Socialists rally in Belgrade to
Stop handover of Milosevic to NATO war criminals
By Pat
Chin
In a transparent capitulation to Washington, the ruling
"Democratic Opposition of Serbia" regime on June 23 adopted a
decree that clears the way for the extradition of former
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and others to the
International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
Milosevic's party, the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS),
called for a demonstration in Belgrade on June 26 and for
worldwide solidarity from the progressive movement to stop
the extradition.
Milosevic, who is still president of the SPS, denounced
the decree from his jail cell in central Belgrade, where he's
been held without trial since April 1 on corruption charges.
Milosevic dismissed the allegations against him as political
fabrications.
On the outside, demonstrators rallied for his immediate
release.
The DOS resorted to the decree after its coalition
partner, the Socialist Peoples Party (SPP) of Montenegro, a
separate republic within Yugoslavia, refused to back a draft
law in the federal parliament on cooperation with the
tribunal. It was a reflection of the popular opposition to
DOS's capitulation.
SPP ministers boycotted the cabinet meeting that approved
the measure. They also offered to resign from the government,
which could cause it to collapse. The Montenegrin party's
main board is considering the offer.
The DOS has indicated it will flout legality even at the
risk of its first parliamentary setback. The DOS seized power
last October in an electoral coup backed by U.S. and West
European funds and planning.
On June 22, SPP Secretary General Zoran Andjelkovic had
said that "passing of the regulation on cooperation with the
Hague Tribunal that includes extradition would be an
anti-constitutional act." (Blic News) The SPP also criticizes
the war crimes court, based at The Hague in the Netherlands,
for being biased against Serbs.
Washington tightens purse strings
The decree was hastily passed less than a week before an
international "donor conference" set for June 29 in Brussels,
Belgium, where the DOS regime hopes to raise over $1 billion
in financial assistance.
Washington is making it known that its participation
depends on whether Belgrade turns Milosevic and others over
to the tribunal. On June 25, the French News Agency reported
that "U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia William Montgomery is to
tell Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic that Washington
remains skeptical about Belgrade's progress towards
cooperation with the Hague Tribunal."
An anonymous State Department official has also told the
news outlet that the U.S. government would decide by June 27
if it would participate in the "donor conference." In other
words, they'll put up money only if the Yugoslav regime hands
over Milosevic.
Toma Fila, head of Milosevic's 10-member defense team,
branded the decree "legal piracy." He also said that "This
was a political decision, and it renders the law helpless
against such bullying methods."
Fila further explained, according to a June 24 MSNBC Web
report, that "cooperation with the war crimes tribunal can be
regulated only by law and not by government decree." An
appeal has been filed accordingly with the constitutional
court.
On June 25, a delegation of top officials from the
Socialist Party of Serbia met with Yugoslav President
Vojislav Kostunica, who is also a constitutional lawyer. They
demanded an explanation for his support of the illegal
measure, which amounts to a reversal of one of his campaign
pledges.
"In a veiled way, he admitted it went against the
constitution but said that out of two evils, the country
chose the lesser one," SPS Vice President Zivadin Jovanovic
told Tanjug, the state news agency.
To Kostunica, selling Milosevic to the same people who
bombed Yugoslavia mercilessly in 1999 is the "lesser evil."
This is a far cry from the proud traditions of the Yugoslav
Partisans, headed by Tito, who resisted Nazi occupation
during World War II.
Milosevic says his anti-NATO stance is why he's in
jail
Veselin Cerovic, a defense attorney, quoted the embattled
Milosevic as feeling "proud to have led the nation against
the horrible NATO aggression against the territorial
integrity and sovereignty of our country." (MSNBC, June
23)
Three days before, Milosevic had told a Belgrade magazine
that he's being kept in prison "because I stopped NATO." He
said he's "won a moral victory," even though NATO's "long
arm" is keeping him jailed, reported Radio B92. Of the
summons from the UN war crimes court, the magazine wrote
that, "He has never even looked at it, and shows no intention
of doing so at all."
After the decree was passed, the SPS issued a proclamation
accusing the DOS of "treason" and recalling NATO's "thousands
of victims." It blistered the measure with criticism, calling
it unconstitutional and "a disgraceful fraud on the people,
who will never recognize such an act."
DOS's capitulation, affirmed the SPS, would nullify the
country's right to war reparations, as well as create
"amnesty for the NATO criminals, and the imposition of
collective guilt on the Serbian people for all past and
future sufferings of the region."
With the Yugoslav economy ruined from years of
imperialist-imposed sanctions, the widespread NATO bombing
during the war, and the IMF "free market" policies of the new
regime, the collaborationist regime now at the helm in
Belgrade has been threatening a disaster if the country
doesn't submit, colonial style, to Washington's every
demand.
"The sky will fall on our heads if we fail to write off at
least 65 percent of our foreign debt," moaned Serbian Prime
Minister Zoran Djindjic in explaining why he wanted Serbia to
cooperate with the tribunal. (Associated Press, June 14)
These dire warnings are calculated to promote fear,
paralysis and dependency. They're part and parcel of a
campaign--along with recent media reports of mass graves
being "discovered" in Serbia--to sway public opinion in
support of handing Milosevic over to the real criminals in
the NATO den of thieves.
The imperialist military cabal in NATO and its Yugoslav
puppets control the Yugoslav media and can easily manipulate
events to serve their propaganda needs. Their immediate aim
is to create an atmosphere that allows them to commit yet
another crime, even if they can't prove any of their charges
later.
The so-called Racak "massacre" of January 1999, which was
later shown not to have happened, was invented to justify the
brutal 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. And now mass graves
are being conveniently "discovered," with exquisite timing,
to justify the crime of extradition to a court that was
instigated by Washington and illegally established under UN
cover.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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