Issue 15 - January 6, 1992

During his fifth visit to Yugoslavia, Mr. Vance smiled for the first time and for the first time he made a few optimistic statements.

VREME got hold of the tape of the controversial interview which the Italian Foreign Minister gave to "Politika", in which he expressed the stand of his country concerning the peaceful solution of the Yugoslav crisis.

A dream of an American opera singer and the activities of a French peacemaker were translated into Serbo-Croatian as a political action with obscure aims and consequences. Still, it worked

Excerpts from an Interview, Zagreb, December 1991

An old English saying "We are counting the heads so that we would not have to chop them off", was not confirmed in the case of the first pluralist elections in Serbia and in Yugoslavia. In December 1990 no party promised a war, or the militarization of society, or the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The voters came out naively opting for a status quo, expecting the situation to calm down, a better standard of living and a way to Europe, and only some were concerned about the war and misery.

I believe because it is absurd. Do we really have, after all the cease-fires and agreements a better reason than this old scholastic witticism to believe that peace will last this time?

Mr. Novak is a writer and a president of the Slovenian PEN Club. He was born in 1953 in Belgrade. After finishing his elementary school, he moved to Ljubljana. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy and Philology. He has taken an active part in the latest events in Slovenia and Yugoslavia and has led a bitter debate with the Slovenian minister of defence Janez Jansa concerning the competencies of the new Slovenian counter-intelligence.

Despite much talk on the instigation of property transformation, the new president of the Serbian government dr Radoman Bozovic forced ex Serbian premier dr Stanko Radmilovic, the temporary director of the Serbian oil industry to resign because he wanted to, at least partially, separate it from the state.

Seven decades of common living and common diplomatic history leaves the Yugoslav heirs with the big fund of state property abroad.