From: malenovi@plains.NoDak.edu (Malenovic Nikola V.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Yacht Primorska Salvaged ( VREME NDA 8 Sep 1992 )
Date: 9 Sep 92 00:37:10 GMT
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network


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     "Vreme" News Digest No. 50                           September 7, 1992
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    Yacht Primorska Salvaged
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                      UNSKILLFULLY PERFORMED OVERHAUL OR
                        SKILLFULLY PREPARED SHIPWRECK?


    The party on  board the yacht were: Federal  Prime Minister Milan Panic,
    Chief of  general Staff of the  Yugoslav Army General Zivota  Panic, and
    the hosts, Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic and prime minister Milo
    Djukanovic.  Luckily, nothing  happened to  them, not  even an undesired
    bath, but the incident did upset the public.

    Local  boatmen  on  the  Adriatic  keep  sailing  far away from Yugoslav
    warships. "The further away, the better",  they explain. They have to be
    cautious, they say, for they cannot know whether the ship they encounter
    has  been overhauled  by Vladimir  Skropnik works  in Sibenik, whether a
    ship gun will fire spontaneously, or some other threat is looming large.

    Boatmen have  been still more  cautious after a  recent accident in  the
    port  of  Budva  (Montenegro).  There  as  the  general  public has been
    informed,  the yacht  Primorska has  been salvaged  from sinking minutes
    after its party disembarked. The party  on board the yacht were: Federal
    Prime Minister Milan Panic, Chief of  general Staff of the Yugoslav Army
    General  Zivota  Panic,  and  the  hosts,  Montenegrin  President  Momir
    Bulatovic and prime minister  Milo Djukanovic. Luckily, nothing happened
    to  them, not  even an  undesired bath,  but the  incident did upset the
    public.

    The docked yacht had begun to  sink suddenly, when water rushed into the
    stern. A  navy announcement later  said that the  steering mechanism had
    developed trouble  that formed an  opening for water  to break in.  navy
    investigators  attributed the  damage to  the unskilled  overhaul by the
    Sibenik (Croatia)  works of a  year earlier. They  did not rule  out the
    possibility that the overhaul was performed  as an act of sabotage. They
    asserted that routine checks were unable to detect any such trouble.

    The navy announcement  was even more shocking than  the accident knowing
    that the  yacht would have sunk,  had the accident occurred  on the high
    seas, or had the  five fire engines not managed to reach  the port in no
    time and  pump the water out.  From our sources we  learn that automatic
    pumping installations on the yacht were  out of order, and there were no
    lifeboats. Can  these two facts be  blamed also on the  Sibenik overhaul
    works?

    Be that as it may, the accident coincided unhappily with a proposed vote
    of confidence  in Prime Minister Milan  Panic, while local people  , who
    have  to  sail  in  their  boats  near  Navy  vessels, became still more
    concerned about their safety.

    On the  other hand, the  local people have  become accustomed to  rather
    unconvincing  announcements issued  by the  Navy. A  few months ago, the
    Navy said several crew were hurt when a gun went off of itself on a ship
    off  Tivat (Montenegro).  In  another  accident, "a  spontaneously fired
    shell" hit  a Tivat suburb, as  was explained. There have  been too many
    accidents for  local people to  be able to  feel safe and  secure, or to
    accept Navy announcement unreservedly. hence  suspicion mounts as to the
    possible clandestine activities, but, at  all events, the Primorska case
    in other warning to local people as well as to PM Panic and particularly
    to  those who  ascribe the  causes of  accidents without  tragic outcome
    either to  chance or to the  guilt of those who  cannot be reached. This
    warning seems to be well justified  because some of the future accidents
    may really  have tragic outcome. It  will be remembered that  bombs have
    been "accidentally  self-released" from an  aircraft flying outside  the
    town  of Kraljevo  (central Serbia).  And aircraft  continue flying over
    towns.  In Podgorica  (capital  of  Montenegro) these  days, townspeople
    feared  that law-flying  warplanes might  crash into  tall buildings. In
    Danilovgrad (Montenegro),  a warplane hit the  cables of a long-distance
    power line, but the general public  was not told anything, not even that
    the  crew lost  their lives.  What remains  is the  fear of ships, guns,
    bombs  and aircraft,  of those  things that  otherwise warrant peace and
    security.
                                                            Velizar Brajovic


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     "Vreme" News Digest No. 50                           September 7, 1992
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