Serbia: State offensive against the libertarian movement

Libcom.org Aug 4 2011

An analysis of the current wave of state repression of the

Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative.



Since the official forming of our organisation in late 2002, not a single

year has passed without our activists being arrested or legally

prosecuted. It is important to note that all of them have been acquitted.

Currently, there are legal proceedings against seven members of our

Belgrade local group for various offenses. This kind of repression against

our organisation is a clear sign of weakness of an inhuman system on the

wane.



In the days immediately following the NATO conference in Belgrade and the

arrests of our members who participated in the Anti-NATO campaign, the

staged proceedings against members of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative

(ASI), which had ended more than a year ago with acquittal, have magically

been revived.



According to the decision of the Belgrade Court of Appeals (which was

admitted at the Belgrade High Court on the 24th of June 2011), the appeal

of the Public Prosecutor in Belgrade was granted and the acquittal of "The

Belgrade Six" (passed on 16th June 2010) was overturned. The case has been

returned to the Court of First Instance for retrial. Only a few days

later, on 29th June 2011, the High Court in Belgrade (under judge Dragomir

Gerasimović, who passed the verdict of acquittal of "The Belgrade Six"),

announced that his court has no jurisdiction to act in proceedings against

the Six, and decided to submit the case to the Court of First Instance in

Belgrade. This, politically motivated decision of the Court of Appeals is

accompanied with legally and in every other way illiterate explanation

which is not placing forward any argument to support that verdict, and is

only once again reaffirming political character of the whole case against

the Six.



We remind the public that in September 2009 in Belgrade, Serbia, four

members of ASI were arrested together with two other unaffiliated Belgrade

anarchists (Sanja Dojkić, Ivan Vulović, Ratibor Trivunac, Tadej Kurepa,

Ivan Savić and Nikola Mitrović), under charges of attacking the Greek

Embassy in Belgrade. Namely, in the night between 24th and 25th Of August

2009, two bottles of a flammable liquid hit the pavement near the embassy,

and an encircled letter "A" (a symbol of the anarchist movement) was drawn

on the facade. The damage was estimated at 18 Euros. This event, which was

characterised by the police as the criminal offense of "causing general

public danger", was revised after an intervention from "on high" within

the Serbian state. The result was the first indictment for "international

terrorism" in Serbian history. One of the key reasons for these charges

was the fact that ASI was at the time delegated to perform the duties of

the Secretariat of the International Workers' Association, thus

contributing to the international co-ordination, not of "terrorists", but

of fighting union organisations from around the world. Despite the fact

that the case is evidently framed and based on political pressure,

throughout the investigation, which was conducted by Judge Milan Dilparić,

(in charge of the most important political cases, such as the cases of

Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić) such absurd charges were upheld. It is

important to stress that the Six were suspected of having organized the

attack as members of ASI. This underlines the desire of the state to

criminalize our organization, and accuse it of participating and

organising international terrorist attacks – which is clear from the

allegations of existence of some sort of "Greek association named 'ASI',"

which of course never existed. The reaction to the arrogance and open

state repression, made evident in the faking of evidence against the Six

and the mindless qualification of this event as international terrorism,

served as the basis for mobilizing public opinion against this trial,

which was immediately – correctly - identified as a staged political

process against critics of the regime. During the period the Six spent in

custody, the public, both in Serbia and the region, and in the world,

reacted strongly against such conduct of the Serbian authorities. The

interest sparked by the case and the resulting public pressure undoubtedly

played a crucial role in the release of the Belgrade Six which enabled

them to mount their defense outside prison, and played a crucial role in

their acquittal. The senior public prosecutor filed an appeal against the

acquittal on the same day and during the following year there were no

further news on the case. We have recognized this silence as another

method of repression against our organization, and our expectations that

the case will be revived when those in power feel the need to increase

pressure on ASI, have proved accurate.



It should be noted that even after the acquittal of the Belgrade Six and

until the restarting of the proceedings, ASI was subjected to continuous

political-legal and physical pressures of the state and its fascist

para-police groups. Comrade Davor Bilić from Croatia, who came to support

the Six during the trial was prevented from leaving Belgrade for more than

seven months. Davor, and three members of ASI from Vršac (who a few months

earlier expressed public solidarity with the six, also well within legal

bounds) faced charges for "obstruction of justice”. All were ultimately

acquitted, after long and exhausting legal processes. At the same time,

police-controlled fascist groups organized physical attacks on members of

ASI, and distributed leaflets and posters with photos and addresses of

members and friends of ASI. Likewise, in February 2011, staged proceedings

were initiated against the General Secretary of ASI, Milan Stojanović in

re-instituted legal proceedings. In a case dating from 2006, Milan was

mysteriously transformed from a witness of the offense of "unauthorized

use of another person’s vehicle, through breaking in or using threatening

language," into a suspect. The offense carries a penalty of up to 5 years

of imprisonement.



The request for the registration of ASI in the Serbian Union Register was,

again, filed on the 29th June 2010. Even though the legal deadline for

responding is 15 working days, we have been waiting for it for over a

year. Likewise, all possible legal provisions were utilized to block and

hinder the work of the registered legal publishing and research body of

ASI, The Centre for Libertarian Studies, which forms part of the

International Federation of Centers for Libertarian Studies and

Documentation.



Despite the repression, ASI has continued, within its resources, the

struggle against capitalism and the state. Antimilitarism has always been

one of the cornerstones of the revolutionary workers' movement and the

revolutionary syndicalists have historically been the brightest examples

of struggle against barbaric state crimes embodied in bourgeois wars. In

light of this, there is nothing unusual in the fact that ASI launched an

Anti-NATO campaign (http://antinato.in.rs/) in April 2011 in response to

the scheduled NATO gathering between 13th and 15th June in Belgrade.

According to official information coming from NATO, the gathering was "a

key activity within the campaign of strategic action of the Supreme Allied

Command Transformation (SACT)" and the biggest gathering in NATO's

history. Although it was ASI that launched the campaign, our intention

from the beginning was that the campaign quickly outgrows our

organisation, which it did. The Anti-NATO campaign became an independent

popular platform, based on the principles of direct democracy and direct

action. It was a gathering of all those with a progressive position

engaged in the struggle against militarism and the crimes of NATO, clearly

distancing itself from the chauvinistic and isolationist critics of the

military alliance.



Soon after public work on the Anti-NATO campaign started in early May, it

became apparent that the Serbian bourgeoisie, will act as a compradore in

mounting a concerted effort to hinder and prevent our actions in a brutal

way. It became clear that NATO, as one of the key instruments of global

capitalist imperialist oppression and exploitation, can in Serbia fully

count on the support of the primitive, but sufficiently effective

repressive apparatus of the state. Activists of the Anti-NATO campaign

were under constant police pressure: they were detained for no reason and

summoned to formal and informal interviews, during which they were

threatened with mass arrests. The police deliberately removed posters of

the campaign which were displayed in places designated for public

advertising. The bourgeois media and news agencies refused to in any way

mention the NATO rally or provide information to the broader public,

completely hiding the fact that such an event will take place in Belgrade.

The high level of repression led to the decision to cancel the

organization of the planned international camp that was to be organized

for and by antimilitarist activists from around the world. Despite such

pressure, the Anti-NATO campaign managed to mobilize a number of

activists, to inform the public to some extent and was involved in

articulating criticism of the NATO gathering, which was later accepted by

other political subjects in Serbia.



The Anti-NATO campaign decided to hold on the 12th of June, the first of

several planned, publicly announced protests against the NATO gathering in

front of the "Sava Centre" in Belgrade. Coincidentally, that day at the

Sava Centre, the main board meeting of the Democratic Party (Serbia's

ruling party) was taking place, whose member also is the Minister of

Defence Dragan Šutanovac, one of the top operatives of NATO in Serbia and

the formal host of this gathering of war criminals from around the world.

The media and nationalist opposition parties, as an alternative acceptable

to the system, united forces a few days before the gathering in order to

reduce the effect of the Anti-NATO campaign. The Democratic Party of

Serbia (DSS) of the former Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica, (whose

representatives, during their period in office, participated in various

phases of rapprochement between Serbia and NATO), two days before the

announced protest of the Anti-NATO campaign, called for a protest to

coincide with it at the other end of town. The media then used this fact

to reinforce the false opposition between a liberal pro-NATO position and

a nationalist one (by, nominally, anti-NATO parties), hindering the

articulation of a progressive left-wing anti-NATO position. Paid DSS

activists worked very hard to plaster the city with their own posters

obliterating the posters of the Anti-NATO campaign. The DSS's protest

passed with full media coverage, rallying less than 500 people, while the

most visible part of the protest were members of the clerofascist group

"Obraz" who paraded with Nazi posters from World War II. It is interesting

that uniformed police presence at this protest was minimal, and that the

activists of the police-controlled fascist organization disbanded after

their gathering and prevented any outbreaks.



On the other hand, at the peaceful protest of the Anti-NATO campaign,

which was kettled by police as soon as approximately one hundred people

gathered, the demonstrators were insulted and shoved down the surrounding

slopes. Unidentified plainclothes policemen brutally arrested eight

participants, of which three are members of ASI. The six arrested,

including a Croatian citizen Nikola Vukobratović, were taken to the New

Belgrade police station, where they were held in custody for 48 hours. The

remaining two were taken to the 29th November Street police station. One

was soon released, and the other, Ratibor Trivunac, was speedily sentenced

to 15 days in jail and immediately sent to serve his term in Padinska

Skela prison. Criminal proceedings were initiated against Trivunac and the

six incarcerated in New Belgrade police station, for the "obstruction of

official persons in performing their duties". Kosta Ristić, a member of

ASI, is facing charges for "assaulting an officer on duty", although

events captured on video clearly show that his arrest was the most brutal

one. We should point out that the legal proceedings under judge Goran

Milutinović are completely framed and unfounded, even under bourgeois law.

It is important to point out that Milutinović is the same judge who

convicted Trivunac to ten days imprisonment in May 2009, for the public

burning of the flag of the United States of America during the visit of

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden to Serbia. Although the protest against

the NATO gathering was announced and organized by the Anti-NATO campaign,

Trivunac was charged with organizing the protest "as an activist of the

Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative“, and that during his participation in the

protest committed the misdemeanor of "disturbing public order and peace''.

"Evidence" for these allegations are found in the false testimonies of

police officers of the Department of Public Order of the Belgrade City

Police, Dejan Vasić and Saša Todorović, the latter who testified against

Trivunac while visibly intoxicated by alcohol.



This protest and the repression against its participants, not only

demonstrates the continued repression carried out against the

revolutionary movement in Serbia by the Serbian government, but it also

raises questions about important issues for which battles are yet to be

fought: the right of citizens to free assembly, the preventing of

undercover police to infiltrate into these gatherings and act without

identification, etc. Trivunac's appeal was rejected on the 20th of June

accompanied by an unsatisfactory legal justification of the Belgrade Court

of High Misdemeanors, and he served his sentence of 15 days. Further

criminal proceedings against those arrested at the protest are yet to

begin.



Immediately after the breaking up of the protest and the arrests, certain

sections of the bourgeois media, supported by government experts,

commenced a media lynch of ASI and its members. The attack was spearheaded

by the tabloid Blic (largest Serbian daily newspaper), an informal

newsletter of the ruling parties, which attacked ASI in two articles,

"Leader of the Serbian anarchists behind bars" (15-06-11) and "The

brotherly ties of anarchists in the Balkans" (17-06-11). These articles

clearly demonstrated what police-commissioned articles look like. The text

is written by the "journalist" Vuk Z. Cvijić, who was earlier publicly

identified as an associate of the Serbian military intelligence. The

first, shorter text, besides the meaningless title that refers to Trivunac

as the "leader" of Serbian anarchists, spends three quarters of its word

count "reminding" the public about the case of the Greek Embassy and the

ominous prediction of the impending decision of Appeal Court. The second,

longer text is almost entirely assembled from extracts from half-literate

and factually incorrect articles that have been published in local

newspapers over the past few years. This article, a journalistic

Frankenstein in which the co-operation and links between

anarchosyndicalists from Serbia, Croatia and the region are described from

chauvinist positions, was featured on the front page of Blic. In its

conclusion, the text repeats a call to the Court of Appeals to overturn

the acquittal of the Belgrade Six. Attacks on ASI did not only come from

the pen of the regime's journalists: Jovica Trkulja, a professor of the

Faculty of Law in Belgrade, as a "representative of qualified public" at a

public hearing in the Constitutional Court regarding a ban of right-wing

organizations on 22nd June 2011, classified "anarcho-syndicate" alongside

the clero-fascist organization "Obraz", under the worn platitude of

"extremist groups". Just days after the release of Ratibor Trivunac, the

Belgrade Six and their legal representatives found out from the media that

what was announced in the police articles in "Blic" has now come about and

that their acquittal has been overturned.



We have no intention to seek pity or bemoan the situation in which our

organization finds itself. From the first day of our activities, aware of

the task we have put before our organization, we were ready for drastic

repression. The aim of this text is to inform the domestic and foreign

public of the models of repression carried out against the libertarian

movement by the Serbian state. It is also an announcement to those who

carry out this repression, and to the entire working class and all the

exploited that we will not be intimidated or stopped.



The Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative, together with our International, The

International Workers' Association (AIT-IWA), as well as the global

libertarian and revolutionary movement, are carefully following the

continued legal repression and repression by any other means of our

members. Accordingly, we inform the authorities that, in case of further

repression, we will restart the campaign in Serbia and worldwide, against

the persecution of our activists and our organization.



We demand the suspension of all staged trials, against the members of the

Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative!



We demand a stop to the repression against the syndicalist movement in

Serbia!



In Belgrade, 21st July 2011

The Secretariat of Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative,

Section of the International Workers’ Association