Published Thursday, October 12, 2000, in the San Jose Mercury News http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/yugoslavia12.htm
Sifting through Yugoslav garbage yields signs of massive theft BY DANIEL RUBIN AND JEFFREY FLEISHMAN Knight Ridder BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- For the first time, Yugoslav citizens are getting a glimpse of how they made the Milosevic regime rich.
The democratic opposition, which has stormed the record rooms and the shredded documents of many of the regime's key offices, has found cases where bankers became millionaires when computers mysteriously added zeros to their balances. They've learned that millions of dollars in worthless dinars were printed, then converted to German marks that have left the country, bringing staggering inflation this summer. They've found that a foreign company had to pay a $2 million ``corruption fee'' to a manager in order to sell $100 million of equipment.
Milosevic ``was here for a very long period, and he managed to destroy everything that was healthy,'' said Milko Stimac, an economist with G-17 Plus, an independent group helping the transitional government. ``In this republican government, all government ministers also ran the largest companies.''
As these details emerged, more and more workers rebelled and forced Milosevic cronies out of their cars and offices, sometimes brutally.
So far, however, Milosevic's political allies have frustrated new President Vojislav Kostunica's efforts to consolidate power and dismantle a 13-year regime that saw the country wage war and fall into economic ruin.
Milosevic loyalists struck back Wednesday. Some bosses who had been cowering went back and declared their resignations invalid.
The Milosevic-controlled majority of the republic of Serbia's parliament reneged on its offer to dissolve the government and insisted on controlling the 100,000-member police. Whoever controls Serbia, which has 90 percent of Yugoslavia's population, controls the country.
And the army issued a statement warning about ``possible negative consequences'' if pro-Milosevic military leaders were purged.
But supporters of the new regime believe the growing evidence of massive official corruption under Milosevic will undermine whatever legitimacy he has left.
One banking source with knowledge of Milosevic's business dealings referred to the plundering and corruption as ``Serbia Incorporated.'' The source said banking officials in the country estimate that the Milosevic family alone bilked $800 million from state coffers over the past decade. Milosevic's son, Marko, who controlled the tobacco- and cigarette-smuggling rackets that flourished under economic sanctions, garnered much of that, said the source, who asked not to be named.
Economists for Kostunica's coalition parties estimated that at least 250 families with close ties to Milosevic grew rich by accounts being altered on the national computer that controlled all money transfers.
``At that time, many bankers made millions by adding zeros to their accounts,'' said Srboljub Antic, a founder of G-17 Plus.
Four months before presidential elections, Milosevic's allies flooded the country with nearly worthless dinars, increasing the cash supply by 33 percent. They immediately used these large reserves to buy German marks. That made them rich, but triggered inflation as the dinar plummeted in value.
Seizing the Federal Customs Administration was one priority of Kostunica's people because Milosevic and his underlings allegedly used it to rake off huge sums.
Friday morning, after hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs had filled the streets of Belgrade, burning parliament and the state media building, Milosevic had still not conceded defeat in the Sept. 24 presidential elections. Zoran Djindjic, an opposition leader who ran Kostunica's campaign, called on a fabled Serb fighter to storm Customs: Dragan Vasiljkovic.
Vasiljkovic, who had led a paramilitary band called the Ninjas in the 1991-95 Serbian uprising in Croatia, took 15 of his former soldiers and headed for the Customs building's inner sanctum.
``We were fully armed,'' the retired fighter said Wednesday. ``We had rocket launchers. We just went through the main entrance. No one expected us to be there. It was a simple charge.''
They found garbage bags filled with shredded paper, Vasiljkovic said. Someone was burning documents in a corner. When Kostunica loyalists arrived, they logged about $150 million in dinars and German marks and drugs, he said.
Opposition leaders say Customs controlled alcohol, cigarettes, stolen cars, and items barred by sanctions such as sugar, cooking oil and fuel. Milosevic's son, Marko, called many of the shots.