On the return of Slobism

The majority coalition in the Serbian parliament is led by Vojislav Koštunica’s DSS in coalition with the incredible disappearing G17+, the incredible reappearing SPO, and the simply incredible Nova Srbija. But it would not have a majority without the support of Slobodan Milošević’s SPS. One of their political projects is to officially discredit “Operation Sabre,” the police action against military, paramilitary, criminal and political groups which was undertaken after the murder of prime minister Zoran Đinđić.

A pretty good assessment of the politics behind the effort was given by Mileta Prodanović on the radio program by Svetlana Lukić and Svetlana Vuković, “Peščanik,” in their broadcast from 12 November. So I have taken the liberty of translating it:

I think that the return of Slobism which we are seeing now was to be expected. Why would we risk losing our souls when it is much nicer to live in our own little coop, where it is warm. That is the cultural model which is still holding on. One major daily paper published as a gift to its readers a book on Kosovo by Dobrica Ćosić. Wherever you turn, everything in this country comes back to him. There is a theatre group, which is asking for support from the Ministry of Culture, which is preparing a performance to be put on in Scheveningen. I don’t believe that the Ministry of Culture will use the taxpayers’ money for that, but just the possibility that our good old boys who are defending the truth about Serbia over there, that they should also be entertained in that way, it is really the last straw.

Look at the kiosks, I don’t even know how many daily papers there are which were founded by UDBA. “Operation Sabre” was the only moment when the numerous and multilayered UDBAs in our society were disturbed, but we see that that little wave has passed, and that they still have their five or six papers. They are openly criticizing the reach of “Sabre” – for me, that time provided some kind of hope. And I intimately believe, I have no evidence for it, but I believe that everyone who was arrested in “Sabre” was arrested for some important and meaningful reason. The only mistake was ending the action, because we can see that for many people in the currently governing party intimate connections with those services is not a strange thing, on the contrary.

Now there is a huge promotion of the publication of Karadžić’s books, that product is being advertised in all possible ways. I have to quote Teofil Pančić – of all Karadžić’s works the only ones I know about are the bombing of Sarajevo and Srebrenica.

Go here to order books by Mileta Prodanović. I’d like to find some pictures of his artworks online, but haven’t yet.