Via Eric Gordy, here’s a snippet from a recent Serbian cabinet meeting, as reported by Serbian weekly Blic:

Velimir Ilić (minister for infastructure): They have caused us much greater damage than broken windows. Those people at B92 and other media had better be careful how they talk about those young people.

Snežana Marković (minister for youth and sport): You are the last person who should tell people how to behave. Everyone knows what you have been advocating.

Ilić: Madam, you have been in sports for two months, and I have been for twenty years. Be careful, the sportspeople will come to you.

Dragan Šutanovac (minister of defence): What sportspeople, what are you talking about? I will stand in front of those wimps if somebody has to. Now, why was the police instructed to allow the hooligans to g wild on the one hand, and on the other hand to protect public order? That just endangers the police.

Ilić: You cannot call them hooligans just because they broke some windows and injured a few police officers.

Šutanovac: To be precise - 53 of them.

Vojislav Koštunica (prime minister): Those people, hooligans as you call them, were just reacting to the violation of international law.

Šutanovac: Oh please, if they had not been organised they would not have known what to do. What defence of international law are you talking about?

Bizarre personal threats aside, you can clearly see the machinations of Koštunica and his henchmen on display. Keep in mind that these deliberations were not meant for public dissemination, so what you’re reading here are unvarnished behind-closed-doors discussions. Šutanovac and Marković are from Tadić’s party (DS) and Ilić belongs to Koštunica’s DSS.

If you haven’t yet, go and read Marko Hoare’s essay on the situation in Serbia and what it all means.