Fear sweeps Belgrade -- Who's next on hit list?

FEBRUARY 9: Amid the theories, questions and official outpourings of grief over the slaying of Yugoslavia's Defence Minister, there is something else sweeping government circles: fear over who might be next.

Pavle Bulatovic, 52-years-old, was sitting in his favorite suburban restaurant on Monday evening when an assailant fired an automatic weapon through a window, killing the minister and injuring two others.As with so many assassinations in Yugoslavia, the motive and possible perpetrators remained unclear. Bulatovic is the highest-ranking of the more than a dozen prominent figures killed in the past decade, including politicians, journalists, police and underworld figures.

President Slobodan Milosevic joined other government figures at a memorial service on Tuesday at the federal Parliament, where Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic blamed unspecified ``terrorists'' for the murder, invoking a term often used to describe any opponent of the regime. He then added: ``A shot in Pavle was a shot in all ofus.'' The remark left many politicians clearly uncomfortable with the imagery.

``There is definitely a feeling of the highest insecurity inside the system,'' said a former government insider who asked not to be identified. ``After [Bulatovic's murder], no one feels secure anymore, even if they have 100 bodyguards.''

The lingering fear was also raised by the ultra-nationalist Radical Party, which shares power in a coalition government with Milosevic's Socialists. In a statement blaming the murder of Bulatovic on ``monsters'' in Western intelligence agencies, the Radicals said that the minister's death was aimed at ``trying to frighten all state officials'' as part of a plot to topple the Belgrade regime.

The slaying of Bulatovic comes less than a month after Serbia's most notorious warlord, Zeljko Raznatovic, known as Arkan, died in a hail of bullets in the lobby of a Belgrade hotel. Police arrested several people in what they called a simple gangland killing. However, many Serbs believe that Arkan waskilled by the regime because he knew too much about official involvement in war crimes and because his underworld empire was growing too powerful. Whatever the perception, Arkan's violent end surprised few people.

This is not the case with Bulatovic. .

-- The Wall Street Journal

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