Willehalm Institute Press Release

Amsterdam, November 4, 2008 - On October 20, 2008 a letter, listed below, was sent by registered mail to newspaper DANAS in Belgrade in connection with a renewed case of plagiarism of a short novel “Confessions of a Disgruntled [UDBA] Spy” by Slobodan Mitric. As of today there has been no answer forthcoming from DANAS in an attempt to mediate in this plagiarism case without long legal and costly deliberations. (RJK)

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Amsterdam, October 20, 2008

Newspaper DANAS

Alekse Nenadovica

19-23/V, Belgrade

Serbia

To the attention of: President Mr. Dusan Mitrovic, director Zeljko Pantic and editor-in-chief Mihajlo Ramac

Concerns: Your publication of “ISPOVEST JEDNOG RAZOCARANOG UDBASA” under the name of Zoran Jovanovic as a feuilleton from April 14 to May 10, 2004 – a case of renewed plagiarism

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to you as the publisher (Willehalm Institute Press) of Mr. Slobodan von Piva (Mitric), who lives and works here in Amsterdam. In 2005, I published his book “Operation Twins” (part I) and very recently a Dutch translation of his novel “De Gouden Tip – de verstrengeling van onder- en bovenwereld en de moord op G.J. Heijn” (“The Golden Tip – The Entanglement of the Under- and Overworld and The Murder of [Dutch Industrialist] G. J. Heijn”) that first appeared in the original Serbian earlier this year.

Now, since 2006 I have a contract with Mr. Mitric to publish a complete version in Serbian and a translation thereof in English under the title “Confessions of a Disgruntled Spy” of just the above-mentioned feuilleton that you published in 2004, of which actually he and not Mr. Jovanovic  is the real author.

The background to this case of renewed plagiarism is news and a story by itself, so I will restrict myself here to a few facts: In 1974, Mr. Desimir Tosic, the publisher of the Yugoslavian Political-Cultural monthly magazine NASA REC in London, received the original manuscript and promised to publish it in its entirety.  It then appeared in a heavily censured and changed version as a feuilleton in NASA REC in ten monthly instalments between August/September 1978 (Vol. XXXI, Nr. 297) and June 1979 (Vol. XXXII, Nr. 306) under the heading ARTS AND CULTURE PROGRAM. It appeared, however, not under the name of the real author Slobodan Mitric, who at that time was still held in confinement in The Hague for his role in the Vlado Dapcevic case as described at the end of this novel, but under a pseudonym Zoran Jovanovic, who later appeared to be a real person and close associate of Tosic. Mitric was namely falsely advised by Tosic and the Dutch authorities to adopt this so-called pseudonym in order to facilitate the granting of a residence status to him in The Netherlands. In 1981, his novel was translated into Dutch and as such provided the basis for Mitric’s book GEHEIM-AGENT VAN TITO (Tito’s Secret agent), first published in a circulation of 5000 copies and reprinted (10.000 copies) in 1982, before it was seized by the Dutch authorities and taken out of the market. The promises by the Dutch authorities to grant him a residence status in this country, however, did not materialize in the end, and Mitric was reduced to eke out a meagre existence for himself and his partner/wife under the welfare minimum as an undesirable alien. A Dutch court order in 1986 forbade his extradition to the then Yugoslavia for fear that he would be put to death for high treason, a situation which, contrary to what the Dutch government claims, has not changed since and which may even have become worse.

Legal attempts by Mitric to claim the authorship of his novel and to receive financial remuneration came to an end when, among other things, Mr. Tosic died.

Only lately (on October 16, 2008)  Mitric was informed to his great surprise, and as you may understand, also anger that his novel was, without his knowledge and consent,  republished in your newspaper in 2004, again in the initial heavily censured form and again under the same pseudonym Zoran Jovanovic!

This has not only caused him considerable material and immaterial damages, but also myself as potential publisher of the novel (in its original, enlarged version) in Serbian and in English. As to the exact amount of these damages etc., we hope to reach an agreement with you. If you acted in good faith, i.e. if you were unaware of the real story behind this novel, we think that this agreement can be reached swiftly and without the mediation of costly legal advisors.

In the meantime, we are,

Yours truly,

(signed)                                                                                                                        (co-signed)

Robert Jan Kelder Slobodan von Piva (Mitric)

P.S.

For further background information and facts, please see:

https://sites.google.com/site/latelierdelaliberte/Home/geheim-agent-van-tito-by-slobodan-pivljanin

This site contains an introduction by Slobodan Mitric, title pages of various of his books mentioned above, a Dutch newspaper article about attempts by the then Yugoslavian embassy to prevent the  publication of the book (Tito’s Secret Agent), the 10 NASA REC instalments, the 21 DANAS instalments and the English translation “Confessions of a Disgruntled Spy” preceded by an introduction by the publisher.

For info over “The Golden Tip” see www.willehalm.nl/degoudentip.htm

RJK