INTERVIEW WITH BORKA PAVICEVIC OF THE CENTER FOR CULTURAL DECONTAMINATION, BELGRADE
The Center of Cultural Decontamination is an Organization dedicated to rooting out the political culture of bigotry and ethnic hatred, which has been propogated by unscrupulous politicians in Serbia and elsewhere in former Yugoslavia.
INTRODUCTION
Introduction by Nalini Lasiewicz
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST and author Anna Cataldi ("Letters from Sarajevo")
received a call from Belgrade urging her to join the daily demonstrations for
democracy in Serbia. She marched arm in arm with former French Minister of
Culture Jack Lang. Intellectuals from all over Europe are now joining in
solidarity with the protesters.
Through Anna's efforts at bringing international understanding and support
for the protests, the following interview with Borka Pavicevic was arranged
by the Lasiewicz Foundation and KPFK-FM radio in Los Angeles. The host is
Suzi Weissman and the interview was broadcast on the December 6, 1996 edition
of her program "Beneath the Surface."
The following interview on the political crisis and democratic mobilizations
in the republic of Serbia was transcribed by Nalini Lasiewicz and has been
slightly edited by ATC. Editorial clarifications appear in brackets.
INTERVIEW WITH BORKA PAVICEVIC
Suzi Weissman (hereafter "Q"): For 19 days now, there have been
demonstrations in Serbia over the annulment of elections. The demonstrators
have been demanding the resignation of Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic,
and have also opposed the censorship and biased coverage by state-controlled
media. We are very privileged to talk to Borka Pavicevic, in Belgrade, of
the Centre of Cultural Decontamination, which is a pro-democracy group.
Hello Borka.
Borka Pavicevic (hereafter "A"): Hello. Good evening.
Q. Could we could start out for our listeners in Los Angeles by describing
what's going on in the streets around you?
A. It has been as you say, so many days. Of course the situation is changing
from minute to minute. There are moments in the events when the time is
passing so fast.
First, what you said is exactly what happened. The Voices of the election
[the results] were stolen by the regime and by the ruling Party. For some
people, it was a great surprise, let's say; but for one part of the people it
was quite logical.
[This] regime which actually broke the previous country [Yugoslavia], which
was leading in the war [the Serb assaults on Croatia and Bosnia], which stole
the banks for example, which robbed the citizens, which did so much damage
all over the former Yugoslavia and of course inside Serbia--simultaneously,
it's not a big surprise that at the end of that we have stealing of the
Voices [election results.]
Of course the consequence of such a regime is the stealing of the Voices, at
the elections. And when you do such a crime, if I may say, then you are
pushing the people onto the streets. That was too much, let's say.....after
all those five years of war and much earlier that the war was prepared. It
was the last cap, if I may say, in all that siege, all those years.
The rising up is not against that State but rather that ruling regim. And if
there is no organization and parliamentary or civil or democratic way of
behavior, of course, then the situation is taking place on the streets.
First, you have the permanent [daily] demonstration of the Opposition, and
then you have simultaneously you have a big riot [peaceful] of all the
students of the Belgrade University. It means that every day at noon, the
students start the demonstration with the general assembly of all students.
Then they are gathering beyond the University and then they are passing
through all the streets, the huge column of students they are marching and
marching on the streets.
Then in each department of then University the discussions begin among the
students, along with some persons that they call upon to help them, about the
present and political situation in Belgrade.
At three in the afternoon, you have the gathering of the citizens of
Belgrade, in the demonstration of the opposition coalition, Together, which
takes place in the middle of the city. Again, the opposition is going in a
long walk, all over the city. They stop at the door of State Television,
which is one of the most incredible, Orwellian, "1984" monsters--it's almost
incredible how they are talking--and the official press, like the newspaper
Politika, or the other institutions of this poor broken state.
All the actions are bringing every day more and more people onto the streets
of Belgrade.
Q. Do you see it at a generalized opposition to the regime of Milosevic or is
it because of the economy, because of the censorship, because of the
war...what do you think is the general focus of the Opposition, and is it
united?
A. There are, of course, different reasons. Economic for sure: Afterall
those years it is a disaster in the economy, where the majority of the people
have nothing to eat and the regime has actually stolen everything.
You have to understand that during the war, the property has been changed. I
mean the property which was previously called Yugoslavia's public property is
now the property of the party which is in power. In the meantime there were
invented a lot of stories, myths of the [Serb] Nation, but now it is obvious
that it was not any struggle for your Nation, it was a battle for the
property and the power. And now, in some ways it is clear.
Q. Is this something like, instead of privatization, it is partyization?
A. Exactly. I mean, there is a term that I can't translate,
"privateization," that means taking everything for us...that is a joke
actually, that privatization in this country is actually taking everything
what you can take; and of course that is some kind of Mafia regime which
actually through political power is taking the money.
This all happens at the same place. Usually, you have the state and then the
Mafia that do some different things, and the state may even be against the
Mafia, even publicly. But here you have the circumstance that the party
which in power takes everything as its own property.
Then you have the people who have become more and more rich, through
[political] power, by the opportunity to influence the economy, and to take
the hotels, the factories, the universities, the theatres, the public
objects...and the land especially. Before the war, the land was something in
common, now you have taking the land as your own property.
As you know, war is the way that some people get very rich, and actually the
story of the war in Yugoslavia was about THAT, not only about Serbs, Croats
and Muslims.
Q. It's clear that Milosevic was whipping up Serbian nationalism and it
spurred up a sort of era of nationalism on each part. Do you see in these
oppositionist demonstrations also an opposition to his nationalism? Some
people say here that the people who are demonstrating are right wing
nationalists, others say no, that they are opposed to it? We don't know the
story...can you tell us?
A. Of course, things are mixed but the majority of the demonstrations,
especially the students, are not from that nationalistic viewpoint. Actually,
what's going on? Milosevic came into power with the so-called populist or
national movement--and now he has a national movement against him!
I mean, different kinds of people are on the streets, but I must tell you
there is some kind of humor, some kind of relaxing on the street--that's what
you can feel, a goodwill and not any hate. I mean, a lot of things that are
going on the street are full with, let's say, some joy, some kind of a public
meeting in Belgrade.
This especially is the case with the students, and as we may hear the workers
from the bottom and the south of Serbia. [The "Together" coalition won in the
majority of cities in Serbia.] Previously the main struggle was in the
capital city Belgrade, now it is actually in the whole of Serbia. That's what
produces the trembling in the regime as we can now see, as they react
terribly with suppressing the free press, with cutting Radio 92, with the
closing of the small radio stations.
One part of the opposition was changed during the war. Some people who were
extremely nationalist at the beginning of the war now are coming to some
civil option, because it is obvious that there is no other way. Some of them
are still nationalist, but among the majority of the citizens of Belgrade,
and especially the students, you can't find that they are nationalist. It is
more a movement for democracy, if I may say.
Q. Borka, it sounds like you are describing almost an insurrectionary
situation; and you've mentioned that it has spread beyond Belgrade and gone
to more working class districts and other cities in the south. Is it also
spilling over the borders and what is the effect in Croatia and in Bosnia, if
any?
A. You know, the things are connected but what is actually the real
connection...Everything that I am telling you is the consequence of that war,
that terrible war in Bosnia, which was led from Zagreb [Croatia] and Belgrade
[the capital of both Serbia and what used to be Yugoslavia]. The war was
made for keeping power, because the parties in power wanted to suppress a
democratic movement.
Creating that incredible hate--five years of it--that the other nation are
idiots, that they want to kill us, that enormous xenophobia, all that was how
the ruling regime was keeping itself in power. Then you are inventing the
enemies all over the world, the enemies are in other people. After the war
that mirror is turning back. Now it is clear in the end, that the regime is
the enemy, because the war should never have been done.
I mean, it was a disaster from the very very beginning when it was
prepared...It was clear that it would be a catastrophe in Bosnia because
Bosnia is the sum of that multi-cultural Yugoslavia. And now, you have the
consequences of that terrible war.
Now the people who don't want to believe that the war is an injustice, that
war is an aggression, now they are seeing that something was wrong in our own
country. The Croats are not guilty, or the Muslims, but the people who are
leading you are actually responsible for your situation.
And now that the war, in some way, is stopped, of course the consequences are
that inside the people start to awake, and now it's clear you have to open
the situation in Belgrade and Zagreb. As you know, there is a [Croatian
president] Tudjman disease in Croatia and also the rising of opposition in
Croatia, and in some way, those things are connecting.
But without bringing real peace and democracy to Belgrade and Zagreb, you
can't solve the Bosnian problem. As long as you have these regimes in
Belgrade and Zagreb, Bosnia can't survive as an independent state.
Q. Actually, your words are very hopeful and I just wondered, without trying
to puncture the balloon, do you see Milosevic being able to use the army to
crack down? It seems that this is the kind of spontaneous mobilization that
sweeps people like Milosevic out of power....do you think that he will crack
down with the army?
A. At this very moment [Friday, Dec. 6, 1996] I don't believe. It was
possible six days ago. Now, I think it would be too much. Listen, the
problem is what makes you in some way optimistic are those people that are on
the streets. They are for change.
After the long year of the depression, when you thought that everything that
we are doing are for nothing because there is no deep reaction among the
majority, now there is an opening because there is some energy for changing.
When that energy starts to move it arouses new energy; now the majority has
risen out of that depression, that feeling that whatever we are doing
Milosevic will do what he wants with us.
Now, it is the feeling of each person that you can change something...that it
is not forever that he will stay, my God. That is what is actually positive,
the imagining of change and the possibility of building something new. A few
days ago, it seemed that [the crackdown] can be terrible, terrible, but now
it seems that it is possible that he would not use the army or the police.
Q. What role does the United States play in this? It seemed to people in
the United States that the Clinton administration was far more interested in
keeping Milosevic in power so that he could preside over the keeping of the
Dayton Accords. Now that seems to be in question. What is your view?
A. Listen, I must tell you. After Dayton [the Bosnia partition agreement],
Milosevic gained politically again here by his international recognition.
[This is important] when you have such terrible media as we have here, which
are really terrible I must tell you--for example there were ten days that the
Yugoslav television that there was no any word about what was outside! [The
protests had been marching right in front of the state television building
every day and the state media didn't cover them.]
On the television you have what has been on the Philippines or whatever it
is, but you have not a damn word [on the protests]. When the police said,
"now it is enough with the demonstrations," actually it was as if television
was forbidding something which did never exist! This is paranoia.
Q. It's Orwellian too.
A. Absolutely. Like, for example, Milosevic signed the peace for the war
which had never happened...officially, Yugoslavia has never been in the war.
So, how the leader of the country that was never in the war can sign a peace?
You know, we thought here that we are all mad, because it is incredible what
has been going on.
And after Dayton, it was especially that feeling of Depression. Why? First,
because the world is recognizing him as somebody they collaborate with; and
if the majority of the people are listening every evening on the Belgrade
television, how Milosevic receives [diplomatic visits by] Karl Bildt, how he
received Klaus Kinkle, how did Milosevic received I don't know who, then the
majority of the people think that he is now in power by Bill Clinton!
(Laughter)
This is the paradoxical lie in all of that...the majority of the people even
feel that five years of their lives passed in some war, they know that this
exists. Only those people who don't want to know, didn't know what was going
in Bosnia. And now you have the leader of that war, making the peace.
The people were totally depressed in that moment. If the world is
recognizing him as the valuable person, and then than can we do??
Now, this is a different situation. And I really think that is what will be
good...[that] the people are fighting for democracy, and that such a people
exist. And if the regime is not responsible for the war, then who is
responsible? It would be the people who were responsible then, wouldn't it?
But that's not true!
Q. Of course not.
A. And that is our and the world's blasphemy. Milosevic is pushing that game
in the Yugoslav New Left party with his wife on the top, that they are not
responsible...that the People by themselves hate each other so much, that in
Yugoslavia there is some anthropological, genetic, religious and I don't know
how many mythological wars--which is NOT TRUE.
I mean, the people in Bosnia did not hate each other every day from the
morning till the evening so that it was totally natural that we in one moment
take a knife and gun and start to kill each other. The regime provided the
ideological and state weapons for the crime. And now...it is the end of that
game. Now, when they say the Serbian or Croatian people are responsible,
they are pushing that story because they want to get rid of that
responsibility.
Q. Your words are very encouraging and I'm very pleased also about the
dynamism of the movement and the energy and the political direction. In the
last minute we have left, can you explain to our listeners why you chose the
name Centre for Cultural Decontamination
and what it means?
A. It means that during all those years, people become sick, and culture
especially, and that we needed a center that will decontaminate that
incredible xenophobia and nationalism which was spread in Serbia, [which] is
some kind of national socialism and [which has] become a real schizophrenia
and disaster.
Q. I think we'd like to borrow that and use it here as well!
A. I think you really have to decontaminate the territory...of all those
images, those idiotic stories which are pushed at the people and used [to
construct] the new [ethnic] states with that regime...that is not freedom and
democracy.
Q. I want to thank you for much for being with us, and to congratulate you
for your work, and thank you for staying up until 2:30 in the morning
Belgrade to talk to us here on Beneath the Surface.
A. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good night.
============
For information on the Bosnia Briefings Project, call 213/668-1811 or fax
213/668-1033. To reach Borka Pavizevic and the Centre for Cultural
Decontamination, call Belgrade at 381 11 681-423 and fax # 681-422.
KPFK-FM in Los Angeles will host another interview for with Borka Pavizevic
on Friday, December 13, 1996 at 5:00pm. The latest news and description of
the actions going on during these historic protests will be covered. Both
interviews will be available on the WWW through the Pacifica Network web
site.
--Nalini Lasiewicz (Bosnia Briefings Project, Lasiewicz Foundation)
PO Box 27725, Los Angeles, CA 90027
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