Democratic Party Leader, Sociologist on Djindjic Assassination

(BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC/MO)

Democratic Party president Zoran Lutovac said on March 12 that one of the messages Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic wanted to be clear and unambiguous was that the ethics of good intentions must be replaced with the ethics of responsibility if we wanted to make Serbia into a regulated state and a free society.

In a piece he penned for BETA on the 18th anniversary of Djindjic's assassination, he wrote that the metaphor, "a tool God forgot when creating the world," had been a powerful instrument in Djindjic's communication with the public.

"Without the ethics of responsibility and solidarity, which Djindjic stood for, as a society we will stagger in a community of demagoguery, without purpose or perspective," the Democratic leader stressed, adding that what Djindjic wanted wasn't to display the splendor of his mind, but to be understood.

The sociologist Vesna Pesic, formerly the president of the Civic Alliance of Serbia, said on March 12 that Serbia would not be a "sick" state today if Djindjic had not been murdered.

Pesic told BETA that, in the 1990s, Djindjic had said that the Serbian Radical Party, then led by Vojislav Seselj, Tomislav Nikolic and Aleksandar Vucic, "spreads disease, not national policy."

"Because of that disease, Serbia today is a prostrate and paralyzed state. Djindjic had a vision for a modern Serbia, he wanted us to make something of ourselves, to be part of the European family. We have taken the wrong turn and strayed, and it's hard to find our way again," Pesic said.