FBIS4-7811
"dreeu067_m_94002"
FBIS-EEU-94-067
Daily Report
12 Mar 1994
THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
Government Ties to Organized Crime Examined
Government Ties to Organized Crime Examined
94BA0230A Skopje NOVA MAKEDONIJA in Macedonian 12 Mar 94 p 16
94BA0230A
Skopje NOVA MAKEDONIJA
Macedonian
CSO
[Article by Zoran Petrov: "The Thieves Are Not Among Us--We
Are Among Them"]
[Text] Now there are already numerous indications,
information, and above all, facts showing that organized crime
exists in Macedonia [The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
-- FYROM] and that among others, individuals from the Macedonian
Government's ministries are involved in it. One of the most
fundamental characteristics of organized crime is the brutality
of its approach, and its basic method is corruption, and
directly associated with it, blackmail, threats, and
retaliation.
Macedonia is one of the few countries in the world where a
person can get rich overnight, with just a single deal,
arrangement, or transaction. Macedonia is one of the rare places
in the world where the laws exist to be evaded, where everything
that is not prohibited is automatically permitted, and where one
does not go to jail for an illegal shop, for example, or for tax
evasion. Macedonia is a sort of unique case, where directors
open private firms as partners and competitors of socialized
enterprises, where state officials are deeply involved in
private business, and where the transformation of state property
has been turned into universal theft. In such a legal vacuum,
criminals, regardless of whether they are "white collar
criminals" or common pickpockets, virtually obtain an alibi for
their actions. The period of the transition from one system to
another is full of risks and uncertainties, even when it is
thoroughly prepared and outlined, and in circumstances like ours
today, the danger is doubled. From any aspect, this is a time of
various con men and worldly troublemakers.
In a situation like the present one, it is evident that
there
has been a rapid fragmentation of citizens and increasingly
deeper dissatisfaction among the public with the striking cases
of abuses, machinations, and speculations. The claims that the
state authorities do not have a role in such dirty business are
stories for little children. In a word, no matter how painful it
sounds, the ancient system of a link between economic and
political power is slowly coming onto the scene in the Republic
of Macedonia; in turn, this is creating the preconditions for
reviving the alliance between criminal circles and the state
establishment, and in some countries that is called the mafia.
Thus, in parallel with the newly established businessmen,
murders for hire, threats, blackmail, kidnappings, "rackets,"
loan sharks, and drug smugglers, have appeared in Macedonia,
i.e., everything that "embellishes" a classic mafia.
The Mafia Is in the Government or...
"There is organized crime in Macedonia, and that has to be
said openly for once," said Pavle Trajanov, assistant minister
for operational affairs in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
What is significant in all this, in his opinion, is that
organized crime has slowly begun to penetrate the state's
executive branch, since criminal conduct in an organized manner
is not possible unless the authorities participate in it, or in
our case, individual ministries of the government of the
Republic of Macedonia. As our interlocutor emphasized, there are
several evident cases of machinations under the leadership of
state bodies.
One of the most characteristic cases is the process of
obtaining a location for the construction of a temporary or
permanent building. The Ministries of City Planning,
Construction, Transportation, and Ecology participate in issuing
the building permit, and the Ministry of Economy for a permit to
conduct business, and to these one must add the Ministry of
Finance through the tax inspectorate, and the SOK [Public
Auditing Service].... In this whole chain, where numerous abuses
have appeared, as Trajanov said, it is impossible that some of
the institutions cited are not involved. The case of importing
products is even more specific. We have analyses for three years
back of which firms received import permits and which amounts
they imported, Trajanov said, from which it can be clearly seen
that all these things revolve around a small number of
enterprises which receive import permits, and then simply sell
them to another firm and, naturally, in the end the money is
shared with the one that provided the permit. In other words,
the one who is closer to the authorities through any type of
"closeness" gains a privileged status for earning a profit.
Thus, there are no built-in criteria for all those who have an
interest in importing; instead, protectionist measures are
created, through which only a narrow circle of firms are
patronized. I can state quite authoritatively that the executive
branch bodies are behind all of this, Trajanov said
categorically. This highly organized crime has been going on for
two years, and high officials in both the production enterprises
and the government are participating in it. According to the
assistant minister of internal affairs, it is not possible for
what is produced and what is marketed not to be recorded without
the involvement of some government ministry, since the net
profit from just one truckload of cigarettes is about 300,000
German marks [DM]. The basic methodology of organized crime is
bribery and corruption. According to our interlocutor, these
modes are conducted today in a very perfidious manner. "We have
a great deal of information," he emphasized, "that state
officials, even government ministers, have private firms,
usually in the name of a close relative, through which organized
crime takes place. How? The method is very simple--first a
permit is obtained for the transit or importation of certain
goods into Macedonia, and then the trade in the goods is
conducted through one's own firm. Formally, everything is within
the law," Pavle Trajanov said, "but the genesis is in the
ordinary abuse of one's position. Nevertheless," as our
interlocutor emphasized, "the most modern form of organized
crime is acting as a middleman." In other words, those who are a
factor in decisionmaking only act as middlemen among two or more
firms, and receive a commission in return. For example, if there
is an offer from some foreign firm, for instance for exporting
technical equipment needed by a certain ministry or other state
institutions, then the "middleman" appears, and puts the foreign
firm in touch with the domestic one and charges a commission for
this. This, Trajanov said, constitutes a textbook case of
corruption.
...The Government Is in the Mafia
"As police, our hands are tied by several things that keep
us
from dealing with organized crime efficiently," Pavle Trajanov
said. In his opinion, it is impossible for the police, without
cooperation with other supervisory bodies in the state, to act
on their own in this area, and likewise, another big problem is
the still incomplete legal regulations defining certain
relationships in the state, which at the moment are actively
being exploited by organized crime. Our limitation, our
interlocutor emphasized, is the constitutional barrier according
to which only letters can be monitored, while the monitoring of
telephones and other means of communication is not permitted. If
this does not change in a short time, and the use of these
operational-technical means that would be used under strictly
established legal conditions and by a decision by a competent
judge is not permitted, we will only obtain information that we
will be able to comment on, but it will be much more difficult
for us to obtain evidence, without which criminal proceedings
cannot be started, Trajanov stated categorically.
Now there are already various indications, information, and
above all facts showing that organized crime exists in Macedonia
and that above all, the state institutions of the executive
branch are involved in it. All of this, Trajanov emphasized,
does not force us as the police to restructure ourselves
organizationally. It is planned that a special section will be
formed soon at the Ministry of Internal Affairs that will deal
exclusively with curbing organized crime, and that will possess
all the necessary conditions for effective operation. That,
above all, means its staffing and professionalization of its
operation, as well as providing it with appropriate technical
equipment.
"I want to emphasize," Trajanov said, "that the Ministry of
Internal Affairs is seriously preparing and is already
considerably involved in all these matters associated with
organized crime. The Ministry of Internal Affairs," he added,
"possesses an extensive body of information, and it is known
quite well who is involved in these illegal activities, how, and
why, including individuals who at the moment are in high
government positions."
Parallel Rule by Organized Crime
"Collective organized crime constitutes one of the forms of
professional crime which is characterized by a close alliance
between professional criminals and law enforcement officials,"
said Dr. Tome Batkovski, a lecturer at the Security School in
Skopje. According to criminologists from Western countries, of
which this form of professional crime has been and is most
characteristic, organized crime could not exist without
connections and assistance from politics and politicians.
"Professional criminals' connections with government officials,"
Batkovski emphasized, "gives representatives of organized crime
an enormous advantage over other criminals, precisely because of
that protection that they have. There is actually a tremendous
threat to the human rights of a large part of the population,
just because the center of power goes outside the framework of
the legal institutions."
The criminal areas of activity of collective organized crime
consist of smuggling narcotics, white slavery, smuggling money,
gold, and other valuables and cultural goods, smuggling weapons,
carrying out paid killings, prostitution, gambling, and
recently, selling ecological wastes. According to Dr. Batkovski,
the characteristics of the illegal associations whose activity
in practice is organized crime are the following: above all,
internal organization, structure, the existence of internal
standards of conduct with discipline in carrying out
assignments, a division of duties, a broad radius of activity,
high effectiveness with the use of modern methods, a high degree
of maneuverability, and going beyond the national framework.
Finally, according to Batkovski, one of the most fundamental
characteristics of organized crime is the brutality of its
approach, i.e., a lack of scruples, and its basic method is
corruption, and directly associated with it, blackmail, threats,
and retaliation.
Organized crime represents a tremendous social danger, above
all because it introduces disorganization in the state, destroys
the legal fabric of society, instills distrust among the legal
state bodies, and in the case of smaller states, there is a
danger of parallel rule by organized crime, which can have
unforeseeable consequences for undeveloped countries, including
Macedonia. According to Dr. Batkovski, the extent of the power
of this form of crime is best illustrated by the case of the
Colombian cocaine mafia, which offered to repay part of this
country's foreign debt, in the amount of--believe it or not--$28
billion. In return, the Colombian Government was supposed to
refuse to extradite the captured heads of the drug mafia to the
United States. Dr. Batkovski stressed that this is a vital
example of the enormous power of organized crime.
"We are talking about an extremely serious matter, and I
think that the struggle against this organized crime has to be
an integral part of a national strategy in the broader sense,"
our interlocutor emphasized. "Without that, through palliative
and partial solutions, nothing can be achieved," Tome Batkovski
said in conclusion.
[Box, p 16]
Batkovski: "Organized Crime Should Not Be Underestimated"
"If we are talking about the struggle against organized
crime, we should note once again that it possess enormous power
and influence. It is precisely for that reason that it is always
one step ahead of society in the use of modern methods and
resources. That means that in curbing it, the state's expert
bodies and services have to keep up to date, and stay in step
with the methods and resources used by representatives of
organized crime. From the standpoint of its organization, modern
operational services have to be created that will be capable of
maneuvering quickly and adapting to organized crime's methods
and resources, but on the other hand, that requires a societal
guarantee to the employees of these services--not just by
ensuring the safety of their families, but also in their
salaries, since it is an illusion that an employee with a salary
of DM300 or DM400 will objectively be capable of dealing with
illegal activities in which hundreds of thousands or millions of
German marks are involved."
[Box, p 16]
Trajanov: "Some Political Parties Are Also Financed by Dirty
Deals"
"I can authoritatively state that the mafia in Macedonia is
assuming an increasingly larger scale and is threatening to grow
into a parallel state government. Likewise, I stand behind the
assertion that numerous people in authority are also involved in
organized crime in our country, especially in the Macedonian
government's ministries. Those who are now enriching themselves
this way will slowly and surely achieve influence in political
life as well. We already possess information that certain
political parties are being financed by such dirty deals and
`businesses.' In other words, someone who invests in a certain
political party will subsequently demand compensation, i.e.,
greater political influence and participation in the division of
power in the country. All the preconditions now exist for a high
degree of corrosion in the state, and the consequences are truly
extremely dangerous. Unless Macedonia urgently undertakes
something in the area of legal regulations and the internal
organization of all structures and supervising bodies, I think
that in two or three years we will find ourselves in the same
situation as some of the neighboring countries."