60,000 protest in Belgrade at U.S. embassy

Some 60,000 people protested in front of the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, on Dec. 2. They were demanding the right of political prisoner Vojislav Seselj to defend himself before the anti-Yugoslav tribunal at The Hague, which the U.S. and other NATO forces set up through the United Nations in 1992. The tribunal is known as the ICTY.

Seselj is president of the Serbian Radical Party (SRP). He surrendered to the ICTY in 2003 to combat charges of alleged war crimes, including plotting crimes together with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic died in custody at Scheveningen Prison in The Hague last March after being on trial for three years.

Seselj, isolated by the ICTY and prevented from effectively representing himself, has been on a hunger strike since Nov. 10 and has lost 42 pounds, according to reports in the Serbian media. (Reuters, Dec. 2) “Vojislav Seselj 22 days ago began his last and hardest fight against injustice and humiliation, and he is ready to pay with his life,” said Tomislav Nikolic, the SRP’s deputy leader, speaking in front of the U.S. Embassy.

The Serbian Radical Party, which in the early 1990s was a right-wing Serbian nationalist party, later joined Milosevic’s government as a junior partner to the Socialist Party of Serbia. The SRP is now the largest electoral party that defends Serbia against an imperialist takeover. The Radicals are expected to get the most votes of any single party in Serbia’s upcoming election in January.

The U.S., which led 78 days of bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, leading to a NATO takeover of Serbia’s Kosovo province, is seen as the main imperialist player in the dismantling of Yugoslavia and the subjugation of the people of the Balkans.

—John Catalinotto