Stakes rise in trial of
Belgrade Six
The following article is from the December 5 issue of Die Linke, the paper of the Austrian section of the Fourth International. Its introduction follows.
The trial against the six Belgrade oppositionists is arousing great international interest. In general, it is expected to indicate the direction of
Yugoslavia's domestic political course.
There are many signs that the hardliners in the bureaucracy are gaining the upper hand.
Branko KRIZMAN tellectual circles. The bulletin that is distributed daily by friends of the accused while the trial is in session, talks about the reading of solidarity statements at the University of Belgrade, which led to the student Milos Bogdanovic being held by the police for two weeks.
In mid-November, 19 well-known intellectuals in Serbia announced the formation of a Committee to Defend Freedom of Thought and Opinion, which will take up the case of the six.
The strong international interest in this trial, and in particular the solidarity of West 1 European left circles with the accused, is increasing the pressure on the authorities. The most spectacular expression of this solidarity was the presence of the West German Green members of parliament Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian at the first sessions of the trial.
The Yugoslav media reacted by raising the accusation that an anti-Yugoslav camnaion directed from abroad is under. campaign directed from abroad is underway. The "anarcho-liberals," as the Yugoslav authorities call all those who express unwanted thoughts, that is the "anarcho-liberals of all countries," are supposed to have combined to throw mud at Yugoslavia's self-management socialism. A real conspiracy of the "extreme right and the extreme left," as the Belgrade radio news described it in all ernestness on November 8.
For those involved, however, these expressions have no humorous aspect. They mean that the media have gotten the order to prepare public opinion for a draconian sentence, as Vladimir Mijanovic said in his interview with the Vienna magazine Gegenstimmen.
While the Belgrade magazines Interviju and Nin published relatively fair articles about the case before the trial began, in the second week of the proceedings a full-scale campaign got underway. In the Yugoslav capital, in fact, the party organizations were summoned to special meetings, and the militia was put on the alert.
In the last day of the proceedings, the accusation against the sociologist Milan Nikolic was in fact stepped-up. Two of the manuscripts confiscated in his home were characterized as "enemy propaganda." One was a doctoral thesis for the well-known sociology professor Ralph Miliband at the US university Brandeis. The other was an article by an English author for the London magazine New Left Review on the Albanian question in Kosovo.
Nonetheless, it would be wrong to throw in the towel and assume in advance that the second round of the trial is a lost cause. The Yugoslav situation is marked by the greatest instability, and, in contrast to many other such sad cases, international protest can have an influence on decisions within the party leadership.
The resumption of the trial on December 6 could be an opportunity for reminding the people in the Yugoslav leadership who are pushing this trial that the Western left is not going to abandon the Belgrade Six.
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Branko KRIZMAN
"I am no enemy of socialism. Quite the contrary. I have stood for democratic socialism my entire life. I was brought up in this spirit, and it is in this spirit that I am bringing up my own children."
With these words, the translator Pavlusko Imsirovic, one of the six left intellectuals in Belgrade who have been charged with counterrevolutionary activity and "conspiracy" exposed the political motives behind this case in his testimony in his own defense on November 12.
Similarly, a few days earlier, the film maker Miodrag Milic said: "They are accusing us of undermining the social system. But we are not the ones who piled up 20 billion dollars in debts and threw the country into an almost colonial dependence.
From November 5 to 16, in the first phase of the trial against the six who participated in the "Free University" networks that have existed since 1977, the state prosecutor, Danilio Nanovic, cut a worse and worse figure every day. Since the indictment does not offer a shred of proof that the "Free University" seminars actually served as preparation for antistate actions and were therefore illegal, the prosecutor posed more and more questions about the views of the defendants and those expressed in the manuscripts the police had seized in their homes. According to recent decisions of Yugoslav courts, these documents could constitute "enemy propaganda" even if no one ever saw them.
The presiding judge, Zoran Stojkovic, had to grant the objections of the defense again and again and reject the "questions of opinion" raised by the state prosecutor.
On the other hand, all observers have reported that the defendants have shown a striking firmness and determination in the court chambers of the Belgrade Palace of Justice, which have been jammed to the bursting by 200 visitors.
Four of the six defendants refused outright to answer questions, on the International Viewpoint 14 January 1985
Vladimir Mijanovie (DR) grounds that the state prosecutor had first to present some evidence. For example, «I don't know what I should de- the sociologist Milan Nikolic fend myself against. The whole thing is upside down. Those who are staging thi this trial are committing an offense against the Yugoslav constitution, which guarantees freedom of opinion and assembly."
The main defendant, Vladimir Mijanovic, explained his refusal to testify as follows: "We six are completely unimportant in this proceeding. We are only being used as a means for intimidating public opinion by those who reject genuine dialogue about social reforms and a lasting solution to the crisis."
The fact that the outcome of this trial does not depend on what happens in the courtroom is obvious. It is what happens outside, at the political level, that is decisive. Already in the summer, a very broad petition campaign was waged in defense of the accused, while they were still in pretrial detention.
Since early July, the defendants have been free on bail. Their case has continued to arouse great support in critical in-
HUNGARY.