Gun law

The continuing slayings illustrate the growing lawlessness in Serbia and highlight the murky connections among Government officials, the underworld and the police. VAIJU NARAVANE reports.

THE LIST reads like a macabre Who's Who. Bosko Perosevic, chief of the Yugoslav President, Mr. Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist party in Novi Sad - shot in the head on May 13. Zika Petrovic, Head of Yugoslavia's national airline, JAT, gunned down on April 27. Pavle Bulatovic, former Yugoslav Defence Minister, shot dead in a Belgrade restaurant on February 7. Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as Arkan, underworld don and Serbian warlord, shot dead on January 15. Dragan Simic, colonel, Yugoslav secret police, killed July 8, 1999. Milorad Vlahovic, colonel, Yugoslav secret police, killed March 11, 1999. Zoran Todorovic, aka Kundak or the Rifle Butt, secretary-general of the Yugoslav United Left, the party led by Mr. Milosevic's wife, Ms. Miriana Markovic, shot dead in 1997. Vlada Kovacevic, another businessman and close Milosevic friend, shot dead in 1997. Radovan Stojcic, Serbia's deputy interior minister and close Milosevic aide, shot dead in April 1997. The list goes on. Dead men tell no tales.

These continued and daring slayings illustrate the growing lawlessness in Serbia and highlight the murky connections among Government officials, the underworld and the police.

Mr. Milosevic is a President under siege. His close aides are being picked off one by one, killed in public in broad daylight. There have been almost no arrests (except in the case of Arkan) and the Government, despite a ruthlessly efficient secret police, seems incapable of stopping the killings. Long papered over, the cracks in the regime are now beginning to show and Mr. Milosevic is now fighting with his back to the wall.

There are over 500 unsolved murders in Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic since 1990. The crime surge has kept time with Yugoslavia's successive military defeats - in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and now Kosovo.

The country is reeling under the pressure of U.N.-imposed economic sanctions and the economy is in tatters. With living standards dropping steadily - salaries are now worth $ 45 a month - a hired killer is available for as little as $ 300.

Mr. Milosevic and his wife have alleged that these gangland- style shootings have been carried out by NATO countries and their allies within Serbia. Mr. Milosevic has now used these arguments to justify his crackdown on independent media and the country's divided Opposition.

On Wednesday night, masked Serbian police took control of Studio B television and its radio station Radio B2-92, both owned by the Opposition-controlled Belgrade city council. In addition, on Thursday, policemen firing tear gas charged the stone-throwing protesters in Belgrade and other cities. Angry crowds beat up ruling party MPs and protesters shouted: ``Kill yourself Slobodan and save Serbia''.

Mr. Vuk Drascovic, former Deputy Prime Minister under Mr. Milosevic and now maverick leader of the Opposition, has now called for ``total disobedience and defiance''. However, the Serbian Opposition has always stopped short of really taking on the regime and mass demonstrations often launched with great fanfare have usually petered out.

But this time around it may be different, says Mr. Aleksandar Tijanic, a respected political analyst. ``Milosevic now wants to terrorise the population, defang the Opposition and eliminate the free press. He is making it clear that he will not leave peacefully. He does not want to risk losing elections. So the logic is to create an atmosphere of fear, lawlessness and incertitude to justify a crackdown,'' he said.

However, there appears to be little public will to rid the country of a leader who has successively lost four wars and who continues to look for military solutions to his country's problems. ``What can we do? Life is so hard, survival is so difficult that people have little time for political action. You can be pushed into apathy by circumstances and I think the Serbian population is suffering from accumulated fatigue. The NATO's bombing of Kosovo has solved nothing. We are poorer than before, more dispirited and more subjugated from within,'' says Ms. Dana Pusic, a college lecturer who has stopped going to Opposition rallies.

Dozens of opposition activists have been detained by Mr. Milosevic's police since the killing a week ago of Perosevic, who headed the Socialist party in the northern Vojvodina province. Elections are scheduled in a year's time and Mr. Milosevic is now attempting to crack down on emerging Opposition political formations in order to head off a defeat. Although Perosevic's killer was caught, police have detained several student activists from the recently-formed Otpor or Resistance movement. Otpor, whose symbol is a clenched fist, is becoming increasingly popular as Serbs lose faith in a forever-bickering Opposition.

Last Monday, the Serbian Prime Minister, Mr. Mirko Marjanovic, described the Opposition as ``ordinary traitors, foreign mercenaries, killers and criminals''. The brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations earlier this week indicated that the Government fully intends to treat the Opposition as just that. However, the Milosevic era will not come to an end that easily. Since he came to power in the late 80s, Mr. Milosevic is the only communist leader still clinging to power.

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