac, Uzice, Smederevo, Valjevo and Pristina prove that which can already be seen on Terazije Square (one of the main squares in Belgrade)- a galloping catastrophe.