Issue 485 - April 5, 2001

Milosevic’s era was marked by a terrifying lawlessness and the state now has to present its citizens with a decisive break with its “dark past”

Following BK’s and CNN’s breaking news of Slobodan Milosevic’s arrest, we called Mira Markovic on the phone, in her house in Uzicka St. In the next two days we spoke a dozen times. This is at least a partial answer to the question – what was going on, inside

If anyone had predicted ten days ago that Sinisa Vucinic would lead an armed rebellion against the government, that Marija Milosevic would run around the Dedinje park shooting at Ceda Jovanovic, that the famous Special Antiterrorist Unit (SAJ) of the Interior Ministry (MUP) of Serbia wouldn’t pass the test of its first true anti-terrorist action, that the chief of the General Staff would twist like a worm under the merciless questions of a young journalist and that the Guard Brigade of the Yugoslav Army would tuck its tail between its legs and abandon the object which it was in charge of defending in order to get out of the crossfire of two warring police clans – who would have believed him?

The Government of Serbia, its Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and Minister of Police, Dusan Mihajlovic accused the Yugoslav Army of hindering the arrest of the former president of Yugoslavia, “openly supporting armed civilians and Slobodan Milosevic’s personal bodyguards.” The Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army and its Chief, General Nebojsa Pavkovic personally denied such accusations. What is the real truth

“The situation at the entrance was horrific – on the outside were those policemen wearing those unusual pants and ski mask, looking like they were acting in a feature film, while on the inside were Milosevic’s supporters, paramilitary units, weapons… I feared that if the gates were open, they would attack each other. That is why, looking for the easiest way out I hesitated in withdrawing the several remaining corporals, and I believe that this hesitation probably prevented a conflict from occurring”

As one nasty joke from the post-Kumanovo cycle had it, Dr. Mirjana Markovic gets up one morning and sees a group of fully armed men in the courtyard of the presidential residence. Evidently frightened by what she sees, she wakes up her husband, Slobodan Milosevic, who replies reluctantly: ‘Don’t worry Mira, those are just our frontier guards.’

Three rounds of negotiations followed one another in the overall duration of ten hours.