If you could people in Serbia asked where they were, what they were doing and how they felt when the prime minister was killed Zoran Djindjic, I believe that the vast majority would be able to answer. Many could describe where the news found them, who told them about it, what they thought first. There are events that are etched in personal memory so deeply that they become part of collective memory.
But if the question were where were you when the former president of the Presidency of Serbia was killed Ivan Stambolic, there would probably be silence. Most would not even remember the moment they found out he had been killed. And it's hard to have an emotion towards an event you don't remember.
This may be one of the biggest injustices towards Ivan Stambolic.
photo: screen shotEVIDENCE OF THE CRIME: A picture of Ivan Stambolić's sneaker found during the "Saber" operation in 2003
PREDICTIONS, REGIME LIES AND SILENCE
People from the same state death apparatus killed him and Zoran Đinđić. In the case of Stambolic, the Special Operations Unit was the executor of the order that came from the top of the government. Three years later, members of the same unit participated in the assassination of the Prime Minister of Serbia.
The difference, however, is huge. Djindjic was killed in front of the Government building in the middle of the day, in an assassination that instantly brought the country to a standstill. Stambolić was kidnapped, taken away and killed in silence. His body was hidden on Fruška gora and sprinkled with lime. The regime wanted no body, no trace, no event that the public would remember.
Paradoxically, Serbia learned the truth about this murder only during the investigation into the murder of Zoran Đinđić. Stambolic's remains were found in March 2003, almost three years after his disappearance. Until then, the public was left between foreboding, regime lies and silence.
I will never forget the photo of the sneaker that did not disappear in the lime used to destroy Stambolic's body. For me, that sneaker became a symbol of the evil that was done in this country for the sake of staying in power. Proof that a person can be kidnapped, killed and tried to be erased, but still leave some object, some trace that will testify against the killers.
And against our forgetting.
PREPARED PIT
Unlike a large number of citizens of Serbia, I remember exactly the moment when I found out that Ivan Stambolić had disappeared.
It was a warm August afternoon in the year 2000. I worked in video production B92, which made television reports for the network of local stations ANEM. Since there was no other way for the material to reach them, we recorded the contributions on videotapes and sent them by bus all over Serbia.
Our headquarters at that time was in a rented apartment below Tašmajdan. We worked almost guerilla - B92 previously had to leave the premises in "Beograđanka", after the socialists and JUL took over Studio B, which until then gave us shelter in its offices.
While we were editing a feature, the phone rang. Someone who was in contact with Stambolic's family informed us that he did not return from running in Košutnjak. As far as my memory serves, the information came through Gordana Suša.
I immediately thought that the situation, already dangerous enough, had just crossed some new line.
The election campaign was in full swing. DOS started holding rallies, elections were scheduled for September 24, and the regime was showing increasing nervousness. Stambolić was mentioned as a possible opponent to Slobodan Milošević. It was not even certain that he would run. The mere possibility was enough.
The court later determined that Milošević gave the order for the removal of Stambolic for political reasons, and that the head of the Department of State Security at the time, Radomir Marković, passed that order on to the Special Operations Unit. Stambolić was kidnapped on August 25 in Košutnjak, taken to Fruška Gora, killed and thrown into a pre-prepared pit.
Milošević's regime did not kill someone because he posed a real and immediate danger to him. He killed a man because of the suspicion that he might become an opponent, the possibility of appearing on the ballot. It was a combination of the madness of a government that no longer recognizes any limits and the fear of a man who feels that his end is approaching.
WELL-KNOWN PATTERN
Most of Serbia did not even know that Stambolić had disappeared. The media under Milosevic's control hushed up or suppressed the news. It could be heard on B92 and through the few independent and local stations in cities where free media existed. For most of the country, however, Ivan Stambolić simply disappeared from both Košutnjak and the news.
After a few days, the regime's theories appeared: that he fled the country, that he hid himself, that his disappearance was planned in order to accuse the government and help the opposition. Radicals, like many times before and after that, took the lead in blaming the victim. At press conferences, they talked about the "marketing trick of Dosa" before the presidential elections.
The state and the police, they claimed, had nothing to do with the disappearance. Stambolić allegedly hid himself in order to make himself a victim and score political points for Vojislav Kostunica.
Sounds familiar?
The pattern remained the same: first the crime is covered up, then it is questioned that it happened at all, and finally the victim is accused of having organized everything herself. When the facts are not yet known, the void is filled with lies. When the facts become known, forgetfulness is counted on.
The kidnapping of Ivan Stambolic in the middle of the day in Košutnjak was also a message to all those who opposed the regime. If the authorities decide to make you disappear, there will be no witnesses, no clues, no investigation. There won't even be news that you're gone. The court's conclusion shows how much the state was turned into a means of private survival in power: the members of the JSO and the leaders of the Department of State Security did not act as an independent criminal group, but used the state apparatus of force to preserve the political power of one man.
Ivan Stambolić knew what kind of opponent he was facing. Back in 1991, he wrote to Milošević: "You deceived or destroyed people, organizations, movements, the state... The deceived and destroyed become your cursed mirror."
He invited him to voluntarily retire and warned: "The drama is big and when the hero is small, the size of the drama is not determined by the size of the hero."
At the end of that letter it was written: "Play the last act, Slobodan Milosevic!"
DESTINY AS A WARNING
photo: Goranka Matić...
Milošević did indeed play the last act of his regime, but not in the way Stambolić called for. He didn't back down. He tried to remove anyone he believed might contribute to his downfall. At the very end, the regime became ready for anything, because the government that feels it is leaving becomes the most dangerous precisely when it realizes that nothing but force can save it.
Stambolić was one of the last victims of that regime, but another, subsequent injustice was done to him. His murder never took the place in the collective memory that it should have. It was as if the silence in which he was killed continued even after the truth was revealed.
Maybe because he was not in power at the time of his disappearance. Maybe because he wasn't killed on camera. Perhaps because there was no body, no burial and no immediate social shock. And maybe also because after the fall of Milosevic, Serbia too quickly wanted to forget how far that regime was ready to go.
Oblivion, however, is the last victory of the perpetrators.
That is why Ivan Stambolić should not be remembered only on the anniversary of his murder on August 25. He should not be remembered only as a man thanks to whom Milosevic came to power and who then became his victim. His fate is a warning of what happens when the state turns into a weapon of one man, when the services get permission to kill and propaganda is tasked with hiding the crime and accusing the victim.
Even today, when I think of Ivan Stambolić, the first thing I see is that sneaker.
What was left behind of the man they tried to completely erase.
And the question of whether, with our silence and forgetfulness, we eventually erased it.
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