Issue 149 - August 1, 1994

Slobodan Milosevic can now simply ask: Do you want war along with poverty and inflation which I already showed you or peace and Dragoslav Avramovic

A special session of the Serbian Assembly convened at the initiative of a rather motley opposition, to debate the draft Law on Radio Television Serbia, which has been the focus of political life in Serbia for the past four years. The debate showed up the deformations of the Serbian political organism with X-ray clarity, and its near disintegration

Bogoljub Pejcic, Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) MP and until recently Chairman of the Serbian Assembly Defence and Security Committee, told VREME that even after two years of being a deputy, he still didn't know all the entrances into the Assembly building.

The Serbian police number approximately 80,000 men (regular forces) and many more within the reserve force. Their privileges, arrogance and strength make them the mainstay of the regime

The picture of Serbia, as the pillar of antifascism during WW2 was very strong among liberal intellectuals who do not have such easy access to the media as French intellectual stars, but are the biggest group of their kind in the world. The aim of all propaganda has always been to invest in this particular segment of society. A Princeton Classics professor showed me how this was done: sympathy for the Serbs prevailed until the shelling of Dubrovnik

This country's policy towards minorities has negative consequences. The ruling party, and most nationalist opposition parties don't care much for their rights

The uproar over the Contact Group peace plan for Bosnia and the beating of deputies in the Serbian Parliament drew attention away from a "Politika'' daily article recalling the four year chronology of Serbian opposition efforts to achieve the first premise of democratic pluralism: the freedom of public information.

Some time around midnight last Tuesday from the twelfth floor of my apartment block I was staring blankly out over Belgrade that was swaying under the heat. I decided not to write my regular column "The Blind Box'' any more.