More than 620 fire in one day in Serbia, and the locals watch silently, including those whose houses were on fire. Livestock in barns. They trust the president of the state and the "supreme commander of everything" in Serbia. But all that showed how "rotten from within" the system is. You see how Everything around you is burning. and you don't react, you trust the president.
"Nothing strange, it's a decades-long 'killing' of the people, they think someone else will come to help them and save them. The influence of television with a national frequency, they really think that the state will take care of everything. And here's how the state takes care - in the first few hours of the fire, they didn't send a single helicopter", says a former police officer, now a pensioner who lives in the area. "We retreat, we pull out the livestock because we see the fire burning. Some neighbors, however, believe that the police and the army will come to save them. It's useless to explain to them that the police and the army do not exist to do that. And that's how it was, unfortunately. I don't have livestock, I'm a pensioner who has a couple of chickens and I opened the fence for them to get out. And the rest are alive. And to the neighbors... let them report the damage. I know that many will lie that they suffered everything," he said.
When the Ministry of Defense made an official announcement that it had sent "even" one H-145 helicopter to extinguish the fire in Toplica, everything was clear. And there are at least 10 helicopters. Those who constantly boasted that they were ready for the "third mission" of the Army, managed to hire "even" one helicopter with a fire bucket. That bucket, by the way, carries two tons of water, and its release cannot be controlled, it is thrown at once where it is estimated, so what hits - hits.
The MUP has 17 helicopters, and at least 12 of them can carry those buckets for collecting water. The Russian "Kams", specialized in this type of operation, tried to do what they could, but they have their own physical and technical limitations. Humans have done their best, but there are regulatory limitations – both human and aircraft.
CONDITION ON THE FIELD
What about the forces on the ground, the ordinary people who have to deal with the fire first? In 2007, Serbia abolished civil protection and since then things have gone downhill. And once upon a time, in the former state, there were Civil Protection units in every company and in every local community. At the time of socialism, the entire population was trained, in one way or another, to deal with emergency situations, through the Civil Protection system, which also included the elderly in the most remote villages of Yugoslavia. The obligation of all employees in work organizations was to go through the system. Exercises were also held, and it was assumed that students of the eighth grade of elementary school and the first two grades of high school should have the subject General national defense and social self-protection (ONO and DSZ).
All that was abolished in the 1999s, thanks in part to Dr. ONO and DSZ Vojislav Šešelj, whose best student was Aleksandar Vučić - they demanded that he "cross paths with all socialist relics". Civil protection has so quietly disappeared. During the bombing in XNUMX, there was an idea to return civil protection, in one form, but even that was only an attempt - the self-appointed commissioners looked at who did not turn off the lights in the apartment and did not go down to the basements when the sirens sounded and they reported him as a locator. If an earthquake like the one a few years ago in Turkey and Syria happened today, God forbid, there would be no one to react. Civil protection was transferred to the Ministry of Emergency Situations Sector, which for all these years did not bother to make a list of obligees - members, especially not shelters. In other words, they do not know who to hire in case of any disasters - emergencies or terrorist attacks. Nor where to hide these people.
EXAMPLES
Here's an example. In mid-April 2014, a public, dramatic session of the Government of Serbia due to the floods in Obrenovac was presided over by the newly elected Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić in front of television cameras. He issues orders, calls for volunteers to join the defense, reduces the Chief of General Staff Ljubiša Diković to the level of battalion commander, orders him (illegally): "Diković - Šabac. If Šabac falls, you know what to do..." And there he remains undefined. Volunteers are showing up, the parking lot at the Sava Center is too tight for those who listened to Vučić to 'defend Šabac', who were able to protect its residents from flooding by placing sandbags because it is not a small town. But Vučić does not deny herself. At the same time, in Obrenovac on the first day of the flood (the court epilogue of responsibility for the consequences has not yet been received, and the then mayor Miroslav Čučković was promoted to the city manager), in addition to members of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Sector and parts of the Army, only "quixotic" teams of enthusiasts - members of diving clubs, those who know how to steer boats or people trained to help the population in emergency situations, but in some past time - go to Obrenovac.
The author of this text, as a four-year-old child, remembered the earthquake in the summer of 1970 when it really "shook" Northern Dalmatia, and he remembers how some people came, warning citizens not to go into houses and apartments because a new series of ground shaking, perhaps more dangerous and destructive, would follow. The people obeyed and did not enter the houses for the next two days and two nights. This is proof that the system was built, and the children who could play freely all night profited the most from it. The improvised tents were a special experience. Today there is no one to issue that warning.
Experience others. The earthquake in Montenegro in April 1979 - although relatively far away, but apparently on the same tectonic plate. A rumble wakes you up, you see the bed vibrating and the chandelier swinging - run outside. And no entry into the house for the next half day. Children today, whatever is happening, do not react to it, headphones and mobile phones are there and they don't really care about the earthquake, they don't even notice it. But then some people came and warned, that was their job. Today, in this system, that will not happen, you will be left at the mercy of the system.
ON PARTY TASK
What is the situation in Serbia today? After the disintegration of the former joint state, civil protection became part of the Department for Emergency Situations of the Ministry of Interior in 2009, with the adoption of the Law on Emergency Situations, but only vaguely, and only after the floods in 2014 was the national natural disaster risk management program adopted. According to that law, protection and rescue forces, composed of emergency headquarters, civil protection units, fire-rescue units, police, the Serbian Army and "other entities whose regular activity is protection and rescue, or which are equipped and trained for such a response," are responsible for responding to an emergency situation. In translation - by the time all these "subjects" are engaged - it is too late, and this has been shown in several cases to date.
The civil protection sector was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense until 2006, and since then it has come under the authority of the Ministry of Interior, which practically ceased to exist. The worst thing is that citizens are completely uninformed and untrained in how to behave in various emergency situations - during earthquakes, floods, chemical accidents, fires, and also in how to behave in case of bombings, as was the case in 1999 when, for example, they put adhesive tapes over the window panes. Civil protection, it seems, only functioned in the north of Kosovo from 1999 until the beginning of the implementation of the Brussels Agreement. There, some people, mostly young people, with some official identification cards, it is not known whose, were receiving salaries from the budget of the Serbian state under the company "civil protection". And then protests were sent from Serbia to Kosovo as to why it was abolishing that "civilian protection". No one has explained why there is no Civil Protection in central Serbia, but there is in the north of Kosovo. Nor what they did, what they were paid for. The citizens of Serbia, unfortunately, had the opportunity to see those characters at the protests of students and the opposition on June 28. Dressed identically, and with "Wahhabi" hairstyles, they guarded the "catches" so that one of the participants of the protest would not attack them. They were paid by "businessmen" from the north of Kosovo, guardians of the image and deeds of "Ace Serbs".
Civilians and protection
In the SFRY, every large state production system, as well as almost all large social enterprises, had its own civil protection units that held constant training and received funds from the budget. In addition, there were general-purpose civil protection units, made up of citizens, with responsibilities in the local community, and all of them underwent training, medical examination and were equipped to respond in case of earthquakes, floods and other challenges. An exercise called "Nothing should surprise us" was held once a year. And everyone participated, from pioneers to old people. People who were in Civil Protection kept their uniforms and equipment at home.
According to the available data, there are slightly more than 180 specialized civil protection units for protection and rescue in Serbia and about thirty commands of these units, which are part of the Emergency Situations Sector. Allegedly, less than 3.000 personnel assigned to specialized civil protection units have undergone basic training for fire protection, water and underwater rescue, first aid, radiological-chemical-biological protection, rescue from ruins and disposal .
That this is not enough is shown by a comparison of the data given in a television report published in the media at the time, that in 1983 there were more than 300.000 people trained in civil protection in Belgrade alone, while in 2014, during the May floods, citizens were saved by only 1.500 trained rescuers. How many there are today - no one knows. Many of those "third-callers" retired, and none of the young people were "recruited". The author of this text, the "third caller" was never invited to join CZ, nor any of his relatives or friends, nor our children. Not even for training. So much for the state's commitment to that problem.
