Abstract

Watching Rights

Serbia's economy has been destroyed by the war, by international sanctions and by well-connected gangsters, who derive huge profits from smuggling in gasoline and other proscribed commodities or from cornering the market on scarce goods. They display their new riches ostentatiously in a country where a typical monthly pension roughly equals the cost of two eggs. The government's propaganda acknowledges only one cause for the misery that has befallen the great majority of the population: "the undeserved and unjustified sanctions." Serbian parliamentary elections, scheduled for December 19, are approaching, but they have stirred little enthusiasm. The deterioration of Serbia is no cause for celebration. Millions of people who committed no crime are victims of hard times brought on them by their leaders.