Crackdown, but not too far

Milan Marinković writes from Niš:

Serb extremist attacks on three polling stations in the northern part of Kosovo during the recent first round of local elections, along with an already steady increase in drug-related violence and crime in Serbia, have made Serbian prime minister Ivica Dačić and his deputy Aleksandar Vučić announce a “historically unprecedented” crackdown.  Their focus is on football hooliganism and far right political extremism – both of which have close ties with illegal activity in northern Kosovo, as well as with each other.  According to recent media revelations, a growing number of Serbian football hooligans and ultranationalists are joining the influential international neo-Nazi organization “Combat 18,” originally founded in the UK.

Rhetorical determination notwithstanding, the government is highly unlikely to launch a full-scale war against the country’s most powerful criminal organizations due to the palpable security risks, compounded by organized crime’s penetration of vital state institutions.  Police departments – and in some cases even parts of police departments – have been fighting among themselves.  There has also been a series of incidents and crimes committed in a relatively short time period by members of the elite police unit, Gendarmerie. The Gendarmerie is of particular concern because it is beyond doubt the strongest armed force within the entire security sector in terms of training, equipment and overall combat capability.

The presence of criminal elements in the Gendarmerie is a direct consequence of how the unit was formed. Much of its personnel came from the former Unit for Special Operations (JSO), which was created in the 1990s by then-president Slobodan Milošević’s secret police (RDB) for war purposes. A majority of JSO members were initially recruited among experienced criminals, many motivated to join by the promise of release from prison and other privileges.  After the 1990s Balkans wars had ended, JSO continued to serve as a powerful instrument of oppression, intimidation and sometimes even execution of the regime’s opponents. The notorious unit was dismantled only after the discovery that its top officers played a key role in the assassination of pro-Western reformist prime minister Zoran Đinđić in 2003.

Many JSO operatives were incorporated into the subsequently formed Gendarmerie. The rationale was that it would have been extremely risky to leave such dangerous individuals with ample criminal backgrounds to their own devices. As much as the decision seemed logical at the time, it has consequences still today.

One of the most controversial questions today pertains to the relationship between problematic Gendarmerie members and football hooligan groups, some of which represent the most dangerous, violent and aggressive criminal organizations in Serbia.  A few years ago several gendarmes tasked with guarding the stadium of the Belgrade football club “Red Star” deliberately allowed hooligans affiliated with the club to enter the facility, whereupon they stormed into the office of the club’s then-president Dobrivoje Tanasijević and threatened him with force in an attempt to extort his resignation.

The much-anticipated crackdown will face difficulty confronting the larger and better organized football hooligan groups, which resemble Mexican drug cartels. Without elimination – or at least drastic weakening – of these potent criminal organizations, privatization of major football clubs – which the state cannot afford to subsidize indefinitely – will almost certainly fail. Though nominally just “fans,” most influential hooligan groups are de facto unofficial co-owners and will therefore do everything they can to prevent their clubs from being sold to potential legal owners in a proper and transparent way.

Besides the customary drug trade as a source of funding, some football hooligan capos gain huge profits from clandestine financial transactions related to transfers of prominent football players from one club to another, virtually treating footballers as their own property. This kind of human trafficking is ascribed to a branch of organized crime in Serbia commonly referred to as “football mafia,” which also involves stakeholders from otherwise legal professions, including politics. In addition to a desire for better wages and other conditions, the main reason most Serbian football stars strive to be sold abroad as soon as possible is to escape from the criminals that blackmail them. Physical and verbal attacks by hooligans on football players, as well as damage to their cars, have become common means of intimidation.

The urgent need to suppress football hooliganism and other growing security threats comes at an inconvenient time for the Serbian government.  It already has to take on numerous pressing issues that were were routinely swept under the carpet by previous administrations but can no longer be ignored, such as painful structural reforms to the economy, a comprehensive institutional overhaul and reining in pervasive corruption.

The prospective crackdown will be temporary and limited in scope. Some arrests will be made in coming weeks, perhaps in a spectacular manner, to demonstrate that something is being done.  But at the same time the authorities will press covert efforts to reach some sort of informal “peace agreement” with senior leaders of major hooligan gangs, reducing violence by their subordinate operatives to tolerable levels. It is not clear, however, to what extent these leaders are able to control younger members of their respective gangs, since these are brutal and unscrupulous in pursuit of more advanced positions within the criminal hierarchy.