The assassination of Serbia's Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in mid-March has triggered imposition of the state of emergency throughout Serbia, except in Kosovo where UN's temporary jurisdiction supersedes Serbia's. The objective behind the state of emergency, according to the ruling coalition, is to arrest the assassination suspects, eradicate criminal gangs which they lead, disband public enterprises funded by the criminal gangs and eliminate the judiciary corruption that is under heavy influence of the criminal clans. Many in these criminal clans, according to the state authorities, are individuals that have participated in paramilitary units during the Balkan wars and perpetrated atrocities against civilians in order to enrich themselves by looting the ones they killed.

The ongoing crime-busting mission has netted nearly 1000 arrests thus far with two top suspects, Lukovic and Spasojevic, being shot dead after these suspects opened a machinegun fire at the apprehension officers on March 27.

Court proceedings have started against some 400 others held in custody.

Additionally, the ruling coalition has shut down two media outlets, tabloid Identitet and weekly Nacional, under suspicion of mafia finance links. Podgorica's daily DAN has had its distribution cut-off while Belgrade's daily Vecernje Novosti has been officially warned after publishing stories sympathetic to the murder suspects. TV Mars has been fined for inappropriate programming during the period of official mourning.

"We have to go all the way, because the citizens of Serbia expect us to rid this country of criminals of all stripes," said Dragan Sutanovic, the head of the Serbia's parliamentary commission for security.

Fears of Repression

The decision to eradicate the criminal element in Serbia has received the blessings of the West along with a warning against a prolonged state of emergency. The West hopes that a short and swift crackdown on criminal gangs in Serbia will yield them individuals they hold on The Hague list of war crimes suspects.

Debate over the State of Emergency Nationalists: State of emergency is illegal. Serbia is empowered to declare it in a given part of its territory, but not to impose it throughout the Republic. Coalition: The illegality claim is based on a perfidious rhetorical game upon a word Republic. Both Serbia as well as the Serbia-Montenegro Union are a Republic. The state of emergency does not exist throughout the Union Republic but only throughout its part. Serbia cannot impose it on the Union nor has the Union imposed it on Serbia. Nationalists: State of emergency is illegal on grounds that only the President of the Union Republic can declare it. Since Serbia has declared it, it violates the constitution. Coalition: Once again, opposition’s perfidious rhetorical make-believe statement attempting to prescribe the state of emergency as Union-wide, which it’s not. Nationalists: The state of emergency cannot theoretically be open-ended which practically will happen in Serbia. State of emergency must end in 30 days and in all likelihood it will not. Coalition: It is rather hard to de jure divine an outcome of a particular political policy. Yet opposition is not only capable to but also oblivious to international consequences of a prolonged state of emergency. Lost aid and forgone foreign investment will be sufficient to end an open-ended state of emergency. Nationalists: Appointed deputy Prime Minister, Cedomir Jovanovic declared that the state of emergency would last until Serbia is crime free. Since Jovanovic is a drug addict, crime free Serbia will never happen hence perpetual state of emergency. Coalition: Claim that Cedomir Jovanovic is a drug addict are rumors perpetuated by the Serbian underworld and basing political statements on claims of criminals is perhaps a criminal behavior itself. Nationalists: There is an atmosphere of fear and physical and legal uncertainty in Serbia that exceeds the darkest times of Milosevic. The self-proclaimed reformers have metastasesed into force of tyranny. Coalition: Fear is endless for the criminals, individuals with questionable biographies and others without documentation. Serbia has received over 700,000 persons during Yugoslavia’s violent break-up. Many of those are not refugees and hold no refugee papers but are roaming Serbia’s streets. Nationalists: Crackdown on mafia is a bogus attempt to divert the attention from real killers of Zoran Djindjic. Assassinating a “big fish” is counter-productive for mafia hence the killing must have happened from the inside political forces that enjoy foreign support. Coalition: Although plausible the opposition does not provide any credible evidence for this claim. By declining to present evidence, the specter of suspicion can be raised on any foreign NGO including the American-based Baptist Ministry currently proselytizing in Serbia. Then again, the phrase “political forces with foreign support” has been a favorite to world’s tyrants willing to eliminate his political opposition. Nationalists: State of emergency has denied the impoverished workers of Serbia the right to strike and demand better wages while the government is filling up it’s pockets with monies from the privatization. Coalition: Nationalist opposition has brought not a single foreign investor into Serbia to employ any worker since their inception in early 1990s. Instead, nationalists have engaged into map remaking of the Balkans and have diverted all investment funds away from Serbia’s capital base and into war effort. Once these funds have been squandered, the nationalists have, more menacingly still, reduced worker’s wealth to zero by perpetrating one of the highest hyperinflations in history of civilization. Nationalist grandstanding for workers now is a cynical ploy to once again fool the workers into thinking that by printing money their wages will rise while the reformers are attempting to replenish the destroyed capital base and enhance worker productivity and thus their wages. Finally, contrary to nationalist claim, workers did strike during the state of emergency in cities of Bor, Kragujevac and Belgrade. Nationalists: Many of the arrested are held in prison without bail and without a charge. Moreover, those held have no right to an attorney. This is a violation of human rights. Coalition: Once charged a right to attorney is activated. Charges must be made within 30 days of arrest and no bail is discretion of the court. Those not charged have been held for less then 30 days. Nationalists: Recent murder of mafia suspects during the apprehension is a tyrannical grab of court powers by the state. The killing was "quick" justice by the police with no trial, no effort to establish their guilt. Coalition: Omitting the fact that the suspects opened machinegun fire on police first and their deaths are a consequence of own foolishness renders this argument a dull exercise in selective reasoning.

On the other hand, mindful of West's ability to turn their eyes the other way as during Croatia's ethnic cleansing of Krajina Serbs, the nationalist opposition in Serbia is fearful and suspicious of the intentions of the Western supported state of emergency.

The suspicion of sinister political intentions is further fueled by recent statements from a leader of a small Social Democratic Party, Slobodan Orlic, demanding a ban on political activities of the nationalist political parties such as Serbian Radical Party and the Serbian Unity Party founded by the underworld boss Arkan.

While the ruling coalition has no intentions to pursue Orlic’s recommendation these nationalist parties are alarmed that they will be rendered into a politically meaningless force if the ruling coalition calls for elections immediately following the state of the emergency.

"Political campaigning is prohibited under the state of emergency now. Immediate call for election is a virtually assured victory for the ruling coalition." explains Dusan Jovovic, a history teacher from Nis.

The anticipated electoral victory of the coalition, however, may depend not on the length of the post-state of the emergency campaign but rather on the success of the ongoing mafia mop-up and a subsequent judicial reform necessary to eliminate communist era legal loopholes designed to politically subvert the justice system into servility to the state.

"These mafia rats have replaced the communists in the judiciary system. Maybe the communists have been the mafia rats all along and time has come for them to go." laments disgruntled Belgrader Milorad Stojkovic.

"Not a single car theft has occurred since the arrests; not a single public fight which was not the case before. People are happy to be able to freely walk the streets." comments Slavica Dimitrijevic.

Rhetorical versus Concrete Political Dangers

Faced with such overwhelming popular support for the coalition’s anti-mafia success, media’s willingness to cooperate with the emergency censorship rules and no political agenda that will improve upon the subsequently expected judicial reform, the nationalist opposition is resorting to alarmism and doubt raising tactics hoping they will resonate not just among the anti-reformists but also among the general public.

While some of the arguments designed to raise doubts are dubious and downright banal, the list of arguments suggests an alarming concrete policy emptiness of the nationalist alternative.

Judging from the popularity of the anti-mafia success, it is rather apparent that people do enjoy concrete and tangible achievements of the government over an intangible nationalist rhetoric.

While purposeful machination of rhetoric is part of every democratic process, having that intangible as a concrete policy alternative against the ruling coalition is, paradoxically and probably, a recipe for political self-destruction of the nationalists.

Paradoxically still, self-destruction of nationalists may shake the ruling coalition and have some of its fringes defect.

The concrete political danger then is whether the ruling coalition can maintain itself and build upon and perhaps speed up some of the reforms among the menu of endlessly many. For example, the anticipated judicial reform could get sidetracked by inter coalition political disputes while such digressive dynamic could stymie the necessary legal reform that must follow the judiciary one.

Concrete Sovereignty Dangers

Further, and perhaps more important, a prolonged judicial and legal reform reduces Serbia’s effectiveness in the Balkans especially as a superior legal and judicial alternative to the mafia-plagued one in the Serbia’s Kosovo province.

Recent visit by Jamie Shea, Head of NATOs Information Office to Kosovo is a clear illustration of both the dangers as well as opportunities of a speedy and swift reform in Serbia.

While celebrating with Albanians the fourth anniversary of bombing of Serbs, Shea stated that NATO will not allow the return of Serb forces to Kosovo nor a division of the province.

To many Albanians as well as Serbs Shea’s statement has an overtly raw meaning: return of Serb forces implies Serbian sovereignty over the province and conversely, denial of return of Serb forces means Kosovo’s independence.

While presence of brute force on any given territory is not a grant of sovereignty, presence of a superior legal code is. In other words, the responsibility of the sovereignty is to have a superior legal code that efficiently guides the economy, minimizes crime and provides safety to its citizens.

In case of Kosovo, Shea was also very specific that a discussion on the final status of the province is dependent on whether the current Kosovo Albanian administration has 1) proved to be of European standard, 2) that it is capable of managing the economy, 3) fighting organized crime and 4) providing all citizens with safety.

Retiring the overtly raw meaning aside then, Shea’s statement is a clear signal to Kosovo Albanians that while NATO provides physical security, any discussion (and not a decision) is dependent on whether Kosovo Albanians themselves can do what the current ruling coalition in Serbia is successfully executing.

The ability to present the international community with a dynamic and a superior, results-oriented Serbian alternative for Kosovo against that of the Albanian systemic clansmanship-prone banditry is the window of opportunity that can permanently replace the temporary jurisdiction of the UN in Kosovo.

Reform With Results

An ability to dictate Kosovo status discussions is then intricately related with Serbia’s ability to provide tangible and measurable benefits to its citizenry. If the ongoing swiftness of arrests of the underworld bosses can be successfully replicated with an equally swift judicial reform, a skeleton of impartial justice system will be erected that will be a tangibly measured by all its citizens including the ones in Kosovo experiencing a mafia grip.

International obligations only endure as long as the conditions that generated them concluded Machiavelli 500 years ago. Although under the UN 1244 resolution there is an international obligation to allow the return of Serb forces to Kosovo, but the denial of the return is not only a clear sign that the conditions of 1999 have dramatically changed but also a clear signal that a more active and faster reform on all social fronts is necessary to change the conditions in Serb favor. Rhetoric without a clear political agenda is a long-term concrete danger to Serbian sovereignty.

Paradoxically, however, from the historical perspective of Serbian nation building, the libertarian reform objectives of today’s ruling coalition have traditionally been centerpieces of the nationalists.

In fact, it was Serbian Czar Dushan’s idea to introduce the people of the medieval Balkans to a legal code in times when law came from the edge of a sword. Unbiased justice was an inspiration to all nationalists that led Serbian liberation uprisings. To praise Dushan’s judicial tradition while opposing elimination of criminals and a subsequent judicial reform now is the mesmerizingly puzzling behavior of today’s Serbian nationalists.