April 15, 1999
IN BELGRADE
Newsman Buried; Freedom Mourned
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By STEVEN ERLANGER
ELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- About 1,000 citizens of Belgrade came out
Wednesday to bury Slavko Curuvija, an independent publisher who was
assassinated Sunday. As air raid sirens sounded their own peculiar
dirge through the lime and chestnut trees, his mourners tried to
take courage from one another's public presence -- their refusal to
be intimidated in a troubled time.
Tears were mixed with wariness, as many of those who went to
Novo Groblje, Belgrade's main cemetery, quietly wondered if the
killing of Curuvija would be the last.
"This was a political killing, aimed at independent
journalism," said Zoran Djindjic, the leader of the opposition
Democratic Party. "But it was also aimed at spreading fear across
democratic Serbia."
Curuvija, the publisher of the daily newspaper Dnevni Telegraf
and the biweekly magazine Evropljanin, was killed in front of his
apartment building on Orthodox Easter as he was returning from
lunch with Branka Prpa, a well-known historian.
Two men in black leather jackets shot him in the back,
pistol-whipped Ms. Prpa, and then, as he lay face down on the
ground, shot him again in the head.
Curuvija, 50, was under a suspended five-month prison sentence
for violating Serbia's draconian press law, passed in October, and
the state television and the tabloid Politika Ekspres falsely
accused him of favoring NATO's bombing of Serbia.
The tabloid quoted Mirjana Markovic, the wife of Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic, as saying that "the owner of a
Belgrade daily newspaper said he supports the United States in its
desire to bomb Serbia." The writer of the article then continued,
"This is, of course, Slavko Curuvija."
"These commentaries were like a death sentence," said a senior
Serb journalist at the funeral. Curuvija, who had become a man of
means, was once close to Ms. Markovic. But he took his publications
down an increasingly independent, serious and outspoken path.
Veran Matic, the editor in chief of the once-independent radio
station B92 -- taken over last week by the Milosevic government --
said Curuvija's slaying "was meant to be an example to anyone who
intended to take the same road."
Matic said he believed that the killing would boomerang,
reminding Serbs that free speech can be easily lost. But the true
effects can be only when NATO's bombings stop, he said, because it
is almost impossible to criticize the Milosevic government while it
is defending the country from outside aggression.
"We're all collateral damage from NATO's bombs -- Curuvija, B92,
the democrats," said another senior editor of B92. Curuvija
himself, before he died, spoke against the bombing and bemoaned the
inability of democrats and dissidents to speak out during what he
called "this war fever."
"I was concerned that many people would be too afraid to come"
to the funeral, said Aleksandara Joksinovic, an official of the
Democratic Party. "It's a horrible, tragic moment, but I'm glad
people were not afraid to show their disgust at such brutality.
This killing really was too much, to eliminate people with
different opinions while the country is at war.
"We are against the bombs, of course. But Serbs must be united
against the aggression, not fighting one another," she said.
That is a point made with increasing urgency in the last few
days by the most liberal member of Milosevic's government, Deputy
Prime Minister Vuk Draskovic, who has been the only official voice
condemning Curuvija's slaying and the manipulation of patriotism
for the political advantage of ultranationalists and leftists.
Draskovic has also condemned Parliament's vote to bind
Yugoslavia in an ill-defined union with Russia and Belarus,
attacking those who would return Yugoslavia to the failed
anachronism of communism.
But as this funeral took place, across town at his presidential
palace, Milosevic was greeting autocratic president of Belarus,
Alexander Lukashenko, with a red carpet and a big fraternal hug. It
was the first time journalists had seen Milosevic in person since
the bombing began.
After their meeting, Lukashenko said that Milosevic remained
opposed to any foreign soldiers entering Kosovo under a peace
settlement, and that Yugoslavia would accept civilian peacekeepers
under a United Nations banner, and only if none came from NATO
countries.
That suggestion is so far from NATO's demands for an armed
international security force with a NATO core as to be a
non-starter.
Draskovic did not attend the funeral, but his wife, Danica, was
there, along with other opposition party leaders like Vuk Obradovic
of the Social Democrats and Vladan Batic of the Christian
Democratic Party.
Speaking at the small chapel, where wreaths of white calla
lilies, tulips, jonquils and carnations were mounded around the
coffin, Liljana Smajlovic, the foreign editor of Evropljanin,
remembered Curuvija's last staff meeting on the day the bombing
began, March 24, when he suspended publication.
"I'll always remember two things Slavko Curuvija said: He would
not publish newspapers for the censors, and second, that NATO's
aggression against Yugoslavia was illegal, illegitimate and
immoral," Ms. Smajlovic said.
"He was a brave man," she said, "braver than those who shot
him in the back like cowards, and braver than those who bombed him
from the air."
Speaking over the coffin at Curuvija's gravesite, as reporters
and mourners jostled each other on the jumbled tombstones of
others, Voja Zanetic, an editor of the Dnevni Telegraf, said, "It
is impossible to describe today's situation in a headline, or even
in an entire newspaper."
As he put copies of Curuvija's publications into the grave and
weeping family members bent to toss clods of earth onto the coffin,
Zanetic called the spot "holy ground."
Then workers in blue overalls, with "Public Enterprise,
Belgrade Cemeteries," embroidered on their pockets, filled in the
grave, their shovels clanging against marble and granite. As some
sobbed and others turned away, the workers heaped the memorial
wreaths and bouquets for Curuvija on top of the raw grave, until
the pile of flowers rose above the headstones.
As he walked along, another senior Serbian journalist noted that
few of the mourners were wearing the target logo that has become de
rigueur at anti-NATO rallies. "This is normal Belgrade," he said,
gesturing to the crowd. "In a way, this is a funeral for normal
Belgrade." But he, too, mournfully, asked a reporter not to print
his name.
The war was not far away. On the outer wall of the cemetery,
next to Curuvija's death notice, there was another, announcing the
death of Bandur Mihajlo, known as Miki.
Mihjalo, the notice said, died April 8, aged 25. "You died
bravely defending the homeland, our dear and beloved son," the
notice read. It was signed by his father, Stevan, and his mother,
Milka, and it bore a picture of a baby-faced Mihjalo, his hair
shorn, in his uniform.
