o/t
Yugoslav Mystics Predict End of War
Sunday, 25 April 1999
Z E M U N , Y U G O S L A V I A (AP)
THE MOST frequent question asked of Spasoje Vlajic these days is
when NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia will end. "The war," he predicts
firmly, "will stop May 21."
An engineer by profession but mystic by calling, the 53-year-old has
been drawing a steady stream of visitors to his small office outside
Belgrade since the NATO attacks began a month ago.
"They come in greater numbers now," says the man with the piercing
blue eyes. "Most ask, 'When will all this end."'
That question was clearly on the mind of the six people crowded into
the small office recently - along with related worries about survival.
Mira Zelenkovic said she had turned to seers several times over the
past weeks in her search for an answer on when the NATO strikes
would cease.
"That's the only thing I'm eager to know now," said Zelenkovic, a
fashionably dressed woman in her 50s. "And of course whether my
two kids will survive."
Vlajic says his method is simple. He came upon May 21 as the end
date as only a numerologist would: through a magical calculation rite
he performs with numbers.
"I watch satellite TV stations, I follow the Internet," he explains,
sitting behind a desk crowded with books and manuscripts and in
front of a painting with mystical symbols of the universe. "But I also
have a higher grasp on the cause and effect of current events, one
which surpasses what one commonly hears on the media."
Then he went on to explain the "real story" of the NATO airstrikes.
Don't worry, he told his attentive visitors - "NATO countries have
always been punished in a form or another after bombing Serbs."
He provides what to him is an obvious example: the NATO bombing
earlier this month of the town of Aleksinac, in which 13 civilians died,
was followed by a train accident in Germany, resulting in deaths.
Vlajic also has an explanation for the mass murder at the Columbine
High School in Colorado: "It followed a NATO airstrike that
decimated a Kosovo Albanian refugee convoy."
To the seer, this is the "magic revenge" on enemies of the Serbs.
Others who claim to know the future may not see such links but also
predict that next month may bring an end to the strikes.
"It is very difficult to say when this war will end but I think mid-May
will be crucial for peace in the Balkans," says clairvoyant Rade
Zivanovic, reached by phone in his home in Mladenovac, 25 miles
southeast of Belgrade. "Peace will come then, but it will be very
fragile and unstable."
Even in peacetime, fortune telling is a lucrative profession in this
predominantly Orthodox Christian country, where, there is a thin line
for many between religion and superstition. Seers report prominent
politicians and businessmen among their clients - but say
professional ethics prevent them from divulging names.
Some of the fertile ground for mystics is sown by the widespread
belief that Serbs are a special people, an idea fomented by their
turbulent history and their sense of having endured repeated
onslaughts and challenges.
Vlajic is one of those preaching that dogma.
"Serbs are going to be the winners," he says of this conflict, with a
conviction that few of his clients doubt. After all they wouldn't be
here if they did not want to believe.
Seers here and elsewhere started profiting from the war even before
it began. One of them, Leon Gershman of Russia, became renowned
across Serbia after he predicted at the start of the year that NATO
airstrikes would begin March 24.
They did. Now Gershman says war will end when snow falls this
spring, leaving some Serbs to search the skies first thing each
morning for snowflakes.
Nostradamus, the 16th century French astrologer has become
predictably popular. Many who are skeptical of an early end to the
conflict repeat his prediction about a July 1999 apocalypse.
However, few cite the famous 19th century Serbian seer, Mitar
Tarabic.
He said Serbs would wage a major war in the future and that their
leader would lead them to disaster, defeat - and decimation.
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