Information Bulletin No. 16 (universities) - 10 November 1998

NEW DISMISSALS, ARRESTS, TEACHING BANS AND PARA-POLICE CONTROL OF BUILDINGS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE

Nikola Vasiljevic (19), Dragana Milinkovic (22), Marina Glisic (22), and Teodora Tabacki (22), students at various faculties of the Belgrade University, were sentenced to 10 days imprisonment on 4 November. Writing slogans against the University Act and Serbian Law on Public Information, they, in a magistrate's opinion, "expressed civil resistance to the government * and by insolent and delinquent conduct jeopardised the peace and quiet of citizens and the public peace and order".

For the time being, the police is not arresting other students at the faculties of Electrical Engineering, Philology and Law in Belgrade, but para-police forces, brought in by the government-appointed deans, prohibit them to use the faculty premises and threaten them with physical violence.

Armed thugs at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering do not allow 11 professors who have not signed the employment contract (called "the declaration of loyalty to the ruling party") to enter the building. Eight of them have been punished with drastic salary reduction, their average salary being 1.500 dinars or about 200 German marks, which is less than the earnings of a driver of the Belgrade public transport. They were punished for the protest encounters which, together with students, they have held in the Faculty building, since thus "they have obstructed work", as Dean Vlada Teodosic, whose resignation is requested by students, puts it. The Dean has threatened the students who refuse to attend lectures of "suitable" substitute lecturers hastily brought from provincial universities, with six month suspension of student status and deprivation of the student card "due to political activities".

The Dean of the Faculty of Philology, Radmilo Marojevic, does not give any consideration to students' request for the re-establishment of the Department of World Literature, which ceased to function due to the eviction of disobeying professors, or to the professors' remark that he destroyed the oldest department * the Department of the Serbian Language and Literature. Instead of that he is accusing professors of being "hirelings of the new world order", who "are creating chaos in order to use the last chance for the realisation of their political goals". One of the substitutes, a writer from Niksic, Montenegro, invited by the Dean to replace the professor of Theory of Literature, locked the door of the classroom from the inside to prevent students from leaving. This culminated on 10 November by the dismissal of professors Vladeta Jankovic, former Head of the Department of World Literature, Djordje Trifunovic (Yugoslav Literature), Zoran Milutinovi} (Comparative Literature), Aleksandar Ilic, (World Literature

), Slobodan Vukobrat (English Language and Literature) and Branislava Niksic (Hebraic Language).

The Serbian Commissioner for Refugees and a high official of the ruling Yugoslav Left, Bratislava Morina, joined the attempt of the destruction of the Belgrade University. In the name of the phantom "Association of Women of Yugoslavia", Morina accused the daily "Dnevni telegraf" of publishing the advertisement under the title "Resistance is the Answer" of a new Belgrade student organisation - "Resistance". "Resistance", comprising students of seven Belgrade faculties, published the announcement including the following text:

"Resistance is the answer! There is no other way. It will be too late when someone close to you starves to death, When they start killing people on streets, When they turn off all the lights, and poison the last spring * It will be too late. This is not a system, This is a disease. Bite the system! GET HOLD OF YOURSELF, LIVE THE RESISTANCE."

Morina based her accusation on Article 67 of the new Serbian Information Act, which treats every criticism of the regime as an attempt of undermining the constitutional order and envisages drastic fines. In summary proceedings a Belgrade magistrate fined the owner and editor-in-chief 1,200,000 (about 110,000 US dollars).

And while students of three Belgrade faculties request the replacement of deans, protest and boycott lectures, the deans transfer unsuitable professors to work at faculty institutes, without basic conditions for work, such as tables * for instance, at the Institute of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering there is neither water, nor electricity.

Private police appeared at the Faculty of Law as well, where it prevented two suspended professors, Kosta Cavoski and Jovica Trkulja, from holding a seminar on the persecution of the Faculty of Law professors in the past. Some two hundred students walked in protest along the corridors and temporarily occupied two other classrooms. The Dean, Oliver Antic, qualified the gathering as "political" and initiated disciplinary proceedings against Draga Rudic, the student who is suspected of having organised the seminar. Since then, the Faculty of Law building can be entered only by those who show the student card of that faculty, which is checked by private security agents. On 10 November several hundred students of law protested in front of the Faculty building demanding the return of fired and suspended teachers, cancellation of disciplinary proceedings against Ms. Rudic and removal of guards at the entrance.

However, according to the pro-government papers everything is fine at the Faculty of Law. In an interview to "Politika" of 7 November 1998 Prof. Vesna Besarevic, the new director of the European Studies at that Faculty, the new management of the Faculty has concluded a agreement with the European Inter-University Centre in Nancy, France, for a joint program in European law, which will lead to a diploma recognised in France and Europe. She announced the arrival of Professor Charpentier from Nancy and the beginning of this remarkable Yugoslav - French joint project for 17 November 1998.

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