In the supplement Pravo (Law) of the newspapers Danas (financed by EU programme Strengthening media freedom in Serbia, under the direction of EU Delegation in Serbia), the persons who are partially responsible for the downfall of the idea and realization of the rule of law occasionally appear, perhaps justifiably. The assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, PhD, in 2003 has remained the crossroads of two models of managing and two visions of future.
That day, the painful contrast between the forces of isolationism, autocracy, secret service and Sovietophilia on one side, and the weakness of democratic institutions and liberal beliefs on the other, was rendered painfully obvious. The political goal of the assassination was to establish the rule of quislings in the service of a foreign power, accompanied by all their domestic helpers, who had declaratively and falsely remained on the course of European integration policy. The success of the assassination and assassinators is of negligible value compared to the efforts of Koštunica and Tadić to return the Serbian society to the mental mire of chauvinism, xenophobia and Sovietophilia. Fortunately, the collective mental disarray hasn’t resulted in massive human victims and material losses. It is necessary, however, to remember the murders, mass riots accompanied by looting and violence, corruption and tycoonisation of every aspect of our lives. Newly resurrected images of murders and assassinations of the Milosević’s era are just the pale shadows of the past, which persistently retreats before its repeated horrors. It almost seems that we are paying a collective price for our past mistakes and their glorification with our reality.
The interview with lawyer Gradimir Nalić, one of the associates of Dr. Vojislav Koštunica, represents for me one of the attempts to politically abolish the criminal conspiracy, which started with the mutiny of the JSO (Special Operations Unit) and which ended with the Prime Minister’s assassination in 2003. There is the obvious need for new political positioning after the electoral failure of DSS and LDP, parties that had contrasted attitudes regarding the events that held the assassination in focus. In that aspect, DSS was more consistent and successful. Probably no one from that party is being held accountable for the failure of the immediate political consequences of the assassination. In any case, two highlights of the whole interview are particularly interesting: the consequence of the pressure exerted by the part of the public in order to prevent the interrogation of Vojislav Koštunica regarding the mutiny of the JSO. The second point is the announced formation of the Commission for the finding the contractors and financiers of the assassination. The essence of this open question lies in the need for institutional dealing with all obstructions of the investigation and court proceedings that indicate the multiplicity of interests, in terms of cover-up, leading to a majority of participants in the government reshaped by the assassination and its consequences.
The assassination was performed by one of the police units, which cooperated with the “Zemun gang”, and the profiteers of that act were both political associates and political opponents. All important diplomacies took part in the cover-up of the facts - whether motivated by the desire to preserve political stability, or to implement the political ideas of the assassination. The key persons of the process, judge Marko Kljajević and long-time friend and associate of the Prime Minister – Vladimir Beba Popović, have remained the last instance that could be used as a platform for the universal and public right to truth and justice. The idea of spiritual accomplices of the assassination was temporarily successful – unfortunately, that form of solidarity is not a subject for trial – with the petition which condemned “the undignified attempt to link Vojislav Koštunica with the murder of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić”, i.e. to prevent him to testify in the investigation of the JSO mutiny. It is a great coincidence that this group is quite similar to the one that publicly expressed demand that Serbia abandons its European integration.
Regardless of the persistent and consistent spinning, which was led by media close to Milosević and Koštunica, and which was then redesigned by Tadić’s illusionists, the undeniable facts remain. The political beneficiaries of the assassination are known. The envoys of DSS and “prominent public figures” remained in close contact with the criminal association, therefore becoming accomplices in political or legal sense. Koštunica supported criminal mutiny of the JSO, and he was politically sympathetic towards them. Judge Marko Kljajević was forced to resign by decisions that provided for the bandit privatization of the “C market”. And those decisions were made in the office of Prime Minister, during Koštunica’s mandate. Dr. Zoran Đinđić is still deprived of the right to truth and justice. There are opinions that the “prominent public figures” have massacred Serbian culture and public discourse. And in the end, lives of all of us are obscured forever, including the memory of us, regardless of the side we were on.
Source: www.danas.rs
