by Adam LeBor
The hard-liners in both JUL and the Chinese Communist Party shared a similar neo-Marxist world-view, opposing what they described as the hegemony of the United States. China saw Belgrade as a useful counterweight to US policies in the Balkans. Mira’s growing influence could be seen in the visit by Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic to China in November 1995, after which he praised its economy and society. Increasingly, Milosevic appeared to be following the Chinese model, at least domestically. In February 1996 the independent television station Studio B was taken over by the regime. Twenty journalists were sacked and a new emphasis was announced, on ‘sport and entertainment’.
The move signalled Milosevic’s determination to control the outcome of the local and federal elections in November. The three main figures of the fractious opposition had finally joined their parties in a coalition known as ‘Zajedno’, meaning ‘together’. Zajedno was jointly led by Vuk Draskovic, leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, Zoran Djindjic of the centrist Democratic Party, and Vesna Pesic of the liberal Civic Alliance. Zajedno did poorly in the federal election, winning just twenty-two seats in parliament, compared to sixty-four for the government coalition of the Socialists, JUL and the business-orientated New Democracy Party. Most surprising were the sixteen seats won by the paramilitary leader Vojislav Seselj’s party.
But Zajedno won in over a dozen localities, including Belgrade, Novi Sad and the southern city of Nis. Zoran Djindjic was presented to a rally in Belgrade as the city’s new mayor and declared to the crowd that, ‘Serbia’s friends will be able to say that Serbia is neither Cuba nor Korea.’ It would be a while, however, before he took over Belgrade city hall. The local election results were annulled because of ‘irregularities’, and a third round of voting was announced. In Nis, the election committee simply awarded the city to the Socialists. Zajedno called for a boycott of the third round, which was widely observed. Robert Thomas notes that when Belgrade Television filmed Milosevic voting, the only other person in the polling station was Marko.21
Anger and outrage spread at Milosevic’s blatant stealing of the election. By the end of November 1996 Belgrade was brought to a halt by daily demonstrations. Tens of thousands of protestors – many of whom were students, but there were also members of the disgruntled general public – took to the streets. They hurled rocks and eggs at the headquarters of Politika and Belgrade Radio and Television. Vuk Draskovic declared that Milosevic had come to power on ‘yoghurt, and will go out on eggs’, in a reference to the 1988 ‘Yoghurt Revolution’ in Voivodina.
Zajedno’s daily protests were innovative, and colourful. The streets became a giant political carnival. A new ‘Serbian airforce’ was inaugurated, when thousands of paper aeroplanes were launched at the Belgrade television building. Female demonstrators handed flowers to policemen, just as their predecessors had done in anti-Vietnam war protests. Many carried foreign flags, as a protest against Serbia’s isolationism. After the first week of demonstrations as many as 200,000 people were on the streets in Belgrade alone, with satellite protests in cities such as Nis.
Meanwhile Serbian state television broadcast dreary Soviet-style reports about visits by delegations from Russia and Bulgaria. Eventually, in December, the regime reacted by denouncing the protesters as ‘pro-Fascists’. The Serbian police announced that unauthorised demonstrations would no longer be tolerated. Mira, who had returned from a trip to India, also strongly criticised the protesters. Milosevic’s tame journalists attempted to portray the protesters as tools of foreign powers, a classic Balkan smear tactic. The Serbian people were not so easily fooled. Almost every family in the country had someone on the streets protesting. The more lies the state media propagated, the more they discredited themselves. So much so that Aleksandar Tijanic, the government’s own information minister, resigned.
Inevitably, the regime resorted to violence. A demonstrator called Dejan Bulatovic, a member of Vuk Draskovic’s party, had operated a life-size Milosevic puppet, dressed in prison uniform, which always drew ironic cheers from the crowd. Bulatovic was arrested, beaten up by the police and sentenced to twenty-five days in prison for traffic obstruction. The opposition magazine Vreme ran a picture of Bulatovic on its cover, with Milosevic’s claim to the Kosovo Serbs that ‘No one should dare to beat you’.
Night after night the protestors braved the freezing Belgrade winter, and the police. There was a sense that the Milosevic regime was corroding and weakening. Strange allies came forward. The nationalist writer Dobrica Cosic addressed a Zajedno rally. Thirty members of the Academy of Sciences signed a declaration of support. And other messages of support came from exiled Prince Alexander Karadjordjevic, heir to the throne; Biljana Plavsic, who had replaced her old rival Radovan Karadzic as President of Republika Srpska; and even the Kosovo Albanian activist Adem Demaci.
The street protests were a symptom of the force of anger and resentment against the Milosevic regime. Serbs had simply had enough of war, privation, corruption and poverty. For a politician with a reasonably sophisticated grasp of international politics. Milosevic had a poor understanding of events in his own country. He saw ‘conspiracies’ everywhere, and blamed everything on malevolent outside forces. Under pressure, he took refuge in a bottle of Viljamovka. ‘Milosevic could not handle the winter demonstrations. He was drunk a lot of the time,’ said one high level source.22 ‘Milosevic was angry with America. He said, “I gave Clinton Dayton, I gave him peace, I gave him a second term. Why are they plotting against me, and trying to organise this against me?”’23
Here once again was the ‘concept deficit’ of a leader whose political methodology had barely evolved from 1986, when he had become president of the Communist Party. Zoran Djindjic recalled a conversation with Milosevic: ‘I said, “You really have problems; there are one hundred thousand people on the street demonstrating against you.” He looked at me and said, “You must be watching too much CNN. There aren’t.”’24
The West considered its next step. The Dayton peacemaker had reverted to a Balkan tyrant. The opposition made it clear that it was opposed to further sanctions, which would further impoverish the demonstrators. Attention focused instead on a new tactic, known as ‘smart sanctions’, which would selectively target the key people in the regime, hitting them in their pockets by freezing overseas assets and refusing visas for travel to the West. Over the next few years these sanctions would have a significant effect on the regime’s power structure, triggering cracks that would eventually widen into deep fissures.
Marooned in the mindset of the late 1980s, Milosevic responded with the tactics, personnel, even the tired rhetoric of that time. Mihalj Kertes, organiser of the 1988 ‘anti-bureaucratic revolution’ in Novi Sad, was ordered to organise a counter-demonstration in Belgrade on 24 December. The authorities promised 500,000 demonstrators. Just as in 1988, buses and supplies of food and drink were laid on. But the 60,000 government supporters who turned up were shocked to find themselves outnumbered five to one by Zajedno’s demonstrators. A visibly angry Milosevic addressed his small, if adoring, crowd: ‘What are the aims of all these [Zajedno] demonstrations? First it is to retard our economic development, and secondly to weaken us so as to threaten the integrity of Yugoslavia and Serbia. But Serbia will not be divided.’25
Milosevic had ignited wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. Now it seemed he was turning Serb against Serb in a bid to stay in power. Fighting broke out between government and Zajedno supporters, one of whom was shot in the head. Another Zajedno protester later died from the beating he received from government supporters. Fifty-eight people were hospitalised.
Milosevic had also made another mistake. A delegation from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was invited to Belgrade to see for themselves the results of the local elections. As these had been annulled by Milosevic for no good reason except his party lost, the OSCE delegation duly reported that the opposition had indeed won.
Buoyed by this, Zajedno pushed harder, and not
just on the streets, where the protests continued. The coalition opened links to the army, where dissatisfaction with Milosevic’s direction of the wars in Bosnia and Croatia was running high. After one elite unit expressed its support for the protesters, General Momcilo Perisic, the army chief of staff, met student leaders on 6 January 1997. Afterwards, one of the student leaders said: ‘Perisic said we were on the same side. Both of us wanted to see the constitution respected.’26 This significant meeting was followed by a statement of support from the Orthodox Church, condemning the ‘Communist, godless and satanic regime’. Zajedno also used perhaps the deadliest weapon in the political arsenal: humour. Live sheep were brought to protests and placards were draped around their necks proclaiming ‘We support the Socialist Party’. Protesters split into twenty mini-marches, which were harder to control by the police, and walked the streets blowing whistles and banging pots and pans. Instead of fading away in the winter cold, as Milosevic hoped, Zajedno’s protests grew ever more dynamic.
Milosevic’s own ranks began to split. Nebojsa Covic, the Socialist mayor of Belgrade, was expelled from the party. Milosevic conceded defeat in Nis, where Socialist Party members came forward with lurid details of ballot rigging and election fraud. Behind the scenes Mira Markovic clashed with secret police chief Jovica Stanisic, who was opposed to breaking up the demonstrations by force. None the less, on the night of 2 February eight demonstrators were injured by police using water cannons and clubs. The next night, though, the widely anticipated violence did not happen. The regime seemed confused. In early February Milosevic conceded defeat. A special law was rushed through parliament recognising Zajedno’s victories in the local elections. Zoran Djindjic was inaugurated as mayor of Belgrade on 21 February.
This was a bad week for the Milosevic family. The previous day Vlada Kovacevic – nicknamed ‘Tref’ – the former racing driver who had sponsored Marko’s racing career had been shot dead as he walked to his office in Belgrade. Bolstered by his association with Marko, Tref had moved into the highly-lucrative duty-free and import business, much of which was controlled by organised crime. It was observed with interest – in more places than Belgrade – that having the son of the Serbian president as a business partner was not protection enough.
22 War No. 4, Kosovo –
Part 1
Finishing Unfinished Business
1998
MACBETH: Oh full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Marko had moved into a new house. He was only twenty-two, but he owned a spacious villa in Pozarevac, surrounded by a high fence, not far from his parents’ residence. Quite an achievement when the average monthly wage was the equivalent of £50, if it was ever paid.
Marko earned more than that. He had gone into business with Mihalj Kertes. Kertes had organised demonstrations for Milosevic since 1988, and had another job. He was head of the Yugoslav customs service, controlling the flow of smuggled oil and cigarettes into the country. Marko controlled the import of the Philip Morris brand.2 Each truckload of cigarettes brought in about $250,000. Of course, that had to be split down the line, but enough remained to pay for underfloor heating in Marko’s house, and a swimming pool. But Marko was wondering, how warm should the water be? He called Dad for some advice.
Marko: Do you know the water in my pool is heated to 38 degrees Celsius?
Slobodan: You’re a fool, man. That’s not healthy.
Marko: Yeah, right. It should be 18 degrees. That’s the real thing. Slobodan: In any case, it should not be over 30 degrees. Why on earth are you fooling around?
Marko: Why not, I swim at 40 degrees.
Sloba gives up, passes him on to Mira.
Mira: Darling, my sweet puppy . . .
Marko: Mummy, I had the water heated to 38 degrees. If only you knew how wonderful it is.3
Like every good businessman, Marko was diversifying. He ran a bakery and a disco in Pozarevac called Madona (sic), one of the biggest nightclubs in the Balkans. He was thinking about opening a private luxury maternity ward for the mothers of Pozarevac. Slobodan advised him against. ‘Don’t fuck around. Stick to the Madona.’4
Radovan Stojicic (a.k.a. ‘Badza’) also smuggled cigarettes. Stojicic, together with Mihalj Kertes and others, had armed the rebel Serbs in Croatia. A violent man, skilled in martial arts, Stojicic prospered under Milosevic. By 1997 he was acting interior minister and chief of police. Word was, Badza was getting greedy. On the night of 10 April, he went to meet his son, Vojislav, and others at the Mama Mia Italian restaurant in downtown Belgrade. Located not far from the police headquarters, and the British and United States embassies, Mama Mia was a favourite hang-out of both cops and diplomats.
Sometime after midnight a man wearing a ski mask walked in. He ordered everyone in the restaurant to lie down, walked up to Badza and fired half a dozen rounds into him at almost point-blank range.5 The police immediately sealed off the area, but the killer was never caught. Some suspected Milosevic had ordered the hit, for Badza knew where the bodies were buried, and who ordered them put there.
It was more likely, many believed, that Badza’s former partners-in-crime were responsible. If this theory was correct, the crime barons now felt confident enough to assassinate the chief of police in public. State security, it seemed, could not even protect itself, let alone the country. ‘This was a lesson. That was the first killing of its kind. Badza was killed by the tobacco mafia,’ said one former regime insider. ‘It did not matter how high a rank someone had. This looked like a political killing, but it was not.’6
There was heavy security at Badza’s funeral. Slobodan himself stood in the front row, as well as Marija and Marko. Beneath the grief and bravado the black-draped mourners looked nervous. Mira did not attend. Arkan attended, together with his wife, the turbo-folk singer known as ‘Ceca’. So did a man called Nikola Sainovic, who kept a low profile. He ran eastern Serbia for Milosevic, and the mining town of Bor. Sainovic had held a series of high-ranking government posts since his appointment as Serbian minister of mining and energy in 1991. Milosevic valued him for his discretion, and technical knowledge. He controlled much of Serbia’s precious metals trade. According to the Serbian Public Revenue Agency report: ‘He controlled the Pozarevac-Nis line, where the two strategic products, copper and gold, were exported. However, the amount of gold produced in Serbia was never known. According to an engineer at Bor, six tons were processed every year, according to official reports, three tons.’7
By 1997 Sainovic was Yugoslav deputy prime minister. But the death of Badza and Mira’s purges left Milosevic with a personnel problem. He was reduced to appointing Vlajko Stojilkovic as Serbian interior minister. Like Milosevic and Mira, Stojilkovic came from Pozarevac. He was a dull-witted, brutal man, and a party hard-liner. His appointment triggered scathing comments in what was left of Serbia’s free media, as well as several resignations in the interior ministry.
However, Zajedno was not very ‘together’. Vuk Draskovic was furious because his wife Danica was not given the position of president of the Belgrade City government. Draskovic was a veteran of the anti-Milosevic movement, dating back to 1991. In street protests of 1993 both he and his wife had been arrested and severely beaten by police. Draskovic’s injuries were so bad that he was subsequently hospitalised. When Danica had been hit, she had mocked the policemen for their ‘bravery’. Draskovic, who now called for the restoration of the monarchy, wanted to stand as Zajedno candidate for president in the 1997 Serbian elections. His rival, Belgrade mayor Zoran Djindjic, was opposed.
Milosevic slid further into authoritarianism. By the summer of 1997 fifty-five local radio and television stations were shut down. Among them was Radio Bum in Pozarevac. Marko had paid Bum a visit. According to the Serbian writer Slavoljub Djukic, Marko had lined up the station’s staff and screamed: ‘Do you want me to tear out your antennae, destroy your equipment, and see to it that within two hours your station’s shut down? I’ll show you who you are fucking with.’8
The atmosphere of violence and intimidation, and the police beating of the Zajedno demonstrators, put off the few foreign investors who were considering doing business in Belgrade. Douglas Hurd’s judgment was called into question for having brokered the deal to privatise Serbian Telecom. Buffeted by increasing criticism at home over his links with Belgrade, he justified his actions in a letter to the London Times, arguing that after Dayton, it ‘seemed possible’ the Yugoslav government had decided to ‘move towards economic and political liberalisation’. Hurd wrote: ‘It is very much in the interests of the West that they should do so. In those circumstances it was legitimate for an international western bank to offer to help in carrying through this programme.’9He also called on Milosevic ‘to recognise fully the results of the Serbian Municipal elections’. That month National Westminster Bank cancelled a contract to manage Serbia’s foreign debt that had been negotiated at the same time as the privatisation of Serbian Telecom. The bank cited Milosevic’s failure to implement his promises of ‘economic liberalisation and democratisation’. But the Telecom deal, the single most important privatisation at this time, remained in place.
In July the Socialist-led majority in the federal parliament voted in Milosevic as President of Yugoslavia. He had served two terms as President of Serbia, which was all the constitution allowed.
The appointment signified little more than a change of job title. Milosevic remained in charge. But the family had a new home: Tito’s former residence. Situated on Uzicka Street, a couple of minutes’ walk from Milosevic’s property at Tolstoyeva 33, this was the grandest residence of all in the plush suburb of Dedinje, known as Belgrade’s Beverly Hills. It was a long way from the squalid shanty towns around Belgrade, where tens of thousands of Serb refugees from Bosnia and Croatia huddled together in ramshackle dwellings without proper water or electricity supplies. ‘Uzicka’, as the residence was known, covered a whole city block. It included two houses, Tito’s tomb, several small cabins Tito used for his hobbies such as metalworking, and extensive landscaped gardens. One house was a modern white villa, built for Tito in the 1970s. The other was a grand pre-war mansion, splendid enough to have been requisitioned by the German army commander during the Second World War.