RIGHTS-YUGOSLAVIA: Intolerance Threatening Serbian Society

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jul 17 2001 (IPS) - Rights activists and social workers in Serbia have warned that the growing cases of intolerance are threatening to tear apart Serbian society.

The warning came after an incident two weeks ago, in which an angry mob of about 1000 youths clad in black dress, carrying baseball bats, attacked a group of gay people who were about to stage a Pride Day Parade — the first ever — in Belgrade.

In the chaos that followed, 30 gay people and nine police officers – deployed to protect the demonstrators from attacks – were injured. Pictures and footage of injured people, severely beaten and covered with blood or lying on the ground, have shocked government officials and political leaders.

“It is too early to expect a high level of tolerance here,” Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic told Belgrade media. “There is no way for a society that led a patriarchal and repressive life for a decade to pass the test of tolerance.”

Serbia lived through a decade of isolation until last October, when former President Slobodan Milosevic, who ruled with an iron fist, fell from power after he was defeated in elections by Vojislav Kostunica.

The youngsters, who took part in the beatings, told reporters they acted “against the unnatural perverts who do not belong among Serbs”.

Some of the youths admitted being sympathisers of ultra- nationalist Serbian Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj. “Everything resembled neo-Nazi demonstrations, organised by frustrated groups,” says Dusan Maljkovic, a sociologist.

Experts say the incident shows that the decade of isolation under Milosevic — where Serbia was virtually cut off from the outside world — has turned the Baltic country into a xenophobic society.

“The decade of isolation has given rise to fears and hatred against all those who are different from Serbs,” explains Jelena Vlajkovic, professor of psychology at Belgrade University. “The ideology of Milosevic’s regime that we are poor, but proud to be Serbs, is dying and there is no substitute for it.”

Milosevic’s reign was marked by three wars in the region, 11 weeks of traumatic air strikes and two rounds of biting international economic sanctions. Once one of the most developed in Eastern Europe, Serbia has become the poorest, only second to Albania.

Milosevic’s fall from power led to the establishment of a new administration, which is open to the West and ready to co-operate with foreign countries.

“Such a turn is feared by Milosevic’s sympathisers and all those who profited under the former regime,” Belgrade analyst Bratislav Grubacic told IPS. “Those backward segments of former rulers, including hard core nationalists, would try to do whatever they can to keep things like they were under Milosevic.”

“Broader Serbian society is caught up in frustration and panic,” says Vladimir Ilic, a sociology professor. “Frustrated people need scapegoats, especially if they were told for the past ten years that all the others were to be blamed for all the hardships among us – the West, cosmopolitans or those who are different from Serbs.”

Last week, Ivica Dacic, a top official of Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), told some 10,000 supporters: “It’s high time that Serbian politics be run by Serbs, not by some Jozef Kasa or Rasim Ljajic who extradited Milosevic to The Hague”, in The Netherlands, on Jun 29. Milosevic has been charged with crime against humanity by the international war crimes tribunal.

Kasa and Ljajic, who are ethnic Hungarian and Bosniak respectively, are in the new administration, that took over after Milosevic fell from power.

As Dacic spoke at the rally, thousands responded, “we’ll kill (President) Kostunica.”

“The current situation in the country is marked with serious development of anti-democratic, intolerant and right-wing feelings”, says Milanka Saponja of Serbian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.

“We might see the rise of new conservatism soon,” she warns. “The fear of liberalisation, after Serbia re-entered the international organisations and after Milosevic was extradited to The Hague, caused the conservatives to react.”

“If there are no quick reforms of the society, by the new authorities, the democratic changes in Serbia will be in serious danger,” she says.

Last month, Yugoslavia received a pledge of 1.28 billion US dollars from the donors, just a day after Milosevic was extradited to the war crimes tribunal. The money will be invested in some 300 projects for the re-vitalisation of the economy.

Living through the worst economic period in its history, Serbia has a 45 per cent unemployment rate. “Unemployment can be dangerous and can create more and more frustrated people,” Ilic warns. “If the reforms fail, the political right will have an open door to take over”.