Belgrade Journal, Monday October 9, 1 p.m.

The violence that no one speaks about
Toward a new test of strength?

MICHEL COLLON

It’s heading toward a new street demonstration, undoubtedly smaller than the one Oct. 5. The Serb Parliament met today and the opposition DOS hurled down an ultimatum: if the law on university activities is not abolished (a law that was aimed at stopping opposition activities using university resources), then a demonstration will take place and the parliament could be if not invaded, at least encircled and blockaded.

But the real battle lies somewhere else. DOS won the presidency, but no government. It doesn’t have the federal government of Yugoslavia where it is expected that a government of the Serb Socialists (SPS--Milosevic) and Montenegrins (SNP--Bulatovic) will form the majority. Nor has it the Serbian government, which has been in place for years and should remain for another year by law, and which reflects the old electoral balance of forces.

What majority in the Serb Parliament? Total confusion.

In the Serb Parliament, the strongest single party (83 representatives out of 255) is the Radical Party (right-wing nationalists) of Seselj, allied with the Milosevic forces. But this party was flattened in the last elections and is threatened with disappearing. Its leaders are desperately searching for a way of saving it. 

To maintain the present alliance, they ended by coming up with a series of demands judged unrealistic by an SPS leader I met. For example, the electoral law would be revised to make the entire country a single voting area, which would assure the Radicals the best chance of getting at least some representatives in Parliament. 

The SPO of Draskovic – this party also on the verge of disappearing – pulled out of this government and would prefer that it didn’t exist. In reality, the two parties are trapped: as the DOS won all their voters away, they would be eliminated if there were new elections. Thus the SPO and the Radicals are tempted to form a new Serb government together, without new elections, and without the Socialists, which could last a year.

But on the other hand, there two parties are above all putting forth their appeals to increase their bids in negotiations with the DOS and SPS. Without principle, they are trying to get enough people from one side or the other.

Such great political maneuvering is also going on full blast about constituting the new federal government. The indispensable partner, the Montenegrin Socialist Party, is being wooed strongly. DOS immediately made offers to it. 

Only, in a year there will be new elections in Montenegro, and in this country (Yugoslavia), the elections for the governments of the republics are even more important than that of the federal government with regard to legal responsibility and budgets. The Montenegrin socialists have electoral momentum and could win against the pro-U.S. right-wing party led by Djukanovic. But if they ally themselves with the Serb right wing, the DOS, which has exactly the same IMF-type program as Djukanovic, their trademark will lose its value. That’s why they have chosen Milosevic’s SPS as their partners. Everything has been negotiated. There remains but one obstacle.

Set back in this arena, the DOS began to challenge the election of 18 Socialist Party deputies. It advanced the argument that the Constitutional Court had not accepted the results of these voting areas but … for the presidential election. On the contrary, for the parliamentary elections, the DOS representatives had all signed official documents validating the results, without raising any complaints to the Control Commission.

For Kosovo, the argument is that the voting bureaus had been closed at 4 p.m., instead of 8 p.m., in light of the insecure conditions in that province. All that seems to be far fetched and to prosecute another end. A parliamentary commission should soon verify the validity of these 18 seats. The SPS and SNP will be a majority there and the result seems unquestionable.

Far from the cameras, Djindjic’s violence

It is perhaps just because of this that the DOS is keeping up the pressure. What methods does it employ? Threats of demonstrations and blockades of legal institutions, physical violence and threats against members of the Socialist Party and various state institutions, seizures of certain enterprises.

Behind the symbolic figures of Kostunica, who occupies center stage, is Zoran Djindjic organizing all of that. Having sold out long ago to German and then U.S. interests, as everyone knows here, Djindjic, widely despised, has made use of Kostunica to defeat Milosevic, and at present, he is rushing toward real power. By violence.

The Belgrade headquarters of the Socialist Party has been completely destroyed. Kostunica sent a photographer, who appeared shocked by what he saw at the place. Some homes of SPS members have been burned. Numerous enterprises – for example the Din tobacco factory – have been put by force into the hands of Djindjic’s people, as well as a number of joint-venture companies (those collaborating with foreign companies).

But official institutions have also been confiscated. The bank of payments, the one that carries out all financial transfers, has been put under control of Djindjic. At this moment the DOS has used force to expel the director of the children’s hospital, Mr. Scepanovic, who is qualified and competent at his work, but guilty of being a member of the Socialist Party.

Other events of this character can not yet be told because the victims are too frightened. But the facts have been recorded and when something happens, they will be spread. And in the provinces, acts of terror have been even more widespread than in Belgrade, where it’s necessary to preserve a presentable image.

It is not for this at all that the people voted. They voted to live better and because the majority had lost confidence in Milosevic. It is also to keep these facts about the violence from being known by the public that all the media have been placed since the beginning under control of the DOS, more precisely of Djindjic.

It is DOS and the West who have set up a media monopoly!

It is Djindjic, not Kostunica, who has very effectively organized the occupation of the public media centers: RTS (Serb television), the press agency Tanjug, the daily newspaper Politika. He did it with the complicity of certain directors of these media centers, and by either pushing out the other journalists by force or submitting them to great pressures.

The result: When you turn on the television today, you see the same thing everywhere: Kostunica and DOS, or perhaps DOS and Kostunica. Nothing else. Never a point of view of the other camp. 

They used to charge Milosevic with monopolizing the media. But, under Milosevic, even if there had been suspensions during certain periods, the opposition had three times as much media coverage than those in power and with regard to the electronic media, five times as much. And also his television. The population was bombarded constantly with those opinions, which had greatly influenced it. At present, all information is under the control of a single party, and that is called “democracy.”

In addition, very modern psychological methods are applied to the media. One can see that they have been prepared for a long time. Washington’s dollars (see our previous articles) have been invested to prepare these modern media techniques.

What will happen? The DOS will try to keep up the pressure to stop the functioning of governments at each level that they don’t control, using demonstrations and confrontations. But most of the people here want the end to violence and the return of calm, using institutional obstruction like those described above. The more time passes, the less they can use force. That’s at least what many here hope.