Klassekampen brakte i går en NTB-melding om at serbiske politikere nå truer
med å drepe
uavhengige journalister. Human Rights Watch rettet sterk kritikk mot serbiske
regjeringsmedlemmer, blant dem den høyreekstreme visestatsministeren
Vojislav Seselj.
'"Seselj anklaget nylig mediene for å være "forrædere" og medskyldige i
drapet på
forsvarsminister Pavle Bulatovic." skriver NTB.
Beskyldningene om delaktighet i drapet på forsvarsminister Pavle Bulatovic
er rettet særlig
mot Beograd-journalisten Aleksandar Tijanic, som har spekulert høyt om hvem
som drepte
den jugoslaviske forsvarsministeren.
Tijanic har uttalt at det mest sannsynlig dreier seg om en privat serbisk
gruppe - et slags
hemmelig brorskap - som planlegger for tiden etter Milosevic-regimet, og at
formålet
deres antagelig er å skape tvil om hvem som har kontrollen i Beograd. (En
av hans artikler
om dette er vedlagt nedenfor, en versjon av denne har tidligere blitt trykt
i avisa Nezavisne
Novine, og er nå oversatt til engelsk for IWPR.)
Aleksandar Tijanic, som tidligere var serbisk informasjonsminister, har nå
blitt utsatt for en
svertningskampanje, og ble i avisa "Borba" beskyldt for å ha visst om
attentatplanene på
forhånd, og for å beskytte attentatgruppa. (Se B2-92-meldingen nedenfor.)
B2-92, som forøvrig
er et av de "forræderiske" mediene som skal knekkes, sammenligner nå
kampanjen mot
Tijanic med en lignende kampanje mot Slavko Curuvija, den tidligere
redaktøren av avisa
Dnevni Telegraf og magasinet Evropljanin, som ble drept utenfor sin
leilighet i sentrale
Beograd i fjor.
Øistein Holen
----------
Fra IWPRs Balkan Crisis Report 116:
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl5?archive/bcr/bcr_20000215_3_eng.txt
COMMENT: I KNOW WHO KILLED BULATOVIC
The death of a defence minister has raised the question: Who rules Serbia?
By Aleksandar Tijanic in Belgrade
The death of a single individual no longer constitutes a tragedy here. In
today's Serbia, the death of anyone, no matter how important, is just
another statistic.
A reporter dies - it is just a drastic form of censorship. A businessman is
liquidated - it is just the Serbian custom of dividing the spoils. A
politician is killed - it is just a payback for a broken promise to a
businessman.
But what does it mean when a defence minister is killed?
Speculation over the culprits has been rife, with Albanian radicals and
Montenegrin separatists suspected. The most likely perpetrator of the
Bulatovic job, however, may be a private internal grouping - a secret
brotherhood - combining that special Serbian mix of political, business and
security interests stirred up through a decade of war and black-market
profiteering.
There is no evidence pointing to Albanians, who would probably not put
Bulatovic first on their list anyway, and Montenegrins have never been so
rash.
The aim of the Bulatovic assassination, if it is indeed a Serbian group, is
clear - namely to raise the question of who, in fact, rules Serbia?
The state's monopoly control on physical violence has been destroyed. The
decade's violence and hatred has been brought home. Now every Serb is at
risk of summary judgement by some hidden source of power, which passes only
one, incontestable ruling.
With these power groups, there will be no negotiation. The killers eliminate
people according to their own criteria and act with a complete lack of fear
or hesitation. The indicted are provided with no judge, no jury, no attorney
and no right to appeal. The death of the accused, evidently, is merely the
cheapest and surest variant of achieving one's aims, whether to protect
business interests, revenge a betrayal or simply defend honour or
reputation.
Everyone is fair game. After Bulatovic, there are no immortals, no
untouchables, no protected family names. No one involved in the creation of
this latest Serbia has been absolved of paying their dues.
The killers are looking beyond the current regime. They are staking out
their turf, and establishing contacts with those who could form part of some
new Serbian government. Such groups, rejected by their former patrons, may
even offer support for the opposition during a turbulent transfer of power -
to expiate their sins, secure their assets and legitimise themselves as
businessmen who came up from the underground.
Bulatovic's tragedy is to have served as the bearer of this message. He was
known as a large and gentle man, temperate in his politics and accommodating
- the kind of person who would always lend a hand when he could. He liked to
sit with friends, relaxing in cafes, drinking and holding his own. Eschewing
that essential symbol of all prominent Serbs, even generals, Bulatovic went
about town without a bodyguard, and indeed died with no one to protect him.
Rare among Montenegrins, he did not display great ambition. Those who knew
him say he was mobilised for all his high positions, rather than actively
seeking them. Having served as a pliable federal police chief, he may have
been called to his new position by Milosevic to pull the army together again
after several years of internal tensions.
Media reports have stressed that he was the uncle of Darko Asanin, an
underworld figure murdered in 1998. Yet Asanin made a career for himself,
such as it was, well before his uncle. He had already become rich, reached
the pinnacle of the kitsch, moneyed and violent world of Yugoslavia, while
Bulatovic was still a petty professor in Podgorica.
Some fact may emerge to provide a definite motive. But until then, the
inscrutability of the case may itself be the clue. A seemingly senseless
killing with a very sharp message that will not go unnoticed by those who
matter.
But for the rest, Bulatovic will pass. In any European state, the
assassination of a defence minister would cause a storm. In a Serbia
anaesthetised by evil, the story will last a week. After a decade of hatred
and thievery, the collapse of the state and nearly every institution within
it, all that is left is indifference. The struggle against the New World
Order, the heroic reconstruction, the historical mission - all are in vain,
and Serbia itself is now a great morgue, in which the barely alive bewail
the recently dead.
It is in this environment that such a secret brotherhood can thrive.
Violence has been introduced into every form of public life: politics,
economics, the media, the judicial system, hospitals, schools, the street,
elections, the cafe, the hotel. Damned and despairing, we Serbs merely stand
in line. The news of Bulatovic is that there is no other choice. Behind
every success, all wealth and power, the henchman is there, and his
judgement awaits.
Aleksandar Tijanic is a leading journalist, editor and commentator in
Belgrade. A version of this article originally appeared in the Banja Luka
newspaper Nezavisne Novine, translated by Snezana Lazovic.
----------
B92 i går:
State media open season on Aleksandar Tijanic
BELGRADE , Tuesday - State media today joined the chorus of accusations
against independent journalist Aleksandar Tijanic, which was led yesterday by
state news agency Tanjug. A number of newspapers today repeated the Tanjug
claim that Tijanic, who is a former Serbian minister for information, was
privy to plans for the assassination of Yugoslav Defence Minister Pavle
Bulatovic. Daily "Borba" political analyst Ivan Padjic accused Tijanic, on
that basis, of protecting the assassins by not warning the appropriate
institutions of the murder.
The denunciation of Tijanic resembles a similar campaign mounted last year by
state media against newspaper proprietor Slavko Curuvija. Within days,
Curuvija was shot dead outside his apartment in central Belgrade. The killers
have never been identified.
Tijanic told Radio B292 today that he would press charges against Padjic and
the author of yesterday's Tanjug commentary, saying that he wanted to go to
court to show that he was not afraid. Commenting on the accusation that he
knew who had killed Bulatovic and was protecting them, Tijanic said that
today's Borba editorial was a demonstration of the panic that was
overwhelming the authorities.
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