SERBIA AFTER THE REVOLUTION
Professor Aleksandar Fatic, PhD
[1]

The non-violent civil uprising in Serbia on 5 October 2000 marked the end of the last communist dictatorship in eastern Europe. It came in the aftermath of an attempted election fraud by Slobodan Milosevic's regime, when the federal parliamentary and presidential elections, along with the local election, which had been held on 24 September 2000, seemingly turned too sour for the ruling clique to digest, and the re-arranging of the election results became obvious. In response to a Constitutional Court ruling that had "resolved" the controversies over the alleged election fraud by the regime by voiding the entire Presidential election and postponing it until the expiration of the previous mandate of Slobodan Milosevic, in June 2001, over 500,000 people from across Serbia gathered in Belgrade on 5 October to say goodbuy to Milosevic. After initial scuffles with the police, the demonstrators quickly prevailed and got the security forces on their side, raiding one of the major police arms depots in inner Belgrade in the process, and setting fire to the Federal Parliament Building and the State Television.

Although these events were dramatic, they were essentially non-violent. With over 1,000 pieces of various firearms having been raided from only one police depot, not a single bullet was fired by the demonstrators, and not a single person has been killed, apart from one woman who had fallen off a moving truck and died. With over half a million tired and hungry people in its streets, most of them in quite a revolutionary mood, and with major symbols of state power having fallen to the demonstrators, there was no large-scalle pilliging of shops, and the city was preserved virtually untouched, apart from a few shops owned by Slobodan Milosevic's son, Marko. Serbia truly woke up on 5 October, and this revolution brought about by civil disobedience is arguably the most impressive instance of anti-communism in the whole of eastern Europe. Yet, what remains to be done in Serbia is daunting. The state of the economy and society is deeply troubling, and it is in the coming period that the resolve of the popular civic groups will be truly tested, in a protracted battle for legislative changes and structural reforms that is sure to ensue.

1.     The state of society and the legacy of the communist regime

There has been some reluctance over the past 10 years to call the former Milosevic regime ťcommunistŤ. Yet, this has been unwarranted. The technology of power employed by this regime was characteristic of ideologically highly charged methods of imposing uniformity of thought and labelling all those who disagree with the official version of life as ťtraitorsŤ, ťforeign mercenariesŤ, and ťNATO agentsŤ. A full control of the media, broad discretionary authorisations granted to the police in pursuing social controls, and a pathetically dependent and incompetent judiciary characterised the official structure of power in Serbia for a whole decade, if not longer. These were direct remnants of the communist epoch, and they flew in the face of the main political developments in the rest of the southeastern European region. Because they were so drastic in their manifestations, it will be extremely difficult to institute different practices in the media and other sectors relevant to the development of democratic institutions. The immediate reversal of one-sided reporting in the media, for example, has taken on the form of a different one-sided approach, this time favouring the new ruling coalition. Such developments are not due to any pressures that would be exerted by the new government, but rather to a low level of journalistic skills and integrity, where journalists consider it their duty to treat those in power with a greater regard than those in the opposition. This is combined with the natural resentment that comes from years of being persecuted by the former communist clique, and which  journalists of the independent media are unable to quickly forget and forgive.

In the period immediately following the political changes and their reflection in the media, Serbia faces an inheritance of 55 years under communist rule that will be anything but easy to overcome. The system of electric power supply is in ruins, and there are power cuts for 4 and more hours at a time almost every day for households in Serbia. Gas and coal for heating during the winter are lacking, as the reserves are depeleted and the promissed assistance that should come from abroad is slow in arriving. Given that the change of regimes took place in October, it is likely that the citizens of Serbia will remember the coming Winter by lack of fuel and heating in their appartments. This is not a good backdrop for the democratic parties' pre-election campaign for the Serbian parliamentary election, which is scheduled for 23 December. The economic consequences of a devastated industry, almost totally stifled foreign trade due to over one decade of international trade sanctions, and the quickly rising prices after the liberalisation of price controls after 5 October 2000, are easily imaginable. The standard of living today is lower than before the removal of the communist regime, and despite vocal promises of international assistance very little money or fuel has entered Serbia for these few weeks since the changes.

Social policy is another victim of the past political era. Social givings to the most vulnerable parts of the population are so low that most people have been forced out into the street economy, and the shadow economy has thus been inflated to a degree that surpasses the size of the official economy. [2] Removing the shadow economy at this stage would mean leaving large sections of the population out in the cold without any means of subsistence, which, with rising electricity, telephone and maintenance bills every few weeks would be sure to spark up social unrest. While people are still patient in the waiting for positive changes, and relieved at the absence of repressive state practices which they had become so accustomed to during Milosevic, they will not be patient indefinitely, and if state-political issues become predominant again, they may decide that the new government has not lived up to its promise. Namely, there are tendencies in the political circles to first deal with constitutional issues, in particular with relations with Montenegro. There has been a tacit agreement between the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) - now in power, and the Montenegrin ruling coalition (the Democratic Party of Socialists - DPS, the People's Party - NS, and the Social-Democratic Party - SDP) that the Montenegrin government, which did not participate in the federal elections on 24 September, would not make things difficult for DOS until the Serbian parliamentary election late in December, although the Montenegrins do not recognise the results of the 24 September election, and consequently also do not recognise Vojislav Koštunica as FRY President. The newly formed federal government is therefore an interim solution, and DOS has promised that it would hold a referendum in Serbia, along with one being held in Montenegro, on whether Serbia and Montenegro should separate or remain together. The referendum in both republics is foreseen for one month after the Serbian parliamentary election, early in the Year 2001. If at the referendum it is decided that the federal state should cease to exist, then the current federal structure of power will become obsolete, which partly explains why DOS has appointed mainly second-echelon politicians from its ranks to the federal ministerial portfolios. The key leaders are being preserved for the Serbian ministries, with the future of the federal state being left undecided.

While the above are academically interesting constitutional questions, which also bear relevance to the security considerations in Europe, if all political attention is dedicated to these issues the living standards might plunge and social policy may suffer a blow from which it may not be able to recover, which would seriously undermine the ability of DOS to manage a stable political and expert government with sufficient democratic support. Circumstances are highly volatile, and the previous regime, with its array of violent and coup-like skills, is surely waiting for a first window of opportunity to try and turn the political tables. The new government has very few points of leverage, as it is very slow in assuming constitutional powers. It has not yet established firm control over the State Security service, which has been charged with organising and orchestrating the murders of prominent public figures in Serbia over the past decade. Its strongest point of leverage is huge popular support, which may well crumble if the obstruction by the old regime in the electric power supply and heating systems continues, and if the rise of prices is not efficiently stopped. This will be difficult because of the social legacies of the communist regime, the most retrograde and dangerous of which is probably the creation of a profoundly criminalised mafia-state. Serbia at the moment is a newly born democracy struggling to shed the restraints imposed by the Mafia-styled societal relationships. A small circle of those who have risen to prominence, both economically and in terms of their public profile, due to their Mafia-connections, have immense powers, and they will not retire gladly. The reluctance of the Chief of the Serbian secret police to resign despite pressures from the new government only illustrates the amount of controversy in the work of that service, which will eventually come out into the open once the key people in the service are removed.

With Slobodan Milosevic hiding in Belgrade, and with some unidentified police units still guarding his residence, it is highly likely that illegal maneuvers are going on behind the scenes, as the key people in the police and the army are still Milosevic's appointees who have been loyal to him all these years. The new government is showing a serious lack of resolve to tackle the key societal problems decisively, and is instead indulging in lengthy "legalist" procedures that allow the remnants of the previous regime to consolidate their records, remove the traces of their crimes, and either penetrate the new structures of power quietly, or even orchestrate a come back in one form or another. While the West is still amazed at the speed of the events in Serbia, happy with the commencement of democracy and with the victory of the moderates at the local election just held in Kosovo, it may soon find itself facing a semi-reformed state that lacks the energy and the resources to rid itself of its criminal elements.

Newspapers in Serbia are full of daily reports of theft and embezzlement by the former apparatchiki of the communist government. In a country where the average salary of a professional is around DM80 per month, some ministers where receiving DM10, 000 and more per month only in official salaries from various "consulting" positions in firms whose directors where their party comrades. This does not include the profits generated from private businesses that based their operation on kick-backs between the party functionaries, and often on the siphoning away of the wealth of large state-owned companies into the accounts of the companies owned by the communist ministers or their relatives. Privatisation was used to boost a degenerated social policy, where money from the sale of the national Telecom was partially used to pay the pensions before the previous election. Directors of state owned companies are driven around in armoured Audis and Mercedes', while their workers are forced to work two shifts plus engage in shadow economy in order to secure bare survival for their families. The former Director of the Customs Service, the notorious Mihalj Kertes, gave away luxury cars to his friends - cars that had been seized at the border because they had been involved in criminal activity. Several dailies have published lists of those who were simply given such vehicles by Kertes, and the lists number hundreds. Most former communist functionaries own villas and houses that are worth millions of dollars, and the Milosevic family owns real estate on the Greek coast, a yaht in Greece, and there are speculations that they own numerous hidden bank accounts in countries such as Switzerland, Libya, Cyprus, etc.

Murders in the streets of the Serbian cities are at an all-time peak. The underworld is the real power, and it remains to be seen how the new government will tackle the legacy of the communist regime that can briefly be described as a total submission of societal life to Mafia-style norms and practices. The subculture of criminality has penetrated Serbia so profoundly that quick and urgent measures are necessary to restore at least a semblance of order to everyday life, so that proper reforms can be conducted with the necessary time and dedication to detail. At the same time, criminal legislation is in total disarray, with three criminal laws being in force at the same time in the country (the federal law, the Montenegrin, and Serbian criminal laws), all of which are mutually in contradiction on many issues, ranging from the definition of crimes to penalty prescriptions and the conditions for the execution of the penalties. The judiciary still draws on the same personnel as during Milosevic. The police is not at all under political control, as the decision making on police matters is still apparently in the hands of the communist parties. For example, despite the seductive failure of the police to clash in any major way with the demonstrators on 5 October, the recent repeated attempts by the Belgrade City's Building Inspection to inspect a building site in the elite residential suburb of Dedinje, owned by Slobodan Milosevic, have been prevented by the Interior Ministry security guards who are charged with securing the site. The replacement of the Head of State Security, General Radomir Marković, has been delayed by the communist parties that, as of November 2000, still hold considerable power in the Serbian government. The destructive legacy of communism lingers on, and without decisive moves to crush the Socialist Party of Serbia and ban the work of the Yugoslav Left, led by Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Marković, it is doubtful whether this legacy will be able to be erased even in the decades to come.

2.      The moves not taken yet

In a recent article, Michael Emerson succinctly put Serbia's choices at this juncture in time in the following way: "A/ whether to engage in a rapid clean up of political and economic structures and make a rapid economic recovery, or B/ to languish in a long and messy transition, hindered by internal political struggles, poor public and corporate governance, lack of momentum and credibility, and remaining vulnerable to reverses." [3] It seems that the new government is somewhat daunted by the prospect of the changes that need to be taken, and there is already a degree of impatience by the population with the tolerance that is being extended to members of the former regime.

2.1. The creation of a specialised Anti-Organised Crime Police Squad

The first and the most necessary step for the new government is to create a special police squad for fighting organised crime, which would answer directly to the Federal Parliament until the Serbian parliamentary election in December. This squad should draw on the experience and expertise of the best inspectors and former inspectors and police officers of the Serbian police forces. It should also draw on the personnel from the Brigade of Federal Police, which is currently performing only quasi-protocolary tasks, such as guarding embassies and important institutions. The squad should not draw its personnel from the structures of the Serbian State Security Service, whose loyalty to the new government remains unconfirmed fully, and which will most probably be one of the prime subjects of criminal inquiry once the new structures of government are truly consolidated. The Anti-Organised Crime Squad should number several hundred inspectors and police officers, and it should be the core of a new and restructured police force. If after the Serbian parliamentary election referenda on independence are called both in Serbia and in Montenegro (this has been a long term wish of the Montenegrin leadership, and federal President Koštunica has said that he would be quite prepared to indulge them), and the federal government is disbanded, then the Squad could simply be transferred in responsibility to the Serbian Parliament, assuming that the democratic forces are likely to win the republican election as well. The Squad would be charged with quickly arresting the key members of the former nomenclature and preventing them from exerting criminal influence on the remaining state structures that were once fully politically instrumental in the hands of the Milosevic family. It would also be the bedrock of a new and firmly entrenched integrity in the police force. The Squad should be empowered to conduct operations that traditionally fall within the competencies of specialised Internal Affairs units for the investigation of crime in the ranks of the police force. It should also recruit experts for fighting corruption, and a part of it should be dedicated full-time to gathering evidence for the prosecution of the most prominent corruption cases in this period.

In Serbia today, organised crime is not only a phenomenon of societal deviation, but also very much the source of power of the former communist nomenclature. The Milosevic family had created a special case of the Mafia state, which exists in close connection with the political structure of the state. In such a state, the police, the judiciary, and the executive government are all parts of a Mafia-like structure, where legal norms are usually ignored when they are in conflict with the instructions that emanate from the Big Boss, the Head of the Mafia, or bent so as to suit the main trends of the Mafia business. The whole realm of Serbian politics was a big business that fully conformed to Mafia-style principles. Not only was it possible to be victimised by those in positions of political power; even members of their families were entitled to engage in criminal activity regardless of any concern for the law or the well being of the other citizens. Sons and daughters of the members of the narrow elite around Milosevic thus frequently acted violently, were involved in traffic accidents which were subsequently not investigated at all, established highly successful ťbusinessesŤ which quickly generated enormous profits contrary to every logic of the market place (the profits often measured in over 100%, even 1000% of the value of the initial investment, in periods as short as one year or less). The outcome of such a Mafia-like state is an enormous wealth accummulated in the hands of the powerful few. [4] Wealth means de facto power, and these people will be a major obstacle to the equalisation of societal positions and a fair privatisation and institutional reform in the years to come if they are not stripped off their assets in a legal and transparent fashion, as far as these assets have been acquired in illegal ways.

2.2.  Establishment of emergency tribunals instead of ordinary courts

The judiciary has been one of the most corrupt and appallingly disorganised parts of the former Serbian state. If the new authorities are serious about prosecuting those guilty of corruption and violent crime that were embedded in the structure of the repressive former state, they cannot trust the existing courts and their magistrates and judges, which have by and large submitted themselves to political dictate and performed their duties not according to the moral principles and the letter of the law, but according to the will of the ruling family and their narrow circle of friends and political allies. In the short term, special courts need to be established that would answer to special investigative committees of the Federal Parliament, and they should be the ones to first hear the most serious cases of organised crime. In the medium to long term, regular courts should be disbanded, one by one, and then a new recruitment process of magistrates and judges should start from scratch, with the former magistrates and judges being allowed to re-apply for their positions. Their application should then be considered on the basis of the quality of their previous work, the average length of time they took until conclusion of their cases, the proportion of their verdicts that were subsequently voided by the higher courts on appeal, their qualifications, professional work and exposure, membership in professional associations, social profile as articulated through activity in non-governmental and expert organisations, etc… This is indeed a very radical policy, but without the most radical approach in reforming the judiciary the cancer of corruption and incompetence will remain and spread through the tissue of the new system in not-too-long a time to come.

In the long term, special education programmes for magistrates and judges should be established, and their attendance should be part of the re-assessment criteria of the judges' work pending the expiration of their tenure. Judges' tenure should be limited to 5 years and it should be subject to re-confirmation in Parliament exclusively on the basis of the reports by expert committess that will argumentatively examine the judges' record during the previous tenure. In this way the government could make sure that the best lawyers become judges, and that the judges continually care for their competence and ability to remain in touch with the development of legal studies and the related societal issues, never to allow themselves to fall into the trap of acting as servants for others.

2.3.  Removal of military personnel from the government and the creation of a professinal army

Military personnel should be eliminated from the government structures. Military officers should not be able to act as Ministers for Defence. Civilian control over the military should be depicted as the highest priority in military reorganisation. There are vested interests in the armed forces that may act as powerful reactionary factors in societal transitions, and the appointment of generals as ministers of defence would bring these interests to bear too strongly upon the decisions taken by the new government, whose focus should not be military spending and development, but rather the restructuring of the armed forces, abolition of the compulsory army service, and the gradual introduction of a professional or semi-professional army. The principle of removal of military personnel from the Defence Ministry, unfortunately, has not been upheld in 2000 by the Socialist People's Party from Montenegro ž a coalition member in the new government, which within ťitsŤ portfolios in the Federal Government appointed another military person to the now highly sensitive Defence Ministry.

Compulsory military service is another lingering problem, albeit with accute manifestations in the hole of the former Yugoslavia, even in the Balkans more broadly conceived. This type of army is largely a remnant of the communist era. It contains inherent threats to societal order, apart from being repressive and detrimental to the interests of a free and unhindered development of every individual according to their own preferences and views. A population whose every able bodied male member is fully trained in combat techniques and the use of firearms, especially if that population has a history like the recent history of the former Yugoslavia, and if it is as ethnically and culturally mixed as is the population of Serbia, is like a stack of dinamite waiting to be accidentally ignited. Compulsory military service also instills a certain militant culture, as it implies a value attachment: those who are pronounced unable to serve the army are labelled as being of lesser value, as ťless menŤ then those who serve the army. By extension, this leads to the establishment and perpetuation of societal stereotypes whereby violent models of societal interactions are considered more acceptable than in societies where army service is optional.

The above by no means implies that by abolishing compulsory military service one creates the situation where the dignity of the army is threatened - on the contrary, the professional armies have their special place in the societies that have them, but the general population is spared from penetration by military values and judgements.

2.4.  Re-structuring of the diplomatic service and the integration of diplomacy with paradiplomacy

Serbian civil society has used the last decade and a half to develop a highly penetrating edge of paradiplomacy. In the period where the official state institutions were banned from engaging in direct diplomatic contacts with the most important representatives of the international community, civil society representatives were there instead of the state representatives. Non-governmental organisations from Serbia have attended numerous diplomatic conferences and negotiations, they have served as an alternative source of objective information about the Serbian people, and they have gather a degree of diplomatic experience under the guise of paradiplomacy which is indispensable for the new diplomatic service. The new authorities have been slow to institute changes in the diplomatic service, which might have been due to the delays with the creation of the Federal Government late in October 2000. However, during the next months and years the restructuring of the diplomatic service will not be an easy task, as its organisation is more like that of a police force than like an ordinary diplomatic service. Loyalty to the ruling ideology is seen as the key criterion for entry into the ranks of Yugoslav diplomats, and this practice needs to be divorced from the new government by the sharp reforms that must be introduced in the Foreign Affairs Ministry, through the recruitment of experienced diplomats from the civil society and an active quest of the returnees from abroad with foreign qualifications and international experience, either academic, commercial, or any other that is relevant to the diplomatic service. [5]

It appears that the priorities of the new Foreign Ministry in the first days after the democratic changes and appointment of the new Federal Government are to revitalise relations with the former Yugoslav states, and to that effect goes the effort to establish a separate Directorate for the Former Yugoslav Countries, within the Ministry. The organisational changes will probably also include the establishment of administrative sections that will deal with the anticipated growing volume of work in terms of relations with the four NATO countries with which diplomatic relations were severed after the beginning of the NATO assault on FRY, in the Spring of 1999, namely with the UK, the USA, Germany and France. These changes may follow the trend of expansion of Yugoslav foreign policy in 2000 and 2001, but they will not necessarily include the needed methodological reforms and restructuring of diplomatic training.

Yugoslav diplomatic training must be relocated from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and entrusted to one of the international relations think thanks or research institutes. This move should follow the practice in many western European countries, where foreign ministries conclude contracts with think tanks or institutes each year, entrusting the education of specific generations of future diplomats to academic and policy experts, rather than merely running a training programme within their organisational structures, staffed by their Ambassadors and lecturers who are invited on an ad hoc basis. While the latter form of diplomatic training may be sufficient as far as the basic rules of protocol and international law are concerned, it suffers from serious in-built defects when the depth of the new diplomats' understanding of international relations is concerned. [6] It is difficult for the employees of the Foreign Ministry to retain an objective view of the structure of international relations with the constant ideological and political pressures that they are under, let alone their want of academic training and experience as educators and researchers in certain in-depth areas. Diplomatic specialisation is thus largely left to the individuals, and it is primarily based on the contingent facts of where the diplomat is posted during one's career, what type of experience one is able to accumulate, and how well one is able to orientate oneself in these circumstances. Instead of this, modern diplomatic training should include both the general element of diplomatic knowledge and skills, and a considerable element of specialisation, the latter stemming from the student's personal affinities and interests, so that the future postings may be based on the diplomat's knowledge and specialisation, rather than the specialisation simply being generated on the basis of random postings.

When one examines the way NGOs have conducted their paradiplomatic relations over the past decade, one sees very clearly that a degree of area specialisation, even problem-specialisation, has been introduced, so that many accomplished diplomats already exist in NGOs whose expertise and ability to penetrate certain diplomatic circles is far greater from the start that is the ability of any official diplomats from the previous era, or new official diplomats who are just entering the service from the ranks of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia and other political parties. Diplomacy is a professional skill, and although it naturally depends on political leadership, it requires serious planning and constancy of development over a long period, thus making the training itself independent of the political fortunes and misfortunes of any particular political forces on the country's scene.

3.      Conclusion

All of the above steps are only the core measures that are necessary to preclude a replay of the bloody societal conflicts that have dogged the former Yugoslav states, and especially to directly assault the problem of organised crime and chronic subcultures of violence and illegitimacy that inhabit especially the urban centres of Serbia. They by no means exhaust the realm of the necessary societal changes, but without them, no other changes will be able to unfold in a secure and reasonably fertile environment. This holds for economic reforms, as for all others. Only a well structured, economical society, with a minimum of the repressive apparatus and an active and projecitive social and public policy, aimed at tackling all forms of societal violence, is likely to attract sufficient foreign investments to raise the country from its Third World economic position to a level of performance that would qualify it for a fast accession to the EU, even if that ťfast trackŤ is measured in decades, as it is likely to be.

Tackling security issues will in any case by the priority for the new government. Even though its representatives are verbally emphasising the importance of economic assistance, and clearly this is an urgent need of this society, security considerations, primarily internal ones, will determine the shape of Yugoslav public and foreign policy in the next few decades. Whether by inclusion and the importing of foreign knowledge and experience in areas such as corruption and more general organised crime control, diplomatic education with a security outlook, and judicial and military reforms, the ideal scenario has it that by opening up and accepting foreign standards and approaches the new government will be able to attack the mentioned security problems most effectively. However, this does not necessarily have to be the case, especially if pressures over the Kosovo status resurface and differences between members of the international community reappear along this and other potential fault lines, including the issue of extradition of the accused to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Hope remains that the management of these issues will be careful and productive, and that a sufficient concert of good will may prevail in the international community to allow the internal changes in Serbia to unfold unhindered until early 2001. After that time, tough decisions will have to be made by the Serbian government on all of these issues, and it is then that the definitive course of the Serbian reforms, and of the EU's responses to them, will become clear.

Notes:

[1] This paper is forthcoming in Sudosteuropa in 2001

[2] For some well laid out indicators of the performance of FRY economy see Dugalic, V., “Kako dalje?” ("What next"), Bilten G17, vol. 1, no. 9, September 2000, pp. 1-2.

[3] Emerson, M., "Reconsidering EU policy for South East Europe after the regime changes in Serbia and Croatia", Europe South-East Monitor, Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, Issue 16, October 2000, p. 2.

[4] For more comparative details on the crime in southeastern Europe, see Fatic, A., Crime and social control in 'central'-eastern Europe: A guide to theory and practice, Ashgate, Aldershot, 1997.

[5] For more detail on the role of paradiplomacy in Serbia, see Policy Advocate, journal of the Management Center, Beograd, vol. 1, no. 4, 2000, CD-ROM edition or consult www.cbs-css.org

[6] For some of the most indicative such issues, see Fatić, A. (ed.), Problemi srpske politike (Issues of Serbian politics), The Management Center, Beograd, 2000, especially the Introduction for an overview, pp. 9-38.