<nettime> Jasmina Tesanovic

["Bruce Sterling" <bruces@well.com>]

News from Jasmina Tesanovic, mermaids@EUnet.yu

(((Belgrade war diarist, co-editor of THE SUITCASE:
REFUGEE VOICES FROM BOSNIA AND CROATIA and author
of THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL IDIOT: NORMAL LIFE
IN BELGRADE.)))

(((first some useful background info from RFE/RL)))

HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP ACCUSES SERBIAN SECURITY SERVICE OF EDITOR'S MURDER.

The Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) on 31 October accused the
Serbian state security service of last year's murder of Slavko Curuvija,
the owner and editor in chief of the daily "Dnevni Telegraf," Reuters
reported. The HLC said it received a document from the state security
service revealing that undercover surveillance of Curuvija was being
organized by Belgrade state security chief Milan Radonjic. The report, the
HLC said, stated that the undercover agents "were withdrawn a few minutes
before Curuvija was gunned down by three men." The HLC has filed a
criminal complaint against the Serbian and Belgrade state security heads.
"Dnevni Telegraf" was banned in 1998 by the government "for spreading
fear, panic, and defeatism," but it re-registered itself in Montenegro. PB


   Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 22:11:47 +0000
   From:  "Jasmina Tesanovic" <mermaids@EUnet.yu>


October 31,2000

My dear Nuha, here is urgent situation at my home. The press is here
because they just found out a secret police document according to which we
are all in it, my family, me, my home, connected to my husband who was the
last witness of the shot journalist in Belgrade, April 99, and my husband
was followed...

Now he is the only eye witness (besides the dead man's wife) as well as
the one who can guarantee the authenticity of the document, thus the order
of the murder by the secret police of Milosevic (my husband was the editor
in chief of the main opposition weekly). And the chief of the police is
still unwilling to resign: if he doesn't do it today, on the contrary the
new government of the opposition will resign. I am shivering.

I just met few days ago the widow of the killed journalist in Turin, she
is a historian and she was holding hands with him and hit on the back of
her head whilst he was shot in front of their home... I am not afraid for
our lives, I wasn't even that 11 April, 99, in the middle of the bombings
when the execution of the journalist happened, my instinct to stay alive
is worn out...

I must be more an idiot than I thought I was. My husband was warning me
all the time but I having no high opinion of my doing or of the police
criminal deeds never could put the picture together. You see it seems to
me, that in all this my father's so called friend was involved in some
way, do you remember that guy I mention here and there as somebody who
comes to his place, and threatens him, because of what my husband and I do
and write...

I never knew what his job really was until this moment: secret police, not
exactly James Bond but not far from that image; good looking, from a rich
family, well educated, very eloquent, tender and caring, he was like a
second father to me and obviously my hit man too.

I guess our lives here are more those of actors than of writers: people
should write about us not us about us, since we miss the obvious. I feel
so confused and flat that I can hardly think: I do not even want to write
about this, anyway it is my husband's story , I am an inbuilt element, the
idiot who didn't choose her parents, least her parent's friends...

I want to talk to my father and see how far was his life threatened, how
much did he have to keep for himself, I guess my mother knew all that too,
and that is why she was so anxious the last days of her life. She was
rambling, half conscious, I remember saying to me, be careful, do not go
to Germany, they are following you, they are watching you...

The poor thing couldn't control her flow of secrets and I was never too
attentive to her stories. I always thought them paranoid and old fashioned
as all the communist stories were.  Unfortunately the world we lived in
until a few days ago was their script and we just the scapegoats... idiots
or scapegoats. My husband is writing his story, it is his story and he
always had a feeling if not knowledge of what was really going on...

Me? I was the vessel of death to him. The deadline for the chief of the
secret police to resign is tonight, if he doesn't maybe we should move,
our address is in the papers, our names...even my daughter's. And we all
have different names and surnames, thanks to my feminist attitude, so we
sound more as a baader meinhof terrorist group than a true family...Love j

Dear Nuha 
Novem. 1st, 2000 
I translated the official document into English and sent it all around the
world: public word is our best if not only protection. Our names are in
all papers, and the name of the chief of the police is still out there.  
Some say he will resign some he won't, but the opposition coalition has
stepped down from the government until he makes a firm statement.

I am afraid that his fall will bring other bigger falls together with
responsibilities. The wife of the killed journalist, my new friend by
destiny phoned us saying that we should be careful, it is her duty to warn
us and that she will ask for police eye witness protection. She is
pressing charges against the secret police. I am telling my daughter
everything, her name is in the papers too and she is just a teenaged kid
whom I taught to believe in her country and her police and that the
criminal regime she grew up in was a temporary disaster. I am following
news hour by hour, to see what moves have been made: it seems that the old
regime might fall for good on such a clear case, on the contrary we may
consider ourselves not only losers but also new targets.

The phone is not even ringing: all we do or know is out there, a friend of
mine phoned me for a feminist interview, saying, of course I know where
you live, it is in all papers... I am only sorry that my gypsy neighbor
Mica didn't enter the report that day with one of her political /love
shows on the ground...  She could have been a very trusty witness too, as
she already is, of the life we are living all these years, yours J

PS I just heard that Flora Brovina will be out today, the Albanian poet,
feminist whom we women published and tried to support in simple ways, as
bringing books and food to the prison, since nobody could do anything
more: when you put an innocent person in a prison and you know it, nobody
can set her free, and we knew it too

The following section of this message contains a file attachment.


DUSAN VELICKOVIC writes:

Today a document of the Serbian secret police appeared in public for the
first time. It is titled: "Report on the surveillance of a target" and
dated April 11, 1999. The aim of this surveillance was to establish the
identity of the target's contacts and to document them. The "target" was
Slavko Curuvija, the owner and the editor in chief of the daily tabloid
with the biggest circulation in Yugoslavia, Daily telegraph and the weekly
European.

One of the contacts described in this document is me. On that same day,
masked killers murdered Slavko Curuvija with bullets in his back and head
in front of his apartment. The killers were never identified and it seems
that the police didn't care too much to find them.

The full document reads as follows:

Center of the Department of the Police State Security Belgrade IX
Department 11. April 1999

Report on surveillance of a target
Work in Progress title "The Turkey"

(Note: This is word play with the word Curuvija - the surname of the
assassinated journalist - by associating it with the Serbian word,
"Curan," or "Turkey")

Secret surveillance performed on the territory of the city of Belgrade
following the orders of the chief of the state security police, Belgrade

Belgrade

The aim of this order is to establish the identity of contacts made with
the target of the surveillance (Slavko Curuvija) and document these
contacts. The order was put into effect on April 11th, 1999.

Following this order, the following facts have been established:

Surveillance in front of the target's house was established at 00:00
(midnight). At 13:53, the target of the surveillance exits the house with
his wife. They walk to Knez Mihailova street, where they meet an elderly
man and a woman in front of the restaurant "The Russian King."

They talk for a few minutes when a man with a beard comes up to them and
talks to the target. The description of the man with the beard: aged
45-50, a bald forehead and top of his head, medium sized, tall about 180
cm, with a beard, wearing glasses for eyesight.

After 15 minutes of conversation, the elderly man and woman leave, walking
in the direction of the Albania palace, but the man described above
remains with the target. They talk for another few minutes, after which
the man with the beard gives the object a small piece of paper (dimensions
A6) and they part.

The described man goes to the Albania palace where he meets other two men
with beards. They talk for about 20 minutes, after which they go together
to the restaurant Kolarac in the Knez Mihailova street and they all enter
it together.

After parting with the described man, the target and his wife go to the
Kalemegdan park where they pass their time walking.

At 15:53, the target and his wife go out of the Kalemegdan park and they
go to the restaurant Kolarac in the Knez Mihailova street which they enter
at 15:56

While passing the restaurant, we notice the target and his wife stand next
to the table of the previously described man and the other two men with
beards.

At 16:07, the described man and the men with the beards go out of the
restaurant and they part. The two men with the beard leave in the
direction of the Kalemegdan park, and the described man goes to Molerova
street, where he enters number 48. He climbs to the second floor, takes
his keys out of his pocket, unlocks the door of the flat number 9 and
enters the flat. At the front door there is a name: Tesanovic Jasmina.

The list of the inhabitants of the flat number 9 includes: Tesanovic
Jasmina, Livada Ksenija and Velickovic Dusan.  On the mail box is written:
Tesanovic, Livada, Velickovic and "Publisher 94."

After the man from the restaurant leaves, the target has lunch with his
wife. There is nobody else at their table.

At 16:27 the object leaves the restaurant with his wife where we drop the
further control in agreement with the chief of the department.

The team is establishing further surveillance in 48 Molerova Street in
agreement with the chief of the department, waiting for the described man
to come out.

At 16:58 we interrupt the further surveillance in agreement with the chief
of the department.

NOTE 1) The target didn't show visible signs of caution 2) Every change of
the direction of movement of the target was immediately signaled to the
chief in charge. 3) The described man is video documented.

Typed in 2 copies: Given in to: 1 copy to the chief of the state security
department.


DUSAN VELICKOVIC continues:

In this terribly precise police report, I am the man with the beard, aged
45-50. My encounter with Slavko Curuvija that day is also described in my
book, Amor Mundi, but now I see that i have left out some details. I
forgot, for example, the piece of paper in the format A6. It was a
business card that I gave to Slavko after we agreed to meet sometime in
the next few days.

I also didn't mention the men with the beards with whom I sat in the
Kolarac restaurant. They were my collegues from the weekly Vreme. The
policeman didn't miss a thing; he wrote a story that Chekhov might have
appreciated. Everything is present: a good plot, subtle characters, and
efficient development of the story through time and space. The only thing
that is missing is the description of the murder itself.  But one can
argue that the murder, as it is in some good dramas, is more effective as
a horrible presentiment.

The journalist from the daily Dana ("Today") who was the first one to show
me the document, asks me to comment on it. I would prefer to make a joke
about it, if it wasn't the story of the cold blooded execution of the
"target" who was a colleague and a friend; a story with a working title of
"The Turkey." Actually, this was my only possible comment: We lived for
years in a state prison in which we were all "targets" who could be tailed
in secrecy and "documented" or executed.

Later my wife and I still try to make light of it. She says: "Now I know
whom I should ask where you are when you are not at home." And further:
"It is a good thing that there are no blondes in the report." Still, we
are aware that our sense of humor is an ineffectual self-therapy. When a
policeman Chekhov puts you in his morbid story, you have no way out but to
believe Benjamin's claim that reality does not exist if it is not framed
by words.

Now we know what reality looked like. The only open question is: Is our
Chekhov still writing?




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