No Roads Lead To Belgrade

President of the City of Belgrade Government Nebojsa Covic (Socialist Party of Serbia member) has taken over the running of a city which just managed to scrape through the winter and all the difficulties resulting from sanctions. In spite of the opposition's resistance, the City Assembly pushed through a program which would have been too expensive for Stockholm, let alone Belgrade: city heating, the building of sports halls and investments in the city center.

Three months later, after the municipal government had come out with a brutally frank report, it became obvious that it was all a lot of make-believe. On July 5, the municipal council said that Belgrade had only one-fifth of the funds which would ensure the city's survival this winter and that many vital municipal services were on the verge of collapse. The municipal government said that the city's public utilities system was clinically dead: the waterworks, power plants, the city garbage disposal service, the municipal transport company and "Lasta" an inter-city transport company, had estimated losses of 16.3 million DM in June. There is a shortage of everything. The water supply, traffic, heating, electrical supply network, health, social protection, and basic foodstuffs face disaster.

Belgrade agri-combine "Jedinstvo" director Svetozar Markovic said coolly in the middle of the harvest, that he wouldn't sell wheat to Belgrade at three pfennings/kilo, but for 35 pfennings/kilo in the Serb Republic of Krajina.

During the summer there were rumors in Belgrade that many officials did not support Covic. Regardless of the political background of the conflict (Covic is opposed to a pact between the Socialists and the Radicals), he had to clash with lackluster Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic over money. Covic said enigmatically that Belgraders would now know whom to praise and whom to curse. He knew what he was talking about. While drawing up a program of special measures aimed at making the city system functional, the municipal authorities announced urbi et orbi, that the Devil had come for his due, which greatly undermined official optimism. Numbers speak for themselves: in the first four months this year production dropped by 30%, building investments by 50% and traffic by 56%. Over 1,200 firms with around 100,000 workers had their giro accounts blocked in late April, and according to estimates, worse days are to come. The city's monthly income is estimated at 9.6 million DM/month, while the list of the city's basic monthly requirements stands at 46.6 million DM. The city authorities believe that the difference of 37 million DM should be covered by bank credits (if any banks remain) and by the Republic of Serbia (through the primary issue for masut and wheat, by exempting public utilities from taxes, and the Directorate for Commodity Reserves), if it keeps its promises.

Public transport and the heating system are in the worst situation. "The state of the motor pool is very bad", said the city authorities in their report, "and unless money is found immediately for the maintenance of the vehicles, half the motor pool will be useless". "In the coming period reductions in transport can be expected, while some lines will be cut altogether". Even before the sanctions, 10 cm of snow used to cause chaos, so that with the current situation, the future looks bleak.

If the rule that in times of war and crises winters usually last longer and are colder is repeated, then Belgraders will come to know the true meaning of the word apocalypse. The municipal government has come up with two "heating scenarios". If money is found somehow for the purchase of 50% of the necessary fuel for the work of the power plants, flats will be heated from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the heating season will last from November 15 to March 15 with a temperature of 10-14 C. In this case the authorities advise a prolongation of the winter holidays by a month, collective vacations for firms where production is not a priority, the closing of recreation centers, museums, cinemas, libraries, health services, and recommend that those citizens who have chimneys use coal and wood.

The second scenario is much more interesting and foresees the purchase of 25% of the necessary quantities of fuel. In this case "circumstances will arise which cannot be fully controlled", and the basic aim is "the biological survival of the population". In this case the heating season would last from December 1 to March 1, while "the internal temperature of facilities cannot be guaranteed", but efforts will be made to ensure 3-7 degrees! Advice to citizens: "leave the city, go and stay with family and friends in some smaller town or stay in your summer houses"; insulate your flats along the "do-it-yourself principle"; "organize life in a smaller number of rooms. A number of families can live together in one flat which has a heating system based on coal or wood"; "reception centers which would be heated should be made ready (sports halls etc.)"; "shelters should be readied for the organized daily life of citizens", etc.

The above mentioned variants cover those whose heating system depends on electricity (40% of all the flats and a part of the business and public facilities). The others will have to make do as best they know how. It is not difficult to imagine the winter joys which await Belgraders this winter. It is interesting to note that the city authorities recommend the use of coal and wood while at the same time admitting that they do not have any solid fuel in stock. With regard to other supplies, the situation is the same. The city currently has a stock of flour for 10 days, sugar and salt for 15, rice for 20, wheat (data before the buy up) for four days and meat for one day. There are no supplies of beans, detergents or powdered milk.

The municipal authorities did not fail to draw up a meticulous list of their needs and those whom they count on. Their greatest expectations lie in bank credits and the Republic. Belgrade Government President Nebojsa Covic said that Serbia would take care of the transport and heating. It is still not clear what Covic has been promised, but it is hard to believe that the Serbian government will return to Belgrade those competencies which it took over recently.

In short, this winter Belgraders can expect to walk to work, to be hungry and cold, and to live in darkness with occasional water shortages and eventual epidemics, thanks to a shortage of medicine (see the box) ... The city authorities mention the possibility of "alternative sources", whatever that may mean. (The cutting down of trees in city parks would not be enough, Belgrade is too big).

After the first clashes with the Serbian government, Covic was given undefined concessions at a meeting with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, while the Serbian Prime Minister was granted real competencies. Ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) commissary Minic, has obviously been given the task of "neutralizing" Covic, who went on vacation while republican officials visited Belgrade. The municipal transport company was promised money for spare parts. With regard to the heating system, Sainovic repeated Milosevic's Delphic pronouncements that Belgrade would not freeze. At the same time there were "signals" that the Serbian government would exert pressure on the Yugoslav government to approve credit from the primary issue. Four days after Covic had been given guarantees by Milosevic, Federal Minister of the Economy Tomislav Simovic said openly, that he, as an engineer, thought it unrealistic to expect that Belgrade would have hot water from Obrenovac this year, and that at the best, this could be the case next year.

There has been talk in Belgrade about this investment for the past 15 years. However, it is expensive and technically difficult to realize, and was considered uneconomic when there were lots of dollars around. That is why the best advice to Belgraders was given by Belgrade Power Plants Director Dragan Nikolic - to insulate their windows.

A clash between Belgrade and the Serbian government was inevitable. For the time being it concerns public utilities, but its background is political. The Serbian government is in the hands of country hicks from the south and other provincial careerists. Those who in the Assembly, upheld with a majority, a proposal by SPS deputy Raka Radovic from Trstenik, who said that Belgraders should get up at 5 a.m. and milk cows. Through its provincial deputies Serbia is being lulled into believing that it can live alone, without the rest of the world, that it can survive through black marketeering, that it will "ride horses" and "survive out of spite". In the meantime, vital institutions are coming to a standstill, either for lack of funds or the systematic introduction of receivership, while links with the rest of the world are being severed. Belgrade has in fact, already been bombed; this megapolis is turning into a habitat of the poor.

Social critic Lewis Mamford said once, that a city is a place for the multiplication of lucky opportunities and many unplanned possibilities. With the abandoning of the market here and the change to a war economy, the opposite has taken place. Belgrade has lost the advantages it enjoyed as a financial, intellectual ad trade center, and has become good only for criminal activities. According to some Russian studies, Moscow and St. Petersburg have the greatest chances for privatization and the development of a market economy in Russia. Belgrade once had the chance of becoming the gateway to the East. This can be seen by the fact that Budapest is flourishing, while Belgrade is starting to resemble Kinshasa, Zaire. In this city of 4,000,000 inhabitants, the crisis culminated when an elite group of government troops, angered by not having been paid for months, started looting the city and were joined in the rampage by civilians. In a few days a billion dollars' worth of property had been destroyed.

The consequences of turning Serbia into a single war firm are practically identical to this African experience. In 1989 Belgrade lost many political prerogatives and chances for development. The banking system which is centerd in Belgrade, was first centralized, then decentralized, and finally became based on crime.

What Belgrade needs is a Copernican twist. Belgraders are apt to be nonchalant and to underestimate dangers. They are not fully aware of the fact that they are living in a city which is falling apart and that this is nothing new in urban history.

Compared to other cities, Belgrade's poor do not have an organic link with the hinterland. Its inhabitants do not come from its surroundings, and usually cannot rely on their families or help from their homeland which is usually far away and often devastated by war. Even Belgrade villages are full of people without land.

Belgrade has also been affected by the war's destruction of the former decentralized urban network of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Medium-sized cities have been destroyed such as Sarajevo, Vukovar, Mostar. Such cities were magnets for the first industrial generation. One million people have been forced to flee from their ruins. A tsunami of refugees is heading towards Belgrade, which in two years has increased in size like two new towns of Kragujevac. Some sociologists believe that a migrational wave will surpass the two earlier refugee waves. There are 14,000 registered refugees in Zvezdara (a Belgrade community) alone, and this is the size of a small town. The growth of uncontrolled chaos is something that could happen in the future.

Belgrade is existentially juxtaposed to the ruling logic in a country, whose capital it is. As an urban machine, Belgrade is on the verge of collapse, including its energy supply system, social system, traffic, waterworks and defunct cultural institutions. Belgrade is vulnerable from the social and urban point of view, and perhaps we are searching in vain for a specific strategy which would ensure its survival. That is why a squabble between officials over Belgrade does not offer a road out of the darkness. Belgrade cannot survive isolation. It should not be begging the Serbian government for a bit of coal, but seeking a radical change.

An Epidemic Under Control

If things continue this way, it will soon be possible to compare Belgrade to Karachi where a hepatitis epidemic has been raging for five years. Urban sociologists estimate that over 300 million of the urban poor in world have permanently weakened organisms since they carry one or more parasites. Serbian Society of Doctors President Vojin Sulovic says: "Our data show that the population currently cannot satisfy its basic needs in food, water supply, living conditions and heating, all of which are a direct health risk. Twenty percent of the population is undernourished. Death due to infection has increased by 22% compared to last year.

"In the 1991-1992 period death resulting from acute contagious diseases (with the exception of influenza) increased by 14.1%. In the first six months of this year, 11,207 people fell sick, compared to 8,353 in the same period last year. The number of those sick has risen by 34%.

"The number of those sick at this time of the year is not unusual. Spring and summer are seasons when we get contagious intestinal illnesses, and those resulting from unwashed hands", said City Health Protection Institute Assistant Director Veljko Djerkovic talking to VREME. "In the situation we are faced with, we have achieved maximum success in controlling the epidemiological situation. We had 13 epidemics this year. The greatest number of cases were due to ice-cream poisoning in Obrenovac - 128 persons. Most of the epidemics cover only some ten-odd people, which is a harmless number even under the most normal circumstances. This only confirms that we are doing our very best in preventing the spreading of diseases. Belgrade belongs to the medium risk group. This is because of its suburban settlements which are difficult to control; the great influx of refugees from endangered areas, and a lot of food that is being sold where it shouldn't be. Now all sorts of things are being sold. Some people bring meat from the battlefields where the conditions are catastrophic, while others sell contaminated ice-cream to children. Everybody is surprised that the epidemics have not taken on wider proportions, and the only explanation is our promptness in dealing with matters. Many people have adapted to this difficult situation", said Djerkovic.

Resistance is our strong point, but this conclusion only holds true for Belgrade. In the interior, entire regions of Serbia are contaminated.