| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Serb PM killing a terrible wakeup call
By Tihomir Loza, Transitions Online
BELGRADE, Serbia -- The murder of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic on 12 March in Belgrade is a terrible loss for Serbia as well as the Balkan region as a whole. For all his personal flaws, of which some were considerable, Djindjic was the most accomplished reformist politician on the region's turbulent political scene. Djindjic -- who radiated an energy that routinely inspired his aides but often failed to fire up popular imagination -- relished a challenge, often choosing to take on the most difficult one to hand. While throughout the 1990s other opposition leaders often made humiliating compromises with the regime of Slobodan Milosevic or indulged in pointless purist rhetoric, Djindjic and his Democratic Party (DS) were feverishly masterminding and carrying out new schemes for getting rid of the dictator. To be sure, some of those attempts were ill-conceived, others controversial, and some perhaps even morally dubious. Yet, in the end one of those schemes worked magnificently. While Serbia's exasperation with Milosevic was always the basic ingredient from which Milosevic's eventual ouster was to be molded, his removal in October 2000 was largely made possible by Djindjic's vision, stamina, and organizational skill. In government, Djindjic displayed similar qualities. He drove forward his reform program single-mindedly, creating enough political space for a team of macroeconomic specialists in his government to sort out the fundamentals of Serbia's economy. Some of those reforms were carried out with breathtaking speed. Djindjic's work in other areas was more controversial. Quite early on, his party become got embroiled in a war of attrition with its coalition partner, the rapidly growing Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) of then Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica. At times, one could not help the feeling that Djindjic and his aides quite enjoyed this pointless game, in which they routinely outmaneuvered the rather sluggish and conservative Kostunica camp. While the conflict had little to do with substantive issues, it generated an astonishing amount of confusion, faintheartedness, and disillusionment within Serbia. This taste for politicking and tactics melded poorly with Djindjic's own insistence on the paramount importance of things strategic. Pragmatism and an ability to see far often featured high among the qualities that both critics and allies ascribed to Djindjic. Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Djindjic's long-time friend Zarko Korac recalled in an interview with B92 Television, for example, how Djindjic had sought to refocus the attention of his ministers on the big picture when they came to him concerned with worrisome details.
Those worries usually related to controversial appointments of former regime members to key positions in the security services, the judiciary, and the economy. Djindjic himself many times said that Serbia had little choice but to rely on some of these types, for in many walks of public life there simply were not that many people who had stayed clear of the Milosevic regime. Last week, for example, Djindjic addressed the widespread concerns over the appointment of Jovan Prijic, a former member of Yugoslav United Left (JUL) of Milosevic's wife Mirjana Markovic, as a special prosecutor charged with taking on organized crime. "I too could imagine some ideal James Bond, but the question is whether we have [such a person] among our prosecutors," Djindjic said. He maintained that, as long as Serbia as a whole was moving toward a stable democracy and functioning market economy, such compromises did not matter much. Nowhere was the shortage of qualified and untainted personnel more evident than in Serbia's troubled security and law enforcement sectors. But making do in this most sensitive of policy areas with former Milosevic loyalists was the easiest part of the problem. The intertwinement of police, secret police, and the judiciary with Serbia's underworld was a much more serious challenge. Djindjic and his aides did not face that ordinary form of post-communist corruption that manifests itself mostly through graft and occasionally in violence. Instead, they inherited a country in which the criminal activities and motivations, ranging from greed to extremist nationalism, of a rampantly unaccountable state, parastate, and underworld entities were often impossible to tell apart. Indeed, outright criminals and murderers often became state officials. The situation was particularly murky in relations between the secret service and the underworld. Djindjic and Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic often pointed out that it was difficult for them to tell who was who there. The failure to focus on this terrible problem early on accounted for much of the Djindjic government's lost credibility and ultimately led to the prime minister's tragic death. It has often been said that Serbia's underworld was in search of a new godfather after Milosevic was ousted. There have been many who suggested that Djindjic may have accepted the job. They were proved wrong by the assassination. But there is little doubt that the secret service elements and organized crime groups -- most notably the so-called Surcin clan (also known as the Zemun Clan) -- harbored hopes that Djindjic would protect them. The late prime minister's strategy in this area was anything but uncontroversial. While his secret contacts with representatives of both undoubtedly facilitated the bloodless uprising against Milosevic, Djindjic later hesitated to act more forcefully against them, even befriending some figures who the media linked to Surcin clan. Unsurprisingly, this reinforced the notion that Djindjic was indebted to the mafia. In all likelihood, Djindjic and his aides were just genuinely confused and overwhelmed by the problem. Mihajlovic himself many times changed his assessment of the scope of the menace, sometimes saying that mafia and former secret service leaders have resources greater than those available to the police, at other times that the problem is under control. Mihajlovic now says the government was just about to carry out a series of arrests when Djindjic was assassinated. If the Surcin clan, which reportedly split into two rival groups last summer, is indeed behind the assassination, as the government charges, it would certainly appear that it is a strong and extremely bold force. It is not, however, stronger than the government, no matter how many moles inside the state structures it may still have. While some of the instruments of power that were at this and other criminal groups' disposal under Milosevic may appear intact, the environment in which they operate has radically changed. It changed on 5 October 2000 when Milosevic was chased out -- and it will change even more with the Djindjic murder. The killers may have counted on the Serbian government's disunity and on Djindjic's notoriously low personal ratings to ensure that this crime would simply become one of the long series of high-profile murders and kidnappings in Serbia's recent past, most of which were quickly overtaken by other events or even forgotten. It would not be terribly surprising either if the murderers even put the outside world's preoccupation with Iraq into the equation. If any of these were true, then Djindjic's murderers miscalculated badly. Even though he was not always adored by Serbs, there were not that many who did not respect Djindjic in some way. If anything, along with the irritation with Djindjic's allegedly un-Serb slickness, there often lurked some admiration for his agility. "That one will catch a flying snake," one often heard. The expressions of outrage, sorrow, and resolve among ordinary Serbian citizens suggest that, rather than being forgotten, Djindjic's murder is likely to come to represent a turning point in Serbia's modern history. It is a wakeup call that cannot but focus people's minds on the paramount task of doing away with the most sinister organized crime groups. The Surcin clan members can run, but there are not that many places in Serbia for them to hide now. The government's unity and resolve in the aftermath of the assassination is laudable. They should use wisely and determinedly their mandate from the people to lay the foundations for a lawful and stable Serbia. They should be given every support from the international community that they now need. The murder of Zoran Djindjic delivers an urgent lesson to Serbia's neighbors as well. While crime in other Balkan countries may not have reached such extremes as it has in Serbia, in most of them crime and corruption are eating away at the not so inconsiderable achievements in other areas. Clearly, the fight against organized crime and the establishment of the rule of law should top the agendas of all the governments and international agencies in the region.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
