Issue 148 - July 25, 1994

According to some views, the Karadzic/Milosevic duo has once again correctly assessed the seriousness of foreign threats, so that they answered the ultimatum deadlined for July 20 in kindwith another "final'' peace plan

The closest the Bosnian Serb Declaration got to endorsing the Contact Group plan is the assessment that it "can serve, in considerable measure, as a basis for further negotiations.''

Since I was away for a while I would now have the right to pretend surprise and abhorrence, but, unfortunately, I remember everything only too well, and, therefore, am unable to use that right. Besides, we here are not that different from the world at large. Everybody knows what war is and what crime is, quilty parties justify themselves in the same manner everywhere, either refusing to admit or blaming others and betraying their accomplices. However, I can still recognise some details that may strike a foreigner as new and unusual.

Avramovic's promises that the Dinar and the German Mark would be the same and that everyone would be able to choose the money he prefers most never really happened.

NBJ Governor Avramovic is trying to keep the Dinar stable and save his program with administratively strongly controlled interventions from the foreign currency reserves and by propagating the gold and silver Dinar, but economic circles in Belgrade are thriving with suggestions on other therapies for the national currency which is obviously under great pressure.The latest idea is to defend the value of the Dinar with higher interest rates

The introduction of special forms when buying foreign currency in banks has made it clear that those with dinars do not wish to keep them at home or on their bank accounts, and are in a hurry to change them into convertible foreign currency as soon as possible. This is why the authorities have printed special forms, so that they can keep track of anyone, who by selling dinars, is in fact, expressing mistrust of the national currency's stability, and thus mistrust of the regime

It seems Vladislav Jovanovic's days as Yugoslav Foreign Minister are numbered three years after his first appointment to the post of Serbian Foreign Minister, although this still hasn't been confirmed either officially or unofficially

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic simply doesn't want an army that he cannot absolutely control especially because of the current political situation

Lawyer Zoran Stojkovic speaks of the limits of Serbia's new Criminal Law