by Dejan ANASTASIJEVIC
These were, based on what has been revealed by the authorities so far, the last moments in Stambolic's life, on August 25, 2000. That happened a month and a day before voters in Serbia for the first and last time voted against Slobodan Milosevic. On that day, before ten o'clock in the morning, Stambolic left his apartment in Banovo Brdo and went for his usual morning run; aged sixty four, he was still extremely fit. Lawyer Rade Paunovic, Stambolic's neighbor and regular running partner was busy that morning, so the former president ran on his own. Sticking to his usual schedule, he set on a bench near the restaurant Golf to take a break and wipe off sweat. A guard of the nearby storage shed later said that he had seen a white van stop next to Stambolic. Two young men came out of the van. One of them showed Stambolic some sort of a badge or identification card, while the other one pointed a gun at his head. Then, the guard saw the van leaving, and Stambolic was gone.
Since Stambolic did not return from his morning run, the concerned family initiated a search. Once they convinced themselves that he was not in the Kosutnjak park, and checked the hospitals, they contacted the police. Around 1:30 p.m., Stambolic's son Veljko tried to file a missing person report at the police station in Cukarica. He was told that they had to wait for twenty four hours. Veljko Stambolic got the same answer at the central Belgrade police station. Only at 5:30 p.m., one policeman was sent to the Kosutnjak park, where numerous Stambolic's friends had gathered, but he also refused to conduct a crime scene investigation as it had been less than twenty four hours since the alleged disappearance. Finally, the following day a significant number of policemen were sent to Kosutnjak to search high and low in their well known style. Naturally, nothing was found. This is important, because later Slobodan Milosevic lied to Kiro Gligorov and said that "the family waited too long before informing the police, and by then kidnappers could have taken him across the border".
In the meantime, the family and neighbors started recalling that for weeks before Stambolic's disappearance they had been seeing young men with military style haircuts near the apartment. They recognized some of them as State Security Service agents. A white van similar to that spotted by the guard was also seen in the area. At that time, they explained their presence by the fact that that part of Belgrade is also a home to numerous state officials, for example Mihalj Kertes, but they grew concerned once they realized that the agents stopped appearing after Stambolic's disappearance. When lawyer Nikola Barovic pointed out that fact to Branko Djuric, the then head of the Belgrade police, he was told that the police had checked that already, but that men with buzz cuts were not state Security Service agents. Rather, they were phone-company workers (although no one saw them doing any work in the area). That reply only increased the foreboding of the family and the lawyers, and convinced them that the state had organized Stambolic's disappearance.
PRESSURE AND IMPOTENCE: The significant silence of state-controlled media, such as the official state news agency Tanjug, Radio Television Serbia and the leading daily newspapers, which for days did not want or did not dare publish anything about Stambolic's disappearance, only additionally increased that foreboding. Some officials of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and the Yugoslav Left (JUL) pretended to be stupid, while the others were openly scornful and gleeful. The then JUL spokesperson and federal telecommunications minister Ivan Markovic, recently arrested and remanded in custody, said at a press conference held on August 31, 2000, that "the state-controlled media did not report the disappearance of Ivan Stambolic for many days because they probably believe that that information is not important". "You make the assumption," Markovic continued, "that the federal telecommunications minister should know whether someone went for a walk and did not return home. You need to ask the man who walked away where he went". Five days later, Markovic further contributed to the investigation by replying to the question of a viewer of the local TV5 TV station in Uzice ("where is Ivan Stambolic?"): "We'll know once they find him". His remark that "the missing person will have to explain to his wife where he was gone for such a long time, if he returns home" is also remembered.
In the meantime, Milosevic started feeling pressure in connection with Stambolic's disappearance. Attempts by Katarina Stambolic to contact Milosevic in connection with the disappearance of her husband were not successful ("he is not here, leave a message"), and the enquiries of Jiri Dinstibier, UN rapporteur for human rights, otherwise welcomed by the authorities in Belgrade, also met with indifference. Milosevic also talked with Kiro Gligorov about the disappearance, and told him that he "would never allow that anything happen to Ivan" and brazenly lied that the family had reported the disappearance too late.
When a few days later Milosevic was finally overthrown, the family and friends, who in the meantime founded the Council for Liberation of Ivan Stambolic (OZOIS), hoped that the mystery would finally be solved. It turned out that their hopes were premature. Radomir Markovic, one of the chief organizers of the murder enjoyed the protection of Vojislav Kostunica, while the rest of the DOS, headed by Zoran Djindjic, diligently supported the other person responsible for the murder, Milorad Lukovic Legija. Radomir Markovic was sufficiently brazen to on October 27 react to an interview by Nikola Barovic in which Barovic said that "the State Security Service knows where Stambolic is". "I have decided due to moral and professional considerations to wait for a few days to give you a chance to correct the article full of grave accusations of the State Security Service (RDB)," states the letter written on RDB stationery, sent by Markovic to Zivorad Kovacevic, president of the OZOIS. "I hope that your standing in the society is not based on similar ‘discoveries'. I am convinced that the disappearance of Mr. Ivan Stambolic will be explained. I am also convinced that the explanation will not include either the State Security Service or myself, as its director".
WALL OF SILENCE: Naturally, Radomir Markovic lied, and thereby confirmed Chesterton's theory that only one step separates lies and murder. When after a lot of reluctance Markovic was finally replaced at the helm of the RDB, the new chief of the Service, Goran Petrovic, kick started the investigation and revealed that Stambolic, just like Slavko Curuvija, was under surveillance of the Ninth Department of the RDB (following and surveillance) until the last moment, and that boys with the van were not from the telephone company. Even this small step forward was annulled, as immediately afterwards Petrovic was replaced by Andrija Savic, former collaborator of the JUL, at the request of Milorad Lukovic and Dusan Spasojevic.
However, before returning the investigation to the start, the RDB used its usual methods to initiate a disinformation campaign whose goal was to confuse all those looking for Ivan Stambolic, and if possible send them abroad. The Service persistently used its channels to disseminate "reliable information" that motivation for Stambolic's disappearance should be sought in his allegedly suspicious business dealings in Montenegro and the Republic of Srpska. Insistence of Stambolic's family and friends that the late Stambolic was not engaged in any business dealings worth mentioning did not help. Former president Vojislav Kostunica took the bait. When on behalf of the OZOIS, Zivorad Kovacevic sought assistance from Kostunica, he was told to contact the Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska Milorad Dodik and Vukasin Maras, Police Minister in Montenegro. By the way, Kostunica was inclined to think that Stambolic was a victim of an internal showdown between Communists and as a convinced anti-Communist did not want to get involved.
Thus, the wall of silence continued until March 28 of this year, when Dusan Mihailovic, Minister of Internal Affairs (Police) suddenly announced that the corpse of Ivan Stambolic had been found the previous night. "His remains were dug up from a pit on the Fruska Gora Mountain," Mihajlovic said. "We now know that he was abducted in the Kosutnjak Park by four members of the Special Operations Unit (JSO). They changed vehicles in New Belgrade, drove Stambolic to the Fruska Gora Mountain, murdered him with two bullets and buried him in a previously prepared grave, filled with quick lime," Mihajlovic said. Mihajlovic announced that the investigation confirmed that the motive for the murder was political. Stambolic was to be prevented to run in the forthcoming presidential elections in 2000. Several days later, exhumations of Stambolic's remains from a shallow grave in Zmajevac was shown on TV, and it was also announced that the fifth JSO member involved in the murder had been arrested. After learning that Dusan Maricic Gumar, the last commander of the unit, was one of the suspects, we were also told that Legija personally paid $10,000 each to his subordinates after the murder, while, in accordance with his status and practice he kept a part of the money for himself.
This revelations definitely put an end to the myth about "Serb giant-heroes" who, as their anthem says, walk "through blood and fire holding [their] head high/ on the path of victory, honor and fame". What honor and heroism was needed by five muscular and armed men to pick up from a park bench a man well into his seventies, take him to a forest and fire a bullet into his head? What sort of state would have ordered such an action?
SCALE OF CRIME: There is no doubt that we shall hear during the trial that the murderers were misled, that they did not know who Ivan Stambolic was, that, like those two agents who were ordered to assassinate Vuk Draskovic with a truck, they were told that they were killing an Albanian terrorist, drug smuggler, CIA agent, or something similar. And later, they, like, were surprised to read who their victim was... It is time for this society and whatever is left of our state to face an unpleasant truth. This was not a group of criminals who accidentally ended up with RDB badges, not even a fraction in the Service that got out of control. The murder of Ivan Stambolic, just like the murder of Slavko Curuvija, assassinations of Vuk Draskovic and Zoran Djindjic included large portions of the RDB, including heads of certain departments, their moles in the judiciary, media and political scene. The preparation and organizations of this crimes, and especially persistent blocking of the investigations were too complex to be blamed on a small group of conspirators.
As far as the source of the orders for executions is concerned, the truth was too obvious and too shocking from the very start. Many reasonable individuals simply could not believe that Milosevic and his wife were afraid that Ivan Stambolic could have pushed them from power. Ivan Stambolic himself did not believe that. As a smart man and a former politician, he was aware that his time was over. Finally, he was arrested and murdered after Kostunica had already accepted to run against Milosevic, when the murder had no sense. Had the arrow been fired earlier and only hit the target on August 25? Was the motive for the murder ideological, or did everything happen because of ordinary personal hatred and pathological vindictiveness, both character traits of the first lady of Serbia?
It is unlikely that we shall ever get a full answer to these questions, even if Mirjana Markovic is one day arrested somewhere in the former Soviet Union and extradited to Belgrade. She will lie, just like her husband and her accomplice and namesake Radomir lied. It could even turn out that psychiatric expertise show that she was not responsible for her actions and that she ends up spending the rest of her life under psychiatric care. But, there should be no mercy for all those "little screws" who knew very well what they were doing and who did all that for the sake of fun, profit and advancement in the Service.