Scent of Money and Politics

Is this all a Pec-Konculj farce stage managed in the vaudeville tradition?

by Dragan BELIC

Reporter, Banja Luka, Srpska, B-H, May 16, 2001

Behind everything that has happened in recent days in the political party called Socialdemocracy there is the scent of money and politics. The junior Karics wanted to replace the leader of that party, former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) General Vuk Obradovic, for alleged sexual harassment of his female associates. Four years ago, the ambitious Bogoljub Karic decided to enter the race for the Serbian presidency. He founded a party and, on behalf of the brothers Karic, called on the brothers Obradovic for help. The four sons of Janicije Karic from Pec [Kosovo] joined with the seven sons of a village teacher from Konculj in the south of Serbia. However, Bogoljub Karic quickly withdrew fearing his omnipotent neighbor [Milosevic] and the best-known of the Obradovics, General Vuk, became the undisputed leader of the party. It's understood that the Karics provide the money and the Obradovics are responsible for the rest.

The nice idea of the DOS was an ideal place for a new ascent. Vuk Obradovic, one of 18, found his place among the major five - he became the deputy Prime Minister of the Serbian Government in charge of the battle against corruption and organized crime. The public awaited what Obradovic announced: that everyone in Serbia who became "unreasonably" wealthy during the rule of the previous regime would pay a hefty tax - including Obradovic's mentors, the Karics. As a result, a compromise was reached: the brothers Karic did not use the Serbian Renewal Loan (!) but they did have access to the National Bank loans and hence they would clearly pay the extra taxes...

For Obradovic's powerful partners this concession, of course, was too small. A campaign began to take advantage of the institution of "sexual harassment". And the general was declared an assailant equal to Bill Clinton. The campaign is headed by a "director of management" embodied in the Yugoslav secretary for information Slobodan Orlic. He is stage managing a Pec-Konculj farce in the vaudeville tradition but the more intelligent observer detects that behind the somewhat strange moves hides the spirit of former minister and current advisor to the Yugoslav president Aleksandar Tijanic.

That everything is completely topsy-turvy is confirmed by the tears of Ljiljana Nestorovic. Can you imagine Monica Lewinsky crying her eyes out in front of the beasts known as American reporters after her meeting with the intimidating prosecutor Kenneth Starr? Simply incredible.

Basically, everything in Socialdemocracy and around it is crooked somehow. Bogoljub Karic said that he personally has nothing to do with what is going on. All he wanted to do was found a political party of the left center with Vuk Obradovic! What does he need a political party of the left center for? It would be more natural for capitalist Bogoljub to found an enlightened, conservative, Christian democratic political party, that is, a rightist party, whose power could defend his business interests. On the other hand, what kind of connections with the social democratic option does a man who began his career as an "elite" army officer, as a young lieutenant in Pozarevac by denouncing his soldier Lazar Stojanovic, have? Stojanovic would spend three years in prison for his graduate thesis film "Plastic Jesus"...

If things are at least remotely what they appear to be then it is completely natural that a virtual party has virtual problems whose protagonists appear to be virtual people! Even their sexual activities are apparently virtual... Just like politics itself.

Translated by S. Lazovic (May 17, 2001)