The Crime-politics Nexus entrapping the Balkans (Serbia, Montenegro, Albania)

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ISPI DOSSIER October 2021

THE CRIME-POLITICS NEXUS ENTRAPPING THE BALKANS edited by Bojan Elek and Giorgio Fruscione

THE CRIME-POLITICS NEXUS ENTRAPPING UNRAVELLING THE SAHEL: STATE, POLITICSTHE ANDBALKANS ARMED VIOLENCE

October 2021 March 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES

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n some of the countries of the Western Balkans, criminal groups and political elites have grown increasingly interdependent. In particular, Serbia’s and Montenegro’s societies have suffered the most from these links. The two countries have long been considered frontrunners in the EU integration process, whose final completion, however, is difficult to foresee. Similarly, Albania’s EU negotiating process has also been delayed for years, in part because of the country's role in global drug trafficking schemes. The crime-politics nexus is contributing to the erosion of the rule of law in several Balkan countries, where the risk – or reality – of state capture is increasingly worrisome. In light of recent events, Serbia appears to be the most concerning case as its authoritarian drift currently seems hard to reverse. Which consequences does the situation in Serbia have on other Balkan countries? What impact does state capture have on regional stability? And what is changing for the region's integration prospects with the EU? Bojan Elek is a senior researcher at Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, a leading think-tank specializing in security issues in the Western Balkans. He is the coordinator of the Western Balkans Organized Crime Radar, a regional network of think-tanks researching organized crime and monitoring government policies in this area. Giorgio Fruscione is Research Fellow and publications editor at ISPI. Before joining ISPI, Giorgio has been living for years in the Balkans, working as freelance journalist for several Italian and international media outlets, like EastWest, Venerdì di Repubblica and Balkan Insight. Since 2010, he has also been deputy director and news correspondent from the Balkans for East Journal.

In collaboration with

The Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) is an independent think-tank that contributes to advancing the security of people in accordance with democratic principles and respect for human rights through research, public advocacy, community development and education. https://bezbednost.org/en/ |2

THE CRIME-POLITICS NEXUS ENTRAPPING THE BALKANS

October 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. THE FIGHT AGAINST ORGANIZED CRIME IN THE BALKANS: THE EU’S PUSH AND PULL Bojan Elek (BCSP) p. 4 2. MUCH MORE THAN A CAPTURED STATE: TOP SERBIAN INSTITUTIONS SCANDALS Giorgio Fruscione (ISPI)

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3. FIGHTING ORGANIZED CRIME IN A CAPTURED STATE: IS SERBIA’S “WAR ON MAFIA” GENUINE? Jelena Pejic Nikic (BCSP) p. 13 4. THE REGIONAL DIMENSION OF A MONTENEGRO'S LOCAL CRIMINAL FEUD Bojana Jovanovic (KRIK) p. 17 5. AN UNEXPECTED COOPERATION: ALBANIANS AND SERBS' “AFFAIRS” IN KOSOVO Ivana Jeremic (BIRN) p. 21 6. ALBANIA'S KEY POSITION IN GLOBAL DRUG TRAFFICKING Fatjona Mejdini (Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime)

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7. BEYOND FOOTBALL: THE POWER OF BALKANS’ HOOLIGANS Loïc Tregoures (Institut Catholique de Paris)

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* The opinions expressed are those of the authors

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THE CRIME-POLITICS NEXUS ENTRAPPING THE BALKANS

October 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES

The Fight Against Organized Crime in the Balkans: The EU’s Push and Pull Bojan Elek Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP)

Bojan Elek is a senior researcher at Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, a leading think-tank specializing in security issues in the Western Balkans. He is the coordinator of the Western Balkans Organized Crime Radar, a regional network of think-tanks researching organized crime and monitoring government policies in this area.

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ll Western Balkan countries have, at least officially, committed to joining the European Union and promised to fight organized crime head-on, as one of the priority areas during their accession talks. The European Commission’s  Country Reports  have repeated ad nauseam that the key focus should be on having a track record in  prosecuting organized crime with final convictions. At the same time, however, the Balkans remain at the center of the global organized crime nexus, as evidenced by police discoveries  related to cocaine smuggling in Europe and  reports showing  high levels of criminality and low societal resilience to crime. How come the Western Balkans are failing to provide adequate responses to organized crime; and how is it possible for this all to take place despite international assistance and under the EU enlargement auditors’ detailed scrutiny? The answer comes as a surprise only

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to those who have not been paying attention to  the democratic backsliding across the Balkans that has been going on for years, under the shadow of EU enlargement fatigue. THE UNHOLY MATRIMONY BETWEEN ORGANIZED CRIME AND POLITICS The first clear signal from the EU that something had gone terribly wrong came in 2018, with the publishment of the landmark  Credible Enlargement Perspective, a strategic paper by the EU Commission that intended to breathe new life into the faltering accession process of the WB6. The document provided  a diagnosis of the problem: “Today, the countries show clear elements of state capture, including links with organized crime and corruption at all levels of government and administration, as well as a strong entanglement of public and private interests.” The fact that state institutions and criminal structures were inextricably linked across the region was no new information, but it was  the first time the problem has been recognized and spelled out by the often times tongue-in-cheek European Union. Overt politicisation, state capture, undue influence, “stabilitocracy”,  competitive authoritarianism,  hybrid regimes: these are just some concepts  comprising a complicated vocabulary that has been used to describe the same phenomenon that has been registered across the Western Balkans over and over again. The issue at hand is that  political elites have taken over the state apparatus and

subjugated it to their own, private interests, leaving impoverished citizens in an environment of ever-shrinking freedoms and rights. In particular, these issues come to prominence in Montenegro, where a local strongman, President Milo Djukanovic, has been building what some called  mafia state  for almost  three decades of uninterrupted rule, only recently to be challenged by a new coalition government that won the latest parliamentary elections. The regime change in Montenegro, and the following reforms that took place, led to the single biggest drug bust of more than 1 ton of cocaine in the history of the country. In Kosovo, after the war-time leaders’ long rule, the new Prime Minister Albin Kurti won the election running a joint campaign with nowPresident Vjosa Osmani saying they both “share a determination to end endemic state capture by a corrupt elite.” In Serbia, with the ongoing  war on mafia  that has been taking place for a year, it looks as if the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) started a final showdown that aims to get rid of the criminal infantry tentacles while preserving the political-criminal octopus that has been built by the omnipotent Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic. This unholy  matrimony between organized crime and political elites  represents the single biggest obstacle: at least based on early impressions after recent regime changes, the only way forward is not to focus on tackling organized crime as such, but by  investing in

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democracy. After all, how can one meaningfully expect governments with clear links to organized crime to lead efforts to fight these very criminal groups? This paradox emerges in a recent UNODC report, which found that the number of charges brought against organized crime groups in the Western Balkans has gone up six times, while the number of final convictions has been halved — meaning prosecution is twelve times less effective than it used to be. This report found that “the number of persons prosecuted for committing an offence as part of an organized crime group is increasing, while the number of persons convicted is on the decline, suggesting a gap in evidence gathering, constructing successful prosecutions and properly adjudicating organized crime cases.” One of the possible reasons for this is  the state capture of the judiciary whereby, under political direction, law enforcement agencies arrest and indict organized crime groups in order to showcase their determination to the EU and the like, whereas the cases are poorly built and have no chance in the court of law. THE CURSE OF EU ENLARGEMENT How is it possible that, despite the international community’s robust involvement, billions in development aid, and very strict — yet fair — assessments by Brussels bureaucrats, these terrible developments have gone unnoticed and unaddressed for so long?

A point made by Jan-Werner Müller, professor of politics at Princeton University, not so long ago on the issue of Hungarian and Polish democratic backsliding within the EU translates well to the Western Balkans. He claimed that the “technocratic liberal repair crew from Brussels” assumes democracy will always be taken care of by nation-states and is only concerned with the more narrowly defined rule of law. This is why “the undermining of political rights and independent institutions appears like a technical glitch, not as the conscious authoritarian project it actually is.” Once considered a technical glitch, it is then assumed that issues around the rule of law can then be “fixed” by adopting action plans, road maps, building capacities, developing strategies, establishing cross-border cooperation, or using any other tool from the enlargement policy repertoire, including financial assistance. These are all, of course, necessary and sometimes useful preconditions but  are destined to failure  owing to a fundamental misconception of what needs to be fixed. To add insult to injury, research shows not only that EU conditionality has limited potential to reverse these negative trends but is actually  contributing to making things worse. As argued by some researchers in a  recent article, it was established that “the limited impact of the EU’s political conditionality in the Western Balkans with rampant state capture […] has effectively contributed to the consolidation

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of such detrimental governance patterns.” The argument put forward is that the way conditionality currently works, it actually enables clientelist networks comprised of business and politics by insisting on both economic and political reforms. Furthermore, being a top-down process, it also weakens political competition and accountability of the executive within accession countries. Lastly, conditionality legitimizes corrupt national elites through high-level interactions with the EU and member state’s officials, the case in point being recent visits by  German Chancellor  Angela Merkel and  President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to Serbia, just two weeks apart.  The recent  change in the enlargement methodology  adopted by the EU — although arguably a third, important revision of this process over the last decade — will most likely fall short on its promises once again. The key novelty is the so-called cluster approach, where the most important issues around the rule of law are grouped under Cluster I and it should, at least on paper, provide a better link between political criteria, quality of democracy, and the technical reforms that are being undertaken. For the citizens of the Western Balkans, the only hope is that this new approach will work and that democracy, no matter how severely under attack and undermined, will prevail.

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THE CRIME-POLITICS NEXUS ENTRAPPING THE BALKANS

October 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES

Photo credit: Đorđe Đoković, kolubarkse.rs

Much More than a Captured State: Top Serbian Institutions Scandals Giorgio Fruscione ISPI

Giorgio Fruscione is Research Fellow and publications editor at ISPI. Since 2010, he has also been deputy director and news correspondent from the Balkans for East Journal.

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series of houses demolished overnight without any police intervention, a strange deal between a state-owned munitions factory and a private company, a smear campaign against an independent media outlook that has been investigating over these and similar episodes. Without further details on the context and their players, these events look like  ‘normal’, though disconnected, quasi-criminal activities. Instead, they share a big burden: they all show how the rule of law in Serbia has been endangered over the last years and how the Serbian ruling elite has actively participated in it. The Savamala affair, the Krusik “deal”, and the threats against KRIK’s journalists are just a few of the episodes known to the general public in Serbia since the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) took power in 2012.[1] Among many, the aforementioned three events will be analysed as each of them represents

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a feature in the erosion of the rule of law that goes hand in hand with Serbia’s authoritarian drift. In particular, they best represent the way contemporary Serbia has shifted from being a captured state to a state wherein  the line between ruling elites and criminal groups has grown completely blurred.

TOP SCANDALS •

Savamala

On the night between the 24th  and 25th  of April, 2016, a few hours after the polls closed for the snap parliamentary elections, a group of masked men entered Hercegovacka street, in the Savamala district of the centre of Belgrade, and  destroyed several houses and buildings. Despite the calls for help,  the police never intervened. The following month, then-prime minister Aleksandar Vucic  said  that some of the city’s highest officials were responsible and that they would face legal consequences. Since then, no one of them has been prosecuted for the Savamala affair, and then-mayor Sinisa Mali – who was implicated in the case, as his ex-wife testified – later became Minister of Finance. The only person ever to be held responsible was the police officer who received the call and refused to send the police to the scene: he received  a suspended sentence of five months of probation for negligence. The episode sparked long protests in Belgrade, as it was clear state authorities stood behind the affair. In Savamala,

new buildings were under construction for the controversial “Belgrade waterfront” residential project. •

Krusik

Another of the most representative scandals is the “Krusik” affair, named after a Serbian stateowned arms manufacturer. According to  the investigation conducted by BIRN, a private company represented by Branko Stefanovic – father of then Serbian Interior Minister and SNS presidency member, Nebojsa Stefanovic, who today serves as Minister of Defence –, had been  buying weapons from Krusik at preferential prices, below the cost of production. The investigation showed that, by selling weapons at less than the cost of production, the state both benefited a private company represented by the relative of a highranking politician and caused an economic loss to the Serbian state. To make matters worse in the whole Krusik affair, state officials reacted by jailing and publicly attacking Aleksandar Obradovic, the whistle-blower who leaked the information to the media, while denying any wrongdoing.[2] •

Belivuk’s arrest and the attack against KRIK

The third episode is the smear campaign against KRIK — a Serbian independent media outlet specialised in reporting about criminal and corruption activities, including the

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abovementioned Krusik affair. Over the last months, KRIK was publicly  attacked by proregime tabloids  accusing the media outlet to be in league with the Veljko Belivuk-led criminal group, who was previously arrested and whose activities were investigated by KRIK itself. According to KRIK, Belivuk, aka “Velja the Trouble”, belonged to the Kavac group – one of the two clans from Montenegro, the other one being “Skaljari”, whose rivalry has resulted in several deaths[3] – and had close ties with the Serbian establishment and police, enjoying their protection in his  illicit activities. As  further media investigation show, Belivuk claimed he did  many favours to the Serbian regime  and even met in person with President Aleksandar Vucic.

WHAT DO THEY STAND FOR? These three episodes occurred throughout a five-year period, they are not connected and – apart from the ruling elite, whose members only changed position – they involve different players. Yet, they stand as the modus operandi of Vucic’s ‘progressive’ Serbia and they could be considered as  three complementary pieces of a political engine  that is pivotal for today’s Serbian authoritarian scheme. The Savamala affair shows that  police in Serbia is no longer the executive power’s main enforcement agency: instead, masked, unauthorised men can carry out police duties. In other words, criminal groups are a proxy for

state police. For Belgrade citizens, the Savamala demolitions stand as a milestone of erosion of the rule of law in Serbia, as police authorities comply with ruling elites rather than serving people’s needs. A milestone that today is embodied by the new buildings and skyscrapers in the very place where the Savamala demolitions occurred: with shady money and no transparency behind the project, the “Belgrade waterfront” is thus one of the symbols of Vucic’s Serbia. In a similar way, the primacy of informal groups over the police was also confirmed by media investigations into Belivuk’s activities. In fact, beside illegal trafficking, Belivuk’s criminal group carried out many “public services”, like securing the Pride parade in the street of Belgrade or avoiding that Partizan supporters chant offensive slogans against President Vucic during football matches. The Krusik affair, instead, represents the economic power and  the privileged status enjoyed by the ruling elite, and their relatives. The case shows that for SNS members reaching the top of the Serbian state means acting above it, taking advantages from its national resources, and even provoking economic loss to the state itself. According to investigations carried on by the Serbian weekly NIN, a private company known as GIM – represented by the Interior Minister’s father – bought mines for USD 45.2, while the cost for the factory was USD 45.3. GIM acted as an intermediate between Serbia and Saudi Arabia and, according to NIN, the contracts were worth at least USD 5 and half million.  NIN  also

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revealed that the same kind of mines were sold by Krusik to a Polish company for USD 78. Being Krusik a state-owned manufacturer, it means these contracts caused  consistent financial losses for the Serbian state and its fruitful arms industry. To make things more absurd, it’s worth mentioning that Krusik has a debt of over USD 5 million, half of which would be paid off if the mines were sold to GIM at the same price as it did to other international buyers. The fact that the only legal consequences of this affair were paid by the whistle-blower who leaked information to the media shows that no one can dare to doubt ruling party leaders. In this respect, Serbian rule of law is endangered to the extent that party cadres are no longer servants of the state; rather, they benefit from a state that provides them with national resources. Finally, the whole case around Belivuk and the smear campaign against KRIK journalists stands as the ultimate defence rampart of the regime. Belivuk’s arrest came at a time when his illicit activities gained too much visibility, and thus connections with Serbian top institutions were too ‘exposed’. The police operation was accompanied with the regime’s triumphant rhetoric of “war against mafia”[4]. However, as investigations and Belivuk’s claims exposed the involvement of state institutions, the operation could be rather intended as  an octopus amputating a tentacle when it got stuck in trouble. In other words, for the Serbian regime, Belivuk – who has been a SNS member for ten

years – was a burden to the ruling party and had to be sacrificed for two complementary reasons: preserving top institutions image, and showing the state is reactive in fighting the mafia. In the end, accusing KRIK of being in cahoots with the clan is a self-defence mechanism with propaganda purposes. The intent is to discredit the few independent Serbian media outlets and offer the public a harmonized, regime-approved reality: the state fights the mafia, and whoever dares to doubt this is considered mafia, too.

FROM CAPTURE STATE TO A MAFIA ONE? When SNS came to power, the mafia and criminal groups were already strong. The Balkans’ criminal galaxy had the chance to flourish during the break-up of Yugoslavia and Milosevic’s era, when trafficking, smuggling, and common crimes became a kind of “new normal”, namely in Serbia and Montenegro. The assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003 showed that criminal clans  still had strong ties within and from the state. The rhetoric that led SNS to the first electoral victory in 2012 focused on the fight against corruption, mafia, and tycoons. In reality, party leaders were aware these three were their best allies in order to maintain power. However, while the mafia and the central state were two rather distinct actors during Milosevic’s rule, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was still a functional — albeit weakened — state, today the distinction between the two does not exist anymore. The state is simply a vessel to be

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filled, while the real “functionality” is provided by party structure and membership. Against this backdrop, criminality could be intended as a governance tool. As argued by sociologist Balint Magyar, the Mafia state is run by a “patron” and his “court”, who appropriate public resources and the institutions of the state for their private use and profit. Today’s Serbian ruling elite works for its own particular interests, taking advantages from the public ones. However, through progovernment tabloids, regime’s propaganda has intensively worked in  presenting President Vucic as the only defender of national interests, branding all opposition leaders and independent media outlets as traitors and criminals. Finally, given the links between Serbian ruling elites and criminal groups, even with a democratic regime-change – though it is difficult to foresee it – the dividing line between the two would hardly be restored. Having been two complementary components of the same system, an eventual political defeat of SNS would not automatically cut the mafia’s long-established ties with the Serbian state.

1. The Belgrade Center for Security Policy made an interactive timeline of the most significant events occurred since SNS took power in Serbia showing the state capture process:  https://zarobljavanje. bezbednost.org/ 2. G. Fruscione, “The Virus of Authoritarianism: The Case of Serbia”, in G. Fruscione (Ed)  The Pandemic in the Balkans: Geopolitics and Democracy at Stake, Milano, ISPI-Ledizioni, 2020. 3. See the article by Bojana Jovanovic  Montenegro and the Regional Dimension of a Local Feud within this dossier. 4. Vucic himself and other officials hold several press conferences showing disturbing images of the clan’s murders in order to shock the public.

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THE CRIME-POLITICS NEXUS ENTRAPPING THE BALKANS

October 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES

Fighting Organized Crime in a Captured State: Is Serbia’s “War on Mafia” Genuine? Jelena Pejic Nikic BCSP

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he fall of Slobodan Milosevic on October 5th  2000 was supposed to be watershed moment in Serbia’s democratic transition. Reforms were implemented slowly and not without resistance. Over the last decade, however, the new regime led by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has done  its best to discontinue and reverse institution-building efforts of its democratic predecessors. The young party rode on the promise of fighting corruption and organized crime, thus gaining unprecedented popular support, but its bombastic measures came short of actual results. Instead, the  party has strengthened the grip of state capture. The term ‘state capture’ refers to a deliberately and gradually developed system of deep and widespread corruption in which institutions are abused, by legal and illegal means, to extract public funds for private gain, to the detriment of citizens’ rights and freedoms and public interest,

Jelena Pejić Nikić is a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy and PhD candidate at the Belgrade Faculty of Political Science.

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while the façade of democratic processes is formally retained.1 The concept has been  endorsed  by the European Commission in 2018, referring to the troubles of the Western Balkans region in the European integration process. It is applied in different parts of the world and has evolved in theory and practice since  its inception  by the World Bank back in 2000. Rather than being captured by businesses to influence public policies and regulations, it is the political elite that instrumentalizes institutions  to extract public funds through companies close to it and to remain in power, which is a prerequisite for the process to continue unsanctioned. State capture in Serbia has been thoroughly documented by civil society in various areas – the  security sector, the  judiciary,  tailor-made legislation,  public enterprises, and urban planning, among others. WHY SHOULD A CAPTURED STATE FIGHT ORGANIZED CRIME? Both organized crime groups and the fight against them play an important role in state capture. The first link is intuitive. Organized crime provides money and people when institutional means can’t be used. For example, to protect officials from nosey journalists (presidential inauguration 2017) and to silence critics of political leaders during football matches (2021). Along with these cases, which were reveiled by

investigative journalists, several other instances can be mentioned, however, without prove. Masked men demolished over (election) night a bohemian quarter in the heart of the capital where luxury apartments were to be built (Savamala 2016) and stirred violence during peaceful antigovernment protests (2020), while unidentified groups of men in black were spotted on election sites during the last general and local elections (2020). On the other hand, the way the fight against organized crime contributes to state capture is counterintuitive, yet important. It is one of the key narratives used to explain the centralization of political power and boost the party leader’s popularity. It is a powerful narrative that mobilizes public attention and shapes the views of the public. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has declared a ’war on mafia’ on several occasions over the past years, most recently when the new government was formed in autumn 2020. Although this ’war’ ought to be waged by competent institutions, in the dominant narrative the President is the ’supreme commander’ praised for every alleged success. He is the  personalization of the fight against organized crime, he is the one who urges institutions to do their job, who invites suspects to undergo polygraph testing, who condemns or absolves criminals in the media. All of these actions are highly publicised, even though they would be unacceptable in a democratic state

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with the separation of power and independent judiciary.

NO TANGIBLE RESULTS BEYOND PROGRESS REPORTS AND MEDIA SPECTACLES

The February 2021  arrest  of Veljko Belivuk and his group ’Principi’ — and the following proceedings — have turned into a media show with brutal footings being broadcasted during live presidential press conferences. Among other things, the show is  used to shock and engage the audience and overshadow a series of incidents and corruption scandals involving public officials.

According to the recently published  Global Organised Crime Index, Serbia has  the second highest organized crime rate in Europe. A captured state has no interest in fighting organized crime beyond progress reports and media spectacles, unless certain criminal groups represent a competition. Investigative journalists have found a  pattern  in the Serbian authorities’ actions, suggesting  they took sides in the war between two dominant mafia clans.

Moreover, the narrative of fighting organized crime (and counterterrorism) is often instrumentalized to justify the introduction of  mass, smart surveillance  measures. In the Serbian capital a  thousand cameras, many of which have face recognition features, have been bought from China and secretively installed since 2019 to fight organized (and other) crime, as well as to sanction traffic offences. Experts, however, insist there is no  evidence  that this highly intrusive measure decreases the rate of violent and more serious crime offences. On the other hand, in a captured state that has no tolerance for criticism, the  abuse of data is likely and human rights activists fear the consequences for privacy, data protection, and freedom of speech and assembly. Instead of reducing crime, mass surveillance could help to capture society as well.

Beyond these selective actions, the fight against organized crime in Serbia is rather a mimicry, like many other reforms undertaken to show  progress and willingness to join the EU. Along with the fight against corruption, independence of the judiciary and media freedoms, this area remains a slippery slope in the European Commission’s reports on Serbia. In a captured state façade institutions only mimic democratic processes and principles, while political power to bring about real change remains elsewhere and unwilling to implement substantial reforms.  Shadow reports  by expert civil society organisations repeatedly conclude that reform activities remain  a form without substance  and sometimes even that EU-demanded reforms are abused to  introduce  controversial legal provisions that would, in the given context, tighten the grip of state capture.

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Police actions against organized criminal groups often have bombastic names and make all the news as a great success. However, making an arrest is only the beginning of the process, which often ends without convictions because prosecutors are not involved in a timely fashion. In the EU’s terminology, the track record is missing. Institutions ignore important revelations made by investigative journalists, who often find links between alleged criminals and public officials. In the abovementioned Belivuk case, the official investigation omitted the time period crucial to trace down the clan’s ties to state structures.

1. Petrović, P. Pejić Nikić, J. Security Sector Capture in Serbia – an Early Study, Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, Belgrade, June 2020, https://bezbednost.org/ en/publication/security-sector-capture-in-serbiaan-early-study/, pp. 12-14.

Twenty one years after October 5th, the symbolism of that date is almost forgotten, and its legacy is distorted. In a captured state, bizarre and shocking phenomena become everyday reality. The President has publicly defended the release from custody of the indicted owner of the largest marijuana plantation in Serbia, who enjoyed support of state security services. The head of the Parliamentary committee for the judiciary – who acts as attorney, journalist, and member of judicial and prosecutorial councils at the same time – broadcasted an interview with said drug lord immediately after his release. On the streets of Belgrade, a convicted war criminal launches a petition to free from prison the man who assassinated Prime Minister Djindjic back in 2003, to mention just a few episodes that occurred during the writing of this commentary.

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October 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES

The Regional Dimension of a Montenegro's Local Criminal Feud Bojana Jovanovic KRIK

Bojana Jovanović is an investigative reporter and deputy editor at Serbian investigative portal KRIK. She also works as a contributing reporter for the international non-profit organization OCCRP. Bojana received two National awards for investigative journalism and as a member of the KRIK investigative team she won the Data Journalism Award in 2017. She trains journalists to develop and improve investigation skills..

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he city of Kotor, one of Montenegro’s most famous tourist destinations known for its rich history and medieval fortresses, has acquired a different kind of reputation in recent years: it has become known as the birthplace of  two criminal clans which are involved in a bloody war to extinction. The groups are symbolically named after two small parts of Kotor – Škaljari and Kavač, two settlements that are three and a half kilometres apart and separated by the Vrmac mountain. The clans are not the first — and certainly not the last — criminal groups who originated from this small Balkan country. They had many predecessors, but up until now, none have been entangled in an intense and prolonged mutual conflict as the Škaljari and Kavači clans have. Before the war, these two clans used to make up one group – named Škaljari – whose emergence and strengthening happened after the collapse

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of athen-leading  international cocainesmuggling group in the Balkans, led by narcoboss Darko Šarić. Šarić added a new feature to the illegal activity he was engaged in: his group was the first to smuggle over a ton of cocaine in a single shipment. Unlike those who followed his fall, Šarić’s approach to drug trafficking was more business-like, as his focus was primarily to make  money and move it into legal, financial flows. By breaking up his group in 2009, the police and anti-narco-trafficking agencies created a vacuum that was quickly filled by criminals, as it turns out, of a different kind – the ones eager to prove themselves and earn huge amounts of money, so much so that they caused an unprecedented and brutal bloodshed. Šarić surrendered to the police in Serbia in 2014 and was convicted to 15 years of prison, where he remains today, though his verdict isn’t final yet.  The Škaljari clan, which was for some time divided into two groups, quarrelled fiercely and a seemingly minor skirmish led to a clash that would claim at least 50 lives and make Montenegro the place of origin of a brutal mafia war that would spread across the region and to Western European countries. The conflict broke out due to the disappearance of about  200 kilograms of cocaine in 2014  in Valencia, Spain. Although this amount of cocaine wasn’t much for a group that smuggled tones of it, the clash exploded and created a violent rift. The war upended the region’s underworld and

The Regional Dimension of a Montenegro's Local Criminal Feud

pulled in other Serbian and Montenegrin crime groups who decided to join one of the two rival clans. Furthermore,  somepolice members and politicians also took sides. The first victim was killed in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, in February 2015. Throughout the years, the number of  murders related to the clan war kept rising  and ultimately culminated in 2018 – when at least 13 people were killed in Serbia and Montenegro. It didn’t take long for the crime war to spread to European countries. Since Serbia and Montenegro were hotspots, criminals tried to save their lives by hiding elsewhere in Europe. Not everyone, however, succeeded. Some of them were found by killers and murdered in  Austria, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and  Greece. This added a new dimension to the feud: it became international, and different governments and police and prosecution units started their investigations. As time went on, the warring parties became more and more cruel. Cities in Serbia and Montenegro often resounded with car bomb explosions, and armed attackers stormed cafés and restaurants in search of their opponents and victims. They did not care much about possible  collateral victims  and, on several occasions, individuals who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time were killed. In the meantime, the murders of the rival gang members, as it later turned out, reached new

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levels of brutality – they would  torture them to death, butcher their bodies and dissolve them in acid. In Serbia, at least 15 young men went missing in just two years and what happened to most of them is still unknown. The fact that most of the assassinations as well as kidnappings occurred in public places and during the day — or early evening hours — spotlights that citizens’ security had reached extremely low levels. The Serbian government tried in vain to shield the public from this harsh reality – first by  finding  creative and deceitful ways of interpreting murder statistics, then by insisting that the crime had been “imported” to Serbia from abroad. This tactic served an additional purpose: it was supposed to help politicians present the government as the true fighter against organized crime and distance  themselves from warring crime groups. But the situation on the ground was quite different. Instead of targeting organized crime, it looks like the Serbian government took a side in the mafia war. The police focused on the Škaljari clan and mostly arrested its members and allies; officials have repeatedly made statements about the dangers posed by the Škaljari clan and used pro-government media to upgrade stories about this criminal group. On the other hand,  both officials and the media under their control rarely mentioned Kavač clan members and their involvement in crimes. Furthermore, KRIK

The Regional Dimension of a Montenegro's Local Criminal Feud

discovered that some individuals from the police and the political class have strong ties with this clan’s branch in Serbia – a group led by Veljko Belivuk – and that they even go up to President Aleksandar Vučić. The group members were close to Nenad Vučković, a high-ranking police officer who was their main link to Dijana Hrkalović, State Secretary of the Ministry of Police. Vučković was seen with group leaders at football matches  in Belgrade and was Hrkalović’s partner. Also, after one of the prominent people of the Kavač clan, Davorin Baltić, was killed in 2018, it was revealed that he was the godfather of police officer Marija Nikolić. Another important link was Novak Nedić, who served as Vučić’s Secretary Generalwhen he was Prime Minister: during that time, he and Belivuk practiced their shooting skills at a military-owned shooting range in Pančevo. The Serbian Military Union even filed a criminal complaint against them, but the prosecutor closed the investigation after  some of the evidence mysteriously disappeared. KRIK also discovered that members of Belivuk’s gang provided security for the 2017 inauguration of President Vučić, during which they assaulted protesters and journalists. Some group members were close to  Vučić’s own son, Danilo. He was often seen together with Aleksandar Vidojević Aca Rošavi, who was identified as a Kavač gang member by Serbian

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police. Photos show them together watching Serbia’s match at the 2018 World Cup in Russia as well as on the celebration of the declaration of Republika Srpska in Banja Luka. They were also photographed inside a night bar and watching a football match in a café in Belgrade’s city centre. With this kind of support in Serbia and with more and more victims on Škaljari side, it looked like the  Kavač clan was winning the war. This impression intensified in January of last year when two key men of the Škaljari criminal clan  were killed while having dinner at a restaurant in Athens, Greece. An unknown and armed assailant came into the restaurant and shot them in front of their families. This double murder meant something more: it was an act that would beheaded this criminal group. However, it turned out that it was too early for Kavačs to celebrate. Despite good, long-term cooperation with people from state structures, they faced huge problems. The situation changed and the Serbian government declared a  war against the mafia. This wasn’t the first time that war was declared, but unlike previous times, something happened – top members of Kavač clan were arrested in Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its leader, Radoje Zvicer, is on the run and on the Interpol’s wanted list. Veljko Belivuk, leader of the Serbian branch of the clan and his close associates have been arrested and  indicted for the five brutal murders  of his rivals – men who were close to

The Regional Dimension of a Montenegro's Local Criminal Feud

the Škaljari clan. Vidojević hasn’t been arrested and wasn’t under investigation in this case. It is  still unclear why the Serbian government decided to deal with this crime group at this specific moment since the group had been protected for so long. Explanations for how the group created its ties to state structures and who is responsible for them will obviously not be given by the Serbian unit prosecuting organized crime. The  prosecution didn’t investigate the period when the group was getting stronger nor the connections with the government. Unlike their criminal associates, key people from the police and government are still protected. By arresting leaders and members of the Kavač and Škaljari clans, the vacuum is once again being created. A new organized crime group will rise again and fill it.

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THE CRIME-POLITICS NEXUS ENTRAPPING THE BALKANS

October 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES

An Unexpected Cooperation: Albanians and Serbs' “Affairs” in Kosovo Ivana Jeremic BIRN

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arly on Wednesday morning, October 13th, Kosovo’s police raided several  targets  across the country, including Mitrovica. During and after the raids against suspected smugglers, they arrested eight people and issued arrest warrants for another ten. Six of the arrested people are of Albanian nationality, one is Serb Serbia, and another is Bosnjak. Eight out of the ten people who received arrest warrants are Albanian while two are Serbs.The police’s actions have triggered protests, to which the police have responded using tear gas to disperse protesters. While Serbia and Kosovo are trying to find common ground and improve their relations, those on the other side of the law seem to be doing it way better. And they’ve been doing it for decades. Strong words, nationalistic chants, and ethnic divisions all seem to disappear when it is time to divide the spoils. And the stakes are high: in

Ivana Jeremic is an editor at Balkan Insight, an English outlet covering Central and Southeastern Europe. Before joining BIRN she was an investigative reporter/fact-checker at Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia during a fiveyear period between 2012 and 2017 and was Deputy Editorin-Chief at the same organisation between 2017 and 2018.

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return, Serb and Albanian criminal groups have control over one of the most prominent regions when it comes to organized crime in Europe.  The implementation of the 2013 Brussels agreement between Belgrade and Pristina has been too slow and Kosovo’s still disputed status — and the lack of police cooperation between the two countries — has contributed to a fruitful ground for criminal organizations in the region. Criminals of both ethnic groups have found a safe haven in Kosovo and have been able to escape from justice due to law-enforcement agencies’ disputes over jurisdiction as well as their mutual distrust.  The absence of direct cooperation between Serbia’s and Kosovo’s police and judicial authorities in a vast number of cases makes these bodies  paralyzed and unable to fight criminals. Ethnic Albanians  are the majority of Kosovo’s population of almost two million, and there are around 100,000 Kosovo Serbs, with about 40 percent of them living in the north where they account for the absolute majority. The four municipalities in the North of Kosovo, governed by Srpska Lista (the only Belgradebacked Serb party in Kosovo and remote-controlled by Serbian Progressive Party) in somewhat lawless conditions, are seen as a  hotspot for both Serb and Albanian traffickers  who use the grey zone to smuggle goods illegally. There are a number of ‘alternative crossings’ (dirt roads), which are used for illegal passage to and from Kosovo, as well as

for smuggling. Vehicles transport the widest variety of smuggling goods on a daily basis and seem to avoid the authorities that are supposed to stop them.  A few locals still living along the administrative border claim the  criminals have people on the ground alerting them in case of law enforcement patrols the area. Sources say the so-called observers earn as much as 10 euros per scout, while smugglers receive some 100 euros for transportation. Kosovo’s central government has very little control over the territory, while the institutions in the north have limited power due to the slow pace of self-administration. As such, what started as a need in times of war and sanctions has become a lucrative business for all counterparts. Smuggling peaked in the ‘90s with the trafficking of hard drugs and taxfree oil from a Serbian refinery.  In the summer and autumn  of 2011, Serbs from northern Kosovo erected barricades  at the Jarinje and Brnjak administrative crossings with the intention of preventing EULEX from transferring Albanian customs officers to those crossings. Media reports and witnesses’ testimonies said the nationalistic pride of the organizers was just a cover for the real concern — tighter customs regulation and its potential to harm criminal and business interests.  Ethnicity seems to playan insignificant role

An Unexpected Cooperation: Albanians and Serbs' “Affairs” in Kosovo

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when it comes to money,  and Albanians and Serbs have proven capable of overcoming ethnic divisions and language barriers on top of adapting to a fast-changing situation on the ground. The  United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime noted: “Criminal networks can forge bonds across borders and overcome cultural and linguistic differences in the commission of a transnational crime […] Organized crime is not stagnant, but adapts as new criminal markets emerge and as relationships between criminal networks become more flexible and more sophisticated, with ever greater reach around the globe. In short, transnational organized crime transcends cultural, social, linguistic and geographical borders, requiring a global and concerted response.” With a fragile economy and high unemployment rates, many in the region — the young ones particularly — are  prone to engaging in illicit activities. In 2019, youth unemployment rates in Kosovo were  as high as 55 percent. Trafficking of illicit drugs is the most recorded organized criminal activity and it dominates the illicit market in the territory of Serbia’s former province.  According to the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2020 report, between 2013 and 2017 participation in an organized criminal group was  the crime with the most prosecutions  while other, often prosecuted crimes linked to organized criminal groups

included the smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, firearms trafficking, and money laundering. In recent years, Kosovo has also emerged  as a new regional hub for cigarette distribution. Loads are smuggled there from Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria, and then  transported to Montenegro through the porous border. A 2020 UNODC report emphasises that despite a large number of prosecutions,  only a few individuals were convicted. The reason could be a combination of several factors: ineffective investigations and/or prosecutions, lack of evidence to prove linkages to organized criminal groups, obstruction of justice, and corruption. The  Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime 2019 report  shows that smuggling in North Kosovo became so rampant that  it is considered “a regular economic activity.”  The report estimates that the weekly financial losses to Kosovo’s budget amount to around €750 000, made up of €400 000 in fuel duties, followed by €200 000 in construction materials, and €150 000 for all other goods.  “Many of these goods do not stay in the Serbdominated north but are moved further south into parts of Kosovo where ethnic Albanians are the majority. This shows that, at least for smuggling networks, ethnicity, and geographic and administrative boundaries are not an impediment to cooperation among criminals”, the report finds.

An Unexpected Cooperation: Albanians and Serbs' “Affairs” in Kosovo

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The lucrative grey zone of North Kosovo has been of interest to many parties, and as such has been a constant battlefield over control of the territory. The usual trio — business, political and criminal elites — have all been  cooperating to maintain the status quo. In 2019, the independent media outlet Balkan Investigative Reporters Network (BIRN)  catalogued 74 attacks on Kosovo Serbs  involving guns, grenades, arson or explosive devices since 2014,  the year Srpska Lista first took power after landmark local elections. In 2018, the Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic was killed in North Mitrovica outside his party headquarters. Almost three years later, the trial of six people accused of participating in the murder is still ongoing in Kosovo. The alleged leaders of the organised criminal group that killed Ivanovic are two Serb businessmen who have long been suspected of criminal activities: Milan Radoicic (Srpska Lista’s leader)  and Zvonko Veselinovic.  Although named as leaders of the criminal group, the two have not been indicted in the case of Ivanovic’s murder. In Ivanovic’s last interview with BIRN,  Radoicic was described as a “dark ruler”  and a “key figure in an intimidating system of power in northern Kosovo”. Radoicic, a former football player, and Zvonko

Veselinovic became known to the public during the 2011 barricades in northern Kosovo. At the time, KFOR identified Veselinovic as one of the organizers of the riots in that region of the country. However, he was already a well-known name to law enforcement. In the early 2000s, Veselinovic was arrested several times for various crimes. The first arrest happened in 2003, when the police found three kilograms and 190 grams of heroin in the car he was driving. The drugs were allegedly meant to be distributed within the Belgrade area. According to the media, Veselinovic was cleared of allegations. In October 2011, the  New York Times  linked him with the Albanian businessman Mentor Beqiri, with whom he allegedly  smuggled oil. At the time, he owned two gas stations in northern Kosovo.  According to the NYT, the two men cooperated to distribute smuggled oil across the country. One of the investigators told the NYT that Veselinovic and Beqiri would typically meet in a wooded Serb enclave which, at the time, was a secluded zone with no phone reception. According to the  investigative outlet Insider, while local Serbs were at the barricades Zvonko Veselinovic’s machines, trucks, and excavators dug new, alternative roads on the administrative line  that were later used to smuggle goods between Serbia and Kosovo.  In 2015, BIRN uncovered evidence  that Veselinovic transported materials for a firm owned by prominent Kosovo Albanians  linked

An Unexpected Cooperation: Albanians and Serbs' “Affairs” in Kosovo

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to the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK. The goods were sold to the US construction giant Bechtel and its Turkish partner Enka, the main contractor hired to build Kosovo’s biggest ever infrastructure project, the  Pristina-Tirana highway. BIRN has discovered Veselinovic also ferried rocks from the Arena Invest quarry in northern Kosovo until routes were blocked by the barricades he helped create. Arena Invest is owned by three prominent Kosovo Albanians:  Pristina’s former ambassador to Washington, Kosovo’s thenPrime Minister Hashim Thaci’s landlord, and a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander – as well as a Kosovo Serb politician. Veselinovic  enriched himself after Serbia’s decision to remove VAT on goods sold in Serbdominated northern Kosovo, beyond Pristina’s control. His family owned two petrol stations and are alleged to have been involved in the smuggling of fuel, cigarettes, and alcohol, according to BIRN.

report finds. At the end of that year, both were arrested in Kopaonik, and, after several months in detention, an indictment was filed against them: however, it was not in the connection to drug dealing but for the abuse of office when buying a leased truck. After three years of trial, they were acquitted. Radoicic was convicted of falsifying documents and was also tried for kidnapping, but he was later acquitted. For decades, criminals of different nationalities, cultural, and linguistical backgrounds have managed to share the prey by taking advantage of the constant blame game between Kosovo and Serbian authorities. The current grey zone seems to suit them well, and it won’t be the first time they act to protect their interests.  As long there is no real cooperation between the authorities, it appears there will be no real progress in fighting organized crime. Considering the ties these criminals have with the political élites in both Kosovo and Serbia, it looks like an impossible mission.

As per  KRIK’s 2011 report, Serbia’s Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) labelled Veselinovic as the  leader of a criminal group that deals with drug trafficking, arms and oil smuggling, greening and money laundering. In the drug business, Veselinovic worked closely with Kosovo criminal Ismet Osmani aka Curi. His best man, Radoicic, took the drugs from Osmani and transferred them to central Serbia, the

An Unexpected Cooperation: Albanians and Serbs' “Affairs” in Kosovo

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THE CRIME-POLITICS NEXUS ENTRAPPING THE BALKANS

October 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES

Albania's Key Position in Global Drug Trafficking Fatjona Mejdini Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

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he Balkans, which lie at the heart of South-Eastern Europe, have historically been an important transit route for drugs,  especially for heroin coming from the East to be trafficked across Europe.  In particular, after the fall of communism in 1991, Albania also became an important country in the region for heroin trafficking. Strategically positioned at the centre of the region, with a large coastline along both the Adriatic and Ionian seas and neighbouring Italy and Greece, the country quickly turned into a key hub for heroin coming from the East before reaching the European Union.  Alongside heroin trafficking, the country is also known for  illicit cannabis cultivation. For over two decades, Albania was considered one of Europe’s largest producers of outdoor cannabis, a phenomenon that was tolerated by those in power.  From 2000 to 2014, Lazarat, a village in

Fatjona Mejdini is the Balkans Field Coordinator for Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. She is also a freelance journalist, with contributions in Albanian local media and international ones. She is a board member of n-ost, a network for European border crossing journalism based in Berlin.

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south Albania, was one of the country’s symbols of cannabis cultivation. The village became a safe place for cultivation, though the plots of cannabis did not belong to the village citizens alone: criminals from other areas of the country could rent land in the town and cultivate their own crop. Together with Lazarat, Dukagjini Highlands in northern Albania’s Shkodër municipality was also a notorious place for cultivation. Despite a 2014 police crackdown in both places, the war against cannabis cultivation was far from over. In fact, in 2016, the country saw an unprecedent level of spread in cannabis cultivation all over the country. This situation raised the alarm and, as result of internal and external pressures, the police and other institutions in Albania intensified their efforts against the phenomenon, bringing cultivation rates to historic lows over the past five years. This long experience with heroin trafficking — coupled with large, illegal cannabis cultivation — has granted Albanian criminal groups crucial know-how as well as financial leverage.  As a result, at the beginning of 2000, these groups have also entered  the lucrative ‘business’ of cocaine trafficking. The start was humble. Criminals from Albania were randomly contracted from the Italian mafia and other criminal networks to drive cocaine from ports throughout the continent and distributing it in the streets of European capitals.

Albania's Key Position in Global Drug Trafficking

However, Albanian criminal groups soon started to master the skills and learned the tricks, moving up the value chain to eventually become major distributors by securing cocaine directly from Latin America before unloading it in Albania and some of Western Europe’s major ports; thus creating distribution networks across the continent and beyond.  Drawing from the Italian mafia model, these criminal groups have effectively moved  upstream toward the source:  their brokers are in the countries where cocaine is produced — like Colombia — and in important dispatching centres — like Ecuador.  Their activities were facilitated by the fact that these groups had also started to build cells and expand their activities in major cities  across the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, among others.  As such, they were able to  create and run the whole chain, from arranging big shipments directly from Latin America to street distribution throughout Europe, empowering themselves and raising their prominence.  Accounts show this business model has secured them millions of euros in revenue, money that is usually  laundered in Albania as well as countries where they operate.

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COUNTERING DRUG TRAFFICKING  In the overwhelming majority of cases, Albanian criminal groups have  drug traffic at the centre of their criminal operations. These groups traffic the heroin that enters Albania through Turkey across Western and Central European countries, as well as cocaine that they secure in Latin America. Illicit cannabis is also  a commodity that often makes up an important part of these groups’ activities. Albanian-grown cannabis is usually transported by speedboats to Italy to be further distributed across Western Europe.  In 2016, cannabis cultivation in Albania reached an unprecedented level and was spread throughout the country as never before. In the same year, the police seized nearly  two and a half million marijuana plants, a far greater figure than the average number of cannabis plants found by law enforcement in previous years — usually about a quarter — and almost four times higher than in 2015, which had seen a then-record in cannabis confiscations.. Such data spotlights the Albanian police’s increased efforts to combat drug trafficking. Given the gravity of the situation, the government adopted a three-year anti-cannabis action plan in March 2017. The plan tasked not only lawenforcement agencies but also a wide range of state institutions, ministries, and local authorities to help in the fight against cannabis cultivation. Altogether, the measures have been successful,

Albania's Key Position in Global Drug Trafficking

as cannabis cultivation has drastically decreased over the past four years. Nevertheless, there has also been a shift in cannabis cultivation from Albanian criminal groups abroad. Since for the past five years cultivating cannabis has not been as easy nor profitable as it once used to, groups have been cultivating it indoors abroad. For example, in the last few years, Albanian criminal groups’ indoor cannabis cultivation in the UK has experienced an increase and raised security concerns in the country.  Moreover, one of the main reasons behind the Albanian government’s efforts to aggressively tackle cannabis cultivation was the international pressure and bad reputation  Albania had acquired because of it. Curating this image also became salient as it coincided with the time Albania was intensifying its efforts around the European Integration path. In fact, in 2016, the opening of the accession negotiations didn’t happen in part because of the widespread cultivation of cannabis in Albania that year, diminishing Tirana’s chance to open negotiations with the EU.  However, this wasn’t the only concern as regards relations with Brussels. In 2019, the Dutch Parliament opposed Tirana’s opening of negotiations with the EU, setting a date to open the membership talks whilst demanding more commitment in the fight against corruption and organized crime. 

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In fact, besides tackling cannabis cultivation, Albania has also recently intensified its collaboration with foreign law enforcement authorities, above all with Italy, in bringing down Albanian organized crime groups.  The Albanian judicial reform, which started five years ago, is also showing its first results. A new  Special Anti-Corruption and Organized Crime Structure (SPAK) investigating high-level cases of corruption and organized crime has been recently established and is already having a significant impact in the fight against Albanian criminal groups operating abroad, too. These new structures are expected not only to break down the wall of impunity, but also to  bring to justice powerful figures who have helped these criminal organizations succeed.  The vetting of judges and prosecutors as part of this judicial reform is considered an important step in this regard. 

Albania's Key Position in Global Drug Trafficking

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THE CRIME-POLITICS NEXUS ENTRAPPING THE BALKANS

October 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES

Beyond Football: The Power of Balkans’ Hooligans Loïc Tregoures Institut Catholique de Paris

Loïc Tregoures, PhD in political science, teaching political science at the Institut Catholique de Paris. Author of “Le football dans le chaos yougoslave” (2019).

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ccording to the Serbian investigative portal KRIK,  Veljko Belivuk, arrested on multiple charges in February 2021 and notably known as both a leader of the football club Partizan Belgrade’s fan group Principi[1] and as a top underworld figure close to the Montenegrin Kavac clan, described multiple occasions and cases in which President Aleksandar Vucic would have asked for favours, from providing security services at his meetings to beating up opponents[2]. This case once again highlights the connection between football hooligans (in local language, the word «huligani» is used to describe violent supporters including beyond sport violence) and politics in the Balkans, although this phenomenon is not specific to the region (cases in Russia or Argentina are evidence of that). This connection can be tracked back to the late 1980s when  ultra and hooligan groups emerged against the backdrop of increasing

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nationalist tensions within Yugoslavia. Through slogans, banners, and violence, football fans played their part in the break-up of the country. Hundreds of them then  enrolled in the army or in paramilitary groups,  be it among Croats, Sarajevo defenders, or Serbs, especially in the famous paramilitary group named Tigers. Their leader, Zeljko Raznatovic “Arkan”, had been tasked in 1989 by the Milosevic regime to be the head of Red Star Belgrade football fan groups so that their potential of destructive violence would not erupt against Milosevic, but rather be channelled for the “defence” of national interests during the war. As such, football fan groups should be seen as social actors whose ability to mobilize, including over political issues, is undisputable. To that extent, it ought to be remembered that such political mobilizations are not necessarily violent. One may think of the case of Hajduk Split fans successfully mobilizing for a more democratic management of the club in 2011[3], or the more recent mobilization from the same fans, the Torcida from Hajduk Split, together with the arch-rival Bad Blue Boys from Dinamo Zagreb protesting against corruption within the Croatian Football Association and getting involved in the writing and passing of a sports law between 2012 and2014[4]. However, as argued by Serbian anthropologist Ivan Colovic[5] in the 1990s, given their subculture based on masculinity, togetherness, solidarity,

Beyond Football: The Power of Balkans’ Hooligans

and their practices regarding social norms and the «quest for excitement»[6]  and violence, groups of football fans are more likely to use violence than other social actors. This violence is nevertheless dependent on the context. Namely, it may occur that football fans are at the vanguard of a protest in order to defend people against the police and the regime (e.g., Turkey in 2013, Croatia under the rule of Franjo Tudjman). Violence around several LGBT parades (e.g., in Croatia 2001, Serbia 2010) is another evidence of their  potential of political mobilization. Yet what is at stake here is the use of political violence by hooligans that appears to be coordinated by the government (e.g., the assault on the US embassy in Belgrade 2008, clashes during protests in Macedonia in 2016 during the  Sarena Revolucija). In some cases, agreements with the government may mean a restrain from using violence . To that extent, it is very likely that after being cancelled under the 2011-2014 governments, the LGBT parade could only be held peacefully in Belgrade from 2014 as a result of an agreement between hooligans and the Vucic’s government. Yet the regular use of violence in a political context is not enough to explain how Serbia seems to stand out as regards the  connection between some football fan groups and their leaders, the Vucic regime and organized crime. Notwithstanding Milosevic’s fall, the security apparatus, which was linked to organized crime,

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remained partially untouched. Investigations following the assassination of Serbian Prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003 showed how the so-called  Zemun clan and some paramilitary groups were involved in the murder. In 2009, the investigation TV show «Insajder» portrayed a dozen of leaders of fan groups from Red Star, Partizan and Rad Belgrade, most of which were involved in alleged  drug traffic. More recently, the gang war (for which Belivuk was arrested) between the Kavac and Skaljari clans resulted in many executions in the last seven years, including leaders of fan groups such as Aleksandar Stankovic alias Sale Mutavi, leader of the Jajnicari group from Partizan Belgrade. It exemplifies  the centrality of those groups as actors of this very lucrative traffic. A heritage of communist Yugoslavia is that most clubs in Serbia, including Red Star and Partizan, are public property. Therefore,  politicians can still be found on their boards, together with businessmen and leaders of fan groups, some of whom have been indicted for violence or drug traffic. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, the main parties in power (SPS, then DS - for instance Nebojsa Covic -, then SNS) successively took positions within the clubs.  According to the legendary sport journalist Milojko Pantic in 2018, “Red Star is SNS, and Partizan is SPS”[7]. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic himself often bragged about having been a Red Star hooligan when he was younger, while it is nowadays

Beyond Football: The Power of Balkans’ Hooligans

demonstrated that hooligans within Partizan are exploited in the stadium and the streets to shut political contestation against him. Besides, Vucic’s son, Danilo, is often seen with those same leaders he went to Russia with during the 2018 World Cup. Organized crime and the state. Organized crime and football fans. Football fans and the regime. Here is the nexus between those three actors. Therefore, while some experts wonder whether there is still a difference between the mafia and the state in Serbia and Montenegro given  the degree of cooperation, the relation between hooligans and the regime can be described as a transactional one in which the state, assuming it is strong enough, won’t try hard to fight against trafficking and crimes committed by hooligan groups, provided those groups won’t get involved into politics against the regime  like they did against Milosevic back in 2000. To cement this cooperation, as mentioned, those groups will even get paid to help the regime against its opponents. In this context, it remains to be seen what impact the arrest of Belivuk, close to the Kavac clan — which the Serbian regime privileged over the Skaljari one — will have on this transactional relation, all the more since the Kavac clan is also suffering from the recent regime change in Montenegro.  

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1. Principi, a reference to Gavrilo Princip, used to be known as Janicari under the rule of its leader Aleksandar Stankovic, alias Sale Mutavi, killed in 2016. 2. See the articles by Giorgio Fruscione and Bojana Jovanovic within this dossier 3. Santek Goran & Tregoures Loic, «A comparison of two fan initiatives in Croatia: Zajedno za Dinamo and Nas Hajduk», Soccer and Society, 2017 4. Trégourès, Loïc, «Beyond the pattern: corruption, hooligans and football governance in Croatia», in Garcia, Borja, Zheng, Zinming (eds.),  Football and supporter activism in Europe. Whose game is it  ?, Londres, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016 5. Colovic, Ivan, The politics of symbol in Serbia, Londres, Hurst, 2002 6. Elias, Norbert, Dunning, Eric, Sport et civilisation, la violence maîtrisée, Paris, Fayard, 1994 7. SNS stands for Serbian Progressive Party, the Vucic’s party, while SPS are the socialists, SNS’s ruling partner

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