BACK	YUGOSLAVIA: Rich Kids Are Too Bored And Too Fast To Live

Out of nowhere, two cars roared through the junction. One, a red Renault, slammed into the water truck; the other, without slowing, raced on up the boulevard, jumping red lights all the way.

The Renault's driver, a girl, and her two companions, died instantly. A post mortem found her to be sober when she hit the truck; investigators calculated that she was travelling at 145 kilometres an hour at the time.

A similar smash a few months ago killed four young people in a Porsche and a BMW in a high speed race through a tunnel connecting the city centre with the bridges over the Sava River. In another crash between two Mercedes and another Porsche on the city's main arterial Maxim Gorky street, two died and one youth was seriously injured.

The dead were all playing so-called 'Serbian Roulette' -- a bizarre and deadly game for the city's rich young people. These sons and daughters of friends of the government, wartime sanctions busters and outright criminals, are bored, they say. To break the boredom they engage in high-speed races in high-priced foreign cars.

The rules are reportedly strict. They start at a junction when the lights turn red, breaking past cars coming through green lights on the other side. The next step is to drive up a one way street the wrong way, dodging oncoming traffic. The aim is to keep up a speed of 150 kilometres an hour or more and keep the foot off the brakes.

The winner is the last not to crash.

Thirteen have died playing the game in Belgrade alone in 1997, but it is also becoming common in regional cities like Novi Sad, Kragujevac and Nis, where, according to police, 18 young men in their late teens and early twenties have died this way this year.

''It's the suspense that counts'' V.A., a racer with long experience and the son of a influential politician, told Nedeljni Telegraf magazine recently.

During the years of sanctions applied on Serbia in punishment for its part in fomenting the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, a small group of people grew rich on the proceeds of sanctions busting. Smuggling petrol, cigarettes, food and medicine made this five percent of the population enormously rich, even by Western standards.

Most of the new rich, besides being daring, were very close to the regime. Their children, too rich to need to work or study, matured in the last five years when most Serbs had nothing and they had everything.

''When I start the race, the adrenaline goes right to my eyelashes,'' V.A. said. ''I don't do drugs, I don't drink. I just like these races. As for police -- who cares. My father can buy half of Belgrade, so what's the fuss with them?''.

Pedestrians have been hit, a woman killed crossing the street during one Belgrade race and a young man standing by a traffic light injured in another. ''I never killed anyone'' V.A. told the weekly. ''I maybe injured a couple of people.

''But, pedestrians are becoming impossible,'' he said without irony. ''At the late night hours, they should know that the green light for them means the red light for me that I have to cross.'' V.A. drives an Alfa Romeo worth more than 50,000 dollars.

''We are neither murderers nor criminals,'' another driver, 23- year old V.T., told Nedeljni Telegraf. ''If you consider this roulette a sport, it will come easier to you. It's like in every sport. Someone wins and someone loses.

''I don't want to go to the university and I don't want to spend my whole life watching TV. My parents, who live in Germany and send the money to me, have no idea what I'm really doing''. V.T. drives a BMW and is considered a Roulette veteran.

Independent journalists in Belgrade say races are planned two days ahead to allow heavy betting on the outcome. The smallest bet is 1,000 German marks (575 dollars) and the race winner scoops the pot. An average Serb, if lucky enough to be employed, earns about 120 dollars a month.

Police sources in Belgrade usually decline to comment. ''We only come to the scene when the accident has already happened'' one says, insisting on anonymity. ''Our job is only the investigation.''

There is nothing we can do to stop those guys or prevent them, even though the cafes where they meet are known. ''One cannot enter the cafe and say: 'no races tonight'. The rest you have read in the papers.'' The races are said to be held at least once a week in Belgrade.

Sociologists are waiting to start studying the effects that war and sanctions and the criminalisation of society has had on Serbia's youth since 1991. If the afflicted are the children of the nouveau riche and the ruling political elite, its most visible victim is the son of Serbian powerbroker, the president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic.

Marko Milosevic, 21, gave up attempts to become a professional athlete and a racing driver after smashing up 18 cars on the conventional race track. Instead he returned to the family home town of Pozarevac to open the largest disco in the Balkans. He also owns a firm importing chocolates, one of the largest in Serbia.

''Marko is a paradigmatic example of Serbia's new youth'' says Milena Dragicevic, a prominent sociologist in Belgrade.

''It's very hard to imagine someone with no formal education having all the things he has, with no apparent income to have started with... Now he can become a real idol to everybody of his age and his distorted picture of success is disseminated''. (END/IPS/VPZ/RJ/97)