POLITICS-SERBIA: Murder Probe Brings Success on Drugs

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Apr 2 2003 (IPS) - The crackdown on organised crime after the assassination of former prime minister Zoran Djindjic three weeks ago has led to a shortage of drugs and withdrawal symptoms among addicts, health officials say.

"We have an 80 per cent rise in cases of withdrawal symptoms," says Dr Jasna Daragan Saveljic from the Belgrade Addiction Treatment Clinic. "We treated more than 900 patients a week after the assassination. Earlier, we treated about 560 a week."

Both physicians and the police agree that the cases of withdrawal symptoms are a result of the dramatic shortage in narcotics after the crackdown on organised crime paralysed sales.

The success of the regime in the investigations following the assassination has been promising, even if it has thrown up incidental problems. The shortage of drugs on the market is an immediate achievement. Security was stepped up as groups of addicts tried to beat the shortage of drugs by breaking into pharmacies in some smaller towns to obtain drug substitutes.

"We expect a gradual rise in the number of addicts who want to enter the detoxification programme," psychiatrist Aleksandar Ramah told IPS. "The authorities should encourage that as their next step."

Health authorities say there are 30,000 registered drug addicts in Belgrade, but the real figure is believed to be at least double that.

Belgrade media report that the prices of drugs has doubled due to the shortages, with a gram of heroin now being sold at 85 dollars, and cocaine reaching 230 dollars.

Serbian police accused a major crime ring known as the Zemun Clan for planning the assassination of Djindjic March 12. Djindjic’s campaign against organised crime was cited as the motive for the killing.

Organised crime was encouraged by the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in the nineties, the police say. Its leaders came from paramilitary units that took part in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, and who were later incorporated into the Serbian police. These units had close ties with criminals, the police say.

The police described the Zemun Clan last week as among the wealthiest groups in Europe, earning millions of dollars a day by selling drugs in the Balkans. The clampdown against organised crime led to the arrest of more than 4,000 people.

"It was a well organised network of drug traffickers that sold 100 kilos of heroine and cocaine a month in Serbia," Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic said at a press conference last week. "We seized their documentation. It contained complete lists of providers, distributors, quantities, everything."

Investigation of the people arrested after the killing showed that whole families participated in illegal activities. Parents, siblings, wives or girlfriends were involved in the criminal operations either as business partners or as facilitators.

Women were often used as distributors. The women also drove their relatives around, and hid weapons and drugs in their homes. Ten kilos of heroin were found in the house of a suspect’s mother.

"Most of them considered that normal," says professor of psychology Dragan Popadic. "It is a phenomenon of social pathology that should be studied."

Milan Mitrovic, professor of sociology at Belgrade University says the phenomenon is a consequence of "the destruction of normal values under the abnormal circumstances of the nineties."

For many people life meant only survival in that period, Mitrovic says. "Warriors brought looted goods and money, and taking part in illegal smuggling operations under the sanctions meant a fortune," he says. "Milosevic’s regime took no action against criminals. Only families with a strict value system and self-control survived those challenges."

Mitrovic and his colleagues say it will take at least a decade or even a generation to rebuild the normal values in Serbian society. "That is if the new regime shows real decisiveness in acting against crime, and insists on promoting normal life and values," Mitrovic says.