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Monday, September 4, 2000
Ivan Marovic, Otpor activist He is finished!Ivan Marovic was born on December 29th 1973 in Belgrade. For two years now he is in his final year of studies on Faculty of Engineering (Masinski Fakultet) of Belgrade University and in that time he managed to pass only two exams. He was one of the initiators of the 1996/97 Student Protest at Faculty of Engineering and a member of the Main Board of the 1996/97 Student Protest. Since March 1997 he was member of Executive Board of Student Union (Savez studenata) at Faculty of Engineering. He represented his Faculty in the Student Parliament in two terms. Since the end of 1998 his social awareness is manifested through the "Resistance" movement. Soon he will be leaving for his military service. FS: You have been around for a long time on the student scene as an activist. How do you reason the various periods of student activism in the last 5 years today? I am on the student scene since the 1996/97 Student Protest, over the Student Parliament, all the way until February this year while Otpor was still a student movement. Now I am not on the student scene, because this is now People's Movement OTPOR, so one can say that I am on the people's scene now. The difference between now and then is that the students and the youth overall are more experienced, enriching their political views with all that happened in the past four years. That is why the approach is different now, because then the Protest started spontaneously and was led from day to day. Then we were fighting for four months over the stolen elections. We gave a lot and gained little. And the little we gained was soon lost, because it was the political parties that had the political weight, while the students were there just as a front for the pictures. As far as Student Parliament is concerned it was a nice illusion that one can in undemocratic system make a democratic institution at least at the University level. And the last "nail on the coffin we buried" the Student Parliament was the University Law (Zakon o Univerzitetu). That term of the Student Parliament correctly estimated that there are no conditions left for maintaining activities, so that form of acting would have to wait for some better times. OTPOR was formed in October 1998 after the University Law was declared. The interesting thing is that it was created by fusion of two groups of youth activists. On one side there were people from the Student Parliament and Student Protest, the student activists, that had the feeling they didn't finish the fight they started, and on the other side were the disappointed members of political parties youths. The second ones brought to OTPOR very significant experiences from their parties, and therefore making under given conditions a very effective model of acting. Unlike the acting during the student protests, OTPOR renounced student elitism, expressed best by the meetings held at Faculty of Philosophy (we are students, bright, young and we are the future of this country), attended only by students and therefore closing the circle in which everything looked great at first sight. And while those meetings were held at Zeleni venac (one of Belgrade's markets) the real life was going on. All that is over now. Now the meetings are held all over Serbia and are attended by citizens who are listening to what students and the ones who support them have to say. The second difference is nonexistence of leadership in OTPOR, one like that of the Student Protest when the individual, no matter how hard he wanted or tried, had no way of fulfilling the hopes of a large group of people, leading to widespread disappointment. That is why the Student Protest ended in disappointment, especially regarding all exposed individuals in the Protest, finally leading to apathy. In OTPOR we tried not to have that leadership approach and to put forward ideas and symbols and to put individuals in the background, so that if one of the individuals does something wrong the whole movement wouldn't suffer. FS: How do you estimate your role in every of those periods? It is hard for me to do that, it should be up to others. Only thing that comes to me is that in all that time I learned a lot and that I understand some thing better now. I never gave up activism, because I was determined from the start to finish what I started. FS: You are probably the most exposed activist in the OTPOR. What are the upsides of such position and what are the downsides? I think that anyone wearing the OTPOR T-shirt is exposed, and if I am the most exposed that means that Serbian media are not the key for transmitting messages. If I was in media the most, then people in the streets should recognize me and that is not happening. But people recognize the fist, because the posters and the leaflets and other actions have more effect than I do or any of 20something portparoles say in the media. The upside is... well there is none. There is no upside, except for the free ride in the taxi I got a couple of times. And the downside is that I draw more attention during the arrests, because the police cannot comprehend that the fact that I speak for the papers doesn't mean that I have some key position in the movement itself. The teamwork in functioning and making decisions is completely alien to them, because they are used to one man making all the decisions. FS: As one of the more exposed activists you represented OTPOR in many diplomatic and political missions. Which of these meetings would you put forward? It is hard to separate some of those meetings, because none of these meetings brought a breakthrough, only small advances. The ones that stood out in my mind are the opposition meetings in the City Parliament of Belgrade during the rallies provoked by closing of Studio B, because they gave a clear sight of the confusion the opposition was in then. They were completely devastating and demoralizing for every one of us (from OTPOR) who took part. Now the atmosphere in the meetings is different, much better, and that gives some hope. FS: What way are the OTPOR activists involved in the election campaign? Since OTPOR is not taking part in the elections we are not involved in the campaign in the classical way. Our campaign is therefore called "HE IS FINISHED!" and has the goal of motivating as many people as possible to go out and vote on the elections, so they can get rid of Milosevic. As a part of that campaign various material is being distributed: posters, leaflets… door to door campaign is being conducted, meetings and other activities are organized all over Serbia. Also we are taking part in the rallies organized by Group 17+. FS: Does OTPOR has any connections to the "IT IS TIME" campaign? As far as I know that campaign is organized by 30something various nongovernmental organizations and we are not taking part in it. FS: You took part in contacts with Montenegrin government and even took part in their election campaign for local elections in Podgorica and Herceg Novi. How do you see their position towards the current events in, still, mutual state?
The tension in Montenegro is much higher than during the local elections in question. There is in essence only one problem, and it is their internal division. The government in Montenegro will do best if it stops treating that problem as a problem between Podgorica and Belgrade, because it is being underestimated. SNP (party of the federal Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic) is based in Montenegro, and it is an authentic Montenegrin party and not a detachment of regime in Belgrade, as it is treated in statements from government. The mistake is made even now, because by boycotting the elections the government in Montenegro is trying to delegitimize SNP and that move is a risky one, because it is very hard to declare a party, with substantial support, a foreign body in Montenegro. We took part in the above mentioned campaign, because YUL (Yugoslav Left) also took part in them as a real detachment of regime in Belgrade and not because we have anything against SNP. We feared that YUL will manage to destroy SNP same way it is destroying SPS (Socialist Party of Serbia) in Serbia, by eliminating ideologically unsuitable people and replacing them with suitable ones. FS: In connection with that, is the contact of SNP with opposition from Serbia possible, regarding election control in Montenegro as well as after the elections? That is a real question for the opposition. In my opinion in the SNP ranks there is a large number of people who don't have a good opinion of Milosevic's regime and there is some base for undermining his influence in Montenegro. Maybe not even third of SNP voters are not going to vote for Milosevic, and it is certain that 90% of them are not "on the friendly basis" with Mira Markovic (Milosevic's wife). The things are not that simple, and that is backed by statements made by very influential Predrag Bulatovic and recently even Zoran Zizic, signaling that they want contacts with Serbian opposition. FS: On the first rally of, then, united opposition, Vladimir Pavlov represented OTPOR. He then "got leaders in line" and made clear OTPOR's attitude towards the ones who betray that unity. Do you think that by remaining silent over that in this moment OTPOR is showing that it is not up to the certain party leaders and that by its "neutrality" it spreads confusion among the voters? The most important thing is to get rid of Milosevic and that is why we started our "HE IS FINISHED!" campaign. As far as the opposition is concerned, we will deal with them after the elections. For everyone asking the same question we have one of our own "why didn't you ask us that in July, when all that happened and not now during the election campaign?" We are not here to judge anyone. By those statements we wanted to be vox populi and warn the opposition of the consequences if they are not united. Now it is up to the people to judge who is who by making a vote. FS: This is not the first time OTPOR is not fulfilling its promises. I will remind you of the calls for another student protest in November 1999. Does that mean that it caught the opposition syndrome of not fulfilling promises? I don't like to talk about the things in the past, but… Then I, in front of OTPOR, announced that students should declare in a week if they want another protest and if they wanted it we would be there to help. We said then that if we are to organize another student protest it has to be the last one. But, the position of the students on that question wasn't clear enough and we gave up, because we didn't want to waste energy for nothing. We made no promises about it, we just asked students to estimate if we should into another protest, having in mind that this time it would be all the way. Generally, we think that our word doesn't weight as much when we try to judge, but it is heavy when we demand and that is why Pavlov said what he said. We shouldn't be talking about it now, the request has been made to the opposition and it is up to the people to give their judgment at the elections. FS: Since the actions of the international community have significant influence on voters, can you shortly comment on the current events in Kosovo (breaking of agreements by Kosovo Albanian leaders, spreading the violence against non-Albanian population, the takeover of the biggest led mine- Trepca, the elections…), opening of the office of USA in Budapest and the announced NATO maneuvers in the Adriatic?
FS: Soon you will be leaving for the military service. Do you expect some inconveniences because of your well-known activities? I am going to serve the country and the people and I don't expect any inconveniences. FS: What do you think OTPOR will look like in a year when you are out of the army? When Milosevic came to power I was underage and don't remember those times, so I cannot predict what situation will be like in Serbia without Milosevic and therefore cannot predict what OTPOR will be doing. It is impossible for me to know. It would be the same as asking Russians about the reign of tsars. FS: You are so sure that Milosevic's political career is drawing to an end? HE IS FINISHED! FS: You message to the youth before the elections? For the first time since 1992 we have a chance to defeat Milosevic personally as a man and as a communist in the elections. He is participating personally and not just as the head of the list of candidates or the leader of a party. The youth should make a judgement of his rule and vote for or against him. In short, if they had enough to eat, if they had good income, if their parents had good jobs, if they were able to live normally they should vote for him. If not and if they think they can live better they should vote against him, meaning for someone else. That is why our message to the youth before the elections is: "It is better to vote here and now, then next year in New Zealand." Ivan, we wish you all the best in uniform. Dusan Miskovic
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Zategnutost u Crnoj Gori se podigla na mnogo viši nivo u odnosu na vreme pomenutih lokalnih izbora. Postoji jedan suštinski problem, a to je njihova unutrašnja podela. Vlast u Crnoj Gori će najbolje uraditi ako taj problem prestane da tretira kao problem između Beograda i Podgorice, jer ga na taj način potcenjuje. SNP jeste utemeljena u Crnoj Gori i ona je autentična crnogorska stranka tj. nije ekspozitura beogradskog režima, kako se najčešće tretira u izjavama tamošnjih vladajućih zvaničnika. Tako se i sada greši, jer predstavnici ondašnjih vlasti pokušavaju da bojkotom izbora delegitimišu SNP i to je jedan potez koji je krajnje rizičan, jer je veoma teško proglasiti jednu partiju, koja ima značajnu podršku, stranim telom u Crnoj Gori.
The best word describing the relationship of international community towards us in the last decade is clumsiness. Besides this I have to say that Milosevic's regime received, now before the elections, 80 million dollars for Danube cleanup and for all these ten years, above all certain media, received aid of around 20 million dollars. All that seems not as some secret plan, but quite the opposite, no plan what so ever, and all the actions are on daily basis. All this is the consequence of partially solving every problem in this area. Conflict in Slovenia comes along and it is being solved independently. Same in Bosnia, Croatia… Every one of them solved independently, like they are not related. That is why we have, for example, two internationally recognized states: FRY and Bosnia, and within them we have six entities acting independently one from another. In FRY those are Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo and in Bosnia we have the Republic of Srpska and the Federation, and within the Federation we have the Croatian entity, Herceg-Bosnia. All that confusion is the result of the wrong approach by international community. They should change that and start acting strategically and united.
