DEVELOPMENT-YUGOSLAVIA: Reconstruction Successes – Fact Or Fiction?

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 10 2000 (IPS) - A year after the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, air strikes against Serbia, the government media continues to talk about major reconstruction successes but in reality this appears to be more fiction than fact.

State controlled Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) regularly reports on the opening of reconstructed bridges, parts of highways and apartment complexes in provincial towns.

RTS has the exclusive right to cover those events and the star of the show is Milutin Mrkonjic, manager of “Directorate for the Reconstruction of the Country”, which was established a year ago while NATO air raids were still on.

Mrkonjic is one of the closest associates of Slobodan Milosevic, president of Yugoslavia.

Appearing in front of RTS cameras almost every evening, Mrkonjic talks about the “successful reconstruction of the country”.

He quotes Milosevic who said last October that “the reconstruction of Serbia is going on at the speed higher than the speed of NATO rockets that destroyed the country”.

Mrkonjic recently said that 189 reconstruction sites of different kinds opened in Serbia since June 14, 1999. The NATO air raids stopped on June 10.

He said “113 sites are closed now, as their reconstruction is finished”. These include industrial sites, parts of roads, railway tracks or apartment buildings in the province.

He said out of 64 damaged or destroyed bridges in Serbia, 32 are back in function.

Mrkonjic, like all the highest government officials, insists that “the reconstruction is financed from our own resources, combined with the invincible spirit of victorious nation”.

Serbian Ministry of Finances refuses to give exact statistics on the matter, as well as the financial department of the “Directorate for the Reconstruction of the Country”.

“The Directorate does not give the answers related to finances,” Lidija Marko, public relations officer of the Directorate recently told journalists from the independent media.

On the ground, the situation looks completely different. Only minor cosmetic repairs have been done on slightly damaged bridges and roads, while construction workers and firms that supply the material say they have not been paid for their services.

The government deducts a “solidarity per diem” from all monthly salaries and Finance Ministry officials have said that 0,15 percent of all taxes is also being used for reconstruction purposes. The average monthly salary in Serbia is around 35 US dollars.

RTS reported that one of the most popular football clubs gave a donation of 1,25 million US dollars for the reconstruction. Officials of the club admitted they gave only 10 percent of the sum, but their correction was never aired on RTS.

“This is not a process of reconstruction, but the process of deceit of the broader public” says economist Dr. Ljubomir Madzar. “It’s aim is to give additional political credit to the regime, but that can not last for a long time.

He said if the real costs were made public, it would be clear that there were more than modest results in so-called ‘reconstruction'”.

Due to the years of wars and international sanctions, the country saw no foreign investments since the early 90s and remains excluded from all the international financing institutions.

Economic hardships and international isolation of the country have caused widespread dissatisfaction among Serbs. The popularity of Slobodan Milosevic and the regime is at its lowest for years.

A recent study by the Institute of Social Sciences has shown that 71 percent of population is fed up with years of wars, poverty and further precipitating living standards. They blame the regime for the situation.

Several weeks ago, construction workers went on strike ahead of Mrkonjic’s opening of a bridge construction site. The workers said that they have not been paid for the work they did months ago on other sites.

In June last year, when NATO air raids were over, the damage on infrastructure and housing in Serbia was estimated by the international community to be 556 million US dollars.

Official statistics admit that the gross national product of Serbia has fallen from 2.696 US dollars to less than 1.000 in the last 10 years and that the level of production is only 40 percent of 1998 statistics.

“This country was at the point of economic collapse even before NATO air raids started in March 1999,” says Danijel Cveticanin, professor at the Economy School of Belgrade University.

“The whole ‘reconstruction effort’ would amount to a real miracle only if the reconstruction was real,” he adds.