A saber does not cut silk

"The right man, in the right place, at the right time, with one bullet," thought the nineteenth-century terrorists, who were then called anarchists. Perhaps Brutus and Cassius thought similarly; the ones that hit John F. Kennedy sure did. Has history changed? What prevented Caesar, and what prevented Kennedy? Was it possible that there was a shortage of grand princes and governors in Russia, so that one or two less meant something?

We can, however, guess with a lot of certainty what Zoran Đinđić was prevented from doing. He was prevented from directing the Saber operation personally.

What was called the Saber action after March 12 was carefully prepared since the beginning of 2003 with as many security measures as possible; it turned out that the plan was leaked, judging by some statements of the accused and witnesses and by the behavior of the main actors of the conspiracy. Such things happen: in October 1993, in Sarajevo, the action to catch the Jalijas and the first fighters of Mahala was compromised, who had annoyed both God and the authorities with their terror of the Serbs (and others, no matter what). It was enough for only one of the almost two hundred most carefully selected participants to warn the suspects; there was unnecessary bloodshed.

What and why was planned for Thursday, March 13?

SIGNS ZA ALARM: Today we know what we didn't know then: on March 13, a certain number of persons led by Milorad Ulemek Luković Legija, Dušan Duća Spasojević, etc., should have been arrested at the same time, due to the well-founded suspicion that they had committed a series of serious crimes as an organized criminal group. The police and the BIA already knew almost everything: both on the Ibarska Magistrala and in Budva; and Ćuruvija and Stambolic; about most of the unsolved Belgrade murders, kidnappings and other things. It was only necessary to cleverly pack up that whole big and dangerous story, secure evidence and make the Special Prosecutor's Office happy with a nice and thick criminal report.

That something was being prepared was, admittedly, visible to interested parties since the fall of 2002: the adoption of special legislation against organized crime was the first alarm signal; the hesitance to amend the federal law on criminal procedure, however, slowed down the whole matter, which would be good to investigate more deeply... Two events indicated that the situation was quickly thickening: the murder of policeman Nenad Batočanin and criminal Željko Škrba in the same car, in November 2002; and the discovery of Zemunac and Legion that Ljubiša Buha Chume sang; both sides, the police and the criminals, became alarmed. The police because the double murder of Bogdan in Ljutice was a sign of the criminals' panic, since Škrba was a potential witness-collaborator in an important matter; criminals because they know what Chume knows and what they think; didn't he get killed twice already and get away with it?

It is a classic race against time: who will be the first, as Comrade Lenin would say. Čume appears with letters and statements from somewhere in infidel countries, accusing Zemunci of various crimes, and Legija publishes counter-letters from his wife Ljilja Buha. The Legion even publishes its half-offended and highly inflated letter at the end of January, and the JSO advertising campaign continues all the time on billboards and in the media; who paid for it remains another interesting unanswered question.

The Special Prosecutor's Office and the police quickly organize for action, combining Chumet's information with what they already know and planning new cooperating witnesses. The conspirators, having already decided to kill Đinđić, plan assassinations and on February 21, they try near the Limes hall; they fail. Immediately after that, Mira Marković and Dr. Vojislav Šešelj left the country, and the warned Legija went underground on March 1. The rest is history.

EXTRAORDINARY CONDITION: On the afternoon of March 12.000th, the Government of the Republic of Serbia proposes to the Acting President of the Republic Natasa Micić to introduce a state of emergency, which she does. During the three months of the state of emergency, a police action in Sablja was in progress, in which a total of over XNUMX people were detained; about two thousand were reported, criminal or misdemeanor; some remained in detention after the end of the state of emergency, and the rest were released after longer or shorter detention.

All that commotion will, of course, show its justification only with legally binding court rulings. The police shed light on almost all the most important cases of murders and attempted murders, primarily political: two assassinations of Vuk Drašković, the murders of Ivan Stambolić and Zoran Đinđić; Slavko Ćuruvija and Milan Pantić remained. Duća Spasojević and Kum Luković died trying to escape or resisting arrest, and Legija and several others are on the run.

Some provisions of the order on the state of emergency were later challenged in the Constitutional Court, and that is good as a matter of principle and for the future, far from it. The harvest of witness-collaborators was rich, because otherwise much would not have been shed light on. The country has become safer, the police and the BIA have gained a much better starting position for the future fight against transnational and domestic organized crime. The Special Operations Unit (JSO) was disbanded in a whisper, without a single shot being fired. There were also blunders, statistically and by the nature of things inevitable in such a large action: the Government blundered; he messed up the Communications Bureau; blundered the police. And the opposition was messing around, too. However, all these blunders are forgivable in politics, because that's where the results count. We see the results through the ongoing criminal trials, and we will only see them when the trials enter the really interesting stages. The fact that the government of the rest of the DOS lost the elections is something completely different and has nothing to do with the state of emergency and the Sabre, as some persistently repeat: some because it detained them, and others because it did not.

Today, an organized effort is visible to dilute and relativize the most important results of the Saber action. Some of these efforts go beyond all bounds of basic decency; some are clearly politically motivated. But this whole complex of organized efforts is aimed at the moral and human disqualification of Zoran Đinđić, just as after the arrest and disappearance of Ivan Stambolić in August 2000, he was disqualified as a "communist". Warnings have already been given that - if this continues - we will soon hear old stories about the "giant-hero" Legija, about the "mafia" Djindjic, about the "patriots" Duca and Kum. We are already listening to Tijanić and Vučelić shouting about the horrors of the state of emergency; Vučelić even mentions the 57.000 arrested for God's justice, including, of course, his friends from the banquet in Kula on May 4, 1997.

STOF ZA Toga: Few people ask what should have been done instead of imposing a state of emergency on March 12, 2003. Create a "concentration government" from all the parliamentary parties of that time, as Koštunica proposed before the body of Zoran Đinđić literally cooled down? Appoint Legia as director of the BIA, so he can catch murderers, kidnappers and drug dealers? Honor Zveki for his clear vision and sure hand and ask him to forgive us for killing Zoran Đinđić? Kill the rest of the Government, and thus end the "Dosmanli tyranny" once and for all, which, we hear these days, was even more terrible than Milosevic's? Leave all the heroes of the MUP's "White Book" free to agree in peace how they will give each other alibis and stockpile drugs, money and weapons? Send Škenet, Berček, Leonid and those two Nenads from the highway to arrest Chumet and bring him alive to the Tower? Hang Čanko on Terazije, shoot Beba and Ceda in Schillerova's basement, so that the "concentration government" is satisfied?

It would be better to get serious and follow more carefully what is being done in and around the Special Court. The lawyers from Zemun and the "legalist from Kula", some of them already suspected of knowing in advance about the crimes that Duća was going to commit, are carrying out a systematic obstruction of the trial, obviously planned in advance. The court tolerates this even though any American judge would have long ago jailed them for contempt of court and held them in custody until they complied. Hugging with relatives and friends of the accused, throwing things, behavior unworthy of a lawyer, verbal outbursts and insults are tolerated. The testimony of Radomir Marković, the former head of State Security, is suddenly excluded from the file, a testimony given in terms of the CPC, under the pretext that someone promised him something, so he, a merry man, was tricked into telling the truth. And this is just the beginning.

One of the benefits of Operation Saber was that the vast majority of police officers were relieved to think that "it's time to be fair again" (one officer). In prosecutor's offices and courts, it seems, enthusiasm for this kind of change was not equally widespread. This was seen when Bagzi was released, but also by the number of criminal charges that were left in drawers and items that were forgotten and dragged around. For thirteen years, Milošević's regime exercised gentle parental care over the judiciary, which also carried with it a careful personnel policy. Three years was not enough for more serious reforms, even if more serious reforms were really on the mind of the former government. Lawyer's togas, say the mischievous French, are cut from the same silk.

And the saber does not cut silk, say our people.